Role Playing Fan Fiction ❯ Purifying Hand of Flame ❯ Chapter 7

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Disclaimer. This story was created in the setting of White-Wolf's Exalted. Characters created by White-Wolf and not myself will be credited in notes. Reference to White-Wolf canonical storyline and published work will probably not be bothered with; it's part of the setting, which I admit to stealing whole cloth. I, Magical Savior, do not own this series and am not affiliated with White-Wolf in any way. Moving on.

*** Chapter 7

By the time I reached the first buildings of the town, I had a plan. The circumstances, the pieces I could put together, I understood what had happened out there. Mostly, anyway.

I could survive this night and see tomorrow. What I was about to do, I had no choice. But I knew what was needed to survive. I would save this woman, also. The town, perhaps not.

There weren't many places where this person could have come from other than here. And with an army of dead things right on there doorstep, what was going to happen next would have happened anyway, but without my "contributions" to making the living dead less... well, whatever.

Striding past a few abandoned thatch houses, I marched, single-mindedly, towards the center of this small town. All the buildings were made of wattle and daub or wood. There wasn't a defensible wall around this place. I couldn't believe how I had just walked right in... But I had an army of zombies still following me, and I didn't have the power to fight them anymore.

Sweet oblivion, I hadn't seen many guards around the edge of the town. What kind of town was this? This far in the east, bandits must be rampant. Imperial law couldn't hold back barbaric raiders, where there was no Empire!

There they were. As I saw the watch fires at the edge of the town, I started yelling at the top of my lungs. As loud as I could.

"THE DEAD WALK!! To arms! To arms!"

Vaguely, I could see people walk through doors and faces look out. People stared and rubbed sleep from their eyes. They snapped awake when they saw me. No one knew what was going on, except me.

"Weapons! Now! This town must be defended!"

A figure surrounded by blazing light normally attracts attention. It didn't take long before a mob of people formed. Soon, I was trailed by a procession as I marched through the streets, still yelling my doomsday omens.

I didn't get tothe center of town. I saw something more important, and I stopped. I would stand here, and I would do what I had to.

Right here.

"Here" was in front of the only two-story house I had seen so far. Thus, it must be someone important. It must be a leader. A leader must take charge. I needed go no farther.

"I AM A MESSENGER OF THE GODS," I yelled, "HEED ME!"

The double doors at the front of this massive wooden house did not stir. The people who were following me, I could hear them mutter among themselves as they stared, agape, at me and my words.

"The gods have declared this town will be destroyed," I said, as loud as I could. "I fought for your people, but your fate is sealed!"

Finally, I saw the balcony window open and an old man, still in night clothes, walked out. I almost swore. There was no way I could have time for this.

Someone in the crowd yelled out, "But what have we done?" Others in the crowd, they started yelling and shouting along with him. I let things build, as I was in front of the person supposedly "in charge."

It wasn't long before the people around me started closing in slowly, the cirtcle of emptiness enforced by the bright light I still radiated in sheets forcing them back. I almost worried I would have to fight, but the old man started waving his hands and yelling back at the crowd.

I stood motionless.

"The gods protect us," he yelled to me. His voice shook with age, but not indecision. "Our ancestor spirits watch over us!"

I shouted up to him, "No longer! This woman was harmed at the hands of your village! You have given up your protection!"

The old man was stubborn, and apparently confident in his "spirits." Well, I was confident in the undead army at my heels, which should be arriving to kill me any minute. I didn't have time to waste, but I knew the old man would speak again. Seconds ticked by in silence.

"Your little show is impressive," he said, "But it will take more than this to trick me, deceiver! What can you show me that will prove your words?"

The moment I had been waiting for. My power had been slowly refilling over the few hours I had walked back to this town, and I used it, right then and there. Releasing the woman's legs whom I had carried all this time, I set her carefully on the ground.

I lifted one arm high into the air, and I called power to me. A hand formed in the sky above me, huge and terrible, waiting as though it were, truly, the hand of an angry god. And the people around me, they were all sinners.

As if in slow motion, I let my open hand fall, then I moved my body in a wave and struck my open palm to the ground with great force. T fiery hand printed itself firmly on the earth, fully as tall as three men. I felt the earth itself move and fall with force, and I stood where I had carved my mark.

The woman was unharmed by the sheet of rolling flame. I could not harm the living with this. I had thought as much, but dearly, dearly doubted and feared. Even at the last minute, I feared I would finally, at last, incinerate even myself with my wrath.

It was the purifying fire I had called, and not the death-blow. Still, something happened. I crossed the threshold of power.

My aura flared, bright and massive, a tower of energy taller than the house I stood in front of. Everyone around me suddenly fell back at my brilliance and fire, seeing in my aura an image and embodiment of a great and terrible icon.

I had used so much power before, I had stood on the cusp of showing this "avatar." Not enough time had passed to allow it to fully fade, so it had been waiting. Briefly, I thought, the Dragon-bloods would be waiting, too.

I would be waiting for them.

Never would I know what they saw. Those people were staring into a vision that I would likely never witness, save until I met another like myself. This flux of power was like a great tornado, and I could never behold the full of it from the inside. But I knew they all saw a singular, burning totem.

I yelled out again, "Only this woman is protected! Her, who you rejected! Her, who you would have defiled!"

The power was in me. I had no more divine force to exert, but the appearance of power IS power. I would use this power.

"You must fight, now, to be found worthy of the lives you have!" I was screaming this out at the top of my lungs. "They are here!"

Quickly, I turned to face the way I had came. I pointed with my hand, and the crowd looked up as though the movement was mimicked, somehow in my aura. The crowd parted like water, unwilling to stand in front of my gaze.

"FACE THE DEAD, OR BECOME THEM!"

As if on cue, pathetic, shuffeling zombies moved into view. I rushed at them and began pummeling them with my feet, yelling and shouting for these fools to get weapons. My arms were dead, after carrying that woman so far. But I couldn't just cut and run so quickly; I couldn't be torn apart by this crowd instead.

A hero leads by example, after all.

I charged the zombies and started fighting on my own, hoping these idiots wouldn't simply stampede to escape the sight of death. Hope would be lost, then, and everyone would be lost along with it.

It took long minutes, but I had learned to avoid the slow rakes and bites of the zombies, blocking their strikes. It seemed the zombies had preternatural strength, as though their leader had only now bolstered them to truly fight me.

Still shouting commands, I yelled out that their heads must be destroyed if their souls were to be free. With snap kicks and roundhouses to the creatures' skulls, each head snapped back with a sharp "CRACK!" Some fell and were motionless. Others continued to fight.

Some of the crowd cut and ran. My efforts at bolstering them through my action may have been in vain.

I feared that I had made a mistake, a miscalculation. I was too weak, too injured. These people, they couldn't defend anything.

I broke through a line of zombies and fought into the middle of the knot of them, just as a line of villagers behind me tore into the undead with axes and clubs. It was a problem of not knowing your god's name, that you could not thank him at moments like this.

I battled and tore through the dead as best I could, fighting only to make way and not be dragged down. I was dead on my feet, using my whole body just to swing my arms, barely able to even close my hands into fists.

At last, I broke through. I ran in a straight line, continuing the path I had blazed into this village, yelling and shouting to all the houses I had not passed, hoping and fearing that the town was not, in fact, surrounded by the dead That there was no escape.

Still, I ran as fast as my legs could still carry me away from this scene. I could manage no more than a limping jog, but I had done my best. Those undead things would have attacked this town eventually, I believed. What else can an army of dead things DO?

After the destruction I had placed upon the horde, there would have been no better time for this town to try and fight them.

I ran past the outskirts of town. I ran past trees and plants, following no path. To stay there was to die, for me.

Dawn was very near, now. There were mere minutes of darkness left. Against the rising sun, perhaps my power could fade and I would not be found. The divine power, I could feel it still as it flowed through me. I wanted to fight those things, to face them again.

You can win, voices inside me seemed to say. You have the power inside yourself. Face them.

After I was far enough away, I struck out at trees, rocks, anything nearby to vent this powerful rage I felt. I was capable only of destruction, yet, I could no longer fight. I was exhausted.

Bluntly, my hands hit trees and rocks. I could feel them split and bleed, but could no longer see this world around me. I was in a storm of too much intensity, fighting with myself.

Would this be the third village destroyed by my presence? Or the fourth?

Surely, with every blow, I could shatter my surroundings as easily as I had once trained to break boards. With each kick, I sundered stone. With a touch, a tree fell as if struck by an axe of thunder. Surely, if I could do this, I could fight!

Or so it might have been, before this night. This was my limit. I could not stand against that onslaught. I had no choice. I fell heavily, my face slamming into mud and dirt. I tried to rise, but fell again, my eyes closing against my will. Flashes and darkness finally overtook me.

Everything was spinning, though I could not see or move. If I should sleep, would I be dead? The back of my head , I could feel it clotted with blood and matted hair. Would I have survived all that, to die in my sleep?

I retched and threw up nothing again, sickened by motion that did not exist and memories of the past. I could not stay awake till it was safe to sleep with this head wound. If I died now, I must make my peace.

I accomplished my goal. In that place where I left my mark - the mark of my hand - the undead would not dare go. I didn't know how I knew this. But it was certain. That ground was purified, sacrosanct, At least, for this night.

Slowly, reason returned to me. Nearby, I heard the splashing of a river in my path of destruction. I crawled into it on my hands and knees, dragged and raked over by cold water and sharp rocks.

It was shallow, but freezing. I thrashed and rolled and dragged myself painfully along the bottom of it before crawling, exhausted and on my belly, to the shore.

It was the spark of power in me I possessed, that made me believe I could take on such odds and win. Every step, I'd had to fight NOT to fight. Not to turn around and face a battle I couldn't win.

Power corrupts, it is said. Power could not corrupt me. I would be in control.

As I left myself there on the muddy shore in a beaten, soggy pile, my eyes closed of their own accord. Slowly, against my closed eyes, my sight turned red.

My rage was subdued, used, gone. It was the rising sun.