Liam relaxed in his wagon, though he was frightfully bored. All staves were charged, Nora, Lyra, and Saryn had all attained level 10 in all their affinities, and had quickly begun mimicking his casts. Nora on his right, Lyra on his left, and Saryn firmly planted on his lap, in sabertoothed serval form. Trees melted to woodchips on either side of the road, sending an increasing number of beasts scamppering away. Often timid, occasionally ferocious, but Velena was swift, and Karceia swifter, always slaying the beasts with ease. After several pissing matches, the mistress of hellfire had been recognized as part of the Sintran pack, and worked in tandem with the golden hellhounds. Yet, the woods were quiet today, with little wildlife on any stripe. Even the songbirds were quiet.
“Another two days, and we’ll reach Mont St Michel.” Said Owen. Talking from the back of the command wagon, now nicknamed the ‘purrsuit of happiness’ due to the meowntain of felinids that piled onto Liam each night. Private rooms were a luxurious thing. Never granted to slaves, who had spent their whole lives sleeping next to each other for warmth and comfort. A drop of affection that sustained them through the desert of slavery’s abuses. He thought back to when Saryn had first snuck onto his bedroll…
“What are you doing?” Asked Liam, giving the sabertoothed serval a look.
Saryn squished herself into Liam’s side, curling up and folding her legs under her.
“Meow.” She said. Blinking, eyes twinkling mischief in the moonlight. “You owe me cuddles.”
“Excuse me? What the hell makes you think I owe you jack shi–”
“I fed you.” Interrupted Saryn, smiling as she won the argument.
Liam scowled, disgusted. “That was a biological need! I would have died!”
“And I’ll drown in pussy without my father there to protect me.” Whispered Saryn, snuggling closer as Liam caught sight of two felinid eye reflections. Cat pupils that were facing him in the dark.
“I didn’t get to pick my parents!” Hissed Liam.
“And I didn’t get to pick my family.” Said Saryn.
He growled, but begrudgingly wrappeds an arm around her, protecting her just as Sirin had once protected him. Lyra and Nora piled on, squishing so tightly that Liam understood what Saryn had meant by ‘drowning in pussy’. These girls were aggressive cuddlers, with no respect for personal space. Though it seemed to sedate them if he occasionally patted their heads, or rested a hand near their ears.
—
“Damnitall!” Shouted Niana, her gaze flicking from gate to gate to ramp. “Pascal? Can you hold the walls?”
He grinned, smiling sharply, “Certainty of death? Small chance of success. My Lady, that has been our lives since Saint Liam arrived. Now, what are you waiting for? Go!”
She flew, naked sword whistling as a cat-dart sailed across Mont St Michel. To the west gate first. Two hulks stood between four humans and eight demons, swatting at the advancing evils with their forelimbs. Each a battering ram of chitin, Physically capable of launching the demons yet unable to do any permanent harm. More hulks lay dead and dying, torn apart by the demons. Six had every limb save their head severed and were clacking their mandibles, trying to eat their severed bits even as they bled out. A spectacle that brought laughter to the demons’ maw. They were toying with the survivors, occassionally letting one of their number be tossed away, just to build the thin venier of hope. Yet they were lost, fatal poisons already creeping through the hulk’s bodies.
Niana barrel rolled through the air, redirecting her momentum to circle around the demons. She had practiced every day for the past five years, always treating her enemies like the lethal foes they were. Forest spirits circled her body, cloaking her in a sheathe of invisibility as she struck. Fang met demonic flesh, and the resulting shockwave splattered the demon against the nearby homes. It’s black mana disrupted by the Lightning blade.
She rolled, claws scrabbling across the smooth obsidian street. Then she launched forward aiming a slash at a sword carrying demon. Her blade flashed white, and this second demon splattered as well, showering her and others in dark gelatine. Wind spirits flung the toxic goo away, but the hulks screamed and backpedaled, their chitting melting under the viscous evil.
Great, can’t let them touch me. Damn, I wish Matimeo were here. Or Dad. NO! I can’t join them yet! Thought Niana.
She swung Taloc’s Rod, casting a wind blade. But the demons were ready for her spell, casting their own shadowshields to deflect the blow. Parrying it into the nearest house where it blew out the windows and shattered the obsidian door.
“Ha, this it the great bitch catpian?” Laughed a demon, this one –like the others– was human shaped.
Silver armor covered him from head to tentacled toe. Had Matimeo been present, he would have said something sincere, along the lines of ‘I can only pity the suffering you’ve endured.’ But he wasn’t. Niana cast a second windblade, using it’s recoil to strafe past the demon and slip the Fang into his groin. A small nic, yet this demon exploded as all the others had, squirting goo out of his plate armor–
–And onto Niana’s arm. Her spirits fled, repulsed by the raw sewage of corruption that now infected her. She flicked her arm, watching as goo and skin fell away, leaving a six inch gash on her left forearm. Her hand tingled, the poison already setting in, crippling her.
I’m going to die. Thought Niana. Taloc, Matimeo, Liam, Mom, i’m sorry.
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Light pulsed from the staff of Taloc, Matimeo’s stored power purifying her wound, and breaking a seal she hadn’t known existed.
[Holy Light] increased to level 1.
[Mana Domination] increased to level 1.
She barely saw the notifications, rapidly launching herself backwards with a gust of wind. Five demons closed on her, these were mutated men. Cancerous letchers from Blackwood’s fallen army. Those who had fled from Pandora and lost their minds from cowardice, always knowing they’d succumbed to her. The same men who came looking for her, hunted her. Made her cut off her ears and saw through her tail.
Righteous fury filled her chest, summoning five golden blades, identical to the one used to mutilate her. Laughter rose from the demons, each covering themselves in a shadowshield.
How annoying, I wish those would blow away in the wind.
The demon’s laughter grew louder as they approached, rising in volume until it was akin to the howling of a wife when her husband’s body was returned. Carried home on his shield. It brought a smile to Niana’s face. Not out of madness, or futility, but out of joy. For their laughter had blinded them to the evaporation of their shadowshields. Five golden blades pierced home, stabbing through hearts then rising to throats. They spun, severing five heads.
[Holy Light] increased to level 2.
Niana tapped into Taloc’s staff, refilling her own light affinity. She leveled the rod at her hulks and men, cleansing them in a single cast. One glance to the west warned of approaching demons, but they could not expect the invisible.
“Man your posts!” She shouted, once more enveloping herself in wind and taking flight.
Now with Matimeo’s light and her own furr-ious determination she leveled a score of lesser demons, mincing them with light magic and shutting the western gate. Though it came at a cost, a score of felinids lay dead, and ten hulks lay suffering, maimed carcasses.
“Take to the tower! Hold out there!” Shouted Niana, flying to the southern gate of fire.
Her flight brought the wall into view, bulls now ran over the battlements, blind, tortured, and driven to insanity they overran the wall. Any militiamen too slow to dodge, or too large to hide under the crenelations were trampled underfoot, or carried over the wall to plunge forty feet onto cobblestones. The lucky ones died quickly, pierced by auroch horns or trampled underfoot. While the unlucky ones suffocated under the bulls. Slowly crushed by the gathering weight as aurochs broke legs in falls and were unable to rise before the next creature landed atop them. Weight piling up as the wendigo whipped more beasts forward.
There was nothing Niana could do here, no men she could save. A fury of impotence filled her, watching as her people slunk along the wall. Mana flowed from her, redoubling her windspeed to carry her across the city. For all her power, the ramp was not yet a fightable battle. Unlike the gate of fire.
Half a bear flew above the houses, evidence of hulks fighting. Dot swung her fist, punching through a horse sized theropod. Feathers puffed across the street, like a popped pillow. The matriarch of hulks used the dying dinosaur as a battering ram, swatting demons and splattering all their ilk across the walls and gate. Two men at arms fought with glowing spears, thrusting around Dot, forever warding the demons from getting around the enormous hulk. But she was already bleeding from a legion of wounds, her blood turning black as poison flooded her veins.
They’re going to kill Dot. Then everyone I've ever known. Thought Niana, zipping over dozens of dead hulks.
Even if they were somehow saved, a hundred men and all their hulks were dead. Mont St Michel was beyond repair.
“If i’m going to die, then let’s see how many we can take with us!” Shouted Niana, landing on a nearby rooftop.
She summoned a dozen windblades, each slashing down into the press of demons below. These fascimiles of monsters had no power over the shadows and took the full brunt. A score of creatures were cut in half. And the remaining dozen soon aided Niana’s third levelup of the day. Dot caught the last demon –a tumor covered sort of goat– and launched him against the obsidian wall, splattering it like an egg. Not a lethal blow, but damn did it feel good to watch a demon suffer.
Niana’ wind shield dropped and she flew behind Dot, pumping as much holy power into the insect matriarch as she dared. Poison roiled up from the hulk’s stomach, splashing across the obsidian street by the gallons.
“Dot, you’re hurt! You need to go protect the chapel.” Said Niana, her sword hand glowing blue for a moment.
Mandibles clicked, Dot’s middle arm picked up a spear from a dead militiaman and hurled it at the gates with more force than any human being could ever muster. It tore through a carnotaurus’ chest, and carried through two bearlike creatures, one with an elongated snout like an alligator and the second like some sort of falcon, complete with a beak and massive eyes. All three coughed blood, staggering as a single spear eviscerated their internals. The clearest way for a warrior to refuse the retreat.
“Fine! Stubborn bitch!” Shouted Niana, leaping onto Dot’s shoulders.
From her perch, she became the horde’s focus, all monsters and demons turning their eyes to her.
“We’ll be surrounded soon,” Said an axe bearing knight.
“Good! We won’t have to aim then!” Shouted Niana.
Sending two windblades a second down the stone streets. Each whistling through the air like an angry tea kettle. Though these moved with far more violent intentions, flying through flesh and bone, even passing through the gate. By some twist of fate the gate of fire had been taken with numbers and cunning, simple demons lingered here, dark parodies of hellhounds or velociraptors, and a few black servals moved through the ranks, a dark orb glowing in their foreheads.
A trio of servals lept onto the houses, climbing the roofs until they were even with Niana, off to the side and hidden by the wall. Each charged a bolt of shadows, a foot long dart of mana meant to pierce and obliterate. They sailed through the air, hurtling towards Niana’s skull, chest, and throat. Silent darts meant to maim and kill. She never saw them.
But Matimeo did.
The rod of Taloc surged, casting its own holy ward that halted two of the bolts entirely. Narrowly missing the third and final bolt. Which scrapped off the shield, deflected an inch to tear through Niana’s dress and part of her buttcheek.
“MeeeeOOOOOOWWWW!” Shouted Niana, instantly answering the three bolts with three golden daggers.
Her darts flew without err, piercing the shadow serval’s mocking eye and igniting their spines. A gory black explosion of goop occured, yet Niana was already back in the fight. Windblades streamed from her in a dizzying torrent of power, beheading, disemboweling, and cross sectioning entire beings, for she was a peak spirit mage, a battlemage who understood the incantations and mastered their mnemonic intentions through mastery of herself. Golden blades flicked, precise darts, scalpels that would have made her father proud. But there was no time for mourning her death. Not now. Not when the thundering of hooves finally ceased, and the hunting howls of the wendigo began.
It was coming.
And it hungered for the flesh of magi.