1. Sarilian
one
Sarilian
From his position in the front rank of Celestial soldiers, Sarilian stared into the Void.
Several hundred paces still separated him from that violet curtain of pure nothingness, but that already felt far too close. The luminescent plains of the Dawnlands stretched across the space between, shimmering like liquid mercury beneath the ever-present glow suffusing the air.
Even with all his training, a shiver racked his flesh. The Void represented the inverse of ordered reality—an eldritch realm of chaos and madness, inhabited by abominations who sought to unmake the universe into infinite oblivion.
Sarilian didn’t know where the Void came from. So far as he was aware, no one did. All he could be certain of was that it had to be stopped, and that he, along with every other Immortal, had sworn to hold it at bay.
Anxious anticipation roiled his gut when a figure emerged from further down the Celestial frontline.
Their armored footfalls echoed off the plains.
The brilliant light emanating from their breastplate would have been blinding had Sarilian still been mortal.
Despite the past years he’d spent under the figure’s tutelage, he couldn’t help the awe that filled him at the sight of Darius, Dawn Aspect of Justice, facing his assembled troops.
“My brothers and sisters in the Light,” Darius began, his magically amplified voice ringing out loud and clear over the silver plains.
“We come to honor the Covenant, as we have for countless millennia. Though voidspawn seek to invade the world of Allaria, humanity need not fear, for you are here to protect them. You are the shield that will keep them safe—the blade that shall strike down their foes!”
The soldiers to either side of Sarilian straightened their backs and adjusted their grips on their shields and spears of light. Sarilian did the same, careful to keep his spear pointed upward to avoid entangling it with his comrades’ weapons.
Darius’s stern gaze roved over the gathered Celestial soldiers.
“For many of you, this is another battle in the Covenant you have sworn to uphold until either the Void or time itself cease to be.” His gaze settled on Sarilian, who tried not to squirm.
“For others, this will be your final test as an initiate—your first true brush with the horrors of the Void. Either way, I have faith that you will make yourselves and your people proud.”
The Aspect looked away, and Sarilian struggled to tamp down his sudden nerves. Darius wouldn’t have brought you along if he didn’t think you were ready, he chided himself. Desperate for a distraction, he ran through his mental checklist for the dozenth time.
Hold formation. Use swift jabs to keep the voidspawn back. Reserve your magic for emergencies. When you need a break, switch out with someone behind you. Do not try to be a hero—the instant your dawnflame gets low, call for a swap. And if a void lord appears…
Sarilian swallowed, remembering Darius’ grim expression when he’d spoken of the elder voidspawn and the threat they posed.
Most voidspawn were weak enough for a single Celestial to handle easily so long as they didn’t allow themselves to get swarmed.
But void lords were different. Larger and stronger than their lesser brethren, they required skill, coordination, or both to defeat.
Darius had warned him to leave such fiends to the more experienced warriors, and he was happy to oblige.
“This is it! Prepare yourselves!”
Darius’ shout startled Sarilian into almost dropping his spear. The soldier to his right—another recruit named Hilana—shot him an annoyed glare.
She’s probably as nervous as I am.
Murmuring an apology, he offered her a reassuring smile as he stared past Darius to the swirling portal that now marred the otherwise unbroken tapestry of pristine emptiness delineating the boundary with the Void.
Void gates always heralded a voidspawn incursion.
Most were no bigger than a door, but this one was almost triple that.
Though there was no way to be certain what a gate contained until it opened—an incursion could be anywhere from several voidspawn to several thousand—the portal’s substantial size suggested a grueling fight ahead.
A tense silence descended on the soon-to-be battlefield. Sarilian and the other Celestials stood with their spears raised at rest as they waited. Each of them glowed with a golden aura courtesy of the dawnflame that comprised their Immortal bodies and lent them strength.
Can voidspawn feel fear? Sarilian hoped so. Maybe the sight of over a hundred radiant warriors of the Light would send them scurrying back to the abyss they had crawled out of.
Without warning, the violet portal’s roiling energy surged outward a dozen paces like an expanding bubble before swiftly retracting.
In its wake, it left behind a jagged hole in the Void’s surface, all impossible angles that seemed to twist back on themselves.
Clenching his jaw, Sarilian averted his gaze to stop his head from throbbing at the alien wrongness of it.
Ghoulish shrieks rent the air. A heartbeat later, the soldiers were no longer alone.
The creature that shambled from the gate vaguely resembled a hound, with ten legs and an eyeless face taken up almost entirely by a circular maw bristling with teeth.
Thin cracks skittered across its pale, sickly purple flesh.
Little bursts of violet ichor oozed from the cracks like pus from an infected wound.
“Shields up, spears ready!” Darius conjured his own dawnflame spear as he returned to his position further down the line.
In near perfect harmony, Sarilian raised his shield and lowered his spear along with the rest of the front rank of soldiers, creating a bristling wall of needles facing their foe.
The hound-like abomination appeared undeterred. It loped forward, its gait starting off slow and awkward before gradually picking up speed, as if the voidspawn needed to get used to using its legs. In seconds, it had bridged the gap between them.
Sarilian waited for it to do something—to react somehow to the hundred spears poised to strike it down. Yet, the voidspawn didn’t even seem to notice the resistance. It kept coming in that same loping gait until it reached the frontline to Sarilian’s right.
Spears thrust at it, and the beast let out an unnatural shriek as dawnflame pierced its flesh.
One spear took it in the side, throwing it off-balance, while two more caught it in the stomach.
Even while skewered, the voidspawn flailed to press on until a final thrust through its skull pinned it to the silver earth.
Its corpse burst apart in a spray of violet ash.
Sarilian released a pent-up breath. That hadn’t been so bad.
“Is that it?” someone behind Sarilian asked, echoing Sarilian’s thoughts. “Just one?”
“It’s never just one,” Arem, an older Celestial to Sarilian’s immediate left, grunted.
Sure enough, another of the hound-like abominations shambled from the open portal.
This time, however, it didn’t come alone.
More monstrous hounds poured forth in its wake.
Other varieties of voidspawn soon followed.
Hulking bears that shambled on their hind legs, their bodies coated in eyes rather than hair.
Sleek felines with tentacles in lieu of legs that undulated from side to side in a slithering advance.
A dozen—a hundred—and still the voidspawn kept coming.
Sarilian squeezed his spear shaft to keep his hands from trembling.
No amount of training could have prepared him for this.
Each new voidspawn he spied was even more horrific than the last. Such abominations shouldn’t exist in a sane world.
He supposed they didn’t—not until their foul essence fled the Void and congealed here into physical forms.
The ceaseless tide of voidspawn had yet to abate when the first of them swept forward in a devouring tide of violet.
Their chittering wails choked the air. Sarilian’s chest tightened, Darius’ words replaying in his head.
You are the shield that will keep them safe—the blade that shall strike down their foes!
Should the Celestials fail, there would be nothing stopping the voidspawn from slipping through the Shroud and invading the Mortal Realm.
This was his sacred duty—the Covenant to which his mortal self had pledged its soul even if he no longer remembered why.
Whatever it took, until the last of his dawnflame went out, he would stand and fight.
Sarilian joined his voice to his companions’ wordless battlecry as the wave of voidspawn crashed into their line.
Claws scraped off his shield while jaws rent at it in flashes of violet light.
Though his shield held against the assault, each blow ate away at the dawnflame sustaining it.
He expended some of his reserve to reinforce the magic even as he thrust his spear with practiced precision. Around him, his comrades did the same.
Triumph surged through him when he saw his spear impale a cat-like horror, only for the emotion to dampen when two more abominations instantly took its place. The voidspawn ranks seemed endless, reinforcements continuing to pour from the gate.
Further down the line, he caught a flash of light and risked a brief glance to see one of the larger bear-like voidspawn reeling beneath a barrage of conjured fire.
“Steady!” Darius’s amplified voice somehow remained audible over the deafening din of battle.
“Remember your training! Let this tide of aberrations break across our bulwark of light!”
Sarilian gritted his teeth and did as his mentor commanded—he held. Narrowing his focus to only the voidspawn in front of him, he slowly fell into the rhythm of the fight.
Block, thrust, recover.
Block, thrust, recover…