by Cale Plamann
There was only a moment before Krosst started the attack to decide. Fight, or run and hide long enough to reset. His gaze flickered over the assembled daemons.
Anger flowed through him. He was fucking tired of being kicked around. Of being a plaything of the nobles or the gods. Of being tossed from one disaster to another, only surviving by hiding like a roach wedged beneath a piece of furniture long enough to trigger his reset.
Trevor and Jo had died because he was weak. Bart had died because he was weak. But this time, he wasn’t weak. Maybe he wasn’t strong enough, but he certainly wasn’t weak. Maybe he didn’t have any options before, but he had them now.
Telivern’s nose pressed against his arm.
Worry. Danger. Escape.
“Not this time, buddy.” Micah brushed the buck aside. “I can’t promise that I’ll make it through this, but I won’t bring you down with me. Go to the entrance of the cavern. If I don’t meet up with you in three hours, you’ve been a solitary light in a bleak stretch of my life. You’re family to me, and I’ve seen too many family members die.”
The nose pressed back against Micah forcefully, pushing him slightly off balance.
Denial. Support.
“No.” His voice caught in his throat and his eyes burned as he turned to Telivern. The deer’s eyes were plaintive, asking him questions beyond just the emotions and simple thoughts that could be transferred by contact. Questions that Micah didn’t want to answer. “I need you to go, buddy. This fight is beyond me, but it sure as hell is beyond you. I can’t protect you and fight all of them. If you stay, I’ll die trying to keep you safe.”
SUPPORT.
“I know.” Micah blinked, fighting back the tears that he’d been holding at bay since he turned down Jo. “But the only way you can help me is by waiting for me. Please. I know it's hard, but I need you to do this for me, buddy.”
Telivern snorted angrily at him before turning and walking away, Micah’s eyes on its back as it receded towards the cavern’s entrance. Then a horn blew, shattering the moment.
With a roar, the Durgh began to sprint across the cave toward Micah and his daemons, and there wasn’t any more time for self-doubt.
45
Though Wise Men Know At The End That Dark Is Right
As they charged, Micah cast Wind Shield and Flight. The last battle had shown that even if his minions were more powerful than their opponents, it wasn’t impossible for the weight of numbers to overwhelm them. Earth magic might have let him make a shield of rocks, and Fire magic would let Micah ring himself in flames, but he simply didn’t have access to proper defensive magics. All he could do was fly and protect himself from arrows, forcing the battle into the air.
The Brensens and the Luocas could fly with him, swooping down to kill or maim Durgh while drawing the battle out. As for the Onkerts? Micah didn’t hold out much hope that they’d survive the battle, even if everything went perfectly.
As it was, heavily outnumbered and with high-leveled Durgh such as the Khan thrown into the mix, the Onkerts were dead, and his only real chance was to keep flying. The Durgh would have some way to attack him—a group of blessed that size surely would—but if he remained on the ground, they would overwhelm his small group with sheer numbers in a matter of minutes. At least in the air, he had a better chance at limiting the size of the engagement.
Micah leapt and the wind caught him. Soaring up amongst the finely carved stalactites, he ignored the barrage of arrows and javelins that followed him, trusting in the Wind Shield to deflect the projectiles. Seconds later, the flying daemons joined him as he began casting Haste, his mind's eye touching the tethers binding him to the Brensens.
A ball of flame struck the stalactite next to him, reducing it to half molten shrapnel, easily deflected by his Wind Shield. He finished the spell and frowned down upon the small army of Durgh.
The Brensens swooped downward, Haste speeding their descent as they struck like hawks. They squawked happily and slashed their skeletal claws through victims before returning to the cavern’s roof. Near him, the two Luocas flapped amidst the crags of the roof lazily, waiting for Micah to finish their casting of Haste so that they could join their siblings.
The spell completed, settling over the Luocas just as a pair of Durgh rose from the column with their blessings’ batlike wings sprouting from their backs. Almost casually, one of the Luocas darted forward, its wings blurring through the aggressors, bisecting them and letting their dissolving bodies fall onto the Durgh below.
Micah winced as half of the chains binding his Onkerts to him snapped before withering away. He glanced down at the battlefield. It was as he’d suspected. The Onkerts had managed to bring down a single careless Durgh before the higher-levels amongst their numbers disabled them with a series of spells and blessings long enough for those on the front lines to dispatch them.
Even as he watched, a great cylinder of stone carved from Earth magic fell from the ceiling onto the daemons, crushing and instantly killing another two. Again, he felt the connection between them sever.
His attention snapped back to his situation as a silver harpoon simply ignored his Wind Shield and slammed into his leg. For a second, his mind went white as the weapon shattered his thigh.
The barbs bit into his flesh and pulled him toward the ground with an overpowering jerk. He screamed. Despite his agony, Micah’s vision was drawn to the Durgh holding the chain. A giant like all of his subterranean race, his mouth was wide with laughter, exhibiting his tusks and sharp teeth. Around him, the other Durgh cheered him on, one clapping him on the back, congratulating him for spearing Micah.
Without thinking, Micah touched the invisible chains binding his Luocas. One blurred past him, too fast for Micah’s eyes even as he knew it was coming. Its wing dipped slightly in the air before it sliced through the harpoon’s chain. The other slammed into the ground in the middle of the Durgh formation, killing a handful with its bulk before lashing out with its wings and tail.
Micah blinked back tears, taking some small satisfaction in watching the Durgh that had skewered him vomit from the backlash as his Luoca shattered the chain of his blessing. The other interposed its body in front of him, intercepting a volley of spells and blessings that lit the dark cave up in a pyrotechnic display.
He hissed in relief as Augmented Mending deadened his nerves and knit the bone back together. Micah’s HP had dropped dangerously; any lower, and the harpoon would have killed him outright without any need to reel him to the ground.
Another volley of spells struck the Luoca while Micah recast his spell. It whined slightly, the repeated attacks finally beginning to chip away at the great daemon’s prodigious health. The minute Micah’s calf muscle knit back together and his hit points crested above 80%, he released the daemon mentally, sending it to vent its frustration on the swarm of Durgh.
It veered away from Micah, preparing to dive toward the column of soldiers only for the gigantic head of a flame-wreathed flail to slam into it and drive it into the cavern ceiling.
With a thought, Micah flowed to the side, frowning at the reddened and newly hairless skin of his forearms where the heat from the flail had seared him. The ball of the flail itself continued rotating, grinding the Luoca against sheer rock. His eyes trailed back along the chain, a series of glowing red links that illuminated the otherwise dimly lit cave, to find Krosst.
The Khan met his gaze. Where he was once twice Micah’s height, he now stood at least four, maybe five times as tall, his body the dull orange of molten rock. Magma hissed as it dripped from the creases in his body, leaving a trail of dim lights behind him. Unsurprisingly, none of the Durgh came within a dozen paces of him, unable to bear the heat radiating off his gigantic body.
The flail head rocketed back toward Krosst at speeds that left a dull afterimage in Micah’s vision. The Durgh caught it in his left hand, and a feral grin twisted across his burning face as the Luoca emerged from a crater in the ceiling, its human head screa
ming incoherent defiance.
Krosst wordlessly dropped the head of the flail to the cavern floor, the impact knocking several of the nearby Durgh off balance. Without breaking eye contact with the Luoca, he extended his left hand and flicked his fingers toward himself to beckon silently.
Micah began casting Haste on his Luocas. As powerful as they were, he didn’t have any confidence that they could beat the Khan quickly without his help.
Orange and red flashed across Micah’s vision as Krosst threw a glob of magma at the Luoca with enough force to knock it almost ten paces to the side.
Mentally, he amended his assessment from “quickly” to “at all.”
Haste let the Luoca correct its course, narrowly dodging the chain of Krosst’s flail as it whipped by. Micah switched to his Sun mana pool in an effort to give his Moon mana a moment to replenish itself and began casting Regeneration. Given the heat mirages rising off of the gigantic Durgh, even if his daemon fought the battle perfectly and struck the Khan, it would suffer damage. Foresight could come next, but for now, it needed staying power.
Micah wove through the stalactites on the ceiling, using the carved pillars of stone as cover against the javelins and magic of the Durgh as he finished his spells. Just as he completed Foresight, a jet of pressurized air shattered the cavern next to him, spraying Micah with shards of stone that his Wind Shield barely deflected.
He glanced down and frowned—almost twenty Durgh flew toward him under the influence of spells similar to Flight or under the power of some blessing. One of them held a great metal apparatus similar to a blacksmith’s bellows and, as Micah watched, she pushed down on the accordion. Sigils and glyphs running up and down the spout of the device glowed briefly, and a spear of pressurized gas roared past him once again.
A handful of rapid thrusts from Micah’s spear sent the Durgh scattering as one of their numbers fell to the ground, bleeding from a series of holes drilled in him by the spears’ enchantments. Micah turned his attention back to his daemons while weaving through the air, taking advantage of his flight to throw off the aim of the Durgh on the floor.
The Brensens dove in and out of the swarm, leaving grievous wounds or claiming heads entirely. Of course, despite their power and magical reinforcement, the Brensens didn’t operate with impunity. The Durgh were far from defenseless, and each swoop into their ranks triggered attempts to rob them of their aerial advantage. Although this took the form of nets and spells, more often than not, it resulted in Durgh, drunk on the potential honor of bringing down such an illustrious foe, attempting to tackle or bear-hug a daemon.
It didn’t take long, only a moment to disrupt a Brensen’s momentum, and the rest of the mob would swarm upon it like ants attacking scraps of food at a picnic. Sometimes the Durgh in the area wouldn’t be strong enough to hold the great daemons down, and seconds later, the Brensens would flap away from a charnel scene of blood and limbs.
At least once, however, a Brensen had been tackled by a high-level Durgh with a clan leader nearby. Even though this Durgh was only slightly more powerful than the daemon, she was able to prevent the summon from fleeing with a series of rapid attacks while her kinsfolk ripped it to shreds.
Taking in the multiple open wounds on his surviving Brensen, Micah began casting Healing Wave. He’d need to resist the urge to support the second-tier daemons further with mana-intensive Time spells. Despite the damage they were dealing, the Durgh army stretched deep into the cavern. He held no illusions about winning the battle conventionally. Instead, he needed to survive twenty-eight more minutes. If he were to see the light of day again, Micah would need to conserve both his mana and his stamina.
The Luocas, on the other hand, fared much better. One of the duo rampaged through the Durgh, its very steps warping and melting the reality of the rocks it stepped upon as its wings and tail sheared through even the thickest of armor. Shamans did their best to restrict its motions, creating cages of stone and prisons of ice. None of them did much. The aura of Elsewhere weakened the magic, made the bonds frail and brittle enough for the Luoca’s wings to cut them apart with ease.
Krosst gave a much better account of himself. Micah’s Luoca used the power of Foresight and the speed of Haste to dodge each attack by the barest of margins. The moment the Khan overextended himself, the daemon’s tail would lash out, already knowing from Foresight that its attack would succeed. Each blow struck a weak point, sinking shoulder-deep into the magma of a knee or shoulder.
Through his connection to the daemon, Micah could feel the stifling heat burning away at the Luoca’s HP. By the same token, each blow from its tail fundamentally changed some of the molten rock that composed the Durgh Khan. Joints hardened and became brittle, and blow by blow, he began to move slower as the magic of his transformation was eroded and morphed by the essence of Elsewhere.
Micah frowned at his mana reserves and began casting Foresight once again. The spell was expensive, but he needed Krosst eliminated if he was going to survive. Already the Durgh were calling up warbeasts specialized for their specific situation: giant, twisted arachnids capable of spitting webs into the air to trap and bring down the evasive Brensens and mutated bats, likely to hunt Micah himself.
Renewing Foresight on the Luoca, Micah quickly recalled two of the Brensens from their attack runs with a thought. The flying Durgh were regrouping, and it would only be a matter of time before the flying warbeasts rallied to their aid.
Hovering, juking, and dodging far above the battlefield might put him out of reach of his average opponent, but that wasn’t a situation that could last forever. Even if the Durgh were focusing on the daemons directly attacking them, Micah’s summons were too heavily outnumbered to draw all of his enemies’ focus. In the end, they would notice him, and just one or two powerful melee combatants within spear range would force Micah to spend mana on defensive spells that he could ill afford to lose.
The bats and Durgh rose toward Micah, the warbeasts screening the more powerful warriors from Micah’s attacks. With a shrug, he dipped into his mana once more and cast Sonic Bolt.
The spell's biggest weakness was its range. Despite its name, sound didn’t stick to a “bolt” format naturally. More than a couple paces out, it began to disperse and spread. In reality, it was more of a “sonic cone.” Against powerful opponents, that meant closing to point-blank range in order to ensure penetration. Against bats that used their sensitive hearing to echolocate prey?
Half of the warbeasts dropped from the sky bonelessly, their large ears leaking blood. It didn’t really matter whether the spell killed or disabled them—the hard stone of the cavern floor equalized everything in the end. The other half swerved wildly, their direction and control compromised by the sudden assault.
The two Brensens protecting Micah dove into the confusion, their claws scattering and killing the remaining bats. At their best, the warbeasts might have slowed the cyclopean vultures gleefully scything through their ranks, but damaged and confused, they didn’t stand a chance.
The Durgh behind them fired a volley of javelins and magic into the bats’ ranks to try and slow the daemons down, using blades of water, fist-sized rocks that detonated into shrapnel, fireballs that left Micah blinking away afterimages, and, of course, the large air-pressure cannon. It worked, after a fashion—the Brensens emerged from the mass of bats riddled with small cuts, their wings smoldering from fire-based attacks.
Micah simply cast Augmented Mending again, circumventing the spell's lack of ranged effect by touching both of the daemons’ tethers. Through their eyes, he saw the recognition dawn on the flying contingent of Durgh as the wounds closed. He released his mental grip on the Brensens’ bindings when they lunged forward with dizzying speed, claws outstretched to tear through the suddenly undefended and inexperienced fliers.
Below, another Brensen died, the pop of its tether severing drawing Micah’s attention as he hid himself behind another outcropping of rock on the ceiling. One of the great spider warbea
sts had caught the daemon in a net made of webbing and reeled it back to the cavern floor before it could escape. The daemon performed well, however, tearing the legs from the arachnid with its claws even as the webbing bound its wings together.
By the time it finally collapsed, three bone spears piercing its body, almost a dozen Durgh corpses surrounded the daemon. With a shudder, the arachnid stopped moving.
For a fraction of a second, Micah considered recalling his Brensens. They weren’t as robust as the Luoca and their injuries were beginning to add up. But scanning the chaos of the battlefield, he realized he couldn’t.
There were too many Durgh. If they weren’t under constant pressure from the swooping daemons, the enemy would have a moment to think. Micah had a sinking sensation that any planning by the Durgh would involve “focusing fire on the squishy pink summoner.” Even if constant action meant taking losses, he needed to keep the Durgh off balance long enough to avoid that outcome.
Touching the connection to his Luocas, Micah grit his teeth and began casting Foresight once again. The spell was powerful, insanely so, but its short duration almost made it a liability in an endurance battle like this. Almost.
Krosst was slowing. The angry orange of his body dimmed to a dull yellow as tail strike after tail strike from the Luoca warped and twisted the magma that made his gigantic battle form. Thanks to the Haste and repeated castings of Foresight, Krosst hadn’t struck the Luoca again after the first surprise attack with his flail. The daemon still had just over half of its health, a natural outcome when combat forced it to jam an appendage into magma.
The ground around the Khan was soaked in glowing yellow-and-orange liquid, the molten rock refusing to harden even as it cooled. Then Krosst stumbled, his right knee giving out slightly. As he fell, the Luoca’s tail slashed across his throat, the serrated appendage already in motion before the Durgh even began moving.