by RG Long
No matter the sacrifice.
50: Split
Octus was still fighting, despite the fact that some magical confrontation was happening just above him. He didn’t care. This was his chance to do something. To overcome.
Fortunately for him, the battlefield had been littered with the spears and swords of the deceased. He now had a sword on his belt and a spear in his hands. He was Octus, hero of the south.
And he was fighting for his freedom.
Captain Oberon had taken Yada’s personal guard away from the place where she had erupted in magic. After the cannons were destroyed, Yada had burst into a sphere of blue magic, just as a demon flew in and attacked.
The fight was terrible and sent wild bolts of magical energy flying all over the place. In order to protect against damage to their own troops, the companies of Isol had fled from the palanquin they had protected all this way from their homeland.
It was now just a matter of time.
Octus had managed to break free of his captors by fighting alongside the battle lines. No one concerned themselves much with the fighting of a slave. Moving from company to company, Octus gradually worked his way to the front lines. If he could just manage to get there, he could make his plan a reality.
All he needed to do was to get to the Theocracy troops.
“You there! Slave!”
Such words were not uncommon to Octus. He pretended not to hear whoever it was that was calling to him. Unfortunately for him, the man was far too close for him to disappear into a crowd. He felt a rough hand on his shoulder as he was forced around by a man who was at least a head taller than he was.
Captain Oberon’s rival.
“You don’t belong in this company!” Captain Fortan shouted as men ran forward from all sides. He was so close to the front. Just a stone’s throw away from Ladis’ troops.
“Captain Oberon sent me to deliver a message,” he invented wildly.
It could be true. Oberon had often told her company to tell Captain Fortan she thought he was a bumbling idiot.
“Well let’s have it!” Captain Fortan said, crossing his arms over his chest. “The battle’s going so poorly not much can possibly make it worse!”
He was wrong.
At that moment a line of magical energy shot through the spot they were standing. Octus felt himself lifted into the air and thrown away from Captain Fortan and his company. The blast had split the battlefield into two parts. Octus got to his feet, feeling that his sword was still in his belt and his spear was just in reach. A six foot wall of dirt now rose up in front of him.
“What in the name of the gods...” he began to say.
Then he realized that he had accomplished his goal. Looking around, he saw no Isolian troops. It was only the green of Ladis that was nearby. They too looked like they were recovering from the explosion.
A second explosion followed the first, this time closer to where Yada was, towards the back of the line.
Octus didn’t care. He didn’t even look back to see what had happened, though a part of him wished the worst of fates on the old hag.
Now he was with Ladis.
It was time to find a captain of the Theocracy.
51: Keep the Men Alive
The mass of the armies pressed in around them. General Brand’s last orders echoed in Pul’s head.
“Keep your men alive and fighting the heretics!”
Pul was certain he could push his men forward to fight. Last night, Brand had given his commanders orders concerning how they were to proceed against the second wave of Isolian fighters.
He was no longer certain he could keep them alive. The beach cut them off to the south. There was no way he could lead his men towards the sand. They’d lose their footing and their heads in the process. He had to get them to better ground or they’d all be crushed to death by the throes of the battle or the demons that kept appearing and stomping over the battle, causing devastation at every turn.
There was no use ordering his men with words. His voice had gone hoarse before the dawn had broken on this new day. Noticing the other sides lining up to prepare for another round of battle, Pul nudged his company’s standard bearer. Then he raised his hand. The flag of the company he had inherited rose up and behind him soldiers put their spears into position. They were preparing for the battle ahead.
A combination of magical blasts has separated the battlefield into two, with Juttis fighting the Theocracy on one side and Isol fighting the rest of the Theocracy on the other. Split into two in such a way, the largest empire on Ladis had been cut down to size.
Would they really be able to fight two armies in such a fragmented battlefield? They would soon find out.
Tars managed to use what was left of his own voice to cough and offer some encouragement of a sort.
“We may not all be dead by tomorrow, eh Pul?”
Commander Pul, he thought. But he was too worn to offer any correction. Not that Tars would ever listen anyways. And he has a point. Not all of us may die.
“Keep your men alive...”
Those had been the last words of Brand before he dismissed what was left of his commanders to command what was left of the Theocracy reserves from the south.
Juttis was above them. Isol was ahead. The Theocracy’s reinforcements were most of what was left of their army.
How many would live to see the next sunrise?
Pul didn’t know. But he would keep every man he could alive.
He lifted his sword high, and the banner went up alongside it. His men rushed forward with him. The battle lines had shifted so much throughout the day. Now with Juttis to the north and their own lines to the west, the battle was quickly becoming a group of smaller skirmishes between each company and whatever enemy they could find.
Pul charged his men right into a block of Isolian Speakers. They raised their hands to cast their spells in response and Pul braced himself for whatever death may come.
Before the heretics could cast their magic and destroy his company, however, the ground between them rose up in a blast of dirt and magic.
His men pulled up short as they collided with the wall of earth. That had not been something Pul had expected the Speakers to do. Looking left and right, he couldn’t see any Isolian troops who were trying to block them in. Instead, he saw lizards to the north, pouring out over a hill and into the battle as well.
He took a deep breath before rallying his men.
“Over there!” he shouted through the hoarseness of his voice.
This battle continued to bring the unexpected.
52: Screams
The battlefield was a blur of blood and death. David no longer cared who came near to him. All he needed was to kill for the goddess of blood. It was his job to cause as much carnage as he could. He and the others who had shambled to the war had seen only red this day.
Blood smeared his body from his neck to his battered feet. He wasn’t sure whose sword he had now. He only knew it was not the one he had begun his journey with.
The only thing that was different now was the screaming. It was no longer in his head. It was outside on the field of battle.
Men screamed and died at his hands. With the superhuman strength he had been given, David continued to spill the blood of any man or soldier who came near to him. Over and over again he killed.
But the screaming in his head was now quiet.
Graxxin had not commanded him for some time now. The flow of moments was lost on David. Whether he had been at war for a day or a week, he couldn’t remember. The suns rose and fell at their own desire.
He only killed.
Taking his sword from the belly of his last victim, David turned to strike at whoever was closest. Then a blast of magic came hurtling down towards him and landed next to him, causing the earth to shake and David to lose his balance. He feel to a knee into the soft, sandy dirt. One hand kept him from falling down entirely, while the other grasped tightly onto his sword.
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br /> Looking up, David saw that a crater had formed right beside him from the blast that had wrecked the nearby battlefield. In the middle of that crater was a winged creature,
One David recognized, even though he had never seen her before.
The battered and ragged looking demon clawed at the ground as she attempted to get to her cloven hooves.
David slid down the side of the crater, coming to rest right beside the creature he knew and feared.
And hated.
“Why does she scream?” he asked, holding his sword tightly in his hand. Blood caked every part of his body. Dirt and mud mixed with his own sweat. His breathing was heavy and ragged.
“Filth,” Graxxin said. “You serve me. I am your mistress!”
“Why does she scream!?” David called out louder. He knew the screams in his head were someone he knew. Someone he may have cared for. But there was no one he felt such emotion for like this demon at his feet.
He raised his sword. He feared this thing. He would end it.
Others came down into the crater with him. Those same ones who had marched from the west to the battle. Others who hated Graxxin as much as he did.
“Why does he scream?” a girl asked.
“Why do they scream?”
“Why does she scream?”
David did not give the first blow, but he added his to the flurry of stabs and cuts. They launched into Graxxin with reckless abandon.
“Stop!” she yelled. “I command you! Stop filth and waste!”
There was no way to stop them. The demon struggled to her hooved feet, but the children were on top of her, cutting and biting and clawing at every inch of her demonic flesh they could reach. Pain meant nothing to them, even as she tore them away. More and more piled onto her. Their lust for battle had been stoked by the demon. Now she was the one who would receive their wrath.
She had been their mistress.
They would be her undoing.
53: Proven
There was a pull in her that Olma couldn’t explain. Something was forcing her forward. Not from behind, as if someone was pushing her, but like she was being thrown off a cliff and propelled towards the ground.
She ran.
She ran as fast as she could, which, for her small size, was surprisingly quick. The power that had indwelled her was something beyond her reckoning. Something otherworldly.
It made her fast. Made her strong. The feeling of it filled her being.
And pulled her forward.
The blue and purple lights ahead of her called her forward. It was important, vital, that she intersect those two lights. That she be between them and feel their power within her. She was greater than they were. Stronger than they were.
And she had to prove it to them.
Leaping into the air, Olma found herself jumping impossibly high, her arms outstretched and, as they had done twice before this same day, long blades of magical energy came out of her forearms.
She wielded these as if she had always had swords for arms. They were a natural extension of her. And she sliced the air viciously as she collided with the orbs of purple and blue.
The two who battled here were both foreign and familiar. She knew them by their magic. The old woman who wielded the blue magic at her looked livid at the intrusion. She threw her hands out in order to repel Olma’s blades. But Olma sliced through boths blasts of magic with ease.
The white haired man looked more perplexed than angered. With a shove of his hands he sent hundreds of smaller, more concentrated blasts at Olma. She dodged the ones she could, the others she deflected with her blades.
Instinctively, Olma knew that the bigger threat lay with the purple-wreathed man. She threw herself at him with all of her energy, sending out powerful arcs of energy in his direction. For each one she loosed on him, he raised his hands to absorb it. Not deflect or dodge. He took her magic within himself.
Olma sent more and more arcs of energy at him, becoming more and more frustrated with each blast he absorbed.
Then something hit her from the side. A blast of blue magic from the woman who had taken advantage of Olma’s distraction. That would prove to be her undoing.
Olma stabbed her blades in the direction of the woman in blue. She sent arcs of energy soaring towards her. The woman kept deflecting the blasts, sending them crashing into the hills behind them or the plains below. Olma was barely aware of the destruction that her power was causing. She needed to end this woman. She raised her blades as powerful red bolts of energy cascaded from her.
Then a blast of purple hit the woman in blue from the side, alongside Olma’s blasts. The combined attack sent the woman soaring to the ground, sprawling in a heap and causing an eruption of blue magic.
Olma turned her attention back to the white haired man in purple. She knew he would be more difficult to defeat. That his magic was superior to the woman’s. But she didn’t care. She had to prove herself to the power that coursed within her.
Instead of sending blasts of red arcs, Olma went straight for the man with her blades. She sliced the air, coming down hard on a shield of purple magic the man put up in front of him. Olma shoved her blades down, forcing them harder and harder into the shield he had put up.
Then he began to laugh.
Olma continued to force her blades on him. She put all of her power into those swords of light. All that was coursing through her went into the blades. They sparked and burst with power. One she kept on the shield. The other she pounded again and again against the man’s powerful magic.
And still he laughed.
“I don’t know what power you’ve discovered little demon,” he said. “But do not fool yourself! I am power and death incarnate! I am Farnus! I have the power of the destroyer of worlds and god among demons! There is none who have bested the power of me! For I am Rayg! There are none who have defeated me!”
“I have!”
Both Olma and Farnus looked down at the ground. Standing over the crumpled form of Yada, was a girl Olma knew. Her name was Blume. A green amulet a blazed around her neck.
“You!” the man with the white hair shouted.
Olma felt a huge burst of energy and was blown backwards until her feet touched the ground and her arms became hands again. She felt herself slam against the force of the blast.
Looking up to see the man who had called himself Farnus, Olma saw that he had been enveloped in an even darker shade of purple that shone brilliantly against the night sky. The effect of it hurt her eyes, but she continued to look up at the man who was transforming.
Where white hair had been, black hair begin to sprout. Plates of metal began to encase him as his face changed. Olma heard a scream and cry from the man, as if the transformation caused him great pain.
Looking over at Blume, she saw that the girl was wrapped in a sphere of green light. There was a look of ferocity on her face.
“You may think you had bested me once,” the transformed man said, his voice now deep and threatening. “But I am Rayg. I know no limit to my power. I feel no end to my might. I underestimated you once. You will receive no such luxury from me ever again.”
The man raised his arms above his head and a giant sphere of purple light appeared within his grasp. He threw it down to the earth in the direction of Blume.
And the world exploded.
54: Defiance
She had prepared herself for this frontal assault. The demon who called himself Rayg was back. Blume had felt his presence on the battlefield. She had felt him back in the cave. His power had emanated out from the host body he had borrowed. From the body he had now destroyed to claim his return fully to this world.
Now it took all of her skill and might just to deflect this first burst that came down on her.
She was tired. She could not remember the last meal she had had, or the last time she had slept a good night’s rest.
Several spells had been wasted on lesser speakers and smaller demons.
Now, she
was facing a trial that could not be easily won.
This was a demon of great power. If he was to be believed, he was the god of demons.
But she had her necklace back. The family heirloom from which she had done great works of magic and produced powerful spells. The thing that a dragon once called powerful and ancient. A first rimstone. She was the master of it again.
“I put you back in your cage once,” Blume said, mustering up all the strength and courage she could find within herself. “And I will do whatever it takes to put you back!“
The earth and rocks that had burst into the air with Rayg’s first assault flew to her side and floated at her command. With one hand she held back the magic of the demon, with the other she forced the rocks to encase him.
The stones began to enclose around him. While continuing to throw his assault at her, Rayg expanded the purple orb around himself to keep the rocks away.
“Insignificant girl!” he shouted. “I could do away with you with the snap of my fingers.”
“I have more power than you realize!” Blume shouted back at him. She had no idea if it was true or not, but, she would show him she was not insignificant.
Even from this distance, Blume could sense a change in the demon. A shift in his assault and a change over his face.
“True,” he said.
Throwing his arms wide, the rocks exploded with great force. He scooped his hands in the air, and the earth that had been Blume’s to stand on now rose up with her on it. She fell to one knee near as he lifted her up to his level.
The earth held together, giving her a platform just as he held her within his gaze.
