Unbound

Chapter Five Hundred And Sixty Five – 565

Chapter Five Hundred And Sixty Five – 565

The night was cold, but for once the flurries had ceased. The mountain air was pristine, lent an incredible clarity that still roared across the foothills, sharp as glass. Within a wide pit dug into the snow a fire burned, crackling across the winter-wet logs and releasing a plume of pale smoke. A hulking figure hunched next to the fire, over it almost, which cast a wild shadow across the banks. Spikes and blades protruded from every plane of her, swords and maces and flails strapped to her back and hip and thigh. Before her, atop the smoke and flame, was a bubbling, steaming pot.

Imara, Chosen of the Pathless, was cooking dinner.

Hrm. She turned the gray-tinged slop with a dull iron spoon, noting the lumpy texture as the grain slowly boiled down. She sniffed. It smelled ofnothing. She lifted a spoonful of it anyway. She did not need to eat very often, but when she did it required a massive amount to sate her growth. Better, then, to eat frequently. It was more efficient.

She ate the slop, chewing through the parts that werent quite ready. It was hot, bland, and mealybut it would do. Food is but fuel for the light within. Those words rose from the depths of her Mind, spoken with her own voice like a law she would never disobey. There was little point; to refuse fuel meant to extinguish her light, and that she would never allow. No matter how many tried to snuff it out.

The food tasted ofash. All things did, whether it was the meanest gruel or a kings banquet. She tried to remember what it should have tasted like, but that was beyond hersince her awakening upon the streets of Amaranth, it was like a fog had coated her sensations. Only when the Hierophant had blessed her had that fog vanished, evaporating under the light of the sun.

Still chewing, Imara lifted her other hand. Her gauntlet was pristine, made of a dark metal she could not name, and crafted with such precision that it fit her like a second skin. By contrast, the small boot she held was of shoddy workmanship. It was crusted with mud, snow, and had been repaired several times before it had been discarded.

Watchtowers Gaze.

Gold surged through her, igniting her channels with a willful radiance that gathered behind her eyes. The world unfolded before her, a puzzle she had mastered, until it revealed the secrets it had lying in wait. She could count the stitches on the boot leather, note the scratches against rock and root on the roughened sole, and detect the faint, frozen scent of animal scat along a heel. Inside, where the fetid stench was strongest, was the impression of a small foot.

The accursed Gnome. Why would he leave this behind?

The boot had been discarded in the crook of a tree, well above the snow line and at the very edge of the foothills. It was as if the squirrely Gnome had lost it in his haste to be away from heryet there were no footprints beyond the tree, nor sign of struggle. She was fully out of the Rimefang Mountains now, at the edge of the Hoarfrost, and at eleven feet tall the snow was still waist deep on her. For the smaller wretches, that meant it was well over thrice their full height. The Gnome could have burrowed as he had in the past, which would eliminate the appearance of footprints atop the snowbut there was no sign of that either.

It was a trick. It always was. Imara simply did not know how, yet.

She had been chasing her quarry for weeks now. Months? Timeblurred. Collapsed. The outside world could not be trusted, she had been told. Trust lies within. Within, however, contained no sensation of cold or dark, just unceasing light. She was not tired, and yet she sat. She was not hungry, yet she ate with motions fueled by Will alone. The light was all she requiredbut the Hierophant had given her a Need.

Find the Unbound, Imara. Find him and bind him to the light.

Imara focused her Watchtowers Gaze, inspecting the tree trunk once again. It was only a few yards away from her dugout, still half-buried in snow, untouched except where she removed the boot. The bark was scuffed and scratched, marked by beasts and monsters that she could feel hiding from her nowbut other than the boot, there was nothing else. Her quarry could disappear in a way she did not understand, but had frustrated her time and again. Clearly a Skill, it allowed him to stay ahead of Imaras relentless pursuit despite the disparity in their power. Despite her mandate from the heavens themselves.

She narrowed her eyes. Something is coming.

Seconds later, a roar shook the night as a beast easily twice her size exploded into her camp. It charged her, a streak of fur, fat, and fury, forcing her to meet it head on. Imara swung her mace, catching it across the jaw and hurling it backward with a titans Strength. The monster crashed back into the snow, dazed.

The light told her what it was: a Forest Troll. Twice her height, three times her width, and packed with enough fat and fur to ensure it could withstand the brutal winters of the mountains. It was all but invisible in the snow, tooall but its face. Wrinkled and gray and covered in twisted, malformed horns, it was a gruesome beast. A mouth filled with crooked yellow tusks opened as it stood up, heaving a hoarse cry from between bloodied lips.

Imara set herself, replacing her now-bent mace with a curved falchion. Come, beast. Meet your end.

It charged again. A massive arm swept toward Imara, an attack that clearly relied entirely on the monsters brute Strength and overwhelming mass. There was no finesse, no technique or magic that brewed along its veins. Imara caught it cold, the force contained, as her falchion rose in a blindingly fast slash. The blade cut cleanly into its shoulder joint, severing it in an explosion of ichor that hissed as it half-drenched her fire.

The Troll screamed with fear, and Imara clucked her tongue. My food. The pot was covered in dark ichor and the fire was a smoking mess. You have ruined it.

The Trolls bellow increased in pitch and a portion of its bulk shriveled as, before her eyes, its arm regrew. It was simply gone one moment and then there, bursting forth from its severed shoulder like a mother giving hideous birth. Imara blinked as it spread a fur-less claw at her, tipped with gleaming metal talons.

Disgusting. Blessed with Strength but devoid of Purity. She pulled a second blade, this one a heavy, triangular dagger lit with golden sigils. Your death will serve Order and the light

The Troll stood up, its wrinkled face fully in the light of the twin moons above, and she cut off her words. Upon its forehead was a sigil etched in blood and salt, and it caught the moonlight like water.

Not a trick, she realized. A trap.

It grinned at her, bestial eyes too knowing for its nature, and a second Forest Troll emerged from the snowfield to her left. A third from the copse of trees on her right. All of them bore the same sigil, and it seemed to glow more fiercely as they surrounded her.

Very well. She brandished her blades. Let it end.

They attacked.

It was not a dance of equal skill. It was an assault too fast for most to follow, let alone survive. Claws of steel met Masterwork plate, drawing sparks in the dark, while falchion and dagger met fur and fat. Ichor spilled, spun around them as wounds were opened and healed in the blink of an eye. Fingers, hands, legs; severed and crushed and sliced. Regrown. She was faster than the Trolls, stronger, but their regeneration outpaced hers by miles.

The light spoke of their levels, their Health and Stamina, but none of that mattered. She did not care, nor did she require the information. Imara would best them, because she must.

The fight dragged on, sprawling across the snowfields and into the treeline. Trunks exploded, knocked down by the force of their strikes, or severed by sword and claw. She remained unhurt, her armor and Temper too great for the Trolls to affectbut they would not die either. She fetched up against a frozen ridge and threw her blades to the ground. The Trolls circled, now looking far thinner as their heinous wounds regenerated. They regarded her with caution. Worry.

I am a fool, she said, breath misting. Order deems that all things take their place. Yours is not to die by force of arms.

The Trolls hissed, tusks dripping with spittle.

Imara lifted her gauntleted hands and walked forward. The light is required. The Trolls surged forward, all of them at once, and Imara let loose her inner light.

Their shrieks were wretched, but she did not care. The song of the light was too loud, too brilliant to notice anything else. Daylight returned, blotting out the stars themselves as a star rose from within herthe roar of her holy power ripped outward, engulfing all of them.

Darkness followed.

The biting wind howled across a charred and blasted terrain, empty of trees and stone and snow for thirty feet in all directions. Empty of all things save Imara herself. She looked up into the stars, now returned, and took a deep breath. Thank you, my Lord.

There was a moment, a brief instant of pressure against her Spirit. Words flowed from within, from the guidance of light. Stay the Path, my Chosen.

Imara shuddered, her massive frame wracked by a suggestion of incredible, untenable power. Power that would be hers, if only she completed her Need. She knelt, pressing her bare forehead to the charcoal earth. I swear it.

The light had faded completely now, however, and there was no guidance. No presence or pressure. Imara stood and retrieved her blades, preserved by their enchantments, before stomping through the steam and smoke. Back to her campsite. There, she found a blasted fire pit and the half-melted remains of her spoon and pot. There was no salvaging it, nor the slop inside. She would simply have to eat another time.

Find him. Mark him.

She was wasting time. Her quarry had enslaved those Trolls to distract her, and he could disappear in a way she still did not understand, but he always resurfaced. A path worn by the Trolls movements was clear, and she didn't need to sleep.

Imara set out, blurring across the terrain. The light will find you, Unbound.

Behind her, in the cold wind and toppled forest, there remained only darkness.

And ash.