IN WHICH WE MEET FIVE FRIENDS. AND HIM.

The sky was not black.

If the sky had been pitch black, that would've been alright. The little voice in my head would've accepted that it was, nighttime? Perhaps? Perhaps an overcast night, with no moon, something along those lines, it would feel a little strange to be sure, but I could still calmly accept an inky black void looming above my head.

The sky was not black.

The sky was a howling green-grey molasses, a swirling quagmire of clouds that twisted into screaming faces and melted back into the storm like a market-day crowd doused in acid. The little voice in my head wasn't happy that the sky was green-grey and full of faces. The little voice wasn't happy about a lot of things. I could only watch in horror and listen to the little voice cry, as HE reached out and snatched Alaxoria by the throat. The woman was a giant amongst men, but still she dangled, her twin-bladed axe falling to the black stone floor as she scrabbled at the the iron-clad fingers encircling her neck. Then HE...

(Laughed.)

(No, that can't have been a laugh. What was that noise?)

And tossed her aside, sending her skidding and retching across the tiles, limbs loose like a sad sack of rope. We were all entirely exposed to the elements up here, the final platform at the top of HIS dark-hewn tower. There weren't even any battlements between my bruised flesh and the roaring winds that cut like knives. John was charging back into the fray, and had to fully leap his erstwhile companion, or crash into her. Even from here I could see the twist to his mouth, he wanted to stop and pick Alaxoria up, he wanted to gather all of us up, and take us away from this place. Away from HIM. But there was nowhere to go.

So, John jumped over his half-strangled friend and sprinted towards the unnervingly still figure wrapped in armour like black broken glass. HIM. John positioned his sword down by his side with the tip gliding a whisper above the stone floor, ducked a crackling ball of screeching clawing hands that HE called up through the runic circle in the back of one hand, swiped a cut at HIS knee joint and-

I'm no duelist. I could barely keep track of John's sword as it slipped and flashed and rang with each parry and counterstroke. But I knew what was about to happen, because as I watched the fight unfold, I couldn't see HIS sword at all.

There was a crunch of metal, John's sword flew high and briefly caught the glare of the fires below, flashing like a sunset. The sword spun, glanced off one of the dozen trunk-like pillars that encircled the platform, and slipped over the edge. It had a long way to fall. A sideswipe from HIS elbow crushed John to his knees, but he wouldn't submit, wouldn't bend his neck, wouldn't lower his head. I could see a bead of sweat trace from his temple to the pulsing vein at his neck. John looked up with a mouthful of prayers as HE drew back HIS blade, a sliver of black ice that hurt the eyes to find the edge. A scream bubbled up in my throat, but John kept his head and received a boot to the chest instead. He fell back, armour smashed inwards, and got another kick to the side that sent him spinning towards the ledge, jagged shards of plate-mail screeching a hairline across the dark stone floor of the tower-top. One arm flailed out and clutched ahold of a lucky pillar, the only thing between John and going the same way as his sword. But who knew, maybe a thousand-foot fall to the earth beneath would've been safer than staying atop this accursed tower?

And so it went. Zephyr came hurtling down from above, raining beams of scorching ice and freezing fire, arcane weaponry fizzing into and out of existence as fast as they could create them. From out of thin air, HE pulled a jewel-studded stone rod that seemed to pulse with- no, everything else pulsed, while the artefact stayed entirely still. A few quick motions and a hissed word from HIM, and the stone rod spat out some kind of twisting not-red orb, entirely beyond my limited theoretical eldritch knowledge. All I could tell was that it wasn't red. The orb darted back and forth as Zephyr descended, matching relative positions with alien precision, and wrapped around our spellcaster with a muffled squelch. I could feel the flash and crash of Zephyric spells from inside the orb, see them fighting to get out, but to no avail. They could not save us, and the spells of destruction that had flitted around the battlefield ticked to a stop, severed from the source. Alaxoria recovered enough of her breath enough to dive into the fight once more, fists and teeth and sheer bloody-mindedness raking against implacable black iron. She was smashed against the ground five, ten times, managed to snatch the sword out of HIS grasp in the process, but HE had her pinned eventually, her right arm stretched to breaking point behind her head.

Keller struck out but once, from his vantage point crouched at the very top of a pillar. He almost seemed close enough to reach up and touch the twisting green faces that roared down at us. At the exact moment Alaxoria had her arm twisted round and her face to the stone floor, Keller sent a single dagger whispering down. The blade struck true, punching through a gap in the armour, and I knew it was laced with sixteen rare concoctions devised for just this occasion. Six of them were my design, after all. That got HIS attention, throwing aside Alaxoria and whirling to face our designated assassin. Keller was already long gone, and I didn't blame him, without John or Alaxoria controlling the field, there wasn't anything else he could do but strike and flee. As HE stood and flicked the dagger out of HIS side, I could hear the hum coming from within. A small panel of HIS black armour split and slid aside, beneath it were layers of white chitinous flesh, squirming over themselves like a moulting insect. Poisoned gold veins pulsed their way through the meat, seeking an unbeating heart, but HIS flesh moved faster. The white substance beneath the armour pushed out through the gap in the steel, until with one quick twisting motion of HIS gauntlets, the entire lump lay steaming on the stone, a slurry of gold venom slowly oozing to the floor. The armour sealed back up over the jagged, bloodless wound, and that was us done.

Me? Were your waiting for me to do something? Listen, I know full well, that I am but a mere conjuror. For the past few minutes, it was all I could do just to not die. John disarmed, Zephyr trapped, Alaxoria crushed, Keller fled, and myself: useless.

I could only watch as HE drew himself up, the eight foot tall creature that HE had become. HE stalked over to John, HIS gauntleted fingers wriggling and clacking against themselves, as the knight struggled to one knee, fell, rose again, and stood empty-handed to face HIM. John swayed, raised his fists, and HE

(Spoke.)

I couldn't hear what HE said to John. Not exactly. There had been other voices mixed in. Sounds. Things. But I couldn't, I couldn't listen. I couldn't make myself hear the promises. A smear of blood on John's forehead looked startlingly red against his all-too-pale skin. Death can be quiet, peaceful at the last, but John stood up against the downpour, wracked with torment that only the living can feel.

HE took a moment to raise the jewelled rod, pointing it towards Zephyr. The not-red orb rose above the level of the stone pillars, taking our companion with it. Zephyr was flinging a cascade of spells at the implacable interior, I could see them trying to yell a message, but nothing pierced that not-red shell. The orb rose higher, shifting smoothly through the air, faster and faster, cutting through one of the ghastly green faces like a stone through a spider-web, vanishing into the eldritch storm with a crack of thunder.

John did not watch as Zephyr was flung away into the sky. His eyes were solely on HIM, gauntlets clenched, feet placed, back straight, knees bent, completely ready to be utterly pulverised into the ground again, and again, stomped to pieces by the black armoured juggernaut in front of him. He opened his mouth, a chip of tooth falling to the floor, took one step forward.

There is a thing you should know about Alaxoria: She is very hard to kill.

There is another thing you should know: Never, ever let your guard down around her.

From a crouching start off of the bloodied stone, she reached a silent sprint, leapt into the air, and collided into the side of HIM like a bull charging headfirst into a tree. The tree held, but just. "Go," she grunted, keeping the moment and taking two more steps, pushing HIM closer to the edge, to the lip of stone after which was thin air and green-grey sky. "I hold! Go!"

John looked close to death as I dragged him away from the fight, worse even than when he was a breath away from being beheaded by HIM. Me and John staggered together towards the staircase that led into the tower, while Alaxoria hit, kicked, grappled, shoved, taking each steely blow like she was carefully shouldering aside an avalanche, punching heedless of the thicket of spikes that adorned HIS armour. I looked back. I couldn't help myself. The stone pillars framed the pair of them, and above a face wrought from storm stared down, implacable, uncaring, silently howling. "We should," started John, but I kept him walking in the wrong direction, down the stairs.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

We left. We hauled our sorry asses back down the endless stairways. Stinking piles of our slain foes lay everywhere, up to waist deep in some chokepoint chambers. Keller stepped in through a shattered window on the way down, the ashen breeze whirling past outside. The swinging blades and pitfalls had all been disarmed and locked, the guards merely turned to watch us as we left, those that had survived our intrusion and ascent. John would not stop talking, would never stop trying to raise our spirits and plan the next battle, even as he winced with every rib-jolting step. I said nothing. Keller spoke back with John, but said nothing either. We hurried back down the stairs as quickly as we dared, not daring to think of the one we left behind.

Through the majestic hall that Zephyr had torn to smithereens, out through the grand gates that Alaxoria and her ancestors had staved in with one mighty blow, out into the blazing wasteland that surrounded HIS demesne. Two twitching little creatures, cast-offs from HIS army, grovelled up to John, proffering the paladin's sword. Both pieces of it. The top third of the blade had snapped right off, but John took it all the same. He didn't thank the creatures for returning it, but I could tell by the set of his shoulders that he thought the words as they skittered away.

There was something else we found at the base of the tower. She had a broken leg, a broken arm, and a smile like a looted graveyard, levering herself out of the shallow impact crater with her axe. "Is good! HE never see my secret plan. Jumped! Much cunning, you impressed yes Keller?"

John held Alaxoria tight. I don't know who it hurt more, out of the two of them. Keller stood watch while John whispered a prayer and set to work. HE didn't seem inclined to leave the tower, and we had torn a sucking hole through HIS garrison on the way up, so perhaps we had enough time to put ourselves back together a little. Alaxoria was much too heavy to carry out with just the three of us, so she'd either walk out of here on a broken leg, or not at all. I had the grisly task of pulling down on her foot while she yanked upwards on her thigh. Have you ever heard a bone complain as it slides back together? Don't try and imagine if you haven't, it's much worse. Alaxoria said nothing, but a little more blood trickled between her smile as John slotted a careful prayer into her fractured leg. It would just barely hold, and hurt twice as bad. I knew from experience, sadly.

John held her axe, Keller crouched to help her up, Alaxoria sucked down great gulps of air as she put pressure on her barely-mended leg, but still, she rose from the ashen crater. We had no time, she knew it, we all knew it. She stood, blood-streaked, lopsided, leaning heavily on an uncomplaining Keller. The grey dirt was strewn with drops of blood-mud, the hungry dust had sucked down every drop of moisture that had landed on it.

With Keller propping her up on one side and her broken arm tucked under the other, she hopped once, shuffled forwards, and began to slowly walk away from the base of HIS tower. Every time she put her foot down, her leg produced a sad little click that made my guts churn. We hadn't eaten, and that just made it worse. I turned back for a moment once Alaxoria was underway, and put together together a tiny little fetching spell. It flitted around, plucking half a dozen of Alaxoria's teeth out of the dirt with dull zips, plopping them into my hand one by one. "Good little crow," she ruffled my hair with her unbroken arm "finding me the shiny!"

I told you, didn't I? She's very hard to kill.

The road back out was barely worth the name, a tangled trail between jagged foothills that breached like whales made of teeth. The dust spilled down in unstable dunes, a mix of fine ash and dirt with every scrap of life leached out of it. Every footfall buried the other under the slippery, gritty flow. When the wind blew, it came in sandpaper gusts, but mostly, it was still, the dead quiet that echoed with our laboured breaths. Keller had to do the walking for two, and Alaxoria gave me little bleeding smiles every time I turned to her. Had she bitten her tongue?

There had been trees here, just a few months ago. HIS tower-fortress had swept down through the earth and erupted just inland from the coastal citadel, the last holdout of free mortals, and opened a new front in the war. The deans and deacons had detected the tower coming a day in advance, enough time to pull the folk of the countryside behind citadel walls and citadel wards. Most of them. Some couldn't bear to leave without even trying to defend their homes, and some realised their mistake all too late. They died, but no worse than that. The five of us had put enough pressure on HIS roving squads, that they only had time to kill, rather than capture alive.

The village that had been closest to the tower eruption site, that had been the hardest. Keller had talked to them, John gave a sermon, and Zephyr burned it to the ground with all the villagers painlessly asleep in their beds, holding their families. There had been no time for anything else.

What else could we have done? There are worse fates than death, and our misplaced mercy had sown HIS foulest cruelties. We had raced through the hinterland, spirited away as much of our people as we could, torched the rest, and faced HIM at the peak of our strength. And- we survived. Just. As we emerged from the barren hills into the coastal plains, a blue line cut its way through the clouds. Keller spotted it first, we all watched as it tore along the bloated underbellies of the grey clouds, sending wisps curling up in either direction like shredded paper. The blue line twisted, Zephyr had spotted us as well, and spiralled several times as they touched down, shedding spells that ricocheted off the hillside and scorched fascinating lines in the dirt. They bore us news from the east, where the mortal armies had marched to face HIS creations. Our mage battalion had been struck from within just as battle had joined, a strategic traitor. The levies had been routed by demons summoned within the ranks. Our invincible knights in their impenetrable armour had been swarmed, pinned down, and had their armour filled with boiling oil. The citadel portal had been diverted and used as an emergency escape, scooping up more than seventh-tenths of the remaining army, an amazingly successful... defeat. The portal had been disrupted in the process, Zephyr could not place a number on the days until it would be repaired by the citadel mages, but still, Keller approved of the gambit, a fine trade. It all washed over me. John and Keller spoke with Zephyr about the details of warfare, lines of defence and fall-back positions, supplies and logistics. That wasn't our job, though. The armies had marched and fought, while we were a hopeful arrow shot at HIS eye when the dark tower lunged within range. Both had failed. The only thing left for us to do was return to the citadel, form up with the rescued soldiers, and fight once more.

We would fight once more. I would have to fight once more. I would have to face that- face HIM. Again. Again.

"...Susan?"

"W- huh? What was that you said?", John startled me out of my fugue. I had been staring at my feet, he had been staring at me. His face was a bit of a mess, but the worry still shone through.

"Susan, are you alright? Do you need healing?"

"No, yeah, I'm alright."

"You just, didn't say anything when I called your name. Twice. I was worried you had hit your head back there, or something."

"No, no! I'm alright. Just... thinking."

"What are you planning when we get back to the citadel?", John practically vibrated with plans and noble schemes, even as he trembled from lack of sleep and intact ribs. "I was reckoning that we could repurpose the-"

Alaxoria put one hand on his pauldron, and he fell silent. Despite still having half her limbs broken, she was still somehow they most put-together of us all. I turned back, to look at the road we had taken.

Behind us, HIS tower struck up and out of the hills, a terrible gap in the world, an entirely wrong structure that throbbed jagged behind my eyes, tipped with twelve pillars like a monstrous spindly grasping hand. The torn clouds were shifting in a breeze none of us felt. The sky was turning more than a little green.