Chapter 10 - How God's Bleed (PART ONE)

Livadi opened her eyes. Not the eyes that shifted reality, but the eyes that were blue. The blue of the sky just before the purple. When the sun touches the edge of the world and sinks below the disk.

She knelt on the edge of a cliff, overlooking the valley below. Re-Heboth was one of the greatest cities in the world. A city so big that it would take you eight days to walk from one end to the other.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Shava asked, standing behind her. Her face, rimmed gold and painted white and blue, and red, like a jester was a stark contrast to her dark bronze skin.

“We’re about to destroy it into nothingness,” Livadi said. She reached down, fingers touching the grass at her feet. “Everything you see before us will be laid waste.”

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and lightning cracked across the clouds overlooking the city. Abner approached, and atop his shoulder sat BeeSheep. He buzzed happily when he saw his goddess.

He was the only thing that could make Livadi truly smile.

“Come, Dokevi, sit with me,” she gestured. And BeeSheep hopped off Abner’s shoulder and flew into her hands. “What we do tomorrow will tear the world apart, one way or another.” She kissed his small head, and he wiggled.

“My lady,” Abner bowed, “I have the guard ready, ten thousand men. The best men.”

“Do you think that ten thousand men can take a city which contains hundreds of thousands?” Livadi inquired.

“We’re used to fighting monsters,” Abner said, and shrugged. “I don’t think humans will be too much trouble.”

“They have the power of a god.”

“My lady,” Abner replied, “we have the god.”

“Fair enough,” Livadi stood, and now BeeSheep sat on her shoulder. “Ready the men, the city is waiting.”

Trumpets sounded amid crack of thunder as the Meridian Guard began marching to Re-Heboth. The guards of the city raced atop the wall, preparing fortifications. The land became dark as the clouds above began to cover the sky like roiling black smoke.

“March forth men of valor!”

Abner cried, mounting his horse, and riding alongside the ranks. “Today we defy the gods! Today we show our loyalty! Today we take this great city!”

The Meridian Guard charged towards the Eastern gate. The Hebothian archers on the walls fired their arrows and they fell like rain, but the guardsmen raised their shields, protecting them.

“We have to get the gate open,” Livadi said, watching as the men pushed through the hail of arrows. 

They had a battering ram, but the gate was large and formidable. They had ladders, but that would cost lives and take too much time. She turned to Shava, who stood by her side.

“Have you learned anything from the priestess?” She asked her.

“A few things,” Shava spoke, her voice sounding like two voices. 

“She knows of pathways beyond the physical realm.”

“Take Dokevi with you,” Livadi said, and BeeSheep saluted. He hopped atop Shava’s shoulder and held on as she began to run. 

“Open that gate for me.”

Shava raced toward the wall. Another sky of arrows came raining down from on high, and Shava spoke words that BeeSheep did not understand. Then she closed her eyes and the world around them became black and white, like all the color had gone out from it. The sounds were muted, and distant.

“Guide me,” she said, not once stopping her sprint toward the gate. The arrows fell but fell through them. Soldiers charged past, not even sparing them a glance, as if they weren’t even there. Because they weren’t.

BeeSheep buzzed directions, and Shava followed each one perfectly. 

They reached the wall, and she began to feel around the stone, then she began to climb. The stone around the wooden gate itself wasn’t fitted very smoothly, and over time had created little ledges which Shava deftly climbed.

Her bare feet hit the battlements, and she drew her knife, then opened her eyes. Like a rushing wave of water, the color and sound came back. She walked along the wall, stabbing and cutting down the Hebothians on the wall.

BeeSheep yelled as a soldier swung his sword. Shava closed her eyes and the sword passed through them, she opened her eyes again and stabbed the man. The look of surprise still on his face.

They reached the stairs, and below them was a group of soldiers, all of them lined up and ready to face the Meridian Guard. Next to them, was a large wooden mechanism, with a great rope, holding the doors shut.

“I’ll distract them,” Shava said, “go and cut the rope.”

BeeSheep hopped off her shoulder and into the air. She closed her eyes and disappeared behind him. 

Gripping his star shard, BeeSheep zoomed down to the mechanism and landed on the rope. He heard cries of surprise, and cries of death as Shava opened and closed her way between the realms, cutting them down, causing a panic.

BeeSheep began cutting the rope, but the rope was big, and he was small. He determined himself and sawed away despite how exhausting it was. He cut and he cut, and he cut, each strand of the rope fraying one after another. 

However, the deeper he cut, the easier it became, because of the weight drawing the strands tight.

With a resounding crack, the rope snapped. The great wooden doors swung open, and the Meridian Guard rushed forth, reaching Shava and flooding into the city. She disappeared again, and when Livadi walked in, she materialized next to her.

“Good work,” Livadi smiled, patting Shava on the head, and reaching for BeeSheep, who walked up her arm. “Now, do you see that tower?” She pointed, “we don’t stop until it's rubble.”

Then, Livadi bolted forward at incredible speed, racing alongside and then past the soldiers charging in front of her.

BeeSheep was hanging on for dear life as she vaulted walls and started racing across the rooftops.

From the great tower, BeeSheep could see the silhouette of a figure standing there solemnly, and around him were bright glowing eyes. Livadi’s eyes.

Those eyes opened, and one after another bolts of lightning came down like missiles into the city. Blasting clusters of the Meridian Guard and destroying entire buildings around Livadi.

Walls of brick and beams of wood came crashing down all around, but as deftly as a deer, Livadi dodged and dove through the collapsing buildings.

She kept racing, not stopping for even a second as the sky raged, casting down a hundred more bolts of lightning. They crashed and exploded sending fire and debris across the city, absolutely wrecking it, with no concern for whoever was around.

Abner kept with his men, cheering them onward, and Shava dipped in and out of physicality to get through the destruction.

Crack. 

Boom. 

The lightning didn’t stop. It got so close that BeeSheep’s fur began to floof with the electricity in the air, but Livadi dodged out of the way, the air crackling with the heat, air and moisture squealing as it evaporated around them.

The Meridian Guard began to spread out through the city, wrapping around the giant tower at its center and fighting against all the men who tried to guard it.

And Livadi approached, drawing her star blade. The various star fragments of the blade caught the light, reflecting in a rainbow of colors.

The Hebothian soldiers cowered at her presence and quickly got out of her way. She approached the tower unchallenged, and the fights around her began to slow as the men of both armies watched to see what the goddess would do.

She gripped her star sword in both hands. Then drove it into the base of the tower, cracks spreading like a web from the blade. Rainbow beams spilled out from the growing gaps as the tower began to groan and snap.

Then Livadi tore her sword outward, and the stones were cut in two, the base of the tower fractured, the wood, the stone, and the mixed crete used to build it all broken.

The tower came careening down and crashed into the city with an ear bursting sound. Smoke and dust shot into the air and through the streets before spilling up into a grey cloud.

The army went silent, watching, and waiting as the dust cleared. 

Had Martin the wizard gone down with the tower?

“No,” Livadi spoke, breaking the silence. “He’s not dead yet.”

From the broken rubble of the tower, a figure emerged. Around him were three eyes, gleaming. He turned and faced Livadi, his face and chest stained with dark red blood.

He opened his eyes.

Giant ship anchors attached to a length of chains shot out of the eyes towards Livadi. She ducked under one, and it crashed through a dozen buildings behind her. She flipped over the next, and deflected the third with her sword, its great weight sending her stumbling.

Martin grinned, all of a sudden, the anchors retracted even faster than they had shot forth. Livadi cried out as she was caught by one of them and pulled towards the wizard.

“Livadi of Far Meadows…” Martin called out to her. “Come to reclaim your power?”

“Give back what is rightfully mine,” Livadi slipped out of the anchor's grip and rolled to her feet. “And I will leave both you and your great city in peace.”

“I can’t do that,” Martin said, and he sounded almost regretful. Almost. “There are other forces at play. The other gods are not pleased with your return.”

“They’ve never been pleased with my meadows of peace,” Livadi replied. “So, I will bring them meadows of war.”

“So be it,” Martin ground his teeth, and opened his eyes again. 

Reality shifted, four stone walls were created from the debris of the tower, and they flew through the air to box her in. Livadi jumped towards one of the walls, kicking off just high enough to avoid getting crushed to death.

She hit the ground running, straight toward the wizard, he summoned ice spikes to fall from the clouds above. They crashed and shattered into the ground around them, Livadi cutting them out of the air before they nailed her down.

As one of the ice spikes fell, Livadi batted it with the side of her sword and sent it flying. It hit the ground and shattered at Martin’s feet but sent small ice shards towards his face. He flinched, stumbling back, and giving her the opening.

Livadi sprinted forward with a roar, and wielding her star sword, she cut Martin across the chest, and he fell to the ground.

The eyes hovering around him froze in mid-air, and they closed.

Livadi stepped up to them, her chest heaving, sweat beading her brow. She hadn’t realized it during the rush, but her clothes were cut and torn, and silver blood seeped through a few small cuts in her skin.

She had done it. She had slain the wizard, and now she had some of her eyes back. She reached out, touching each of them, and they became hers again. She could feel the power begin to flow, like cold water on a hot day spilling through her chest.

Livadi felt… alive, in a way that she had almost forgotten.

BeeSheep, who’d been hanging on the whole time relaxed his grip, and buzzed happily. She had nowhere near her original power, but this was a start. The first and possibly greatest hurdle.

“My lady,” Abner said, “you did it. You defeated the wizard of Re-Heboth.” Shava cheered next to him, and the soldiers of the Meridian Guard raised their swords with shouts of triumph.

“Mea-dows, mea-dows, mea-dows!” They cried.

Livadi took a deep breath, both calming the adrenaline-fueled nerves, but also breathing in the feeling. The moment. She felt like a god again. Only this time beings from far beyond her meadow had come to cheer her on. The feeling was… exhilarating.

She was so excited that she almost didn’t notice the small golden thread that shimmered in the air before her.

Almost.

Livadi opened her eyes, trying to see what was happening. Her vision became split in three different views. One overlooking the ruined city. The other in front of her, and the final zoomed in beyond the dirt and the dust.

At the end of the golden thread was a figure. It reached out, slowly wrapping its fingers around the thread of destiny.

“Dokevi…” Livadi started to say, he sat on her shoulder, cocking his head in confusion. Then she felt it.

The pull.