Chapter 67 #2
A rain of fire fell over the battlefield, detonating over their army. Screams rang. Alora dove, launching out her magic to shield them. Lady Zinnia and Sorceress Solara did the same, casting a golden shield over the hills until the onslaught stopped.
Vorak’s body convulsed, collapsing inward before exploding outward in a surge of shadow and black gale.
Limbs stretched and distorted, form unraveling into something vast and monstrous, a living tempest of claw, lightning, and void.
All scattered back, running out of the way as his titanic form took over the land.
Rune snatched her to the top of the Hydell Hills as they watched the maelstrom take form, whipping the wind with ash and rain.
The Realm screamed beneath the transformation as the Devourer returned to what he truly was.
The end given shape.
Rune’s shadows rose high in answer and ignited.
His body burned like black flame, darkness weaving through with crimson fire as he flew down to meet him.
His body stretched, his presence towering, the weight of him pressing down on the world like a second nightfall as his dragon form emerged and stretched over the expanse of the kingdom.
The dragon’s roar shook the cliffs.
And the mountain shuddered beneath the weight of its power, stone groaning as the air itself split.
He turned once to Alora, his crimson eyes searing. Stay back, Alora, his voice resounded through her mind, equal parts command and plea. This battle is mine to fight.
His wings sliced through the clouds like blades, molten shadows trailing from each stroke of his massive form as he flew toward Vorak.
Shadow and crimson light collided, ripping the sky apart.
The storm had broken.
Then they were gone, too fast for the eye to follow. They were streaks of red and black against the backdrop of the Blood Moon, their shapes striking and parting, roars ringing across the Heavens.
Alora’s heart pounded with every exchange, each impact clashing in her chest.
The battle rose higher until they vanished behind the thick clouds. Only a blur of a dragon and crimson light flashed with every flash of lightning and stream of fire.
The mountain groaned beneath them. The clouds churned with flames and shadow in a tempest so violent it tore trees from their roots and sent rivers boiling into steam.
Alora was forced to look away when snarls and keening calls carried over the Hydell Hills. Another wave of the Wild Hunt streamed toward them.
The Harbingers lined up beside her, weapons ready. Shadows shifted at her feet, twisting around her, falling to her command.
Rune had his battle to face.
This one was hers.
Cape snapping in the wind, Alora raised her glaive and shouted. “Ver nocthra vi’ignis vo’karr!”
The demons echoed the chant, their voices rising in a thunderous roar. The sound reverberated through her being.
This was her world.
Through fire and shadow, she claimed it.
Then the Court of Sin and Ruin rushed after her as she charged to meet that deadly force.
Glaive blazed, Alora hurled herself into the squall.
The Wild Hunt came in a tide of death and bone, riders blurring together, blades carving slaughter through her ranks. With an enraged scream, a beam of Alora’s light struck the front flank, flashing like a shard of dawn. Sparks cut across the army of the damned, burning all flesh beneath.
Hadeon surged ahead at her signal, Wrath Court steel slamming into the first riders like a living battering ram.
And the two armies clashed.
Fire caught along the hills as siege torches overturned, trees igniting in sudden blooms of flame.
Smoke rolled thick and choking, stinging her eyes, turning the battlefield into a red-lit nightmare of screams and silhouettes.
Wherever the Hunt passed, mortal and demon fell screaming, souls ripped free in pale spirals that vanished shrieking into the dark behind them.
Alora moved where the line faltered, her magic singing through the air as she cut riders from their mounts, white fire ripping them apart mid-charge.
Deimos flitted in and out of shadow, screams marking his path. A wall of thorns cut along the ridge in violent bursts of green and gold as Zinnia and the fae led an attack on the left flank. Calla led the right, her chakram flashing silver-red.
The demon warpath streamed around Alora in a merciless stream. There was no sense of time, or how long they viciously fought. She eliminated waves of Vorak’s forces.
Yet the Hunt did not slow.
For every rider felled, two more tore through the smoke.
The ground had turned to mud beneath a constant stream of blood.
It trembled, the air itself twisting as if the world recoiled.
And the tide of the battle changed. The Pride faction collapsed beneath an onslaught of darkness and smoke, and screams rose up from Paladin ranks.
Then resistance turned into desperation and fear.
A shock of panic cut through her senses when a division of the Wild Hunt veered toward Argyle.
“No…” Alora breathed.
The city gates loomed in the distance, banners burning above stone walls already blackened by smoke. Horns blared in frantic warning. The beacons on the battlement blazed with Lady Solara’s sunlight and beams of light shot down in a searing path. But there were too many.
The Hunt surged forward, a river of death pouring toward her people. Minotaurs formed brutal walls of Moonstone shields and muscle, bracing at the gates.
And they were cut down in seconds.
The Hunt tore through them without slowing, bodies crushed and scattered beneath hooves and shadow-blades. Then the Hunt soared over the walls. Screams followed as Argyle soldiers were hurled from the battlements to their deaths.
“Hold!” Alora’s chest tightened, horror clawing up her spine as she ran to them. “Hold the gates!”
If that host breached the castle—
The bond splintered.
It was not pain as she knew it, but rupture. An agony so vast it stole the breath from Alora’s lungs and drove her to her knees. Fire and shadow tore through her chest, a sensation of wings breaking, of something ancient and vital splitting apart.
Rune’s presence flared once in her mind, then faltered, slipping through her grasp like smoke through open fingers.
Alora whipped her head up.
From the eye of the churning clouds, a massive black shape fell, wings folding in on themselves as the dragon plummeted in a trail of ash and blood.
Alora’s scream tore from her soul. “RUNE!”