Shadow of the Flame (Fantasy)

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

And now, the end. The last confrontation.


Chapter 14

Nothing to do now but wait, Hara thought, grumpily, and stitch people up, get them in some fitter state to run away. The idea of charging in on a single- well, one and a half- handed rescue attempt did not strike her as smart.
She might be lucky and find a long straight bit with room to drop the priests with bow shot, and take down three or four knights in the melee; but Veniel had calmed down enough to tell her how many they faced, and that still left eleven or twelve for him- all right, single and two halves handed, forgetting Kraven- odds she did not like.

Lisanna was missing, Sir Bob was missing- there was a loud scream from outside; Hara ran towards it, and found a hastily assembled fighting line facing an animated skeleton- carrying someone.
‘I carn’t dew much fer ‘im.’
'I can't do much for him.'She was talking about the skeleton; then one of the knights ran forward sword upraised to smash down on the unarmed thing of bone. Hara went after him, rugby tackled him; she had seen who it was, and the knight had gone a bit battle- crazed, was quite likely to hack lumps out of the patient as well as the undead horror.

She got up first, stepping heavily on the knight as she did, and took Sir Bob’s body from the skeleton- which crumbled into dust again. Holding him up with one hand, Hara scooped some of the dust into a potion bottle; might come in handy. With Sir Bob over one shoulder, she picked the knight up off the ground with the other hand.
‘Nut fownd ov de undedd, iz yew?’'Not fond of the undead, are you?'
First he looked baffled as he tried to make sense of her accent; then he looked baffled as he wondered why she should bother to ask something so obvious. ‘They should be destroyed on sight.’

‘Yew know abaht dis roite ov oops?’ She paused to wait for him to catch up with her. ‘Da ‘preeyst’ wot’z been gin’ rahnd tellin’ evirywun it’z a gewd idea iz da dizgoized,’ she made a special effort over this one, ‘necromancer. ‘Ilarion.’
'You're aware of the rite of atonement? The priest who's been circulating spreading the word is the disguised necromancier Hilarion.'

‘Do you have any proof of this?’ As highly charged as he seemed to be, aha, Hara thought. I might be able to get round this one.
‘’E troied ter get uz ter abdurkt yer cowrt zappy- type ter assist’ im wif orficcyaytin’ ar’ it. ‘Orse’z mowf. Arsk Sir Bob w’en ‘e waykez up.’
'He tried to get us to abduct your court sorceress to assist him with officiating at it. Horse's mouth. Ask Sir Bob when he wakes up.'
For some reason, it worked; must already have been suspicious, and the heavens only knew why he thought an orc was trustworthy- maybe she had sewn up one of his friends or kin. That was a distinct notion. Perhaps some of her less badly wounded patents could be roped in? Time to start looking at the wards in a new light.


Light was worrying Lisanna, too; baron Omphraye Kardren’s area were lit with a lowering flash- riven storm- light; he had one of the lesser nodes, but with the centre, the aleph, disabled, there was nothing, or very little at any rate, they cold do with it.
There were few priests in his territory, and most of those such cults as Darfordian and Alnur, deceit and darkness. The group that she encountered, coming out to replace the patrol with the skeleton, consisted of one partial- plated squire, two crossbowmen, two foot soldiers and one thing with a blanket thrown over it.

It looked so much like a child’s idea of a ghost that Lisanna almost laughed; but the two glowing red dots visible through the blanket took all the fun out of it. They came to fighting stance when they caught sight of her, and one prepared to remove the blanket. She called out;
‘I must speak with Hilarion; take me to him.’
They looked at her with a mixture of pity and amusement; what they thought he was going to do to her- she had heard it all before from her parents anyway. They did not refuse; what they thought was- unimportant. The squire detached one of the foot soldiers to guide her.

Omphraye’s encampment was a temple to the will; as in ‘do what thou will shall be the whole of the law.’ There was a centre to it, and frightened people who at least were more scared of their own lords than the shelter; there was even a distant, echoing whinny. deMarail and deVerett’s knights had eaten their horses long ago.
They did not lead her towards it, but in the darkest, least lit way. She had, folded in a pocket of her robe, her own light black- and- red apprentice’s tabard from her days as a poisonous animal.

She had steeled herself to pay a very high price, her dignity and honour, to learn the arts of magic; and had been first astonished then deeply suspicious to find it not being demanded of her.
Hilarion had seemed like a good choice of master from a distance, and she had assumed at first that his reputation was exaggerated; but had found that it was if anything an underestimate.

She had been- not exactly prepared, but expecting- to be raped, by his summoned servitors if not himself, and virtually enslaved and bound to serve evil; and although she had seen that he was perfectly capable of it, he had chose to treat her more like a distant grand- daughter, which she was young enough to be in fact, than a sacrificial pawn, a complicit conspirator rather than an expendable victim; and it had been waiting for the hammer to fall, waiting for him to cease to pretend to be normal and turn on her, waiting for the game to end, that she could no longer stand, and had fled.

As they neared Hilarion’s chambers, the guard became increasingly nervous, and she forced herself into an attitude of impassive calm, which would not fool him for one moment- it had not been by chance that he had led her to the ways of air and fire.
There was a demon huddled there by the gateway to his lab; a brutally nasty thing, all claws and scything talons. A powerful wizard’s equivalent of a welcome mat; the once- smirking squaddie was now fast descending into a gibbering wreck; she patted the demon on one of it’s claws, doing her best to look gracious and unflappable- it preened itself.

Hilaron appreciated the performance; he slid out of the shadows her had wrapped around himself. She curtseyed to him, he bowed to her, gave a hand signal to the demon- it snarled at the soldier, who ran shrieking in fear.
‘Welcome, my student- I had hoped that you would have come to visit me earlier.’
‘A simple invitation would have done.’
‘It would have been much less challenging to arrange.’

He walked into his laboratory; it consisted of a large round room, with recovered artefacts scattered, some labelled, sheets of parchment tied to them, a desk, a bench, some rock and metal runes- that had been one of her talents he prized highly; her mind lent itself to runework much more readily than his. He was trying to teach himself; it wouldn’t work. She followed him, remained standing, he sat behind the desk. There was also a heavy canvas bag in a corner with a tag; her effects she had left behind.
‘Some purpose of your own brought you here.’ He sounded disappointed; but clear sight was one of the things he had taught her.

‘The expedition to confront the baalrukh-‘
‘Of which my servitors appraised me.’ He pointed out two nearly- invisible coils in the air.
‘I joined them.’ Joined him. ‘I was there, when we challenged it; and there when we assaulted it. What do you intend with this rite of appeasement?’ the question seemed a little harsher than she had intended, which was to tread carefully.
‘What gives a rogue apprentice the right to challenge her master so?’ he seemed amused; dryly, as ever.

‘It does.’ He seemed to accept that.
‘Simply that; we make obeisance, sacrifice to it, soothe it, and leave. Were you about to suspect me, too, of heroics?’
‘I saw it; watched it fight- more importantly heard it speak. It is not a volatile thing like a god or demon; it is an aggrieved father, enraged at the maiming of his son.’
She seemed to touch a nerve there. She knew nothing about his own background; he hid that. ‘It has none of the fickleness and vanity of a power, but the real and relentless hate of a powerful thing of this earth. The only need it has that we can satisfy, the only sacrifice we can offer, is to lie down and make it easy instead of forcing it to work to destroy us. It will not be appeased.’

‘Hmph.’ He thought about it; commanded one of his phantom spies to slip through the shaky shelter- walls to go and scout it; it moved, but halted in place just before it slipped through the floor, and began to blur and redden- started to look, in fact, fiery.
Hilarion was too skilled not to know what was going on, and tried to smother it with a shower of dust and essence of stone, earth against air, but the air in it, no longer his, swallowed it; He had the subtlety to defeat it, but it took time to be subtle- power was what gave you speed.

Lisanna was young, which helped, and fitter and stronger than he. She pushed him, protesting, out of the lab, and turned to the demon; in lieu of the proper words, she slapped it on a claw, and pointed.
Hilarion recovered, and readied his staff; business now. The demon might have struck for Lisanna, but it liked people who weren’t afraid of it; and it could sense trouble. The thresher seemed to unfold itself, arms and claws cantilevering out, and scuttled in after the hijacked, fire- infused air spirit.

‘I had the situation in hand.’ Hilarion told his apprentice sharply.
‘I would gauge its power as placing it in the outer third circle. No-one has that in hand.’
The system counted inwards, not outwards; and the best a human mage could reach before time and chance caught up with him was usually fifth. Aburon’s powers ranked in the eighth and ninth; Lisanna’s inner eighth, approaching outer seventh- professional levels. Outer third was saga hero grade; could credibly be described as mountain- or volcano- raisingly powerful.

There were thrashing and growling sounds from inside the lab; they looked in, and saw the demon trying to catch a whirlwind, flailing around for something solid enough to be hit, while it’s gusts and jets of air, explosive waves of pressure, slammed into and pummelled it; it’s carapace was cracked and it was trailing half a dozen smashed claw- arms.
They stood clear; eventually it managed to disrupt and slash through enough of the aerial servitor to break it up and it fizzled out in a shower of small zephyrs.
The thresher, most un- demonically, dragged itself to a corner, trailing useless limbs behind it, whimpering, to lick it’s wounds. It had nearly lost to a micro- elemental that should have had difficulty injuring a fly.
Hilarion went over to it, to assess and if possible heal it; it would be a long cold day in the pit before he would let himself be caught soothing anything.

Lisanna looked around; his desk- made of what, according to the bestiaries, was treeman wood- was split in half, and the bag of things she had left behind had been cut open by a careless claw swipe. Something in it that she did not recognise as hers; a glossy black and red- apprentice coloured- second skin close leather bodice.
Exactly the sort of thing that an evil sorceress with the figure to carry it off might wear, or that might feature in a middle- aged man’s fantasies.
‘I was always waiting for you to try and take me, and I wondered why you never did.’ She could be very angry about that if she thought about it; but it wasn’t the time.

‘I’m an old man; you flatter me by imagining that I would be capable of it.’ He had a glint in his eye that said otherwise. ‘I didn’t need divination to tell me that you had potential, which a carnal indulgence would have jeopardised. The right way to proceed was to cultivate your talent first- then the joys of darkness.’
‘I left only just in time.’ She wondered what it would be like to wear his colours again; she might find out yet. It was a breach of the guild rules to walk out like that; he could by rights have her hauled back to finish her apprenticeship.

‘That was for you when you assisted me with the rite of appeasement. You would have worn less as a temple dancer.’
‘I avoided becoming a temple dancer. Was?’
‘Do you think I am untouched by the fact that you came back to me?’ he muttered something to himself that he was not meant to hear and would not have believed if she had- ‘my daughter in the art, my wayward prodigal.’ He continued out loud, ‘The example of this also-‘ referring to the mess it had made of his thresher demon- ‘it is quite relentless, is it not?’
‘Completely.’ She was not sure who else could be meant in that.

He thought about it. ‘Finish the term of your apprenticeship to me.’
‘First you show me that- that instrument of torture-‘ gloriously carnal though it was- ‘then you ask? Is that the price of your help?’
‘It now seems to be necessary. I co- wrote the rite, I know just how it should be undone.
I expect you to come back, to finish what you have begun; and also because it makes sense for you. I have gone through less stress and heartache in more than thirty years as a court wizard than you have in thirty weeks. You must learn how to become your own side; you need the freedoms of the renegade.’


In the baron’s private chambers, and passing through Hara’s wards, were a constant trickle of individuals; he was talking to his men, sounding out their loyalties.
As part of the family of the chief Hara was usually on the wrong side of any conspiracies going; she was rather enjoying this one. It was quickly clear just how religious the majority of the knights were; she had to move very cautiously in explaining to them exactly why this was a bad idea, that when the priests went a little bit off kilter it was up to the loyal worshippers to set them right.
If the gods genuinely didn’t want it to happen- well, orcish theology was that the gods help those who help themselves; Hara had heard too many people, humans as well as orcs, screaming in pain to be anything like devout, but she knew the logic.

She was remarkably persuasive for a foreigner, speaking an alien tongue with a throat not really built for it. She talked round, and picked out, half a dozen knights and four yeomen, not too badly hurt to function.
They were just hanging around, catnapping, waiting for things to kick off, nervously; and then a priest came to tell the rest that it was on, he was noticed, and Hara prepared to lead her odd assortment, knights, yeomen, Veniel who would act as guide, Kraven who looked more cheerful at the thought of something easier to kill, a still wobbly but astonishingly vertical Sir Bob, herself- towards the hastily consecrated temple, when another eight knights came from the direction of the baron’s quarters; no baron.

The leading knight looked past Hara to Sir Bob;
‘Don’t look at me; the orc sawbones is in charge.’
They turned, surprised, to Hara; ‘Roight, den, da job at ‘and iz tew stop a gang ov well- meanin’ but wrong- ‘eaded preeysts from gettin’ uz orl killt. Dey fink dey iz dewin’ da roight fing; Oi’ve met da fing, an’ I know dey ain’t. Da note ‘ere iz restrained voiolence, ‘coz I’ll ave ter stirtch dem up arfterwards.’ Some of them looked nonplussed by that; but Hara led off at a quick pace, forcing them to jog to keep up.
'Right then, the job at hand is to stop a gang of well- meaning but wrong- headed priests from getting us all killed. They think theyre doing the right thing; I've met the thing, and I know they aren't. Try for restrained violence, I'll have to stitch them up afterwards.'


Aburon was hauled from the improvised cell where he had been dumped. They had poured something into him, something alchemical, to keep him quiet, and it had reacted badly with Hara’s pick- yew- up; his stomach was churning, his vision blurry, and his moaning had been anything but quiet.
They kicked him, which made things worse, threw a bucket of water over him which helped, and dragged him out to an overdressed portable altar, tying him, x- fashion, to a crossed pair of pikestaffs; Lyron was hiding in an ornamental roof sculpture.

Contact with his hawk stabilised Aburon, and he scanned the chamber; there were more knights filing in, about thirty in total, and two archpriests fussing about the ceremony; Ayral and Gargath, that fitted.
They were arguing with each other over how the ceremony should run, over what changes they would need to make to sacrifice him properly, instead of the baby- which they had in a basket, intermittently wailing; just in case they needed a bit of extra oomph.

Somebody, it seemed, who had helped them draft it was missing. He tried to focus on that, couldn’t. In the end they decided to sacrifice both him and the baby; a symbol of their future, a symbol of their claims on the earth, disposed of in the name of atonement.
I’m going to get killed, he thought. If they sacrifice me, obviously. If it shows up, anyway. If they have their way they’ll do me in just to get rid of me.
And Lisanna, I said I didn’t believe in forever after my nymph, but I’ve changed my mind, forever is a pair of grey- green eyes, I do love her and I don’t want to be parted from her, especially not by getting killed, especially not when she needs me- whether she admits it to herself or not.

There was a lot of shuffling of feet and hand- waving; there were four or five- Aburon lost count- junior acolytes floating around, and from the general lack of kicking, spitting, whipping and suchlike abuse Aburon deduced that the priest whose skull he had cracked in with his bolt of ice had not been popular.
They were setting the place up; the archpriests put their heads together for one final conflab, then decided that missing Valdemironian- Hilarion in disguise- or not they had to begin. Most of the knights and squires formed the congregation; about ten a guard. Just in case.

Aburon squirmed as his enemies’ gods were praised and invoked. Listening to crop and pasture, the shepherd- god and the holy farmer, praised to the roots was more than he could stand, although he had little choice under the circumstances.
Being actually sacrificed might be less painful. It went on to the meat of the business- his meat; Aburon expected some kind of incendiary response when they called upon the baalrukh, but they did not do so by name, or by race; ‘great lord of the ocean of fire’.

‘It’s a baal-rukh, it’s name is Ura- Harugach, it doesn’t want us to apologise, it wants to kill us. You shower of phantom- chasing lackwits, rust brained false- goddites, you’re going to get us all fried.’
They prodded him a little with knives, realised they had better not kill him too soon, gagged him.

‘Dat sownds familyer. Roight, strings reddy, swords aht.’ At least he was still alive; she and the yeomen readied their longbows. ‘Veniel, Bob, get zappin’. Knokk da preeysts aht iff’n yew kan, fry ‘em up if yew karn’t. ‘Ere we go.’
'That sounds familiar. Right, string bows and draw swords. Veniel, Bob, use magic. Knock the priests out if you can, fry them if you can't. Here we go.'
She led them on the last leg towards the improvised chapel with the traditional orcish war cry; ‘Waarrggh!’

Three knights came out to see what all the fuss was about; Hara drew and nocked an arrow at the run, stopped, aimed, drew and loosed in one motion, aiming for the joints at the waist.
The leading knight was very lucky, under the circumstances; her shot went in two inches to the left of his testicles, though a mail- covered gap between plates, chipping and cracking the lower edge of his pelvis. He retained his manhood and, with expert help, would keep his life, but he was definitely out if it. He collapsed, a dry, airless whine.

Sir Bob launched a bolt of force at the second; he blocked it with his broadsword, parrying, one of the attackers ran at him to take advantage of his being out of position, but the defender recovered and smashed the other knight in the face with his shield; a second attacker hacked under his guard at his leg, bent the plate in and gashed it, the defender fell, and three of the baron’s men smashed and kicked at him until he stopped moving.
The third knight turned to flee; made the mistake of facing away instead of backing off- with his backplate to them, the yeomen put four arrows through it. One severely beaten, one wounded, one dead.

Faint sounds of the clangs and grunts and screams reached the pillared hall; Aburon tried to wriggle himself free, but they were still watching him too closely.
His feet were more loosely bound than his hands; if he could get them loose, perhaps he could pick up the waiting sacrificial axe, cut his way out or at least get at one of the priests, sent Lyron to see what was going on; the hawk saw Hara organising the yeomen- ‘We’z got ter get rid ov deyr zap wiv’ ahr arraz. ‘Member, reeyzonably non- faytal wewnds. Roight den.’
'We need to get rid of their magic with arrow shot. Remember, reasonably non-fatal wounds. Right, then.'

Just under two to one odds. The fourteen knights and the quasi- paladin charged in first, not exactly achieving surprise; half a dozen knights remained around the altar, the rest moved to engage, brother against brother.
It was difficult to kill a man in armour; a one- handed sword, of any reasonably widespread nature, was simply not up to the job. Halberds and greatswords could be swung hard enough to get up sufficient momentum, they were lethal enough, and the yeomanry’s usual backup weapon- a five foot maul- frequently worked.

The usual fencing match had more in common with a brawl, in which the object was to get your opponent down on the ground and find a place where you could get a blade to stick in him, and swords were used more for leverage than anything else. It was a way of war that produced many ransoms and few casualties among the ruling class. It made sense today; Hara checked that the yeomen had all brought their mauls.

A good mage could beat an archer to the draw, but generally not a priest; their magic was too pompous and ponderous, too heavily laden with invocations.
The fifteen attackers fell into a rough semicircle of a fighting line, pushing the defenders back a little, giving Hara and the yeomanry a clear shot at one of the acolytes who was trying to summon a spell of frenzied courage to boost the defenders; five arrows leapt out at him.
Hara shot him in the shoulder; more or less what she had intended, but three of the others went into his torso and gut. Oh well.

The high priests were arguing with each other whether or not to bolt through the ceremony or turn to meet the attack now and finish the rite later. Aburon leaned against the ropes holding his feet; felt one of them begin to fray and go.
For a spell- caster, he was fit; now all he needed- Lyron, acting on his suggestion, but under his own power- he would not suggest to his hawk how to fly- swooped down, clawed the gag away from his face in a strike like a plunge on a rabbit, touch and go, and threaten the high priests- flapping his wings in their face, then retreating behind his ornament before they could summon power to do anything- and he fumbled with his left foot for the sacrificial axe, getting his toes around the hilt, shuffling it closer.

Hara had another arrow ready and loosed it at the high priest of Ayral, a wave of grey light smashed into it from the priest of Gargath knocking it out of the sky; the Ayralli used one of his powers- it was called closed circle- to split the fight into two halves; a herdsman’s power, it sectioned the fight, controlled it, made it easier for them to cast the magic.
Fortunate that he had done so instead of wrapping the same power around the altar. One of the acolytes came scurrying up with the book; two of the yeomen shot at him and missed, Veniel lobbed a bolt of fire at the tome; an arcing globule of liquid flame, it splashed over the book and the acolyte.

The book started to scorch, the acolyte rolled on the ground in agony, it defended itself- caring nothing for him, it materialised a broad spiral of granite- grey light, tapering to a point on Veniel’s chest.
He had the sense to use his powers of motion to move himself, to roll with the blow rather than try to deflect it- it would simply have powered through that; it did knock him back against the wall, stunning him and doing his ribs, again, no good at all.
Have to fit him with removables at this rate, Hara thought, lobbing an arrow at the screaming acolyte- nailing him in the stomach.

The physical combat was slow and confused, both sets of knights being essentially identical, and both finding it impossible to tell friend from foe without asking.
One of the knights attacked the fallen Veniel, sword raised to impale him; one of the others moved to stop him- they were the only real points of identifiability in the fight- and that turned into a separate skirmish; there was a lot of clanging and battering, men shouting their name and family as battle cries, slowly working out from personal heraldry what the sides were, and several knights were wounded and reeling.

Kraven clouted one on the back of the neck with his broadsword, turned to have a go at another; Hara yelled at him
‘Mayke sewer w’ich soide dey’z on ‘fore yew kill ‘em.’ Not that it would make much difference to a man who only really recognised his side and everyone else’s.
'Make sure which side they're on before you kill them.'

Sir Bob was trying to struggle his way through to get to the priests; they could easily tell who he was, with his warped unholy symbol, and he pushed and shoved his way through one knot like a cross between a rugby scrum and a blacksmith’s workshop, almost clear, then someone swiped him across the hindquarters with a longsword, drawing blood.

He turned to fight- there were three of them who recognised him, and were concentrating on him; one glory hound leapt in first- Sir Bob shot him with a bolt of karmic magic, congealed ill- will and misfortune; the upward curving sword, coming from within Sir Bob’s reach with the two- hander, hit the angle of the base of his breastplate, twisted in the knight’s hand, slid out of his grasp.
Very unlucky; he nearly tripped over his own spur retreating, and could not move back quickly enough to get out of the way of the descending greatsword which crashed into his collarbone, through a gap between gorget and breastplate which really shouldn’t have been there, and bit deep and hard. Hara might be able to save him, if she had time.

The other two came at him together; one vaulted over the body of his collapsing comrade, and attacked his sword, pushing the blade aside for the other to have a clear strike at him.
The second knight aimed for his armpit, attacking the thinner chainmail there- and cutting through. It badly gashed the muscles of his upper arm; with a normal sword, you could lose an arm and keep fighting, but with a heavy blade, one gone, all gone.

Hara shot at one of them, but he took the arrow in his shield; it went about two feet in, but that wasn’t enough to hit him. One of the knights from the altar group ran forward to face him; three to one, and wounded- not good odds; he decided to see whether the gods were ready to laugh at him this time; and a voice came into his head.
Listen to me, it said, I will aid you, for a price- I am the patron you were always seeking, I am the god with no church, I am retribution against the corruptions of order, I am all that can guarantee you more than ten seconds of life to come. I am Elnur, lord of malice.

Right, then, what do I have to do? He thought back.
Insult them, the voice told him; with my power behind you.
‘Call yourselves chivalrous, three to attack one wounded man? Baby- butchering fainthearts-‘ it was the most meaningful thing he could come up with on the spur of the moment; simply swearing at them probably wouldn’t have worked.
That, however, did; it was one of Elnur’s powers, that names really could hurt you, adding injury to insult- the three of them reeled back, one clutching his stomach, the other two their heads; one of those holding his head fell over, the other two limpingly and with difficulty pulled themselves back together.

Experimentally, he summoned a small demon to lick his wound clean and help him move his arm; it was Elnur’s typical spikes- and- tendrils bundle of nastiness, but it should help.
Wahoo, I’m evil at last; they had been saying he was for years anyway. He hurled himself back into the fight.

On the other side, the right- hand skirmish, the baron’s men were losing; the archpriests were too close to the altar, and Aburon and the baby, to risk a shot- the yeomen might think they could, but Hara wasn’t so sure.
She told them to down bows, mauls out, and go to the right- hand skirmish and start breaking heads. There were more acolytes firing strength and confidence at their side and panic, confusion and fear at the attackers, there; and a couple had gone from that side over to the left to push them back there.

If they got pushed back too far, added any more to the eight or ten bodies, in various states of injury, they could be pushed back far enough for the ceremony to go ahead, and then it would be fried orc tonight, Hara thought.
The younger, fitter acolytes were supporting fighting and the high priests protecting and lending strength to the acolytes- Hara drew a bead on the priest of Gargath, the one with the effective earthstrike power, shot one arrow at him that she didn’t expect to succeed- then another one as quickly as she could to try to get through before he could raise his defences again.

It didn’t work- he simply bent the granite- essence shield back to meet the second; but something did get his cohort- the sacrificial axe Aburon was wielding by foot.
It was a clumsy, badly aimed blow, but very strongly felt- he could not raise it very high, but it cut deep into the back of the priest of Ayral’s thigh; he fell- Aburon pulled himself free of the pikestaffs; one of the knights turned to slice at him- he leapt over the blow.

The Gargathi had at last succeeded in tying an earthstrike to a sense of loyalty- those who wanted the ceremony to go ahead would be immune from the small earthquake, the attackers, the rest would be hurt by it;
Aburon grabbed the baby, and inspired by the little round, red tired and anguished face, put forth most of what power he had left- the Gargathi high priest launched his bolt; and it consisted of Aburon and a three month old child.

He had made himself temporarily one with the energies of the earth; the attack consisted, therefore, of some zap and him. He flew, flailing, through the air, surrounded by grey light, trying not to land on anything sharp; he did not entirely succeed and was heavily scored in the arm protecting the child, but it- she- was all right.

‘Noice entryance.’ Hara called to him.
'Nice entrance.'
‘Got to think laterally if you want to be a wizard- that’s it, right?’
No, it was not; the chief priest of Ayral, leaning on his staff, injured but determined, grabbed one of the acolytes and blasted him into passivity with shepherding power, literally making him as a lamb to the slaughter.
It was a haphazard alternative sacrifice, but it would have to do.

The knights guarding the altar left it and ran forward into the fight; Hara shot at one and Sir Bob, whooping in some dark and unholy language Hara didn’t think he knew hacked at another, but the arrow slid off sandstone- coloured defensive spellwork, and his sword- swipe hacked into, largely hacked through a shield, without meeting flesh.
They were about to lose the fight on the right hand of the shimmering orange ochre barrier, to superior numbers and enthusiasm, when there was a rushing, scuttling sound from behind.

Aburon ducked and the thresher- demon bounded over him to land and start living up to it’s name; an obsidian- black cloud of razor- sharp shards from the priest of Gargath was met by a flickering, fanning lightning bolt and weakened so they bounced off armour, without the strength to pierce; and a dark wind blew all the knights, church and state, ill and hale, tumbling into a confused mass in the main body of the colonnaded hall.
‘Necromancers! Antipaladins? Demons! What kind of side are we on?’ Aburon was low on power, only one or two more decent spells left in him, tired and emotional.

‘Down’t ferget da orc, tew…da nercessary soide.’ Hara fixed on one knight whom she was reasonably sure was fighting for the priests; loosed an arrow, aiming for his throat, but he darted forward and down, ducking under a blow and cutting up in riposte, she hit him on the side of his back, just behind his arm as it came forwards, skimming along rather than biting in. ‘Shewt sumfin’.’
'Don't forget the orc, too...the necessary side. Shoot something.'
‘Got any fungus beer?’ All right, he might need a drink, but this was not the time- ‘Plant power.’ His magic was strongest and most dextrous with growing plants; he usually had some seeds about his person, but they had taken his kit.

Hara got the point; pulled a small flask out of one of her pouches, tossed it at the melee, the spores began to flower, swell into ugly, pulpy shapes- and they were plant enough for a little power to set them flourishing, drive them to and swarm them up the bodies of two of the knights he recognised as with the priests, colony blooms swarming up and under the armour, through cloth and leather to flesh, and start devouring them.
They screamed and writhed, the priest of Ayral tried to herd the fungi, failed, the priest of Gargath used his own earth power to solidify, petrify and slay the mould colonies- Aburon allowed that to happen, from the roots first, converting them into stone daggers driving deep into the knights’ bodies. Men seldom died cleanly by magic, and the more creative the wizard, the worse it could be.

‘Dat’z wun ter wroite ‘ome abaht. Oi’z’ll nevver drink a point wiv’ da sayme cornfideynce agane.’
'That's one to write home about. I'll never drink a pint with the same confidence again.'
Two knight’s swords suddenly tied themselves into knots; they leapt back to pick up weapons dropped by the fallen, one was jumped in the process of doing so and went down in a clanging heap with his attacker, one faced back into the melee; Aburon looked round to the source of the magic- Lisanna was standing there smiling at him, happy to see him safe.

He hoped she hadn’t seen the fungus stunt; she hadn’t, but did wonder at the baby. ‘You’re alive- is there something you haven’t been telling me?’ she joked, light hearted from relief, meaning the baby.
‘The backup sacrifice. They’re going to do one of their own acolytes now, I’m not going to say ‘alive’ until I think we’re not going to die. Are you-‘ eyes bugging out at Hilarion there beside her- ‘all right?’

‘The lesser of two evils.’ If she had been in good physical health, she might not have joined Hilarion; but perversely it had been the cracked rib that had done it. The maiden-apprentice bodice helped support and immobilise her ribs, and the notion of an instant and immediate benefit from turning to night- the bones had told her, too many masters.
If this constituted failing with style and grace, then so be it.

She had had to have the thresher to lace it up for her. ‘He…he did ask me to go back to him. It was supposed to be my duty as court sorceress to hunt you down and kill you. Selling myself to the dark seemed- better than having to cross swords with you in the name of the light.’ She tried to sound optimistic, that was what she interpreted as the freedoms of the renegade, but the look on his face-

‘I would have to try to kill you for attacking the cycles of life by raising undead, what kind of solution is that?’
‘Can we dew sum wurryin’ abaht roight da farkin’ nah.’
'Can we do some worrying about right the fuck now?' Hara bellowed at them; the priest of Ayral was casting a web of unity around their knights, guiding them in their recognition, friend from foe.
They were all giving the thresher a wide berth, it was having to chase them, breaking up the fight, the priest called his men back to a line around the altar; the Gargathi raised the carved rock into a rough, waist- high bastion separating the two sides.

Of the fourteen knights and four yeomen they had begun with, six knights were still on their feet, and three of the yeomen; of the twenty- six with the priests, fifteen were upright and fighting.
Bad odds; even with it, the thresher- responsible for dropping three of the knights and an acolyte- on their side; Hilarion actually had less raw might than the priest, but considerably greater skill, and allowed the growth of the rock wall- and subverted it.

Parts grew needle- sharp backward- facing spikes; other parts curved up and up, like a wave, ready to crash down on the knights- the last of the acolytes summoned power to help stabilise it.
Lisanna shot a scything web of lightning trails at him- he expanded the sheet of essence of rock to meet it, one of the knights leaped up beside him to add his shield; Hara shot the knight in the stomach and he collapsed, the wave of rock-potential bent and negated most of the lightning bolt- and Aburon added his earth power to the strike, blowing the jagged fragments backwards, spalling in on the acolyte, wounding him, knocking him out of the fight.

At the wall, one knight had been crushed, or pinned at least, by the wave of rock, and one had been caught in converging spikes through the guts and hung there dead; but at the end of the wall one of the defending knights came out, pinned the yeoman at the end of the line’s hammer with his shield, and ran him through.
Another knight- a squire actually- came out wide on the flank, picked the yeoman’s hammer from his dying fingers, and swung for one of the attackers from his side, low upwards, smashing into the knight’s back at lower- rib level and crushing his spine.
Another came after them, and two or three lapped around the other end of the curved wall; the outnumbered attackers turned to face them- and the wall came down, leaving them flanked.

The thresher moved into the gap, but the knights on both sides were afraid of it, and turned on it; it lashed out at them; Lisanna had some sensing magic, that could sharpen or alter perceptions, she came up with a spell to make their knights realise that it was friendly, which it was rapidly changing it’s own mind about and she wasn’t too certain of herself; Aburon tried to raise a slick, slithery layer of ice underfoot, and got a thin, patchy film-
‘I’m out of mana- Hara, can I borrow your axe?’
She nodded, drew an arrow- sod. Last one. Better make it count, then- she aimed at the acolyte they were going to sacrifice, drew back the bow, thought about praying- who to? ‘Bugger da godz.’ 'Bugger the gods.'

Loosed. The priest of Gargath was alert, threw up a sandstone- coloured block of light; Hilarion launched a complicated, improvised, multilayered spell at the shield, earth to warp and air to weaken, insight and light and vision to misdirect, motion to accelerate the arrow through; the block withered and split and the arrow shattered through a thin spot, bursting it into dusty fragments, and smashed into the acolyte’s chest, piercing his heart and killing him.
‘Ah-ha. That should suffice, they cannot sacrifice each other.’ Hilarion crowed.
‘No, only us.’ Aburon shouted at him.

Sir Bob was covering the thresher’s back, and it was holding off three knights; Hara had regretfully slung her bow and was looking about for another axe; somebody chucked a throwing axe at Lisanna, Aburon caught it in mid- air, Hara grabbed it from him; Lisanna brought forth a fireball to throw back- and looked at in worried, then frightened puzzlement.
‘That’s not right.’ It was not a neat, artificial unnatural flame, but living and crackling, swelling, issuing promontories like a miniature sun- ‘Did they actually get as far as invoking the thing?’
Lyron left his shoulder to look out of the hall at the approach corridor; ‘Yes.’ Aburon told her.

Lyron did not have to go far to see a dread orange- red furnace light flooding the shelter; their people- glow hid it to begin with, but it started to swell and grow, to inhuman scale, until none could deny it.
The fighting fizzled out; it suddenly seemed unimportant beside what was about to happen. Sir Bob wanted to go on, but the thresher turned him round to face the glow.

Hara took the opportunity to swap the hand axe for the one Aburon was carrying, and pick up one of the fallen yeomen’s quiver; Aburon to borrow- or steal, depending whether they lasted long enough for him to give it back- Veniel’s mana- bearing staff. Lisanna threw the fireball away, it would be useless.
She stood next to Aburon, Definitely with him, Hilarion noted sadly. He had her word written in blood, but she had done it for him, not for her old master. He was already planning how to steal her back.

‘Can you try and maintain a sensible attitude to certain death this time?’ he pretended to scold her.
She laughed- for possibly the last time- shook her head; ‘No.’
‘Quoite roite tew. Reddy, evirywun…’
'Quite right, too. Ready, everyone...'The light was just outside, and very, almost cripplingly bright; the rock of the shelter was rippling out of the way around the source, flowing in accordance with it’s, with their, will, like a trick of mirrors; and could it melt men out of it’s way as easily?
On it’s home territory it had been distraught, distracted, uncoordinated; with time to consider and to focus, with the initiative in it’s hands-

The first thing to come into the consecrated temple- hall was not a lord of earth and fire.
It was the lady, the master of air and fire; Johanna, in the armour of her rank and station, with a broad pair of blazing phoenix wings, half folded, emerging from her back; both her swords were drawn and glowing unnatural, multicoloured flame, cycling through the rainbow- balefire.
Hara, Aburon, Lisanna, even Hilarion retreated before her; behind her followed the halting, hesitant, limping young baalrukh, it’s father, five times man height and a hundred times man weight, tyrant of the molten ocean, shepherding it’s son.

There were shapes floating around her, nearly invisible, normally so but illuminated by fire on fire.
‘The shades of her slain haunt her- you may call me foul, beside her I am the sun and the stars. Even it must feel ill at ease in her presence…’ Hilarion said to Lisanna. She was virtually hiding behind Aburon, looking over his shoulder. The knights, all of them, were backing off. The thresher was hiding behind a pillar, Sir Bob behind it.
‘Well done.’ Johanna nodded to Hara and Aburon in passing.

‘There will be a sacrifice,’ she announced to them all, ‘and there will be an atonement. After my fashion.’ One of the bolts of balefire crackled out at each of the high priests; they tried to block, tried to parry; tried and failed.
Their charred bodies began to burn, sublimating as they did, melting out of this reality entirely but two intensely complicated knots of light remained, one hovering over each body, wrapped around with a coiled thread of multihued rainbow fire.
She drew them towards her, towards the youthful prince of flames; gaze tracking across them, flaming wings beating gently, parts of the knots unravelled and evaporated.

Hilarion was probably the only one, other than Ura- Harugach, who fully understood what she was doing; and he was gaping in awe. Hara could guess at what, but had no clue how or what terrible skill and control it took.
‘Iz dat…brayne sergery? Da boss iz steeylin’ der moinds ter partch up da little boll-rong’s?’
'Is that...brain surgery? The boss is stealing their minds to patch up the little baalrukh's?'
Hilarion nodded.

She was removing the unnecessary parts; soldier- sorceress, her blades served her in the office of wand, rod and staff; they danced through the air on the winds of power, obeying her flashing mind as the consciousnesses of the two high priests of the earth, unwillingly donated but nonetheless, were trimmed and lined down to shed unnecessary humanity and bring the needful thoughts and ways to the fore.
The blades angled, bringing the two sparkling knots together, as one; the line from the blued- steel blade retracted, but the fire still flickered around it- she nodded to Ura- Harugach, whose expression was unreadable to all but her; the balefire leapt out again, and his son’s mind was released from its body, which remained intact.

The elder baalrukh shouted something in a loud, echoing voice, an incantation- his fires temporarily dimmed, it’s son’s brightened; restoring the body in preparation for the return of the spirit.
Human to alien, to profoundly unnatural, was more difficult, more delicate; the lord of fire was menacing, by nature, but not at this moment by design; he looked like a worried father watching the doctor at work on his son.

She wound the human composite into the baalrukh part complexly, never rushing- what a mistake would look like, they could not know; but it seemed there were none. The rainbow fire sealed, fused and energised the connections, making one reinvigorated whole; reinsertion.
The young lord of the flame opened it’s eyes, alert and intelligent, looked up at it’s father, who wrapped his wings around it and held it close.

Johanna, balefire still crackling about her blades, turned to the human- and orc- contingent. ‘Leave. Back to the surface, all of you.’ The living virtually stampeded out; they needed little prompting. ‘Hara, Aburon, await me in Auvaine city. Hilarion.’
‘Yes?’ he had had a long career of being the weirdest and nastiest individual around; it had just imploded.
‘You are standing next to two baal-rukh who owe me a debt; you will not gainsay me on this. Lisanna will not rejoin you.’
Anger and fear; but she was right. Even if he did attain liche- dom it would take him another couple of thousand years of study and practise to do something like that. ‘Are you human?’ he asked Johanna.

‘Usually. Find some pretty little vampire girl to dress up as your death- doll; I need Lisanna where she is, adding strength and sanity to deVerett’s either-and rule. I have a county to rebuild, and must use such materials as I find. I may even have a use for you.’
Further words, he thought, might only suggest something to her; he bowed and left. The thresher demon strolled out with Sir Bob, waving goodbye to Lisanna; Aburon was propping Veniel up, Hara had one of the knights slung over her shoulders.
‘I ‘ope dis izn’t rewtine.’
'I hope this isn't routine.'
‘The regiment’s only eight months old…so far, yes.’





So, how was that? I got a decent-moderate number of views, but not many comments- thank you, FA Xerrik, Lady Tevar, but I would like to know what everyone who read this thought of it.
I know I left some of the fleshing out to the very last minute, and if I was going to do a complete rewrite the ending would be different, but that's the way it panned out. Criticism, please?

[LadyTevar]

It got to the point reading Hara was painful, and I got to the point of skipping her words, until she became the center of the story. Ouch. Brain Hurt.

Otherwise? Great Story You need an 'AfterMath' chapter.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

The subtitles are back, then?
Either that or Aburon's going to need to learn Orcish- when she intenrally monologues, that comes across in plain english, incidentally. The particular problem is, as the rough-sketched timeline and continuity goes, they become the core of the operation.

Countess Calvern hired them all to begin with in the intention that some of them would serve as chaff. They would burn out and quit, or die, but in doing so protect the effective ones. That lined itself down to Hara and Aburon.

Hara is, in effect, the sensible one. Aburon comes to rely on her for that, and allows himself to specialise towards the crazy and offbeat as a result. If there was, for instance, to be a full blown sequel, I should go back to subtitling her? For that matter, edit them in to what's already here?

[LadyTevar]

Yes to subtitles

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Subtitles have now been fully edited in, and I'm going to go away and hit myself with something because I fail board culture.
It looks as if I've been Horsemanned, doing the subtitles in a nice orky green. No, just me forgetting what coloured text around here means, although maybe I deserve to be for inflicting Hara on everybody.

The problem is that the character really did go that far to hide her light under a bushel, and exaggerated her accent and mannerisms to the point of giving offence, for complicated and not entirely logical personal reasons. Her brother, and the potential sister in law her brother's hiding from, are almost normal by comparison. In accent anyway, if by no other measure.

There is certainly more to be written, but right now I want to go back to Star Wars for a while. Sequel in a few weeks' time, probably.