Chosen of Death part 2

Aigne is humbled, introduced to her new mentor, and his temperament.

Aigne rushed forward, her fist drawn back to do whatever damage she could to the beastie. It might be big as a bear, and it might be scary as a burning building, but it would not take her without a fight. The skeleton stepped back, arms up in… what looked suspiciously like a defensive position. The creature seemed not just willing to ward off her attacks, but was making no effort of any kind to set up a counter. It was… toying with her.

A rage she’d not felt since she was a little girl rose up in Aigne’s breast, her knuckles cracking as she clenched her hands tighter, moved with greater ferocity. Grim reaper or no, this boney bastard was not going to just dismiss her like that! Not on-

Suddenly, there was a tremendous, reverberating pain shot through her body. She’d gone from throwing a punch at the beastie to flying backwards through the air, ass first, in less than a blink. She’d have wondered how, analyzed an angle of attack, thought up a way to hide or run, but before any of that could even begin to happen she felt her back crashing painfully through a young, springy tree of some kind.

Her guts ached something fierce, the thundering crash of the tree falling down around her second only to the leaky feeling in her core as what had to be broken ribs shredded her insides. She couldn’t lift her head, but she could look up, her eyes flicking to look up at the beastie that she’d been attacking.

It was just… stood there. One palm, held open, was thrust out at around the height of where her chest would have been. The creature made no noise, nor shifted a single blade of grass as it walked over to her, robes billowing in a breeze that didn’t exist. The creature had ended their engagement with nothing more than a single strike, faster than she’d have dared to believe. Now, it was walking over to her, standing over her ruined body, and crouching low.

The beast’s voice was like sand scraping over old oak, like dead things trying in vain to rise to life, and it sent a shiver through her that her blinding pain couldn’t even scratch.

“Now, now, child… That was no way to greet a stranger. If you will behave, I will put you back to rights, and we may discuss the nature of your new… position. No, no, don’t try nodding, I’m fairly certain your spine is shattered. I will heal you, and when I am done you may decide how things go from there.”

Obviously, there was little Aigne could do about it. She held as still as she was able, her body beginning to seize and ache from the sudden trauma, as she watched the bone creature work. It lifted its hands, raised them over her body, and… there was no word. No sound, no glowing symbol in the air. There was a sudden rush of blood and power in her body, and Aigne felt her body stitching itself back together.

The sensation was beyond unpleasant. It did not hurt, but she could feel every ounce of her blood, bone, and tissue slithering against itself as her bones were slid back together, her organs de-perforated, her flooding lungs suddenly clear of fluid. The process took only ten seconds, but it felt far, far longer as she lay there, her body twitching from the strange sensations of it all.

As the feeling of sudden potency fled her body, leaving her exactly as she’d been before she attacked the creature, Aigne hacked a little and tried to sit up. As vulnerable as she felt, and as terrifyingly powerful as this creature was, it clearly didn’t mean her any harm. She was still skyclad, but that seemed like it was going to have to wait, for the moment. At least, it did, until the skeleton whirled its hand and the robe it was wearing shot off its body to wrap instead around hers.

Aigne was not too proud to admit to herself, privately, that she screamed like a banshee when the black robe thing suddenly rushed at her. She raised her hands to fight it off, but the robe… slapped her in the face, before it swirled around and settled itself comfortably on her body. There was another strange sensation, as the garment… created underclothes for her. She even looked, peeking down under the front of the robe to find plain, similarly black undergarments snugly fitted to her body like they were made specifically for her.

Such generosity from this stranger made her suspicious, briefly, before she looked up and realized that the bone creature hadn’t actually lost its own robe. It was, however, now sitting down on the stump of the ruined tree she’d smashed through, waiting patiently for her to collect herself. Not wanting to disappoint her strange benefactor, Aigne scooped her legs under herself, got comfortably down onto her knees, and sat. Whatever the creature wanted to say, she’d hear it out.

Once she was comfortable, the skeleton nodded at her, its dead, empty eyes angled in her direction. It seemed pleased that she’d chosen diplomacy, and a tension seemed to leak out of its posture as it spoke.

“Little one, you cannot know the relief in me that I do not have to destroy you. My lord Feohren would be highly disturbed, were he to discover that I had killed his new toy before you could achieve whatever purpose he has in mind for you. No, do not speak. I will explain. Lord Feohren is the god of wrath, the crossroads, vengeance,and death. His sacred beast is the black dragon, and his symbol is the spoked wheel you bear upon your breast like a cattle brand.”

The bone man’s words struck a chord in Aigne as she reached up, gently probing at the mark it spoke of. She was sure the speaker was male, yet it was not for the creature’s tone. There was some… eldritch knowledge that carried along the not-sound of its voice, a voice that came to her without the jaw bones of the skeleton moving in any way. She nodded, patiently waving her hand in an invitation to continue as she tried to quell her rising curiosity.

The skeleton man continued, his eye sockets unchanging in their focus. “My name is Agrith. For the foreseeable future, until I have received word from my Lord as to what he means to do with or for you, I will be your mentor. I do not know where you come from, but I know that it was not Assaria, for none born on these shores would risk an attack upon me in my own graveyard as you did. You are the Chosen of Feohren, and until my Lord sees fit to explain more to me than he has, that is all that I know. Speak. Tell me your name, and all that you can remember of your life, before the summoning.”

Aigne cleared her throat. “Ah… Well, spirit, Agrith… I was just a little girl, perhaps… half the age I look now, or less, when I bound myself to an ancient spirit of flame. The spirit called out to me in my hour of distress, and with its help and guidance I turned my village to cinders. I will not explain myself further on this, those people got what they’d paid for in the wrath of a child filled with more power than she could control. I lived… alone, in the swamp. After my village burned, I took up residence in the hollow hole of an ancient, long-petrified tree. It was comfortable, I think… I liked the way that the baked mud felt beneath my toes.”

“I liked my mud hut. I liked my swamp, and I… liked the fear I struck in the bandits and cruel men that used my swamp to hide from the law. When I was young, I would kill often, and with brutality, but as I grew older, I saw less reason to be so swift. There are fates worse than death, and I delighted in causing them. A little boy stopped me, eventually. I was ready to take his father’s life, or to cripple him for the rest of his days, when this young scamp ran in between us and dared me to kill them both.”

A sharp, unpleasant ache shot through her heart at the memory, at the tiny, scrunched up face as a little boy protected his father from the terrifying witch of the swamp and her endless, hungry flames. She’d never forget the instinct. The first, terrifying instant… when she’d almost taken that little brat up on his offer.

“I spared him. I made the choice not to kill, and from then on I made a point not to kill if I didn’t feel it necessary. Spirit, I… I don’t even remember the last time I had a conversation with anyone who did not reside in my head with me. I am grateful that your Lord has given me back my youth, but I know these things are not free. When Feohren tells you what he’s about, I would appreciate it if you told me sooner, rather than later.”

There was a long, drawn out pause as the skeleton, as Agrith watched her. He watched and he watched and… suddenly, he spoke.

“Why did you not kill?”

The question was so stark, so simple, and it felt… so invasive that it took Aigne a moment to respond as she looked down at the ground.

“I don’t-”

“Why did you decide that death was something you should bother to avoid? What gave you the right to spare those who spared no thought for their own safety, in risking your wrath?”

She was growing angry now, her spine stiffening and the goose prickles on her neck standing as she raised herself up just a little to glare into the cold eyes of death.

“I spared their lives because expending even my endless power was more than they deserved, Agrith. The worth of their lives was not my concern then, and it is not now. My own time and attention were what I could measure, and so I did!”

The skeleton’s bone smile… widened. To Aigne’s growing horror, she realized that the bone man’s expression could actually twist and warp its dead flesh as his smile turned saturnine.

“Good. Then there is hope for you, in Assaria.”


Followup to https://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/2330023-Meeting-by-an-Unlit-Grave...

Cross-published on Royal Road https://www.royalroad.com/profile/713825