Gratefully, the bats came down together in the clearing of the green surrounding forest and condensed back into Kain’s normal form. He paid for pushing the wings of his flying rodents then, as he could feel his muscles aching from the long and fast flight here.
He was exhausted from his long journey in this era and realised that he had not fed since he had been at the Serioli stronghold. He would have to find sustenance to replenish spent energies quite soon.
The Pillars awaited him just above the next line of trees, towering above into immensity; taller than any mountain and far more permanent. Now out of the rightful hands of their creators.
-
“The turning point and the passing of the reigns. With his massacre of the Vampire Guardians, Moebius had ensured that mankind would govern the Pillars for centuries to come. With humans in control of these marble columns, the Binding would decay bit by bit. The pure white visage of perfection before him was little more than a façade for the decay that Nupraptors’ poison would eventually make visible.”
-
Not for the first time, Kain felt that strange sense of foreboding, of something approaching. Something important was going to happen and very soon, but he could not see what that might be.
There was indeed blood at the Pillars as his vision has showed, but not that of the Serioli. Piled up like a barricade were the hacked corpses of werewolves and their Serephim, stacked on atop the other forming a defensive wall of dead flesh.
Beyond this macabre display were hastily strung up tents, lining all around the Pillar’s base. The encampment was shoddy and makeshift, thrown up perhaps only recently and many supplies had been left stacked everywhere.
Slumped near the foot of the Pillar’s base was a winged ancient, looking battle weary, tired and worn out. He held his spear as if it weighed as much as a bolder and was fighting to keep himself awake.
His hearing was sharp enough though. As Kain approached, the façade of fatigue seemed to melt away from him. He scrambled to his feet, Spear held ready like a javelin in a throwing position.
“You!” He began in alarm and Kain recognised him as one of the warriors Ajatar had had as her escort to the Cave of the Seer, although greatly reduced in spirit. “Where is the grandmaster?!” He demanded, stepping forward still holding his weapon high. “What have you done with her?”
Fortunately before the situation could escalate into violence, Ajatar came winging out of the sky landing with a heavy thump just behind Kain. Once glance was enough for her to take in the situation.
“Stand down Kralek!” She ordered him and soldiers training made the winged ancient snap to attention.
“My apologises Grandmaster.” He said. “But I thought…”
“Well you were wrong!” Ajatar snapped, glancing around at the camp, her face creasing in stern disapproval for their presence here which was clearly not on her orders. “What’s going on here? Who is in charge?”
“Warrior Ansu, grandmaster.” Kralek was young and had stayed young due to the Hylden’s curse of immorality. His demeanour matched his appearance and he seemed to be the permanent awkward youth. “Human reinforcements arrived after you left and we…” He paused and cleared his throat. “They over ran us.”
Ajatar stared at him incredulously.
“They what…” She started.
“They broke down our walls and they were everywhere, sending in their… their dogs to kill anyone they could find. Ansu rallied what was left of our kind and came here, to the only defensively position we left. We had to abandon the Stronghold.” The warriors hesitated “Or at least, those were his orders… and in your absence he was the ranking officer.”
That bleak look of hopelessness came back to Ajatar’s face, magnified many times by this intelligence. Even Kain had supposed that the Serioli stronghold, mighty how at least appeared, would hold out far longer than that. And now were the remaining Serili ancients forced to retreat here, the only place that they might feel safe.
Kain glanced around the clearing, noting how many Winged Ancients there were present. They had brought no fledglings with them and so their numbers were very low. He counted no more than about fifty five.
It was entirely possible than with the exception of Janos Audron, these were the only Ancients left.
Ajatar was making her way up towards the pillars, besides which the largest tent had been pitched.
Out of this came the axe wielding warrior that Kain had seen before, the one with the scar raking his face. He nodded to her as they approached.
“Grandmaster.” He said politely, making no attempt to apologise for his unsanctioned expedition here.
“Ansu.” She greeted back in the same tone. “Did you order our forces here?”
He nodded.
“Yes I did.” He replied and Kain, following behind, could see the hollow dead look in his eyes.
Ajatar stared back at him with much the same expression.
“Then is this the only place left?” Her voice was toneless. Ansu nodded.
“Our scouts report that all of the Citadel’s in the west have been assaulted. We have had no word from any of them. Our supplies our low and it will not be long before we are surrounded and cut off from any hope of escape.” He gestured at the corpses around them. “These were merely the guards the traitor Guardian had set to stand watch over the Pillars. When they do not report back to them I am certain our presence he will be noticed.”
Ajatar drew in a breath, nodded once and then turned to face Kain.
“Well then, Vampire… where is this hope you have promised?” She asked him, although not challenging. “Every city has fallen, every army defeated, every home burned, every leader murdered. And so Kain… where is your hope?”
Kain glanced up towards Ansu, studying him for a moment.
“You recovered one of Ba’al’s Tablets?” He asked him, pleased by provoking the Ancient into the first stunned look he’d seen on his face.
Ajatar glanced between them both, before she too looked inquiringly at her warrior.
“Well have you?” She asked and when the question came from her, Ansu managed a tight and controlled nod.
“Yes.” He replied. “It was seized by human raiders in the cloister where it was protected. We routed them on our way here and took it back.” His eyebrow drew down into a deep, disgusted frown. “We lost five of our best warriors reclaiming that useless piece of obsidian rock.”
Ignoring his pessimism, Kain pressed on.
“Where is it now?” He demanded.
“I don’t answer to you, creature.” Ansu replied sternly.
“Just tell him where it is.” Ajatar said, cutting him off. Ansu looked back at her, a bit dismayed but Ajatar’s stern expression did not waver and he capitulated and stepped aside to allow them access to the tent.
The inside was dirty, stacked with containers and sacks, all filled with spare weapons and armour; some ropes and stacks of corked bottles, each one containing sweet red blood. So this was how the Serioli had maintained good relations with their Feral Human neighbours was he wondered? Farming a small amount of blood and storing it away, rationing its usage. A clever system to be sure but manageable only for a small population of vampires and in a remote region.
Kain took a bottle up from one of the crates.
“I hope you do not mind?” He asked, lifting it up for them to see.
“Not at all.” Ansu remarked without looking back. Kain needed no further incentive and drank. Despite being bottled it was remarkably fresh and as it slide down his throat he felt the lost strength return. His aches and pained began to soothe away and vanish and after he had drunk the entire bottle, he was quite refreshed.
Then he turned to where Ansu was standing, at a makeshift table made of a plank of wood stretched across two crates. Upon this was circular item, wrapped in clothe.
The moment Kain saw it; he felt that same peculiar pull he had always felt when he came within the presence of one of the four tablets.
His mouth went dry despite the drink he had just had.
Just as Ansu was preparing to unwrap it however, with a colossal booming noise the ground beneath their feet gave a tremendous leap; as if pushed up from below. Crates fell over and bottles smashed in the shock of that earthquake. Panicked cries and shouts of alarm erupted from outside.
Kain was the first one to dart back outside, his warrior’s instincts overcoming the desire for the Tablet. He was barely out of the tent when he skidded to a stop at the sight.
-
“So, my enemy strikes at me directly.”
-
Was he desperate? Did he sense Kain reaching the end of his quest and now lashed out himself?
The slimly limbs were tearing up through the ground like ravenous serpents, long green undulating tentacles from beneath the earth itself; manipulating limbs that seemed to pulsate with the stolen energy of consumed souls.
Serioli ancients were quickly stirred from their fatigue by the busting earth around the, scrabbling to take flight like frightened birds.
Kain leapt to the attack, the Reaver screaming in vengeful anger as it bit down into the nearest limb.
The tentacle trembled in pain as the blade sliced through its flesh, the green pus like blood filed with energy seeping out.
The ancients around him seemed to have completed lost their warriors spirit, confusion and chaos reigned. Kain did not understand why they were beset so with fear? True this adversary was like no other but that any foe would make trained warriors react like frightened children?
Dozens of them were screaming in terror as the tentacles latched onto their bodies and draged them across the ground, as if fully intent on pulling them underground to the grave itself.
Then when he saw the uncomprehending expressions on their faces, he understood.
They could not see him.
It was as the Seer and Raziel had alluded to. Without the purification of spirit that lay within him, no one mortal could even see the False God. As such, it appeared to them as if the ground were exploding on its own and as the monstrous appendages battered against them, it were as if they were fighting some invisible enemy.
-
“Veiled as they were, the Serioli could do nothing to aid me or even defend themselves as to them the False God was a phantom, no more real than the monsters made up to frighten child. That would have to be remedied.”
-
As soon as he made that decision, he felt a sort of profound click inside himself, as if he had just placed an important piece into a jigsaw puzzle.
He knew exactly what he had to do. He wasn’t sure how he knew but he just did.
He shook that sensation off and quickly turned to face Ajatar, who was standing in the mouth of the tent with an astonished expression on her face.
“You want hope?” He asked her bluntly. She just stared at him, bewildered. Having no time or patience, he followed his directed instincts and pulled her towards the Pillars and the Balance Pillar in the centre. “Then hope you shall have.”
Around them, the fury of the False God raged, his many arms thrashing the ground to ensnare anyone they could.
But, Kain noticed, would not come close to the Pillars. It was as if the Pillars themselves were keeping its arms at bay, repelling them like two identical poles of a magnet.
Once the two of them stood in the centre of the Pillar’s base, Kain turned and laid both hands on her shoulders.
She looked directly at him, her face a conflict of fear, horror, awe and even a deep yearning as if she too could sense this to be a pivotal moment.
Remembering how it felt when he had given this gift to the Seer, he began to push the spiritual energy inside himself into her. It travelled down his arm and then dispersed into her body.
She nearly recoiled at first, but then froze as if locked in place. Her eyes bulged and then began to pulse with some deep inner light. The ultimate element, something she could only create for flashes of a time before, was now pouring through her body. Beams of light poured out through her eyes and mouth and her wings flew out to either side and they two seemed to now radiate with purifying flame.
In Kain’s grasp, the Reaver flared to life, bursting into that very same first and Raziel’s spirit sang its vengeful benediction.
“A gift given to me and to be past on… hope.”
Augmented somehow by the Pillars it almost seemed, the light burst forth and engulfed all those standing within range of its radiance.
-
“It was a lifting experience to watch the veil being lifted collectively and perhaps even more disturbing to see the horror on their faces as they all began to perceive the nature of their unseen enemy.”
-
The Serioli, now seeing the true enemy of all life on Nosgoth, recoiled from the horror of the tentacles all around them. Their earlier dismay at being attacked by an enemy they could not see was now worsened by the nightmarish form of this False God, displayed for them all to see.
Ajatar collapsed to her knees, the light finally fading from her.
“Wha… what is this?” She asked in a voice that was barely a terrified whisper.
Kain turned to face the tentacles, all of which were writhing as if burned, the light of spirit causing tremendous damage to their skin and forcing them to retreat back underground one by one.
“The ultimate enemy.” He said.