Vengeance (Pt. 4)

Vengeance (Pt. 4)

Vengeance smiled as she took hold of the stone. Distantly, Renee could feel the gem, oddly warm to the touch. The longer Vengeance held the stone, the hotter it became, until the water was boiling around it, reddening the flesh of her hand. Renee felt the prickle of distant pain, which throbbed in her mind.

Vengeance’s voice filled her mind.

Do you feel that, Renee?

The pain was beginning to fill Renee’s mind, “Yes.”

That is everything that matters.

“Pain?”

No, the cause of your pain. That is fury, taken material form.

“Whose?”

Vengeance chuckled. You are wiser than I thought. This is the fury of a seraph.

Renee was puzzled, “A seraph?”

Ah, you do not know of them…

A flash of light filled Renee’s world and suddenly she stood inside a large stone chamber. She could still sense the water, still feel it pressing down on her, yet her mind was here, in the chamber. A figure approached from the far side of the chamber. He towered above her, standing almost twice her height. He was as wide in the shoulders as her reach, fingertip to fingertip. His skin was so tanned that it was almost golden, and he wore a shining silver breastplate. Flowing white and red robes hung from his shoulders, and a short white kilt left most of his well-muscled legs visible. Tall white boots rose almost to his knees, and were doubled over at the top to reveal a velvet lining. Glowing white eyes glared down at Renee from behind long blonde hair. He spoke, his voice rumbled deep and shook the chamber, “Why are you here?”

Renee stumbled back, unable to speak.

Massive white wings exploded from the man’s robes, reaching across the chamber, the wingtips touching the great grey columns that supported the domed roof. The glowed softly, as though filled with some inner power. He raised his hand and a flaming sword appeared in it.

Rene screamed in terror. She felt a tug at the back of her mind and the chamber and the man faded away, and her vision was once again filled with rotting wood and dark water.

Renee was still filled with panic, “What was that?’

A seraph. One of the most powerful beings to ever exist. Servants of the Fallen Empire of Erelisia.

“How did they die?”

One of their brothers, more powerful than them, cast them down when the empire fell. He hunted them mercilessly, and destroyed them all. The one you saw was Primaris, the first to rise and the last to fall.

“Is this his fury?”

Vengeance chuckled again, No, unfortunately not. This is the fury of Octavius, the first one hunted down. He fell in Kormouth, but his remains were put on this great ship to be taken south. Alas, she laughed, the ship was destroyed in a horrific storm.

Renee sensed a hint of smugness in Vengeance’s tone. She decided not to question it, instead asking, “What will you use it for?”

Be patient, child, and you shall see.

“I am not a child,” snarled Renee, “You have taken everything from me, you can at least tell me this.”

Vengeance seemed to pause for thought, and then said, I think not. You still owe me much for the life of your love.

Renee could think of nothing to say, so remained silent as Vengeance pocketed the gem and then stepped out of the cabin. To Renee she seemed filled with new vigour. Vengeance looked up and kicked off from the wreck of the ship, speeding towards the surface. The water rushed by, and the silvery scales of fish flashed by. 

Renee couldn’t help but wonder what Doran was doing.

Vengeance (Pt. 3)

Vengeance (Pt. 3)

Vengeance strode through the depths, unhindered by the weight of freezing water pressing down on her. Trapped within, Renee gazed out through what were once her eyes. The seafloor, to her surprise, was not the gently rippling bed of sand that she had expected. It was like being trapped in some watery hell: great protrusions of dark stone thrust up from the every shifting sands of the seafloor, which was covered in plants, small creatures, and the detritus of seafaring. Corroded weapons, smashed crates, and pots lay about the husks of lost vessels. All this, Renee saw with only the faint plink plonk of the seawater pressing against what once were her ears.

No longer could Renee feel her body. She tried to reach out and move a hand, but felt nothing and got no reaction. All that was left to her was sight and sound.

Suddenly she felt Vengeance’s presence. The being’s voice filled Renee’s universe, blocking her vision somehow. Don’t try and fight me, child. You are better with me than without. I am a gift that you do not yet recognise as such.

“Why?” demanded Renee. “You came to me, imprisoned me in my own mind. You drove away the only man I ever loved – “

Love? Such an insipid, fleeting emotion. Just as you take hold of it escapes your grasp. It serves only to fuel anger, and sadness. Grief is but weakness manifest. But anger, ahhh, that is an emotion that has worth. Nothing drives one like anger, rage is a fuel unlike any other. Your anger called to me, and your grief invited me in. I paid my passage though…

“Paid your passage?!” screamed Renee. “How?”

I gave you back your love, I healed his wounds and put breath back in his body.

“And drove him from me!”

I paid my passage.

Renee raged against Vengeance, screaming and crying, but the being made no reply, but simply kept striding forward through the debris of the sea floor. Renee noticed that Vengeance was looking this way and that, as though searching for something. If she strained, she could just sense they rage filled presence within her that was Vengeance. The tried to envisage Vengeance in the hope that creating some sort of analogue would allow her to get close to the being. To her amazement, a pinprick of blue light filled her mind’s eye, and she moved towards it.

As she approached the light it grew in size. She felt energy pouring out from it, crashing against her in waves. Each wave drained her a little, as though the rage that Vengeance exuded somehow ate away at her. She pressed on, struggling through the waves, until she heard something.

It must be here. It has to be. It cannot be gone. It could not have been found. WHERE IS IT?

Renee froze, and imagined holding her breath. She watched on as Vengeance continued its search, repeating its tirade like a mantra. Then, all of sudden, Vengeance halted and looked up.

What Renee had thought was simply a large rock in the distance loomed large before her. It towered over her and all else on the seafloor. A few fish swam about it, flashing like dust motes in the dim light of the depths. Slowly, Vengeance advanced on the mass before them. As the distance closed, Renee saw planking, and realised this was the wreck of some ancient ship. The portion before her looked to be the bow, and based on its size, was easily ten times larger than any vessel she had ever seen or even heard of. Its bowsprit was so high above her that it faded into the blue of the water, like the spire of a tower reaching into the clouds.

The waves pouring from Vengeance changed. They ceased to weaken Renee. Puzzled, Renee reached out to touch them and felt a tingling sensation. Joy?

The waves grew stronger as they approached the sunken ship. Reaching the base, Vengeance kicked off from the seafloor, and unhindered by the wait of the dress that her vessel war, swam quickly up the bow of the ship. Renee felt ill as the ship’s planking blurred towards her and the pressures on her former body changed. ‘Odd,’ she thought, ‘Why can I feel that?’

Vengeance slowed, and Renee saw her hands reached and grab hold of the ancient railings of the ship. With a tug Vengeance hauled them over it and onto the deck. Slowly, deliberately, Vengeance strode along the deck. As her vision ceased blurring, Renee realised that the deck was not horizontal; the ship’s bow rose vertically from the sea bed. It was eerie, moving in this way. The ship’s mast was still mostly intact, though its spars were shattered and the rigging drifted like a ghostly web in the water.

Renee felt Vengeance’s joy subsiding, and the rage return, and withdrew ever so slightly to avoid being weakened further. She stayed just close enough to still hear Vengeance’s tirade. After passing the shattered bases of two more masts, they came to the door of what looked to be a cabin. Vengence lashed out, shattering the rotten, sodden wood. Light exploded from within the cabin, dazzling Renee.

Slowly she became accustomed to light and found that Vengeance had entered the cabin. Jammed behind a table that had fallen against the wall of the cabin when the ship sank, was a skeleton. The bones were covered in black slime, but the occasional patch of white bone glimmered eerily in the water. Tatters of clothing clung to the skeleton, moving gently in the currents. Its hands were clasped to its breast, and inside them it held a pale gem that had been adorned with delicate gold filigree.

Triumphant, Vengeance reached out and tore the gem away, the force scattering the bones.

Vengeance (Pt. 2)

Vengeance (Pt. 2)

Storms ravaged the promontory, grey skies swirling in turmoil. The pebble beach was strewn with all manner of debris: timber, line, tackle, crates, bodies – living and dead – and shattered sections of ship. By some miracle of the currents the prow of the Tempest had run aground on the northern side of the promontory, the winged goddess that served as her figurehead raising her fist, perhaps in despairing rage, at the tumultuous sky. The same oddity of the currents had seen fit dump the prow of the Acdrenc Stefna, still wreathed in its gilding, on its side on the south beach of the promontory. The gold glinted sullenly in the grey light, and was stained with the blood of seamen.

Atop the promontory stood a lone figure, her skirts flapping around her in the gale. Her hair was tied back, but the ponytail flew freely in the wind. She cast about with her eyes, seeking what she knew must be upon the shore. At last she saw it, a glimmer of gold and a green jacket. Crying out in grief, she made her way hurriedly to the scree that cascaded to the shore. Her bare feet slipped and slithered on the wet stones as she made her way down, often falling and crawling, but never slowing. To her it seemed to take an age to reach the shore line, but finally she was by Doran’s side.

She closed the locket in his hand, which matched the one about her neck, and cradled his head in her lap. She bent over him, smoothing his matted hair, and brushing away the sand and grit that caked his ruined body. She wept then, her tears mingling with the rain.

Slowly though, her grief was replaced by something red and raw, a primal rage that filled her belly and heart and made her whole body ache as though something within her sought release. She screamed, her face to the sky, her hands still cradling the head of her beloved. Her scream went on, passing from rage to something more. Lightning flashed, and the pebbles around her began to shake, some rising from the ground. The sea leapt up, but no water fell upon her or Doran. It washed away all else but them and the prow of the Tempest. As suddenly as it started, her scream stopped, and she slumped over her beloved’s body.

She did not notice his wounds heal, nor his leg reset itself. She did not feel him begin to breathe, nor see his eyes open. She did feel his hand on her face, and his kiss on her brow. She looked down at him, her eyes awash with tears. She murmured his name, and he smiled slightly. Then, he looked harder at her and he paled, struggling and trying to pull away.

“My love, what is the matter?” she asked.

“Your eyes,” croaked Doran, “They are not your own.”

Renee rose from the pebble beach and made her way over to a nearby rock pull. There was little daylight at all in this storm, yet when she looked in the pool she saw clearly what had so shocked her beloved. Her eyes, normally hazel, shone with an inner fire, a cold vortex of blue light.

She raised her eyes to her face, touching her cheeks. Despite the weather, they were hot to the touch. She closed her eyes, and felt the power that had filled her still dwelling deep within. It was hidden, and seemed shut away. She probed at it as one might probe at a sore tooth, gingerly and almost unwillingly. The power responded, growing and filling her mind with noise, heat, and rage. The rage was like a ball of hot lead that surged within her breast. She could feel herself shaking as the rage seemed to take root in her heart.

She turned to Doran and said in a voice that was not her own, “I have granted you a second life. Use it well, and begone from my sight.”

Doran, confused and afraid, turned tail and ran, tripping repeatedly as he made his way up the scree of the promontory.

Deep within the recesses of her own mind, Renee battled with the being controlling her. She managed to find her voice, “Who are you?”

“Vengeance,” came the reply.

“What are you?”

“Vengeance.”

“Why are you here?”

“You called for me. Your grief and rage brought me into this world. Your body, so rent with grief, was a vessel which offered me sanctuary.”

Renee sank to her knees, sobbing, “Please, let me be.”

Vengeance filled her breast with greater heat as she replied, “No, now that I have come I see that there is much work for me.”

From the promontory, Doran watched as the woman who was once his beloved walked across the shore and into the ocean, steam rising around her as she walked deeper and deeper. He watched until she had vanished beneath the waves, then fled.

A New Story: Vengeance

For the first time in three months, I bring to you a work of fiction, rather than something about gaming. I wrote this piece at the request of a friend, and it has resulted in me starting a series of short pieces.

Vengeance (Pt. 1)

The ship rocked as the ballista bolt slammed into the bow. Water sprayed up and washed the deck as the prow slammed into the banking waves. The attacking craft was barely visible off the starboard bow, but Captain Doran knew only one vessel that had that range. The Acdrenc Stefna, an elven frigate captained by Councillor Aldrid Shorthelm of Illeth Moran. What that ship was doing so far south, Doran wasn’t sure. But it meant trouble. Big trouble.

He called down from the helm, “Mr James, how are we struck?”

Mr James, a burly man with a heavy jaw, shouted back, “Barely a scratch, cap’n, just stuck in the planks is all. Nary a drop of brine shall bother us!”

“Good,” roared the captain, “Then would you care to tell me why our ballistae aren't loaded?”

“On it, cap’n!”

“Damn right you are man, the Tempest shan't be leaving without giving a good account of herself!”

As the next Elven bolt screamed by, skimming across the water on the port-side as is bounced like a skimmed rock before disappearing in a shower of foam, the Captain patted the ship’s wheel and murmured, “Hear that girl? You are going to show those elves how we do business in the Kormouth Navy.”

The sky was clear, though the sea was becoming increasingly rough. The Tempest crested another wave and tipped forwards. Doran, a veteran sailor of some twenty years, gaped in shock as he looked down into a green trough almost one hundred feet deep. He roared at the top of his lungs, ‘Grab a hold of something boys!” and himself took a firm hold of the wheel.

The timbers of the ship creaked in an eerie moment of silence, before gravity caught up with the ship. Then, like a plummeting bird, the Tempest plunged into the trough, her timbers protesting audibly at the immense force her prow was under. The ship struck the bottom of the trough in a cascade of foam and water, and more than a few whoops and screams from the sailors.

Drenched and glowering, Mr James appeared next to his captain and growled, “The sea ain't got no business being like this on a clear day such as it is.”

“Aye, Mr James, you’re right. There is a witch aboard the Acdrenc Stefna, no mistake. Tell your boys to fire as soon as they get a sight on the bitch, and go and wake Baldric.” Mr James saluted and hurried down from the helm, bellowing orders and then disappearing below decks.

Seeing a way to get closer to the Elven vessel without being spotted Doran spun the wheel, turning the vessel north, and used the wind funnelling along the trough to send her racing along the green depths. As the Tempest sped along, he gazed up at the greeny-blue walls of water that flanked his ship. No nature could explain such a thing, only magic tampering with the order of things.

He saw something dark moving along the bank to his starboard and his jaw dropped.

The Acdrenc Stefna exploded from the crest of the wave and soared overhead. The gilded carvings that ran the length of the sleek Elven ship shimmered and glistened as water cascaded from them. The four triangular sails, all pale blue and trimmed in gold, were stretched taught, and seemed to haul the vessel through the air.

There was a loud boom as the ship slammed into the other bank of water, falling short of its mark. Instead of leaping the trough like a salmon in a stream, as was surely intended, the Elven ship crashed into the bank of water about twenty feet too low. Doran grinned mirthlessly as the Elves screamed. He lifted the gold locket about his neck and kissed it, and then yelled his order, “Straight into her underbelly boys, she’s like a pig to slaughter!"

His men set to with ruthless efficiency, aiming their ballistae high and firing without any further encouragement. The sound of shattering and rending timbers made Doran whince, but he held his gaze as the Elven vessel fell back, sliding backwards down into the trough. He laughed as the Acdrenc Stefna’s rudder snapped from the force.

His laughter died in his throat, however, as the force of the waters spun the Stefna about and sent her racing towards the Tempest. Doran yelled for his men to hold on tight, and saw Mr James reappear with Baldric.

Baldric, and lean man of middling years and a grey mane of hair, took one look at the oncoming ship and raised a hand. Despite the shriek of straining timbers, and the roar of the sea, his voice carried through it all as he cried out:

FERIT VIS, PROTEGAT VAS NOSTRUM!

Blue energy exploded from his hand, steaming towards the Stefna. As it struck, it tore away the gilding and the planking as though it was so much chaff in the wind. There was a high-pitched cry of rage from the other ship, and a flash of red.

There was a thump so intense that Doran fell to his knees, clutching at his ringing ears. He looked up in time to see a flash of white light where the red and blue energies met, and then felt the explosion.

*

The waves washed up torn canvas, netting, and planking onto the pebbled beach. Occasionally, the shattered body of an elf or a man would join the beached flotsam and jetsam. One of these bodies, clad in a torn green uniform with a captain’s epaulettes on the shoulders, groaned and moved.

Doran could feel his life ebbing away, feel a numb hotness where a shattered spar had torn through him, and a sharper pain where his leg had been smashed. He reached into his jacket and pulled out his locket.

The locket itself was a simple golden affair, elliptical in shape. Elegant filigree, worn now by years of being opened and closed, hinted at letters that were now too far worn to be legible. Fumbling, Doran managed to open the locket, and gazed at the painting within. It was a portrait of an elegant woman, with long brown hair. The hair was pulled back behind one ear, showing to greater advantage her long, slender neck and the ruby earrings that she wore. She appeared to gaze out of the picture, cheeky green eyes twinkling, and her lips parted in a smile filled with radiant joy.

Doran smiled as he slipped away, and murmured a name, “Renee.”

Stay tuned for the next instalment of Vengeance.