Men fled from the apparition, screaming in panic, dying at its barest touch. It oozed through the world. Behind it, reality cracked and bled, eyes peeking through the gaps, hands reaching out and burning as they crossed the threshold.
The monster itself was a towering mass of limbs, heads, mouths and claws. In the illum, it just barely resembled the horror Erisa had become in her final moments, something that couldn’t mesh onto the bones of one world. Souls intermingling, screaming in agony, dotted its body, like pustules of power dug into black flesh.
In one flash, it was a rider atop a great black steed, taller than any horse Tallah had ever seen, its skin wreathed in black fire. Six powerful legs pawed at the ground as it felt studied and turned to her.
In the next heartbeat, it was a mass of tentacles and eyes, rolling in her direction, splitting the world in two. By the passing heartbeat, it became less and more and always different. Her stomach cramped in terror and she had to steel herself to focus. It could fool the eye, but illum was absolute. Whatever was there, it was a storm in the flow, but one she could see and track and fight.
She fired her first volley of lances as the creature stumbled her way, white fire burning through the monster, gouging out great chunks of flesh. It casually, barely bothered, swung an arm that seemed to cover the entire perimeter of the courtyard, smashing fleeing men to pulp. Their souls streaked through the air, drawn straight into the daemon, bright silver rays ripped out of their still-twitching bodies.
Her lances fired again, more illum poured into them, their width increased. Now it screamed as she bathed it in fire. In an eye blink it was the writhing mass of tentacles again, one of its appendages reaching out towards a dead soldier. It touched the corpse and drew it into itself, growing that much larger. The sound of snapping bones filled the air, like the gnashing of teeth, as the corpse was assimilated.
Tallah fired again, expending more power, as she broke into a run, trying to maintain the distance between herself and the beast. She was already aware of more things crowding through the exit from the city below, creatures far more terrible than the beastmen up here. Soldiers would be caught and crushed between the forces, but she couldn’t help if this thing was loose among them.
Her lances cut into the monster, filling the air with smoke and the cloying stench of burning meat. It screamed in a concert of human voices, and swung its tentacles at her. She dove to the ground, wove, loosed again. The rider came at her, its fiery mount eating her flames, spewing smoke as it thundered closer.
Bianca threw her across the courtyard, the yank barely coherent as the ghost was engaged with Anna’s effort. Tallah hit the ground in a ball, rolled through the mud and stumbled back up to her feet to run. Her chest burned, the aerum still helping with the smoke and ash.
“I need Christina,” she screamed as she ran.
The daemon turned in her direction and swung a wide-bladed black sword at her. Its edge cut the air itself. She dove under its strike, its range much longer than it had any right to be. She tried to roll away and was grabbed by desiccated hands emerging from where the sword had ripped the world open. Their burning grasp was bone-shattering.
A blast of lightning uncoiled off her, disintegrating her captors, Christina rising to the fore.
‘Devourer?’ the ghost suggested as Tallah ran towards the keep, trying to lure the beast away from the healing ward.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she offered her illum to Christina, pouring it into the ghost. They’d never done this in full battle, but they hadn’t the time to worry about safety now. Men screamed behind her, their terror cutting off with the sickening crunch of bone.
Again the tentacles rolled over the dead and dying, snatching bodies up and adding them to its mass. Bones cracked. Voices screamed. Those soldiers that didn’t run were devoured. A few, braver and far more foolish than most, turned crossbows onto the creature. They also died screaming, their bolts doing nothing to slow the beast.
Illum cycled through Tallah’s veins. Whatever she could spare, she unleashed as fireballs on the creature, each explosion exacting a cost on it, but none near sufficient to wound it properly. Near-human parts exploded off it, raining as gore over those seeking to escape.
Already more monsters emerged from below. Some dragged bleeding corpses. Others still living victims. Tallah was under no illusion about the fate of the civilians down there. Many, if not most, would be dead by now, consumed by this fresh tide of horrors.
For a single moment she wished she would’ve caught and tortured all of the channellers rather than only the one. They would have all deserved worse than just dying slowly on a spike, alone atop the walls, to witness the result of their crimes.
The monster was on her, reaching out, whipping its tentacles madly. One changed and Tallah barely ducked the sword it became. Again hands reached out from wherever the creature came, trying to grab at her. She had no more illum to spare for defence, all of it gone into the Devourer’s preparation.
Stupid. Short-sighted. Amateur mistake.
‘It is what it is,’ Christina agreed. She too was straining to contain the charge they had prepared.
The power twisted inside Tallah. Christina’s binding on her back burned, lancing agony up her spine, the power yearning to be released.
One hand grabbed her hair and yanked, pulling her off her feet. Another grabbed an arm. Red lightning coiled around her body, almost ready to be unleashed. Some hands were atomised, most survived the backwash. Another grabbed her by the throat, the mask, her shoulders, legs. They were pinning her as the six-legged horse wheeled in place, its rider turning a featureless black head in her direction. It opened a single red eye. A long tongue spooled out from beneath that organ as it drove arm-length spurs into the horse’s side.
It thundered in her direction, the hooves tolling a death’s call on the muddy earth, the sword held out and trailing wounds in the air. Eyes regarded her hungrily.
Tallah couldn’t breathe. Her skin burned. She wasn’t ready, didn’t have a proper grasp on the Devourer’s shape.
The hands almost broke her back as they twisted and writhed, working to drag her through the gaps in reality, too greedy to wait for the daemon to finish her.
A bright-white light slammed into the monster’s side, cutting off two of the horse’s legs, sending into a rolling crash. It howled in outrage, the rider leaping clear of the mount to land with a splash of mud.
At the same time, the pressure on Tallah’s throat eased as a sword passed right by her head, severing the arm holding her.
“Hold on,” Vergil’s voice said from somewhere to her side. A swoosh of air at her back and another hand lost its grip.
Something hissed beyond her, the sound like an angered snake. She pulled herself away as Vergil hacked with both weapons at what held her.
“Get clear,” she called out, voice buzzing.
Vergil brought his sword back around in a final cut and sliced through her hair and the fingers holding her in place.
Tallah stumbled forward, could barely walk with the power thrumming in her chest. The monster rose atop its tentacles, grew eyes, extended towards Sil’s retreating shape. The healer was running already, feet pumping so energetically that it gave Tallah momentary pause.
Vergil was doing the same, banging his weapons together as he retreated, jumping and making as much noise as he could to draw the monster’s attention. Other shapes were clustering around him, sinuous bodies slithering out from the city. He turned just as a six-armed naga lunged at him, his sword flashing with such speed that it parted the daemon’s head from its neck in a single stroke.
In the next heartbeat he was surrounded, fighting like only a man possessed by a dwarven berserker could.
‘Ready,’ Christina announced, voice barely intelligible. Any more illum and both of them would burst apart.
Tallah extended an arm at the confused monster that was still gathering its lost limbs. Blood-red lightning uncoiled off her and slammed into the daemon in a single, terrifying burst. She could hold nothing back as the Devourer sucked her dry to the marrow of her bones.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Her target exploded before her very eyes, body reduced to ashes in the instant of casting. The lightning punched through, too wild to tame, and hit the far wall, demolishing it outward into the Cauldron. Christina fought for control, but they’d used too much power, too quickly, too unprepared. A whole section of the Rock’s defensive wall simple burst out, coming down with earth-shaking force, staring a cascade of utter destruction.
The irony was not lost an her, even in that blood-curdling moment.
Tallah dismissed the power with an effort, bent forward, and was violently sick. It had been so close! And it had only been one monster. She trembled with all her being, head spinning, stomach revolting. Her hands gripped her knees as she strained to eject everything that lingered in the pit of her guts, a chill cutting through her veins.
The air had not changed, the lingering dread still there, floating among the carnage. She could feel more creatures alert now, coming up from the city. She was gasping for air, trying to get both her heart and breathing under control, looking about for her friends, hoping she hadn’t ended them by mistake.
Vergil dismantled the naga warriors, fighting the serpentine creatures with such ferocity that Tallah doubted it was even Vergil in control.
Sil was nowhere to be seen, likely back in the fight somewhere. If not for her intervention, Tallah wasn’t certain she would’ve survived the clash. Had the healer died, she would’ve known.
‘Hate to say it,’ Christina wheezed out. ‘But that creature may have been right. I don’t see a way to win this day.’
Tallah didn’t either. She struggled to draw in more illum, aware she couldn’t repeat the feat with Christina soon. Already the ghost retreated to the work and allowed Bianca back up to aid Anna.
The daemons bled, but it wasn’t enough. Whatever she visited upon them wouldn’t be nearly enough to change the tide of the fight, now that a second opening had shown up in their defences.
The earth shook again. She turned in place, trying to find what else was coming. The tremor repeated, harder, nearly knocking her off her feet. Vergil finished with the last of the monsters, shook gore off his weapons, then approached at a sprint. His grin shone through the helmet’s visor.
Tallah expected the dwarf’s crazed howling. Instead, she got Vergil’s surprisingly calm voice, “Horvath says something big’s happening. Same as Lang. He says we need to run.” He was slightly winded, covered in blood, but still unharmed. Still himself too.
“If a dwarf says to run,” she wheezed out, still panting, “then we’d better consider it good advice.”
Some civilians escaped from the city. They were fighting their way up the stairs, led by the adventurers. Vergil turned, raised his sword, and called out.
“Licia! Here! Over here!”
The elendine saluted with a bloodied knife, and the whole group, adventurers and civilians alike, ran towards Tallah. Sil appeared out of the healing ward, trailing several healers after her. She directed them towards pockets of fighting, urgency clear in her gestures.
The earth rumbled. Then bucked. Then screamed.
A howl filled the early-night. The sky lit up, a red glow smearing across the low clouds. Every daemon within the Rock howled in unison to the noise.
“We are retreating,” Tallah said to Vergil, yelling over the infernal noise. “Find Vilfor, if he’s still alive. Otherwise, Liosse. She’s the short woman looking like a cross between a bear and an angry dwarf.” She prodded Bianca’s strength and began to lift into the air. “Tell them I’ll open the path to the pass. The day’s lost. We need to run.”
Vergil didn’t wait to be told twice. The lad had grown into someone to rely on and, just then, Tallah was ready to treat the dwarf in his helmet to whatever the thing wanted for his help in shaping Vergil. She might’ve been much too dismissive of the old ghost.
Bianca’s anchors gripped the wall and pulled her skyward, the glow rising in intensity as she climbed. The Rock continued crumbling from where she’d wounded it, the tremors doing nothing to help the ancient fortress remain standing.
As she rose, she took stock of everything she’d learned.
The goddess insisted all of this had to happen for some ill-defined reason. That humanity was locked in cycles of violence was no big secret. They’d been killing each other and the rest of the seven across Edana for millennia. It was the very reason their entire species had been confined to Vas by the aelir when total eradication had become too costly for the Dominion. How that cycle could be broken, Tallah couldn’t begin to imagine.
The channellers had insisted their work had to be completed for Ort to fall. But fanatics rarely made good judges of consequences. They’d helped in orchestrating events, but she’d seen it in Ternar that they had no idea what the cost would be. She couldn’t trust their intentions any more than she could trust Catharina.
That left the dregs and their master. This Ryder character, the true god, whatever that meant. If she knew something of gods, it was that they were rarely benevolent, and always self-serving and self-indulgent. This one was a new player in the grand divine games, and it looked like he wanted to make his entrance with aplomb.
She crested the first wall and kept going up, launching lances at the creatures swarming the walls. There were many more now the light had faded, thrown up from beneath. Rhine appeared among the ghoulish apparition, one more nightmare among a growing sea of them. At least, for once, the wraith wasn’t focused on Tallah.
If Catharina can see this, I hope she chokes.
A sea of red eyes glowed out beyond the Rock when she reached the wall’s summit. Monsters were being disgorged from the forest in waves. The sight took her breath away for an instant as her feet settled on solid stone.
Even with Anna’s blood army and Christina’s full aid, she doubted she could make a big enough dent to create a corridor to the ravine, not to mention defend the evacuation while they crossed the demolished pass. For just a moment, she fought against the grip of despair in her soul. This situation went beyond her abilities, odds more hopeless than she’d ever seen in her life. There was no conceivable way she could claim this day.
In the end, Tallah was one woman who would fall with her revenge left untended. A traitorous thought pushed her to run. Grab Sil and Vergil, leap the wall, and run as hard as Bianca could carry them all.
She squashed it down, drawing a deep, frigid breath. It stung in her nose and chilled her chest. It was a combination of cold wind and crumbling resolve that sent her shaking.
Then she turned to the source of the glow, towards the crater at the heart of the Cauldron. It burned, flames climbing up into the air from the ground, dark figures flitting about it. From the distance, Tallah could imagine those swarming dots be larger than a dragon, and unimaginably powerful. A real look at the scene stung her eyes, the whole world bleeding across that wound, the real and unreal mingling in a cacophony of fire, colours, noise and insanity.
“It’s the end of the world,” she heard herself say before she could think. The scenery warranted nothing less.
An army below. An army at their backs. Horrors in the city beneath.
One woman, three ghosts, and a depleted, exhausted splinter of an army left…
Her fists tightened into balls as she drew back her mask and prepared to leap back down, surrendering to her fate. Panacea had warned them to run and Tallah had been too stubborn to accept another deciding her course.
Rhine settled on the wall next to her, sitting with legs swinging over the abyss, idly swinging them. Again, the wraith had no interest in Tallah.
Which was perfectly fine with her. She had nothing to say to the memory of her sister. Part of her wanted to beg forgiveness, if for nothing else but because she was about to die defending a place that meant nothing to them, and from where she could run if she chose to.
Tallah was ready to willingly throw her life away to defend men and women that were of no import to her. The thought almost shocked her, but a deep part of her soul knew Rhine would’ve preferred she did exactly that, and do it without theatrics.
Wind blasted into her as she readied to jump back into the fray, like a storm gust picking up from the blue. She stumbled. Turned around. Looked up.
The dragon beat its powerful wings as it bled off the speed of its descent. It was coming in from the mountain towering above the Rock, wings fully spread out to slow its descent. It landed heavily upon the wall, parapets and archer nests shattering beneath its great bulk. The beast balanced precariously onto the wall, like a great raven roosting on a branch, swinging its head side to side, as if searching.
Tallah could feel her heart in her throat, beating rapidly, unsure of what to feel with the beast so close. It was perched atop one of the towers, maybe a hundred meters away from her, making the entire fortress seem tiny by comparison.
It stopped its searching when its eyes rested on Tallah. The enormous head lowered towards her. Flames billowed from between its fangs, purple and hotter than Tallah could imagine fire being. She felt the heat wash from all the way across the distance.
What does it want? And where was the bloody spider? She would’ve given an arm all over again to have the creature with her just then.
The dragon raised its front paw, turned ponderously towards the Cauldron, and pointed down at the mass of creatures. It was very definitely a pointing gesture, the claws of its paw curled inward like fingers until only one remained extended, aimed straight at the encroaching mass.
Tallah stared mutely at it, mouth agape, mind refusing to accept the sight. From where she’d sent it, it must’ve seen what was happening.
It had come to help?
‘If I were still alive, I would have fainted twice over just now,’ Anna said in her ear, voice awed. ‘Answer it, fool.’
She did. She pointed down, ignited a fireball, and loosed it into the encroaching monsters. The blast was weak, but the message clear: “They need to burn”.
The dragon raised its head. Roared. Spat a stream of black fire towards the sky. Then beat its wings and lifted off only to turn in the air and swoop down onto the killing field. It descended on silent wing and ignited a great gout of black fire to wash over the front ranks closest to the walls.
Tallah leapt off the wall on the opposite side, letting herself fully in Bianca’s care. They were going to fight their way out, whatever the cost. For that heartbeat alone, she trusted it could all be done.
Beyond the wall, the dragon roared. And the night filled with screams.
know I can do them better, but I'm still learning how to effectively plan on the go, follow said plan, and ultimately execute on time. Learning never ends, so I'm dedicated to doing better in the next leg of the journey. Our heroes all have nice tools to work with now, they have completed part of their character arcs, and are ready to become who they were envisioned to be by the end. Low key terrified of managing the execution...
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