NOVPUBVar’Gar charged off into the night, only to loop back around from the left, catching the group from the side. He almost yelled out a battle cry, but the blade seized its vocal cords with its will and refused to let that sound out until the blade had struck true. One second, the three of them were riding along on the left flank of their procession, discussing strategy, and the next, the blade was being brought down with the enhanced strength of its orcish wielder to cleave the younger of the two Witchhunters in two in a single blow that landed like a thunderclap.
The blade had chosen him not because he was the closest but because he was the largest threat, so Var’gar had been forced to body slam the first horse with the mage, sending the man tumbling. However, even that impact scarcely robbed the monster of his momentum, and he brought the Ebon Blade down hard on the younger warrior, cleaving him from shoulder to him, before cutting his horse in half and charging through the gore.
+34 Life Force.
+37 Life Force.
+1 Human Soul.
+1 Animal Soul.
The young warrior, for his part, had just enough time to turn and see his death. He was only able to put his hand on his hilt before his upper and lower half separated, and he died with a look of surprise on his face without making a sound.
It was the mage’s cry of surprise and the horse’s agonizing scream that alerted everyone else, but the blade didn’t care about everyone else right now. Let them come, it growled. It’s these three I’m after. To think that three men could ever stand against me. Two of them are too old to fight!
The old man proved it wrong as he leaped fluidly from his saddle as the orc struggled to disentangle itself from the bodies of the horse and man he’d just smashed through. For all his strength, the savagery had been messy, and he was tangled in bloody tack and slimy entrails.
Before the older witch hunter could strike, though, the mage chanted a few words of power, and the orc’s back was flensed down to the ribcage by icy shards in a tiny, painful blizzard that made the monster roar in pain. It whirled and stalked toward the mage, who was still on his ass, but even that much movement was enough to crack the exposed ribs and shoulder blade. Their temperature had been lowered so much that they were as brittle as glass.
-48 Life Force.
The damage to half a dozen major muscle groups on its wielder's back bordered on the catastrophic. Still, even as the orc trudged forward and the blade struggled to keep his body together, the wizard was able to cast one more spell, bathing Var’gar’s face and chest in bubbling acid.
-53 Life Force.
Summoning that wave of smoking yellow fluid was the last thing that the mage ever did before the orc’s massive foot came down on the man’s torso, crushing him like an overripe melon. It was an ugly scene, but the orc couldn’t see it. His eyes had been burned out of his skull, and as long as the ugly liquid boiled and seethed, regrowing them was impossible.
-67 Life Force.
+1 Human Soul.
“He blinded me!” its wielder yelled in outrage more than despair. “I can see nothing!”
You blundered right into that spell, the blade spat in annoyance as it focused on the third man and what it should do about it. Now the mage is dead, and your sight will return in a moment.
-41 Life Force.
It was just as well that the orc couldn’t see, the blade realized. The skin of his back hadn’t fully healed, but its face and chest were a ruin. Var’gar looked closer to a zombie than the fearsome orc chieftain he’d been just before the fight.
The blade could still see, though. However, it didn't wish for its opponent to catch on to that fact. So, it let its wielder swing at empty air and fumble to make it look like the orc was helpless as the final Witchhunter stood just out of reach, looking for the moment to strike. The man might not have been as young or as strong as his companion, but he was wiser and had better instincts, and the blade could tell that despite the anger that flashed in his eyes, he was waiting for a perfect blow to the orc’s spine to finish this in a single attack.
-32 Life Force.
That was smart. As badly wounded as its wielder was, he had the time. Var’gar might not move right for another minute, and he might not see clearly for several more after that. The blade waited patiently, though, and used that time to study the man’s weapon. The sword was a flamberged two-handed sword that was too big for someone so old. Though he carried it well, the blade did not think he would be able to swing it effectively without some magics involved.
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That wasn’t what it was concerned about, though. It didn’t care about the sounds of battle coming from the other orcs or the rest of the Witchhunter’s men, either.
-21 Life Force.
+8 Life Force.
What the blade cared about was the dull gray metal that had no sheen that it was made from, and the black lines. It didn’t glow, but the Ebon blade was almost certain that it was a hexblade, which meant that this man might be even more trouble than the elven prince had been.
These observations took several seconds, but the weapon was in no hurry. It was not sharing the suffering of its wielder. So, it was only when the Witchhunter strode forward decisively and moved to bring the blade down and cripple his opponent that it took hold of Var’gar’s arm to deflect the blow. That was a mistake.
-18 Life Force.
+11 Life Force.
As the two weapons met, their magics mixed, and a wave of cold and numbness rebounded through the blade, sending pain through it as whatever magics its opponent's hexblade contained interfered with it drastically. For a moment, the Ebon Blade’s view of the world blurred and swam.
-200 Life Force.
You have failed to connect with a— Magic has been nullified!
You have been disrupted!
Nullified? The blade wondered. Even though thinking was almost as hard as seeing as its normally crystal clear view of the battlefield rippled and distorted. It knew that it had touched something it shouldn’t have. It tried to pull back, but its grip on its wielder was weak, and the Witchhunter pressed its advantage, dragging the wavy blade down across the Ebon Blade’s black metal until they locked hilts.
-200 Life Force. Your magic has been nullified.
You have been disrupted!
-200 Life Force. Your magic has been nullified.
You have been disrupted!
That lock only lasted a few seconds before the still-blinded Var’gar lashed out with rage and forced the Witchhunter to withdraw or lose his head. Even with that quick motion, the only reason the human didn’t die was because its wielder wasn’t much stronger than it was without the Ebon Blade; its enchantments were almost nonexistent at this moment!
Even as the warrior narrowly escaped death, he smiled grimly and said, “I was going to enjoy putting you away before you took Willard but after this… I’m going to bury you in a hole so deep the only one ever likely to find you will be a dwarf!”
The Ebon Blade raged at that sentiment, and it latched onto the Witchunter’s soul to start draining him dry before anything else could go wrong, but whatever his weapon had done to it had muted its power in a variety of ways, and its Aura of Hunger barely did anything at all.
+1 Life Force.
The orc staggered backward, but only half-heartedly. Still, it was enough, and the slash that followed only left a line of green blood instead of disemboweling the orc completely. That strike didn’t cause another jolt or drain, which was a huge relief to the Ebon Blade because it dreaded making contact with that thing again. Its vision was clearing up, but it could feel just how incomplete its control of its wielder was right now.
Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem. It would just hack away at the enemy until the force of his blow shattered its opponent's arms. Tonight, though. That would not be possible. Instead, as Var’gar blundered forward to attack, the most the blade could do was make the orc’s swing even more erratic than normal so that the two blades would not connect again.
+3 Life Force.
What followed was one of the most frustrating and least enjoyable fights of the blade’s existence. It could not parry the blow, but it could not quite bait the Witchhunter into overextending himself, either. The man was cognizant of Var’gar’s long reach, and he fought with the orc rather like Ivarr had once fought with the minotaur. Still, after another half a dozen wounds and another minute of blundering, the blade eventually regained full control. By then, its opponent had weakened significantly, and the acid damage had finally started to heal.
Everything is in place now, the blade told itself, surprised it had managed to avoid the inevitable for as long as it had.
+6 Life Force.
It continued to let the orc flail, but when the Witchhunter swung next, the blade parried the blow. This time, it did not use itself, though. It used the orc’s meaty arm, letting the strange weapon bury itself into its wielder’s thick bone. The orc grunted in pain, but even as the Witchhunter realized the trouble he was in and released his weapon, it was too late. The weapon forced the orc to lash out with his leg, drop-kicking the man and sending him several feet into the air before he hit the ground and tumbled.
“This isn’t over,” the man croaked as Var’gar advanced on him. He pulled a potion from a pouch and popped the cork to drink it, only to find the vial cracked and empty. “You will not escape. My brothers will—”
Disarmed as he was, the Ebon Blade wasted no time and thrust directly through the man’s chainmail gorget through his throat. It was almost as satisfying to feel the strong metal part beneath its touch as it was to listen to him drown in his own blood. Still, the blade would not wait. Even as the Witchhunter fell over, its wielder raised it up before slamming it down against the man's enameled chest plate.
+35 Life Force.
The first blow only dented it, but as the orc was given free rein over its own body again, it repeated the action over and over until it finally succeeded in driving the Ebon Blade through the thick plate and into the already dead heart beyond. It had won, and while that was satisfying, it wouldn’t be half so satisfying as ripping the answers to its questions from the souls of these three men and as many of their underlings as it could manage.
Var’gar roared in triumph at the bloody ruin he’d made when his sight finally returned to him. After that, he rejoined the rest of the orcs that had come with him. Most of them were still alive, but they all agreed they would never make it back to the griffon in time for the feast. So, instead, they set one of the overturned wagons on fire and set about cooking pieces of their defeated foe.
The blade couldn’t have cared less about any of that. It had questions that needed answering.
