FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

So I've been sitting on the novel sequel to Blood And Water for a couple years now. I've been shy on editing it too much because I've been struggling to find the right way to put it up for people. I considered publishing it through a furry press, but I doubt they'd want it. I considered self-pubbing it, but I don't think I've got the brand recognition to justify me charging for it. I even considered a pay-what-you-want sort of situation, but again, I don't think in its current state that Insurrection deserves something like that.

Add to that the fact that this year has been literally the worst and I don't have a FCMTS series for this year, and the solution is simple. This is the next chapter in Deacon and Bain's story. This is Blood And Water: Insurrection. This, at long last, is yours to enjoy. I hope you do.

• Faora

Blood And Water - Insurrection

Part One: ULURN

Chapter One

The flames were out again.

It wasn't the first time that Lady Kan had beheld the troubling sight in recent days. The dragoness drew her cloak tighter around her middle as she leaned over the round table that surrounded the massive fire pit. The central chambers were cold without the constant emerald flame that flared in its heart. The small, white globes that were scattered across the table shed lifeless and heatless arcane light. "How long?" she asked, her voice little more than a growl.

Sixteen chairs ringed the table. Five were empty. Three of those empty chairs were draped in thick tapestries, torn from the wall and laid in the empty places. None of the similarly-cloaked occupants of the remaining chairs dared even look up at Kan's query. Instead, their shadowed faces simply stared into the pit.

Kan frowned as she drew her hood back. The fearsome, hollowed visage of a very old and very angered white-scaled dragoness emerged into the dim light of the chamber as she slid down into her seat. Claws clacked against the surface of the table as they crackled with electricity, but she lifted her hands again before they could gouge new marks. "And where in the world has_Cecilie_ run off to?"

That, it seemed, was a question that the others could answer. A few cast furtive glances around the table before one figure sighed. "We cannot see her," admitted the figure, his voice quiet. "Since the flames were extinguished, none of us have seen her. None of us have seen anything."

A fist slammed down atop the table. Kan's head whipped to face the growling tiger who owned it, but no one else flinched. "And we cannot waste our time and efforts on locating her! There are greater forces at work that must be attended first. The flames are silent! Fate has chosen to abandon us, and we-"

"Peace, Master Tamil," Kan said as she raised a white-scaled hand. She saw the tiger's eyes zero in on her fingers, and he relaxed immediately back into his chair. "Cecilie's grasp of the Sight is the strongest of us all. If the time has come -- if the Advent is upon us -- her counsel will be invaluable."

New energy flashed in Tamil's eyes as he looked past Kan's hand and into her eyes. "Then you have not had the dreams. You haven't seen the destruction that comes with the blood-moon's rise."

Kan's eyes narrowed. She knew exactly what he was talking about, but the obvious challenge in his tone was of considerably greater concern. "And what would you have us do, Master Tamil?" she asked as she lifted her eyeridges. Kan folded her hands over one another atop the table as she favored him with a smile. "Please. The Ring of Fate awaits your plan."

His gaze flicked to one of the uncovered but empty chairs, and a few pairs of eyes followed from around the table. "You believe Cecilie is the greatest asset we have, but she is gone. We all agree that Oswell is the greatest threat to our goals. Your plan of passive protection and monitoring of his creation is not sufficient any further."

"There is nothing passive about the plans that we, as a collective, have instituted," Kan answered. She maintained that soft, easy smile as her eyes narrowed further. To her credit, Tamil shrunk back from the glare. At least he still knew why she headed the table. "We have lost seven acolytes and three masters in the last month, Master Tamil. Surely you do not suggest we place more of our very precious number in harm's way."

He straightened slightly in his chair, though now he found himself at least unable to meet her gaze. "All respect, my lady, but we may not be able to protect any of our number should Cecilie's visions come to pass. Oswell was a threat, but his creation is more powerful by far. We must strike before it takes on the full power it was built to wield."

"We cannot merely observe," agreed a soft, female voice from across the table. Two white-gloved paws stroked across the surface of the table as a shadowed head shook side to side. "Observation will not ensure our safety and security. We who know the future have a responsibility to see disaster averted. Your own words, my Lady. We must move, and move quickly."

Kan leaned back in her own chair as she regarded this new challenge. Perhaps Tamil had more support than she had anticipated. At the words, more than a few heads began to nod along. "And then I extend to you the same offer, Master Aeola," replied the dragoness with the wave of one bony hand. "What would you have this body do?"

One of those gloved paws lifted to tug the hood of Aeola's cloak down a little further over her face. "Allow Tamil and I to secure Oswell's rogue vessel. If we can capture it, so much the better. We both have the skills necessary to examine it and determine if it is the threat Cecilie warned of, and then dispose of it when it is of no further use."

"And if you cannot capture it?" Kan asked as she watched Aeola intently.

The response was an easy shrug. "Then we waste no time with interrogation and skip ahead to the disposal."

As she glanced back at the extinguished fire pit, Kan knew that it was no use. She could force them to step back into line, of course, but that would only further feed the unrest she could feel boiling away. The flames had never been silenced since the inception of their organization. It was the most ill of omens; a warning of only the most dire days to come. The fear around the table was strong. Fear bred rashness.

Finally, she lifted her eyes again and cast her gaze around the table. "And this would satisfy you all?" she asked with furrowed eyeridges. "You, who know better than any how the smallest action can alter the very vulnerable future we seek? Sending two of our most capable combatants against the very threat that you fear is strong enough to defeat us all as we stand together? To perhaps incite action against us?"

"They need not fight to the death," pointed out one figure.

"If outmatched, they could withdraw to where we are all waiting," agreed another.

"The vessel cannot possibly know where we are."

"Retribution is impossible."

"It cannot be given a chance to grow in strength."

"The Ring is silent. We cannot sit by, idle."

Each voice of assent for Aeola's plan burned like fire, but Kan was in no position to deny them. It was foolish, but she had no choice. The Ring had spoken. "Then in the absence of Her flames, we must hope that Masters Tamil and Aeola are as powerful and wise as the Mistress of Fate Herself." She nodded to Tamil, and forced herself to remain calm at the smug smile on his face. "You can do this without compromising our existing efforts?"

"We will do this," he replied as he pushed back from the table and stood. Across from him, Aeola similarly rose. "We will gather what we need and depart immediately. Oswell's creation will not know what hit it."

Kan clasped both hands together and set them down atop the table as she fixed Tamil with one last firm stare. "See that it does not. If the vessel is capable of tracking you back here, then you will have brought Cecilie's visions of ruin to bear. Should they come to pass, you had best hope that the vessel has destroyed you long before I have the chance."

There was one last flicker of fear that shot across Tamil's features, but he nodded nonetheless. The tiger turned on one heel and marched out of the chamber, and Aeola followed suit a moment later. She, at least, had the decency to offer Kan a nod of respect before she moved.

Kan waited until both Tamil and Aeola had left before she lifted her head and cast another glance around the room. Two more chairs empty. The fires of the Ring in the heart of the room were still extinguished. Their holy light was gone, and Kan herself feared that she was about to lose control. The Ring of Fate was the last line of defense for the world against the most ancient of evils. The resurgent threat of Oswell could only help them see to their own end.

But there was no sense in fearing for the future. Kan lifted her head and drew her hood back up over it once more. Fear was for those without the knowledge to see the future and the wisdom to parse its flow. "Very well," she said at last as she leaned forward once more, "You have taken Fate into your own hands. Two masters have gone to face Oswell's vessel. The rest of you will return to your assigned tasks.

"Perhaps once the vessel is destroyed, we can finally attend to the end of all things."

"Deacon?"

The fox's head snapped up as he turned to glance behind him. There in the doorway stood a familiar otter, leaning against the doorframe with an expression of equally familiar concern. Deacon affected a smile even as he rubbed the back of his paw across his eyes and set down the book in his other paw. "Bain? What are you doing up?"

Bain simply frowned all the deeper as he stepped into the library. He looked up and took in the rows and rows of shelving for a few seconds before he could respond. No matter how many times he'd gone to that library to pull Deacon away from all manner of esoteric magical tomes, the sight always seemed to awe him. "I was gonna ask you that," he replied with a shake of his head. "I feel like I barely fell asleep. Why are you here?"

Deacon forced his smile to broaden as he stood from his chair. Unlike Bain, he'd at least taken the opportunity to pull on a loose robe after he'd left their shared bedroom. "I, uh... woke up with a new idea," he replied as he waved a paw to the book. Out of Bain's view, the cover blurred as the title's lettering began to shift. "I wanted to double-check if there was anything like it in Oswell's notes before I started experimenting with-"

"Stop." Bain lifted a single paw and shook his head again. "Stop it, Deacon. Don't lie to me. Please don't lie to me."

Both of the fox's ears started to droop before he could stop them. How did Bain always seem to know? He didn't have any magical means of perception. Deacon suspected that years and years of being forced by his creator to tell the truth under threat of pain had just left him a poor liar. "Even if it is for your own good?"

Bain shook his head harder."Especially if you think that," he replied. He walked over and wrapped his arms tightly around Deacon's middle in a surprise hug that caught the fox off-guard. "I need you to stop trying to do what you think is best for me. That's all you've done since..." He paused and cocked his head in against Deacon's neck. "Well... actually, since we met."

The fox smiled as he squeezed the otter tightly back. "One way or another, I suppose," he agreed as he took a moment to nuzzle into Bain's cheek. "Alright. I promise to try. I just want you safe and happy. That is all."

"Lying to me won't help that," Bain pointed out as he drew back. His paws came down to rest on Deacon's hips, and there they stayed as he stared into the fox's eyes. "So. The truth."

Deacon nodded slowly. Would that it was so easy. "The truth," he echoed, and took a deep breath. "Alhiin root isn't helping anymore. No matter how strong I brew the tea, I keep having the nightmares. Always the same nightmares. Oswell, trying to take control of me. Oswell, _succeeding_in taking control of me."

The otter remained silent as Deacon shook his head. "No matter what I do, the dreams keep coming. They keep feeling more and more real. The Alhiin root helped for a time, but it will kill me if I brew it any stronger. Instead, I have... elected to stop sleeping. When I can, that is." One eyebrow perked slightly. "Magic can sustain me, but not forever. I have to rest sometime. This..." he waved a paw toward the shelves and shelves of books, "is as close to sleep as I come." He didn't say that he'd not slept in three days, or that the headaches that came with them had grown worse. Deacon was sure it showed on his face, and he'd grown used to not saying certain things around the otter anyway.

Bain nodded as he brought one paw back up. It traced along Deacon's side and down his arm before his fingers interlocked with the vulpine's. "And I'm no comfort?" he asked.

Deacon's eyes went wide as he shook his head and squeezed tight at the otter's paw. "Of course you are," he answered. "When you are not exhausting me, you are the greatest comfort I could have ever hoped for. If not for you, I fear I might have gone mad long before now. You keep me sane. This is just... restful. Relaxing, almost. There is a familiarity to these pages. It is easy to lose myself in them."

"Just as long as you don't lose yourself completely," replied Bain. He leaned up and planted a gentle kiss on the tip of the fox's nose. The concern was still written all across his features, but it had softened somewhat. The truth seemed to have taken away his frustration. "What book is that? Something fun? Princesses to be saved from monsters? Evil emperors and plucky heroes?"

The fox chuckled as he turned toward the small book and held out a paw. He reached out with his mind and willed it forward, and the tome lifted into the air and slowly hovered into his grip. "Nothing quite so fanciful, alas," he apologized as he brought the book up between them to show Bain. "It is merely a tome on magical defensive techniques. I thought I might try to gain a better understanding of how Oswell prepared the manor to fend off intruders so that I can fully activate the systems he left behind."

Deacon could see the otter's expression change, and it drew a frown across his brow as one ear flattened. "Alright. Now what is it?"

"Nothing, I... I guess I just still don't like this place." Bain stepped back from Deacon and hugged himself tight as he cast his gaze to the ceiling. "I get it. Nice library. Fine bedroom. Well-stocked dungeon."

"Laboratory," Deacon grumbled, as his other ear flattened.

"I just hoped you could take what you like and leave the rest so we could build a new home. Or... hells, I don't know... at least burn all of this down." Bain shook his head as he squeezed his middle tighter. "I get it. This is familiar for you. For me... it's just always going to be where he_made_ us. Where he cut me open and left me there, hanging on by a magical thread I couldn't even understand."

Deacon felt a shiver run through him. There had indeed been horrors that had gone on within the walls of Oswell's manor. "It is also where we met," he pointed out with a smile.

It was the wrong thing to say, and Deacon realized it a second too late. Bain pushed away from him, and the force of the gesture knocked the book to the floor. "Only because he killed me over and over again and kept making new bodies for me to inhabit," he growled back. "Only because the me you met in the village that I remember as mine wasn't even really me."

The fox reached out, only to have his paw ignored. He tried again and this time reached to grasp at the otter's paws, and was gratified when Bain allowed him a gentle grip. "Yes. Because we met in the laboratory, because the otter that you were in the village is not who you are now. You are different, just as I am different from Oswell."

Bain's face took on a crestfallen expression as he glanced away and winced. "He's... been gone so long now, I forgot you've got the same face. I'm... I'm sorry, Deacon. You've had a harder time than me with all this, haven't you? You're just trying to keep me safe, and trying to keep us alive. Trying to do his work without being him..."

Deacon gently tugged the otter forward and wrapped his arms back around Bain's middle. He sighed and leaned in as he felt the otter return his embrace. The otter's moodiness was becoming more random. "He made you for an experiment. He made me just so he could take my body. It is not easy for either of us, and I understand that this home is unpleasant for you. Until I can master the same defensive enchantments that make this manor so defensible, we have no choice. You understand?"

The otter gave a soft nod and closed his eyes as Deacon squeezed him a little tighter. "I understand. And I even understand if you don't wanna come back to bed, even if I'd really like you to help me get back to sleep."

"You are incorrigible," Deacon mumbled, his voice muffled by the otter's fur as he kissed Bain's neck. The otter always had exactly one idea of how Deacon could help him sleep, and it tended instead to delay sleep for a considerable period. "Go back to bed, dear one. I promise not to turn into an omnicidal maniac until at least after breakfast."

"You better not," Bain muttered back, though he lingered in Deacon's embrace just long enough to plant a soft kiss on the fox's muzzle. He stepped back with a tired smile and, while the concern was still present on his face, it seemed to be even further lessened. Satisfied for at least the moment, he turned and headed out of the library.

Deacon watched him go, still smiling until the otter had passed from view. There he allowed his held breath to release in a long, slow sigh. He knelt down to the book that Bain had knocked away and gently picked it back up. He frowned as he reached out with his mind again to dispel the mirage-like illusion he'd placed on it. The lettering of the title shimmered back into its original shape.

Bain couldn't read; Deacon had learned that long ago. The sons of bakers had no reason to learn script. He'd begun to instruct the otter in such matters, but it was such slow going that it was possible the deception hadn't even been necessary. Still, a book titled The Art Of Aerun-Based Magical Defense Systems was innocuous enough to the otter. The words that stared back at Deacon from the true cover -- Arcane Diseases And Afflictions Of The Spirit -- would just have concerned him.

After all, the reading wasn't really for Deacon's personal benefit.

He glanced back at the doorway. The fox half expected to see Bain standing there again, having caught him in another lie. But no; the otter had caught him out once, and the greater lie -- his greater fear -- was still concealed. Deacon sighed again as he sank back down into the chair he'd occupied when the otter had entered. Deacon's nightmares were one thing, but he feared what was happening to Bain.

Oswell's research had been clear, and Deacon had been over it dozens of times. It had been his first port of call when they had agreed to hole up in Oswell's manor while they decided where to make a permanent residence of their own. Bain had been built to serve his purpose and die. Once Oswell had what he wanted, Bain's body wouldn't matter. Bain wouldn't matter. Oswell would have had the otter's latent powers, and he didn't need Bain alive.

The degeneration that Deacon had taken great pains to try and control had been stemmed in some regards by the judicious application of the fox's native fraen powers, applied carefully while Bain slept. He'd told the otter nothing, of course. There was no need to tell him that Oswell's work was going to kill him, even months after Oswell himself was gone. That would only induce fear, and further add to the degeneration's effects.

Deacon felt one paw curl into a fist at the thought of it, and he felt the air tingle with electricity. No matter which of Oswell's texts he read and what information he found, the result was always the same. There was no healing magic in the world that would stop the degeneration of Bain's body. It had started, and all Deacon could do was slow it down. His unstable emotional state was just the first step. Soon he'd weaken. His body would fail shortly after. Death would be inevitable, if not from the degeneration then from multiple organ failure. It would be gruesome and it would be painful and Deacon would be unable to do anything but watch.

Helpless.

The scent of ozone hit his nostrils, and Deacon glanced down at his paw as a flicker of electricity arced between his knuckles. He forced his fist to uncurl, and frowned as he saw bloody claw indents in his grip. The fox sighed, and his shoulders and ears both slumped as he willed a small burst of _fraen_magic to mend the flesh. The pain, once intense enough to cause a cry, now barely grit his teeth.

Again came that crackle of electricity, and Deacon's eyes widened. There, somewhere deep in the back of his mind, he could feel it. Not the aerun powers of Oswell's that he still couldn't control, but something else. The fox shot up out of the chair and all but ran from the library as he felt his whole body tingle. It hadn't been him at all.

The manor's defenses had been activated and alerted him. The outer layers were failing.

They were under attack.

Deacon ran into the hall as he reached out with his thoughts. He could feel Bain's presence, a cool counterpoint to the hot alert that shot through his nerves. His mental warning for and summons of the otter was enough to rouse him from sleep as Deacon broke into a sprint. He leaped into the air as he met the end of the hall and planted his footpaws against the wall to his left. A magically-assisted push sent him around the corner at high speed, racing toward the balcony that overlooked the lobby.

The fox's paw barely caught the balustrade before it swung him over the edge and down, and he tumbled head over tail before he landed in a crouch. His head lifted as he felt the protective enchantments around the edge of the manor strip away; each one peeled at his mind like layers of skin from his body. Deacon snarled as he bit back the pain and dove deeper into it, integrating himself with the magical systems that Oswell had put into place decades earlier.

His sense of his body fell away as his mind traced through the latticework of crystal that conducted magical energy through the manor. He could feel it now; the thrum of the house around him; the pulse of the magic that flooded the crystal lines like blood through veins; the hostile presence whose power was shattering layers of shielding.

Deacon felt himself recoil at the force of the attack. Oswell had forged the defensive enchantments around the manor over nearly a century. He'd honed it to a fine art. And yet the assailant that pressed through it -- through Deacon, as he integrated himself into the defense -- possessed a power unlike anything he had ever felt.

A familiar power, though. There was something about it that Deacon couldn't place, as he began to extend himself into the weaker points in the defensive net. He could tell almost nothing of the entity that ripped through the defensive layers. The magic was ulurn in nature; rooted in the element of earth. There was but one assailant, which was small mercy. One emotion gave the entity strength enough to push through the pain that the manor's defenses inflicted: hate. There was so much raw hatred in the attacker that it may as well have been demonspawn.

And yet, he could feel a nearly recognizable presence in the heart of all of that rage. It scratched at his awareness even as he felt another layer of the defensive field fall under the assault, and the fur on the back of Deacon's neck began to rise. Oswell's defenses had been nigh-on impregnable. What in the world was attacking them?

Finally, he felt the entity push back in for another run at the manor. Breath caught in Deacon's throat as he waited, and waited, and waited... and_struck_. His will clashed with the piercing wave of the attacker's magical might as it pressed in against the defenses once more, and he took a hold of that invasive spear of thought and wrenched it aside.

The surprise from the entity was easy to feel through the connection Deacon had forged, but it didn't pause its attack. There was a roar of rage that rippled through the fox's awareness as he bent that shard of offensive thought, and that rage flooded through Deacon with enough force to curl the fox's muzzle into a sympathetic snarl. It carried with it a whisper; a breathless growl of just one word.

Oswell.

Deacon felt his defense snap back as the word echoed over and over through the back of his mind. He lost his balance and stumbled back, and one paw thrust out to catch him before he hit the ground. The fox shook his head to try and clear it as he glanced up at the manor's large double doors. They pulsed and flickered with arcane lightning as the entity outside continued to test the defensive enchantments.

But even as Deacon looked up at the door, he knew the truth. The presence outside wasn't Oswell. Oswell wouldn't need to brute-force his way through his own enchantments. He could pick them all apart one by one, or worm his way through between them. Someone else, then; powerful, and with a terrible grudge against Deacon's creator.

With gritted teeth, Deacon opened himself back up to the manor and allowed his consciousness to flood through its conduits. He could feel the entity outside rearing back for another strike, already dangerously close to penetrating the manor's walls. The magi took a deep breath as he prepared himself. Then, as the entity struck, he did the unthinkable.

He lowered all of the defenses.

Every arcane globe inside the manor shattered under the assault as the entity's power flooded the house's crystalline conduits. Some of them exploded in particularly spectacular fashion; gouts of green lightning arced from their insides as the glass and crystal that held the energy in place ruptured. But with the attacking force pressed so deep within the walls of the manor, it was trapped. Deacon felt his face twitch and smile as he raised the defenses once more. Then he began to constrict them.

The defensive fields closed closer and closer around Deacon's body as he felt the extended will of the attacking magi batter uselessly against the compressing walls all around it. Then, when it had nowhere to go but the lobby, Deacon released the defenses and felt his mind shoot back into his body. There was a moment of disorientation as he snapped from one sense back to five, but when his eyes cleared he could see it at last.

It was a shade; the shadowy form of some poor creature or other for whom death was not the end. The lower half of its body was a torrent of swirling darkness, more impenetrable than the darkest night. The upper half was a demoniacally twisted apparition, perhaps originally canine but long since consumed by the demonic power that gave it new life. Two beady green eyes glared at Deacon as a bony, clawed paw lifted to point at him. "Fragment..." it hissed. "Parasite... echo...

"Oswell!" The shade's other paw lifted as it pulled the first back, and sparkling green light flashed in its grip a moment before a bolt of energy was loosed. Deacon dodged to the side with barely enough time to avoid the blow, his own paw lifted to forestall another bolt before it could come. By the time the shade launched it, Deacon was already well prepared to bend it with his own powers. The sparkling energy struck the balustrade above, and the old wood splintered and caught fire.

The shade wrenched one arm up, and Deacon's only warning was the sudden quaking of the ground beneath him. He found himself swiftly tossed to the floor as it began to crack under the entity's power, and shards of obsidian rose from the floor to ensnare the fox. He barely managed to free one arm, and with a grunt of pain he cast it toward the shade and channeled all of his power into a single burst.

That fiery bolt caught the shade in the center of its form, and the shadow swirled around the impact like smoke on water. The creature roared, and an echo split Deacon's skull asunder as flames licked around it. "Parasite," it hissed as the fingers of stone swept the constricted Deacon closer. "Surrender. Give... me... Oswell..."

Deacon cried out as he felt the obsidian start to squeeze him tighter. Pain crushed in from all sides as he found himself staring right into the apparition's eyes. "I'm... I'm not him," he growled with as much breath as he could muster. Flames flashed from within the stone prison that held his body, and the obsidian began to glow from the inside as Deacon flooded it with his fraen powers.

"Not... yet," the creature hissed back. The glow in its eyes brightened as its shadowy maw pulled into a wicked smile, and the obsidian closed tighter around Deacon.

The fox grunted as he pushed back against it with all of his might. His eyes squeezed tightly shut as he fought to channel every ounce of his power into one last forceful shove. There was no target to the eruption save for away from Deacon. The heat he'd already bled through the stone had only weakened it slightly, but that was enough. Chunks of black stone heated to a glowing red blasted out around Deacon as he fell back to the torn-open floor again.

He shook his head to try to bring it back to focus. Before he could, the shade rushed forward on invisible legs and launched a single punch right at Deacon's chest. The fox ducked away from it, but the shadows still rippled through his shoulder. There was no physical force to the blow, but ice cold and burning heat swept through in equal measure. It wasn't until he'd clamped his muzzle shut that he realized that he'd screamed.

Instinct took over in place of training as he stretched a paw up toward the shade. Flame swirled in his paw, but it was a crimson bolt of electricity that instead lanced out. Whereas Deacon's earlier firebolt had only seemed to anger the apparition, the lightning bolt arced out from the creature's head and sent jagged shards of electricity through its nebulous form. The dark swirl of its lower body took on a hellish crimson glow as Deacon lifted his other paw.

The air swept around the shade as Deacon whipped it into a vortex. Energy arced off the illumination globes on the walls in bright blue bolts that were drawn into the creature. It tumbled end over end, unable to right itself as it hissed and snarled in frustration and anger. Deacon's eyes narrowed as he growled low and deep. "You... cannot... have me!"

Both paws swept up sharply as Deacon grasped the entity as surely as he could. Its intangible nature made it hard to grip even with magic, but the shade roared in pain and frustration as it was forced into contact with the defense field once again. Energy arced across the walls as the shadowy fiend twitched and jerked. Deacon fought to pin it in place as it struggled to flee the energy that coursed through its body.

It was too strong to fight directly. Deacon was sure of that, even as tendrils of its awareness snaked out and began to probe back at his mental grip again. Even as he held it there, lashing it against the defense fields and the titanic energies that provided their protection, he knew he didn't have the strength to destroy the fiend. He wasn't even sure if he had the power to merely banish it. Determination replaced fear as he came to the only conclusion he could, and mentally called to Bain. The otter would know what to do.

There was a brief moment as Deacon diverted his attention to tap back into the defensive enchantments of the manor where he feared the entity would break free. Its power was immense. He could feel echoes of it scratching at his mind. That one second he stared into its eyes -- rather into the pools of glowing green insanity that lay where eyes would be on any reasonable creature -- had been a second too long. It had felt like tiny barbed spears protruding into his skull.

He felt his control over the shade's form begin to fade just as he integrated himself back into the manor once more. New energy lit up Deacon's focused senses, and he pushed with everything he had to finish closing the defense fields. They collapsed completely around the entity. It was pinned in place, screaming its rage and pain as it writhed against the arcing bolts of energy that lashed along and around and through it. With one last surge of thought, Deacon directed the fields to compress the shade further.

He disengaged from the fields again just as they closed to a single point in space. A minuscule black dot hovered against the ceiling for a moment before it fizzled out of existence, just as Deacon caught sight of Bain. The otter began to hurry down the stairs, draped in one of the fox's black robes as Deacon picked himself up off the floor and dusted down his robe. "Outside, Bain!" he ordered as he waved the otter forward.

"What is it?" Bain asked, even as he dashed for the door with Deacon in tow. "What's attacking us? Where is it?"

"It is in the house," Deacon replied. He swept an arm forward and both wooden double doors exploded outward in a shower of shrapnel. He pressed one paw to Bain's back as he eased the otter out just a little faster. Behind him, the entire manor began to rumble. "I couldn't stop it getting in. I could only stop it getting back out."

Bain only looked confused as he glanced back behind Deacon. His eyes widened as the house began to quake more violently, and more than a few panels began to shake loose. "Then why don't we fight?" he asked.

Deacon smirked and shook his head as he shoved Bain down behind one of the trees that adorned the courtyard. "You don't fight demons, dear one," replied the fox as he crouched down beside Bain and turned about. "You trap them. Even Oswell could not destroy a demon completely, with all of his knowledge." He nodded to the house and glanced away. "Cover your ears, Bain."

No sooner were the words out of Deacon's mouth than it happened. Trapped within a condensed point of energy in the heart of the manor, the only place for the shade's essence to go was through the manor's magical conduits. That blockage prevented the flow of energy to the fields, and to everything else they were connected to. The magical essence of that demonic shade rushed back down into the heart of the manor, pulled by the ebb and flow of the enchantments that protected it into the core of energy Oswell had built for it-

-and ripped both shade and manor apart in a spectacular ball of unleashed arcane energy.

Bolts of energy shot like lightning strikes in all directions as the clouds above the manor were swept clear by the force of the eruption. Deacon whirled back on the explosion as a tingle of warning shot through his mind, and he barely raised his paws in time to push back against the bolts that threatened to drive through the tree and into Bain. He succeeded, but only in catching an unseen bolt right in his own chest.

Pain lanced through Deacon's body as it launched him through the air. He cried out as he hit another of the courtyard's trees and slumped to the grass. Smoke rose from the blackened hole in his chest, and he hurriedly pressed one shaking paw to the wound even as Bain called his name and rushed over toward him.

Red light flashed in the midst of the wound, and Deacon howled into the pre-dawn sky as his fur around the wound turned molten. His flesh melted along with it, pooling in the hole the energy bolt had left there as he writhed on the ground. Out of nowhere came one brown-furred paw, and it grabbed at one of his own paws to squeeze tightly as Deacon turned every ounce of his strength into healing that mortal wound before it overtook him.

Time felt as though it began to slow as he reforged and reformed himself around the wound. Exhaustion driven by a half dozen sleepless nights in a row sapped at his concentration, aided by a draining fight against the shade. Deacon almost felt his eyes roll back into his head. Surrender. Surrendering to the darkness would be so easy.

But the paw in his wouldn't allow it. He squeezed weakly back at it as he forced his eyes open. He brought Bain into view and willed those eyes to focus. He met the otter's gaze. Held it. Stared deep into it. That view. That face. That became Deacon's anchor. Everything that he'd been through with that otter at his side gave him strength enough to continue. He forced the darkness back. Further. Further. Further still. Away.

Deacon didn't break eye contact with Bain until the healing process was sufficiently complete. When his flesh had melted closed, his insides were functioning as normal and only his fur was left blackened. Then and only then did Deacon gasp and allow himself to slump down against the ground. Behind Bain, the eruption of energy from the manor's destruction sputtered out. A howling wind and the roll of thunder echoed across the horizon in its wake.

The fox panted for breath as if he'd held it for five minutes straight, and he closed his eyes for just one moment as he fought to fill his lungs with air. "You don't... fight demons," he repeated, before he launched into a deep series of coughs. When finally Deacon brought his breathing under control, he even dared to give a little smile as he waved at the crater left where the manor had been. "You... you trap them."

Bain finally turned back to look at where the manor had been, shock spread wide across his face. He shook his head as if in disbelief at the smoking hole in the ground where Oswell's home -- their home -- had been. "But... the house... all of Oswell's work... your home, Deacon..."

"Wouldn't have mattered if we were dead, would it?" he countered as he began to force himself up. He only made it to paws and knees before he began to cough again, and Deacon shook his head as he squeezed his eyes shut tight. "Gods... that took a lot more than I anticipated."

"This is why you maybe need to sleep more," Bain suggested. He winced at the crater left where the manor had been as it continued to spark and glow. "Did that kill the demon?"

The fox sighed and shook his head as he tried to center his thoughts. "Uh... no. No, it wouldn't have." He nodded toward the crater without looking at it himself. At least he couldn't sense the demon's presence anymore. "If we are very lucky, I disrupted the energies that would have held it together. That was a shade. A corrupted spirit, unwilling to pass from this life into the next." Deacon sighed once more and fought the urge to slump back to the cool grass. "Spirits cannot be killed, Bain. They are already dead. I would need to better understand ulurn magic to banish it properly. Would that a _fraen-_attuned shade had struck instead. I could have done more."

"Well, it better give up now. I don't want to have to fight it, but nobody beats up my fox and..." Bain's head shot up after a moment as he began to scan the darkness. "Did you hear that?"

Deacon shook his head as he swiped the back of one paw across his eyes. A tingle shot up his arm, and he opened his eyes just in time to catch sight a spark of crimson lightning arc between his fingertips. "I, uh... no. No, what did you hear?"

The otter shook his head as he shuffled in a little closer to Deacon. "I think it sounded like a gaophan. Or maybe that shade's already back."

At that, Deacon could only chuckle. The predatory feline beasts would have been driven off by the arcane overload that he'd triggered. "I promise that there are no gaophan out there, dear one," he assured the otter as he offered his paw. "And the volume of energy I unleashed would have vaporized anything; it would have been more than enough to disperse the shade for now. Even so, we cannot stay here. Help me up, please. I need to figure out where to go."

As Bain offered his paw, Deacon caught the otter's frown. "I might... have a place," Bain said. Despite Deacon's assurance, he continued to stare past the fox and into the night. The sun was still a couple of hours away from giving him any sight, however. The small flickering flames that the bolts of energy had scattered across the courtyard's grass didn't help much.

Deacon sighed and shook his head as he squeezed Bain's paw. "We cannot go back to your village, Bain," said Deacon. He tried to sound firm, but his words only seemed to sound tired.

"Not there," Bain replied. "Somewhere else. I don't know if it'd be safe, but..." Finally, his gaze shifted back to Deacon's face. "Iounis. Where you sent me for the alhiin root."

Almost immediately, Deacon felt his muzzle open to tell the otter no. Instead he paused, as he considered the suggestion rather than simply dismissing it. Iounis was out of the way, far from the seat of the Noctus Imperium's power. It was a small town on the way to nowhere important; a lifeline for the furthest villages of the Imperium. There, perhaps, they might go unnoticed. Certainly anything hunting them might expect them to travel closer to the heart of the Imperium's power, perhaps to gather aid from allies.

If 'allies' was even the word. Deacon began to smile as he looked Bain square in the eye. There was no mischief in the otter's gaze. There was an abundance of fear and concern, however. Any worry he had for Deacon was subsumed in its entirety by the events that had just transpired. "You want me to talk to this alchemist you mentioned."

Bain simply shrugged as he patted Deacon's paw. "What could it hurt?" he pointed out. "Maybe he has something better for your bad sleep than alhiin teas. Maybe he knows a way to help you." The otter shrugged again as he nodded back to where the manor used to be. "We're also gonna need clothes and food and a place to sleep, and I'm pretty sure the dear Princess Corella still doesn't like me too much. It'd be nice to stay in a palace, but I bet she'd be against it."

"When I last saw her, she did cringe whenever I brought you up," Deacon agreed as he sighed. The otter had a point. Iounis had supplies and a potential friendly face. At the least, it might be a place he could rest. Maybe Bain was right, and a change of scenery from the place where Oswell had caused him so much misery would give him a chance to recover. "Alright. We go to Iounis. But," he added as he watched Bain's face light up, "we must be careful, we must be discreet... and we must be prepared."

The otter nodded even as he beamed with the closest thing to excitement that Deacon could expect after they had been attacked in their own home. Still, even as Bain started to lead him out of the courtyard and into the night, that excitement confused Deacon. Even though he'd never been fond of the manor -- and had made that unfondness abundantly clear only minutes before -- Bain had understood the importance of it. All of the work that had gone into it and all of its security was no small thing. In Iounis, they would be considerably more vulnerable. If the shade returned, or if something else came after them...

Deacon grit his teeth as he walked along with Bain. If the shade returned or if something else came after them, then he would definitely need his rest.

Or at least as close to rest as he could get anymore.

Next Chapter