Screams, ringing bells, and blaring horns from the citadel's walls drew Empress Evinda's attention to the central keep's southern windows. Streaks of flame contrasted frightfully against the clouded autumn sky. Her retinue gasped as the flames arced down into the city. Fiery pillars shout upward as they made impact, followed almost immediately by a dull shockwave that rattled the windows.

Lohs, standing behind her, yelped like a startled dog.

"I guess it's begun, then," the bald old man mumbled.

"To your positions, everyone!" Evinda commanded at once. Her retinue dispersed and the detachments of guards within earshot sprang into action, rapidly dashing through the citadel's halls to prepare for battle.

Lohs nodded at her and looked back out the window as another volley, this time some six fiery orbs, sailed over. He stepped back from the windows three paces.

"I must say, you didn't skip a beat," Lohs awkwardly laughed, his forehead covered in sweat.

"You've been in battle, haven't you, Lohs?" she inquired.

"Oh yes," he squeaked. "I just don't much like them."

She smiled and patted him on the head, which itself stunned him as much as the escalating bombardment of the city.

Just as the six orbs impacted within Eynond's walls, loosing another series of fiery pillars, shockwaves, and rattling windows, Evinda felt a heavy and brooding presence manifest just behind her. When she turned, she saw the seed-like eyes of Tathyk, the Harvest Angel, twisting in the dark and wet soil comprising his face.

"Gorondos," he rumbled. "He is as much a nuisance as a threat. I shall confront this."

Tathyk swept down the stairs and out through the citadel's courtyard with blinding speed, appearing to Evinda as a brown blur. The Harvest Angel levitated above the courtyard facing south and began ripping chunks of the earth itself out of the ground and hurling them toward the next barrage from Gorondos. The clumps of soil matched the flame orbs on their trajectories and engulfed them, causing puffs of embers to fall harmlessly from the sky.

Tathyk, his simple tan robe flapping in the heavy autumn breeze, floated further to stand atop the city's walls as a much larger barrage sailed forth. Some dozens of orbs converged on Tathyk's position. In a flash, Tathyk met each of them with a wall of earth across the whole line, yielding harmless puffs of smoke,

Evinda looked down at her hands as she flashed a slight pulse of white light around her crimson skin.

"Truly, what can we do in the face of this?" she murmured as Tathyk and Gorondos continued their contest. The full might of the angels of Ceuna was a humbling thing to behold. "We keep trying to do more, but..."

"All we can hope for is that we can do enough," Lohs interjected. "Enough is all we need. And whether it's today, tomorrow, or years from now, we'll do enough."

"Such a nice thought," she said. "Though, I want to truly matter today."

~~~

"Vorlan, I assume that your acts are to blame for that regiment of men sitting quite peacefully by that grove of trees to our north?" the Mind Angel queried, his haggard face tightening with suspicion.

"Indeed," Vorlan chirped, understanding to what his friend referred. To say that they were "quite peacefully" resting was a drastic understatement given the herbs that the Earth Angel had provided them.

Simel sighed and mournfully shook his head.

"Aiding these men in escaping reality with a battle looming may prove a very cruel thing," Simel scolded the Earth Angel.

"Oh no, my dear Simel. The cruel thing was that our kind failed in creating a better reality for them," Vorlan smirked. "Providing them a means of escape is the least we can do."

With a toss of his hands, Simel looked away toward the east and Vorlan joined him. After the events of the previous evening, Vorlan had felt it wise to supplement Simel in his defense of the northern flank should another round of Jagreth's Bladewings descend upon Emperor Rohmhelt's hapless defenders. Doubtlessly, they would come again, and with still stranger and more dangerous allies. Rohmhelt's armies arrayed across a broad front to ensure they had the whole length of the line defended, but also avoided bunching too tightly to evade the possibility that they would be butchered at a single pass like the Bladewings' first victims.

"I sense Myrvaness across the river," Simel observed. "Her malice lurks in such a distinct way."

"Are you certain?" Vorlan inquired, sensing nothing of her. He, however, winced even considering it after his encounter with her and Omonrel previously. "I can feel Jagreth's presence, but beyond that..."

"She stirs. She is coiled, ready to strike," the Mind Angel continued, his metallic eyes focusing on the movements of the forces on the opposite bank. "She is confident."

"You can sense all that from here?" Vorlan probed.

'Yes, and more," Simel dryly answered. Just as he finished speaking, a crackling bolt of lightning went up from the center of the enemy lines. It struck the gray clouds and instantly turned them into a billowing abyssal mass that spread across the whole sky.

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"That was uncanny, Simel," Vorlan forced a laugh.

The Mind Angel nodded and floated toward the regiment that Vorlan had intoxicated naught an hour earlier.

"I will cleanse their minds," he stated, his voice becoming more distant as he moved away from Vorlan. "They will need their sharpest wits about them. I will soon join you against Myrvaness and Jagreth."

Vorlan reluctantly glided eastward as Myrvaness's approaching storms crawled forward in the sky. The rolling hills bracketing either side of the river teemed with both armies scrambling to ready themselves for battle. Formations of thousands upon thousands formed under wildly flapping battle standards as the Wind Angel's tempest escalated. In the distance, Vorlan saw both Myrvaness and Jagreth floating alongside a group of officers in ostentatious plumage and resplendent armor. In the skies above them, their metallic wings flickering with each flash of lightning, he noted the circling packs of Bladewings.

A storm and abominations, Vorlan mused. They certainly are holding nothing back this day.

He tried to communicate with Cyrona to plead with her to manipulate the rivers to thwart the looming assault.

"Not with Parlon pressing us here, no!" her voice answered in his head. Rithys, while saying nothing in words, gave the same response.

He then turned his mind toward Tathyk to try to convince his good friend to join him in this battle.

"Regrettably, Gorondos has occupied my attention. If I leave, he will burn the city to the ground," Tathyk replied.

This truly falls to me, then, the Earth Angel mournfully pondered. He summoned deep wells of differing Auras behind him to feed his defense of Rohmhelt's forces. So be it.

~~~

Vildrious's armor was hailed upon relentlessly by Myrvaness's storm. While none of it struck his skin, the dozens of clangs every second unsettled him. He could scarcely think with that infernal racket. His junior officers gathered around him must have felt much the same, but they did not dare protest with the angel in their presence.

"Is it ready to move forward?" he asked, his voice straining to cut above the howling winds.

Myrvaness, her green eyes flickering wickedly amidst her bright yellow skin, let her wild red hair blow skyward for several seconds before answering.

"I suppose so. I just wanted it to build enough strength," she said, her own voice oddly cutting through the storm's clamor as though it were not there. The billowing black clouds, laced with bolts of lightning, went from their interminable crawl to a swift advance, soon dissipating above them. The Bladewings, however, continued to circle. "That should soften them up for your advance."

"And we're not worried about Cyrona?" Vildrious asked. "Again, I've seen what she can do. I want to make sure that whatever we send over that river isn't just going to drown."

"She is preoccupied," Jagreth rumbled triumphantly. "Parlon and my creations have made sure of that."

"But probably not for long," Myrvaness hissed. "Parlon is a fool and Cyrona is far too clever. You have less time than you think. Strike now."

"Shouldn't we wait for..."

"NOW!" Myrvaness screamed, her eyes glowing.

Vildrious nodded at once, his nerves prickling even imagining yet another of Myrvaness's icy grasps loosed upon him.

"Sound the advance," he ordered to the trumpeters in front of him.

With short brassy blasts, they signaled the northern flank to move forward. Jagreth, the hulking beast that he was, lunged his right arm forward. Without delay, the Bladewings descended, their razor-sharp wings ripping through the sky, leaving an unsettling wake behind them. Their multi-colored bodies were at least pleasant to look at before they were bathed in the blood of their victims.

Following swiftly behind them were columns of hundreds of Jagreth's newest creations. The size of horses, they were muscular brutes with powerful forelimbs lined with sharp spikes and strange rounded heads that came to edges like scythes. Horrifying to behold, Vildrious shivered as they thundered forward, eclipsing his own columns and heading straight toward the two bridges.

"Anything that stands in their way will die," Jagreth rumbled.

"Or at least our enemies with have to do something about them," Myrvaness quipped. "I just want a distraction. The real fun is to be had personally."

She unsheathed two swords, one in each hand, that glowed and crackled with lightning. She lunged forward in a blur that swept past even Jagreth's beasts as she loosed her thunderous wake upon the battlefield. Vildrious's divisions, while streaming forward, nonetheless paused at Myrvaness's terrifying display of speed and power. Even the Bladewings, following just behind her, seemed to slow in awe.

~~~

"You were right, Simel," Vorlan murmured as he looked out at Myrvaness's advance. While he could follow her path, he suspected that the mortal legions arrayed around him could not. Even if they could, they were too rattled by Myrvaness's storm that raged upon them to notice.

The Mind Angel floated alongside Vorlan as Rohmhelt's soldiers all around them recoiled under the barrage of the hail, wind, and lightning unleashed upon them.

"This has to end," Simel declared. He reached a hand forward and loosed a strange pulse of a kind Vorlan had not seen before. "Your thoughts are cleared! Your minds focused! Pain is only an illusion! Go forth!" he boomed.

Vorlan glanced around them as the storms had not relented, but the soldiers themselves straightened and held themselves up as though it no longer bothered them.

"Did you..." he began.

"I wish not to hear it," Simel interrupted.

"An illusion," Vorlan gasped, bewildered with an ironic awe. "We shall have to discuss why I am so amused by this."

"Not now," Simel scolded him. "Myrvaness approaches and I must confront her. You must confront those abominations Jagreth has unleashed upon us. And then Jagreth himself."

"You seem so certain of this," Vorlan said. "Is this one of your..."

"We will debate this later, Vorlan," Simel's metallic eyes flashed even as he forced a strange smile.

With Myrvaness nearly upon them, Vorlan started moving away to confront Jagreth's beasts.

"That we shall," the Earth Angel replied. "That we shall."

~~~

Grand Marshal Agrehn and Emperor Rohmhelt stood atop Eynond's citadel and observed the multiple points of attack across the whole front, even if the clashes to the west and north were hard to see in detail. He could certainly see the unnatural storm clouds conjured by Myrvaness that had now tormented his lines and also the strange happenings to the west as Parlon and Cyrona met on the field of battle. It was a strong position for observing the action around Eynond, but it also granted Rohmhelt sight of things he didn't wish to see, all while being buffeted by the frightfully cold autumn winds.

"We're being pressed on all fronts," Agrehn remarked and pointed toward the various advances by their enemies, the least impressive of which was Gorondos's attempts against Eynond directly from the south. "Your brother isn't holding back."

"It's not his style to do so," Rohmhelt replied in an agonized laugh. "This is very much his way. Trying to shock us."

"Indeed," Agrehn muttered. "So, Your Imperial Majesty means to say that we need to outlast this wave and then go on the offensive in our own right?"

"That's what I have in mind," the Emperor answered with a smile. But as he observed the pressuring forces all around him, that simple task seemed more and more out of reach. "We'll do what we can. It's all we can do. We have to survive, more than anything else."