Ruin: Hierophant Candidates, Part Six

Zoriel burst into the sacred grove, close behind his armored bear Spike, who howled loudly enough to shake the tainted trees around them. For all that he distrusted the man, he was counting on Ruin to do his part; the situation was too desperate for the druid to indulge his bitterness and mistrust. But if he betrays me like he betrayed my teacher, I will kill him.

There were four robed figures gathered around the massive kapok tree in the center of the grove, and they all bore the sigils of Apollyon. None of them paid the least attention to the new arrivals, but the half-dozen barbed devils standing guard around them turned and shrieked a warning. 

Spike reached the first of the barbed devils and tore into it. Zoriel had done everything he could think of to make the bear stronger, so it was satisfying to see Spike make use of those extra gifts. Still, he couldn't afford to get distracted...

Lifting a hand, Zoriel called for a storm. 

The devils were spreading out,  moving to surround Spike and envelop him, when the wolves charged out of the brush where Zoriel had summoned them. They were no match for the devils, of course, but for a moment the grove was filled with chaos...

...And that was exactly the distraction that Ruin had been waiting for. He appeared behind the devils, beside one of the priests, and took a brief moment to get his bearings. Then, as Spike again clawed the barbed devil and shifted back to avoid being trapped, Ruin cut the priestess apart. 

Thunder rumbled overhead, and a bolt of lightning lanced up, piercing another priestess as it reached to touch the clouds. The woman staggered, but didn't go down and didn't stop her chanting. That's not good. Whatever they were doing, Zoriel needed to disrupt it: keep them distracted and off-balance.

Ruin crossed the buttress roots of the Kapok as if they were flat ground, and cut her down. One of the devils suddenly realized he was there and turned on him, but the summoned wolves were still harrying it and it wasn't as fast as it should have been; none of its attacks managed to touch him. 

Two of the barbed devils managed to surround Spike, and cut into him with their claws; a couple of blows connected, but they couldn't take hold and try to impale the cave bear.

Zoriel put the next lightning bolt behind one of the devils harrying his bear, and wrapped a wall of fire around the Kapok, with the flames facing out. It wouldn't affect the devils, but he doubted that the priests were immune to fire. Ruin was still there, too close, but there was no other way... Zoriel felt a certain mixture of guilt and glee at the thought.

Ruin stepped out of the fire unharmed, and cut into the approaching devil. It staggered back, but didn't fall. It tried to grab Ruin but failed; Zoriel's spell kept Ruin free to move. It snarled as the two remaining priests scrambled out of the flames, robes still scorched and smoking. One of them looked at Zoriel, straightened, and sneered. "A momentary interruption..." She cast something, and blossomed into a towering, powerful figure. "Behold the might of Apollyon." 

She pushed one of the devils aside and came forward, swinging a massive mace at Zoriel. He'd applied his own magical protections, of course, but he still felt it glance off his shoulder with shattering force. Had he prepared any less thoroughly, he would have been flattened.

For a moment, the battle hung in the balance. Spike was surrounded, Ruin occupied, and Zoriel very possibly outmatched by this priestess and her magics and her weapon. The wolves were being shredded by the devils they were attacking, and...

The remaining priest screamed, and the priestess whirled around to behold her fellow religious with his feet six inches off the ground, impaled on a spiral horn. 

The unicorns had arrived. 

Zoriel had only intended to summon ordinary unicorns, but here -- to protect this place -- a celestial charger had answered his call as well. With a unicorn on either side, it tore into the devils and took them apart, taking the pressure off Spike while Ruin carved his way through the devil attacking him. 

"No," said the priestess. Zoriel put another bolt of lightning through her but she shrugged it off and came at him again, swinging the oversized mace. 

"Yes," said Zoriel, and turned his skin to stone. He didn't like to fight hand-to-hand, but he positioned his shield and drew his scimitar. "You can't have our forest. It isn't yours."

"It will be," she snarled, "by right of conquest!"

She swung again, and his shield shattered under the impact; again, and he staggered back. He turned her next blow with his blade, just far enough to feel the air stir as it slammed past his face and buried itself in the ground. One of the unicorns tried to impale her, but she brushed it aside. 

Then Ruin was there, cutting into her from behind as Spike ripped through the last of the barbed devils. She staggered, and Zoriel cut with his scimitar and opened a line of blood on her forearm. Then the celestial charger speared her through, and that was it. She sagged and fell limp. 

The forest went quiet around them. The last of the summoned wolves disappeared; the two unicorns did as well. Ruin offered a hand to the celestial charger, watched it shy back from him, and muttered: "Right, I should have remembered..." 

They'd won. It didn't seem possible, but they had.  Ruin sat down abruptly, and Zoriel watched as the warrior's wounds closed on their own. He swallowed, then turned to the Celestial Charger. "Noble cousin," he said, "I am grateful for your aid."

The unicorn regarded him. Then its mouth moved, and despite the impossibility of an equine throat producing human speech, its voice came rich to his ears: "I am grateful for yours," it said. "This is my place, after all. Or did you think that only druids watch over the wild places of our world?"

Ruin chuckled, and Zoriel felt himself flush. "I would like to send further aid..." he began cautiously. 

The unicorn studied him. "You are welcome here," it said. "The Circle of the Bounteous Forest is welcome to return, if any of them yet live." It turned its head, regarded Ruin. "You are welcome as well, for all that you reek of blood and conflict."

Ruin lowered his head. "I am grateful for your welcome," he said. 

"Then let the druids come, and find their places here, and learn from us as they did before. I will see you again when it is time." With that, the Celestial Charger turned and trotted off into the forest. 

Zoriel had his mouth open, and it stayed open as the unicorn departed. This wasn't how this was supposed to go. This was one of the sacred groves, cultivated and protected by the druids of Duendewood... and that beast had the arrogance to--

He sighed, suddenly, and sat down. Spike came and stretched out on the ground beside him, eighteen feet of fur and claws covered in the metal armor that the smiths had worked so hard to craft. "You may be right about me," he admitted. 

Ruin lifted his head and studied his expression. "How do you mean?" he asked. 

"I think... I think perhaps my master was right not to pass his insight on to me. I... I have been too concerned with my position and what I felt I was due. My concerns have been... petty. Unbecoming of the Druid Hierophant. Have the unicorns always had the charge of this grove? I didn't know, don't know, but this one seemed very sure of it. And here I was, assuming that naturally the druids would be in charge, as if only we knew the best way of doing things." He sighed. "You were right to despise me."

Ruin shook his head. "I didn't despise you," he said. "I thought you were angry, and grieving, and bitter, and that's a place I know well in my own mind. And you were foremost among Saladhel's apprentices for a reason, probably many reasons. A confluence, as the old man might have said." 

He was silent for the space of a breath, and then another and another, but Zoriel didn't interrupt him. He was learning, he thought... And Ruin really had known his teacher, somehow, well enough to have some genuine insight into how the ancient druid thought -- even if he did refer to him as the old man.

At last Ruin said, "And not ready yet is not the same thing as unworthy." 

Zoriel felt his heart race, and forced it back to its usual pace. "Don't give it to me," he said, and couldn't believe that he was speaking those words -- and more, that he actually meant them. "Not yet, at the very least. Talk to the others. Talk to all of them. Even Elendor." He swallowed. "Find the best candidate, even if it isn't me." 

Ruin nodded solemnly. "You have my word."