Chapter Seventeen
Rule of Three

(CW: Graphic Violence)

A second arrow whistled through the air, but Vera saw it coming this time. Time seemed to almost slow down as she saw the projectile’s trajectory, and she only had to shift in her seat to let it fly past her. 

“Off the horses!” Clarus said. He didn’t need to explain more. While three horse-mounted fighters could easily run down an opponent on foot, not all of them would be able to dodge an arrow like Vera had. Especially if fired with that much precision. All four of them jumped off their mounts, Vera drawing her short sword. 

Rubicus had been carrying his own weapons, strapping them to his saddlebags. It couldn’t be comfortable, for him or Flaveo, but he was still clearly hesitant to trust her with keeping them. For a moment he was just an old man, hesitant to draw his sword, but once he’d brandished the blade and raised the buckler, all that reluctance melted away, and he was a warrior again. 

Flaveo just drew a small dagger, but she knew that was far from the only blade he had on him. He’d be hanging back, since he didn’t have most of his magic to rely on. “Careful,” Rubicus said as he raised the small shield, moving forward. 

The figure under the tree was hard to make out, barely silhouetted against the surrounding landscape, but Vera recognised it clearly as Caerella nonetheless. She saw the figure nock an arrow and let it fly. Clarus struck it out of the air with practiced precision. Vera knew most people wouldn’t be able to pull such a feat off, but even without Aesling’s help, the Prince was more capable than his demeanor would let on. 

Caerella was clearly testing them, and the next arrow would likely strike at Rubicus or Flaveo. Vera looked at the Prince, and they nodded at each other, putting themselves between Caerella and the two older men, before advancing. Their opponent would find her attacks fruitless if she continued attacking like this, and she seemed to realize it. 

Tossing the bow aside with careless disregard, Caerella retrieved a pair of axes — one large battle-axe and one hand-axe — from the foot of the tree and began to approach them. Vera looked around at the others, and they spread out. There were four of them and one of her. The problem, of course, wasn’t subduing her. It was doing so without her killing any of them, and the closer the figure came, the clearer it became that the thing that had been Caerella was no longer human, and had not an ounce of pity or mercy to spare. It was her eyes and the inky nothing contained within them that chilled Vera to the bone. 

“You can do this,” Ash said. Vera just swallowed and nodded. She hoped it would be enough. Caerella was only a few dozen feet away now, and Rubicus began to speak. Clarus interrupted him. 

“Remember, we may only be able to surprise her into stumbling once,” he said, “attempting to appeal to your history or her humanity now might waste a chance we’ll not get twice.” Clarus began to circle to the right, while Rubicus and Flaveo started to move left. If they could surround her, it might give them the opening they needed to step in and stop her before she did irreparable damage to anyone. 

Caerella let them circle her, and seemed to be remarkably calm about it too. At this distance, Vera got an uncomfortably close look at her. Her limbs were longer than they ever had been, longer than was reasonable. Her whole body looked knotted and twisted, like a gnarled, rotting tree. Other than the two jet-black pools that were her eyes, the face that was once Caerella’s was gone. Well… not gone. Not quite. It was like her facial features were still there, but as if merely shadows on a pale canvas, overcast and barely visible. The only real expression Vera could read was the slightest hint of a cruel smile on the creature’s visage. Then, just as Rubicus and Clarus both started to move in, it attacked. 

The movement was unnaturally fast, her elongated legs making her move with preternatural speed, the long battle-axe swinging at Vera’s head, slicing the air in half. It looked like there was enough force behind the attack to bisect a tree. 

Vera dodged it by only a hair, and jumped sideways as best she could in the direction the swing had come from, hoping it would give her a second of respite before the monstrous being could turn the weapon around. No such luck. She’d underestimated this Caerella’s strength, and out of the corner of her eye, she already saw the weapon come at her again. Clarus was still several feet away, unable to help her. 

Vera raised her weapon and deflected the blow as best she could, letting the weapon sail just past her face as she redirected the attack, and followed up with a strike of her own. She missed, of course — Caerella’s reach was easily twice hers, between the long arms and the sise of her weapon — but the point was to force her opponent to stop her sweeping assault. 

It seemed to work. The creature blinked in seeming surprise, and raised both its weapons, before swinging them both at Vera in a shorter arc, following every strong strike with one from the hand-axe. It was harder to react to, but it made deflecting them easier. Vera raised her sword and just barely managed to block the first blow. The second sliced the air in front of her throat uncomfortably close. 

She took a step back, and again Caerella attacked. Rubicus and Clarus were almost on her, but Vera could barely focus on them. She had to put in everything just to stay alive, but she was holding on. In fact, she noticed, it was getting easier to stand her ground. Every strike was a little easier to strike aside or dodge, and she was moving faster and faster, a rhythm building in between the blows. 

Caerella seemed to notice too, the creature growling at Vera. She’d probably expected the young girl in the party to be the easiest target, which was why she’d attacked Vera to begin with, and had found an opponent who, while not a direct threat, was remarkably difficult to take out of the equation. 

And then Clarus and Rubicus were on her, both striking at her simultaneously. She spun around and deflected both. Vera jumped backwards and rubbed her sword-arm. She hadn’t realized how sore her muscles had become from the constant impacts, or how damaged her sword. She’d been lost in the moment. 

But now Caerella was attacking the other two, and they seemed to be having a rough time. Caerella was playing them out against each other, forcing them to spend as much time avoiding each other as they were avoiding her strikes. Clarus was a gifted swordsman, and Rubicus a great warrior, but neither of them had fought side by side with the other often, especially against an opponent who could use one’s bulk and the other’s slighter frame against one another. 

Behind them, Flaveo was pacing back and forth, still holding his dagger, glaring. Vera had seen him like this only a few times before. He preferred a more supportive role during fights, but without access to his magic, he was reduced to more crude attacks, and waiting for an opening at that. 

The demoness dodged left, putting Rubicus between herself and Clarus, and then struck high, followed by a strike from one of her unnaturally long limbs, causing the large man to stumble back into Clarus. While the Prince was able to avoid hurting himself or Rubicus with the sword, the two still fell prone. Vera rushed forward, recovered enough from the assault on her person to save her friends. On the ground, they wouldn’t be able to avoid Caerella’s attacks for long. 

It didn’t turn out to be necessary. Flaveo’s arm moved like a blur, and suddenly there was a dagger in Caerella’s shoulder. Even Vera had barely seen the movement. The shadow creature screeched and turned to him. Flaveo’s hands disappeared in his cloak, and his arm flashed once, twice, three times, and more small daggers dug themselves into Caerella’s twisted flesh. 

Caerella ducked low, dodging another dagger barely, and then jumped. With impossible speed, she landed in front of Flaveo. Vera sprinted as fast as she could trying to close the distance between them. Only Flaveo’s clenched jaw betrayed his nervousness, stepping back calmly as he threw dagger after dagger at Caerella. She deflected some, while others struck more or less true. None of them, however, seemed to be enough to stop her. Vera was getting closer, and she dropped her sword. While Caerella was distracted by Flaveo, she might be able to take her to the ground and end this. 

Caerella raised her weapons, dodging a few more attacks, and Flaveo’s expression shifted to one of grim resolve. He reached for his belt, but Caerella’s arm lashed out, and the hand-axe spun out of her hand towards him. 

Vera caught it. There was a moment, frozen in time. She’d reacted instinctively, snatching the weapon’s handle out of the air. It only dawned on her how vulnerable of a position she’d left herself in when the battle-axe dug into her shoulder. 

“Vera!” Aesling screamed, at the same time as somewhere, on the other side of what felt like a waterfall, Clarus did the same. It was nice of him to care about her, at least. She was surprised at how little it hurt. 

Maybe it was the shock. She looked down. The weapon’s giant blade seemed to have cut down by at least a foot. That was a lot, wasn’t it? Her armor had been useless against an attack like that. She looked up at Caerella, whose uncaring eyes bore into her own. Vera reached out and touched the creature on the wrist. 

“Can you help her?” she asked Aesling. She was surprisingly clear-headed even as her face and limbs started to feel cold. The Nymph mumbled something to the affirmative, and she felt the magic rush through her limbs and into the creature. 

Caerella seemed to realize something was wrong, as she pulled back, pulling the axe loose. Now it hurt. It was getting harder to breathe, like she had a bad cough. But she didn’t remove her hand from Caerella’s. 

The demoness’ other hand wrapped itself around her throat, elongated fingers squeezing the remaining air from her and lifting her off the ground. But Vera didn’t stop. Magic filled them both, and Vera could tell it was working. Whatever the Cavean had infected Caerella with, it was like a blight on the soul. And it was something Aesling’s magic could wash away. 

Bit by bit, like peeling parasitic moss off a healthy tree, the infection started to give way. Caerella screamed, the strange reverb in her voice slowly giving way for more human expressions of pain, more every second. 

Then the whites of her eyes defined themselves, and the last thing Vera saw before she was dropped to the ground was recognition. Caerella seemed to come to her senses and threw herself next to Vera, pressing her hands on the open wound without a word. 

“I’m doing what I can!” Aesling cried. “I’m sorry! There’s so much, I—” The spirit’s voice trailed off. It was hard to stay awake, even with Aesling’s comfortably warm magic filling her limbs, the wound in her chest tingling as it healed. 

She looked up at Caerella, hoping to reassure her that it was okay, that it was going to be okay, now that her three friends were reunited. She looked up just in time to see Rubicus’ sword pierce through the woman’s ribcage with a sound like ripping cloth. Caerella frowned in confusion as she slowly toppled over and fell down. Vera tried to scream and reach out, but couldn’t catch her breath in time to do so. 

Everything went black.

Elamimax

Vera's just NOT having a good day huh?

I'm curious: those of you who haven't read it, where do you think this is going?

Also, if you wanna read the other half of the story RIGHT NOW, you absolutely can :) the rest of the novel is up on my patreon! 

Other than stories, you'll also have access to neat new stuff, including free access to stuff like ebook releases and updates on my screenplay! So yknow, for practically nothing, that's pretty rad.