Book 4: Chapter 61: The Battle for Hume V |
They rose high into the air, the battlefield shrinking below them until it was merely dots moving across a board occasionally broken up by a large blast of flame or a rising plume of gold. Ollie turned them forward and they blasted toward the rift, swiftly crossing the enemy lines from far above where even the harpies would’ve been flying.
Michael saw Parthax rolling across the ground, trying to remove hundreds of swarming insects and motioned to Ollie to bring him closer. Ollie made them dive and just before they reached Parthax Michael opened his mouth and sent out a tremendous blast of gold flame, smiting all the creatures that were swarming him. At the same time he sealed the hundreds of small wounds that had been inflicted on him, then Ollie had them rise back up before the enemy could respond.
Parthax roared as he received a second wind and he breathed another bout of flame before he rose back up on powerful wingbeats to restart his passes of golden flame.
Once they were back out of sight, Ollie began moving them toward the rift again. The sky that had been dyed red by it darkened as they got closer. Clouds of red mist were pouring from it alongside the seemingly infinite army that was emerging from it. Michael could feel dread in his heart. The worst he’d ever experienced since he’d received the call about Gabriel’s accident.
Ollie didn’t hesitate, he built up more speed and dove through. Michael felt the sensation of glass breaking as they passed through. He could sense hundreds of bodies moving through it below him, their forms all vague and menacing in the dreamlike perception within the rifts.
They emerged in hell.
The blood-red sky was familiar to him, as was the red sun blazing above them. The air was clogged with some kind of red smog that seemed to permeate everything, quickly filling Michael’s lungs and causing him to choke. All around them were thousands upon thousands of horned men, harpies, and insectoid shapes that defied reason. As they passed through, the voices of the gods went silent.
Michael had been to this world before. In spite of the red tint to everything he’d seem some beauty within it. Watched lizardfolk children play in the forest, saw horned-women bring the men baskets of bread and scratch one another’s chins affectionately while he hid preparing for an ambush, and saw remnants of buildings created before the Empire of Chitin had arrived. What was in front of him now though was a blasted ruin of war.
In the distance, Michael could feel the ritual that was keeping the massive rift opened. There was a structure built of black stone that seemed to be pulsing with magicka, more than he’d ever felt before. His own magicka channels began to churn just from being in its presence.
When they were more than halfway to the black structure, Michael realized with horror what it was.
It wasn’t a structure at all. It was alive. The black walls he’d seen from a distance were chitin, a massive shell of it as large as a castle. It was being dragged forward by hundreds of massive skittering legs and the front of it was the head of a beetle with mandibles that could’ve cut buildings in half. That wasn’t what made it horrifying though. What truly brought up the bile in the back of Michael’s throat was that within the chitin, sealed inside with only part of their faces exposed, were thousands of lizardfolk. They’d found what happened to them.
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Before they could get any closer the chitinous mass let out a shriek and they felt an enormous expenditure of Magicka.
Ollie suddenly stopped, quickly shifting the barrier that had been in front of them to being above them and expending tremendous magicka to reinforce it. Michael tried to help, adding his own barriers to it, but he was too slow.
Pure magical energy descended down onto them. Everything went blinding white for a moment, and Michael lost all sense of reality as they were thrown to the ground. There was a blissful moment of nothingness, then the feeling of slamming hard into the ground.
He gasped, instinctually sending out a pulse of healing energy out, finding that everyone was still alive, but badly injured. He forced himself to his feet, ready to fight, but found only his friends alive next to him, all of the horde that had been near them completely evaporated by the might of the magic that had hit them. He stumbled over to Marcus, helping him to his feet, then he moved to Pyotr while Marcus went to Ollie.
Ollie stumbled as he got to his feet, but steadied himself with his staff, already muttering and bringing his magicka back together.
“I think flying is out,” he said dryly even as one of his voices continued working on his spell.
“We could always walk,” suggested Pyotr with a smile.
“I dunno,” said Marcus panting. “My feet hurt.”
Michael laughed as he watched rift creatures start to approach from every side.
“Maybe we can ask one of them for a ride?”
“Don’t worry. I have a great alternative. I’m going to be low on magicka for a moment after it’s done though. Don’t you cunts let me die.”
“Assholes always live forever,” replied Marcus with a smile as he readied his pistols.
Ollie laughed as another burst of magicka was building above them and slammed the butt of his staff against the ground.
A portal opened beneath them and they fell ten feet into a writhing mass of rift creatures. Michael covered himself in smite, landing like a meteor and sending out divine flame all around himself. Pyotr gripped a nearby horned man with his scarf and yanked himself toward him, skewering him as he landed, and Marcus managed to fire and reload before he even landed. Ollie landed roughly in the center of them, sweat thick on his brow and panting heavily.
They were much closer to the towering mass of chitin, able to see in more horrific detail the lizardfolk sealed within it. A few hundred yards behind them another pillar of pure magicka struck, killing the horde that had been swarming toward them and blinding those nearest to them.
They began pushing toward the chitin creature, the surprise of their portalling and their fierce attack allowing them to quickly carve their way through dozens of them. Michael let out a roar and cleared more space for them with a breath of divine flame, and Ollie recovered enough to throw a light fireball, followed by one from Pyotr. Between all of that they managed to close in another hundred yards, but the horde continued to press into them, and Michael could feel Magicka gathering above them again.
“Ollie, can you move us again?” asked Pyotr as he pulled his shortsword from a skull.
The mage nodded, the wide brim of his hat hiding his exhausted expression.
Michael bashed aside a scorpion tail and looked back at him.
“Teleport just me,” he yelled as he carved through two more.
“What!?” exclaimed Pyotr.
“Don’t you try this shit again!” yelled Marcus.
Michael looked at Ollie. “It's targeting me. It can only summon one pillar at a time. I’ll try to pull it away and draw its attention. It should give you a chance to fly around and attack it. The right fireball in the right place could end this.”
“You’ll die!” yelled Pyotr as he deflected a spear, caught it with his scarf, and ran it through another horned man.
“We’ll die without your healing,” added Marcus as he pistol whipped a harpy out of the air.
“No you won’t,” said Michael, extending his mace toward them. A piece of divine flame extended Ruin to Pyotr’s swords, Marcus’s pistols, and Ollie's staff. They suddenly caught divine flame and all three of them felt the power of the divine begin to flow through them.
Ollie let out a wheeze. “We’ll be right behind you, mate,” he managed. “But I don’t think you’ll die. You’ve got too much waiting for you now.”
Michael felt the sudden feeling of weightlessness as he fell through the portal below him. He could see the mass of chitin and flesh only a hundred yards from him now, and as he’d suspected the magicka that was being channeled switched to center over him. He landed amidst the swarming horde and then everything went white again.