“Close ranks!”

The Tigrans obeyed the orders of the gold-garbed commander and readied their spears – a disciplined line of golden thorns pointing towards the advancing force.

“Hold!”

This is it…Yelena thought as they ascended the stairs towards the waiting honor guard. The pawns are gone, and so now we face the elite…

She let her aura dissipate and the Gnoll warriors formed up around her, covering the entire precipice of the marble palace steps.

“Say the word,” Mendax growled. “And we’ll take these kittens down.”

Yelena and Amara looked into the vicious spears of the cat-guards, and then into their focused eyes staring back at them within their gilded helmets.

There was no mortality within those eyes. There was nothing but pure focus. Fixation on death. They were no more human than the creatures dwelling beneath the sands.

The line held firm in the face of the Gnoll’s roars, each guardsman still as stone.

Yelena felt perspiration drip from her brow.

“We’ve come this far,” Amara said, stepping forward with her twin flames. “I’m not gonna stop here because of a few golden cats.”

But it was the Elder’s fading voice that broke through everyone’s confusion, even though her words were little more than a whisper.

“There is…no need…to intervene.”

Yelena, Amara, and even Mendax looked at her quizzically as the sound of something loud and obnoxious filled the air above them.

“Tally-ho!”

The army looked to the skies to see a burning beetle sailing through the desert skies, being rode by a crimson-clad priestess and a man aiming a single arrow at the head of the guard-cat leader.

“Above!” The Tigran yelped. “Soldiers, tur-“

His voice was cut off as Enda dive-bombed into them, disrupting their ranks and throwing the cat-guards into disarray. The guard captain came tumbling down the steps and lay inert at Yelena’s feet – a dash of red smeared across his forehead just where an arrow had found its mark.

“Into them!” Mendax roared as the Gnolls surged forwards, slicing through the disorganized, stumbling guards with ease as Edna continued her rampage, chewing apart two guards at once and tossing their limbs down the palace steps.

Yelena and Amara merely stared on in amazement.

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“Salvation…,” the Elder said with a hoarse chuckle. “Truly, it…comes…from above.”

Marius stepped down to meet the pair, brandishing two bloody silver daggers.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said as Edna sent another bloody limb flying over them all. “Bit of a holdup. Adverse weather conditions – you understand.”

Yelena sighed deeply and clamped her hand on his shoulder. “You are nothing if not full of surprises.”

Amara moved passed them both to regard the Elder at the foot of the steps.

“Can you move?” she asked.

The Elder met the young girl’s eyes and stumbled forward back into Mendax’s waiting hands.

“Go…on,” she croaked.

Mendax held her aloft as she got her bearings.

“The Blackbird’s defences are broken,” she said. “You…you three…must go.”

Yelena watched the Gnolls finish up their slaughter, leaving the fallen Tigran to bleed out in the sun.

Behind them, they saw the waves of darkness still moving through the ruined city, converging slowly on the palace courtyard.

“We shall remain,” Mendax barked at Amara’s confused stare. “We have paved the path for you. You do the rest.”

Yelena watched Amara turn and regard she and Marius with a knowing look.

After all, they were the mortals here, weren’t they?

“Are you sure?” Amara asked her Gnoll companions.

The Elder nodded sagely as Mendax gave a gruff hmpf! of assent.

“This is as far as the paws of fate shall carry us,” she said, rising and walking towards her waiting troops, stroking the manes of each of the waiting soldiers. “We are the Gnolls of the sands, and when our people are saved, we shall be here to welcome them back.”

Mendax was immediately howling his agreement.

“You hear that?!” she barked at his men. “We hold here till the Lightbringer has slain the Blackbird within! We have broken his defenses, smashed through everything he’s thrown at us! This – this is the hour of our victory! Look to the Gnoll beside you – he is your brother. He is the one you shall stand beside and see the new dawn of the Sands. Of our Sands – a free Sands!”

The gnolls whooped and howled with the warrior, and Yelena couldn’t help but look at them with a level of respect. They fought for what they believed in, and held on to those beliefs till the end.

There was little else one could ask from a warrior.

“We won’t fail you,” Amara told the Elder. “I promise!”

Yelena bowed to the Elder too, pushing Marius down by his neck so he’d do the same.

“I vow,” she said. “That your enemies will die this day.”

“I…uh,” Marius sputtered. “Same goes for me, double.”

Antethra dismounted the bloody Edna and met them beside the open doors of the golden castle.

“I will be your guide,” she told them. “My destiny lies with the Blacbird, and by the fires of Our Lady, I will see the Blackbird burn.”

The Elder nodded and cupped her great, weary paw over the head of the sister, who closed her eyes to accept the blessing.

“Go with the might of flame within your heart,” she told her. “And lay the ghosts of your sisters to rest.”

Edna even got involved as the three surfacers moved towards the door, nuzzling up to Antethra and even giving Marius an affectionate lick.

“Be remaining here, Ty’Kella,” Antethra told the giant insect. “You have done enough.”

“Ey she’s a regular pussycat when ya get to know her,” Marius said with a smile. “Who’s a bloody little girl? Who is? You are! Yes you are!”

Edna clicked happily from these praises, and if an insect could feel sorrow, Yelena could swear that the creature looked on them with sadness as they turned away to face the golden hallway leading to their final confrontation on the Sands.

“Alright,” Yelena said without turning back, feeling the beating of more than just her own heart within her breast as she set foot within the palace entrance. “Let’s finish this.”

Hearing them run through the palace doors, Mendax ordered them closed and sealed, and stood beside his warriors, and his fading Elder, as the black miasma of dead souls streaked towards them all again.

“Come on, true warriors of the Sands!” he roared. “You want to live forever?”