Chapter 428: To Make the End of Battle

“Greetin’s friends!” Cedric took Alex and Isolde by the hand, pulling both to their feet. “We’re here t’turn the tide. We’ll be talkin’ later.”

Without another word, the Chosen of Uldar charged through what was left of the hordes of Ravener-spawn, unleashing a fireball—turning half a dozen bone-chargers to ash—and leaping on survivors as his morphic weapon changed into the shape of a broad axe. It shone with the light of Uldar’s power as he cleaved foes down like chaff.

The Champion, Sage and their knight companions fell on the enemy in a clash of magic, blood and metal, spraying reddened snow to the wind.

And as crimson spread like a battle flag unfurling, the defenders were spurred on in a final push against the monsters.

Alex and Theresa looked at each other and no words passed between them, leaving their gazes to tell of their relief, excitement, love and exhaustion. There would be words to express such things when the final Ravener-spawn had breathed their last, but for now...

“Theresa!” Alex shouted, tossing her a potion of haste as he flew through the air. “You and I can distract the bone-chargers! Grimloch and Claygon can finish them off!”

“Don’t worry.” The huntress’ blades shone, seeming to scream in the wind. “I’ve got them.”

She ran forward, twin blades flicking around her, splitting hide and bone as each sword strike left two wounds.

Alex gaped.

In heartbeats, death and ruin lay in the huntress’ wake as nearly a fourth of the bone-chargers littered the ground.

…at that moment, the young wizard could not describe—even in a thousand words—how attracted he was to her.

‘By the Traveller, I really do have issues…but I wouldn’t want it any other way.’ He smiled to himself, tossing sleeping potions into clouds of oncoming spear-flies, dropping them from the sky in puffs of mist.

‘Claygon, they’re all yours, buddy! Show them the brand new you!’

His golem had evolved. After all this time, he’d finally evolved. It was almost like seeing him for the first time, and Alex looked at him in amazement, wondering how much he’d changed.

Claygon moved through the sky like a reaper, herding Ravener-spawn to their doom. Where his fire-beams had once built power slowly, now they were swift to respond, and even swifter to fire. If he were a painter, his fire-beams would have been his brushes and palette knives, and the battlefield his canvas.

As spells and steel rained down on the attackers, Gwyllain and the blue stranger watched near the aeld tree as the earth shook. Gwyllain shook with it.

The terrible struggle between two pools of mana vast enough to devastate Greymoor reached a peak…then calmed as one shrivelled, then shattered like a thin sheet of glass, and the other disappeared only to abruptly reappear in the sky above. Baelin hovered above the battlefield, unscathed, cloaked in power, and wearing an expression of rage so pure, so profound, that a dragon would have cowered in fear.

“You,” his voice boomed. “Your dungeon cores are no more. Perish! You have extracted enough pain in the course of your worthless lives.”

He levelled a finger at a pack of Ravener-spawn, his words were short, his tone curt. And the power that flowed from him was like a tidal wave. It crashed into the army of monsters, freezing them, holding them as though they’d been pinned in place, then the spell went to work. They recoiled as though struck by arrows and shrieked in defiance, hissing and writhing as their bodies boiled, billowing smoke and flame from every pore.

They collapsed on themselves, a dull grey substance leaking from their skin. Alex flinched, knowing what the chancellor had dealt them: boiling lead ran from their bodies, pooling then hardening in the snow.

The ancient wizard had transmuted their life blood into the molten, lethal metal.

Scores of monsters died in heartbeats when he trained a single finger on them, and searing pain replaced all desire to do their master’s bidding. The enemy numbers dropped fast, and without dungeon cores to replenish them, bone-chargers were the first to meet oblivion, followed soon after by the last behemoth, which fell to Baelin’s war-spirits like prey to hungry wolves during a lean winter. Claygon’s flames made short work of the last hive-as-one, and clots of spear-flies shrivelled away, leaving clumps of hardening lead behind. And when the final monster breathed its last, Baelin called out in triumph.

“Victory!” The ancient wizard’s voice boomed through the courtyard. “Victory!”

Spontaneous cheers erupted, filling the air with cries of celebration and relief. Everyone was talking at once, slapping each other on the back, throwing their fists in the air, but some stood stoically, lost in the moment of triumph.

But beneath the joy, an undercurrent of grief hung around them.

The first battle at Greymoor’s Research Castle had ended in victory, to be sure.

A crushing one.

But as with all victories in battle.

There was a cost.

The victors filled the entrance hall of the keep beneath a cloud of exhaustion. Most sat or lay on folding cots warming themselves around orbs of conjured flame. Moving briskly through the centre of the chamber, blood mages worked on stabilising the wounded. Some of the injured passed in and out of consciousness on glowing forcedisks, moaning in varying levels of pain as they were transported to the infirmary. Thameish soldiers helped where they could, relieving the weary defenders and bringing broth, bread and cups of hot milk to soothe their bellies. As the tapestries of victory watched from above, Alex Roth sat against a wall, Theresa pressed to his side while his cabal sat around him.

Not a word passed between them. Not yet, for there were other conversations worth listening to. And other things to process.

Throughout the chamber, the leadership and specialists of the expedition were gathered in clutches, discussing the toll and aftermath:

“Twenty dead in the courtyard.” A Watcher to Alex’s left announced, her grim eyes scanning a tally on a scroll. “Most were reduced to stone dust. At least ten more died in the tunnels. We’ll need to—”

“The armoury and research buildings’ are compromised, right down to the foundation,” a dwarven engineer showed a schematic to a gathering of earth mages on Alex’s right. “Once the blizzard passes, you’ll need to reinforce—“

“And the creature’s remains?” Baelin asked Professor Jules in the centre of the room.

The alchemy professor shook her head. “Hopelessly ruined.” Her voice contained a growl Alex had never heard before. There was also a stiffness in her body. A forcefulness to her movements. All of it spoke of rage. “When the creature detonated, it was quite nearly completely reduced to ash. There weren’t enough remains left to catalogue. No organs.”

“Fascinating, yet disappointing,” Baelin said. “Something is shifting: we have never combatted a monster that was naturally able to self-destruct rather than let itself be captured before. That speaks of a guile and strategy built into the creature’s very design. Natural organisms do not come equipped with self-destruct mechanisms.”

“I agree, it seems it was created with that foremost in mind. I’ve seen self-destruct mechanisms in golems, but never in living creatures. Save, for some very rare and exceptional demons.” Professor Jules frowned. “Something is moving against us…what did you see below ground, chancellor? Was there anything unusual?”

The ancient wizard’s frown deepened. “I saw pain, Vernia. I saw two dungeon cores that were as beasts lashed to a wagon, made to pull a load too great to bear. They screamed in absolute agony, yet fought me with every last bit of energy they had. I broke one, but the other shattered from the overload of power. Still, for the period they lasted…they were ferocious opponents. It seemed like the very earth itself sought to destroy me.”

His nostrils flared. “If this is the sort of power that the Ravener can bring to bear, then my respect for previous generations of Thameish Heroes has greatly increased…ah, speaking of that. Where are our young friends?”

“They went to the tunnels in search of stragglers, chancellor,” a nearby Watcher said. “And they—”

“I swear,” Prince Khalik suddenly spoke, startling Alex. The broad-shouldered young man leaned against the sleeping form of Grimloch; the hulking sharkman had laid down and fallen asleep as soon as his last spear-fly wound was bandaged, and the prince had collapsed against him shortly after. He hadn’t found the strength to move.

“What do you swear?” Svenia asked, splayed out on a cot beside the sleeping Hogarth whose head was wrapped in so many bandages, his skull looked more like cloth than bone.

“That I have no wish to ever be beneath the earth again, at least at this moment.” Khalik’s eyes swam with fatigue and his beard had wilted. “I imagine I will have to get over it—or my studies of earth magic will be comically pointless—but as of right now…never again.”

“I hear that.” Thundar groaned from a cot, holding a tightly woven ice bag to his head, his body was swaddled in a blanket. “I—Achoo!”

“Bless you,” Alex and Theresa said together.

“Yeah, thanks.” The minotaur rubbed his nose. “I’d better not get sick. I’ve got something to do. Anyway, yeah, someone else can be on the excavation team for a bit: right now, if I could live on the sun, I would.”

He glanced at Theresa. “Hey, listen. Thank you, from me, my ancestors and my whole herd. If it weren’t for you going all ‘god-warrior’ or whatever the hell that was down there, I’d be a slab of bone-charger meat right now.”

The huntress held up a hand. In her lap, one of Brutus’ sleeping heads shifted. “No need to thank me—”

“It ain’t about need, Theresa. It’s about gratitude.” Thundar looked at her seriously. His tone was grave. “It’d be a great dishonour to me if I didn’t at least thank you. One day, I hope I can return the favour.”

“We’d have to be in another life or death situation,” she smiled. “And I think even I’m a bit through with those for a while.”

“Yep,” the minotaur said. “And I ain’t gonna hope it happens: especially sooner rather than later, but I do know that—even if it takes a lifetime—I will return the favour.”

The huntress stilled for a moment, then smiled weakly. “Thank you, Thundar. Thank you. But it should be my great-grandfather you should be thanking. If it weren’t for his weapon, I might be dead too.”

“Yeah.” Alex looked at the naked blades sitting beside her. They had always been beautiful, but now their metallic sheen was burnished to the shine of a mirror crafted in the finest glass. Not a speck of dust or tarnish marked them. Every reflection was perfect, and they seemed to shine with their own inner light.

He had a hard time pulling his gaze away. “Beautiful. Just like you.”

“They are, aren’t they?” She gazed at the blades warmly. “Great-grandfather’s family legacy…I finally saw it for what it truly is. They’re two swords, but they’re one weapon.”

“An impressive one at that.” Khalik saluted the blades.

“Indeed,” Isolde said groggily. The young noblewoman had just woken from a deep slumber, propped against the nearest wall. “They are handsome weapons…er, weapon, I suppose, and their power is most impressive. Many elemental knights would gladly give much for such weapons—er, I suppose, weapon would be the correct term for them in the singular? Two swords, but one weapon?”

“They are two yet one,” Theresa said. “I think singular or plural works.”

“Either way, they are magnificent.”

“I’m sure my great-grandfather would be proud to hear you say that.”

“And I’m sure he would’ve been proud of you.” Alex kissed her cheek. “I’m proud of you…and I’m thankful to him: helped you come back. He helped keep all of us together.”

She smiled and kissed him, scrunching her face up as his beard tickled her lips. “I’m pretty proud of Claygon.”

Her eyes took in the towering golem of white stone standing silently above them, his spear poised to protect them from all threats. His fire-gems gleamed with a new light, one that drew the eye.

Now—for the first time since the battle’s end and Claygon’s evolution—Alex had a chance to see how he’d changed.

And, so far, he liked what he saw.