Chapter 11: The magic cleaving axe and the hollow wielder.

In an instant, Leshac overcame the sense of dread that Quayr inspired and, like a drop of water into a pool, sank into the shadows, hoping to simply grab the eye and flee.

Those same shadows were torn apart by the passage of an axe.

This axe was Quayr’s trusted weapon, it had gone through many forms, but it was an axe that had cleaved many spells, many magical creatures. So many that it had taken a nature of cleaving magic like a regular axe would cleave firewood, it was even the size of such a humble axe.

Its handle was curved, smooth and white as bleached bone, the head of the axe was chipped and cracked. The very air shied away from the axehead and if one had looked with magesight it was clear that the flow of magic split on contact with the edge.

“Stop hiding” Quayr muttered.

His axe spun along his fingers, his forearms, and tore the shadows as if they were but mere cloth, Leshac, still in the form of a mouse tumbled out.

Leshac shifted, a mouse became a mighty purple serpent, wide as two hands and long as more than a dozen arms! He stretched out, gleaming fangs aiming for Qauyr!

Qauyr however sneered and with a flash of his axe, there was a clinking sound and Leshac’s fangs were shorn off! Leshac shrieked but quickly changed to a kind of speedy hornet, both avoiding Qauyr second and third blows and taking the severed fangs back into his body.

Leshac fled again into the shadows.

This time he did not give Qauyr the chance to shear the shadows. The shadows rose up and flew through the air like crows, but there was an ominous sharpness to them.

Qauyr let loose a mighty swing of his axe, blowing the flows of magic back, but a whisper by Leshac from the shadows and the shadow birds became a swarm of insects, each finding their own way to avoid the shockwave of the axe.

The insects melded together again into the form of bird and with fervour dived at Qauyr. His axe twirled in his palms, turning the birds into splatters of shadow, though one or two managed to rake his body with a bladed wing.

Leshac had no intentions of allowing such a dangerous enemy to gain an advantage and had already as the birds attacked, followed up the strike! He descended from the shadows of the ceiling in the form of a black winged white tiger!

Triumph was in sight!

…but without even looking, Qauyr flicked his fingers and bent his waist, his axe twirled up his forearm and severed a whole wing from Leshac.

Leshac crashed into the ground, his charge thrown off. However, Leshac though not yet fully recovered as a mage, was a dark wizard! Hidden beneath his wings were a number of floating spears made of darkness!

The ones beneath the wing that was severed were dashed apart, but the others were quite intact.

One spear flew wide and splashed into one of the walls, shrouding it in darkness.

One was met by Qauyr’s axe and came undone.

The last one hit, though not as true as it could have been.

For the first time since the fight began, Qauyr took a step back as the spear vanished into his shoulder the limb attached to it becoming obscured and going quite limp and useless.

Leshac collected his lost wing and turned into the form of a large orange crab with a bumpy shell and a pair of black metallic pincers.

Quickly he snipped at the shadows, pulling them free of their places, then he cut them into rough humanoid shapes. As he did so, Qauyr passed his axe over his darkness bound limb. It was restored as soon as the axe passed by, following that, Qauyr let loose a mighty yell and leapt like a salmon upriver to Leshac.

The axe spun out along Qauyr’s forearm, the flow of magic in shreds at its passage.

Leshac raised both his pincers to defend his body, throwing darkness in front of himself wildly in a panic too.

In spite of that the axe dug deep, sinking more than halfway into Leshac’s pincers, not only that, Leshac felt a dangerous force entering his body at the moment of wounding.

Vorpal Force!

Leshac’s body shuddered and his heart was filled with dismay. He had read of vorpal force before, but never had he experienced it himself. Quickly Leshac hissed seven words of shade and the shadows rushed like a tide and crashed into Qauyr, and though that murderer of magic held out his axe, he was still swept back.

Leshac’s body twisted through many forms in quick sequence, and he flung himself away from Qauyr. He needed time to deal with the vorpal force! A dark command fell from his mouth and flew into the humanoid shadows he had cut out.

With a twitch they sprang up and clawed at Qauyr, some even attacking his own shadow directly.

Qauyr’s axe flew about his arms, but the shadows seemed to put each other back together and there always seemed to be at least one he missed.

Leshac for his part thrashed along the ground, shifting forms, as for a changeling like himself, that was normally how his kind healed wounds, simply shift into a form that didn’t have the wounds.

It wasn’t working too well with the vorpal force, that carried such a strong wounding attribute.

Finally he turned into a gem encrusted lizard and his tail fell off. Trapped into the tail was the vorpal force. Leshac quickly leapt away as the tail withered and tendrils of wounding energies tried to find life.

Quayr had managed to kick the shadows off for a moment and, though bearing many wounds on his body, his axe descended upon Leshac once more!

At this point Leshac knew that the axe was not a thing he could block.

Leshac turned into the form of a shadowy hound with a nest of bony spines poking though its back, he let loose a howl filled with magic, white eyes flashing and the dark heeded his call. His forelegs which should have been without wound, were however cracked.

It turned into hounds and Quayr was beset from every angle, but he did not fall, his axe snaked around his arms and skipped in his palms, twirled in his fingers. Yet the hounds did not cease.

Leshac pulled up three spears of darkness. He began to float and a low growl came from the back of his throat.

“I declare you unbeloved by the dark, by shadow, I am cherished by their shade, you spurned. Heed my call, listen to my voice, have I not gazed deeply into you, as one does a lover. You embrace me, I embrace you. For me, you will betray even your master, come poor servant. Love me and deny him.”

The three spears shattered into butterflies and far too innocently and slowly flitted towards Quayr, and there was naught he could do, the hounds of darkness would not allow him.

The butterflies sank into his shadow one by one, and the shadow quivered.

Quayr’s shadow betrayed him.

Leshac brought forth one of his possessions, using Quayr’s shadow as a portal.

A shimmering lance of light and dark tore into Quayr, surely a fatal blow.

But at the moment of betrayal, Quayr had severed his own shadow, without any hesitation at all.

Thus the blow while dire, was not fatal.

So wounded, Quayr stumbled over to the altar on which the crimson eye lay malevolently.

“I was once a simple man…” His words came out ragged.

“…but in my works, I have become a terror, a nightmare of dreams. I have paid heavy costs, and I have no fear.”

He grabbed the crimson eye and thrust it into the place on his helm.

He contorted oddly. His back was turned to Leshac, who was bringing all he could to attack him before something happened.

“This power!” His voice was joyful and his wounds closed.

His body contorted again and the axe fell from his grasp.

“No, get out, I haven’t fought against so many of your ilk to fall here, get out of my mind, get out of my spirit, don’t drag your claws in me… I won’t…”

He spun around and gave such a shout that Leshac and his attacks were blown back, then he wailed in agony, clutching his face.

He went silent.

His hands fell away, revealing a pair of eyes filled with bitterness and hate.

A pair of sickly yellow eyes. The mark of a chlan.