Chapter 79 – What Lies Beneath

Atop the walls, Kairon could see nothing. Not with his real body, at least. He and the void imps had joined the brood, their orange pupils glowing in the darkness.

In total, over eighty imps stared into the night. They shuffled excitedly, chittering to one another.

So, Kairon resorted to using Sovereign Eye. He watched intently, allowing the battle to rage on. If the paladins could not recharge their energy, this was going to be quicker than he’d anticipated.

However, he wasn’t sure if the clans would last until they were all drained. The battle was far more one sided than he’d hoped. While the order both the paladins and Valdren thrived upon had successfully dissolved into skirmishes and melees—something that certainly favored the barbaric warriors’ fighting style—the clans still had taken catastrophic losses.

Perhaps a quarter of their number remained, primarily clustered in two groups. One surrounded their massive war chief and female elder, the other a motley, far more damaged group had been pressed on the opposite side of the battlefield.

The city lord knew he needed to time this just perfectly. He wanted as many of the paladins to be out of their holy magic as possible. As it stood, about a quarter of them still glowed strong enough that he knew that wasn’t the case.

“Come on, come on… Make them work for it,” he muttered. Even with all their dead, the clans warriors didn’t cower. If anything, each fallen warrior only spurred the survivors to claw and fight for every drop of blood.

Another paladin’s armor went dim, making him miss his swing and fall back. A great roar sounded, followed by a massive glaive’s tip driving through the neck of the knight with a sickening crunch. Kairon sucked in a thin breath. “That looked like it hurt…”

“Hurt…” echoed Hush.

“Call?”

“Shh,” quieted Hush. “We wait.”

And wait they did. Another five minutes went by. And in those five precious minutes, the two groups of clans became one. The stranded and isolated group off to the side broke under a focused push from the Valdren lines. Combined with the last magic of several paladins, they melted under the force of it.

Kairon bit his lip. “Fourteen—no, fifteen still glowing…” This would have to be close enough. The battle was coming to an end, and Kairon needed the rage. He needed the violence. And he needed to act now, before they began to disperse.

The city lord eyed the situation, waiting for just the right moment. Keeping the battle in one part of his mind, he let the other use Sovereign Eye to find the little scouting party he’d left alive. They’d been moving as fast as they could in a vain effort to join the fray.

An effort that finally now came to an end as they realized the battle was already lost. The dozen clan scouts stood still, watching in horror at the last of their once proud army of warriors melting away. Torch after torch fell into the sea of dimming gold armor and Valdren steel.

Perfect. They would see the finale. Front row seats.

“Now! Hush! Enact the calling.”

“Ohh!” gasped Hush. “Yes! Yes!”

“Callll!” chimed in his partner, excitement dripping from him.

“What master desire?” asked Hush eagerly.

“I require a calling of wrath. As for my desire…” He double checked his words carefully. Satisfied, he spoke precisely.

“I desire rage and violence to be called upon like no other. Not the blow of a sword, but the motivation to swing it. The bloodlust that only a warrior knows as his blade slays his foe. And I want all of that focused right…” He pointed in the distance, where he knew the battle was occurring. “Right… there. In my domain, where the golden humans fight the warriors of green. Specifically, below their very feet. Can you do this?”

The stars beneath Hush’s hood sparkled. “Of course… Of course. We call… Wrath answer,” he intoned. Several brood imps chittered, claws pointing at their master.

“WHO CALL?”

“Call food?!”

“No,” sighed Shiny. “Master is calling power. You see. Just watch!”

An ancient, guttural chant began. Both the void imps intertwined their talons and hands, opening their cowls and flinging their heads back. Their voices flowed into a song that Kairon had heard just a day before. One of violence. Of rage. Of wrath.

The stars in their eyes went deathly red, matching the emotions their calling unleashed.

Unlike last time, however, no enormous arm reached out from another dimension, nor was there a resulting shockwave that blasted him backwards. Instead, a presence was created.

It began in the city. Kairon felt it. The imps felt it. The domain felt it. Squeaks and shrill cries of alarm cut through the night, two of the brood even drawing claws and pouncing on their own brethren.

Another two did the same. And then another. To Kairon’s horror, his own workers began to assault one another. Even he felt a desire to draw their blood.

“No!” said Shiny. He shoved through the swarm of brood, before opening his mouth and… something. Something happened.

With a sucking noise, the air displaced, and the desire to fight… was gone.

Kairon cocked his head, not sure what to make of that. His little friend was becoming more and more intriguing by the hour. Slowly, the chanting still echoing and the power still building, he patted the little imp’s head. “Well done, Shiny. Well done.”

Turning, he drew upon his connection with the domain and the source beneath it, and pressed outwards.

The presence may have been removed from the walls, but the calling itself was very much still underway. A spiral of wrathful energy drew outwards, coalescing into a crimson sphere that illuminated Kairon’s vision.

Then, with a pop, it vanished.

Breath quickening, Kairon allowed the massive purple eye to fully dilate. The battle was still going on—no sign of change yet.

Well—no outwards sign. Kairon, however, could sense it. It was building. Beneath the very feet of the soldiers, paladins, and warriors, a cauldron bubbling with vengeful rage was brewing.

As the voices of the void imps reached a crescendo, that mixture gained more and more rage. It had become palpable enough that various warriors on either side of the fight had thrown caution to the wind, lowering their guards and engaging in all out brawls of fist and teeth.

A clans warrior tore into the flesh of a paladin, his teeth slick with blood. To his side, three Valdren militia men began beating an already dead warrior with the butts of their spears. Yet, it wasn’t this that Kairon was after.

That was simply an appetizer.

It was what came next.

As the void imps gave the last of their energy, their chanting echoing over the walls of the city, the emotions of rage and violence tipped just past an invisible threshold.

With a snap, they were released into the world. That metaphysical cauldron tipped over, its aspected contents spilling into the very sands beneath the raging battle.

Only, instead of dirt, blood, or debris, it found something far more delicious.

Ichor. Lots and lots of demonically charged ichor that had been dumped in the planned pit traps and filled with fresh sand atop it.

***

Elder Rosk spit the flesh from his mouth, part of the skin taken from the dead paladin at his feet. He kicked, flicking a dropped spear shaft into his left palm.

Then, wheeling around, he turned to face the golden tide in front of him. Nearly all the bastards had lost their glow. Grinning, he cocked his arm back, and threw the spear like a javelin.

A Valdren officer had less than a moment to notice the bolt of death headed his way before it split his forehead like paper.

But that wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. So many today had died, and so many tomorrow would too. Rosk knew it. He knew what the outcome of this battle would be.

Growling in defiance, he barreled into a trio of paladins. He threw two shields to one side and a third to the other, spinning in a half circle and intending to land a vicious blow on a fourth.

Only that blow never came. Before it could land, the entire world went red.

The last thing Elder Rosk heard on this world was an eruption like no other, followed by the distant sounds of laughter.

He’d never know just what sly creature had such a cruel laugh.

***

Lord Paladin Brexin snarled. Calling upon nearly all of his remaining power, he swung. With the fall of his blade, the night was split open. From it, a golden line of heat sizzled into being. Three clans warriors fell. Two were missing their heads, and the third just as many limbs.

“Cleanse them! Cleanse every last one! We take no prisoners! That darkness must not prevail!” His voice bellowed over the devastated battlefield.

Someone screamed to his side, but he paid it no heed. He spun about, finding a paladin crouched on one knee. “What are you doing? Up! Up!”

The fool yelped something back. Spluttering about the inability to call upon the source or some such nonsense. Brexin would have none of it.

Taking the man by the cuff of his armor, he pulled him upwards and threw him into the fray of the battle. “Do not be afraid, brother! The Five are with us!”

Grinning like the very savages they were set upon slaying, Brexin took one step forward. Only, his foot didn’t touch the ground.

A blanket of red more pure than any he’d ever seen covered his vision. With it, a thunderous explosion.

Out of an instinct born from his Solaric training, Brexin called upon every drip of power he had. His signet, his armor, his mind. Everything.

It wasn’t until his body spiraled more than fifty feet into the air, the armored forms of his paladins rocketing upwards with him, that his unshakeable certainty in his path finally cracked to something new.

Fear.

Fear that all the power he just called upon wouldn’t be enough to save him from the terrible red that filled the world.