AT THE DRAGONGATES, Israfel found an assembly of Sentinel Corps and few notable rank Captains from other Years. The combat lines had four separate divisions, each column of cadets and their wingleaders a feet apart. The gathering stood at ease, the Fourth Years among spearheading with steadfast stares and hands hooked behind their backs.
At the head of the charge was the Professor of the Dark Arts Cultivation, Dr. Emery Blood. The [Fifth Hel Circle] demon Professor.
Dr. Blood stood on a makeshift stage that had been quickly constructed when news from the patrols first hit the main towers. He was gallant in his bloodred robes behind the wooden podium. In the looming threat of the wards breach, every single one of those students in the lines knew if it came to it, a good percentage wouldn't be alive by the time the eclipse of the Holocaust Spell passed.
"At ease, brave souls of Corynthia." Dr. Blood boomed loudly in greeting. Though he was all of five feet tall, the respect—and fear—of him was clear in the students eyes. One didn't see many Valak Red Tribe demons so high of infernal origins present on mortal plane. Dr. Blood spoke of the agenda after the militarized salutation.
"You honor this great arcane institute by availing yourselves at the fronts. The foe we are set to battle is fierce and bloodthirsty. I urge no one of you to have any illusions of being a hero. This is an order. We fight together. As a team.
As a shield. And if we fall, we fall as one. BUT WE WON'T. Not for a fucking Bodywalker!"
"YAHH!" All ranks saluted.
From the new inducted cadets to the well-striped Eagle commandants leading the four stellar divisions. They hailed his words with outstretched arms, pulling those saluting hands back again swiftly and stiffly: like muskets at a Sea Admiral's funeral. It was upon this call to arms that Rafel dove down from the sky on his pegasus.
Generally, the winged horses were prohibited from active school grounds. All wild magical creatures; they grazed the moors far, up north, on the green paradise of the uninhabited islands. Unicorns. And Pegasi. And Hippogriffs. Kangaroos.
And Wendigos. And literally every strange mutation in existence that harbored a smidge of like for mankind. It was in part rumored that a friendly Tyrannosaurus even dwelt in the oasis under the plateaus.
Either way, this moment called for Rafel to bend the academy's rules—but just a little.
He hadn't even bothered with the spiral stairs back when he was leaving the citadel. Sister Mercy's and Dr. Ivoria's praying eyes' were the last thing he saw as he leaped off the first stone balcony he could find. Plummeting with great speed, he summoned on his favorite war horse, Agamemnon—the black beast that had bloodied its hooves in victory with him at Skyfall.
Just a hundred feet from solid red earth, the clouds parted and the obsidian wonder glided down and swooped out its wings, breaking Rafel's fall. Witches by the citadel's windows watched them climb up into the dark sky.
Presently, Rafel alighted from Agamemnon, petting the heaving ebony muzzle. His horse had hair like a tropical singer: glossy, black, and rich like a river. He whispered into the beast's ear, "off you go now, Aga. We don't want them putting a chain around your neck. Then what shall all the shrewd mares do? Fly my pet.
Fly."
The black horse leaped into the air, and in seconds of strong wind had merged into the bleak eclipse.
Dr. Blood was saying as Rafel creeped up last into the line of the fourth division: "The general order is to hold back the lines of our Shield formation. We hold until our druids seal the break in the wards, so there will be no civilian casualties. When confirmation has been sent by blue signal from a smoke gun and bugle, we enter the fray. Only then do we engage.
"Duuuuuck!" Rafel yelled.
He grabbed her fat dreads and pulled her head back. The dagger's blade sliced through air. It was a move so strong Rafel felt the breeze of the violent swipe on his face. Bolta's eyes widened as she instantly came on guard. As the daughter of the Olympian god, she was nearly impossible to kill. But not confronted with a maniac cutthroat.
She screamed into the tunnels.
"The Wingleader is the Bodywalker! Repeat: the Wingleader has been compromised!"
"Shit."
"Fuck."
Rants went up.
"Everyone. Move back. NOW!" Bolta pushed back with the force, running in the same way they had come. It was a stampede. The poor souls in the Wingleader's path were cut down, and blood splashed on the walls in a splatter. The wingleader sliced through corp sentinels like butter.
Heads went flying. Limbs. Entrails. Eventually, the tunnels were just a long hollow gore. Soldiers peeled out in uniforms soaked in crimson. And the druids hadn't even blocked the leak in the wards.
Rafel saved those he could by teleporting them out of the bloodbath.
A girl stumbled over her friend's ripped shoulder, vomiting. A brother knelt under his impaled sister's head. Her body was a mess of raw meat in a pile. He waited for death. A few injured dragged on the bloodied ground, trying to reach the exit. Rafel knew there was no hope for them and grabbed the last girl missing an eye—the left one, dangling from the socket by a nerve.
He vanished in a cloud of shadows, appearing at Bolta's side.
"Seal the tunnels! There's no hope for them."
The rank captain closest to her gasped. "What? No. Fuck no! There's still soldiers alive in there!"
Rafel didn't answer the man as he lowered the girl bleeding out her face to the earth. He lifted his eyes and shook his head from side to side. Bolta nodded, commanding out.
"You heard the man! SEAL THE FUCKING TUNNELS!"
The cadets at the doors grinded the gears and a solid wall of metal began to grate down on the opening. Inside the dim horror of that blood drenched place, the possessed wingleader snarled and dropped the soft human arm he was munching on.
And then, he began to run for the closing gates.