I spring forward. The priest glances back at me; the strange inks and needles it had been using to prod the young girl’s body still wet with her blood. All the rage I could muster lurched through me in an upward swing into the creature’s body. The glaive slices through its body like an axe through a rotted log. Its top half flings into the air, and its bottom half falls to the ground. Blood sprays over me and the child. I glance back to her; I notice the rune for the element of Earth had been drawn on her chest over her heart, as countless indecipherable letters made their way down to her navel. I could feel earth mana flowing through these letters. Thin, fading scars line her entire body as if she had been hit with a whip or something similar several times, and blotches of bruises paint her arms a painful-looking blue. Her already short hair had been cut along with small parts of her scalp. I don’t know what else to do, so I lift the child’s trembling head to my shoulder and hug her.

“You’ll be okay.” I whisper, “You’ll be okay.”

Her hot tears sink into my clothes as I pick her up and hold her tightly. The door opens as a squad of ten armed ratmen pours into the temple; forming a semicircle as they approach me cautiously. The fighting was still going on fiercely outside. Oak’s booming javelins could still be heard, and the loud cracking of thunder could still be heard. There’s only one thing I need to do at the moment, and it’s to make sure this young girl is safe.

I point the glaive forward, and motion through the air; drawing two pairs of triangles; one right side up and one upside down, both with a line going through their tops.

“A volley, oh djinn.”

Darts of wind and flame shoot forth at my command and fly toward the group. Flame and wind splattered against the creatures. Two of them were quickly consumed by the flames, as they took a brunt of the darts. Those on their peripheries took a couple to their left and right shoulders respectively; something that wasn’t hard to pat out. I set down Dylan.

“Duck behind the altar,” I tell the child. “And close your eyes.”

Dylan rushes to the altar and ducks behind it. One of the ratmen tries to chase after her. While I don’t know how to use a glaive as well as I do a saber, how hard could it be to swing the sharp end? A horizontal swing of the crescent blade cut through the creature’s neck and parted its head from its shoulders. This action caused the seven others to rush forward.

I side-step to the left so I would not be surrounded on all sides. The closest to me stabs forward with a spear. I knocked aside the shaft with the flat of the blade of the crescent-bladed glaive and swung it horizontally into the creature’s torso. It tried to block its swing with its arm, but the blade severed it. The blood arc cut into its torso and cracked through its ribs. It stumbles backward, gasping for air. I pull the glaive away and land a front kick into the mess of its chest to push it away. The blow of the kick was enough to send it skipping across the ground and crashing into the corner of the wall.

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A blade sliced through the flesh of my cheek. If I hadn’t yanked my head back it would have gone through my jaw as well. For now, however, there was just a laceration stretching from the left corner of my nose to the right beneath my cheekbone on the same side. I pivot on my heel retreat a step and take in a lungful of air before releasing it into a gale force that knocks the nearest ratman off of his feet and into the far wall with a hard slam and sends the two closest to it to the ground. I point the glaive forward. It conducts mana much, much better than any of my sabers ever did.

“Oh thou daughters of wind and storm, a tempest for me, form.”

From the point of the glaive, a whipping dervish formed and ripped forth into the group of ratmen. The dervish lifts up the bodies of the first; one of the ones still trying to push itself off the ground, and tosses it into the body of one of the others behind it. The whipping winds stunned a few of the others, and I launched forward; stabbing downward into the chest of the one still prone, before swinging the glaive horizontally into the stomach of the next. The blow tears apart the leather layers of its arm and slices through the creature’s flesh. It collapses onto the ground; trying to scoop its organs back into its stomach. I swung again, and a head rolled off into a clump of glowing moss.

A blade skitters off my scale jacket. I turn to face the creature that tried to stab me and swing downward right through the body of the ratman. The blade cuts through muscles, sinew, and bones easily. What an incredible weapon. My display of martial prowess gives pause to the others. They retreat a step before making a mad dash for the door. I fall upon them with all the fury I can muster. The glaive parting flesh as easily as it parted the air. By the time the last one fell, my recovering energy reserves and the healing of the aches I still had let me know that I had leveled up.

A banner with a red dagger through a cat’s skull hung on the wall. I tear it down and approach the young girl hidden behind the altar, covering her ears. I drape the white cloth over her naked body wrap it around her, and cover her eyes as I scoop her up.

“Let’s go. We’ll get you out of here.” I whisper to her.

I rush out of the temple carrying her in my arms and take a deep breath before stepping off the edge and up toward the line held by Oak, Mark, and Janet to avoid the cluster of ratmen. More of the baying horde rushes up from the deep. It was as if they were in some sort of trance as they rushed to join the fray. William supports them from behind; passing potions, and lobbing explosives. I land beside him and let the air from my lungs.