CRNCH!
Screams sounded from the end of the passage. Something titanic shook the foundations of the mountain and Kyembe could only grit his teeth as he rushed toward the source. The Ameldan wretch had fled toward what sounded to be a pitched battle within the mountain’s core.
What had occurred?
Had Cristabel already made her way there?
Did these cultists have a falling out among themselves?
The Spirit Killer froze in astonishment as he emerged from the tunnel’s mouth.
CRASH!
A one-eyed cyclops, a titan from a time when gods were many and mortals few, rampaged through a blood-soaked arena to scatter figures like mere toys before it. Bellowing, it raised up a tree in a hand the size of a wagon and-
WHOOOOOSH!
BOOOOM!
-smote the fleeing mortals. Bronze crumpled. Bodies exploded into crimson slurry or shattered like wooden dolls. It aimed for a clot of bronze-armed warriors, but its tremendous swings did not discern, catching black robed cultists in the mix.
Whiiiish!
Shattered forms swept through the air as though hurled from catapults.
Whoosh!
“By the stars!” Kyembe ducked.
Crash!
A bloody form shot over his head and crashed into the walls of the tunnel, ricocheting with gruesome speed until finally coming to rest in a broken heap. Cursing, the Sengezian turned to slip back into the dark: he knew not the details of this melee, but Wurhi awaited somewhere nearby.
A familiar glitter caught his eye.
He stopped.
…perhaps nearer than he had thought.
His friend - transformed into a rat and girded for war - scrambled higher into the seats around the arena with jewelled sword in hand. Alongside her ran another small figure with a tightly gripped spear. Kyembe’s spirits leapt to their peak. His friend lived! He had hoped, but had also felt a mounting dread-
“There, my pet!” Some muscle-bound scoundrel pointed at Wurhi. “Crush her! She is the cause of all this!”
The cyclops turned and glared at the little Zabyallan. Both she and the spearman screamed and turned to flee, but the cyclops would only need a few sweeping steps to catch them.
“Not while I stand, creature.” Kyembe guided his eldritch energies into his ring and raised it toward the titan. So large was it that he would not obliterate it with a single beam, but if he struck the eye-
“Interloper!” An acolyte pointed at him. Many heads turned in his direction.
“No! Not now!” he snarled.
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The frenzied cultists rushed him. Werewolves surged through the mass of acolytes, bounding toward him with fangs and claws readied. Desperately, he passed the energy into his ring more swiftly, but soon the horde had nearly fallen upon him. Cursing, he aimed his ring toward them.
Vrooooosh!
Men and werewolves exploded into ash but still more surged forward. “Damn all of you!” he brandished his sword. “Wurhi! Wurhi! I cannot help you! Wurhi run!” His deep voice boomed across the battlefield.
The last he saw of his friend was her turning toward his voice.
As the cyclops raised its cudgel, he realized in horror that she could not escape it in time. Then the cult was upon him and his world became a storm of steel, bronze, silver and blood.
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“Lycundar take you!” The cultist leapt forward with dagger poised.
Whooosh!
Chok!
St. Cristabel’s vermillion blade cleaved him from hip to shoulder, flinging one dissolving half to the ground and the other from the peak of the mountain. The latter glowed from Amitiyah’s tears as it soared through the blowing snow to splash against the stones below.
The knight quickly searched for more challengers, but found she had at last cleared the mountain. A broken trail of hissing forms dissolved into slurry in her wake, and the final watch-shelters lay empty. There was no more mountain to climb: only the wind, moon and cascade of blowing snow rose above her.
ROOOOOAAAAAR!
An earth-shattering bellow from within the mountain seized her attention. “What deviltry is this?” She sprinted for the centre of the summit. Halting at the edge of the chasm, she gasped at what she saw looming high above a pitched battle below.
“Amitiyah’s tears! A titan!” she cried with delight. “At last! The swift wind to glory has blown to me a worthy foe! …yet how do I reach him?”
For a breath, she considered the problem. With Wurhi and Kyembe somewhere below, she loathed the thought of reversing course through one of the tunnels that marked her earlier climb. If they came beneath that creature’s attention while she wandered through dark passages, then something dire could befall them.
Her eyes narrowed at the walls of the chasm and she noted the cyclops’ course below.
A mad scheme formed in her mind.
“If I am meant to succeed in this, then so I shall.” The saint hoisted her shield onto her back and took her bearing sword in both hands. Gazing down upon the chasm, she took a breath to steady herself.
She bent her knees.
And took a leap of faith.
Air rushed by her ears as she plummeted toward the sands below, gathering speed by the heartbeat. With a clench of her jaw, she drove her blade into the rock.
Hssssss! SCRRRRRR!
Its enchanted edge bit into the stone while the Tears of Amitiyah melted it, and the jarring impact slowed her descent. Carving a caustic trench into the side of the chasm, she ground downward with a terrible scrape of metal upon stone.
With faith as her guide, she suddenly kicked against the wall to rip her blade free.
The knight gathered terrible swiftness as she free-fell toward the battle.
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‘Kyembe?’ Wurhi turned, so shocked by the familiar voice that she had to look back. Her eyes widened. There he was, as though he stepped right out of her hopes: the towering Sengezian fighting a rising tide of cultists.
Yet he had come too late.
“Rat! It’s gaining!” Merrick cried.
The cyclops bore down on them, its breath rushing like a hurricane. Chittering in panic, she scrambled away, but Berard - that cowardly, drooling son of a dog - was blocking the closest exit.
There was no chance for escape.
BOOM!
The titan took another step and despair gripped her. All the trials she’d faced to break out, all she’d gone through, and now Kyembe had finally arrived simply to watch her die?
BOOM!
Another step.
The giant raised its club. It was close now, striding directly beneath the hole in the ceiling. All sound seemed to fall away. In the face of death, all Wurhi could hear was its thunderous steps, its breath and-
SCCCCRRRRR!
-a hideous scraping sound that put teeth and claws on edge.
…wait what?
What was that sound? Like metal grinding upon stone. She looked up to see the cyclops pause at the noise, its single eye widening in dull surprise. Its mouth agape, it slowly raised its head to look up.
It squinted as a blazing light - not merely that of the moon - shone into its eye.
SSSSSCR-
The scraping stopped.
A form dropped from the hole in the ceiling, heralded by a familiar battle cry.
“For the glory of Amitiyah!” St. Cristabel roared, wrapped in the nimbus of her god’s light. Her sword was braced against her in a two-handed grip, with its deadly point levelled below.
The Solidblade Knight descended toward the cyclops like a falling star.