Chapter 515: Ever His Humble Servant II
CHUL ASCLEPIUS
My laughter boomed through the frigid mountains as the blows of my enemies rained down upon me. "You. Are. As. Ants. Before the might of the Asclepius!" I roared, reaching out and taking a horned head in my hand.
My back was pinned against the mountainside, which crumbled under the weight of our glorious combat. I batted aside the pummeling spells and spun, smashing the Wraith's face into the jagged and broken stone. The flames of my forefathers filled me, and I laughed anew as I ground the hated face deeper into the rock, pushing with raw might and phoenix fire together. His bitter, weak black magic clawed back at me just as his broken and bestial nails clawed at my arm.
Stinging, poison-filled bullets nipped at my back, and a wicked, miserly conjuration of pure black shadow crawled into the space between my hand and the Wraith's horned hand, attempting to pry me away.
"Mother!" I boomed, my eyes moving to the fortress in the distance. Her tomb. "I bring vengeance to your enemies, Mother! I will"-a sharp pain cascaded through my side as a long, curved blade punched through my warding mana, parted my flesh, and pierced my insides, only just missing my core-"pay back your spilt blood a hundredfold to our enemies," I finished, hissing the words.
Grunting with amusement, I flung Suncrusher back at the one bombarding me with poisonous bullets, then took hold of the Wraith in my grip by both horns. His hand was still holding the blade in my side, which he yanked back and forth, carving up my insides. His movements were already weakening as my fire cooked the gray meat within his skull, but he did not give up his fight.
Until, with another roar, I pulled on his horns with all my strength.
Bone cracked, flesh tore, and the Wraith came apart in my hands as I ripped him in two.
There was a screech behind me, and the shadowy manifestation lunged for my throat, mouth, and eyes, trying to crawl inside of me. Spinning in the air, I hurled one half of the corpse at the annoying Vritra spawn throwing the bullets, then looked around for the damnable shadow wielder.
A falling piece of Epheotus had demolished one of the big portals in the mountainside, quenching the flow of monsters. Three metal beasts warded the remaining portal, which continued to spew strange, shriveled men with weapons for hands.
The small army of Alacryans we had brought with us were engaged four to one against the enemy force within the ravine below. Lady Seris's man stood back to back with the short, amusing Lance woman against one of the Wraiths. I could not see the Lady Seris, but another of the Wraiths-the spikey armored woman-was turning away from the ruined cliff. Even from such a distance, I could sense her eyes on the dead Wraith in my hands, feel the heat of her rage.
Straight ahead of me was a hulking Wraith, the one tossing little bullets from afar like a coward. Behind him was a creature nearly twin to the shadow-wrapped Wraith fighting below, the one trying to claw into my gullet with her summons.
I tugged on the thread of mana connected to Suncrusher, and the weapon flew over the battlefield like a shooting star. I caught it with a heavy thud. "Two dead. Four to go. Which little lizard is next?"
I leaned forward, but the shadows clawing at me skittered around to my back, a dozen dark arms wrapping around me and attempting to pull me against the mountain. I pushed power into my muscles and fire into my skin, projecting myself forward with all my might, and the shadows stretched and came apart like fresh-spun wool.
The big Wraith tried to dodge, but my swing was faster. Before Suncrusher could find his head, though, the spike-armored woman who'd fought with Seris was between us, both her hands clutching at my weapon's haft. I gave her a battle cry and drove my forehead into the spiked helmet. It caved in, revealing no Wraith inside. And yet, still, both black gauntlets released my weapon to slash at my face and throat.
I erupted with white hot fire, melting away the armored construct. Turning on the bullet-flinging Wraith, I focused through Suncrusher, concentrating the flames into a roaring gout. Shadows wrapped around the Wraith as he darted aside.
A gasp of pain escaped my lips and the flames shooting out of my weapon stuttered and went out. Unconsciously, my free hand clawed at my flesh as something wriggled inside of me.
Loathe as I was to admit it, I couldn't suppress the wretched jolt of fear that quickened my pulse. Like so many burrowing insects, each of the bullets that had struck me had dug under my skin, using their acidic excretions to eat through my mana and flesh alike. Now, they were tunneling through my insides toward my core, their physical construction allowing them to bypass the natural resistance of my skin toward another's mana.
I could feel a handful of the tiny metal bugs already nipping at my core, disrupting my mana.
Movement forced my focus back into place. A dozen or more black, spike-formed suits of armor had surrounded me. Shadows were weaving between them like a spider's web, entrapping me inside.
The big Wraith hovered just beyond the circle, grinning. "Even though you're just a half-breed, I'm glad for the chance to kill you, phoenix. May you be the first of many."
Below me, our army was falling back. Lady Seris was still out of sight. The little Lance and Vritra pretty boy were swallowed in darkness. Sweet Caera was entirely surrounded and outnumbered fifty to one.
But my brother in vengeance had penetrated the enemy fortress. There, he would kill Agrona, and my vengeance would be complete.
Grimacing against the pain in my core, I drew upon all the ferocity and rage of both my peoples and let it out as a tearing, forge-fire bellow of challenge.
MICA EARTHBORN
Wherever Bairon and Varay were now, I hoped they were getting their asses kicked just as much as I was.
We'd had everything under control until these damned Wraiths came along. Now, instead of manhandling my way through the fortress beside my companions as I prepared for a front row seat to what would no doubt be an epic battle between Arthur and Agrona, I was stuck fighting a shadow-wielding, deity-hunting, faceless witch to protect an Alacryan-a retainer-who had been my enemy not so long ago.
Maybe the most annoying part was that, if I did manage to take down this Wraith and didn't die in the process, Bairon wouldn't even be here for me to rub it in his face.
"Stupid. Shadows!" I snarled, flinging up barriers just as fast as they were brought down because I couldn't see to do much of anything else.
Darkness had enveloped me and the retainer. I could feel him crouched behind me still, but not only did the darkness block out the golden light of Epheotus' day spilling out into the Alacryan night from the sky wound, it muffled sound and mana signatures too. The entire battlefield was dampened, and I couldn't be sure where the Wraith was, or anyone else for that matter. I was blind, cut off, and matched against a stronger opponent.
"Which. Is. Fine," I told myself, a new slab of stone being conjured with each word only to break an instant later under the constant onslaught from the shadows.
Not bothering to look behind me, as I couldn't see anyway, I added, "You plan on getting up any time soon? I could use some"-the darkness surged inward, condensing, the weight of it pressing down so heavily that my legs trembled-"help right about now."
A different voice oozed from the gloom in response. "Tell me, Dicathian, do your people know the parable of the spider and the fly? Squirm and struggle all you like, you will not escape."
Shadows nipped at my heels, and a wretched laugh resounded through the utter dark. I reached with my mana deep into the ground and pulled out a dome of solid, mana-hardened stone, buying myself a moment to grab the retainer. It only took a second before cracks were forming along the barrier's surface, and two more before it shattered.
Gravity swelled within the gloom, building until my weight cracked the mountain path beneath me. Then, I kicked off the ground, flying into the air with the retainer in my arms. The shadows tried to push me back down, but I ripped through them like a stone through a spiderweb.
We shot out of a bubble of darkness that obscured the ravine floor. The loyalist army had pressed forward, working to pin our smaller force against an avalanche that had blocked any hope of retreat back down the valley.
I swerved, nearly colliding with a flying figure in armor formed of small spikes. It spun, swinging the back of a gauntlet as we flew past, but the retainer's blade came up almost of its own accord, catching the strike.
Chul was surrounded by identical forms. His mana signature was flaring and fading wildly, and every swing he took with his huge weapon was blocked by a shadowy shield.
The retainer pushed away from me, supporting himself in the air. "Thank you, Lance Ohmwrecker, for your assistance, but I am fine." His blade came around to deflect a bullet of shining material. It shattered, and hissing green liquid sprayed between us. The retainer hardly seemed to notice as his red eyes scanned the battlefield. "I need to find Seris."
My own focus was on the Wraith who floated up out of the darkness beneath us: a twin to the one conjuring the shields against Chul. Before I could answer, the retainer was flying off.
I cursed. We were losing, and badly.
Letting out a wet breath, I chuckled and wiped blood from my lips. "See you soon, Aya."
CAERA DENOIR
My orbitals began to flag under the weight of so many deflected spells. I was completely surrounded, and all of my allies were overwhelmed by different enemies. Wolfrum hadn't even deigned to lift a hand against me yet, letting the ten battle groups supporting him wear me down first.
Mana poured into the orbitals, which were connected together into a defensive grid around me. A gout of blue fire made the air roar as it flowed over me. Blades of green-tinged wind slashed against the soulfire. A conjuration of white stone punched the barrier again and again, the stone dissolving with each blow. The barrier shrank bit by bit as the orbitals were forced to close together around me to maintain my protection with less and less mana.
Then, a pause. It was only a moment, a couple of seconds.
But it was all I needed.
I spun, releasing all of the soulfire that had been slowly concentrating in my sword as I waited for the right moment. Red and black light carved a jagged arc around me as a wave of soulfire crashed against ten conjured shields. Most shattered, and the soulfire passed through the waiting Strikers, hesitant Casters, and stunned Shields.
Several died instantly, the soulfire snuffing out their lifeforce, but dozens more collapsed to writhe in the dirt, screaming in pain and terror.
Two Strikers, who'd been hidden behind an unbroken shield of crackling green fire, charged me. I deflected a swinging glaive, then put one foot up against the face of a tower shield and shoved off, flipping backwards through the air. Wind-attribute mana buttressed me, causing me to hang in the air for a moment as my orbitals recalibrated. The green-flame shield jumped into a new position to cover the two Strikers, but my orbitals fired from several directions at once. Both men hit the ground mid-stride, tumbling lifelessly.
Pure instinct and the sense of moving mana made me duck. A claw raked through the air where my face and throat had been only an instant before.
Leaning forward into a roll, I avoided a second clawed strike, then spun to face Wolfrum, my blade up and orbitals already back into a defensive position. "Coward," I spat, staring into his mismatched eyes. "Won't face me yourself except to try and stab me in the back? I'm sure Dragoth would be proud, if he weren't already dead."
"Dead?" Wolfrum laughed, waving off the mages still in fighting condition. He pointed toward the massive tear in the sky. "He's just there. His mana did that." He grinned, and I realized the truth: he'd lost his mind. "Dragoth was ever his humble servant, even giving Agrona his very life in the end. And you demean him for it?" Wolfrum shook his head in disappointment. "Your death, and your traitorous mentor's, will serve no such glorious purpose."
He launched himself forward, each hand wrapped in a clawed gauntlet of gusting void wind. I caught his first blow on the side of my blade, then batted aside the second with a sharp strike of my pummel against his wrist. I blocked a knee strike with my leg and rammed my shoulder into his chest, sending him skidding back a few steps. My blade followed him, but he caught it in one clawed gauntlet and twisted, wracking my wrists.
His mouth opened and his tongue lolled out as he breathed fire. My orbitals caught the flames, and I planted a swift kick against his forearm, forcing him to release his grip. I spun the blade around, reversing the grip of the long, curved sword, and thrust backwards and I carried my momentum into a turn. The point skated off his mana before carving a thin line in his side. Activating my crest, I released a burst of wind that knocked him back a step before he could retaliate, but I did not let up my own assault.
Flipping my sword to correct my grip, I pushed soulfire into it and chopped down at his shoulder but pulled back in a feint as one arm came up to block the strike. Instead, I twisted the blade in both hands, bringing the flat around to strike him across the face. My soulfire flashed darkly, eating at his protective mana and attempting to bypass his soulfire while leaving a thin cut beneath his red eye.
As he continued to stumble back, entirely off balance now, I reversed the course of my blade, swinging it over my head, around, and down toward his opposite-side knee. He tried to dodge back out of the way, but his weight was on the wrong foot and-
Another green-flame shield sprang up, catching the blow and forcing the blade down into the ground. Soulfire shattered the shield, but it had done its job.
Now out of position, I couldn't correct fast enough to block a claw strike with my sword, instead having to turn into it. The conjured claws dragged along my shoulder, and pain stole my breath away. I caught a follow-up strike and turned it aside with my weapon, then I was off-balance, stumbling backwards to avoid a flurry of blows.
Activating my regalia, I wrapped myself in dark fire as several indistinct copies of me dashed away. Wolfrum's eyes darted around, searching for the real me. I focused, moving in a jagged, jittering pattern and controlling all but one of the apparitions in the same way.
For that one, I ensured smooth, perfect motion as it backed away from Wolfrum. His sharp eye caught the slight difference immediately. The incorporeal form's heel turned, and it appeared to stumble backwards, bringing a ghostly echo of my sword up to defend itself as I circled around behind Wolfrum, just out of his view.
"Your ego has always far outstripped your ability, Caera." He glowered down at what he thought was me, hatred curdling in his voice. The void wind gauntleting his hands melted away, and mana began to concentrate in front of him.
I darted forward.
"Sir!" someone screamed, and again the green-fire shield appeared in front of me.
All of my orbitals-spread throughout the battlefield so as not to be too obvious-fired at once, the concentrated beams of soulfire striking the shield just before I did. I ran through the wisps of mana just as Wolfrum twisted toward me, but too late. Anticipating his block, I swung low, cutting through the cap of his knee.
I dragged the blade through his flesh, then reversed my swing as I ran past him. The sharp edge sank in between his ribs before he could get a hand around my wrist. The void wind gauntlet bit painfully into my skin, and I was jerked to a halt.
Wolfrum twisted his body and my wrist at the same time. The blade slid free, splashing his blood across the ground. But I couldn't get my wrist loose. Soulfire wrapped around my free hand, and I struck him in the face. He pulled me close, pressing his forehead against mine even as I shook with effort trying to break free.
I looked up into his eyes, one red, one a muddy brown, both wide and full of pain and fear. Our horns clattered as I writhed in his grip. Then, he was burning. For a heartbeat, I thought the flames were mine, from my punch, but the soulfire was burning out of him from within. His entire head was engulfed, the skin melting away to reveal the skull beneath, black flames dancing out of his eye sockets.
I was held in that moment, paralyzed by the thought of what he was doing. The sounds of battle and the colliding of mana were still all around me. Nearby, a single battle group fighting for our side was engaging the last stragglers of Wolfrum's guardians. Among the chaos, in that blink of an eye, I spotted a familiar head of short-cropped, bright gold hair that stood out across the battlefield.
I thrust my blade awkwardly up into Wolfrum's guts, but he didn't seem to notice. Despite his unbreakable grip on my wrist and the back of my neck, I couldn't help but think that he was already dead.
The burning skull stop Wolfrum's shoulders expanded out and around me, jaws unhinging as it made to swallow me. His grip finally loosened, but too late. There was nowhere for me to go.
"Professor Denoir!" a young woman's voice called through the dark and the flame.
A golden light welled up in the darkness, enveloping me. The jaws of the blazing skull closed, and pain like hot needles stabbed into every cell of my body. Then, it was gone.
I stumbled, and a strong hand took my elbow, helping me get my balance.
"Enola." Her name was strange on my tongue. The last thing I had expected was to find any of my old students here. I frowned. "You shouldn't be here."
Although the roar of battle and the crash of spells still filled the mountain valley, for a moment, we stood outside of the fighting.
Enola responded with a very un-highblood-like snort. "Like I was going to miss this for anything." Her jaw tightened as she took me in. "You should find a safe place to recuperate. I need to get my battle group back to the line. We-"
"Down!" I screamed, tackling her to the ground as Chul fell blazing like a meteor into our midst.
The ground rose up, and the world seemed to turn upside down.
SERIS VRITRA
My eyes fluttered open and dirt fell into them. I couldn't help the wry chuckle that issued unbidden from deep inside me. It had been a terribly long time since I'd suffered something so trite as being knocked unconscious.
Extending my senses out into the battlefield was my first thought as I struggled to calculate how long I might have been out.
The Wraiths were, of course, difficult to sense and track, but I was confident there were still four of them alive. The number of soldiers had dwindled on both sides, and the front lines had moved farther back from Taegrin Caelum. I breathed a little easier feeling Cylrit's mana signature nearby, but this was offset by the sickening fluctuations coming from Chul's mana. He was reaching the end of his strength, and had likely been poisoned by the Wraiths.
Based on all this, it had only been a couple of minutes at most.
Breathing out, I gently pushed with mana. The collapsed rock began to give way, and a stone glanced off my temple. A flash of irritation went through me, and I felt my composure slip. Mana roiled, and the mountainside exploded as I flew back out into open air.
Cylrit rocked back, shielding himself from the debris for an instant before flying up to me. One hand reached for my face before he stopped himself. He was smudged with dirt and blood, and his hair was a tangled mess. I was certain I looked no better.
"Vritra's horns, you're alive," he breathed after a moment, relief washing through him.
"For the moment," I confirmed, although I softened my words with a grateful smile.
But there was little time for discussion. Perhata and one of the Shield Wraiths were drifting our way, no longer in a hurry, clearly confident in their victory. The other two were below, hovering over a massive crater in the valley floor. My stomach fell as I recognized Chul's, Mica's, and Caera's signatures within the cloud. All alive, but surrounded by the dead and faced with two Wraiths.
"What is our angle here, Lady Seris?" Cylrit asked, moving to my side and turning to face the oncoming Wraiths. "If we can get the drop on the Shield..."
I rested a hand on Cylrit's shoulder, and he trailed off. My chin lifted as I gazed into the wound between worlds, still spilling out large pieces of the Epheotan land mass. Around the wound's edges, the crimson light had given way to a purple and black aurora. "We may succeed here only to watch our world be destroyed, or we may fall here and never see the world that is built atop the foundation of our sacrifice. Either way, you can relax knowing the fate of the world is not in our hands."
Cylrit snorted. His eyes flicked to me for a single heartbeat before returning to Perhata. "The world already seems to be falling. My concern is only for your safety within it."
Pressure built behind my eyes, but I swallowed the rising emotion. What will it look like if I'm knocked out and reduced to tears in the space of five minutes? I gave Perhata a bitter smirk as she reached us, stopping twenty feet away. "If you've come to offer your surrender, I accept. More than half of your army is already dead, and two of your champions as well, while all of mine yet live."
Perhata let out a bark of laughter. "You are entertaining, Unblooded. And yet, I can't say that I will miss you when your head has been rammed onto a spike atop Taegrin Caelum, where it will forever look down upon the site of your final, inevitable defeat."
"You talk too much, Wraith." Cylrit flashed forward, his sword leaving a gleaming arc behind it as he slashed several times in the space of a breath.
Perhata ruptured outward, the blood iron spikes forming her armor moving like liquid as several exact copies of her spread out around us. Shadow tendrils then wrapped around her, moving even faster than Cylrit, deflecting each of his strikes with apparent ease.
I slashed through the air with a hand, and a dark line cut off the Shield Wraith's spell just behind Perhata. The defenses fell away, and Cylrit moved smoothly from blocking a strike to thrusting his blade into a gap between the spikes of Perhata's armor. I cut my hand from side to side, and a second black line swept through Perhata's doppelgangers, shattering their forms even as they reached for my retainer.
Four blood iron constructs closed on me from either side as a thin sheet of impenetrable shadow fell down between me and Cylrit, cutting off my view of his battle against Perhata. A dark scythe formed in my hands, and I swung it around me in a wide arc. It shattered the first of the constructs and bit deep into the second before lodging between the tightly bound spikes. I batted away a blow aimed at the side of my head, then loosed a blast of concussive void wind that shattered the attacker, but the fourth and last of the constructs had me by the horns and drove its spike-formed, helmeted head into my own, one, twice, and a third time landing against the bridge of my nose, breaking through the mana cladding my skin. There was a wet crunch, and I saw stars.
Twisting the scythe, I sent a pulse of void magic through its blade, and the construct caught on it collapsed into a thousand pieces, which tumbled away. I snapped the shaft up between the final construct and myself, knocking away the hands around my horns, then brought the scythe down on its shoulder, shearing it nearly in half. With a final sweep, I carved away the darkness separating me from the other combatants.
Cylrit was defending wildly, his sword parrying blow after blow with a speed and smoothness allowed only by his regalia. Before I could lift my scythe, black tendrils of smokey shadow wrapped around my arms, pulling them painfully behind me and attempting to pin them there. The same tendrils grasped at my legs, my throat, even pushed into my nose and eyes.
I let myself relax, let a cloud of black and dark purple motes flow free from my skin, like pollen from a flower. The shadows frayed, but they did not unravel. I gritted my teeth, pushing harder. Right in front of me, Cylrit took a sharp blow on his hands, and the sword slipped from his grip. He took a blow, then another, then three constructs were holding him immobile as Perhata's spiked gauntlets struck every part of him in a ceaseless hail of blows.
My mouth opened to shout as I reached for every particle of mana remaining in my core, but smothering shadows choked me.
Light bent behind the Shield Wraith, hovering forty feet away, unreachable, her features lost in darkness. Through my own desperation, I felt the sudden appearance of a familiar mana signature.
Two blades appeared and scissored through the Shield Wraith's neck. Head and body were tumbling separately toward the ground before my eyes could even widen, and suddenly the shadows were gone, and I was free.
I stared across the battlefield at Melzri, disbelieving. Her silvery-gray skin shone under the golden light, bright against the darkness of her eyes. Her painted lips curled in a disdainful sneer and she flicked the Wraith's blood off her swords. She tossed her thick braid over her shoulder, then turned her attention to Perhata.
I released the shout that had been building inside of me.
The full force of my void emanation rushed toward Perhata and Cylrit.
With a loud crack, a gauntleted fist twisted Cylrit's head around unnaturally until it was staring at me. His mouth went slack, and his eyes locked onto mine. There was a single flash of confusion and...regret.
And then, my retainer was gone.
Like sand before a punishing wind, the remaining constructs and Perhata's armor were reduced to dust and blown away. Perhata's hand clawed at her sternum above her core, and she dropped a few feet in their air, releasing Cylrit's body.
Melzri flew at Perhata, both blades swinging, but the Wraith just managed to dip out of the way at the last second. She somersaulted in the air, then shot off toward the opposite mountain peaks. Melzri was on her heels in an instant.
The void was still within her, fighting to extinguish the last of her mana. Her control was iron-clad.
I did not care.
For the last hundred years, I had maintained such absolute control over myself, my actions. In no other way could I have survived under Agrona while slowly working against him. A perfect mastery of mind, body, and intent was the source of my strength. But against Perhata, it wasn't enough.
For the first time in a hundred years, I let go.
My shout became a scream.
Void spread out like the wings of a great, dark bird, passing over Melzri and catching Perhata before she had flown even fifty feet. The void closed around her, encasing her in the antithesis of power, the unmaking of everything that made her. As I gave up my own control, I ripped away hers, tearing the mana out of her iron grip, forcing it out of her core, her channels, scouring away every last particle of power inside of her. I pushed and pushed, heedless of the mana I was utilizing. Some darkly rational part of my mind knew that Cylrit's body hadn't even hit the ground yet. I would grind the life from Perhata if it was the very last thing I did in this world.
My spell broke suddenly as I hit the point of backlash.
Perhata's body was falling. There was no mana signature, no killing intent, nothing at all. A wet sack of meat was all the Wraith left behind.
That same darkly rational part of my mind wondered if, had I a moment to consider it, perhaps I could not have sensed her mana signature anyway, as my own mana was entirely exhausted.
My eyes tried to roll back in my head, but I refused to fall unconscious again. One such embarrassment was enough for this lifetime, even if it was rapidly coming to an end.
The wind whistled past my ears, tugged at my hair, and I thought that, at least, I would fall beside Cylrit.
My vision turned to orange, yellow, and gold. For a moment, I thought the rift to Epheotus was rupturing, then...I realized they were feathers.
Massive talons wrapped around me.
CAERA DENOIR
I flinched with every clash of mana from above, but I could not bring myself to look at Seris's battle. My left arm hung limp at my side, and I couldn't put weight on that leg. Chul's body had vanished within a crater the size of the Denoir estate, but I couldn't bring myself to look down, either. I couldn't look at the prone form lying there, lifeless, the only movement a rustle through short, golden hair, sticky with crimson.
And so I stared ahead, knowing I would soon join the young student, dead at my feet.
Two Wraiths floated above the opposite edge of the crater. A huge man held Mica off the ground by her hair. She was struggling weakly, but shadows from the second Wraith were smothering her every attempt at a spell to break free.
I could no longer tell what was going on with the remaining Relictombs portal or our forces. I was at the edge of my strength and ability to continue fighting.
But still, my mind attempted to lay out a plan to get across the crater and break the Wraiths' hold on Mica even as a long, straight, spike-like dagger appeared in the big Wraith's hand. He was saying something to the struggling dwarf. Poison was dripping from the end of the dagger like emerald tears.
A cry rent the air above as the crushing press of a desperate and flailing intent stilled my breath. Both Wraiths looked up. Despite feeling as if I were running through tar, I took off, running straight over the crater on steps of wind.
The big Wraith's attention snapped to me, and he sneered as she pushed the dagger up under Mica's ribs.
An amethyst hand caught his wrist.
A figure formed of bright purple wind, ethereal and radiant, was suddenly standing beside him. She held his strike back from Mica's side as effortlessly as if he were a child at play. Slowly, his shaking arm twisted around, the point of the spike aimed up at him. Shadows lashed at the amethyst figure-an elf, I thought, with a lithe form and wavy, shoulder-length hair-but seemed unable to find purchase.
I didn't hesitate. I did not let up. Each step hurt like hell, and I wielded my sword with one hand, but neither Wraith was watching me now.
Inexorably, the blood iron spike rose. It didn't stop when it reached the flesh beneath the Wraith's chin. I was almost to Mica as the point vanished, the spike rising deeper and deeper into the Wraith's head. Blood spurted from his mouth, his eyes rolled, and his indistinct mana signature snuffed out.
I caught Mica as she fell and slashed through the air with my sword. A wave of soulfire rolled off it at the remaining Scythe. She parried with a swarm of shadow tendrils, then slashed back. Competing shadows rose around me like a shield, catching the blow and supporting my own orbitals.
The Wraith's head twisted around, finding a wispy woman with short white hair and feline-yellow eyes moving slowly in to support me. The Black Rose of Etril. Mawar!
The amethyst elven figure beside me tossed the dead Wraith down into the crater. The surviving Wraith, her features still hidden in shadow, stepped away, fell into darkness, and flew, retreating.
I looked down at Mica, clutched in my arms. Something was wrong. Her mana signature was pulsing unnaturally, twisting and writhing within her like a beast. But her eyes were locked on the amethyst face.
A hand drawn in lines of bright purple wind caressed Mica's cheek. A coy smile crossed bright lips, then...the figure was gone.
With the Wraith's retreat, Mawar turned away from us, not saying anything, just moving onto her next objective. The battlefield seemed strangely quiet.
I looked up, and my heart sank.
Seris was falling.
A gust of wind knocked me off balance, and I fell into a protective crouch, crading Mica. A truly enormous creature-birdlike, with red, yellow, and gold feathers, a long graceful neck, and two different colored eyes-shot out of the crater.
It sped away, plucking Seris out of the air twenty feet above the rocky ground, then banked hard and gave chase to the fleeing Wraith. Despite its size, it moved with incredible speed and agility. Dark tendrils flailed around it, reaching for wings and beak, but with a sharp cawing cry, phoenix fire engulfed the shadows. When the fire subsided, the Wraith was gone.
I sat, easing Mica onto her back and looking down at her uncertainly.
"Mica's...core...is breaking," she muttered in her childlike voice. Her brows pinched together into a tiny frown. "Aya...I saw Aya..." She grimaced and closed her eyes, pain tightening every muscle in her body for a few long seconds before she slipped into unconsciousness.
A figure I recognized as Scythe Melzri Vritra flew off toward where it seemed as if the distant fighting had already stopped. There was a crash and the collapsing of stone; the glow of the second Relictombs portal went out. Distantly, I could make out a handful of large figures moving down the wall of rubble blocking our path back: exoforms. Some had survived.
The colossal phoenix circled the crater before landing far enough away not to send me sprawling from the beating of his wings. He eased Seris down, putting her on her feet. She wobbled, but Chul quickly shrank down to his humanoid form and wrapped an arm around her. I expected them to come our way, but instead, he led Seris toward a lump on the ground that I could not make out.
As my eyes followed them, the shock and exhaustion of battle overtook me. I shook my head, feeling sick and weak.
We'd won the battle, but not yet the war.
My gaze was drawn to the fortress of Taegrin Caelum, looming over us like a gravestone. I couldn't sense Arthur or any of the others, and rather than the flush of victory, I felt apprehension twisting my insides.