“It would have been helpful to get Drake some armour, but something that was strong enough to injure him like that in the first place would just tear through anything you could have provided,” Ciel groaned. The wounds his friend had endured had shaken him. Something that powerful could easily kill them without much of a second thought. Now was not the time for doubt, however. Their support was required. Backing out now could make the difference between life and death for the Isles.
“You mean something akin to what Kaiser is normally forced to wear,” Amnur interrupted. He had seen him wearing such a suit before. It was certainly as protective as it was impressive, but the demon hated wearing it. The reduced dexterity of his hands often made it difficult to strap on and equally as problematic to remove later, without the problem of overheating him. Larger demons such as Kaiser, Drake and Crono normally maintained higher body temperatures. When the weather is regular, they found the combined effect too warm. Someone addled by the heat hardly makes for a good combatant in battle, even if their raw strength wasn’t reduced.
Ciel merely nodded, he knew providing such a thing would be impossible for them on short notice. The height difference between Drake and Crono was too great to attempt to quickly salvage anything, without the difference in builds.
“He’s not willing to sit it out, so he’ll have to last with nothing,” Ciel replied. Hopefully, in a confined battle situation, such a monstrous creature as before would be less likely to appear. When space is limited, and space has to be protected, one would prefer to have multiple, smaller units than one larger unit. Or at least he hoped he would be correct on that, their opponent didn’t appear the most logically minded when it came to battle strategy so far. Unless he really didn’t expect them to mount a proper comeback, in which case he had severely misjudged his opponents.
“Not that I’d feel too comfortable with not having him around, either way,” he added in. He relied on that demon too much sometimes, not that it was something that Drake minded.
“Everything’s ready now, we just need to depart,” Crono remarked, taking a deep breath. “We’re leaving those who remained behind rather thin on numbers, so we’ll need to be hasty in our fight.”
It was evident he was not too keen on the idea, but swiftly dealing with the source problem would cut out the likelihood of putting the others in danger. He gestured over to the waiting crowd, there was no point dallying any longer. Amnur took a casual look over; Abel and Na-ri were easy to spot from the others, without their taller than usual height, they looked rather underdressed for the weather. He wondered how they were comfortable giving the biting cold, even with his fire-based magic he’d rather not be out in the cold any longer than he had to. The same applied to Drake, but that was more out of the inability to provide him with anything to wear.
Ciel gave a respectful bow to both of them and walked over to join up with those that were waiting, making a point to meet up with Drake before they started marching.
“He sure is eager,” Amnur chuckled, “not that he’s the only one.”
Crono let out a silent sigh. Amnur was beyond eager, which was obvious. Considering the severity of the weather alone, he wondered how well Sakura would hold up. If she had been out in the open this whole time, the possibility of her surviving was minimal, without everything else to consider. One thing Crono knew was that Amnur would never cope with her death, but it was painful enough to force himself to remain positive, even if it was only as an appearance.
“If you’re all that eager, then we should be off,” he replied, giving Amnur a nudge forward. The demon needed no prompting, however. He stumbled with the force before marching on, beckoning for Crono to follow. He shook his head and smiled, he couldn’t fault Amnur’s resolve at least.
* * *
Despite the bitter cold, the journey was uneventful. The wind had since relented, gently wafting past them as they went. It would be a relief if it were not still freezing on their faces. Something it did offer them was increased vision, their surroundings were now clear to the naked eye. Not one Nightmare had been spotted so far, the dark bodied creatures should stand out against the pure white snow, as much as they probably stood out right now.
“I would take the assumption the East has already started,” Ciel puffed. His body was starting to become numb. It longed for the warmth of battle or anything that was a far cry from this.
“That would be a logical explanation,” Amnur agreed. He was up at the top of the marching line, pulling in close to Ciel. The mages had been split around the group, mostly for defensive measures. He had made the point he was going to be in the lead and none wanted to question him on it. Ferdan and Lauri were around the middle, keeping up morale when Lauri wasn’t cursing Amnur under her breath. Drake was also placed around the middle, with his height allowing him to potentially see more than others and his strength for negating a flank if one should occur. Crono was at the back with Na-ri, much for the same reasoning. Abel had volunteered to also be at the forefront of the force, his knowledge of the terrain allowing him to direct them towards their target without getting lost.
“You would rather not consider this some extravagant game,” Abel chimed in. The sigh that emitted from Amnur affirmed his statement. No one knew the true extent of that chaos mage’s mind or even his intentions. His stock of Nightmares would eventually run thin, but the locals of the Central Isles would likely be run thinner still by that point. It was generally assumed that there were far more varieties of them then they had seen so far, each potentially much more dangerous than the last. “I still query how he had the mana reserves to manage this,” he continued, “such a feat as this would require extraordinary amounts of mana.”
“It would be a suicide attempt, regardless of how this ends,” Amnur answered, blasting some of the oncoming snow with conjured flames, providing those behind with a short-lived pocket of warmth. “The body cannot endure copious amounts of mana,” he clarified, but Ciel’s confused expression indicated that he did not understand.
“You mean he would perish regardless?” Ciel spoke up. Such a thing was overly hopeful, though, without those creatures potentially being even more dangerous when not controlled.
“Excessive mana is a slow and painful death unless he overdid it and just completely overwhelmed his body,” Amnur replied. If the latter were to occur, he would have expected it to happen by now. The only risk now is if he pushed himself that far when threatened; the amount of destruction he could cause would be unthinkable. “Take it from someone who knows personally, kid,” he remarked, before going quiet and allowing the subject to drop. Ciel noted how Abel didn’t question anything, accepting everything at face value as if he knew what he meant. He wondered if Amnur had known someone who had succumbed to such a fate, or had witnessed it in some other fashion. Excessive mana would be notable visibly on the body, or so he would have thought. His knowledge on anything magical was rather lacking, something Solomon usually tried to correct. Tried was the accurate term, why he hadn’t given up on him by now was beyond him. Not that he wasn’t interested, it just made little sense to the boy.
The impressive crystalline towers were now within sight. Their conversation had made the time pass quickly, and Amnur’s random spell barrage had stopped them from freezing entirely on the way over. They paused someway behind to assess the battle situation, before charging in ahead of themselves. The eastern side appeared far less snow covered, a fact which irked those who had been putting up with eternal snow drifts, but it did allow for a clearer view of the situation. A spread of black dots covered one-half of the Isthmus, whether they were Nightmares or demons they were certainly numerous. Brief glimmers of light emerged from between the mass, potentially from the sun striking the armour of combatants, but also that of magic. From here the internal ring that surrounded the towers appeared unbreached or only been freshly done so. It appears they had arrived in perfect time and unannounced to their opponent.
With a final reco
nciliation, they proceeded to storm the compound, swiftly and silently.
Chapter 16: Tempered Chaos
Ground was slowly being gained, but the stream of Nightmares appeared endless to the quickly exhausting front line. Even more varieties of the twisted creatures had been emerging. Although they all shared similar weak points, the lack of knowledge as to their physiology made the front line susceptible to heightened amounts of damage. Where possible healers tended to their wounds, even while mid-fight if was required, using their magic to patch the tears shut. Those too exhausted were swapped out, but any holes that remained open in the defence for too long resulted in Nightmares sweeping through.
Kaiser had since dispatched the pinned creature, but the one Iomor had injured was unwilling to allow him close enough to pin it down. Often its legs would collide with those below. A few unfortunate souls had been nearly entirely crushed by heavily placed legs, along with the Nightmare they had been fighting. Now it had opted to start using magic, more out of defence than offence, but it was creating havoc either way. Sharp earthen spikes protruded from the ground, some dripping blood where they had come into contact with fighters when they emerged. The creature enjoyed mocking Kaiser as he tried to grab hold of it, slicing through his skin with newly emerged spikes until he backed down to avoid the stabbing barrage. Iomor had tried a second attempt at its other sac, but he was met with an aerial assault of sharpened rocks, and a slammed leg once he had landed.
Conveniently for him, torn wing membrane was not a fatal injury, but it was a painful and slow healing one. Such an attack as the leg slam he had predicted and set up to dodge. The sheer force of it hitting the ground had knocked him down, however. He was not much use for helping out Kaiser now, though, he had been rendered flightless by the attacks.
A flash of light attracted his attention as it approached the underbelly of the creature. He was gripping tightly to one of the erected stone spikes, searching for an opening he could exploit with the inability to fly. Iomor watched closely but couldn’t make out what was occurring. He assumed it not to be another Nightmare by the style of its approach, however. Moments passed as the creature continued the back and forth game with Kaiser, the demon was becoming increasingly frustrated but also increasingly injured. With another, much brighter flash of light the remaining bulbous sac exploded open, sending the creature into a panic. Its defence had failed, and now pain seeped through the massive body, but losing both sacs wasn’t enough to kill the massive Nightmare.
Kaiser, however, was not one to wait. He lunged forward and slammed his hands into the creature’s back and dropped it onto the spiky nest it had created below. Spikes had protruded through the mottled black carapace before the body turned limp, shattering down to shards on the follow-up blow. Iomor breathed a sigh of relief, watching as the shards slipped off the stone and into the gaps below.
“You looked like you were having some trouble,” a voice teased, causing him to look up towards its origin.
“It was about time you started being useful, Sariel,” he growled, but the angel just shrugged the response off, still enjoying the fact that it had been him who defeated the creature.
“Not my fault that between you two, you couldn’t defeat one of those,” Sariel replied. His sass irked Iomor. The two of them had always been in conflict. Both held similar positions, but Iomor often thought Sariel got away with murder, sometimes in a more literal sense.
“Oh really? You did less than a third of that,” Iomor spat back, easing down when he saw Kaiser sigh and just shake his head. It wasn’t worth their time to be arguing now. There were more pressing concerns than an angel making himself out to be more important than he really was. “Whatever, I have more to be worrying about than you.”
Iomor slowly dropped to the ground from his position. Despite the injury, he still used his wings to help lower his body down. Sariel smirked at the torn membrane, seeing the blood drip freely filled him with some morbid satisfaction. If he wasn’t well aware that Uriel was watching, the angel would have soon seized the opportunity to drive a blade through Iomor’s chest. A stricken demon is an easy target for an angel, as much as a plucked angel is easy prey for a demon. That fantasy would have to wait for now, there would be more than ample time after this battle to act.
A shrill cry got their attention back to the main front, and the front line was curious as to the sudden change in the attention of their opponents. To what they could see past the thick line of writhing bodies, alone Nightmare had come bounding over; its body was impaled by several arrows, making it wobble as it tried to desperately press on. Once its call had been heard, a harmonious shriek rang out, followed by creatures splintering off from the main group. It was a foolish move, however. With the reduced numbers it became easy for them to break through the thinned herd. With speed and precision, they punched a hole in the defence, littering broken shards of carapace everywhere as they went.
* * *
The surprise attack from the West had not gone as well as the westerners would have liked, but it had the desired effect, even if the impact had been reduced. Some scouts had remained hidden around the fringes of the stone wall. Their presence only became known when they had broken cover to warn those already fighting. Arrows had rained down to try and prevent their escape, but one had managed to avoid being hit fatally. Now they had become harder pressed than they would have been originally, but the heat had been taken from the larger front.
Steel met magic as they altered their position into a defensive stance, cutting them down with projectiles from the sheltered archers and mages. As soon as the East had broken through, they changed tactics again, sweeping the Nightmares off their feet and shattering them down. Around the complex, the remaining number of creatures was starting to become few, so Amnur seized the opportunity to investigate the crystalline towers alone.
He turned his body invisible. While it wouldn’t stop one of the creatures from seeing him, it would stop anyone else from becoming aware of his presence. From this side they appeared to have no openings, so he carefully squeezed himself between the gap created by the northernmost edge of the spires and the stone wall. Three entranceways became evident as he reached the opposite side, as well as the varied shapes of the eastern army. Amnur scowled at the figures and opted to enter the closest entrance, feeling an abnormal ripple of energy as he passed through. A brief glance down revealed that his invisibility spell had been forcefully removed.
With a choice selection of words, he quickly turned around but found the entranceway to be obscured. Either something had just sealed him in here, or there was some spell active to mask the inside of the spire to the outside world.
A noise grabbed his attention back to the opposite side of the room he was stood in. A long snake-like creature was sat watching something, seemingly oblivious to his presence. Carefully, he grabbed his blade and crept forward. The object of the creature’s interest soon became visible; a rift hung in the room, distorting the air and aether around it. As Amnur came closer, the creature regarded him casually. It beckoned him to examine it, touch it. Against his better judgment, he stretched out his hand, feeling the edge of the intertwined aether between his fingers. The aether was distorted, but it didn’t feel unnatural to him. He could feel an undercurrent of something much more corrupted writhing in the tangled mass, however.
Moving his hand around revealed a minute opening, a window into the Nether Plane. Amnur gazed at it for a moment; considering the creatures that emerged from the plane. The plane itself was notably beautiful. With the excessive amounts of mana that existed there, most of the scenery had been greatly distorted with almost a twisted grace. Rich colours filled the atmosphere, and the ground was a lush green, covered in plants of greatly varied size and composition.
A low whine from the creature snapped his attention back, making him pull his hand clear of the rift. It pushed past him and proceeded to wind up a staircase that lie hidden against the wall of the spire, occasionally
pausing to look back at him. The demon took the hint and followed it up, observing the light as it shone on the many faces of the crystalline structure.
At the top sat a pillar with a glass orb in a sunken basin. The surface pulsed with a sickly pink light, spreading energy into the crystal tower. Amnur noticed that the pulsing mana didn’t affect him as he passed by; its path had already been predetermined, ignoring any interference that it came in contact with. The creature hovered its arms over the surface of the orb, narrowly avoiding direct contact with the object.
“You can’t touch it?” Amnur enquired, unsure if the strange creature could even understand his words. It gazed at him for a moment, before placing both of its clawed hands down on the orb, shrieking in pain as mana surged into its body. A defence mechanism that had been sealed to the ball, but was it designed to specifically stop these creatures from touching it? He was unsure, but judging from the wounded look the creature gave him afterwards, it was not too keen on not interacting with it again.
Gripping his blade hilt tightly, he raised it level to the orb and blessed it with flame. It would give him a few seconds warning if the orb tried to rally a defence against him and help to melt through the glass.
As he was about to strike, the ground shook violently below him, followed by a resounding crash, knocking him off his feet. Amnur spun around to find a gaping hole in the wall behind him, and a monstrous creature stood in the wreckage. Reinforcements had arrived through the rift below, pouring out into the walled courtyard below to the surprise of those outside.
Picking himself up off the floor, he steadied his balance and debated how to proceed. The creature that had emerged was not a type he had seen before, it resembled a wyvern to what he could see. One with the ability to fly posed a notable danger, not only those currently present but also to those further afield, lacking enough defences to deal with something of that scale. If he could stop the influence of chaos magic over the creatures, the impact would affect all of them, though, not just one individual.
Skies of Fyir Box Set Page 38