Chapter 6. Escape from Ash Valley. Part 3.
For a week the mercenaries fled under relentless assault, sleeping fitfully in shifts and never releasing their weapons, not even during their sleep. The fomorians harried them mercilessly day and night, striking hard before vanishing into shadows like spectral phantoms.
Every dawn brought fresh horrors – dead comrades left to rot where they fell. Forronus pushed onward through exhaustion and despair, to get his men out of the Ash Valley.
– Halt! – he bellowed one midnight, sword drawn as he turned on his men: – Two hours rest only! I’ll brook no arguments!
Muttering protests died on parched lips at sight of their commander’s eyes, glazed with weariness, but still burning bright behind dark visor. They knew better than to question.
Around them stretched endless night, punctuated by distant howls that set teeth on edge and made battle-weary hands shake. This was madness, a never-ending retreat into hell’s maw.
Forronus collapsed next to his men, eyes closing against stinging smoke drifting from some unseen pyre.
– Sleep while you can, – he whispered hoarsely, before closing his own eyes.
Two hours later he was awake, using his relentless will to move forward.
– On your feet! We go!
No one argued this time. With weary groans and aching limbs they dragged themselves back on their feet, turning eastward once more towards a fate that felt increasingly inevitable.
Lilith looked back and squeezed her sword hilt. Ground changed from flat land to small hills. Mercenaries separated into small groups, to get past this terrain. She and forty other mercenaries were positioned in the north, and were slowly walking towards mountains, which surrounded Ash Valley.
Lilith noticed a movement, and next moment fomorians rain down on then, from both sides, running down the hills.
– To arms! – roared Torgrim, who was left in charge of their group: – Lilith, Moronius take left side. Others with me.
Instead of defense Torgrim chose to attack to avoid being surrounded. Lilith concentrated on her spells, and casted Slow on approaching fomorians.
Lilith’s heart pounded as fomorians swarmed down the hills, their bestial roars filling the air.
– To arms! – Torgrim bellowed, urging them into a desperate charge, before they could be surrounded.
The ground trembled underfoot as she raced to meet the onslaught, hands already weaving an intricate spell. Lilith with grim satisfaction watched as the foremost fomorians’ movements began to lag.
But there were so many! Their stunted forms crashed into her allies shield wall, like waves against a cliff, snarling and slashing with rusted blades. A monstrous figure lunged at Lilith from the shadows, eyes gleaming with hateful intelligence. She parried its strike with her sword, countering with a spell that sent it screeching back into the gloom.
All around them men were falling, dragged down by numbers or felled by lucky blows.
– Hold fast! – roared Moronius over the din of battle, spotting that Torgrim was cut down amidst the chaos.
A flash of crimson caught Lilith’s eye – Sharr dancing through foes like a demon from hell, his tail lashing out to smite any who dared approach. Beside him Moronius fought with cold precision, each stroke finding its mark.
But it wasn’t enough. One by one Lilith’s allies succumbed to wounds or exhaustion until only she and her own men remained. standing amid a carpet of broken bodies.
The fomorians seemed to sense victory close at hand. Torgrim’s men tried to flee, but were cut down before they could escape. Just as they surged forward in a final charge, something extraordinary happened.
Azael suddenly loomed up behind the charging fomorians, his form expanding until he towered over them like a god of old. As they turned to face this new threat, their eyes widened in horror.
The fallen angel’s sword blazed with celestial fire! Azael swept it before him, unleashing a torrent of searing flame that sent the monsters shrieking and clawing at their melting flesh.
Those who managed to evade the inferno were cut down by swift, merciless blows from his radiant blade.
– Run, – screamed one of the fomorians: – Run while you can!
The surviving fomorians needed no further urging. They turned tail and fled into the hills, their pitiful howls fading, as Azael stood silhouetted against an orange sky.
He surveyed the aftermath of slaughter, eyes smoldering behind his hood.
– Lilith, – he called out softly, sheathing his flaming sword with a hiss of steam.
The woman stumbled over to him, gaze darting between her fallen comrades and this strange new manifestation of their companion.
– What…what happened? – she asked hoarsely: – Azael, you?
But no words could capture the transformation she beheld. Only one thought crystallized amid the smoke and screams.
– My people call it Faming Sword skill, – answered Azael: – Once acquired it allows us to use celestial fire to banish enemies of God.
Azael watched last fomorians disappear beyond the hill, when he suddenly staggered and collapsed, his body hitting the ground with a bone-jarring thud. Cian rushed to his side, kneeling in blood-slick mud, as he reached out tentatively.
– Azael? – he whispered urgently: – What’s wrong? Can you hear me?
The fallen angel lay still as death, face hidden behind his hood, but every line of his body radiated exhaustion. Slowly, with visible effort, he turned towards Tuatha Dé Danann voice.
His eyes fluttered open to reveal a swirl of celestial light, momentarily blinding Cian, before fading back to their usual smoldering glow.
– Too much, – he rasped hoarsely, each word an obvious struggle: – The power…it consumes.
Azael’s head lolled against the dirt, as he surrendered to unconsciousness once more.
– Kragor, pick him up: – ordered Lilith: – We are leaving. We go south.
– But we were supposed to retreat East, – reminded Cian.
– Do what you are told. And make it fast, – ordered Lilith: – Sharr, stop searching the fomorian corpses and hurry up, before I leave you.
Kragor lumbered over to Azael’s prone form, massive hands carefully lifting the fallen angel, as gently as a mother cradling her child. Lilith watched him go, jaw set with grim determination.
– We go south, – she repeated firmly: – Forronus and his men are likely dead or scattered. We cannot afford to linger here any longer.
Cian opened his mouth as if to protest, then thought better of it, after seeing the fire in her eyes. He turned away instead, scanning their surroundings for any sign of pursuit.
Sharr reluctantly abandoned his grisly search, tail flicking with annoyance, but following Lilith’s orders nonetheless. The group fell into a hurried formation around Kragor and Azael.
– Stay alert, – Lilith warned, as they set out at a brisk pace: – The fomorians may return with reinforcements.
She glanced back over her shoulder once, gaze lingering on the blood-soaked earth where so many had fallen. Torgrim’s face flashed through her mind – stoic and brave to the end.
– Onward, – Lilith murmured quietly, more to herself than anyone else: – Our path lies south now.
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