The wind of the desert poured over them as they descended on the Altar of Night. In the early morning, everything was a shadow overlaid on a background of shadow. The altar was a huge, five-sided monolith of black stone with a slab of white marble lying at its base, stained in rust red. It occupied an island in the shadow of the great Hall of Night, the ominous temple that oversaw the floating river.

A paper ship sat moored to the island’s side.

They saw firelight flickering near the base of the monolith. A meager little camp. A lone figure prodding at the ashes- a figure with a broad, powerful build, and four arms. Yvaine, the war-demon.

Silently, Sarhelia lifted her fist and swung it down like the chop of an axe.

The harpies cried out in bloodlust and descended like a storm of wings and talons, rushing for the hunched back of their sworn enemy.

Nic was at the head of them, Peacemaker drawn, point aimed for Yvaine’s throat.

Then the woman turned, and clapped her hands together. A shockwave ran through the air and broke the war formation apart. Inkspur struggled and was sent tumbling head over heels, knocked away-

The harpies fared better. They twisted and rode the winds down, effortlessly overcoming the turbulent wave to pierce towards their prey with their spears.

Yvaine simply turned and extended two fingers. From those fingers a beam of light shot, spearing through the morning sky, striking the first harpy through the throat and exploding out the back of her neck in a spray of blood. It continued forward, piercing another through the stomach, a third through the leg.

Before they could reach her, three more hands struck out. They formed fists, claws, flat-palmed strikes.

And in turn the harpies were broken, torn open, crushed. Blood and falling limbs rained through the sky as the first wave- the bravest of them- were ripped to shreds. It wasn’t even a fight…

It was simply a massacre.

And it all happened in the heartbeat Nic took to recover.

Nic pushed Inkspur faster, diving lower and lower, trying to catch up with the harpies. Realizing their first assault had failed they were breaking into two streams of gold-orange feathers, trying to encircle the foe and strike from both directions in a simple pincer. It couldn’t have mattered less. Thrown spears and slashing claws met skin with a strength that could defeat processed steel. One brave warriors swept her talons directly across Yvaine’s eyes.

It barely seemed to effect her, although blood finally fell- one eye ripped open. She grasped the offending warrior by the head and crushed until blood ran through her fingers. Then she lifted a hand to her face, and when she drew it away, the eye was healed.

“You should all be running!” She called out, a mad laugh following her outcry. Her fingers dripped with gore as she lifted them up for a second salvo, her eyes darting here, there, picking out targets one by one…

Inkspur bent deeper into the dive. The wind howled higher, higher, higher…

Her hands accelerated, killing, killing, killing. Of the twenty one who’d ridden out on the winds to do battle, seven remained.

With the flicker of her clawed fingertips, Yvaine made it six. As her hand drew back a torn fragment of flesh hung between her fingers, the throat of the harpy who was now writhing on the ground, like a fish out of water.

Nic lept from Inkspurs back.

Peacemaker in his hand, he swung down with all his might, igniting the blade’s inner fire so that he carved a crescent slash of brilliant flame across the sky.

Yvaine met the blow with two upraised palms. The collision rang through the air and her feet went skidding back, dragging through the loose sand of the island.

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As Nic landed, a thin line of blood was dripping from her palms.

“Not bad…” She acknowledged, lowering herself into a stance like a tiger. Nic lifted Peacemaker level to his shoulders, the blade extending past his face.

His eyes scanned the desert. There, behind the altar-

There was a scared face peering out, and hands bound by rope. The princess was here.

“Don’t mind us!” He called out to the surviving harpies. “Take your princess and go. I should be fine for at least a few breaths…”

A few breaths…

Even if he made it that far, they’d be able to save her and escape.

“Heh. Maybe I praised you too much. You’re already getting too confident…” And then Yvaine moved. One step brought her flickering through the air, teleporting directly to him with a hand already carving for his shoulder, aiming to rip out the joint in her tiger-claw fingers.

Nic allowed her to do so.

In exchange, his spear pierced through her throat. The blade sank halfway in before hitting hard resistance, clutched by the steel-strong flesh and unable to bite any deeper.

His left arm fell from the haft, a huge chunk of crushed, unrecognizable bone hanging like a dripping prize from her fingers.

Nic opened his mouth to spit Primordial Mist.

Her fist swung for his throat, aiming to crush his airway.

Nic used Peacemaker to simply kick off the ground and flip himself upwards, one hand balancing on the haft, launching him into a polevault over the attack. Mist shot down around her in a veil, making the war-demon scream as she was enveloped and Nic landed behind her back.

They turned in the same moment. Nic shot out a Hand of Ash, aiming for the joint of her leg and the weakness of her broad, heavy body. She met him with a strike to his head, shaking his thoughts about like the ringing of a bell. As her leg failed, she sent him rolling along the ground, propelled with earthshaking force to bounce and tumble along the earth.

They were equals in toughness and speed, but her brute physique was too much to match.

She blinked and was upon him again, a brute shadow hanging between him and the moon, coming crashing down from above. Her fists pulverized the earth, and Nic called forth the Sun God’s Dictate, wrapping him in golden light. As she drove his armored body deeper and deeper into the shattering fragments of the island, he called forth another power.

The Sigil of the River Mother.

An illusionary river slammed into Yvaine, throwing her backwards, saving Nic. He stood as the river coiled around him like a serpent, a whirlpool of wine-colored purple waters. The dust and destruction turned to swampy, sodden matter, creating a massive pit of clutching mud.

He saw the harpies flocking down from above, seizing their princess and lifting into the air.

A faint smile hung on his face.

Nic swung onto his feet and lunged for Yvaine, unleashing Hand of Ash after Hand of Ash as he rode upwards on a wave of mud- the land lifted to his command and flung itself towards the demon, letting him surf atop the crashing earth.

Each Hand of Ash he unleashed did no harm to her resilient body. But as they slammed into her raised arms, she was shoved deeper and deeper into the earth, her feet sinking.

The wave slammed down onto her.

And she was buried beneath cold earth.

She tore her way out after a moment, ripping and pushing, her claws grasping the mud and slashing it apart. Nic opened his mouth and spat mist, covering her again, letting the poison of time and memory soak in as she crawled out.

Her skin was beginning to fragment, warping and cracking like brittle steel.

She snarled at him, pulling the glaive from her neck and flinging it aside. She flung a hand towards Nic, sending five spears of energy piercing towards his chest.

Nic dodged, flickering over to seize the fallen Peacemaker and grab hold of his weapon. By now she had fully freed herself, although he made sure the mud continued to grab and pull at her feet, denying her any clear ground on which to stand.

“Still feel I’m overconfident?” Nic asked. Blood was dripping from her cracked skin, while his ruined shoulder had fully regenerated. A halo of light from the Sun God’s Dictate still shone weakly about his body.

But in place of an answer, he heard the thrumming, mournful sounds of a lyre. Nic’s triumph turned to horror as decapitated heads fell from the sky, followed shortly by the bodies of the harpy warriors. The princess tumbled to the ground and Nic saw her face flinch in pain as her arm was bent the wrong way, twisted to breaking by the impact.

The musician - Nic still had no name for the blue-skinned elf - stepped onto the rim of the crater that Nic and Yvaine had formed with their fighting. His fingers hesitated over his lyre, preparing to unleash another deadly salvo of invisible blades.

“No.” Yvaine growled. “This one is mine.”

“Fine,” the musician sighed. “Wrap it up quickly, then.”

Yvaine’s skin began to glow, burning bright like iron. Smoke drifted from her skin, forming the image of a demon, flaring bright with embers.

“I will.”