1. Sarilian #2
Occasionally, a voidspawn scored a lucky hit, rending his chest past his shield or tearing into his exposed arm.
Thankfully, however, none proved too serious to mend with his dawnflame.
Other Celestials in the front began to swap out with those in reserve, but Sarilian remained stubbornly in place.
So long as he had enough energy to keep fighting, he wasn’t going anywhere.
“Look out!” someone shouted.
A shadow swooped over Sarilian, and he ducked instinctively as a pair of massive talons raked the air where his head had been.
Glancing up, he spied a mockery of a dragon pass overhead, its tattered leathery wings ablaze with violet voidflame.
Its neck ended in a thick tangle of tentacles, each writhing appendage lined with fangs.
The creature dwarfed the other voidspawn they’d seen so far, making those monsters seem like harmless pests.
A void lord!
Horror constricted Sarilian’s chest as the pseudo-drake lashed out with its tendrils, engulfing Hilana while she was distracted fighting beside him.
She screamed, conjuring a blast of dawnflame to batter the creature, but the void lord didn’t seem fazed.
It ignored the spears jabbing at its flanks and rose on a gust of voidflame, dragging the unfortunate Celestial with it.
Sarilian kept his eyes trained on the void lord, hefting his spear to throw. It was a long shot, but he had to do something. Perhaps if he caught the abomination in one of its tentacles, he could at least force it to drop its prey.
“Hold your positions!” Darius screamed. “If the line buckles, then so do we!”
Merciful Light! Sarilian reluctantly lowered his spear, his arm trembling with a sense of helplessness. Darius was right—what good would it do to save one soldier if it meant sacrificing yet more when voidspawn penetrated their ranks?
Clenching his jaw, he turned back to the battlefield in time to hastily raise his spear and impale a leaping voidspawn upon it. He heaved its dissolving body aside with a grunt.
Do your duty. Whatever happens, just do your duty.
A scream echoed from above. Though he knew he shouldn’t, he couldn’t stop himself from glancing up. His gaze locked on the void lord as it ripped the captured Hilana apart. Her screams abruptly cut off, what remained of her dissolving into a haze of golden light.
Mere seconds later, a radiant figure held aloft on blazing wings of dawnflame collided with the void lord in midair.
Sarilian’s breath caught. Darius. The Aspect of Justice shone like a holy beacon above the battlefield, each blow of his spear accompanied by a thunderous boom and a crackling shockwave of light.
Sarilian forced his gaze away, trusting in Darius. He allowed himself only a brief bow of his head for Hilana’s sacrifice. She had fulfilled her oath and earned her rest in the Great Beyond. Now, it was time for Sarilian to do the same.
Panicked shouts drew his attention toward where Darius had stood before he engaged the void lord.
At first, confusion gripped Sarilian when he saw empty space among the ranks.
Where had the soldiers there gone? Then, he caught the fading flickers of light, saw the wounded writhing on the ground as they called upon dawnflame to mend their torn flesh and shattered bones.
Amid the bodies stood a massive voidspawn as wide across as a man and at least three times as tall. Unlike the other, more bestial voidspawn, this one possessed the likeness of a human, which only made the differences all the more appalling.
Its limbs were too long, its legs segmented like an insect’s while its claw-like hands hung low enough to brush the earth.
Wriggling patches of tentacles stood out along its flesh like sores, with more bristling along the top of its head in place of hair.
Where a mouth should have been, there were only eyes, dozens of them in varying colors and sizes.
When the creature raised its hands, Sarilian’s stomach turned at the sight of a fanged mouth set into each palm.
Light protect us…
The Celestial army had been well-trained.
Already, soldiers rushed to fill in the hole left by their fallen brethren, but it was like trying to contain an avalanche.
The void lord—for that’s what this abomination had to be—lunged with inhuman speed, absorbing a dozen spear strikes as it sent the reinforcements scattering.
Lesser voidspawn surged into the gap, and in an instant, the Celestial line had buckled, the ordered ranks around the void lord dissolving into chaos that quickly rippled outward as more voidspawn filled the breach.
A pair of those hound-like voidspawn took advantage of the confusion to overpower Arem on Sarilian’s left, who let out a cry as he collapsed.
Cursing, Sarilian bashed the two voidspawn aside with his shield before hurling his spear to skewer another mid-lunge.
Holding his hand out to his side, he reformed a fresh spear from his dawnflame, sweeping its shaft around him to clear a space and give the fallen soldier time to recover.
Hope bolstered him when he saw Arem and his other comrades rallying. Their lines might be in shambles, but the battle wasn’t lost yet. No voidspawn incursion had ever breached beyond the Dawnlands’ outskirts, and he intended to ensure today would be no different.
Sarilian impaled the nearest voidspawn with a clean thrust to the chest before spinning to catch another in the throat while fending off a counterattack from his flank with his shield.
He didn’t waste time with unnecessary flourishes, keeping each strike quick and efficient as he flowed from foe to foe like the complex steps of a well-choreographed dance.
A fierce calm settled over him, instinct and training guiding his hand as surely as the Light burning bright in his breast. Only when he went to strike and found no foes left within range did he realize that the flood of voidspawn from the gate had slowed to a trickle. Somehow, they had weathered the storm.