Book 4: Chapter 59: The Battle for Hume III

Penitent

Michael swept his sword in a wide arc, the tip of it igniting two horned men and giving him enough space to look at what had dropped with the harpy. It had been roughly spherical, but the landing had deformed it. It was flesh coloured with hundreds of holes all across it. As he observed it, the surface began to writhe and rumble.

Ollie aimed his staff at it and sent a torrent of flame toward it. They expected it to melt, but as soon as the intense heat of his staff hit it, it exploded.

Hundreds of scarab -like creatures flew out in every direction. While some died from the flames, many more survived and began to swarm swarm across the lines. They scurried up boots and between armor, writhing beneath chainmail as they looked for flesh. Once they found it, they began to rip and tear at them with mandibles.

Hundreds of men and women began to scream as more harpies made it through the lightning field and dropped their payloads. Soon there were thousands upon thousands of the scarabs scurrying all across the battlefield.

Michael’s healing kept any of the small wounds that they made from being fatal, but the distraction they caused resulted in them being unable to address the hundreds of horned men still making it across the battlefield to them. Michael felt one man’s head bisected, a woman ran through the heart, and a dwarf lost his footing and suffocated in the mud.

He signaled to Pyotr who danced forward with his blades, sending a flurry of flame at the horned men Michael had been holding off. Michael turned toward where the insects were the most concentrated, feeling heat and divinity build within his chest. He lifted his visor and opened his mouth and let out an inhuman roar as he embraced Parthax’s blessing. Golden flames poured from his mouth and spread quickly out for nearly thirty feet in a wide arc. He turned, letting the flames pour over everything he could see. The golden flames of the divine burned all of the swarming insects to a crisp while leaving the faithful and their allies unharmed.

Once Michael had spread the flames where he stood he began to run along the front, moving upward first. He smashed a horned man aside with his shield and unleashed his dragon’s breath again, clearing yet another infestation. He repeated this a dozen more times as he fought his way up and down the lines trying to keep the scarabs from spreading too far, all while continuing his healing and clearing any of the horned men that were in his way.

As he worked, Aza and his people began to spread out among the rank and file, adding their spellwork to the human mages that were already engaged and providing support to the front with bursts of lightning and flame. Parthax was keeping busy as well, flying closer to the rift to unleash breath after breath of holy fire.

Their efforts helped to keep the lines from being overwhelmed and devolving into chaos, but by the time Michael returned to Marcus and the others things were starting to shift. Even with the assistance of Aza and Parthax the distraction caused by the scarabs had briefly softened the line allowing more horned men to gather and push. Behind them the larger flying insects were starting to arriving, launching themselves at people with sharpened proboscis to run them through over and over again, and even several of the scorpion-like insectoids began to reach them, spitting acid volleys as they moved in with their clawed hands and powerful tails.

The cavalry’s passes that had so successfully culled the enemy before they’d reached the lines began to speed up, but as the enemy filled more and more of the territory between the final trenches and the lines they had less room to maneuver until they were no longer able to fully pass through the enemy without taking enormous risks and so had to shift to more targeted strikes at the periphery while also shoring up the lines wherever they could.

Michael caught a glob of acid on The Wall and charged forward, bashing a scorpion claw aside with Ruin as he moved toward the creature. It began to desperately slash at him with its other bladed arms, but they were all ineffective against his armor. He shifted Ruin to Rend and ran the creature through. It attempted to land on top of him as it died and he simply caught it on his shield and tossed the body aside, crushing two horned men.

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One of the giant mosquito-like creatures rushed him with its proboscis and he unleashed a brief torrent of divine flame from his mouth, melting its wings and forcing it to land before it reached him where he crushed it beneath his boot. He summoned a barrier above himself as a harpy was swooping down and she broke her talons against it, falling to the ground where she was trampled by more horned men charging at him. He broke one’s ankle with another barrier as he smashed the other’s skull with his mace and kicked the last one’s chest in with his foot.

Marcus had switched from Reaper to Perfect Pair and was firing both before throwing one at whatever was charging him, reloading, having the one he’d thrown return through the back of something else and firing again. One of the winged insectoids dove at him as he reloaded, thinking he would be more vulnerable up close and he pistol whipped it across the mandibles with such force that its head exploded as its body skipped across the ground before he dropped a harpy and a scorpion with two more shots.

Pyotr’s feet never seemed to touch the ground. His scarf wrapped around one of the scorpions necks and he whipped himself around it, kicking one of the horned men’s heads clean off his shoulders before flinging himself back toward the scorpion and sinking his shortsword into his spine, carving up it and leaving a deep gouge. He then leapt into the air, managing to catch a harpy’s leg with his scarf. He dragged her down to the ground, clipping her wing with his sword as he launched himself into the air before landing on a chitin-armored horned man slipping his blade perfectly through a narrow gap in the barrier protecting it and blinding it. It began to swing wildly, felling its allies as Pyotr leapt again into the air.

Ollie was loosing non-stop curses as he unleashed death in every direction. He flung a small fireball square into a group of horned men as he swept his staff in a wide arc releasing magicka in a bladed arc that severed a scorpion’s legs causing him to fall to the ground in agony. A harpy attempted to swoop down at him and suddenly found herself impaled by a spear directly in front of the mage, a horned warrior looking confused for just a moment before his face was immolated by a swift burst of flame.

They were slaying the enemy by the hundreds, but the battle was swiftly shifting out of their control. The orderly line that they’d been a part of had broken into a chaotic mess of small pitched battles. It hadn’t fully broken and allowed the enemy through to the archers and dragoons, but they were getting closer and closer.

Michael caught a glimpse of Parthax being swarmed by flying insects. He was still unleashing powerful bursts of flame, but his body was completely covered by chitin and wings. As Michael watched he was forced to crash into the edge of the battlefield, immersing himself in his own flames to clear them from his scales, but even that moment without his support allowed the creatures from the rift to build more momentum and surge forward.

“We need to move toward the rift!” yelled Marcus as he fired his pistol.

Michael released a blast of divine flame from his mouth before spinning with enough force that his mace crushed a horned man’s skull and sent him flying into another. Marcus was right, they couldn’t delay any longer. They’d hoped that there’d be a kind of gap in the enemy’s formation that they could get through, but with multiple worlds of soldiers to send through, it seemed like there would be no such break.

They had anticipated this, and all of the healers aside from Michael had been told to save their healing for after they sensed his end, but he didn’t know that it would be enough. Even as he blocked a swing of a tail and cut down a swooping harpy he was healing crushed lungs and shattered legs. The lines would break without him.

He felt a man fall, his head pierced through by a spear.

The lines would break with him.

~You won’t be leaving them without aid~

The voice was Estaid’s, resolute and powerful.

~They will have the aid of the souls I deem righteous~

Michael felt the power of the divine swelling within him as a blessing that had been slowly burning its way into his soul suddenly took hold and Estaid began to channel through him. His entire body glowed gold and the brightness of it increased until the light was blinding.

One of the chitin-armored horned men saw this as an opportunity to attack him, and leapt in his direction.

The rift-creature was cleaved in two by a massive claymore.

Michael’s vision cleared and he saw a broad-shouldered figure in a massive suit of armor standing in front of him. He was made of golden light.

Davi turned back to look at Michael and smiled.