Bloodcrete: Chapter 27 (The Weirkey Chronicles) (Patreon)

So... there was going to be a short week eventually. I decided it made more sense to have the climactic chapter be this week and both resolution chapters next time. But meanwhile, please enjoy the final version of the new Theo image!

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Chapter 27

As Theo slipped through the dust storm with his mass nearly neutralized, he realized that his best remaining defense was running out. Unless someone arrived soon, all he would have left was desperation.

Fighting in the dust storm had been an enormous advantage at first. His gravity senses might not be precise, but they had been more than enough to keep constant track of his opponent. Though Theo had struggled to land any bolts while his opponent was being so cautious, the fleshmasker had wasted a lot of cantae attempting his own stealth techniques or trying to blow away the dust.

None of that was happening anymore. It seemed like the Authority had realized his strategy and was conserving the rest of his cantae: a small fraction of what he had started with, but still enough to kill Theo if he connected at the right time. Soon he would stop trying to fight and hold someone hostage.

Before that happened, he needed to do something. And Theo didn't see what he could possibly do.

He had been smoothing and polishing the curved pieces for the corners of his soulhome, since those were the primary remaining flaws. If he could finally harness his singularity at full strength, that might be enough for him to last against an Authority in such an uneven fight. There was so much on the line... Theo needed his full discipline to prevent his fingers from trembling as he added a new reflective coating and placed the refined pieces.

No looking back. He didn't just place them, he bound them into place with the best sublime glue he had. If this didn't work, he was doomed anyway.

Theo took a deep breath and drew out his singularity's full power, ready for it to make his entire soulhome tremble... except it didn't. The cantae flooded out, but for the first time it naturally arced into a sphere that rushed through all three floors. Even as it resonated with all his sublime materials, it continued to naturally flow, leaving his mind free to deploy all that power.

Still not quite believing it was true, Theo experimentally directed cantae out of his primary entrance. His new door let it pass smoothly and it flowed through the gates of his shielding wall as well. If he had shaped that cantae into an actual gravitational field, it would have been the most powerful he'd ever cast.

Hovering within his soulhome, Theo laughed. It had all been worth it.

All the hours soulcrafting, hands bloody from knapping materials, fingers sore from the polishing. The windows formed from the Arbaian sand and crafted by Navim... the shadowmind from Fiyu... the new corners refining his design... if not for every design detail he'd wracked his brain to perfect, he never would have been able to control this much power.

Yet it would be completely wrong to ascend to Authority. His design worked perfectly, but trying to ascend prematurely would only ruin all the potential he had so carefully crafted. The twisted mass of flesh he'd received from the House of the Lost was actually too powerful. It would serve excellently for giving him raw power in the short term, but for his final blueprint, he might actually want to move it to another floor...

Then Theo sensed cantae from outside his soul and realized that he was out of time.

The fleshmasker left the dust storm and headed directly for the barrier. He wasn't going to taunt this time, just go for the kill. Theo couldn't afford to let him go, since Krikree would be helpless, if she was still alive at all.

The thought of Krikree lying there forced Theo to suppress another surge of anger. Indulging in such emotions was irrational and wouldn't help him. He needed to ignore such things if he wanted... if he wanted...

Theo hesitated as he realized that his "rational" logic didn't actually make sense. The most coldly logical course of action would have been to abandon the fight and avoid so many other entanglements. But what he wanted, when he was honest with himself, came from his heart instead of his mind. The only purpose of logic could be to bring him to that point.

So Theo let the anger simmer, even as he accepted that it didn't help him. Soulcrafting breakthroughs didn't come from such emotions, and there would be no surge of power to help him. The fact was that his opponent was about to kill Krikree and the others. Yet he couldn't do nothing. Theo reluctantly cast a field to lift him out of the dust storm, hoping that his eyes would see something that gravity couldn't.

Being far from the main battle had been useful before that point, but now it left him with no support. In the distance, the bloodcrete golem lay still like a new plateau. Wiltur and the Asplundat Movement's Stronghold were still exchanging techniques, but their battle had drained their reserves as well.

"There you are." The fleshmasker said nothing more, simply leapt at him.

Theo dropped upward as fast as his body could bear, scattering torsion bolts after him. He didn't have many good ideas for tricks left, and his opponent intended to cut through all of them. It was a simple aerial battle, all maneuvering and ranged strikes. If his opponent hadn't been so exhausted and cautious, Theo couldn't have kept up, and he soon had no choice but to retreat to the ground.

A slash split the earth beside him, and this time Theo staggered. He tripped over Krikree's fallen spear, and that was all that saved him from the slash cutting through where his head had been. Theo glanced at the spear and felt another surge of cold anger before casting a gravitational field underneath himself and then using a second to keep him in the air.

He had expected another attack, but the fleshmasker had actually paused. It looked like he was watching the battle between Strongholds... and it didn't seem like he was bluffing.

The Asplundat Movement was retreating from the battlefield, no longer under attack by any forces of Norro Yorthin. Wiltur generated another of his spheres, but instead of releasing it after them, he dropped it onto the plateau where the remaining fleshmaskers struggled with the Slescan ants. He didn't destroy all of either army... and that hadn't been his intent.

"The battle is won!" Wiltur announced. He might not have looked as glorious as he had at the start of the battle, but he was the only Stronghold remaining on the field. "Reinforcements from House Crimson are on their way to eliminate the remaining invaders. Come to us and we will heal your wounds. All of Norro Yorthin must band together against such threats."

"Filth." Theo's opponent spat a piece of bloody flesh onto the ground. "Fithans can be more duplicitous than the Salebrante, when it comes to war."

"You didn't think he would turn on you?"

Before the fleshmasker could say anything else, the plateaus lit up with a new light as cantae erupted in a solid column. Theo smiled and began gathering his own between his hands. Far feebler than what flared into the sky, but in a way this was also his victory.

"House Blacksilver also extends the offer of help to all who need it." Dhan rose into the air, surrounded by the raw power of a new Stronghold. Finally. "Ruling Cities, Asplundat Movement, or Dustwind Plateaus, we need to survive together."

When Theo had negotiated with the House of Coin, he had known they wouldn't give him anything. But when he had proposed them investing materials into Dhan, they had been more receptive. Now the House of Coin's Stronghold in Norro Yorthin was supported by a second. With the balance restored, the whole house could remain in the city. There would be compromises in the future, no doubt, but for now Theo was just relieved.

The fleshmasker stared. "Just what is th-"

Theo cast his partial singularity at his opponent's chest. It pierced through the weary Authority and hovered on the other side, but his opponent wasn't weakened enough yet. Somehow the Deuxan stumbled forward, away from the new gravity. His body wasn't healing quite as quickly as before, showing glimpses of ragged Deuxan silk, but he still had enough for lethal techniques.

"This doesn't save you." The fleshmasker raised his sword and gathered his remaining cantae. "I can leave by weirkey any time I want. I'll do it with your skin in tow."

He unleashed another pair of slashes, but Theo dodged around them and retaliated with a partial singularity. It swerved aside from the sword and instead hovered just beside his opponent. The fleshmasker snarled and swung again, but Theo repeated the same maneuver. Even though his opponent tried to adapt, he managed it a third time. When the Authority lowered his arm, it hung limply.

"How are you still fighting? You should have been exhausted long ago!"

"I'm a thorough soulcrafter." Theo grinned like it was no big deal, but the truth was he had barely made it to this point. If he'd been lacking even one of the efficiency advantages he'd soulcrafted, he would have been dead already. Even now, he didn't see very many paths to victory, and they all carried great risks.

When his opponent charged, Theo didn't have the stamina to evade. Instead, he drew in all the partial singularities he had been leaving around the battlefield, gathering them all together into a single point.

His opponent struck first, and the sword tore through his side. Theo staggered in pain and nearly all of his techniques collapsed. It took all of his control to avoid letting the remaining singularities dissolve, and his opponent sneered at them.

Then Krikree's spear plummeted directly through his skull.

Theo used the last of his strength to sweep all the miniature singularities through his opponent's body, just in case the spear wasn't enough. His singularity flared in a final moment of its true destructive potential, then subsided in exhaustion. He collapsed the next moment, bleeding into the dust. If his opponent had survived the final blow, he would have been doomed, but the fleshmasker's sword clattered to the stone and then he crumpled alongside Theo.

It was finally over. Theo should have been proud of himself, but where his head lay, he could see the Slescan army flooding over the plateaus, consuming all bodies living or dead.

There had never been a plan for that, and he had nothing left.

~ ~ ~

Nauda crawled back up to the plateaus in time to see the ants marching on the wounded. Once, she had taken herself past her limits in order to stop just such a group, but this time... she was weakened and there was no point she could defend. The best she could do was go face them and save a few, until she was overwhelmed.

How could Tythes do this? He might have ruined his father's plans, but at the cost of countless civilian lives. She wasn't sure if there was any limit to Slescan hunger. The ants would rush over the battlefield and multiply the casualties many times as they ate the wounded.

"No further, foul beasts!" Tythes suddenly blazed in the air, surrounded by an aura of cantae that made him light up like a candle against the clouds. "Never fear, father, I can slay these beasts without killing any of our own!"

He raised one hand over his head, and Nauda recognized the sphere that he used to shield the Slescans. It burned with cantae, but she realized that he was generating a useless shell around the artifact. Tythes was actually ceasing his use of the artifact when he pretended to wield it.

All across the battlefield, Slescans began to collapse. A few struggled as they went down, but they couldn't survive without his support. One of the humanoid Slescans turned toward him in rage, snarling something, no doubt about the fact that Tythes had betrayed them. From the very beginning, he had been planning to bring the Slescans to Fithe and then let them all die once they had served his purposes.

Tythes killed him before he could say anything incriminating, of course. Nauda turned away and limped to the Blacksilver defenses. His plan might have prevented the worst of the casualties, but he had known how many would die on both sides, and he had still chosen to take that step. 

He might hide behind a lazy smile, but the face underneath was only a second mask. She wouldn't forget who he truly was.

When Nauda hit the barrier, she was surprised that she accidentally broke through. It had been severely weakened during the battle and would soon fail. Within, she saw that the local Fithans were mostly alive. That was something, at least.

Thoughts about overall casualties vanished when she saw Theo. He lay on his back, his clothes torn open in an ugly gash that stained his entire chest with blood. Several local healers knelt around him, but they weren't prepared to heal such a serious injury on a Ruler.

"Let me try." Nauda dropped down beside them and held her hands over the wound. It had been a long time since she'd healed anyone but a Slescan, but she was glad to feel the sublime honey resonating within her soulhome. She blocked off her other two towers and focused entirely on healing.

Energizing cantae flowed through Theo's body and he took a deep breath. She struggled to help his wound close, since it looked like a thrust had pierced his body. But before she could do so, he reached up and grasped her wrist.

"Nauda... I'll be fine... help Krikree..."

She hadn't even seen anyone else, but the Fithans seemed to understand and directed her attention. Krikree lay on a palette some distance away, her body unnaturally still. The only thing that moved was one of her arms, which Nauda realized had actually been severed. It twitched on the ground beside her as if all its remaining life drained away.

When Nauda moved to her, Krikree's antennae did shift in response. She seemed to have stabilized, despite the loss of her arm... her blood stained the ground all around the hole. Nauda was far out of her competence, but she was the only person who could even try.

Carefully lifting the arm, Nauda pressed it against Krikree's side and let her cantae flow. If only she had studied more... she tried to gather her cantae from the flesh core that regenerated her, up through her sublime honey, then out through her upper windows. She had no idea if that was the proper technique, but she did feel the flesh began to cling to itself. Nauda held Krikree's arm in place while gesturing to the local healers, who quickly arrived with bandages to fix it there.

"Ivo-sister... win?" Krikree's eyes opened and she stared up at Nauda.

"Win? He's alive, if that's what you mean." Nauda smiled and brushed away some of Krikree's hair that had gotten into her face. "He's just over there. You can see him once you've recovered."

"Ivo-sister fight... Skin-prince... win?"

Nauda glanced out from the defensive circle, and the Fithans directed her toward a mass of torn flesh. "Yeah, it looks like he won."

"Good."

"If he defeated a prince, does that make Ivo-sister a prince now?"

"Not!" Krikree began to struggle, forcing Nauda to hastily pin her down and prevent her arm from damaging itself again.

As soon as Krikree stabilized, others were brought to her. Simple cuts Nauda could heal easily enough, and the sublime honey naturally helped her cantae heal infections. But she had been weary at the start, and there were so many injuries she was helpless against. Nauda found herself staggering from body to body, healing as much as she could, until suddenly someone took her by the shoulders.

"You've done enough." Dhan stared down at her and she realized dimly that he had ascended to Stronghold. "The rest of House Blacksilver is here now."

She numbly allowed herself to be taken aside. Dhan appeared uninjured, but Karchibol was near death and Janne slept exhausted in a chariot. Then again, it wasn't power that mattered now: the group Dhan had brought with him included healers and soulcrafters specializing in repairs.

Even then, Nauda couldn't quite believe it. She saw Theo was on his feet again, his clothes all mostly repaired, though he still favored his chest. Not long after, Guchiro descended from the sky and deposited Fiyu beside them.

As the three of them looked at one another over the battlefield, Nauda finally accepted that it was over.