Chapter 10 - The Holy Sword
The plan had called for stealth, as far as possible. In an ideal world, the attack would have been so all-consuming, so utterly devastating, that the demihumans wouldn't even know that they had been hit. The gatehouse would be stormed and barricaded, the portcullis winched up, the drawbridge lowered - then held, until the Liberation Army's assault came in force.
But sometimes, stealth can only take you so far.
We had five men with bows, including Pavel. Two had slings.
I'd never handled a bow before, and now was no time to learn. Hunched down next to Heiter and Orlando - the former impassive, the latter with a hungry, almost feral grin - my hand clamped down on the Interfector's hilt, one thought foremost in my mind:
Please let me live through this-
I could feel the rite coming to a climax. The pyramid of death was tall enough to rise over the shamans, enough that their ugly, oddly-hooked staves saw use at last. Each new skull was hooked, delicately lowered into place, white ash gusting across the courtyard. It felt like the air was bowing under enormous pressure, frail shapes half-glimpsed through a veil; enormous, coiled like fetuses, struggling to push through.
Apparitions of goat skulls fizzled in the air, patient tics of lightning crawling over the mound like St. Elmo's fire - the chanting and the drumming rising to a crescendo…
Pavel's first arrow arched across the distance, and punched right into the heart of the pyramid. It was a beautiful shot, the white-fletched shaft humming with sacred power. When it connected, the effect was like dumping gasoline on an open fire.
There was a plosive sound, a breathless whoomph of unleashing charge. Two energies in utter, irreconcilable conflict had met, and they annihilated each other with a terrible rending shriek. The monument to sacrifice came apart in a shockwave of black flame and bone shards, lethal fragments scything out like shrapnel - It was a gigantic blast, a retching column of writhing energies and smoke boiling upwards in a whirling cloud.
The beastmen closest to the pyramid of skulls were torn apart, or hurled into the air, or simply vaporized. The overpressure of the gigantic blast hurled those further-out from their feet, as dust slammed out in a shockwave wall. It scooped out a huge crater from the courtyard's flagstones, chunks of rock and debris raining down like hail.
We charged. I drew the Interfector, the flames licking along the blade fanned to an inferno as we hurled ourselves into the aftermath. My ears rang so fiercely, I could hear absolutely nothing; But as we plunged into the whirling smoke, I could almost feel the screams and howls of outrage reverberating through the air.
Heiter's blades hacked into a shaman, dazed and scorched by the blast. It had time to raise an arm in pathetic defense before his sword split its skull, his teeth gritted in a non-smile as he wrenched the blade free.
The boar-headed beastman came charging through the smoke, fingers curled into claws, fighting tusks spearing right at me - But Orlando's axe ripped into it and flung it aside, a great gout of blood gushing from the gash he'd hacked into the thing's throat. I raced past as it crumpled, the Interfector's flames searing the air in great slashing arcs; Something in maroon robes bleated with terror as it tried to crawl away from me, and I scythed it down almost in passing as I plunged forward.
I didn't see their faces, not really. To me, they were a scrabbling blur of monstrosity, too warped to fully comprehend. It was like my mind had shut out the most disturbing parts of their nature, leaving only the immediate threats. Arrows hissed through the air, men shouting and stabbing and hacking; a battle-axe sliced towards me in a murderous arc, and I twisted aside - the Interfector sliced through the orc's arm, and the backswing sheared the upper half of its head off.
I saw Roulle, his mouth wide in a soundless scream, ram his spear right through the chest of a hissing serpent-man. It writhed in agony, forked tongue lashing, yellow eyes wide with agony as it clutched at the crossbar - He raised the rim of his battered shield, and smashed it into the thing's face over and over again, with a fury that eclipsed anything I'd ever seen from him.
The ground shuddered, a dark shape looming through the smoke as an ogre loomed up before me. It swung, hard, with an ironbound club: The Interfector met the weapon head-on and annihilated it, shards of iron and stone spraying outwards in every direction at once. Before it realized what had just happened, I swung and took its head off, flames streaming from the lurching giant's neck-stump as it toppled.
Immediately, a pain-shaman in a hideous mask lunged ferociously at me, hoping for the deathblow. Yellow lightning crackled from his scepter as he circled it above, too-long digits hurling a purple-silver powder across the space between us. It burned away before it could reach me, wisping into smoke as it touched the Interfector's swirling flames - I took a step forward, but two arrows hit the shaman simultaneously and it dropped as if poleaxed.
Something sprang at me, a crude sword raised. Before it could stab me, I cleaved it in half, leaving the bisected demihuman to roll across the ground in splattershriek agony. Even as it beat at the flames consuming it, a toadlike subhuman warbled in distress at the sight of me, backing away - Until one eye abruptly vanished, punctured by a sling-stone, and it crumpled with a moist splat.
We're winning, I thought, as I swept around to impale a snorting apeman through the chest. Powerful arms dropped to the creature's sides, as I wrenched the Interfector free - It was already burning, already charred by the time it hit the ground, swathed in hungry blue flame.
We're-
A crow-eyed, feathered shaman - bird-like, spindly and scrawny but reeking of sour magicks - raised both hands in a desperate invocation, a dark blast of ozone-crackling energy leaping across the distance. It hit one of Tomas' men, and exploded him in a spray of guts and armor. Gore splattered the ground, thick arterial ropes of it.
Roulle howled something, wrenched his spear free from the dying snakeman, and heaved it with all his might. The spear hit the crow-witch and punched through it, pinning it to the wall with a resounding thunk that echoed above the chaos. Momentarily disarmed, he pulled his hatchet from his belt as a snarling dogman sprang for his throat, teeth bared-
But then Erya was - abruptly, inexplicably - there. His curved sword hissed, and the dogman's head tumbled away as its body completed its arc. Briskly, he strode through the smoke, killing and cutting; Each time his sword flashed, a beastman spurted blood and collapsed like a puppet with strings cut. Every blow was a deathblow, and he seemed almost contemptuous in the dealing of death, as if this was all somehow beneath him.
A claw stabbed towards him, from the folds of mottled ceremonial robes. I opened my mouth to shout, forcing myself to run faster as desperate lightnings crackled along the talons of something horned and scaled-
Somehow, Erya sensed it. He turned, and flicked his blade in a precise motion.
Fifty feet away, the spellcaster's head split like a carved fruit.
But there were more of them, scrambling away from us in sheer panicked flight. Even as Ran whirled his spear in blindingly-fast circles, each thrust flickering out faster than a snake's tongue, claiming another life with every stroke, I knew the truth; We'd killed most, but not all.
Some of the beastmen had already vanished into the shadows, others fleeing flat-out for safety. Now, it was only a matter of time before serious opposition was mustered.
"The gatehouse!" Pavel's voice cut through the chaos, rising above the din. A red-eyed, rat-tailed monstrosity - iron-hard fur bristling in raised spikes around it - hissed, squirting fear-musk. It was armored up to the neck, but an arrow punched through its muzzle, another through its eye, and it died a messy, thrashing death. "Forward!"
The sheer shock of assault had disordered the beastmen. Those that weren't fleeing had been cut down; I'd left at least six charred and burning, in as many frantic seconds. One man was swearing and gripping at his arm, which hung limp at his side - Brother Jozan dragged another with him, dead or merely unconscious.
I looked around, realized that no-one was trying to kill me, and sprinted forward to help. I threw the man's arm over my shoulder - Between us, we staggered towards the beckoning doorway, a few steps behind the others. Something at that exact moment struck me as wrong, but I couldn't place what it was - "Lay him down!" Jozan was saying, as we eased him to the ground.
I could see the fatigue on the priest's face as he knelt, already mouthing the words of a prayer. As ghostly light flared as his fingertips, the man's breathing eased. His eyes open, cleared, and he clasped the priest's hand before swaying - unsteadily - to his feet.
"How many do you have le-" I began, and Brother Jozan shook his head. "As many as the Four will," he answered, unhooking his mace from his belt. It was clear that he'd been using it, the flanges encrusted with gore, as his fist clenched around the grip. With his free hand, he pulled a glass bottle from his belt, grimaced, and swallowed the fluid within in a single gulp. When he tossed it aside, it smelled strongly of herbs and turpentine.
"Steadies the hands," he said. "Would that the Gods made Mana potions."
I felt my heart sink. Not many, I thought. And we'd barely begun.
In a way, we were fortunate that a rite had been in progress. The gatehouse, I assume, was protected by sentries - But they'd been lured forth to join the prizing of the skulls, and we'd butchered them or put them to flight. An hour earlier or later, and they'd have been entrenched within the stone structure.
That was where our luck ended.
The twin towers of the gatehouse were designed very much on classical lines. Each had two storeys, a single flight of steps leading up from the guardroom to the second floor, with murder-holes and arrow-loops to rain death down on the heads of invaders attempting to storm the gate. Each one had three points of entry and exit: The main entrance, the exit to the battlements, the steps up to the roof.
When manned, a handful of guards could have held off ten times their number of attackers...From the outside. When the enemy was already within the walls, the arithmetic of the situation changed drastically. More, when the first attack had come, the defenders had done exactly as they'd been trained to; they had barricaded the doors, taken up their weapons, and sold their lives dearly, fighting to the last man.
Which meant that the doors to the first-floor guardroom had already been battered down.
"Get that drawbridge lowered!" Pavel was shouting, striding forward with singular purpose. "I want that portcullis raised and spiked open - Keep the bastards away from it, no matter what!" Men were hauling battered, axe-scarred furniture past me, manhandling bedframes and chairs into an improvised barricade.
I took the steps three at a time, right behind him. Orlando and Tomas were already laboring at the winch, hauling at the chains: Metal creaked and groaned as the portcullis rattled upwards, with a rusted screech. By some miracle, the doors to the battlements were still standing - We slammed them shut, as I dropped the thick bar into the brackets. Others tore polearms from the walls and wedged them into the doorway, moving with desperate speed.
Every moment counted, now. It was a blur of frantic activity - I glimpsed Heiter coaxing the logs in the fireplace to life, where pots of heated sand and sheets of lead waited for use. One of the ballista had survived, and Roulle was manhandling it to the opposite window, a case of bolts strapped to his back.
Pavel was at the far wall, the wooden shutters of the stony windows shoved open. He had the metal case of the lightstone in hand, as he reached out to wedge it into a crevasse of the stonework. Already, it pulsed with light - White, then blue, bright as a flashing strobe. It did little to illuminate the darkened plains outside, but anything within a mile could probably see it; I could only hope that the Liberation Army would.
Outside, I could hear braying. Howls. A strange murmur in the air-
Footfalls, I realized. Running feet. Lots of them.
In the distance, bone horns were blowing. Their discordant notes were picked up on, echoed by others, a sound like some abyssal leviathan surfacing from the deep-
I hurried down the steps into the guardroom, where the rest of our small force stood ready. Sixteen of us, in total; It didn't feel like it'd be enough. Anywhere close to enough.
"Here-"
Someone thrust a crossbow into my hands. From where, I didn't know - there must have been a few left on the racks, ignored by the beastmen. For a moment, I stared at it in utter confusion; then, something clicked, and I cranked away as fast I could.
Outside, crowds of demihumans were already gathering. It was as if they'd been summoned, the way the goat-headed apparitions almost had. I saw Neanderthal heads, heads with lizard skin, with eight arachnid eyes, with fractal insect eyes, necks topped by long-muzzled bestial features - An impossible number of monsters with impossible forms.
The horns continued to blow, with bass flourishes, calling the Faithful to the attack…
Cobblestones and other missiles flew at us. I could see the maroon-robed priests at the back, glimpsed through the hooting crowds, urging them on; "Pick your shots!" Pavel shouted, as bows twanged, the first arrows hissing across the distance - I saw figures in the crowd twitch and drop, then the louder creak-whoosh of release as the ballista fired for the first time.
The huge bolt whistled overhead - Whoever was firing had gauged the range just right, but there were so many targets it was impossible to miss. I heard howls - Pain, distress, fury - as it ploughed into them, the dull thud as it spitted a struggling rat-man to a column; Stones clattered from the gatehouse's walls, others rattling against the stone slits of the windows and the crude barricade.
Someone snatched the crossbow from my hands, fitted a bolt, fired. I was promptly handled another, and I hunched down behind the reassuring solidity of the wall, as I cranked that one too. As bolts and arrows streaked down the courtyard, the zip and zing became meaty thuds of impact: It was all I could do to keep my head down, fighting the panic churning in my gut-
Trapped. We were trapped. There were thousands of them out there...How long could we hope to hold them off?
If anyone else was thinking the same thing, they didn't show it. With my back to the wall, all I could hear - other than the baying of the mob outside - was the twang of crossbows and bowstrings, feverishly winding as fast as I could.
We couldn't hope to kill them all, but that was never the point. As misshapen forms jerked and tumbled, limbs flailing as they ploughed into the ground - roars of shock and fury, pain and fear echoing hollowly as they dropped - every one we shot was a warning to the others. Keeping them from building the momentum they needed for a charge.
If they swarmed us all at once, we'd have been overwhelmed. But the beastmen, like all other beings, feared death - the narrow entrances meant that two at most could reach us at a time. In an era of guns and explosives, things would have been very different; Here and now, their options were limited.
Or so I thought.
Another wave of crossbow bolts, flying flat and hissing through the pack. I could smell blood, viscera, fear, hatred. Hear the squeals of agony and slow-boiling rage. It was overpowering, choking, enough that I might have frozen up if I looked too closely. Instead, my perceptions narrowed down to the frantic winding motions of the windlasses, the shouts and snarls from all around me.
"We're holding them!" someone shouted - Orso, I think - over the crack of flying arrows. I glanced to the left, saw Pavel's boots, and forced out: "Are we?"
"You! Take over!" the Sergeant said, and ducked down beside me. He'd been firing regularly for God-knew-how-long; Pavel's deadly accuracy had taken a withering toll on the enemy, but he couldn't keep it up forever. I held up a crossbow, and it was promptly snatched from my hands and put to use - the flat whack of the bolt echoed in my ears, and I devoutly hoped it hit something.
"For now, lad. For now." Pavel said, wincing as he shook the sting from his arm. He fished in his pouch, and pulled forth a slender crystalline vial. "They're softening us up. We're shooting the frontrunners, keeping them from getting ideas...But it's only a matter of time before they get clever."
The blue fluid was viscous, rolling sluggishly as he turned it in his palm; He looked like he'd have preferred anything to drinking it, but he uncorked the vial and gulped the contents anyway. Pavel shuddered, made a face, but nodded as he flexed his arm - "Tastes vile," he explained. "Not good for the heart, either - But what can you do, eh?"
There was a bang, a flare of light visible even through the windows. Dust streamed down from the rafters, flamelight twitching weirdly outside. An explosive arrow, falling short. "Save those for the big bastards!" Pavel shouted, getting to his feet. "Pace your shots - Aim for those who look like they mean it!"
He stood up, fired twice, and two short screams told me of two hits. His first quiver was more than half-empty, now; the other, with the special arrows, looked distinctly diminished.
"That's one got-"
"Got him!"
A whoomph of something catching light. A high, burbling shriek - distinctly inhuman - rose over the crackling roar of flames, the wind fanning a choking smoke towards us.
"They're trying to burn us out now," I heard one of the men - Argic, I think - mutter, as he tossed his crossbow to me. As I bent to my work, gritting my teeth as my fingers began to ache, I caught snatches of conversation overhead.
"Burn us out? It's stone, it'd never-"
"No, but we do."
Those ominous words hung in the air, in the momentary lull. While aiming wasn't easy, it didn't need to be: our archers were firing out through arrowslits made for that exact purpose, and there were too many to miss. What mattered was target selection - the demi-humans might all be intent on our deaths, but it was taking time to marshal a proper force to storm the gatehouse.
Every moment was another victory for us. Every second counted.
From somewhere upstairs, there was a crash. A thudding, thumping, uneven sound, one that went on and on. "On the battlements," someone breathed, and I felt my blood run cold.
"Samuel!" My head snapped up, the crossbow clutched in his hands. Pavel squinted, fired - I heard a distant squalling shriek, before he turned his gaze on me. "You're wasted here, lad! Take Jozan and get upstairs; Keep them from getting through!"
Oh God, I thought. "I-"
"Slingers!" One of the men shouted. He pointed, and I risked a glance over the lip of the window; I could see apeman in the distance, spinning clay bottles on leather cords. When they let fly, I ducked, instinctively - But instead of the whip and crack of sling stones, I could smell sickly-sweet naphtha, as liquid splashed the outer wall.
My eyes went wide. Those are-
The bottles were filled with oil, leaving a spreading slick. I glimpsed a flicker of flame in the roiling gloom outside…
The beastmen started to loose flaming arrows.
At this range, they looked like fireflies, or falling stars. Most fell short, or went wide - Crude shafts clattered from the walls or off our improvised barricade. They were primitive even by demihuman standards, with simple iron tips...But there was no mistaking the burning rags knotted around them, flame licking across them.
There was a whoomph as the oil-slick ignited. Flames leapt up, painfully bright and incandescent as more flaming arrows thumped home. One man let out a yell as his clothing ignited - He dropped to the ground and rolled and rolled, as his friends beat at him with their cloaks to put him out. Choking smoke billowed forth from the abrupt inferno, sour tongues of flame leaping and dancing; It hung in the air like a miasma, men reeling back as they coughed and gagged.
I heard chanting, as I lurched to the steps. Ran was at the far corner of the room, his bulging eyes narrowed in fierce concentration, his webbed fingers making mystic passes through the air. As Jozan glanced back, stricken, Ran's invocation reached a crescendo; A sphere of water gathered over the spreading flames, pouring downwards in a torrent that drenched the wood. The salt-spray smell mingled with the reeking smoke, as the flames flickered out - I saw his grim expression, as he took up his bow again, the barbed tips of his arrows glistening with stingray poison.
"This is merely a reprieve," Ran warned. "It will not hold them long."
"Long enough! Keep firing, lads - Make 'em pay!"
"Gonna be a good one, boys!" Orlando shouted - Stalking back and forth like a caged beast, he hadn't even bothered with a bow, gripping a sword in each hand. "Gonna taste like all our old days at once!"
A roar of agreement came up, as men clashed their weapons against their shields. It was bellicose, defiant - Pitifully small against the hoots and jeers of the beastmen, but all the more significant for that.
All I could think was: Will anyone live through this?
The stench of molten lead hung in the air, as we labored up the steps. Black vapor boiled upwards, as Heiter looked up - He'd tossed the rest of the lead ingots into the cauldron, and made sure to stand out of the way of the bubbling, noxious brew.
"Right on time," he said, and jerked his head towards the door; I could hear impacts splintering off it, the relentless pounding of fists and less-human limbs. "They're getting creative, out there."
"The ballista?" Jozan said, his face grim beneath his helmet.
Heiter shook his head, as he fed more logs to the flame. "Broke after the third shot. We're lucky it lasted that long." He looked almost tranquil, as he rose; There were two men at the windows, firing at distant targets, as Roulle pressed himself flat against the wall next to the opposite door - He gripped his spear like a talisman, wincing at each impact.
I could see the bar juddering each time a weight crashed into it, the polearms we'd wedged in place flexing under the impacts. Even worse was the view from above - Shaggy, misshapen shapes moving between the buildings, the torchlight glinting on their jagged iron blades and axes, on flaying knives and hooks on long poles.
It felt like the entire city was coming to kill us, and I might not have been wrong: From the frantic blasts of the horns, it was clear that the alarm had been well and truly raised.
"Holy shit," I muttered. "All this, just for us?"
Heiter gave me an odd look, as close to a grin as I'd ever seen on his face. "Not just for us," he said. "Can't you tell? They know the Liberation Army's coming."
My heart skipped a beat. We might yet live.
"Samuel!" Jozan called out. "Lend me your aid!"
He'd put his shoulder to the remains of the ballista, and I hurried to his side - Together, we rolled it over to the door, shoving it in place as the ironwood trembled beneath successive impacts. "Here-" Roulle said, kneeling to push the wedges in place, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He threw a glance at me, managed a smile. "Waiting's the worst part, isn't it?"
I'd have nodded, if I wasn't aware of the hammer of my pulse in my ears. "Yeah," I forced myself to say, aware of the cold, clammy sweat clinging to my skin. "Yeah."
The world had shrunk to this sweat-soaked, furnace-hot expanse. "Sir Samuel," Roulle was saying - "If I don't survive this, you'll tell my family, won't you? That I wasn't afraid…"
I looked at him. Saw his young face, smeared with ash and dirt, his eyes reddened by the smoke.
"Everyone's afraid," I said, and clapped him on the shoulder. The way Pavel or Orlando would have done, fighting down the sick sensation of fear that roiled in my gut the entire time. "But we're not dead yet."
Another thump, one that seemed to make the foundations of the building shake. The roof, this time; My hand dropped to the Interfector-
"Leave it," Erya said. I started, looked around - In all the confusion, I'd entirely forgotten about him. He'd been kneeling quietly in a corner, as far away from the smoke and the panic as possible. His slave knelt beside him, her eyes bright with fear; Even as I looked on, he opened one eye, and said "Again."
She hesitated. But it seemed like her fear of him was greater than her fear of what was coming, because she brought her hands together - as if praying - her lips moving in a voiceless invocation. There was a smell of woodsmoke, a faint glow of emerald light that welled up from between her hands, twisting streamers of radiance flowing into Erya.
"What are you doing?" I said. I could hear my voice wavering - You'll appreciate I was under a lot of stress at the time. Above, claws scrabbled at the trapdoor; there was a vile snuffling, as if some predator-beast was prowling directly above us. I remembered the slow beating of massive, leathery wings from before…
"Readying myself," he said. Calmly, as if we were taking tea together. "Preparing for the moment where life meets death, when all is made clear."
I could feel the beginnings of a migraine pulsing at my temples. "Help us," I forced out, fighting to keep my voice level.
"I intend to," Erya said, his thin lips curving in a slight frown. "When they break in, as they most assuredly will."
"There's something on the god damn roof-"
"It's too large," he answered, calmly. "It's too big to enter, too stupid to break down the door. Put it out of your mind." A glance to his side - "Again," he said, a warning note to his voice, now. The elf visibly cringed, but then she was casting again, as if that alone would save her.
He favored me with a measured, calculating gaze. "You should compose yourself, 'Sir Samuel'," he said. "Until then, kindly leave me to my preparations."
I could have screamed in frustration, but I forced myself to turn away.
It was about then - right then - that I noticed a change in the noise. The hiss and spit of projectiles had continued, but it was mostly coming towards us, now, as the braying of the beastmen grew louder.
"Why aren't we shooting back?" I said, hurrying to Heiter's side. A crude arrow whistled through the window, glanced off the stone, and drew a bright flurry of sparks.
"We're almost out of arrows," he said. "Crossbow bolts too, from the look of it."
"Already?"
"Are you really that surprised?"
Wood splintered. Chips flew, and I flinched. A sliver of steel shone through the timbers of the door to the battlements, a vicious roar coming from without as it shuddered under another massive blow. I glimpsed a hulking, bull-headed shape - More than one - dents beginning to appear as the minotaurs hacked away, throwing blow after unrelenting blow against it.
"They're bringing up axes!" Roulle shouted, struggling to be heard over the din.
Below, there was the unmistakable sound of soldiers on the move. Heavy infantry, a body of demihumans, was beginning to tramp down the courtyard, the crowd parting before them. The rims of their red-painted shields caught the light, and I had to look away-
It wasn't paint.
They had maces. Axe-rakes. As the crude phalanx advanced, a flaming arrow - one of Pavel's, no doubt - whistled across the distance; It erupted in a searing spit of flame, one that retched a brief blossom of orange fire into the lightening dark, but the demi-human he'd hit kept walking, growling beneath its rusty helm.
"Looks like they're getting serious, now," Heiter said. Behind them, I could see black shapes swarming forward, boiling towards us in a mass of twisted limbs and snarling mouths and glinting steel. It was like a scene from a nightmare, made worse because it was starkly, undeniably real.
A hulking beast-centaur led the advancing line from the front, armed with a huge double-edged sword. A firebomb struck it, shattering against the thing's cuirass, swathing it in liquid flame; It simply strode on, leading its kin forward. I could hear them howling in bloodlust or defiance, banging their weapons against the armor - And there were the drums, always the drums, driving them on.
Warded against fire, I could tell. The accursed priests and shamans of the demi-humans had risen to the threat we posed.
They accelerated, digitigrade legs managing an unexpected burst of speed. One of our archers fired a final shot, reached back for another arrow, frowned when his questing fingers found nothing. "I'm out," he said, tossing his quiver to the ground, leaning his bow carefully against the wall. He drew his serrated shortsword, pulling out his knife with his hand - "See you later, lads," he said, in fine imitation of Sergeant Pavel, and then he was gone.
Soon, we would be gone too.
"Help me with this," Heiter said. He'd pulled on a pair of heavy woolen gloves over his own gauntlets - almost like mittens - his muscles punching as he gripped the handle of the cauldron. I echoed the motion, without thought; It took me a moment to realize that my mythril gauntlets weren't heating up at all, not even warming my hands as my fingers clenched down.
"Would be a shame to die without using this," he said. "Three, two, one...Heave!"
We heaved. A torrent of molten lead poured from the window, down onto the skirmish line. Screams - terrible screams - boiled upwards, as the smell became demonstrably worse. I couldn't look without leaning out, which was a good thing.
I had no intention of seeing what molten lead did to flesh.
"Gods below," Jozan muttered, his gaze locked on the door. There was a raw-edged perforation in it, now, a bestial red eye peering through the hole-
Roulle stabbed. Something bayed in distress, staggered away as he wrenched his spear back. "One less," he said. He tried to make it a joke, but the hacking resumed; I could see the milling, stinking forms outside the door, now, more blows landing with renewed fury.
We had a minute before they broke through. Maybe less.
"Heiter," I said. Perhaps I shouldn't have, but - Here and now - what difference did it make? What harm could it do? "You wanted to know. The truth is, I'm from another world. I was sent here, Heiter - Why, I don't know."
A pause. "They're almost through!" Roulle shouted, stabbing again and again; I could hear the savage, spitting growls now, the furious animal slavering at the host of nightmare creatures beyond.
"Huh," Heiter said, and looked me up and down. He drew his swords, steel rasping on leather.
"-Should've stayed home."
In the end, it took less than a minute.
The first beastmen who made it into the gatehouse was a massive brute, a hulking minotaur almost twice my size. It was hunched, bent forward as it crunched through the splinters, lowing vengefully at the harm we'd done to its kin. It had a single pauldron strapped to one shoulder, a steel gut-plate shielded its corded torso, clutching the axe it'd use to break in.
Roulle's spear punched through the thing's throat, but it kept coming. It clutched at the shaft, forcing him back through sheer force, cleaving furiously at the air in hacking chops - But then Jozan's mace broke its skull, and it crashed backwards from the shattering blow.
But there were others behind it, pouring in from the battlements. Some had spears, but most had iron swords or cleavers, or the occasional steel blade stolen from the dead; they scrambled through the gap, over their dying champion, snorting and slavering in their sheer desperation to get at us.
I was already slashing with the Interfector, hacking away at the press of bodies. The burning blade cleaved through torsos, through limbs, through the leather squares of shields - I stabbed a spider-headed nightmare through the skull, and it shrieked as the bulbous tumors of its eyes boiled in their sockets. Their foul stench rolled off them, mingled with whatever intoxicants they'd consumed to drive them into a killing frenzy; It was the smell of the charnel house, of the abattoir, of the sewer, only more immediate and infinitely worse.
I had a moment to realize that Erya was on his feet, now. His curved blade described a hissing arc, as he cleaved through helmets and through shields with equal ease - For the first few desperate seconds, there wasn't a single drop of blood on him. Then a spear stabbed at him, scraping against his chest-plate hard enough to scar the golden glyph, and I heard him yell at last.
It wasn't a cry of pain. He simply seemed disgusted at the thought of one of the subhumans actually laying hands on him. His blade sliced through the goat-headed beastman's throat, but another threw itself at him before he could recover; the rat-thing had knives strapped to each wrist and one to its tail, and it drew blood before he stabbed his sword right through the thing's torso, severing its spine as he tore it free.
Time seemed to skip and stutter. An axe slammed into my shoulder, and sent me staggering back a step. The Horuner I'd been fighting - snorting through flared nostrils - howled out a "Big die...Ik'k'rah!" as it swung a billhook at me, only to gurgle when I eviscerated it with the Interfector. I kicked the burning corpse hard, sent it cannoning into the horned beast-things clawing at each other to get at me; In the moment it bought me, I swung the Interfector in a vicious arc, and turned them all into living torches.
This was hell in zero-gauge, a point-blank orgy of killing. It was worse than the camps, like nothing I'd ever seen - the world swam as I moved entirely by instinct, dodging blows without seeing them, twisting to take them on my armor, swinging at anything that came within reach. I could hear the rising song of adrenaline in my ears, as my back slammed into something; I risked a glance, realized I was back-to-back with Jozan, clubbing furiously with his mace as his shield bashed back blows and bashed in teeth-
"By the Four!" he was shouting. "By Earth, Fire, Water and Air, be cast down and unmade!"
Heiter and Roulle were fighting side-by-side, the former laying in, the latter shielding his flank with his scarred and battered shield. Heiter didn't slash; he stabbed, over and over again, the way a boxer throws jabs. He plunged first one sword, then the next, into throats and bellies, gouging and rupturing. The same ghostly radiance from before shimmered around his blades, gathered around him like an aura, brighter than I'd ever seen.
I was hit again and again, but armored up to my neck, I didn't care. The Interfector's arc-welder flame swept back and forth, molten metal spraying where it met iron plates and mail - It hacked through them and into the flesh beneath, to frantic, juddering squeals of pain.
Erya fought alone. It was like he'd established a half-circle in front of him, and anything that entered it died. His blade moved faster than a hummingbird's wings, viridian light pulsing at the edges of his eyes, ambling across his knuckles.
Whatever enchantments his slave had whispered over him, she'd given him a sword-arm faster than lightning, a blade that moved so fast it was just a killing blur. Always slashing, never stabbing, he danced the razor edge across throats and through limbs, blood misting and spraying in a rippling wake; In the first frantic seconds, he'd accounted for more than the rest of us had. Combined.
For a moment, it felt like we were holding them back. Keeping them at bay.
And then I heard wood collapsing with a roar, and I realized - dimly, as I fought for my life - that this wasn't the only breach. To braying demihuman cheers, clawing hands wrenched down the barricade, misshapen forms pouring in with blades in hand. It felt like the entire gatehouse was reverberating with the clash of hand-to-hand combat as Pavel's men gave ground, desperately stabbing at the beastmen they would never kill fast enough.
The sight of reinforcements spurred the demihumans on. Another surge came, and I knew this would be the worst rush yet. A wolf-headed nightmare snapped at my throat, spittle flecking its jaws as it tried to wrench the Interfector from my grasp. I winced as the thing's wretched carnivore-breath - stinking, like an open sewer - gusted against me, the reeking stench almost blinding.
With my free hand, I slugged punch after desperate punch into it, the shock of each blow reverberating through me as I felt bone shatter beneath my hammering fist, dark blood spraying over the knuckles of my gauntlet as I smashed that hideous face out of all alignment-
It wouldn't die. It just wouldn't die. Something tried to bury a dagger in my guts, and the blade snapped against my armor - I kicked out, desperately, and the wolfman's grip loosened just enough for me to swing the Interfector across in a great, carving arc.
More screams. Bubbling shrieks, as acid flame scorched into them. Hellish blue flame lit the smoke-filled chamber, the murky air thick with screams, blows, thrashing figures and the dull glint on steel.
How many - I had time to think, chopping at the press.
How many can we take with us-
An axe hooked into Roulle's shield, and dragged it down. He had to let go, or he'd have been pulled after it: He wrenched his long knife from his belt and stabbed it into a jackal-man's eyesocket, but something with nictitating lizard-eyes smashed a nail-studded club into the side of his head. I heard him howl, a sound of miserable and solitary pain, as chunks of flesh went with it. He staggered, flailing with his spear, but misshapen hands seized him and dragged him away from Heiter.
"Roulle!" I shouted, desperately, uselessly. An ape-thing hurled itself at me, and I raised the Interfector to spear it right through the heart. As it immolated, squalling and thrashing on the blue-hot blade, I saw I was already too late. Roulle's remaining eye met mine, for one desperate moment-
And I saw. The agony. The terror. The knowledge that his life was over, and that only Hell would follow.
"Hel-"
He made a low, startled sound - a sharp exhalation, a hiss of breath escaping - as the first sword punched into him. Then the next, from behind - I heard the shllllkk shlllkkkk of the blades stabbing into him over and over again, rising and falling in a swift, savage rhythm. Roulle had time to scream once - just once - before he disappeared beneath their feet, and vanished from sight.
No, I thought. No, damnit-
Heiter's swords flew faster, faster. Backed up against the empty cauldron, he fought to keep them at bay; He stabbed an orc in the throat, smashed it in the face with his pommel as it gurgled on its own blood. His other blade punched through the chittering mandibles of something with too many eyes - It let out a shriek as it toppled back, three-fingered hands clutching at his wrist, vicing down around his arm.
It didn't let go.
Somehow, somehow, he held them off for a moment more. Forced to one knee, he whirled one sword in a desperate arc of steel - When a tiger-headed horror rushed him with a scimitar, he swatted the thing's slash aside with a furious parry, and jammed his sword right into the middle of the beastman's body. Black gobs of blood sprayed as Heiter twisted his blade to make sure it stayed down, the subhuman's roar-shriek achingly loud.
"Grace of the Four," Brother Jozan hissed out, desperately - "By Your Light, the wicked are blinded…!"
There was a brilliant flash behind me. Howls, as demihumans reeled back from the abrupt burst of blinding light. The Interfector hacked sideways into a throat, split a hideous iron mask - and the equally hideous face below - in two, as I barged my way forward through scrum, trying to get to Heiter-
I saw the blow coming from the side, a flash of motion as a hammer swung at me, but it was too late to do anything about it. The maul slammed into my side, hard enough to send me reeling - it punched the breath from my lungs and I went over, slamming sideways into an eyeless horror that had been trying to gut Jozan. It hissed at me with snapping needle fangs, a hiss that turned into a screech as I speared the Interfector through its thigh.
The thing's entire weight crashed down on me. Momentarily flattened beneath that coiling reptilian weight, I tried to shove it away, as stinking fluids gushed over my armor. I was kicked, stomped, hacked at as I wrenched my arms up, vainly trying to shield my face. All I felt was a desperate, clawing panic, the hooting and jeering of the monsters on all sides filling my world-
Steel flashed. A hand thrust at me, and - with an unmerciful jerk - Pavel hauled me to my feet. He was covered in gore, his sword snapped in half, but he used the broken blade like a dagger, stabbing and hacking to buy me time to stagger upright.
"Heiter's-" I gasped out, my throat raw from the smoke.
"He's gone, lad! He's gone!" Pavel shouted.
Gone? I thought, in that blankly frozen moment. How-
From the corner of my eye, I saw his corpse - Pinned against the wall by two spears, punctured right through. The first one had been stabbed through Heiter so hard, it had stuck in the stone pillar behind him. The other had gouged out his throat, his head lolling grotesquely forward against the leaf-shaped blade that had killed him.
I hadn't even seen him die.
A woman's agonized scream split the air. High-pitched, full of terror, it lasted for the fraction of a second - then ended, and the finality of it was somehow worse.
"No!" I heard Erya howl. "Bastards! That was my property! Mine!"
Oh, I thought - vaguely, without any particular triumph. Oh, he's still alive.
Orlando's shaggy shape loomed before us, the big man hammering away with flail and sword. Each sweep of his weapons flung bodies back, but I could see the blood trickling down his scalp, the gashes and cuts he'd taken from impact after impact.
"This is it!" he bellowed, even as he crushed a rat-beast's skull. His sword impaled a frogman through one bulbous eye, and he wrenched the thing's mace from a sucker-tipped hand. With a surge of effort, he windmilled it in a furious overhand blow, shattering a Orthrous's kneecap before it could ride him down. A meaty hand seized the bleating creature by the throat, and he wrenched it in the way of an axe that cleaved down into the centaur's spine.
"There's hundreds of the fuckers, we're going to have to fight like madmen-"
And then I saw the angels.
In those furious minutes, the sheer savagery of the fight had eclipsed all else. Even the sight of the Liberation Army, rising up over the ridge, the pre-dawn gloom lit by their torches and flaming brands. They'd marched through the night to get here, and anything less would have meant our annihilation.
Assaulting a city in the dark was tactical madness, but Commander Remedios had seen the urgently strobing light of Pavel's signal. There was no time for strategy, no time for forming ordered ranks - All that remained was to go right for the gate while it remained open, while the beastmen hacked and chopped and clawed at each other in their desperation to kill us.
And so the Paladins and the knights had gone forward. The earth shook beneath the thunder of hooves, bright swords and lances raised. The armsmen came behind them, running to keep up, a mass of men surging towards the sliver of the open gate across the plain.
With them came the angels.
The priests had spared nothing, held nothing back. Every iota of power, of divine favor, had gone into the summoning: The Holy King himself had beseeched the Four Gods for Their aid, and perhaps his prayers meant more than the rest put together. The angels had materialized mid-flight, halos and flaming swords blazing, soaring towards the battlements with singular purpose-
But then an answering cloud of dark, churning bodies had streamed from the walls of Loyts, and met them head-on. Crows, bats, carrion-eaters, lead by their larger kin. Both sides commenced tearing each other apart, swords pitted against needle-sharp beaks and pitiless talons, rending and ripping.
The angels were proof against mortal weapons, but there was only so long they could remain on this plane. Every second counted, as the demihuman horde within the city stirred, shouting itself into order.
All they had to do was drop the portcullis. Raise the drawbridge, and pick off the knights as they milled futilely outside.
But to do that, they had to kill us all.
Of course, none of us knew anything about this. All we knew was the tightening noose of beastmen, stabbing with spears and catchpoles, their jeers echoing in our ears.
When the guardroom had been lost, Pavel and Orlando had fought their way up the steps for their last stand. Their goal was simple: To hold the winding mechanism for as long as possible, to stop the demihumans from undoing our work. Ran was on their heels, his spear hissing with a liquid serpent-quickness, punching into eyes and through throats - the killing edge crackling with lacerating energy, each strike spraying bloody flecks as he wrenched it out.
Dogged, determined to fight to the end, Brother Jozan stood shoulder-to-shoulder with me. His armor was covered in gouges, his shield long gone - the useless, broken remnants swinging around his left arm like an oversized bangle, as he swung his mace with both hands. He was still game, battering a mantis-clawed killer to the ground, but from the spreading stain on his surcoat I could tell he'd taken a bad hit.
Skill no longer mattered. Only effort. My limbs felt like they weighed a thousand pounds, as I hacked and slashed; the blue fires of the Interfector burned brighter than ever, but every swing made dark spots of effort flicker in my field of vision, my breath coming in ragged gasps. I wasn't even sure if I was hitting anything, now - the beastmen feared Samuel's sword, and gave me a wide berth.
Those that didn't, burned.
And then the beastmen were falling back. I had felt them falter, like a tide receding; the last few had rushed in with fear in their howls, with the blades of the others at their back. Between the six of us, we had accounted for over ten times our number, above and below.
There was, of course, no-one to keep score. Everyone else was dead.
"Is that all they've got?" Orlando asked. He was panting hard, his face bloodless with pain and effort, but there was still a laugh in his voice. "Think we can kill every last one of 'em?"
Erya was flagging, too. His swordsmanship was becoming wilder, a flurry of dazzling, ringing blows that didn't kill his opponents so much as slice them to still-twitching pieces. His teeth were gritted, that handsome face contorted in a sneer.
The prospect of death strips away all illusions. For Erya, it meant he wasn't bothering with the genteel, calm facade any longer.
"Where," he hissed through his teeth, "-are the damn angels?"
Even his blonde hair was in disarray, now. A lucky slash had unraveled his topknot, and he seemed to have taken it personally. Almost as personally as the death of his slave, her empty eyes staring blankly at nothing, her slim fingers still gripping at the knife in her guts.
Pavel looked like he'd aged a decade in the span of a few minutes. He'd taken a bad hit to the hip, and he pressed his hand to it as he fumbled a potion from his belt. When he swallowed it, some color returned to his face, sticky with sweat and gore.
"Here's-" he spat red saliva, wiped his mouth. "-an idea. Why not shout at them, maybe they'll hear you-"
"Fuck you, you withered old eunuch! You've led us to our deaths!"
Orlando grinned at Erya. It was a nasty, sharp-toothed smile, the smile a man has when he's at the gallows, contemplating the drop ahead.
"Too late to back out now," he rumbled. "You volunteered, remember? Never trust a recruiter, I always say."
Erya went silent. Glaring at both of them, in helpless rage. His fingers flexed around the grip of his sword, his white shirt sliced and torn: Skill - or luck - had kept him from taking more than superficial injuries, but he'd pushed it about as far as it could go.
I was - dimly - aware of the clamor outside. The sound of battle, the cawing screech of carrion-eaters and the flaming blades of the angels. It all seemed so distant, now; so very far away from the walls of the stone chamber, gore drooling down the steps, steam rising from the cooling corpses.
A hand latched onto my arm, fingers gripping with desperate strength. Warmth radiated through my bones, and the pall of fatigue lifted, ever-so-slightly, gray wisps twisting along the dents in my armor.
"Better take over for me, I think," Jozan said, and slumped.
His hand fell away from his ribs, revealing a ragged hole in his side. His flanged mace clattered to the ground as he crumpled, his eyes foggy - I could see something dark and spongy moving within the wound, and hissed.
"Pavel!" I said, urgent. "He's-"
"I know, lad. I know." He dug in his pouch, came up with a slender red vial. "Last one - Make it count."
Pavel tossed it to me, and I caught the potion, popping the wax seal. Brother Jozan turned his head to the side, when I pressed it on him. "Don't bother," he rasped. "Already dead-"
"Drink it, damn you," I said, forcing his head back. He tried - weakly - to pull away, but didn't struggle when I poured the draught down his throat. I stared at the wound in his side, willing it to close, willing the flesh to seal over...
"They're coming," Ran warned. His mother-of-pearl armor was scabbed and dented, and his skin was more blue than green-tinted, now; His blood flowed sluggishly, thickly, from his wounds, as he leaned on his spear for support. Those bulbous eyes closed once, solemnly.
"One final effort, I think. It was...good to fight alongside you. All of you."
Orlando reached down. He prised a cudgel free from a dead snakeman's hand, hefting it to test the balance. "Good," he growled, at the stones shuddered from the tromp of armored feed. "-I was getting bored."
Pavel exhaled - A slow, measured sigh. "Well," he said. "At least it isn't raining."
He looked down at the strange little doll I'd seen before, small enough to fit into the palm of his hand. With infinite tenderness, he kissed it and tucked it away - reverently - into a belt-pouch, testing the edge of his notched sword.
"Now, let's give them something to remember us b-"
And then there was a fury of light and heat, and around me, the world went to pieces.
It was magic, of course.
The beastmen were savage. Brutal. Hungry for glory, to please their bloody-handed gods, for human flesh.
But they were not - for a moment - fools.
When the fireball erupted, the blast hurled us all from our feet. Masonry rubble rained down from the roof, and the outer wall of the gatehouse collapsed in a landslip of rubble. Air rushed in, thick with the smell of sulphur, of cooking meat, dense smoke coiling and gusting like funeral incense.
In a single blast, the building had been reduced to a hollow shell by the firestorm. Something, somewhere was burning, ash and cinders falling like snow from the boiling smoke. Half a wall had toppled on us, fist-sized bricks pounding us unmercifully, and all I could hear was a distant drone in my ears.
I couldn't move. My skin felt scorched, like a full-body sunburn - It hurt to breathe, as blood trickled into my eyes. My armor glowed, faintly, neon glyphs shimmering with witchfire radiance on the cuirass and pauldrons; somehow, it'd kept the worst of the flames from me.
The others weren't so fortunate.
Jozan was gone. All I saw of Erya was an arm protruding from the rubble, one that might have been his.
It was Ran who lurched to his feet first. He'd taken the brunt of the blast, scorched and charred by the flames - He clung to his spear as he forced himself to his knees, his form momentarily silhouetted against the caved section of wall…
I heard chanting. Low, slick and evil. A brittle crack, like the air splitting-
He jerked. His body twisted, as if shoved by an unseen hand. Something had happened to him that I couldn't quite understand, until Ran lurched forward, his head lolling. Only then did I see the gleaming silver of the hissing lance that had gone right through him, a single long spine that pierced his side.
Ran's fingers uncurled from his spear. He vomited blood in a great torrent across the debris-strewn ground and fell against it, then went still.
Figures were scrambling through the smoke. Up the steps, along the mound of rubble.
I heard laughter. Terrible, wheezing laughter.
Orlando's clothes hung from his body in tatters, his arms charred halfway to the bone. He had his hands over his eyes, like a child hiding from the dark. He was laughing, his burly form trembling with the force of it, as he took them away-
His eyes. His eyes were charred pits, blinded by his own scorched flesh.
"I wish," he rasped out. "I wish I could see you, old man."
His face twisted, in a bloody, cracked-lip grin. "Guess we'll just have to settle things up there."
Pavel. Where was Pavel?
The effort brought tears of agony to my eyes, but I forced my head to turn.
He lay face-down, about ten meters away, in a pool of his own blood. A shard of ice - ice, of all things - had taken him in the back, and left an exit wound the size of my fist. He still had his sword clamped in one blood-smeared hand, the skin scorched away.
No, I thought. No.
Pain tore at me, and from it I knew I was still alive. There was a crushing weight on my back, and every time I moved it rocked back and crushed me a little more. But - even as my eyes stung with smoke - I could see the pommel of the Interfector before me. The blade lay where it'd fallen, the flames stilled; without a wielder, it was merely a sword and nothing more.
Move, I told myself. I reached, and agony lanced up my side as I stretched, working my fingers across that tiny length of stone. My universe seemed to shrink down to that, as if the blade was the only thing that mattered…
I could hear them coming closer, now. Horned, masked figures, appearing from the gloom. I glimpsed pink silks and curving tulwars, their animal stench mingling with what might have been perfumes and oils.
I reached. It was all I could do. My fingertips brushed the Interfector, and - with tooth-grinding care - I dragged it close, my fingers curling around the hilt.
Please, I thought. Please, God-
There was the hiss of a blade, and Orlando's laughter ended in a gurgle. Arterial blood spurted, splattered the ground before me in a long streak. I heard the thump, as his body crumpled to the ground.
I tried-
A boot came down on my arm, and pinned it to the ground. One of the masked figures loomed over me, casting a long and hungry shadow. I could see the charms strung from the thing's featureless mask, veils fluttering as it looked down at me.
It was then I realized - with slow-blossoming disgust - that the figure had four arms, two riling in subtly obscene motion as it lifted a ritual knife with another. Seeing that I was pinned, it turned its head and laughed, a hideous fluting sound. Mimicking my distress.
Mocking me, before it moved it for the kill.
Red, red, a flare of insulted rage-
And then the Interfector's blue-steel blade burst into flame.
What happened next isn't easy to explain.
It was, I think, an act of desperation. The realization that this was it - the bitter end. A whole life lived, then less than a week of confusion and bloodshed and killing, and it would end here.
Forever.
I rejected it. I denied it.
I strained. Reached, drawing deep on reserves that I barely knew existed. I heaved at the crushing weight that pinned me, an effort that sent adrenaline bursting through my brain-
And I stood.
How, I didn't know. The pinning rubble slid away, toppling with a splintering crash, and I hacked the Interfector through the Magelos' leg with one savage swipe. I heard it yowl as it flailed back, gore fountaining from the stump, before I put the point of the blade right through that mask.
I could sense my moment. As though an opening had been granted, or some key had been turned in a lock.
I saw the distant towers of the Platinum Spire, brilliant and gleaming beneath the fat, gibbous moon of Yggdrasil's final night. All of this transposed against the fire and carnage of this chamber of horrors, filled with monsters whose masks displayed only blank inhumanity, their voices muttering like the insane.
And I cut loose.
They barely moved, as first I struck. Again.
And again.
And again.
In the space of that single breath, I had delivered so many cuts with the Interfector's remorseless edge, that the masked warriors had lost their arms and legs. They were still in the act of falling, of twisting and writhing in splattershriek agony, when I moved past them, accelerating towards the tall, alien figure they flanked.
I didn't just kill Nasrene Belt Cure, ruler of the Magelos Tribes, Iceflame Thunder of the Abelion Hills. I dissected her, before the first syllables of her final spell could even leave her mouth, before her hands could shape the blasts meant to wipe me from the face of the world.
And then I was past her. Charging towards the nearest rising monster, a huge claymore and a raspy roar waiting for me. I could see the beastman's kin waiting for me, all of them raising their weapons far too slowly as I drove towards them, raising the Interfector with both hands-
Then I was in the midst of them, cutting and slashing like a whirlwind of blades. My brother's sword moved so fast, it seemed like a dozen oblate blades, slashing in every direction at once. The Interfector became a sweeping scythe, a blur, three times its length as I drove through the closing wall of creatures, slicing heads and torsos, armor and shields, anything that stood in my way.
The fire was within me, now. I could feel it scorching the air, boiling from my eyes, my armor, a rippling mantle of blue flame. Blood sprayed, superheating to a churning mist, dragging extravagant contrails of cooked gore across the walls.
I was halfway down the steps now, I realized. Out in the open air. Flame licking at my heels, all sound drowned out by the hammer of my pulse in my ears. As if my heart was on the verge of bursting, as if all this would surely end.
Nothing stopped the Interfector. Nothing.
Flesh disintegrated. Armor melted beneath that pellucid blue flame. Weapons shivered apart or were cleaved through, in that same relentless motion. I was at the heart of my own personal storm, a rising hurricane of raggedly severed limbs as beastmen swarmed around me, as if hoping to bury me with their numbers.
As if wheat could stop the scythe.
I could see the terror in their eyes as I came for them. Haloed by amorphous contrails of rippling blue fire, blade moving so fast it was a blur, I was a demon to them, something spat out of the most terrible of Hells. They mobbed around me, like hyenas on a lion, trying to drag me down, trying to choke my blows. Terrified of me, but even more terrified of letting me live.
Some flew apart, when the Interfector tore through them. Others immolated where they stood, some surviving to reel away screaming and beating at the all-consuming flames that never went out. Split asunder, bodies were hurled aside by the sheer kinetic impact, carried by their own momentum as they were carved.
Arrows flew at me. Spears. They burned away before they reached me, the mantle of flame roared up at my back. I could see smoke wisping from my gauntlets, the rippling blaze enfolding me as I turned towards the archers sending desperate shafts whistling in my direction.
Ogres and orcs, dogmen, and stranger things, still. All gathered in a milling crowd, a firing line. Throwing everything they had at me, all to ensure that death would not take them too.
I left burning footsteps on the cobblestones as I strode towards them. Gathering speed, as I broke into a run. A sprint.
A charge.
I leapt. Higher than ever before, higher than Heiter could have imagined. They were scrambling back, parting before me, shields and spears raised in wavering hands and claws to meet the assault-
I smashed down into them, and the street disappeared in a volcano of fire and exploded earth. When the Interfector's blade plunged down, a cataclysm of flame spewed outwards. Those that were caught became living torches. Those who weren't were felled by the hail of stones, or scrambled away coughing blood from their scorched lungs.
I was past the gatehouse, now. Alone against an army, the panicked horde scrabbling away from me, like a single entity recoiling from a plaguebearer. I cut them down as they fled, a relentless straight-ahead march, carving and killing with every step-
It was unreal. Insane. A fever-dream of power, more vivid than any fantasy.
The Interfector flung beastmen out of my path. Left them twisted and broken, hacked and cleaved, the ground strewn with fallen shields and weapons. Even in flight there was no escape; When I swept the sword across, fire rushed down the street, like a searing wall of acid. Those caught in it writhed for frantic moments before they were scorched down to their bones, then to dust that blew away.
And I-
"Forward!"
"For the Holy Queen!"
Dimly, distantly, I realized someone was bellowing orders. Riders were sweeping in, lances couched, running down the beastmen as they fled. Spears punched through flesh, javelins flurrying out like arrows as steeds thundered past me. The infantry was advancing, too - Angels swooping down from above, the fierce light of their swords eclipsed by the Interfector's blaze.
I stopped.
The press around me had broken, and the ground was covered in jumbled bodies. I looked around for Pavel, for Jozan - for anyone - but saw only the broken forms, the slaughter wrecked in the wake of the charge. Scorched, twisted, cleaved, decapitated...It was like an anatomical study, like the jumble of mutilated and burned toys left in the wake of a cruel but ingenious child.
Somewhere, a horn sounded. The banner of the Liberation Army fluttered bravely ahead of me, carried deeper into the city.
Fighting, somewhere in the distance, like the echo of someone else's war…
The hammer of my pulse had stopped, at last. My hands were shaking, a fine patina of ash clinging to my form as I stumbled forward, coming down off the pitch of blind rage that had driven me into the fight.
I looked back, at the trail of destruction I'd wreaked.
At the demihumans I'd carved my way through.
At the distant gatehouse, far behind now, a gaping hole in one wall as blue fires flickered fitfully within.
I felt my legs turn to cloth, my knees buckling beneath me as I sank to the ground.
I realized what I'd done, and the thought made me gag. Somehow, somehow, I choked back the vomit, even as I felt something like a hot knife sawing at my stomach, acid reflux churning at the back of my throat.
And that - later, once the killing was done - was how the Liberation Army found me.
Next: Four Graces