Cliff

  “We crossed into the Shadesmire south of Abengarde this day.

  What was once fertile plain now lay as a graveyard of ash and silence. Not even the crows dare to feed here. The earth is soft and black, akin to bruised flesh, and every step seems to land upon some half-buried bone, crunching softly underfoot.

  I caught Cynthia pausing mid-stride, her eyes fixed on something I could not see. When I called her name, she did not answer. She did not even blink. It took Regulus to finally rouse her, but her silence since then has been troubling. I suspect she saw something. Perhaps something meant only for her.

  We lost our guide last night. A scream rang out just before the second watch. By the time we reached him, his body was already gone. All that remained was his blade, driven deep into the earth. There was no sign of struggle, nor any blood. Only a symbol, scorched into the ground. A mark none of us could recognize, though Regulus claimed it burned with the glyphic root of Old Tongue. A word of binding. Or of summoning. Or both.” - Writings of the Sword-Saint, 2156 Post-Separation (PS).

  Cliff had expected trouble. He always did. It was the nature of his work; to remain ever watchful for signs of jeopardy, for the glint of concealed steel flashing in the light of dim torches. But even for him, this was something else entirely.

  The child stood before them, his golden hair a stark contrast to the eerie glow of the burning city behind. He was a small thing, slight of frame and pale of constitution, but the sword on his back was the true abomination. An impossibility, far too large for someone of his stature. And yet, he bore it with ease.

  A Curseblade.

  The word lay heavy in Cliff’s mind. He knew its weight, of course. Knew what it meant for someone to wield such a thing. After all, a Curseblade was no mere tool. It was a contract, a bond forged with something ancient and unspeakable, a primeval force of malfeasance and hatred. And the child spoke of it with levity, as though discussing a trinket in a merchant’s stall.

  Cliff adjusted his grip on his blade. The wrappings had already fallen away, revealing blackened steel crisscrossed with dark capillaries that seemed to drink in the firelight. Rak’shul, it was called. The Blade of Greed. An artifact from an age long past, a weapon that had seen and caused more death than any one thing ever should.

  Cliff had drawn it for a reason, and the appearance of this child had only added to the urgency.

  Presently, the child sighed, as if the situation bored him somehow. He took a step forward, dragging his sword along the ground, its edge gouging the planks beneath him. “Well,” he mused, tilting his head slightly. “This is inconvenient. I was hoping for less... interference.” His gaze flicked to Maxwell, who stood in frozen bewilderment before him. “Especially from you.”

  Maxwell stiffened at once, his purple eyes widening in panic. Cliff could see it clear as day. The way his muscles coiled, the way his body fought against something unseen... The Seedling. Whatever curse it had placed upon him was reacting to this child’s presence.

  “Who are you?” Amelie demanded, her voice sharp. “And what have you done to the people of this city?”

  The child blinked at her, then glanced at the twisted forms in the plaza, as if only now remembering they were there. “Oh,” he said. “That wasn’t me.”

  “Not them,” she spat, her hand hovering near the dagger at her waist. “The others. The ones in the lower sections.”

  The child only smiled. It was a small, knowing thing. Something far too old for the face that wore it. “I haven’t done anything,” he said. “I didn’t have to.”

  And then, before the passing of another breath could be registered, he suddenly vanished from sight.

  Fast, Cliff thought with a start. Too fast.

  At once, the air split apart with a sound like tearing silk, and then the boy was behind Maxwell, his massive sword swinging in a lazy arc. Cliff reacted on instinct, moving before thought could take hold. He met the boy’s blade with his own, steel striking steel in a clash that sent shockwaves through the platform, tearing up splinters to fly like nails caught in a galewind. The impact nearly wrenched his arm from its socket, but he held firm.

  The child looked up at Cliff with something akin to mild curiosity. “Ah,” he said. “You’re quick.”

  With a grunt, Cliff pushed against the blade, breaking the deadlock. The boy slid back effortlessly, as though the motion required no intent at all. His grip on the massive weapon remained loose, almost lazy.

  This was not a fight for him. It was amusement.

  Cliff shifted his stance, letting his body sink into the familiar rhythm of battle. The Blade of Greed hummed in his grip, eager, always eager. It whispered at the edges of his mind, promising power, promising victory, if only he let it drink a little more.

  The child tapped a finger against his chin. “You’re interesting,” he said. “But I don’t have time for you.”

  He moved again. A blur, a flicker of motion, faster than sight. But this time, Cliff was ready.

  He pivoted on his heel, angling his sword just right, catching the edge of the strike and redirecting it downward. The wooden planks beneath shattered from the force, and yet the boy smiled all the same, as if the whole affair was naught but a joke to him.

  Maxwell and Amelie scrambled back, giving space. Good. Cliff needed room to work.

  “You’re not human,” he said, his voice even. It did not fall as a question.

  The boy chuckled. “I was,” he admitted. “A long time ago.”

  “Well,” Cliff said, tightening his grip. “So was I.”

  He lunged.

  The Blade of Greed howled as he swung, its black edge carving through the air. The boy twisted at the last second, just barely avoiding the strike, but Cliff was already moving into the next one. Feint, parry, strike. His footwork was sharp, precise, every movement drilled into him over years of blood and battle.

  But the boy was faster still.

  His sword met Cliff’s once more, and this time, he felt the weight of it fully. A pressure, immense and crushing, pressing down upon him like a tidal wave. His knees buckled.

  “Enough playing,” the boy said.

  His blade pulsed with something unnatural, and the force hit Cliff like a hammer to the chest. He flew backwards, crashing through a wooden stall, pain exploding in his ribs. He barely managed to roll to his feet before the boy was upon him once more.

  He blocked with naught but a second to spare. The impact rattled his very bones.

  Too strong. Too fast.

  The boy’s next strike sent Cliff skidding back, his boots scraping against the wood. The child tilted his head, considering the opponent before him. “You’re stubborn,” he mused. “But I really don’t have time for you.”

  Then, he was gone again, this time reappearing in front of Maxwell.

  No!

  Maxwell stumbled back in surprise, arms flailing, the sigil on his back flaring beneath his clothes. The boy’s expression shifted at the sight. “You,” he said. “You have it.”

  Maxwell froze. “What?”

  The boy’s smile widened. “The sigil.”

  Cliff felt his stomach drop.

  Maxwell went rigid, his nostrils flaring. The glow on his back pulsed violently now, a rhythmic, frantic beat.

  The boy reached out. Cliff moved.

  The Blade of Greed struck true, slicing the air between them, forcing the child to retreat. He let slip a soft chuckle, his eyes alight with amusement.

  “You shouldn’t exist,” he told Maxwell. “But you do.”

  Cliff stepped between them. “You’re not taking him.”

  The boy smiled. “It calls to you, doesn’t it?” he said. “The Seedling. You can feel it now, can't you? Crawling beneath your skin.”

  Maxwell staggered back as if struck. His breath hitched, and his hands clenched into fists. “I don’t-” he gasped, shaking his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, but I think you do,” the boy said. “And soon, it won’t be a choice anymore.”

  He attacked again. A ripple of wind washed over them as Cliff raised his blade to defend, the impact sending painful tremors through his arms. He dug his heels into the ground beneath him, holding his ground.

  The boy grinned, pressing forward. “Struggling, old wolf?” he said. “You’re strong, but strength alone won’t save you.”

  Cliff gritted his teeth. “Who said I was alone?”

  Amelie struck.

  She lunged from the side, her dagger wreathed in dancing flames as it went for the boy’s unguarded ribs. At the last moment, he twisted his frame in an unnatural manner, evading her strike with finesse. His sword snapped sideways, knocking her back.

  She hit the ground with a gasp, rolling away before the next blow could land.

  Cliff seized the opening, stepping into the boy’s guard, swinging the Blade of Greed in a brutal slash. The boy’s eyes flicked toward the blackened steel, widening ever so slightly. He twisted again, but not fast enough-

  The edge of the cursed weapon kissed his shoulder, slicing through fabric and flesh. For the first time, the child let out a hiss of pain.

  Black ichor welled from the wound, thick and viscous, like ink spilling from a ruptured page. He stepped back, expression darkening. “Ah,” he said, rolling his injured shoulder. “That blade... it’s different.”

  Cliff did not answer. He could feel the Blade of Greed pulsing in his hand, drinking in the blood it had tasted. The air around it seemed to warp, shrinking back at the weapon’s boundless hunger.

  The boy smiled again, but the shape of it was different this time - less amused, and more salient. “Very well,” he said. “I suppose I’ll have to deal with you after all.”

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  The temperature around them plummeted. A shadow coiled at the child’s feet, stretching outward, twisting and writhing like a live thing. The figures trapped within the wooden trees groaned, their bodies straining against the corruption that bound them.

  Amelie, yet kneeling, reached for Maxwell’s hand, her grip firm. “We need to go,” she whispered urgently. “Now.”

  Maxwell was shaking, his body caught between fear and confusion. But at her words, he nodded, visibly steeling himself.

  Cliff dared not look away from the boy as he spoke. “Take him,” he ordered Amelie. “Get as far away from this place as you can.”

  Amelie hesitated. “Cliff, you cannot-”

  “I can and I will.” His eyes never left the boy, who was watching them with keen interest. “You have your duty, I have mine. Now move.”

  The boy regarded them with detached amusement. “Brave,” he said. “But ultimately pointless.”

  He lifted a hand, and the shadows surged forwards.

  Cliff closed his eyes, and let slip his control over the Curseblade. It howled with glee, bursting free of its restraints with frightful verve.

  At once, the barbed vines springing forth from its pommel dug themselves into Cliff’s skin, drinking deep of his blood. Concurrently, they lashed out in a wide circle, ensnaring the half-formed creatures around him too, coiling tightly about their limbs and torsos, sinking into corrupted skin that was slowly turning to wood.

  A chorus of agony rose from the plaza. Their cries wove into the night air, desperate and raw, as the vines drained them of all they had, siphoning away their lifeblood, both pure and tainted. It all surged back into Cliff, an unholy tide of energy flooding his veins, igniting something dark and insatiable within him.

  Encased in a wreath of living thorns, he lifted the blade high, his eyes aflame in deep crimson, pulsing with the beat of demonic essence.

  “Give me your lives,” he said, his voice a twisted mockery of all that was human. “So that I may kill my enemies and spit on the gods.”

  Something akin to delight flickered behind the too-bright eyes of the child. A recognition of the strength on display, and the rampant bloodlust now emanating from the warrior in front of him.

  “You’ve let it in,” the child said, cocking his head to the side. “You idiot. Do you even know what you’ve done?”

  Cliff did not answer. Could not, perhaps. The Blade of Greed was singing in his mind, shrieking triumph and fury, blotting out all else. His flesh seared where the vines fed, as unfiltered essence surged through him. Power not borrowed, not begged, but stolen. Stolen from the broken husks of the plaza, from the dead, from the dying, and from Cliff himself.

  And with it came a frightening clarity of purpose.

  He stepped forward, and the very ground beneath his boots buckled and cracked. With each movement, thorned tendrils burst forth from his shadow, raking at the air like limbs seeking prey. The firelight dimmed around him, devoured by the aura of his blade. Even the curse-laced embers that clung to the wood gutters seemed reluctant to burn near him.

  The boy remained motionless, his oversized sword yet loose in his hand, but there was a reluctance in him now, a narrowing of the eyes that betrayed a deeper tension. “You don’t get to judge,” Cliff said, voice like gravel scraping over rusted metal. “Not when you brought this.”

  Maxwell and Amelie were gone now. He could sense it. They were running, just as he had told them to. Good. That meant there was still a chance.

  There was likewise no trace of the man in the green robe. He had seemingly dissipated into the night upon the start of hostilities. Perhaps he had no appetite for violence, or perhaps he was needed elsewhere. Either way, it served no purpose to linger on it now.

  The child tilted his head again. “You think you’re saving them? You're just feeding it. You always were. That’s what it wants. That’s all it ever wants.”

  A thorned whip lashed out from Cliff’s left side, striking at the child’s head. He deflected it with a flick of his sword, but the force of it drove him backwards, boots grinding against ruined timber.

  “I don’t care what it wants,” Cliff said, taking another step forward. “It gets what I give it.”

  The child’s eyes narrowed, golden and ancient. The shadow at his feet twisted, curling upward like smoke and forming into jagged shapes; faces, hands, screaming mouths of darkness, each one writhing with its own malformed hunger.

  “You want a god’s power,” the boy said, “but you’ll drown in it.”

  “I’ve drowned before,” Cliff said. “The depths could not hold me.”

  The Blade of Greed pulsed again, brighter this time. No longer just a weapon, but a true extension of the self. Of all his failure, his wrath, his broken oaths.

  An ode to gluttony, and a pledge to greed.

  The child’s stance shifted. At last, he was taking Cliff seriously. He raised the Curseblade, and for the first time, there was silence. No cocky remarks. No grins. Just the vast stillness that separated two horrors.

  And then, steel met steel in a storm of violence. Sparks and shadow erupted from each blow, the wind screaming about them as their strikes cracked through the air like thunder. The child was yet faster, but Cliff was relentless. His movements had shed their mortal bounds, driven by pain and fury, fueled by the hunger of a weapon that knew naught but excess. For every wound he took, the vines drank deeper, coiling tighter about his arms, his chest, burrowing into the skin until he barely resembled a human.

  The child tried to retreat again, blink through space, twist through shadow, but the vines followed. They caught his leg mid-step, yanking him from the air and slamming him hard into the ruined ground.

  He cried out. Not in pain - he had never made that sound before - but in surprise.

  Cliff landed atop him, blade descending, only for the child’s sword to catch it at the last second. Their eyes met, mere inches apart.

  The child stared at Cliff, golden eyes wide, breath coming in shallow bursts. Gone was the smile, the smug veneer of invincibility. For a fleeting moment, he looked nothing more than what he appeared to be; a child, battered, bleeding, caught beneath the weight of a monster forged in blood and spite.

  And then he laughed.

  Not a giggle. Not a smirk.

  A howl. Deep, ragged, echoing across the splintered remains of the plaza.

  “You think this is the limit of what I am?” the boy whispered, eyes alight with something that had lain dormant until now. “You think this blade, this shell, was ever truly drawn?”

  Cliff hesitated. Not out of fear, but recognition. He sensed the coming terror. Knew the stench of awakening, the tremble of something greater before reality was torn asunder.

  The child’s body began to hum, a low-frequency vibration that rolled through the stones, up into Cliff’s boots. The ground beneath them blackened, not from fire, but from absence. Light itself fled. The stars above blinked out, one by one, swallowed by a pressure that grew with each breath the child took.

  Then came the words.

  “Unveil yourself,” the child whispered, his voice now layered with other voices, old and cruel and burning with vengeance. “O’ Blade of Wrath.”

  The sword on his back shuddered, and screamed.

  The sound was not physical. It reverberated in bone, in blood, a psychic detonation that made Cliff flinch despite himself. His vines writhed, recoiling from instinct and memory alone. He jumped away, willing himself to put some distance between them.

  The boy arched his spine and threw wide his arms as the Curseblade on his back ignited in searing red light. Not flames, but pure wrath, in its simplest and most unbound form. The weapon expanded, the metal bleeding molten runes that slithered across its length like living veins. Its once-simple form twisted into something obscene. An elongated, jagged cleaver meant not to kill, but to ruin. Heat poured from it in crashing waves, warping the air, reducing the wooden wreckage around them to ash in a single breath.

  The boy rose to his feet as though pulled by invisible strings, levitating above the scorched ground. His wound, where Cliff’s Blade of Greed had tasted flesh, began smoking, but did not close. The ichor yet spilled from it, but now it boiled, hissing as it touched earth.

  His eyes, once gold, were a radiant white. And in their light, Cliff saw no child.

  Only judgment.

  “You speak of drowning,” the boy said, words distorted, obscured by something older, something vast. “I am the flood.”

  He raised the Blade of Wrath, and brought it down.

  Again, the impact was not restricted to merely the physical. A shockwave of heat and hatred exploded outward, a dome of ruin that blasted splinters, corpses, and broken stones into the sky. Cliff raised his arm to shield himself, vines coiling into a makeshift wall, but even still, he was flung backward, crashing through a charred pillar and rolling to a stop in a spray of broken masonry.

  A violent cough forced its way up his throat. Blood splattered upon the ruined floor. His body screamed, and his vision swam, but he kept his eyes on the boy, who now stood at the center of a growing crater of fire and ash.

  “Wrath is no weapon,” the child said, walking toward him, each step igniting the ground. “It is a sentence. And you have earned yours.”

  Cliff did not rise.

  He launched.

  In a blur of thorns and steel, Cliff’s body surged skyward, the Blade of Greed propelling him like a javelin through the ash-choked air. The boy’s eyes tracked him with divine precision. He raised his blade to meet the strike, expecting a clash.

  But Cliff was not aiming for him.

  He shot right past, toward the trees.

  The massive arboreal pillars that served as the bones of the city loomed above, ancient things with bark like stone and roots that drank deeply of vibrant soil. Cliff hit the trunk of one at full speed, his vines bracing the impact, snapping around thick branches like spider silk. The Blade of Greed dug into the wood, anchoring him as momentum twisted his body up and over the bough.

  From that new perch, he looked down at the child - no, the godling - standing in a caldera of ruin. The boy tilted his head, confused. Then he smiled, as if humored by the shift in tactics.

  With a sharp snap of motion, Cliff leapt, from one tree to the next.

  The canopy of the city, once a place of mystery and reverence, now echoed with the crack of wood and steel as Cliff bounded between trunks the size of towers, slashing at the boy from above, never stopping, never falling. Each strike was a blur, a shadow arcing through the glow of firelight. The vines propelled him, whipping and lashing to pull his form through the air like a pendulum of destruction.

  The boy responded in kind. His body flickered, seemingly warping between roots and high branches, the Blade of Wrath carving wounds of molten fury in the timber. Whole sections of the upper city came crashing down beneath his strikes, flaming bark raining into the depths.

  The city of Fogveil groaned as they danced their battle through its heart. Platforms cracked. Rope bridges snapped. Wooden sanctuaries once used for worship or refuge now exploded in bursts of cursed light as the creatures of hatred clashed.

  Cliff’s blade shrieked louder now, drinking in the agony, the rage, the destruction. With each impact, it fed more deeply, its thorns extending further along his limbs, through his clothes, embedding into his chest, wrapping around his heart.

  He felt it trying to take him. Trying to own him.

  He would not let it.

  “You wanted this!” he roared at the boy, his voice echoing through the canopy. “You brought it here!”

  The boy intercepted him mid-leap. Their swords met in a blinding burst that shattered the branch beneath their feet. Together, they fell, slamming into another trunk, ricocheting off bark, rebounding into the open air. And again. The fight became an avalanche, cascading downward, smashing through limbs and wooden houses until they reached a long-forgotten balcony on the city's lowest level, far beneath the plaza above.

  Cliff landed hard, wood splintering beneath his knees. The boy followed, feet never quite touching the ground.

  “Tell me,” he said, calm amid the destruction, “how much of you remains?”

  Cliff stood, shaking, blood leaking from a dozen new wounds. His mouth curled into a feral grin. “Enough,” he said, “to end you.”

  The boy tilted his head again, as if inspecting a puzzle that no longer fit the box it came in.

  “You seek endings where there are none,” he said. “There is only severance. Only breaking.”

  But Cliff was already moving.

  This time, there was no battle cry. No warning. The vines that wreathed his limbs withdrew inward, curling tight, wrapping around the Blade of Greed’s hilt. The weapon pulsed, sensing the shift in intent. It knew. This was no longer about victory. This was escape.

  A flick of his wrist and the Blade split. Not down its length, but outward. Akin to the opening of a monstrous flower, it bloomed into a crown of hooked razors, tearing open a spiral in the air itself. Space cracked, folding over, warping the air around it.

  A tear in the world, jagged and black-edged, bleeding light from some distant place.

  The boy’s eyes widened. He understood now. Cliff was no longer trying to win.

  He was trying to run.

  With a snarl, the child-thing surged forward, the Blade of Wrath lashing out in divine judgment. But Cliff was not there to meet it. His body twisted, vines yanking him sideways through the air, flinging him toward the rift like a stone from a sling. The cursed blade of the godling missed him by inches, cleaving the balcony in half.

  “Coward!” the boy hissed, furious with distaste.

  Cliff gave no reply.

  He hit the rift mid-roll, body half-consumed by the tearing void, and for a moment, the world lay split in two. On one side, the burning city of Fogveil. On the other, a shaded glade in a remote forest.

  The boy reached out with a pale hand, intent on dragging him back to finish their battle.

  Their fingers touched.

  With a quickness, Cliff latched on to his wrist, and wrenched the boy past him, right into the open maw of the rift.

  In an instant, the boy vanished, his physical form sent tumbling through the space between dimensions to land in a glade at the opposite end of the world. A roar of frustration echoed past the crackling edges of the rift, before it closed in on itself and was gone.

  Silence fell.

  Not the silence of peace, but the vacuum that follows catastrophe. Fogveil remained; parts of it ruined, smoldering, its roots blackened and sagging with the weight of a battle never meant for its ancient frame. It had witnessed a mighty clash... and now, it groaned from the wounds suffered in its passing.

  Cliff collapsed to one knee.

  The Blade of Greed fell from his hand, its thorns retracting with a shudder, hissing like a beast denied its feast. He could feel it sulking, coiled deep in his chest like a serpent waiting for permission to strike anew. The vines withdrew from his flesh, a painful process that ripped his skin in several places.

  Around him, ash fell like snow from the heavens.

  The balcony where he knelt hung precariously over the lower caverns of Fogveil, swaying, threatening collapse. Even so, Cliff remained still. Breathless. Bloodied. Victorious.

  He had done it.

  Not won. Not truly. But he had bought them time, and for now, that would have to suffice.

  He looked to where the rift had vanished, a shimmer in the air all that remained. Somewhere in that far-off glade, the boy would rise again. Furious. Confused. But alive.

  “Round two,” he muttered to himself, rising to his feet as every bone in his body screamed out in protest. “Guess I owe Nathaniel a favor.”

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