Arthurian Cultivation

Book 2 Chapter 73 - Mordred is here

“Heretics. I am Mordred, Paladin of Mercy. You will give us that man and the artefact. If you do, our mercy will be swift.” Mordred stood in the ancient, mouldering hall vindicated. His faith had led him here, through the demonic forest, past temptations and tribulations, all to this moment.He could taste the artefact in the air. It was here, somewhere close.

And to top it all off, his enemies were arranged before him. Knights of the Round Table and a cloaked figure struggling in their grip. Most likely this Merlin heretic.

The only one he couldn't see was the Bard, whose song they'd heard winding through the halls. The coward clearly hiding away from his duty.

The two groups stared at each other. They were up on the landing of a grand set of sweeping stairs, a wide pit before them out from which rolled wave upon wave of death glamour. A trap that would have been hidden by an illusion, but in another sign of divine providence it had been disrupted when the struggling Merlin had been pulled from it.

Both groups were silent, taking each other in.

Mordred tightened his grip on his sword. They had drawn weapons before entering, those who used shields had them up. The Order was in the same position, ready for a fight, standing over their prisoner. Mordred looked them over, and a thin smile found his lips. None of them matched the description of Arthur.

Good. That meant he didn’t have to restrict himself.

“Hello, Paladins of Mercy, Labour, an Inquisitor, and a pair of priests. What business have you here?” A woman with red hair called out. She stared at them over her shield.

“Our business is the artefact. You have it, I feel its radiance on my soul.” Mordred snapped a reply before the priests could slow things down. They always wanted to talk.

“Happy to disappoint, no artefact here. Only the cruelest of men.” She kicked the still-struggling prisoner.

“I can give you the artefact if you save me.” The voice echoed through the room.

“Shut him up.”

“That must be Merlin. Seems you have run down our prey for us. I hope it wasn’t too hard. The traps have been rather cunning. Let me introduce myself. I am Paladin Fallowmere. I stand with the faithful. Give us the criminal and all might still be resolved.” Fallowmere stepped forward a pace or two. Behind him, Mordred was vaguely aware of the priests beginning to mutter a chant. He just about held back from throwing himself forward.

“Are we talking or are we fighting?” The big man shouted.

“We outnumber you, I don’t count your skulking bard. Why not just give us Merlin and the artefact?” Fallowmere shouted, even as Mordred started to edge closer, preparing to launch forward. He could feel the priests behind him flexing their blessings.

He only held back to give them time. His faith demanded action.

“Numbers didn't help you last time. Still slaughtered you lot.” Bors shouted back.

“By the light of the Guiding Star!”

Mordred charged. His first action was to fling a halo blade filled with Mercy at the woman with a sword and knife. It was a probe. He didn't expect it to land, he just needed to gauge her responses.

He didn't expect her to casually slice it out of the air with her own blade, nor did he expect a vile imitation of his own halo blade to hum over his head towards Tobias.

Thankfully his Squires were there, cutting the blade out of the air, though from the way it forced them back there was more power behind it than he'd expected.

Fallowmere had sprung up the banister, his enhanced speed supported by bolts of lightning from the Inquisitor. The big one used sheets of earth to protect them from the attacks.

“Oh, guiding light,” the priests began to chant.

“Keep the priests safe.” Mordred bellowed at his Squires before launching his own way up the banisters. As he charged, he had to bat away another of the woman's glowing knives, far more power behind it than he put into his own.

Some demonic filth, no doubt.

The red-haired woman waited for him, shield up, blade prepared. He swung out his sword, coated in vengeful mercy.

The shield took the hit, but barely, some power within counteracting the cut of his blessing. Still, enough got through that the woman had to dodge away or be consumed by death.

The blade-wielding heathen came at him, her sword dancing around. His own skill with the blade was unrivalled amongst those he travelled with, but he could admit when he faced one with superior skill.

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He jumped up and onto the stairs beyond, where they rose to the galleries above, to avoid the attack, but it still caught him on the arm, carving a furrow into his armour.

“You filthy wretch!” His wrath exploded from within. How dare she.

The power of Mercy radiated from him, hissing from his blade in a rolling wave that sped towards her and her ally. The pair dodged back, and Mordred took the moment to bound up the stairs so he was no longer on uneven footing.

“Death glamour user!” One of them shouted.

“I am no heathen, I deliver unto you mercy.” He growled as the pair repositioned, breaking apart. Taking in the battlefield, he could see the big man holding back Fallowmere, the sprightly Paladin dancing around the lumbering ox. Yet the ox wouldn't go down.

He couldn't see the knight, the one with the nature whip who had been binding Merlin.

He checked on the priests with a glance, only to find them lost in smoke. Smoke that he could taste in the air. It was wrong.

Thick. Acrid. Sweet in a way that spoke of alchemy rather than fire.

Below, one of the priests broke from his chant with a choking gasp. Then Tobias doubled over, his voice splintering into coughs as a grey cloud rolled across the floors and walled off the Squires protecting them. That was the work of the Bard, their intelligence said he used smoke.

Mordred found him. Up here with him on the gallery, a collection of vials in his hands.

He wore demonic armour of red and black, a twisted demon’s face as a helm. His cloak billowed unnaturally, corrupted blessings of mercy rippling through it like oil upon water. A vision of evil.

“So the Guiding Star sends her lapdogs sniffing,” he called lightly. “You’re late. We were beginning without you.”

Mordred did not answer. He went to charge.

The red-haired woman’s shield slammed into his flank, driving him a half step sideways. The swordswoman came low, blade flashing for the back of his knee.

He dodged, Mercy blazing along his sword, and forced them back in a flurry of dark-edged cuts. They were good. Too good. The red-haired woman pressed him with shield and steel while the other darted in and out, knife and sword a ceaseless storm.

Yet even harried, Mordred moved towards the demon.

A burst of wind from below and the priests recovered their speech. Some divine runic work, no doubt, their prayers started anew, and their piety empowered him once again.

He used the power to attack once more, roaring as he released a dearth of Mercy at the harpies who harried him so.

The Bard had turned, attention split between the priests below and the duel above. Mordred’s free hand flicked to his belt.

The knife left his fingers in silence, a shard of condensed Mercy trailing a pale arc through the gloom.

The Bard’s cloak snapped outward as though alive, billowing black to intercept the strike. There was a hiss like water upon iron. The blade punched through regardless, slowed but not stopped, and struck flesh.

The Bard staggered.

For a heartbeat, Mordred hoped it would be enough.

Then smoke erupted.

It poured from his sleeves, from the hem of his cloak, from the very wound itself. Grey and black and violet, it swallowed him whole, coiling thick about the gallery. Within seconds he was no more than a silhouette in a storm.

“Coward!” Mordred spat.

“Fool.” A voice rang out behind him. This time it was no blade but a heavy-headed hammer that slammed into the already damaged part of his armour at his side. There was the Smith's Blessing behind the strike, the power over metal driving the weight of steel into him with crushing force.

He heard metal shriek and he was knocked into the balustrade, the long drop behind him. His breath was heavy, his bones rattled, his blood pounded in his ears.

Truly the Star was testing him today.

He brought up his blade just in time to catch the attack from the swordswoman. Only his priest-enhanced abilities were able to catch the attack.

Enough.

He drew in breath and called upon the well within.

“By the light of the Guiding Star, grant me Mercy.”

Below, Tobias’s voice steadied despite the coughs, prayer rising through the smoke like a pillar of sound. The words wrapped around Mordred’s soul, feeding the flame at his core. Dark radiance bled from his armour, from the seams of his gauntlets, from his eyes.

Mercy gathered at his blade. Not the probing flickers he had cast before, but the full measure. A strike to scour sin from flesh and bone alike.

The two women felt it. He saw it in the tightening of their stances, in the way even their bravado dimmed. This blow would not be parried. It would not be endured.

He raised the sword high.

Within the smoke, laughter curled.

Not loud. Not brave. Twisting.

“Oh shining knight,” the Bard’s voice drifted, distorted by vapour and echo the sound of an instrument being played rolled over the battle. “The only Mercy you can grant your star is your absence.”

The words were light, almost playful.

But there was something behind them, a curse of corrupted Mercy. It struck Mordred, and he had to divert his power. The gathered power of his smite had to be turned to shield him.

For the briefest instant, the rhythm of his prayer slipped.

Mercy wavered with it.

The power Mordred had gathered did not disperse. It did not fade. It lurched.

It exploded all about him, not a focused strike at his foes but a flash of soul-silencing power.

The whole battle paused, everyone instinctively respecting the power of Mercy. The heretic before him leapt down the stairs to shelter with their big ally.

Mordred felt a burst of death glamour. Even through the pain and chaos of his uncontrolled power, he could see the Inquisitor fall, her head falling from her body. A being of shadow standing behind her.

The last heretic had revealed himself, but none of them could do anything in the moment to get revenge, as the priests and Fallowmere all sheltered behind rubble.

A panicked voice broke through it all, amplified by the blessing of the Oracles of dream.

“You cannot let me die. Without me you’ll never get your artefact. It’ll be destroyed if you so much as touch it and none of you have the power to stop me doing so. Aid me and I’ll take you right to it. I will share all I have discovered of its power. Kill me and you’ll never find it.”

“Hear that, Quentin, it’s time.” Fallowmere shouted. Mordred turned in horror. The priest was pulling out the divine scroll of summoning. They didn’t need it. He could win without it, and he knew the Saint would not forgive their cowardice.

“What? Don’t listen to him, she will not forgive us.”

But it was too late. Before the priest was a beautiful scroll, golden glowing text, sinuous rolling pictures of the brightest colours, and then it was torn in half and it disappeared, turning with a burst of complex power that Mordred had never encountered before.

“She’s coming.” Fallowmere grinned.