章 255: In the Moonlight
"Ahhh! It hurts! It hurts! You're tearing me apart!"
Nathaniel felt the unusual urge to roll his eyes. He never knew that his magic was such a sissy. First, it asked for his help, and now it screamed like a pig on the slaughter bench because of a little pain. And why could it even feel pain? Its body was nothing but insidious black smoke that appeared like a black liquid in its compressed form. There were no tendons, no bones, no flesh, and no nerves - in short, nothing that could hurt.
"Shall I stop pulling then?", Nathaniel asked sarcastically in his mind. Well, if that magic of his wanted to go by itself, all the better for him.
"No, no, no! Please don't let go! Don't let goo-oo-ouuuuuuch!"
It felt like mentally pulling on an elastic band, Nathaniel decided. Somewhere where he couldn't see, something else was pulling the other end, turning the band longer and longer. It got harder for him to hold on with each passing second.
Then, with a last loud howl from the darkness, the band snapped, leaving only the smaller end in Nathaniel's mental hands. The rest was pulled further and further away until he couldn't feel it anymore. The darkness around him was now cut off, a little mist left behind when the big waves left.
A cold smile graced the corners of Nathaniel's lips. Perfect. This was just the right amount of darkness to control again. After all, he would never trust this gluttonous magic one bit, even if it had a voice now. He would not rest assured if the lives of his comrades were again in the hands of such a treacherous being.
In the second the biggest part of the magic was drawn away - devoured, as Blacky'd called it - Nathaniel resumed control of the remains and forced it to gather behind him.
"Be a good magic and do what your master commands," he thought, not without some schadenfreude. In his head, Nathaniel heard the complaints of Blackie, but with the small part of magic left, it was only a grumble in the background. Blackie was helpless once again.
Nathaniel was pretty sure that the magic didn't think about this outcome before and surely didn't like it. But what did he care? Did it not eat his comrades without care as well?
Bit by bit, a barren stretch of land was revealed. Where the darkness rioted before, and even a bit up the mountains, not a blade of grass was left.
"Where is the enemy?"
It was one of the surviving soldiers that asked the question everyone thought as the battlefield was revealed. "Where they... all devoured by that darkness?"
Not a soul was left all the way from the forest's edges - which seemed to have strangely shifted back - to the foothills of the two mountains. Yet, where the enemy army should have stood was a small silvery lake, glistening under the moonlight. Some puddles were even closer to them, though the soldiers hadn't felt a drop of rain while encased in the darkness.
Surprised and bewildered, the soldiers turned to their commander, hoping against reason that he could explain that phenomenon. Nathaniel, though, only slowly walked out, retracing the steps they'd taken in the darkness. At certain points, he bent down to pick something from the ground. First a dagger, then a sword, a pendant, another sword... it took a while until the soldiers understood that they were the remains of their fallen comrades.
With subdued emotions, their eyes returned to the lakes and puddles of silver in the distance. Were these the remaining possessions of their enemies? Acknowledging this thought, they could barely recognize the outlines of armor, shields, and helmets. Neither a lake nor puddles existed, just the steel skeletons of lost souls. Their mood, formerly raised by the lifted threat of the darkness, turned somber.
"What a cruel fate," one of them muttered, and shivered at the thought that the same could've happened to him very easily.
"Just why did it spare our group?" another wondered.
"It was obviously because of the Prince. Didn't you see it move when he did?" The last speaker uttered his suspicions very quietly, as Nathaniel was not far away. "Just what the hell was that darkness... And why was it afraid of our commander?"
Nathaniel's soldiers in Dragsa had no clue about his magical prowess. After all, this was something he held close to his chest. Even most subordinates in the Icelands had no clue. In the present situation, they had no choice but to make their own guesses.
Then one of them exclaimed: "Look! Over there! On the mountainside! No, nearly at the top!"
Everyone's gazes shifted to the mountain. There, almost invisible in the night, they discovered the residuals of the formerly mighty army fighting with another group that all but vanished in the darkness. The army was only slightly more visible because their armor reflected the moonlight.
While his soldiers tried to discern who the other group might be with narrowed eyes and furrowed brows, Nathaniel returned to their side. For a few seconds, he followed their gazes, and a wrinkle formed between his white brows. Then he shook his head and sternly addressed his soldiers.
"Are you dead already, or why are you still on the ground? Lift your asses. None of you is allowed to rest before we find my wife."
Hastily, his subordinates scrambled to their feet. Nathaniel didn't wait for them. With a pace that only fell short of running, he headed in the direction of a tunnel. It was the same tunnel he'd seen the Duke of Sleipnir enter with his wife, and yet, he had the nagging feeling that we wouldn't find her at the end. Even in the shadow of the dark magic, crossing the battlefield had taken way too long.
Behind Nathaniel, slightly higher in the air, followed the rest of the dark mist, and it was due to that menacing sight that the soldiers dared not come closer to their commander. They preferred to keep a ten-step distance from the substance that had nearly taken their lives.
"Why is it following our commander?", one dared to mutter. But nobody answered since they had no idea either.
Noticing the reluctant gazes of his soldiers, Nathaniel halted abruptly at the tunnel entrance. "Now that I think about it: I actually don't need your help. You all better go up there and decimate that army a bit. I will come to find you later."
"But, commander..."
Nathaniel's menacing red glare landed on the soldier before he could lodge his complaint. "What? The few of you are not helpful anyway if you don't even dare to approach a subdued threat like this." He pointed at the dark mist, then turned around and entered the tunnel. "What would really help me would be a horse... who knows how long this road is..."
Stunned, the soldiers remained at the entrance, while Nathaniel's back slowly got smaller. Then they exchanged glances, some worried, some sorrowful.
"I feel really useless right now," one finally voiced the thoughts of them all. "Really, completely useless."
Then they started their march up the mountain, fairly certain that the battle up there would be over before they even reached the vicinity.
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