"VILDRIOUS!" Duronaht screamed as he observed the Fifth Army being routed in the center by the Varanian ambush. His Grand Marshal, dumpy little man that he was, waddled with his rapier at his side up to the Emperor. "What the fuck is this?!"
"Again, Your Imperial Majesty, my orders didn't get to Marshal Ventov until..." Vildrious spluttered out, but Duronaht swiped his hand within inches of the Grand Marshal's face to stop his simpering nonsense.
"If they didn't get there fast enough, it's YOUR FAULT!" Duronaht screamed. "Now, tell me you have a solution to this. You'd better have one."
Vildrious straightened his posture and pointed back toward where the Wind Angel Myrvaness floated several hundred yards away.
"I anticipated this was a possibility in case I couldn't reach Marshal Ventov in time to order his withdrawal. The Wind Angel can chill the Varanians and, thus, lock them in place. Now, again, as I mentioned once before this battle began, they don't do well in cold weather," Vildrious nervously explained. "They've revealed themselves, Your Imperial Majesty. We just have to act now that they have. Varanians are fearsome, but they have weaknesses. A cold blast and snow should keep them in line."
"It can't possibly be that simple," Duronaht scoffed, shaking his head.
"Oh, Your Imperial Majesty, it is," Vildrious insisted. "Varanians, for all the skills they have, don't like the cold. If it gets chilly enough for long enough, they die. Otherwise, they become worthless. It's why we didn't see them in the autumn and certainly not winter. With the Wind Angel on our side, we can turn what looks like a disaster into quite the benefit in a hurry. Take that horde of them and turn them into lifeless statues."
Duronaht scowled and leaned into Vildrious, looking his chief commander right in the wobbly little eyes of his.
"You'd better," the Emperor growled. "In the meantime, tell Ventov I don't want to speak to him. Have him rally his army, what's left of it, and support our main advance. If nothing else, keep the southern flank of the main push secure."
"Your Imperial Majesty," Vildrious saluted as he escaped the Emperor's looming over him. "At once!"
When the Grand Marshal scampered off, Duronaht continued to examine the field, from north to south. What truly mattered, the main push toward Karmand, was working for the moment. He knew Rohmhelt hadn't committed everything there yet, but soon would. And that would be the moment of Rohmhelt's doom.
He hasn't the slightest idea what's about to hit him, Duronaht smirked, glancing toward the northwest where Gorondos's barrage grew in intensity, doubtlessly ripping huge holes in his brother's ranks. This is it, brother. Nowhere left to run. I've chased you halfway across the continent, but you can't go anywhere else.
~
Evinda waited in front of the over twelve divisions, one hundred-twenty thousand men, assembled for the counterattack as the sounds of battle grew closer and closer. The roaring infernos hurled by the Fire Angel and those mages supporting him could be seen over the tree line. Thick black smoke reached as high as the clouds, the roars of these ravenous fires being accented by the agonized wails of the thousands of dying.
"We're aren't just kindling for this blaze, are we?" she asked aloud, her jaw clenched.
There was little risk anyone heard her. The Empress's retinue was massed in a grouping of a couple dozen well behind her and the detachment of gold-plated Solnahtern could always be counted on to not notice an errant or intemperate comment. That, and not their combat skill, was their greatest quality.
"Your Imperial Majesty," the raspy voice of Commander Dastov called out to her as he rode up on his black horse with his silver, black, and green robes, "I have noticed something in the enemy army, if you will permit me to mention it."
Her last encounter with the spymaster had gone so poorly that she had ignored him for months due to Rohmhelt's ire, but at this point she saw no harm in humoring him. Provided, of course, that he didn't interfere in her duties to deploy the reserves in the necessary counterattack.
"You've got my permission, Commander Dastov," she said with palpable reluctance.
"As I'm sure you remember, and I take no particular pride in reminding you of this..."
"For Forynda's sake, Dastov, be brief!" she interjected.
Dastov brought out his black lacquered cane and languidly pointed toward the southeast, across the patch of forest to where thick acrid smoke rose from Gorondos's rolling barrage.
"Your brother-by-law's army seems to be following a conventional attack pattern here, one that we anticipated in our plans, but there's something only I anticipated about to happen," the spymaster said calmly, his ever-vacant eyes revealing nothing. "We are counting on them simply, and please permit me to say my piece, come into our trap. You'll sweep down once you get your signal from the Emperor, the Varanians will come up from the south, and Wingmother Nanikaw will land some fifty-thousand of her troops to the east, surrounding the enemy entirely. Clever, but for one thing."
"Out with it," Evinda sighed, anxious that she might see the order to commit her forces at any moment.
"The Silver Aura. Duronaht's army has, by my information, some two-hundred mages trained in Argenomancy. And it gets stronger for its wielders the more we are surrounded by death," Dastov said eerily as he conjured a sphere the size of a man's head of flickering argent light before both of them.
The sphere glistened and warped in the strangest and most contorted manners imaginable. Odd, but recognizable shapes. It was as though arms, legs, and heads were trying to burst from it, even as it appeared placid when she squinted at it.
"My mark... forever," an ethereal voice, sounding like what Evinda remembered from the Aura Keeper Nethron, slithered in wispy tendrils around her head.
"Dastov, stop this!" she hissed, swiping her hand as if to swat the tendrils away.
With a twirl of his fingers, the iridescent silver orb dissipated into nothingness, though a mortifying soft sound accompanied it. Screams. Tortured, fading screams, as if they were being muffled. It was so brief that she couldn't make any sense of it. She wondered after a moment if she had even heard it at all. No, it must have been... But how could it?
"Your Imperial Majesty, I'd ask for your pardon if the situation weren't as dire as it is," he calmly continued while Evinda hadn't yet recovered her bearings. "If what I and my own mages sense is correct, the enemy mages are swelling with power now. They could unleash an attack so devastating as to wipe out most of our retreating forces in a single, horrible argent wave."
"Nothing like that's ever happened before," the Empress riposted, albeit weakly. Novel happenings were hardly a strange occurrence anymore.
"No, but the theory is sound. And my mages have told me just how powerful they feel now with all this death around them. Stronger by the minute, I might add," Dastov muttered. "I know, because I feel it, too. My mages, Your Imperial Majesty, represent the only viable countermeasure to this threat. Allow me to deploy them."
Evinda glanced at Dastov's ever-inscrutable face and then toward the east where the cacophony of battle grew louder and more frenzied by the moment. When she blinked, she could see the flickering of silvery lights, so similar to what Dastov had summoned that she immediately wondered if it was all some elaborate trick on his part.
"He speaks a form of truth, Your Imperial Majesty," the Mind Angel Simel's voice echoed in her head. Simel himself was miles away, observing the battle before deciding where to deploy. "I cannot read his mind beyond a glimpse. But, what Nethron set in motion is the most grievous of threats. Perhaps the worst we have seen so far. It is sensible that those who have labored on the same issue under our employ might be able to counter this menace to some extent. Be wary, however. This man, and his motives, are unknown."
She shook her head, drawing a grimace from Dastov.
"Can you promise me success? If what you're saying is right, might they be better off here, with the reserve?" the Empress inquired. "Wouldn't that sort of power be best at the most dire moment?"
Dastov grasped his cane and scratched at the thick graying stubble on his chin. His jaw shifted in an unnatural way and he tilted his head toward the Empress, his still and lifeless eyes staring into hers.
"We don't have the luxury of picking our most dire moment. The enemy will decide that," he said through the faintest of smirks. "If you're wondering exactly what we can do, I shall explain it to you. My mages, roughly one hundred, can form wards that will stop or, at least, slow what I fear is to come. Other wards have no power against the Silver Aura. Not one of them. Only it can defeat itself."
Simel's presence again manifested in her mind.
"Once again, what he says may be true, but only after a fashion. Be aware that this may draw the ire of the High Angel when she returns. Her blazing contempt for Nethron was fueled primarily by the Silver Aura and what it represented," the Mind Angel quickly stated, all of his words hitting simultaneously, yet comprehensibly.
As another barrage of Gorondos's fires hit the lines beyond the forest, this time further west than before, Evinda felt her mind pulling toward that one single option. And what a dreadful option it was.
"Very well, Commander Dastov," she sighed, her words barely escaping her clenched jaw. "You may take your mages and do what you can. If anything goes wrong, I'll take responsibility for this."
"You're most kind, Your Imperial Majesty," he bowed and saluted with his black cane. "I'll do my utmost to see your will done."
He sped off, barking orders to messengers to gather his little project, these slavishly devoted mages of his, for this effort.
My will? she laughed. What does my will have to do with any of this?
~
Rithys continued her solitary vigil in her angelic sanctum, floating above the glowing white orbs representing her beloved two moons. She tried her utmost to remain entirely ignorant of the tumult in the mortal world. Even Cyrona's pleas that she intervene were ignored. She cried when she did. The Night Angel thought of the last time Cyrona had caressed her chin with those watery fingers, warm and rippling.
Cyrona, know that I cannot join you, Rithys silently pleaded. I would if I thought it would help, but I am certain this is the correct course. Join me. Withdraw from this.
She recalled those instances where Cyrona had been floating alongside her and had suddenly vanished. The fact so many odd visions had come to pass could not be ignored. Simel had told her as much, even if he followed such pronouncements by saying that "Nothing is set."
I will not risk it, Rithys vowed.
Just as she reassured herself of her stance, the High Angel's presence manifested directly behind her with a whirring ringing noise. Forynda wore once again her full regalia in all of its resplendent glory, rapier in her right hand, glistening platinum shield in her left.
"It is almost that time, is it not?" Rithys muttered.
"The mortals ]increasingly wield the Silver Aura, just as I had feared. Beyond that, their prayers for my aid become louder with each passing moment. I cannot allow this to persist any longer. Wrongs must be righted. My time in Ceuna, as a passive observer, is over," Forynda declared as though she were speaking to a grand audience of the other angels, and yet it was only Rithys. "And I would have you come with me."
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Rithys looked away.
"I cannot," she weakly replied.
"Not even for Cyrona's sake?" the High Angel inquired, her words carrying a bitter tone that wrapped around Rithys. "She is pleading with you for aid and you remain here."
"I have told you my reasons," Rithys sighed, shaking off a crushing wave of grief. "We must not continue to feed this war. There is no victory to be had. None. Only worse things will come."
Forynda floated forward to take up along Rithys's left and stared downward at the gently spinning surface of the larger of the two moons.
"You have fought with Parlon's wicked madness. You have seen Gorondos's wrath. Jagreth's abominations, those twisted monstrosities of those creations he once loved so. Myrvaness's pure malice cannot have escaped you. And Omonrel's cruel machinations, you have seen those as well," the High Angel sighed. "After all they have done, you cannot possibly believe that they will be so moved to magnanimity by your withdrawal, all on your own, that they will end this war."
"No one has foreseen an end to this war. Simel told me what he has seen and there is no end to the fighting. The suffering is boundless. Should we depart and leave the mortal world to its fate, we can at least spare our own kind," the Night Angel whimpered.
Forynda's golden eyes glowed ferociously as the High Angel stared at Rithys.
"I will not abandon the mortal world to Omonrel, or any of the others. The Progenitor's task for us did not allow for such carelessness," the High Angel boomed. "They will not stop their
"Elaous might abandon Omonrel if we withdraw. Might that mean something?" Rithys implored.
Forynda clenched her jaw and shook her head lightly.
"Even if he did, it would not matter. He left for his own reasons and those reasons... were that he split irrevocably with me over what I did to Nethron," the High Angel's voice drifted. "I understand why he felt as he did... as he does now, to this very moment. But he is not like the others. Do not conflate them or you will misunderstand them to dire consequences, and that includes your fears about Cyrona."
Rithys fretted over any response as she had none to give. She had never seen Forynda as contrite as this about Elaous's defection and the very fact of it stunned her into silence.
"I will descend into the mortal world again shortly," Forynda continued, grasping the pommel of her rapier more tightly than before. "Shall I be forced to tell Cyrona that you would not answer her pleas?"
"She knows my view."
"But, should she hear it from me, she may feel differently," Forynda swiftly parried Rithys's attempt to cease the confrontation. "You would truly do this to her?"
"I do this for her," Rithys insisted.
With a grimace, Forynda began to depart Rithys's sanctum.
"You will come to understand just how wrong you are. When you do, I will do my utmost to be gracious, but you are testing my patience, Rithys," the High Angel said, disappearing in a blinding whir of light.
Rithys closed her eyes and let her spirit drift amidst the currents of the Auras, trying to read the cryptic signs she had seen amongst them. Every time she did, however, the messages eluded her. Simel had told her it was a pointless pursuit as none but the Progenitor truly understood them. Yet she strained over and over and over to glean anything of value between the Auras' flickering tendrils, which writhed and twisted in myriad ways.
Nothing. If there were any messages present in the Auras' innumerable twists, folds, pulses, flashes, and impenetrable mists, they were not for the Night Angel to discover.
I am sorry, Cyrona. I cannot aid you. You will understand... I hope.
~
Rohmhelt watched his bending lines with apprehension. Yes, they were supposed to buckle to lure his brother's armies west, but this seemed wrong. Marshal Kordov's unexpected arrival to assist in coordinating the withdrawal was met by Grand Marshal Agrehn with great relief. Kordov's energetic love of maneuver, even amidst the incessant barrages from Gorondos and the fire mages of Duronaht's army, was welcome. Where Agrehn would deliberate for a minute, Kordov would act in seconds.
Welcome, too, was the decisive defeat of Duronaht's 5th Army to the south by the Varanians. Rohmhelt had only caught a glimpse of it at a distance, but he was astonished at just how swiftly his scaly allies had dispatched a major potential threat. To the far south, Aberos and Cyrona appeared to be fighting Jagreth and Omonrel to a draw, which was as much as he could've hoped for.
The rough balance of events was orderly. Except for one thing. Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw increasingly bright iridescent silvery flickering shapes amidst the darkness. Thousands and thousands of them. He tried rubbing his eyes, but that made it worse. He elected to instead keep his eyes open for abnormally long stretches. No one would likely notice at any rate. No one dared look at their Emperor so closely.
"Your Imperial Majesty, Commander Dastov is approaching. He has urgent business," Agrehn coughed, his raspy voice barely cutting above the clamor of battle to the northeast. "I don't know what."
"If it's Dastov, it can't be good," Rohmhelt grumbled, slowly turning toward the approaching spymaster. When he blinked, he saw bright argent flashes out of both of Dastov's eyes. The flashes stayed in his vision even when he kept his eyes open and a strange ringing overwhelmed his ears.
"Your Imperial Majesty," Dastov started, unnaturally calmly while he pointed his cane toward the northeast, "the Empress dispatched me to assist here. We're facing an imminent wave of the Silver Aura by the enemy mages that could destroy almost everything we've got deployed before them. I've sent one hundred of our own mages to help form wards for when it comes."
"Do you care to explain yourself more on this, Commander?" Agrehn leaned forward on his horse, his eyes squinting.
"I could, but you're about to see it right now," Dastov sighed and pointed again to the enemy position, where now a large swath of the vanguard cleared out for a grouping of perhaps two companies of robed figures. "The Silver Aura grows strongest in the presence of death and we've got a great many deaths today."
Rohmhelt signaled for three messengers to come closer while he kept his eyes on this spectacle, unsure of what to expect next.
"Send word to Marshal Kordov. Have him retreat west with all speed!" the Emperor shouted, barely able to hear his own voice over the ringing plaguing his head. "You two, make a run to the Empress. Tell her to ready for her assault sooner than we thought. Go now!"
The three bowed and saluted before spurring their horses in their respective directions. Just as they departed, a cold and deadening sensation hit him in the stomach. All he could see were wisps of the Silver Aura.
The ringing stopped.
"...FOREVER," Nethron's voice slithered around his mind.
"Here it comes," Dastov muttered.
The mass of enemy mages jointly loosed a deluge of hauntingly beautiful silvery light that formed something of a rippling wall a dozen feet high and several feet thick. From their position, it swept forward, moving just above the ground with an persistent low sound. It was an echoing and distorted sound, as if was muffled but bouncing off invisible vaults. He then realized what it was. Screaming. Nondescript, but impossibly numerous screaming. And implausibly quiet at the same time.
Moving forward between the two armies, it turned any grass, trees, and shrubs it touched to naught but piles of dust. A gray, sickening, unnatural, otherworldly pile, of dust. Any small animals in its path were likewise swept up in it. Their agonized screeches somehow reached the Emperor so far away. Glimpses of of their little innocent placid faces twisted and tormented as their bodies sloughed away against the argent tide flashed all over his field of vision. Then came his own retreating skirmishers. Too slow to make it to the wards of Dastov's mages, they were engulfed in the swelling wave, their bodies torn to pieces, bones disintegrating, skin sloughing off like dry flakes of bread being rubbed away. Rohmhelt hadn't any references for how to describe what he saw.
"Order a general retreat!" Agrehn's voice called out, almost separate from the Grand Marshal as Rohmhelt's own senses failed him. When events happened and when he perceived them became disjointed. All he saw was silver and death. Not dead as one would ordinarily die. No, obliterated. Reduced to utter nothingness.
Where are Vorlan and Simel? Tathyk? Anyone?
"I unfortunately must contend with Parlon's menace," Simel said in the tiniest fractions of seconds, as though time froze. "Do not worry too much. Deliverance is coming."
Dastov smirked as his company of mages all formed their sparkling argent wards, creating a seamless wall of protection from the silver deluge that came their way. A horrid discordant series of screeches filled the air as these two alike and yet opposing forces clashed. It held in that pattern for some time.
But something was wrong. Dastov now grimaced.
"Order your men to run faster," he muttered to Agrehn. "Now!"
Agrehn barked some indecipherable commands at trumpeters nearby, who blasted their horns in staccato blasts to order the army to retreat with all possible speed, regardless of whether it would cause the ranks to break.
"...forever!" Nethron's voice again slithered around the corridors of Rohmhelt's mind, causing the Emperor to thrash his head from one side to the other as if to knock out cobwebs.
Dastov, too, shook his head and glanced at the Emperor with an eyebrow raised. However, before the spymaster could say anything, his attention turned back to his beleaguered mages to the north. The screeches from the Silver Aura's civil war became so loud and twisted as to be deafening. Soldiers fell to their knees around the Emperor, covering their ears and writhing upon the ground to make it stop.
Then, a shattering. As though a piece of glass as large as Karmand itself broke to pieces over the entire battlefield. The wards vanished. The wave crawled forth. After the now customary tortured screams of those being consigned to nothingness, it left dust in its wake and crawled forth ever more powerful.
Rohmhelt spurred his horse to in front of the dumbstruck Dastov and commanded his attention.
"Now what?! Don't tell me that this will just keep going as people die!" the Emperor screamed.
"It could go for a while..." Dastov murmured, biting his bottom lip. The next echelon of regiments, with forces numbering well into the thousands, all disintegrated where they stood, their agonized screams echoing in Rohmhelt's ears. Then fell the next wave, comprising most of everything except Evinda's reserves on that axis, evaporated into oblivion. Tens of thousands of his best troops eradicated in an instant.
He shuddered even contemplating just how badly outnumbered he was now with these losses, losses that grew and grew as the wave progressed. The coldest squeeze set in around his heart.
This could be the end. I don't...
Just then, though, a flash of bright white light cut across his vision, blinding out the silver torrent that had plagued him for the past several minutes.
Dastov glanced skyward and let out the slightest of chuckles. "But it won't matter."
Rohmhelt turned his own gaze to the sky. His entire face lifted in an overwhelming smile.
"Deliverance," Simel said in his head. "Deliverance, at last."
~
"She. Is. HERE!" Matriarch Yldrina cried out in ecstasy. "OUR FAITH IS REWARDED!"
Lyfress, Cesord, and the other clerics, who had only just been trying to escape, along with the Varanians, Myrvaness's new circling cloud of ice and cold winds, all looked toward the sky. Amidst the bright blue of summer was the most brilliant of white lights. Even without Yldrina's exclamation, everyone there would've known what it was.
Gone were any doubts that Lyfress had about Ulford and his demise in Zarmand. Or how they had been abandoned these many long months. The High Angel had returned. Of that there was no doubt.
She flung her arms around her father and he returned the embrace with his bony, unsteady grip while the throngs of soldiers and healers around them cheered wildly.
"I've prayed every night, every morning, every moment I can for this," he cried.
"I know," Lyfress affirmed, holding her father closer. Her primary thought immediately shifted to just getting him back to her mother alive for however long he had in him.
~
The sharp grin on Duronaht's face that he had held ever since his mages unleased the Silver Aura in its horrible potency faded all at once.
"VILDRIOUS!" he called out and started approaching his Grand Marshal who stood almost one hundred paces from him. Vildrious and his subordinates were frozen by what they saw in the sky above. "You'd better have a..."
At once, dozens of sizzling beams of immaculate white light struck the positions of his Argenomancers, exploding in orbs of crackling and shimmering radiance. No one needed to tell him what had happened. The argent wave, which had swollen beyond his wildest hopes, dissipated before he could even see the charred remnants of what had been the pride of his mage corps.
Another volley of beams blasted down from above, this time cutting broad swaths through his main formations, incinerating countless thousands in their place. Then, another menace came down from above: The Wingmother Nanikaw's legions. Numbering in the tens of thousands, the birdmen descended in a hail of arrows and beams of white light upon his rear. Their numbers were so great that they formed a blot in the sky to the north as they hovered and landed, blocking his army's primary path of retreat. Retreat... something he hadn't even pondered just moments before.
The glowing figure of Forynda slowly descended toward Rohmhelt's ranks to the west while Duronaht, Vildrious, and even his allied angels were all left stunned. All except one.
"Fear not," Omonrel's voice sounded out in Duronaht's head. "I anticipated this and have a remedy."
~
The Empress Evinda, who had been leading the reinforcements forward toward the breaking remnants of the main army with the greatest of trepidations, now could scarcely keep herself on her horse with the excitement she felt. The High Angel Forynda descended before them, platinum shield in her left hand, glowing rapier in the right, with glorious resplendent white, gold, and silver armor. Her platinum hair flowed gracefully in the wind and her warm golden eyes glanced across the jubilant throngs of soldiers before her.
Evinda and the officers near her all dismounted from their horses and dropped to their knees in grateful reverence.
"Rise," Forynda commanded, her voice both overwhelmingly powerful and serene. "I do not seek dominion. I never have and I never will."
Her legs wobbling and skin prickling from her joy, Evinda struggled to her feet. The army had quieted to hear the High Angel, creating the oddest of lulls in what had been just moments before a chaotic and deafening battlefield.
"I... I don't even know what to say," Evinda gasped. "I..."
"You need not say anything. Your aim, and my own, is victory," the High Angel declared, her voice swelling. "And we will have it!"