Leo and Kiva seemed too taken aback to act in the moment, but Trenton and Garrote were already ready. In an instant, Trenton leapt forward, clashing with the priest atop the pew, keeping him off of the rest of them while Leo and Kiva slowly came to their senses.
“The door! Get outside!” Garrote shouted to Leo and Kiva, the both of them stumbling off towards the front entrance, swords in hand to fend off the encroaching salamanders. They were obviously poorly trained, their stances and movements weak and hesitant, but they posed a threat through sheer numbers.
In this moment, weak, alone, without the ability to even swing his sword properly, Garrote smiled, curiously enough, completely confident in his ability. A memory rose up from the depths of his mind, a memory of scorn and hatred, the day he was officially cast out from his family's halls. He remembered the look his father gave him, visceral hatred in its purest form. He remembered the words spoken, a cry to never show his face again. He even remembered the undertone, the hope that he would die alone and in agony deep in the woods. But Garrote hadn’t died. He refused to die. Garrote had clawed his way south, tearing apart the flesh of his opponents with his bare hands, no weapon to his name. And when finally he got that weapon, he trained with it, sharpening his skills so that someday, whenever he made up his mind, he could return to his father and mother, doing whatever he saw most fit in the moment. But he never truly lost the will to slaughter. He never forgot the savagery required to tear apart a body limb by bloody limb, nor did he lose the pristine, honed skill he needed to do so.
Channeling all the presence he had into his legs, Garrote leapt into the crowd, landing in the midst of their ranks, his body crouched low. He summoned a great wave of gravity surging out from his position to push the salamanders back, many of them losing their balance. They flew through the air, cracking their skulls against the ground or walls, crying out in agony at the pain assailing them. But even the few that managed to land on their feet weren't spared. Garrote dove from salamander to salamander, burrowing his hand into their body’s and using his magic to scatter their organs across the floor, his turn around to the next kill impossibly quick.
They tried to get away, to drop their weapons and break for the door, but they couldn’t. Garrote wouldn’t let them. Garrote raised his hand high above his head, lifting up the congealed masses of blood staining the ground and pulling what life remained out of the dying salamanders. The blood pooled together in the air, picking up rotational speed as Garrote spun the blood. Finally, when the blood twirled through the air with the force of a raging twister, Garrote lowered the blood back down to the ground, crouching low to avoid the attack himself. The blood bore into the remaining salamanders, ripping them apart and spilling their guts as if they were no better than cattle. They cried out in pain, clinging to their loved ones, begging for mercy, but there was no more mercy to be found. They had long since crossed the point of no return.
When the last salamander was gone, Garrote lifted the blood, standing to his full height and looking around the room to gauge the scene. Off by the altar, Trenton rose his hammer high above his head, his face twisted with fury. He brought it down upon the priest's head with a mighty crack, bending the creature's spine like an accordion, turning it into a mushy red pile of flesh. Well, that took care of that. All around Garrote, there were no more remaining salamanders, his last attack having mauled whatever remained, leaving behind no survivors. Notably, Leo and Kiva were also nowhere to be seen. They must have made it outside already.
“Did you do that? The blood maelstrom?” Trenton called out, hoisting his hammer over his shoulder.
“I told you I could still fight, didn’t I? I didn’t get my first sword for quite a while. Lots of memories of ripping things apart still swirling around up here,” Garrote shouted back, sprinting out the door with Trenton, the heat suddenly washing back over them.
Outside, Kiva was fighting with what salamanders remained, keeping them off of Leo who stood to the side with his arm raised, glowing motes of fire swirling around his body.
“Where’s Blithe!? Where’s Millie!?” Trenton shouted, sending a wave of stone rubble from the building to kill the remaining salamanders.
“They took them!” Kiva shouted, pointing off into the distance, the same direction that Leo was faced. Off in the distance, over the rolling dunes, Garrote could faintly see something fading into the distance, likely a vehicle of some kind.
“LEO SHOOT!” Kiva cried out, staggering over to Leo.
“I-I can’t! I can’t do it!” Leo cried, tears streaming from his eyes, his face pale, but even as he said that, his hand only glowed brighter, an almost brilliant glare.
“No…NO, DON’T DO IT!” Trenton shouted, jumping forward.
He grabbed Leo’s arm, twisting it skyward, holding Leo’s gaze with his own. For a moment, it looked like Leo was going to fire anyways, but the magic quickly faded, Leo giving in to the pain.
“They’re going to get away, Trenton! We can’t just leave them to their own!” Garrote shouted, stepping forward now. But Trenton wasn’t paying attention to Garrote, he was still staring into Leo, his gaze boring into Leo’s very soul.
“I know what bugged me so much before. You can’t control it. If you had let that spell go, you would’ve obliterated Millie and Blithe along with whatever else was in that direction,” Trenton said, his tone low–furious. Leo sank to his knees sobbing, Trenton keeping his arm held aloft. Trenton kneeled down, lifting Leo up to his face by pulling his arm. “Look at me, Leo. This isn’t the answer. You can’t just give up, let the magic do whatever it pleases. It will bend to your will if you’ve the will to give it. Where is that determination I saw back at the compound?” Trenton stood, letting Leo go. Leo collapsed into a sobbing heap, no words escaping past his tears.
“What now!? They’re heading north! I think they’re trying to get them to Zerital!” Kiva shouted, locking in on Trenton.
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Trenton, his frame stiff, boiling with a barely concealed wrath, stared off into the distance, his eyes wild, “Then we chase.”
“We don’t move fast enough on foot. They’d outpace us by miles,” Garrote said, shying away from Trenton’s sudden intensity.
“You don’t move fast enough. We’re going,” Trenton said, picking everyone up faster than they could react, a strange yellow glint flashing in his eye.
Trenton dug into the ground with his feet, bounding across the sands at frightening speeds faster than they’d ever seen him run, easily twice the speed of when he was running from the vultures. The winds in the desert were already pretty monstrous, but they were even worse now, the air biting into their skin, causing Garrote’s eyes to water. For hours, Trenton ran, never slowing, never stopping, never talking. Even as night began to fall, he didn’t seem to be perturbed in the slightest by the Olympic strain he was placing himself under, his eyes focused on the far off horizon. He should have slowed at some point. He should have dropped from exhaustion. But he didn’t. He. Just. Kept. Going.
Garrote wasn’t entirely sure of what happened during this time that they traveled to Zerital, the constant jostling fogging his head, but he had a general gist. Most of his time was spent trying to internalize the thumping pain of Trenton leaping and searing heat of the sun’s gaze, drawing his mind away from the pain of the world outside. When he fell victim to mortal weaknesses, he would pull himself out of his meditation, eating and drinking what he could, building up his strength
Exactly 5 days later, marking the 93rd day since the destruction of Aria, they arrived at the outskirts of Zerital, its massive walls standing stalwart against the surrounding cliffs and sand. Luckily, Kiva carried a simple chronurgy item on her, one which allowed them to stall their bodily functions for a couple days and keep from soiling themselves. However, it only worked on four of them, the little device not carrying enough energy to affect everyone for the entire period. Yet for whatever reason, Trenton, demanding he refrain from the spell's grasp, never once had any indication of needing to stop, his body simply continuing forward no matter the cost. It was as if he’d put every non vital function on hold, something that shouldn’t have even been possible.
Suddenly, underneath them, a mile or so out from the wall, the sands began to shift and tumble. Without even looking down, without even a moment's hesitation, Trenton leapt forward, clearing a hundred feet or so easily, landing back in a dead sprint. Behind them a massive figure burst from the ground, sand pelting them in the face it moved. It was hard to make out exactly with all the sand in the air, but after a second, it came into clarity. It looked to be a quadrupedal, yellow scaled, lizard-like monster about 100 feet long, a large mouth splitting its back open. What was most notable, however, was its underbelly, or rather lack thereof. Where the creature’s belly should have been, there was a massive gaping hole, the creature's ribs keeping its exposed organs from falling out. It was a vile sight, unlike anything Garrote had ever seen before, and it was rapidly approaching. As the creature stormed after them, kicking up a sandstorm in its wake, Garrote could see the creature’s beating heart and churning organs clearly, its lack of skin revealing all its disgusting machinations to their little group atop Trenton.
“Oh shit! A pit dragon! Keep running! Get to the gate!” Kiva shouted into Trenton’s ear. So that’s why Kiva didn’t want to talk about pit dragons before. They were disgusting. Garrote really should have seen it coming.
The dragon continued to clamber after them on all fours, a strange watery substance leaking from its exposed organs. But even as it slammed into the ground, screeching in unusual, piercing octaves, Trenton didn’t even seem bothered, his eyes locked only on the city before them, the creature slowly gaining ground on them all the while. They weren't going to make it. It would catch them long before they made it to the gate. The guards on the wall were starting to load up their siege weapons, taking aim at the great beast's scales, but what attacks did manage to hit did precious little damage.
Garrote squirmed, twisting around just enough to try and get a spell off at the beast. He wasn’t really sure what he intended to do, the dragon was far too large for his magic to have any noticeable effect, but he had to try something. Leo would’ve been able to take it out theoretically, but that was assuming he could cast his magic without killing a lot of them, not a bet Garrote would like to take. Garrote raised his free hand, into the air, watching as the dragon ate away the last of the space between it and Trenton. Suddenly, just as it reached them, the sand below the dragon coalesced together, shooting up through the dragon’s stomach in the form of one great spike, holding the entire creature aloft a hundred feet in the air.
The beast screamed, its blood pooling over them in boiling waves, Trenton managing to get them out of the worst of the blast, struggling to be free of the solid spear of sand skewering its body, but it was futile. It had absolutely no means to avoid its inevitable death. All around them, the sand began to rise into the air, hundreds of tons of wet sand clumps ascending into the sky towards the creature. It cried out again, trying even more desperately to free itself.
The sand began to swirl, picking up to the tempo of a raging hurricane in mere moments, the dragon quickly disappearing behind the great wall of sand. It was only about 10 seconds that the sand assailed the dragon's body, but when it pulled away, coming to a sudden odd stillness, Garrote could see that absolutely nothing remained. Where just moments ago there had been a great, dangerous dragon, there now was just clear skies, not even the bones left behind.
It was pretty much the same as the spell Garrote had used back in the temple, but on a scale so grand Garrote couldn’t even fathom it. In fact, it didn’t even seem like proper graviturgy, the individual grains of sand looking to move all on their own. It wasn’t impossible theoretically, but the control that it would have taken would have been beyond any mortal mage. No. This wasn’t the work of magic. This was the work of aspect.
Trenton suddenly came to a stop before the gate, letting them all down onto their feet. It took a little bit to get used to, Garrote struggling on his unused legs, but using his presence to support him, he managed to stay upright, only wobbling slightly on his feet. Above them, the cries of the guards rang out, jubilant cheers washing over their little congregation some ways below. Garrote couldn’t see any of the guards from the angle they were at, but he was able to see one little figure that leaned over the wall, their entire body wreathed in brown and white fabrics, a pair of goggles over their eyes. It was somewhat reminiscent of the gear the petrichor agents wore, but certainly distinct.
“MY NAME IS TRENTON BOULREGUARD! WE SEEK ENTRY!” Trenton bellowed, projecting his voice to reach the top of the wall without issue.
After a couple moments of complete silence, the figure turned around, leaving them without an answer. Rude. Trenton took in another breath, likely preparing to shout again, but all of a sudden, the gate began to shift, creaking wide open to let them in–no fuss necessary. Typically, this might have seemed a little suspicious, odd at the very least, but none of them were in the mindset right now to care. They came there to do one thing, and looking into Trenton’s eyes, it seemed he still burned with the fury to do whatever was necessary to see it through. Either they came out of here with Millie and Blithe, or they burned whoever was responsible alive, preferably both.