Emperor Rohmhelt maintained his position atop Eynond's citadel even as Gorondos began his frightening assault on the city. His confidence that Tathyk had the situation well in hand was shattered by the explosion of one of the south wall's western towers. Even Grand Marshal Agrehn, ordinarily unflappable, gasped at the sight of the formerly stout fortification being blown well into the sky.

"We should consider evacuating the people of Eynond," Agrehn mumbled, his eyes still tracking the falling stones from the blast.

"Getting forty thousand people out of here safely will be a challenge. The north river road and western road aren't options," Rohmhelt lamented as he glanced to the west. As he did, he saw a strange black pillar extend skyward in the distance. It rapidly expanded, covering a swath of miles over ground south of the river. At first, he assumed he must be suffering from another one of his visions, but the gasps and whispers among the other officers gathered convinced him otherwise. "What is that?!"

The black pillar was utterly abyssal, betraying not even a trace of light. At its edges, the world was as it had appeared before. At such distance, it was impossible to tell much else. For the moment, whatever the phenomenon was had stopped expanding.

"Grand Marshal, I need an..." Rohmhelt started saying, his voice struggling from the shock of what he saw.

"An explanation, yes. At once, Your Imperial Majesty," Agrehn rumbled and motioned to two runners behind him, both of whom immediately departed. "Some angel's nonsense, no doubt."

"No doubt. But whose?" Rohmhelt sighed. "Yes, we need to evacuate the city. Take a couple regiments to give them some protection. They can probably find some refuge in the cities and villages to the northwest. It's not the best path, but it's the one open to us."

"Very good. I'll give the order at once," Agrehn concurred with a salute and stepped away to confer with a group of junior commanders.

As the Emperor continued to focus on the strange happenings to the west, the Empress and Lohs arrived. Evinda wore light gilded plate with a long dagger at her waist, the sight of which made him fret about her looming request. Ever since she had successfully defended them when Jagreth's beasts attacked the camp back near Methrangia, he sensed she wanted to make herself more useful in battle. The thought sickened him. From Lohs's similarly deflated demeanor, he gauged that this was precisely the purpose of her visit.

"I've ordered the evacuation of the city," Rohmhelt said once she was near him. "I probably should've done that some time ago, but..."

"It's the right move now," she acknowledged with a smile. Dressed in that armor of hers, she was equal parts beautiful and imposing. Her red skin, white hair, and white eyes contrasted so strikingly with her armor and regalia that she looked as though she had leapt from a painting. "I've already sent our son off to Karmand. I didn't even want us worrying about him."

Rohmhelt would have protested that she did that without asking him, but he was glad that she'd thought of it.

"Thank you," he limply said and reached out his hand. She warmly grasped it and looked out at the west with him. "I'm scared to even ask what's happening over there."

"Almost certainly Rithys," Evinda happily declared. "Night is her domain, after all."

"I'm glad you know these things," Rohmhelt laughed. "I never bothered to speak to her the last time she was near us."

"She doesn't talk much," Evinda chuckled. "I can feel you're dreading what I'm going to ask you."

He turned toward her, still clasping her hand, which now grew warmer.

"You want to fight," he squeaked out, clenching his teeth even thinking about all that could go wrong. "I forbid it."

Evinda closed her eyes and gave a quick shake of her head.

"You know you can't stop me," she smiled and opened her eyes again. "And if you try, we'll have a bit of a scene and I'm sure you want to avoid that."

Rohmhelt gave a cutting glance toward Lohs, silently interrogating the old man on if he had tried hard enough to talk the Empress out of this. With a shrug of his shoulders, his elderly advisor told his Emperor all he needed to know.

"Just be careful," he choked as he dropped his hand from hers. "It's very dangerous."

"Neither of us will fall here. I promise you that," she smiled and turned away.

Lohs shuffled up to take up alongside Rohmhelt as Evinda departed. He wore deep blue gold-embroidered robes that looked more befitting a funeral than a battle. Then again, Rohmhelt mused, they are related things.

"You should know that I tried to..." Lohs started with his increasingly raspy voice.

"I trust you," Rohmhelt hastily interjected. "We needn't speak of it again."

Stolen story; please report.

Lohs's wrinkled face drooped slightly and he returned to examining the movements of forces around the fortress city.

"So far, it seems to be going well. Or at least well enough," he offered.

"It's early, Lohs," Rohmhelt grumbled. Once he took his next breath, he saw a ferocious barrage from across the river from Gorondos sail toward the southern wall. "Very early."

~~~

Vorlan conjured an array of rocky spikes out from the earth to thwart Jagreth's abominable new creations as they stormed across either of the wide dark stone bridges. Their hooves, striking the stone below them in such numbers, made the most unnerving sound, even cutting above the clamor of Myrvaness's storm. The creatures were horrifying to behold, their legs covered in spikes and their heads twisted and deformed to form scythe-like blades on either side of their faces.

What madness drove Jagreth to do this? Vorlan pondered. These malformed beasts are not meant to live, but rather to die and take many with them. I thought better of you, Jagreth.

Above that rampaging horde flew the Bladewings. The edges of their wings, sharp as razors and made of a substance approximating metal, sparkled in the lightning flashes around them. Myrvaness, conjurer of this frightful storm, had leapt over the river well ahead of the beasts. She charged headlong toward Simel, who braced himself before the staggered lines of Rohmhelt's men as they prepared themselves for the battle to come.

Myrvaness swept at the Mind Angel with two crackling swords drawn, the tips of their blades scraping the ground and leaving wild arcing lightning in her wake. Simel formed a broad shield of shimmering white light. Her blows fell upon his shield with horrid screeches that pierced into Vorlan's mind. May that be enough of a distraction, the Earth Angel prayed.

His spirit latched onto chunks of rock deep below the ground across the riverbank. He recalled when he had helped lay that very bedrock along with Omonrel. The brief sadness that gripped him upon recalling those happier days faded at once as he felt the Bladewings continue their descent toward Rohmhelt's lines. With a concerted heave, he sent the rock upward, through the soil, through the wilted grass, and up into the air. The first of the Bladewings that passed over him suffered a spike of jagged black rock ripping right through its heart. It screeched for a brief moment, but then tumbled downward in streaks of blood and feathers, plunging into the ground just behind Vorlan.

Several other Bladewings could not avoid the traps that now awaited them. They impaled themselves in the face or breast and they too fell from the sky, some almost landing upon Rohmhelt's soldiers. Even in death, their sharp wings proved a menace as they twirled toward the ground. Those Bladewings further back managed to evade Vorlan's gambit and swept too wide of the Earth Angel for him to respond before the rampaging horde of scythe-headed beasts trampled toward his other trap. Numbering in the hundreds, they posed a far greater menace than the handful of remaining Bladewings.

I must trust that those men know how to face the Bladewings, Vorlan assured himself. He glanced momentarily at Rohmhelt's lines, arranged in staggered formations to avoid the fate of those who had first faced these abominable birds. Archers loosed arrows and mages shot crackling bolts up into the air, striking two of the Bladewings and frightening the others.

At that moment, the first of Jagreth's strange scythe-headed creatures charged straight into the pointed stone spikes Vorlan had laid for them. As they tried to reach past the bridgehead, they impaled themselves, several at a time, into Vorlan's defenses. He was astonished how they mindlessly kept coming, wave after wave of them. They used the eviscerated remains of their leaders to continue to push forward, jumping into the next row of spikes. All of them had their chests or stomachs torn up, gushing open in blood and viscera. The Earth Angel could not stand to watch any longer even as he summoned more rows of stone spikes the thwart the beasts as they leapt over their brethren's corpses.

The pitiable shrieks of the beasts as they breathed their last became a haunting dissonant song of sorts. No matter how many of the creatures fell, they kept coming, springing off the backs of the slain to thunder forward, doomed to be felled by the next row of spikes.

"Jagreth, why?!" Vorlan boomed toward the Beast Angel on the opposite bank. The hulking red-skinned Jagreth stood passively, his hands folded over the pommel of his massive axe. "Why have you done this to your own creations?!"

Vorlan's exasperation at Jagreth allowed a small contingent of the scythe-headed beasts to spring past the outermost reaches of the defenses the Earth Angel had laid, and they thundered toward Emperor Rohmhelt's army. The remaining Bladewings, too, descended again to try to exact a horrible toll.

"Leave it," Simel's voice echoed in Vorlan's head. The Mind Angel was enough in control of his frenetic clash with Myrvaness to offer counsel, which Vorlan found encouraging. "I sense Jagreth means to do battle with you and you will need all the strength you can muster."

Vorlan's head snapped toward the opposite bank again. Looking past the mangled piles of bloodied and twitching corpses of Jagreth's beasts, Vorlan saw the Beast Angel indeed spring upward over the river, his axe held behind his imposing muscular body. With a crack, Jagreth landed atop one of Vorlan's spikes, his legs instantly shattering the stone into pebbles. He glanced to one side and then the other before his black eyes, which sat like abyssal pits within his dark red skin head, locked onto Vorlan.

"You asked why? You would deprive me of all of my creations, and you ask why I did this?" Jagreth rumbled.

"You did not make these creatures to live. You made them to fight and die. I thought you cared for them and instead you consigned them to tortured last hours," Vorlan protested, looking around the field of bloodied and twisted bodies.

"Standing aside was an option, Vorlan," Jagreth angrily retorted, his clawed hands clenching. "You killed them and yet you blame me."

"I will not permit you to slaughter the mortals or have your creations do the deed for you," Vorlan shouted, sweeping his hand before him. "This war should be between the mortals alone. With us involved, it will never end."

"Unless you concede defeat," Jagreth boomed.

"I never will," the Earth Angel defiantly hissed and summoned as much strength from the Auras as he could.

"Very well," Jagreth sighed and brought his axe forward. It was a gargantuan weapon, with its metal marked with distinctive black and white stripes and a dark rough ebony handle. "Then I will force the issue."

Sensing that Jagreth would strike immediately, Vorlan summoned a thick earthen and stone wall immediately before him, encircling the Beast Angel. He heard a single amused huff from Jagreth. The stone before him shattered as the blade of Jagreth's axe cleaved through it in a swipe the width of three men.

"That was feeble," Jagreth shook his head. "Now, we begin in earnest."

Vorlan steadied himself and continued to draw upon the array of earthy Auras. Against Jagreth's might, he would need them all.

Forynda, I could use your strength here and now, Vorlan lamented. But I sense that I shall not get it.