Chapter Text
He's talking to Asharak when the shouting starts. Up to his knees in wide-eyed, skinny tiefling kids, all of their clothes torn, gripping dull swords in shaking hands. He registers the yelling dimly at first, a distant problem, but Asharak's head snaps around — keyed-up, alert to danger — and Wyll's body responds, sweat prickling between his shoulderblades. Something zings in his head, a flicker in his optic nerve, awareness arcing through his skull.
“The gate,” Asharak says shortly, as the kids cluster together around them. Wyll glances at him — at them, shuffling their feet, watching as several tieflings sprint past, weapons bared, faces tense. Asharak watches too, his expression twisted. Almost like longing.
Wyll meets his eyes.
“I'll go.” Watches Asharak’s hand tighten on his sword, watches his eyes flicker to the children. Ide, Umi, Gan, little boys with shaking hands, looking to Asharak — to him , a stranger. He touches Asharak’s shoulder. “I’ll go,” he says again. “Stay with them.”
Asharak almost argues. Wyll can see the words form on his tongue; sees them swallowed, throat-click muscle-twitch. He doesn't wait for Asharak's nod, no time for graceful acquiescence. He's already sprinting, hand on his weapon, and the cries grow louder as he—
—as someone
screams —
—like she's dying—
—like she's hurtin g—
and he gets to the gate at a full tilt, hurtling up the rickety scaffolding to the top of the walls.
What he sees, at first, looks like a massacre. A massacre-in-waiting, about-to-happen, blood not yet spilled but built thick behind the dam, and his stomach drops as the horn blows, as the goblin party (it's hard not to think of it as a horde , a skittering writhing mass of fur and claws and clubs) surges forwards.
He jumps.
He doesn’t-can’t-won’t- think about it, doesn’t give himself (give the Blade) the chance to reassess as the goblin booyahg below lights up his hands ice-white, as the air around him shifts-shatters and Wyll feels the impact of the Weave in his teeth. He hits the rocks— stumbles, jumps again, rapier reaching for the booyahg, but there’s a body in the way, a second goblin, bow in hand, face twisted and Wyll—
—Ravengard—
—Blade of Frontiers—
—hellfire in his heart, Blade in his hand, righteous fury sparking in his veins—
—lunges, sun in his eyes, sweat on his back and he says, almost-joking, almost-laughing:
provoke the Blade
—and it’s not a joke, not really, not as the goblin’s stomach spills out with the Blade—
and suffer its sting
—it’s a story , blood bright like paint in the sun and he, he-the-Blade, he-the-hero, flicks goblin blood red as his own onto the earth.
And then—
And then—
—all Hells break loose.
The booyahg snarls, hand encased in ice as he reaches for Wyll, and Wyll dances sideways (one-step-two, like he can hear the music) and spits fire in reply, and somewhere to his back a worg’s snarl dissolves into a scream of agony, and somewhere to his back a tiefling wails with grief, and somewhere to his back the air shudders with Woven magic. He sidesteps again (raise a hand, meet your partner’s eyes) and electricity arcs over his shoulder, breaks on the rocks at his back as he lunges forwards and this time (this time):
Blade-first, Blade-up, and the sun is hot and gold overhead, the air green and alive
(and for a moment)
(the sky is sulfur and stone and the air is smoke and sweat)
and tentacles burst from the ground around him, magma-lit and dripping, and where they grip the booyahg’s limbs the air fills with smoke and the smell of burning flesh (just like his), and he severs the creature’s scream at the root, drives his Blade through the booyahg’s throat and pulls it out shining crimson.
Behind him, someone cries (behind him, someone screams): he spins, hellfire-handed, and an arrow stabs through the meat of his arm, the place where his heart would've been (just a second’s hesitation: here ends the Blade of Frontiers ) and the fire in his palm fizzles, agony turned inwards. He grunts, stumbles, arrowshaft protruding from his bicep, muscles clamping around the invasion and every nerve screaming.
The sharp-eye raises her bow, and Wyll breathes in air crisper and greener than any he's tasted in weeks—
—feels the energy build in his chest, too slow to save himself
(and his eye the thing in his eye the thing that was his eye burns in its socket burns in his head)
as the goblin takes aim—
—and the air around her shatters, splits, splinters. Wyll watches, distantly dismayed, as the creature bursts into flame not of his making, not of his Patron's: a sword follows the flame, skewering the unlucky warrior so thoroughly her feet raise from the ground, flesh peeling apart under the searing heat. Steam clouds around her, blood boiling, limp body sliding from the Blade with a slick squelch as she collapses.
Behind her stands a tiefling. Bathed in light from the sun, from the sword, bathed in blood and bleak viscera, armour black-red black-white. Blood arcs from the sword, a lazy flick of the Blade showering embers to the ground, and Wyll watches—
—hypnotised, horrified—
—as the figure lopes across the battlefield, edges formless in the setting sun, dyed red, dyed ruin, blood-on-Blade, blood-on-blood.
And then he turns away. Doesn't see the next goblin die (though he hears the scream) because there are more , always more, like he's back in Avernus in the roiling guts of the Blood War — always more, again and again and again, devils rising from devils’ corpses, a goblin rearing back with a knife in his grubby hand—
—and Wyll incinerates him with a thought—
—and a goblin opens their mouth and spits acid—
—and a crossbow bolt punctures through their mouth—
—again and again, until there's only one left. The chief, club in hand, eyes wild-wide- frightened as he takes them all in, and pity pangs sharp in Wyll's gut even as the goblin starts to run.
Someone — one of the tieflings, most likely — calls out don't let him get away! and Wyll's moving with the rest of them, hand raised hand heavy—
—and the chief ducks past the tiefling with the flaming sword.
One moment, he's running: the next, he's caught on the burning edge of the blade as it slices a burning-bright arc through his chest. The force of the blow lifts him up, legs hanging like a ragdoll, and he's flung bodily through the air, blood carving a crimson arch as he falls, as he lands, guts glistening in the firelight.
The tiefling watches his twitching body, head tilted, eyes reflecting sunlight, firelight, some hellfire mix of the two, and a chill runs down Wyll's spine. Then:
then:
then:
the sword, again.
The fire, again.
The body, bisected: goblin, and goblin again, two twitching writhing masses charred beneath the evening sun. The goblin's guts spill into the soil, planted there like roots. The tiefling lowers the blade, eyes fixed on the smouldering wreckage of the corpse.
All around, the tieflings exhale. Wyll, too, exhales, hellfire dying in his throat as the gates drag protesting open. He's on the rocks at the edge of the battlefield, slick with blood and entrails still squirming, bodies still bleeding. He doesn't bother with the Gate (doesn't walk past the group that gathers there, still shouting, still burning) but scrambles up the rock instead, back the way he came without the mad rush of adrenaline to carry him. Over the wall (defenses so meagre he feels like an attacking force all by himself, the druids’ attempts to fortify their Grove less than worthless) and back into the cool emerald shade. As he hurries back to the Hollow he wipes the blood from his Blade.
“What's happening?”
Asharak stands at the foot of the scaffold, sword out. The children gather behind him, a frightened huddle, and Wyll feels his chest twist . He manages a smile, taut as it may be; says, with a look at Asharak:
“Goblins at the Gate. They've been fought back, though—”
a grin, at the frightened boy with his shaking hands, and Wyll tries not to feel the blood on his own,
“so no need to worry—”
and Asharak leans forward, lowers his voice.
“What really happened?”
It's a good question: it's a question Wyll can't answer.
“Strangers,” he says after a moment, just as quiet. The children hold their breath; he's under no illusions that they can hear him, too. “They helped drive the goblins off — they're talking to Zevlor now.” He raises his voice, lets the children stop pretending not to listen. “Umi: we were practicing, weren't we?”
Asharak's smile is grateful, and Wyll feels a stab of guilt as he turns away. Still wide-eyed, but glad for something to think about, the children gather around him, and he raises his bloodstained sword. A mistake, as it turns out, as several pairs of eyes fix on the glistening metal.
“Did you kill one?”
It's a fair question: not a clever one, given the circumstances. Wyll smiles, as kindly as he can, and taps Umi on the shoulder with his free hand.
“Yes.”
(and before that, and before that, and before that — turns out, if you want to make the world a better place, you have to commit a lot of sins.)
“Come on. Give me your best shot.”
Umi swings, and Wyll
(wonders what it would take to make him a murderer)
sidesteps easily, says
“not bad”
(it was bad)
says
“again:”
and Umi swings again and Wyll
(what did it take to make you a murderer?)
and the voice sounds like Mizora, and Wyll
(he's not far off seventeen, now; already seen Hell, his people threatened)
and the sword comes down, and Wyll
(ever your Father's son)
sidesteps easily, and breathes out a sigh of relief as Umi slumps.
“I can't do it,” he says (can't hit you, can't kill you) and Wyll reaches out and the boy says: “I'm not like you.”
Wyll (exile, murderer, warlock) smiles.
“I don't need you to be like me”
(don't want you to be like me)
“you just have to buy enough time to run.”
Umi opens his mouth to answer, and Wyll sees firelight reflected in his eyes. The cool jade of the Grove turned yellow, the leafy green and gold tinged with sulfur.
Wyll straightens, and turns to meet the eyes of the tiefling with the burning sword.
Their eyes are black: they watch him, watch Umi, with all the predatory stillness of a hunting bird. Tall, made taller by horns the length of his forearm, capped in black iron.
They don't speak.
Wyll clears his throat.
“Well met,” he greets this silent omen as best he can, grits his teeth against the ache in his gums and forces himself to take a step forward. His Blade is still naked in his hand, still dripping goblin gore. “The Blade of Frontiers, at your—”
The world bends. In an instant, he falls: smells sulfur and metal, infernal-abysmal, dark rushing in to choke him; he sees Karlach, burning in the night, Mizora behind her, and then—
—he's somewhere else entirely. Somewhere dark and empty, somewhere not-entirely deserted.
There's a sense of the Labyrinth: winding pathways bored through flesh, though greypink matter, and something in it hunting, haunting— something in it hungry.
He opens his mouth to call out, and the sick swallowing glee swells, the hunting thing turning blackblack eyes towards him, and he—
—stumbles, shakes his head, leaves crunching beneath his boots. He’s back in the Grove, swallowing down greengold light and bitter ivy, and the tiefling-with-the-burning-sword takes a step towards him.
“Who was she?”
Wyll blinks: doesn't realise he's reaching for Umi until his hand brushes the boy's shoulder, until he's pulled safely behind him.
The tiefling notices: their shoulders tense, and Wyll's do too.
“Advocatus Diaboli,” he says, in non-answer. “You were on the ship.”
Their head tilts; their eyes meet his.
They say: “Yes.”
They say: “You're infected too.”
They gesture to the small party behind them, elf, half-elf, human, all shattered in gore, all sporting heavy bruising, haunted looks, and, Wyll supposes, tadpoles.
They say: “we're looking for a healer.”
It's not quite an invitation, but he seizes the opportunity all the same, the memory of that severed goblin still fresh in his mind.
“Help me out with something, and I'll join you.”
A furrow appears between their brows. They watch him for a long moment, and Wyll, again, resist the urge to grind his teeth together as the ache in his gums builds.
“Help you out with what?”
Umi steps behind him. Wyll holds out a hand — the one not still gripping his sword.
“The Blade of Frontiers,” he says softly. “But my friends call me Wyll.”
Eyes on him: eyes on his scars. Eyes on the hand outstretched, and on the Blade in the other. The tiefling reaches out, claws-first.
“...Tiavyn.”