Victor of Tucson-12.27 Calling the Mountain Home

Victor of Tucson-12.27 Calling the Mountain Home

27 – Calling the Mountain Home
Arona sat on one of the silk-upholstered couches under Dar’s colorful pavilion, her sense of smell almost overstimulated by the rich spices his chefs used to cook their master’s favorite dishes. A young woman of Dar’s species, with craggy, stonelike skin, and wearing bright, flowing robes, sat in the corner, gently strumming a harp. Perhaps her job was to reduce the tension in the air, but it didn’t work—not for Arona at least. As she sank into the soft seat, she pressed a finger against her temple, trying to relieve the headache that seemed an absurdity considering the nature of her body.
“Nervous?” Tes asked, gracefully perching on the cushion beside her.
“Not sure that word conveys the proper depth.”
“If you’re worried about Victor making some sort of grand sacrifice on your behalf, then broaden your perspective.” Tes smiled, leaning close. “In truth, he and Dar stand to gain as much as you.”
Arona shrugged, sighing as she replied, “I know that, but—”
“Tut,” Dar said, reclining on a nearby couch, taking up the entire length of it. “The lady Tes is perceptive, or perhaps Victor’s pillow-talk is a bit loose, but in either case, there exist a few lords of Sojourn who could hear you through my pavilion’s enchantments. Let’s keep our conversation focused on the present and not the possible future.”
Tes shifted, making room for Cora as she sat beside her, then she replied to Dar, “Shall I add my enchantments? I believe that together, you and I could vex even the Fae.”
He waved a hand, shaking his head. “No, no. That would inspire as much suspicion as anything we might say.” He tapped something on a tiny device Arona couldn’t see, and one side of his pavilion shimmered with sparkling lights of all colors, then seemed to solidify, taking on the form of a tall, wide window. At first, it displayed only blue skies, but then a vast field of red grass appeared, and Arona realized they were looking down as if from a bird’s perspective.
“Is that the arena?” Tes asked.
“Yes, this is called the Blood Plains, and it makes up most of the area inside the Coliseum of Champions. There are hills and mountains around it, but most battles take place on that red grass.”
From the high perspective, Arona could see that the plains were vast—stretching for dozens or perhaps hundreds of miles in every direction. As she watched, the view shifted, closing in on the field, and she noticed a small silvery metallic circle in the grass.
Dar pointed. “That’s where Victor will enter the arena. His ready room is below, and a pedestal will lift him.”
“How are we seeing this? Eye constructs?” Tes asked.
“Exactly. There are dozens of the little devices flying around the arena.” The Spirit Master looked at Cora and—perhaps too old or uncaring to realize the insensitivity of the question—asked, “I’m sure you witnessed your father through windows such as this.”
Cora stiffened, darting a glance at Arona and Tes before replying, “That’s correct, Master Dar. I can recall a few occasions.”
“Yes, yes. Fak Loyle was a clever combatant, but he bit off a bit more than he could chew with young Victor. I’d wager—”
“Lord Dar,” Tes interjected. “Perhaps a less fraught topic would be appropriate, hmm?” She nodded to Cora, whose face had gone ashen, her eyes downcast. “Perhaps you could tell me a bit about your latest research. Did you say there was a device you wanted my opinion about?”
Dar looked confused at first, but then understanding dawned on him, and he nodded. “Yes, you’d be impressed, I think…”
Arona inhaled deeply and then motioned for one of Dar’s servants to come close, tuning out the rest of their conversation. When the man leaned in, she said, “Some wine, if you would. Something dry.”
“Of course, milady. There’s an excellent pale, chilled variety we keep on hand.”
“Sounds perfect.” She closed her eyes, once again rubbing her temple. She knew Victor had made provisions for the worst-case scenario; if he lost this battle, she wouldn’t have to subject herself to Vesavo for long, but the thought of even one day—one
minute
—at that man’s mercy again… Her other hand clenched her armrest as dark thoughts ran through her mind. Could she kill him with a perfectly timed attack? If he were taken unawares…
“There he is!” Cora exclaimed, pointing to the window. Arona opened her eyes and looked—sure enough, Victor’s darkly crowned head was rising from the red grass. When Arona saw the crown and his heavy, blue-black aegis, she sighed with relief.
“Thank goodness,” she muttered, but everyone’s ears were too sharp to let it pass.
Dar arched his stony brow. “What’s got you relieved, Lady Moonglow?”
“His armor. You wouldn’t believe how many times he fought without it on Ruhn. To me, it signals his intention to take this fight seriously.”
Tes clicked her tongue. “Oh, truly? How very
like
him.” Arona looked to confirm, and sure enough, Tes’s lips matched the smile in her voice. She was tickled with Victor.
“Lifedrinker!” Cora said, leaning forward as the rest of Victor came into view, including the great, darkly gleaming axe.
Arona looked at the girl, taking in her wide eyes. “You’ve never seen him fight with her before, have you?”
“No! And as for my lessons, we haven’t even begun to use
any
axes yet.”
Dar chuckled. “Victor’s doing that right.”
“Mind if I join you?” a new voice called from the side of the pavilion, and Arona stiffened when she saw who it was—Dar’s Death Caster accomplice, Lo’ro.
“I was expecting you.” Dar gestured to an empty chair beside his couch. “I believe you’re just in time.”
“Aye. I was over at Yon’s pavilion and saw your young champion making his entrance.”
Arona tuned him out, watching the screen as it shifted to a wide, high-angle view of the plains again. She saw Victor—tiny from that height—and across from him another figure was rising out of the grass. “Bastard,” she hissed, barely louder than a breath, and this time nobody questioned her little outburst.
Vesavo wore his bone armor. She’d seen it a thousand times: a suit of his own creation; it was crafted from undead bones. The bones were black, as was natural for those taken from a fiend, but he’d used his arts to stretch and mold them into plates that covered his body entirely—a nearly impervious, unliving shell that could shift in size and shape to better defend him with its own dark intelligence.
A voice emanated from Dar’s window:
This contest between Lord Victor Sandoval and Lord Consul Vesavo Bonewhisper will commence at the tolling of the bell, ninety seconds hence. This duel is to the death; mercy rests solely at the discretion of the participants. All claims and disputes between the parties shall be resolved by its outcome. Should either combatant fall, their property and titles shall pass to their rightful heirs. Stand ready for the signal to fight.
Arona heard a crunching sound and realized she’d cracked the polished hardwood of the couch’s arm. She glanced guiltily at Dar, but he was engrossed with something Lo’ro had said, chuckling with the sound of wet gravel scraping over stone. Tes touched her knee, though, gently patting.
“Watch now, Arona. Have faith in Victor; try to enjoy this vindication, for, as you may not have considered, your friendship and aid to Victor have led to this event. You helped to guide him to this point, and it will be your hand on his shoulder as he delivers justice.”
Arona felt tears spring into her eyes as she looked into the other woman’s bright, pale-blue eyes. The conversation around her—Cora asking Dar a question, Lo’ro cracking some sort of joke—faded, and the weight of Tes’s words sank home. It was true; she might not deliver the killing blow, but Victor’s path would have been different indeed had she not befriended him. Had she subtly brought this about? She honestly had to search her memory, but there were so many conversations, so many guarded words—she’d never know if she’d subconsciously brought Victor’s enmity to the point where he’d be willing to duel Vesavo to the death.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, the violation.
As the gong sounded, she tried to smile and said, “Thank you, Tes.”
Tes nodded, then gestured to the window. “Watch now.”
###
Victor’s titan eyes were sharp, and in the clear air of the pocket dimension, he could see for miles. When Vesavo rose from the depths, he saw him in the distance—a tiny shadowy figure more than a mile away. His enemy was wearing his legendary bone armor; Arona had told him all about it. Gripping Lifedrinker’s haft, Victor wasn’t worried about the man’s armor. He knew how the Death Caster would fight, and the armor would be the least of Victor’s concerns. No, first, he’d have to deal with his magic and his constructs.
A voice echoed out of the sky:
This contest between Lord Victor Sandoval and Lord Consul Vesavo Bonewhisper will commence at the tolling of the bell, ninety seconds hence. This duel is to the death; mercy rests solely at the discretion of the participants. All claims and disputes between the parties shall be resolved by its outcome. Should either combatant fall, their property and titles shall pass to their rightful heirs. Stand ready for the signal to fight.
Victor smiled, inhaling deeply. “Ready, beautiful?”
“I yearn for battle’s ballad—the crunch of metal, the splash of hot blood, the screams of our foes, your roars as you beckon our ancestors to witness our glory!”
Victor laughed, lifting her over his head, stretching his back and neck to limber up. “That’s it,
chica
. Keep up that attitude. This is going to be fun.” He’d barely finished speaking before a tremendous gong rang out of the sky, reverberating like thunder. He was always quick off the whistle, and by the time the first echoing clang faded, he was already in the air, streaking toward Vesavo on wings of molten lava.
The Death Caster saw him coming, of course, and he spread his arms, a black crystal rod in each of them. Victor, more attuned to Energy than ever, felt the great flows of it pouring out of Vesavo. He banked, rolling to his left as a geyser of screaming blue-black Energy ripped out of the earth, showering the grass with miasmic Energy that instantly turned the bright red blades black. He felt another surge and rolled the other way just in time to miss another geyser.
He was halfway to Vesavo by then, but he felt another gathering of Energy, this one ten times greater, and he knew Vesavo would expect him to dodge again. Instead, he arched his back, poured more Energy into his wings, and streaked straight up into the bright blue sky. The world rumbled, the sky turned dark, and half a dozen geysers of death-attuned Energy erupted out of the red-grass plain. Victor had no idea what sort of limit the dungeon he was in had on flight, but he was high enough that Vesavo’s geysers fell short.
Laughing at the man’s wasted efforts, he dove downward, Lifedrinker held before him. He flew faster than ever before, pouring hot Energy into his wings, leaving a black smoke trail like a doomed rocket crashing to earth. He was close—seconds from impact—when he realized Vesavo hadn’t been wasting Energy; he’d missed Victor with his attacks, true, but in the meantime, he’d spread his foul miasma all over the field. The ground was black and rotten, the air was cold and dank, and even as Victor tore through it, mist was beginning to form.
Victor jerked Lifedrinker up and then down, timing a perfect strike at the crown of the Death Caster’s massive black helmet. Just as Lifedrinker’s blade bit down, though, Vesavo’s form shattered, bursting into a cloud of thick, wet mist. As Victor slammed into the ground, burrowing trenches with his boots, the cloud expanded, then flowed away from him. Less than a second later, Vesavo was standing there again, this time a dozen strides from Victor.
Victor’s instinct was to cast Velocity Mantle and pursue, but he held himself back. He watched, wondering what the Death Caster’s next move would be. He couldn’t say he was surprised to learn it was…
banter
.
Vesavo touched his dark bone faceplate, and it lifted, exposing his pale face. “Ah, your flesh is strong; my death cloud doesn’t seem to tax you much. Understandable, I suppose, for a brute to have a worthy constitution. You’ll make good stock for my experiments.”
Victor lowered Lifedrinker, holding her crosswise before him. He didn’t speak, knowing full well it would irritate Vesavo.
“Well, brute? Won’t you show your true size? I would have thought you’d have tried to overpower me immediately. Most giants think size is all that matters.”
Victor smirked, but Lifedrinker was furious. “
How dare he? Giant? You’re a Titan—my Battle-heart, King of War, Master of Blood, Destroyer of Villainous Knaves, Conqueror!
” She screamed the last word, and Vesavo flinched; had he heard her?
Victor’s smirk became a smile as he gently squeezed her haft, still staring, unspeaking.
“Enough, boy. Take your knees, and I’ll make your death quick. Truly, you need not fret; I’ll use your flesh for a worthy project.” As he spoke, Vesavo released whatever restraint he’d had on his aura and focused it on Victor, growling, “
Kneel!
”
To his credit, Vesavo’s aura
was
heavy. It was like a blanket of cold corpse fluid. It reeked of death, and it held whispered promises of centuries of suffering. It tried to worm its way into Victor’s mind, prying at his pathways, tugging at his emotions, prodding at his flesh. Perhaps most egregiously, it slithered and slid around him with the unmistakable midnight claws of nightmare.
Victor stood unmoving before it—his own aura a firmament of magma-tempered iron. He studied Vesavo’s face, watching as the glee of domination gave way to puzzlement and then frustration. After a moment’s pause, Victor unleashed his own aura, unwinding it from his Core, where he’d packed it so densely. It rippled out of him—the fury of a caged volcano, the nightmare gravity of a dark, ice-bound planet, the screams and crashes of a thousand raging battles, and, most devastating to the Death Caster, the light of love and compassion and hope.
Vesavo recoiled, stumbling back. “
Impossible
!” he cried, throwing up his two scepters, summoning a torrent of death-attuned Energy and exploding into mist again. Victor watched the vaporous cloud drift away, a dozen plans warring for his attention. He had Vesavo’s measure; he knew he could beat him in an all-out contest of brute force. Vesavo was clever, though, as Arona had warned him a hundred times. Victor wouldn’t rush into any of his traps, of which the man had many.
So, he watched, and when Vesavo re-materialized a hundred yards away, Victor saw the vexation on his face as he slammed down his visor; he’d wanted to be chased. Victor strode toward him and felt an enormous pull of Energy—the world trying to fill the vacuum of the Death Caster’s expenditure. He watched as the blackened ground around Vesavo erupted—great, bony fists shoving their way out of the soil.
He counted not one or two, but more than a dozen gigantic skeletons, and watched as they clawed their way up, standing around their minuscule master. Each gigantic, twenty-foot-tall skeleton was humanoid, but each was different. Some had horns; others had too many arms. One had fleshless wings, and another a great spike-tipped tail. Some were armored, and all bore weapons—giant, gleaming blades, massive spiked flails, forty-foot spears, and axes that looked ready to challenge Lifedrinker.
“Alright,” Victor grunted, releasing his body’s pent-up potential. As Victor’s body exploded with mass, as his armor glowed with brilliant white light, its enchantments struggling to match the pace of his expansion, as Lifedrinker screamed her fury and grew along with him, the twelve skeletons became like children to him—Vesavo was a bug. Even then, he wasn’t done.
He’d promised Arona not to toy with Vesavo, after all. With a flick of his will, he sent a torrent of rage and abyssal magma into his pathways and cast Volcanic Fury. It was a good thing that he did, because Vesavo panicked at the sight of his true, titanic nature. He gathered an ocean of death-attuned Energy and, as his skeletal minions charged Victor, he summoned a specter of blue and black fire that matched Victor in height and wielded a scythe long enough to reap an acre of wheat in a pair of swings.
Victor ignored the skeletons, allowing his armor and bulk to absorb their blows; he had eyes for the scythe-wielding specter. It screamed a wail of the grave that froze the very air. It moved as only a being unbound by the rules of flesh and bone could—streaking toward him as fast as his Energy-boosted mind could track. Victor cast Velocity Mantle, infusing his bones and flesh with Energy, and managed to lift Lifedrinker into the scythe’s path. The spectral blade clashed with her impossibly dense metal, and the torrents of Energy she’d absorbed served to intercept its vile spirit, sending it recoiling—a perfect parry.
Victor grunted as Vesavo’s bone giants gave up on their attacks and grappled with his legs, trying to slow him. Rather than try to strike them with his enormous axe, he let go of Lifedrinker with one hand and swiped his Gauntlet of the Mountain’s Might at them. Where his knuckles met bone… bone exploded.
The huge, green-tinted spirit glided away, spinning to whip its enormous scythe at him again. Victor screamed his frustration as one of Vesavo’s giants almost tripped him. Rather than look down, he stomped, pouring a considerable portion of his Core’s Energy into the attack. His boot hit the ground as he cast Wake the Earth, and with more than twenty percent of his total Energy in the attack, he might as well have split an atom.
###
Arona stood, her mouth agape. The tent had grown silent.
Every
pavilion had grown silent. Everyone’s eyes were fixed on the viewing windows, trying to comprehend what they’d seen.
First, Victor had stood against Vesavo’s aura; in fact, he’d sent Vesavo running. Then, he’d grown even larger than Arona had seen him before; Tes and Dar had been speechless. Now, though…
“He summoned a damn mountain!” Lo’ro said, the first to break the silence.
Arona squinted. Was he right? All she saw were geysers of magma, burning chasms, and roiling black smoke. As the view changed, revealing another perspective—this one more distant—of the battlefield, she smiled. “You’re right,” she whispered. She’d seen Victor shake the earth before. She’d seen rocks explode from the ground and jets of magma—but not this. No, this was something altogether different.
A
mountain
had risen from the ground, its base surrounded by rivers of flowing lava that had utterly banished Vesavo’s miasma. It was a huge, craggy peak, steaming and smoking from its rough, fiery birth. Great clouds of black smoke spiraled away from the caldera at its top. All around it, canyon-like chasms had split the earth, laying waste to much of the vast red-grass plains.
The view shifted, and she saw Victor engaged in a lightning-fast axe battle with the enormous, blue-green spirit and its scythe. He stood over a field of shattered bones, and though his battle was furious, he didn’t look pressed; he looked gleeful.
“Where is that dog?” Dar asked, scanning the huge window.
“There,” Tes replied, standing to point. Arona looked and saw something that brought joy to her heart. Vesavo’s armor had formed a spherical cocoon around him, and his bony vessel was floating away on one of the lava rivers.
“He’s in trouble,” she said softly.
“I’d say so,” Dar replied.
Lo’ro moved closer to Arona. “Has he any other archons?”
“Archons?” Cora asked, her voice small and shaky with anxiety.
Arona tried to smile confidently at her. “Like that spirit—a mighty undead champion.” She turned to Lo’ro. “Several others, but they all require so much Energy—he’s already summoned
two
.”
“Two?” Tes interjected. Then, “Oh! The giant skeletons—one spirit?”
Arona nodded. “That’s right.” She turned her gaze back to Victor, watching his battle, watching the joy on his face. “You great buffoon,” she whispered, “you’re not supposed to be enjoying yourself.”

12.27 Calling the Mountain Home