Lilly looked on, nothing more than a spectator. The inaction drove her more than a little crazy, and it took a concerted effort to stay put. But the fact was that she and her little group were a safe distance away, and she had no delusions that she could make any sort of difference in a fight of this magnitude. And from what she could see, the remainder of the people of Safehaven had successfully evacuated City Center. Hopefully they would keep moving until they were out of the city entirely, and weren’t foolish enough to hang around to watch.

The irony of that sentiment wasn’t lost on her. But Lilly didn’t feel like a fool. She felt more like something within her was straining at the seams, desperate to break free. She bounced on her feet and fidgeted with the wooden boards, restlessly and endlessly.

“Lilly, are you okay?” Windham asked.

“Fine,” she replied without looking at him. “I just wish there was something we could do.”

“The Godknight has it under control now, Lilliana,” her father told her with a confidence she didn’t share. “In fact, we should leave—”

“Nope,” she interrupted. “Not leaving.”

She heard the heavy sigh of resignation from her father, but still couldn’t peel her eyes away from the battle in front of her.

“What… what are those?”

It was Jaina asking. She was still being held firm by the farmboy, Kal, but she seemed to have snapped out of her panic.

Lilly saw immediately what Jaina was referring to.

They were cats. Not the kind that hung around alleyways trying to convince passersby to give them a bowl of milk. Nor were they the kind one might find in the mountains or in the forests. These were bigger. Much bigger. Not nearly as big as the giant beasts that had trampled through the city at the beginning of the attack, but they were at least as tall as Kal… In fact, they were closer in size to the Godknight than the farmboy.

They were charging the Godknight, a burly-looking woman shouting at them, spurring them on. She hung back, though. Wisely. Lilly guessed she was their trainer and their minder, and now it was up to the beasts to do what they were taught to do.

They charged forward. Lilly counted twelve. They varied in size only slightly, but the differences in their coloring was vast. Some were the more typical orange of a lion or tabby stray cat. Others were gray with black stripes, or black with gray stripes. One of them, more striking than the others with its shiny, pure black body and mane, was the fastest and took the lead. It was sleek, svelte… and absolutely beautiful.

They were all beautiful animals, in fact, despite how dangerous they looked. But there was no doubt how deadly they were, based on their overly large front paws and the sharp claws gleaming out of them. And as if their wide open snarls didn’t showcase the sharpness of the teeth enough, the two long, thick fangs that protruded from both their top and bottom jaws made them appear shockingly vicious.

They were on the Godknight like lightning from a storm, swarming all over him, their paws swinging wildly. One was biting his arm; another his leg. The Godknight seemed taken aback by the attack and for a moment only staggered backwards defensively. But Lilly felt quite certain they weren’t actually hurting him. It was more likely that the Godknight wasn’t sure how to deal with them without killing them.

Then he waved his arms in front of him, more of a shooing motion than an attack. The cats lifted into the air and glided away from him, a far more gentle rebuke than he had granted the soldiers.

They landed in a group about a hundred yards away, shaking their heads in confusion. As they started coming to their senses, the Godknight began moving his hands about in different directions, pointing and gesturing.

“Why is he doing that?” Windham asked.

“I have no idea,” Lilly answered.

The cats had recovered and were charging again. But then Lilly saw some kind of object flying in from somewhere within the city. Then another. And another. Whatever they were, they landed right between the cats and the Godknight in a large, growing pile.

“It’s meat,” Kal said.

“Meat?” Jaina asked.

But he was right. The Godknight had summoned… meat. And dropped it directly in the cats’ path. It seemed silly on the surface… until the cats all stopped and began sniffing at the meat. A second later, they were digging in, the Godknight forgotten. Lilly saw the trainer woman screaming and jumping up and down, giving the creatures frustrated commands. But she didn’t approach. Apparently it was easier for her to be brave when she had monsters to do the fighting for her.

The Godknight made similar gestures and Lilly wondered if he was calling for more meat. Instead, a series of tall iron bars, pulled from fencing all around the city, plunged into the earth that surrounded the cats. Caging them.

They didn’t seem to mind. There was enough meat to go around.

Lilly looked at the Godknight, who stood unscathed. A smile crossed his face. Not a friendly smile. More of a “what else have you got?”

For a moment, there was an unusual stillness in the air. The cats munched hungrily, wounded soldiers moaned in pain. But otherwise, the battlefield was all but quiet. The Godknight turned slightly, seeming to notice something in the distance for the first time. Lilly followed his gaze until she spotted what the Godknight was surely looking at: a tower at the edge of City Center.

Now that she saw it she wasn’t sure how she had missed it before now. Perhaps only because there had been more than enough to occupy her attention up until then. It was a siege tower, she decided almost immediately. Brightholme children had been taught very little about the ways of war, but Lilly had always had easier access to books and scholars than most. She wasn’t a war fanatic by any means, but the topic had been interesting and foreign enough to fascinate her.

There were guards stationed at the base of the tower, guards who looked to be made of sterner stuff than the invader’s average soldier. At the top, beneath a wooden roof, a few people could be seen moving around. One in particular came into view, holding an object high in the air. He was too far away for Lilly to get a good look at his face, but everything about him—his place in the battle, the fancy tower, the way he moved—suggested he might be in charge. Or at least of some import.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The object was large; he had to use both hands to hold it. It appeared to be a circular structure, its intersecting black bars lending it the appearance of some sort of cage. What was most interesting about it, though, was the brilliant energy that crackled in the object’s center, energy that glowed and shifted in color constantly. It made Lilly think of a rainbow, somehow contained, spitting its light through the bars in an attempt to escape.

“What is that?” someone asked. She turned to see Windham gaping at the object with his jaw hanging open. He was utterly captivated, Lilly saw, his eyes riveted to the object in a state of rapt fascination. His studied it with an intensity Lilly wasn’t sure she’d seen in him before. And he seemed almost… happy? Wait. Was he smiling? What in the world could he be smiling about?

Lilly turned her attention back to the tower, hoping she was mistaken. She was trying really hard to change her sometimes harsh view of Windham, especially since he had so bravely saved her life. But when he behaved this oddly, giving him that leeway became a little more difficult.

The man in the tower was smiling broadly as he reared back and heaved the object out into City Center. It soared a considerable distance, suggesting either impressive strength from the man or an unexpected lightness of the object. When the object landed, it began to roll. The soldiers who were in its path seemed to recognize its purpose and scrambled madly away.

The cage finally rolled to a stop, and Lilly realized she had been holding her breath. She cast a quick look at the others, and got the sense her feeling of impending dread was shared among them.

The object did do something, but it seemed somehow anti-climatic. She had thought maybe the energy within it was magical, but when it opened up with a pop, the rainbow-hued light contained within just seemed to… leak. There was no explosion, no dramatic spectacle like the one the robed figures had unleashed earlier at the Godknight. The energy just kind of spilled out onto the ground.

“Dear Goddess…” her father whispered, his voice quivering with acute fear.

“What?” she asked. “What just happened.”

“We should go,” he said, his eyes still focused on the prism pool of energy that had begun to swirl in City Center.

Lilly looked to the Godknight for his reaction. He had taken a battle stance, fists clenched and legs tense, as if ready to launch himself forward.

There was a sound from the prism energy, a sizzling and a snapping. Its surface shimmered. Its circumference grew.

And then Lilly saw a sight that defied all logic and common sense. Gigantic fingers, reaching out, somehow through the energy. Was there something beneath Safehaven this whole time? Did that device somehow free it?

The fingers were soon a hand, thick and enormous. The skin of the hand was red, orange and black; the color of fire. It continued to emerge, and soon Lilly could see an arm up to its elbow. She had already encountered creatures of staggering size earlier that day. However, from what she could discern of this new behemoth, it promised to dwarf all the others.

She looked over to see the Godknight’s reaction. He remained in his battle stance, but the look of horror on his face made her skin go cold.

The creature continued its emergence, slamming its palm down on to the ground. Its other arm emerged and braced itself on the other side of the hole.

“It’s a portal,” her father whispered, as if he had read her mind and couldn’t resist correcting her.

“A portal?” Kal said. “Like… a door?”

Her father grunted an affirmative.

The creature’s head emerged next. All five of them took an involuntary step backwards. Jaina screamed. Her father repeated his words, this time with more urgency.

“We. Should. Go!”

But Lilly couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. Now that it was happening, she found she couldn’t look away.

Within seconds, the monster had fully emerged, the “portal” closing behind it. It took in its surroundings, turning its head around as if momentarily confused. Then it spotted the Godknight and roared, a roar so loud it sent Lilly’s hair back away from her face and cracked what remained of the boards they were peering through. Lilly could hear screams from all around City Center in response to its roar.

She tried to take the monster in. She was right about its proportions; it was easily double the size of the trampling creatures. Its body was thick and muscular, with a chest as sturdy as as an ancient fortress wall. Its face was terrifying, a monster’s face covered in sharp spikes from chin to the top of its head. Its teeth were thin but many, and looked to be sharper than its spikes.

And its eyes were fire. They didn’t resemble fire. They were fire.

It stood, slightly hunched, and Lilly could see even more spikes on its backs and shoulders. Each spike, she guessed, was as tall as the Godknight.

Perhaps most terrifying of all was the monster’s tail, which somehow didn’t seem like it belonged on this monster. Like it had stolen it from some other creature. It was wide and so thick, it easily dwarfed even the largest tree trunk Lilly had ever seen. It was long and coiled in spots, its full length hard to know. And it was covered in thorns that, like its spikes, were as tall as the Godknight.

“No!” the Godknight screamed, catching all of their attention. He looked just as horrified as before, but now seemed to be almost pleading. “You brought the Maelstrom into my city?”

He turned to the tower and the man standing in it. The man looked on calmly, still grinning, his hands clenched behind his back. The Godknight screamed directly at him, sounding more like a child than a god.

“Into my city?”

The monster took a single step forward; that was all it needed to get right in front of the Godknight. With a swiftness that appeared impossible, it raised its giant hand and brought its palm crashing down onto the Godknight.

The Godknight disappeared.

The sight was so shocking, so disturbing, Lilly found herself screaming along with the others.

“It’s killed him! It’s killed him!” she heard Windham repeating over and over, almost gleefully.

“That’s… that’s not possible!” her father said. But the look on his face suggested otherwise.

The monster—this “Maelstrom”, as the Godknight had called it—lifted its hand. Lilly squinted, struggling to see what was left of the Godknight. She couldn’t see him, not entirely. Just his knees jutting out of the earth and his hands dangling in the air. The monster must have buried him three feet deep with that blow.

Then, to her shock and relief, the Godknight began to slowly stand. A smattering of small cheers rose up from around City Center, and Lilly realized they weren’t the only ones who were lingering behind to watch the fight.

The Godknight got to his feet without so much as a stagger. The monster glared at him, unmoving, something resembling a smile on its face. The Godknight brushed off his armor and smiled back defiantly.

Then his brow twisted in confusion. He brought his hand to his lips and brushed at them as if some small pest had landed there. He brought his hand to his eyes and stared at it for a long moment. A horrible look of surprise—and maybe a little fear—crossed his face at what he saw there.

The Godknight was bleeding.