The Forsaken Hero

The following days saw a change of pace in our journey. Until now, we’d relied on Fable’s size and speed to traverse any obstacle, practically breezing through what was normally a months-long journey. Now, however, we were forced to walk. The canyon was filled with sheer cliffs and twisting crevasses. Even with the road, many of the tight spaces were just large enough for a wagon to pass through, never mind a fifty-foot wolf.

I walked where I could, but whenever I grew tired and flagged behind, Fable was quick by my side. Even in his condensed form, he was nearly ten feet long and plenty strong enough to carry me by myself. Korra could have ridden too, but she claimed to prefer the exercise, jogging lightly beside Fable’s larger strides.

As the name suggested, Blue Canyon was, well, blue. Thick lines of blue mineral laced every cliff and boulder, a weaving mass of lines as intricate as any tapestry. They were worthless, apparently, but they brought an exotic beauty to the plain earth and stone.

The canyon was unlike any other place I could have imagined. Everywhere I looked there were dramatic features like slot canyons and funny rock formations. Water was everywhere, too, streaming down sheer cliffs, through narrow chasms, and sometimes even crossing through makeshift pipes beneath the blue gravel road. Trees grew in seemingly random locations with no thought for the traditional sense of soil. It wasn’t strange to see massive oak or pine trees sprouting like hair from the top of rocky arches or sticking sideways out of the craggy cliffs.

It was beautiful, and I soon found myself eagerly looking forward to the path ahead. Each wind in the road, every chasm escaped, brought new, exciting sights to my eager, wide eyes. It was a beauty I never could have imagined, so different from the rugged mountains and damp, dark dungeons I’d been confined to during my life in Enusia.

The peace and wonder of our journey ended on the third day. The sun had finally reached its zenith, chasing the lingering winter chill from the canyon, when I finally called for a rest. The road had emerged from a particularly dark crevasse into a beautiful stone hollow. A small brooke cascaded down the nearby cliffside into a crystal clear pool, the outlet slowly trickling down the way we had come.

I slid off Fable’s back, my feet casting up small poofs in the blue dust. The sun was directly overhead, a welcome change from the cool shadows of the canyon. Rubbing the stiffness from my legs, I let out a small, satisfied moan, stretching my arms high over my head.

”Feeling a little antsy?”

I glanced over at Korra, returning her raised eyebrow with a small, bashful smile. ”Maybe a little. Sometimes, I wish I could run like you can, even just for a little bit.”

She nodded and a shadow crossed her face. ”That’s...I’m sorry.”

I bit my lower lip, my tail drooping. ”No, please, don’t be. I-I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s not your fault.”

”Even so,” she said with a sigh. I hesitated, not sure what to say, when she flicked her hair out of her eyes and forced a smile. ”I saw you’ve been practicing with that strange gate thing. Any luck?”

I let out a short, relieved breath and shot her a grateful smile. ”Kind of, but only this much.”

Quickly summoning my staff, I waved it and watched as it suck a trickle of mana from my soul. Moments later, the staff blazed with light, and a crack appeared in the air before me. Over the next several seconds, it expanded, cracking like glass, until a small, golden gate opened. As before, it was insubstantial and opened to nowhere in particular, just a small gap between the stars of fate.

Korra circled it once and leaned forward to study it curiously. ”Ever figure out why it appeared in the village?”

I shrugged. ”I remember hearing that the heroes’ Divine Artifacts each had special abilities, but it’s supposed to take a long time to unlock them. I think this is one of my staff’s, and I accidentally activated it when I used the Oracle’s powers. I haven’t had much luck learning more about the gate yet, like what it’s for, or why it would have reacted with my ability, but–”

I paused mid-sentence as a shudder ran through my mana. Instead of fading, it grew, a dreadful, discordant cacophony within my soul. I closed my eyes and pressed a hand to my head as images flittered through my mind. It was dark and blurry, but I could make out the clack of dozens of insectoid legs, large segments of a glistening carapace, and malevolent red eyes.

”Xiviyah? What’s wrong?”

The dreadful dissonance faded as Korra’s hand clasped mine tightly, her reassuring presence cutting through the storm of mana. It left as suddenly as it came, leaving my chest heaving and my tail trembling with shock.

”S-something’s coming!”

Fable leaped to his feet, lips curled back in a snarl, and Korra suddenly pushed me behind her. ”Get back!” she cried, a water dragon curling around her forearm.

I stumbled back a few feet and collided with a large boulder, stunned by the force of her push. A moment later, the quiet peace of the canyon shattered. A terrible shriek tore through the canyon, steadily rising as it echoed off the narrow walls and cliffs until the deafening roar came from everywhere all at once. Scattered as my mind was, I reacted instinctively and Soul Cast a Sound Ward. At least my suffering at the hands of the Blade Demon hadn’t been totally in vain.

Freed from the screech, I gripped my staff tightly, eyes flitting from cliff to crevasse, searching for our assailant. Korra and Fable slowly circled the hollow for a second longer before they both stiffened and dove aside. By the time my senses registered they’d moved, the ground exploded in a storm of blue dust and rocky shrapnel. I bit back a scream as a rock smashed into the ground mere inches from my foot, sending a long crack snaking across the stone beneath my feet. Without bothering to check whether any more were coming, I Soul Cast an Aegis. A first-circle spell should be able to handle anything mundane in nature, and I didn’t want to waste mana without knowing what we were up against.

”Xiviyah! Look out!” Korra’s cry came from somewhere in the cloud of dust.

My trust in her was absolute, and, without raising my head to peer about, I blindly threw myself aside. Scarcely had I moved then the ground beneath my feet exploded like before. Aegis briefly glimmered into view as it harmlessly deflected the resulting shrapnel and stone, but the concussive force of the impact sent me sprawling into the shallow pool of water. I sucked in a breath as the icy shock of the water seized my system, and I scrambled to my feet, dripping wet and spluttering.

A flicker of movement caught in my periphery–a flash of silver as Fable lunged toward me. A moment later, his jaws closed around my cloak, jerking me out of the water and to the other side of the hollow. I caught a glimpse of the cliff behind us, just in time to see it crack and crumble as something impossibly large ripped its way free.

With a sickening sound, like stone grinding on stone, a section of the cliff face shattered. Through the dust and debris, I could just make out a glistening segment of carapace, the color of tarnished steel. Then another, and another. My breath hitched. Each segment was as big as a small hut, adorned with a pair of legs that hardly resembled legs at all. They were blades, thick as tree trunks, ending in points sharp enough to shatter stone.

A dozen eyes–blazing red pits of pure malice–glared down at us from what could only be the creature’s head. The very air vibrated with the creature’s screech, a chorus of clicks and scraping sounds that echoed through the hollow. Two fangs, each as long as Fable, clacked before its maw, and a fetid stench washed over me, the sharp, sickly smell of rot and something else, something acrid and burning. Venom.

Despite most of its body still hidden away in whatever crevasse it had crawled from, the colossal centipede was easily a few hundred feet long. Its soul blazed with sixth-level mana, not the infernal, demonic power I was expecting, but the refined mana of a native monster of Enusia. It glanced down at its claws, then up at Fable and me, and its eyes filled with hateful indignation, as though it couldn’t believe we dared to have dodged.

As it reared back and shrieked again, Korra quickly joined us on our side of the hollow. ”What the hell is that thing? Is it a demon?”

I shook my head, ”No... it’s a regular monster. I thought this path was supposed to be safe?”

She ignored the question, her eyes never leaving the furious centipede. ”What level?”

”Sixth.”

”Damn it,” she cursed. ”Although considering its size, I suppose we’re getting off easy. Going to be hard to crack that shell, but if I can land a few good hits, my magic should soften it up.”

”Um, Korra? Can I protect you this time?” I asked, somewhat timidly given the situation.

She rolled her eyes and raised her fists, summoning her unique watery aura. ”You’d better. There’s no way in hell we’re beating this thing otherwise. I’ll tank it, and Fable can look for opportunities to deal damage. Once we find its weakness, we’ll come up with something better.”

The monstrous centipede had been more than generous in giving us time to formulate a hasty plan, but it seemed its grace had expired. Lunging forward, it brought several titanic legs down on us. I was ready for it, having detected the moment its soul began gathering mana for the attack. It gave me only a second or two, but that was enough.

”Nexus!”