Salvation

by voroshilov

The Hunt

“Command, we have made contact with enemy headquarters, orders?”

“8th Maniple, this is Command, contact report received. Retaliator Squad is moving to assist.”

A stir came up from the Warrior garrisoning the foxhole east of the pulse gun. “Retaliator Squad?” She yelled in question. “Since when do we have a Retaliator Squad?”

The pulse gun shrieked its shrill, whining tune, bolts of bright orange illuminating the front line of the cultist force.

“Doesn’t matter,” the Maniple’s sergeant shouted back, “so long as they can fight.”

The pulse gun’s hail of fire stopped a moment. From the sergeant’s positions could be seen one of the crew unjamming it by striking the action with a hatchet hammer, freeing the half-solidified clumps of molten metal and dropping them to the ground.

“Clear!” The Warrior shouted, with the pulse gun opening up again practically an instant after.

In the time the maintenance took, however, the cultists had already began to swarm the makeshift defence. A moment of dreadful clarity seemed to cross the Warrior alongside the Maniple’s sergeant.

“Don’t think we can hold them, sir!”

Like the tide, the cultists just kept gradually rolling in. They charged forwards, completely unnoticing of the corpses of their former comrades they clambered over. For every one the pulse gun burned a molten hole through, another two crawled out over the gradually heightening beam of bodies.

But backup always arrived.

A streak of golden light saw hundreds of cultist bodies - living and dead alike - tossed aside like ragdolls. Emerging from a scorched circle was the Archon, Astrid, hair flowing like the sea in the air. Wrapped in the silvery silks of her battle robe - designed more to show off her svelte physique than anything else - with dreamblade glowing white hot, she strode almost casually forwards. As if to prove the eyes of those who looked on her form wrong, she lifted a cultist by his head with a single hand and tossed him into the distance with a single flick of her wrist.

Heralded by a cloud of flaming needles, blocking out the sun but providing no shadow, came the orange missile of Ablazed Glory. Fitting for one made of fire, her arrival scorching a hole through the cultist lines, her fog of magical fire burning away the rest. Lurid red slit pupils darted back and forth, scanning every inch of the new ground; whilst, atop her head, flaming knife-like auricles swivelled. Her metre-long serpentine tongue winded in air and mouth, its crackling flames creating a menacing silhouette, a true reminder of her heritage: the Demon Lord of Flame, Nicholas.

A sudden, crackling black fog covered a cultist squadron. When it dissipated, with a burst of static, the previously living squadron had been replaced by a melted lump of flesh and Cain. In the light of the late-morning’s starlight, its brass chassis - formed in the likeness of a skeleton - glittered. Beneath its great fan headdress - fashioned like the crown of kings who were ancient to ancients - a single red sun sought out violence. Behind its gaze and brass skeleton worked an ancient artificial understanding.

Behind Cain erupted a burst of magenta light. Emerging from its shield came first Sun Glow, a small unicorn with golden coat, clad in silver armour. Joining her seconds later was Moon Glow, with white coat, otherwise identical. The twin sisters locked their sunken grey eyes to the cultist forces beyond. They spoke instantly and in silence, and, as one, they lifted from the earth two great pillars of gold and black smoke, respectively. In an instant, the front line of the cultist force was gone. Both their manes, orange and blue respectively, sparkled as if possessed by starlight.

Above them all, haloed with a crackling aura of magenta magic, was Penumbra. Her leathery wings, tipped with claws, were outstretched to their full forty metre span, and glided her in steadily. All along her deep, almost black, purple coat danced sparks of magical energy; whilst her shimmering indigo mane, suspended like tendrils beneath water, felt out the air around her. She touched the ground some metres ahead of the cultist lines, muscular legs compressing to launch her forwards, her razor sharp wingtips and mighty claws tearing apart anything in her path.

“Supreme Devastation is up ahead,” Astrid called out, in that wonderfully melodic, yet almost ghostly, tone of hers.

“He doesn’t have any of the big guys with him,” Ablazed Glory added, her own voice carrying the ever-present fiery determination that had carried her through so much.

“Hostile forces outnumber us approximately one hundred and seventeen to one,” Cain recited, its every word steady, equal in pitch and volume, and always carrying that sense of ancient wisdom.

“Evils,” the Glow Sisters chorused, in their perfectly synchronised and identical manner, “evils all in front.”

“Retaliator Squad, let’s get this done,” Penumbra projected her voice with magic, her order booming from her throat.

As one, the team surged forwards. Astrid cleaved five cultists in two with her dreamblade, with a hail of magical fire over her shoulders from Ablazed Glory brought down five more. Cain snapped its laser back and forth, turning cultists’ heads into ash. The Glow Sisters brought up sorcery after sorcery, punching holes deep in the cultist lines. Whilst Penumbra, practically burning with magic, charged forwards like a torpedo, carving a gash through the cultists, aiming directly for Supreme Devastation.

The leader of the cultist forces could be identified easily. Supreme Devastation was broad, almost entirely muscle, clad in silvery, ornamental armour instead of the traditional black cloak of the cultist forces. His head was entirely covered by a helmet, with no features save a shape essentially like that of a head. A scythe was planted hilt first into the ground a few metres from his side, though he himself held a large, black flail.

Finally, Penumbra thought, something new.

“At last,” Supreme Devastation bellowed, as if his voice was emanating from the very bottom of his throat, “you come to duel me, one-on-one.”

Penumbra chuckled inwardly - another verbal spar before the main duel began. “If you can call mopping up a straggler a duel.”

“Ah!” Supreme Devastation’s only functioning emotion seemed to be a boisterous, bellowing anger, “ah ha! Let us hope your fighting is as good as your talking.”

He swung out with his flail, with Penumbra narrowly avoiding it with a burst of her wings.

Admittedly, she thought, I’d expected that to last longer. He’s impatient, good to know.

Though Supreme Devastation’s flail swings seemed unthinkingly brutal, his savagery was clever, considered, and trained. But, his timings were still partially off - by about half a second - he was practically itching to attack. Penumbra’s plan was simple: keep away from him for long enough, bait him into a mistake, then push the attack.

Despite her size, Penumbra was incredibly agile. The same, however, could not be said for her opponent - he was strong but, in the grand scheme of things, he was slow. Though each swing of his flail smashed craters into the ground, each one was almost easy for Penumbra to avoid with simple beats of her wings or forceful pushes from her powerful legs.

Soon enough, the faint aroma of adrenaline began to enter Penumbra’s nose. Supreme Devastation, exactly as she had planned, had started getting angry. No doubt he believed her to be just toying with him - even though she still found no good openings for an attack.

Every attack struck harder, every off-timing got wider. Supreme Devastation showed no signs of tiring, however, in fact he seemed to be pushing even further. But his attacks still weren’t timed correctly and that was all Penumbra really needed.

Seven seconds, Penumbra thought, I have seven seconds between attacks. In seven seconds I can strike short twice up towards the chest, then pull back, or hit his neck if I can stagger him the first time. A few of those should be good.

Supreme Devastation swung his flail round, impacting the ground with a thud and the sound of shattering stone. The instant one of the flail’s curved spikes impacted the ground, Penumbra shot forwards, striking twice with her sword at a thirty degree angle up from Supreme Devastation’s sternum. Something that wasn’t quite bone cracked audibly and her quarry was knocked slightly back. Swinging her sword around in a full loop, Penumbra sliced towards his neck, cutting it practically in half and spraying an oily black substance everywhere.

Leaping back, she took stock of the damage she had done. Unlike the Heralds she had fought before, Supreme Devastation appeared to carry the mortal quality of being able to comprehend injury. He clutched at the gash in his neck, still leaking the black fluid that was presumably his blood.

“Ow,” he seemed to mumble.

What sort of damage have I done, Penumbra thought, come on give me at least some sign.

With a final spurt of black oil, the flow of liquid from Supreme Devastation’s wounds stopped. The punctures in his chest began to close, his sternum audibly coming back together. His neck remained mostly detached, though the bone and tendons were fusing together again.

“Fucking hell,” Penumbra murmured, “of course you can do that.”

What the hell do I do now?

She jumped another body length back. Her mind began to race, she had to think of a plan, and fast. Supreme Devastation seemed to feel pain - unlike the Heralds - but also was able to heal - again, unlike the Heralds. Having only fought the scythe wielding automatons and the Cult’s Leader up until that point, Penumbra’s tactical library for this type of situation was nigh empty;
rapidly, she set about writing new mental books, she would need them very, very soon.

That black fluid, her mind had become stuck on it. The black fluid, what did it mean? Was it blood - if it was blood then no doubt removing all or most of it would kill him? If it wasn’t blood, then what was it? She decided she needed some of it.

She took to the skies. Supreme Devastation was a good few metres tall, and accurate enough with his flail to effectively triple his height, but Penumbra’s agility should place her in the advantage.

I’ll get in over his head, Penumbra thought, then push downwards. With the right timing, I can get a sample of the fluid and get out of range without being hit.

However, she knew full well that doing so would be far easier said than done. Though being airborne made her even more agile, it also allowed for Supreme Devastation to cover practically his entire person by spinning his flail above him at increasingly faster speeds. The opportunity to attack was rapidly falling away.

She brought herself down onto Supreme Devastation’s head in a corkscrew manoeuvre. At the last possible instant, she threw around her sword to catch the chain of his flail, then sliced open his scalp with her claws. Satisfied she had enough of the black liquid to analyse, she struck down again, using the reaction to her strike to propel her upwards and forwards. A chunk of Supreme Devastation’s head went in the opposite direction.

Running the black fluid through her claws, she lit her horn and allowed it to be engulfed with telekinesis. She ran the spell over in her mind, trying to remember the exact layout of the matrix in the heat of the moment - which way did it overlap? Did it overlap at all?

It came to her eventually, surfacing from the black depths of her memory. Rapidly, the spell identified the black fluid, it was certainly some form of blood - containing a fairly high concentration of myoglobin - though contained a number of other odd components such as over one hundred parts per million of arsenic and around twenty five parts per million of Potassium Cyanide.

Draining his blood would probably make him healthier.

Slowly, the clump of head that had been torn off began to heal up. All the while, though, Supreme Devastation seemed to slow slightly, as if healing was making him weaker. The damage she had done was not superficial, either, so healing would take a good few minutes, at least.

More of that, she thought, and I can probably kill him fairly quickly. The more damage I do, the more damage I can do.

With a kick of her hind legs she shot herself forwards like a missile. Folding her wings around her body, she formed the shape of a bullet, using her minute control over her feathers to twist her into a spin, sword and horn prepared to take the brunt of the impact.

Supreme Devastation didn’t appear to be capable of reaction. When struck - a blow which tore out a good half of his torso - he simply mumbled and slouched back, allowing the Penumbra-missile to pass straight through him.

Penumbra’s magic charged hairs prickled, letting the poison riddled black blood slide right off. Her horn crackled and sparked as it analysed the impact: Supreme Devastation’s flesh was just that - flesh - with no abnormal strength and even minor weakness in the bone beneath; a few more attacks would probably suffice to kill.

A mumbling came from his throat and he staggered sideways - knees collapsing inwards.

Some warrior, Penumbra found herself thinking, all bark and no bite.

Penumbra threw her sword at him like a javelin, impaling him in the sternum with an echoing crack. He staggered backwards, both injured further and confused as to why. With a flick of her magic, she pulled her sword out and returned it to her talons.

He was taking rather a lot to finally kill, though it wasn’t proving even remotely taxing to his attacker. Penumbra had taken to slowly lobbing objects at him, saving the magical energy she had stored. Every impact did further damage, though Supreme Devastation’s threshold for such seemed to be near infinite.

“Alright,” Penumbra said, at last, “time’s up, I’m done with you now.”

She closed the gap in one leaping stride and sliced off Supreme Devastation’s armoured head with a flick of her sword wielding talon. It fell to the floor with a metallic crunch, his body collapsing backwards slowly after it.

A distant panicked scream erupted, like tens of thousands of voices all coalescing into one. In an instant, she felt an aura of terminal fear all around her - emanating, she had no doubt, from the cultist armies. Exactly as she had predicted, the death of Supreme Devastation had routed them - finally, the Dominion defenders could rest easy.

She sat back onto her haunches, breathing out and letting the calm wash over her - adrenaline fading from her system.

“Good job,” she mumbled in self-congratulation.

Barely a moment went by before Astrid appeared over the earthen beam that separated the ruins’ centre point from the surrounding battleground. Unlike Penumbra, however, Astrid was decidedly not calm.

“Penumbra,” she yelled, her magical voice projecting as if to be right next to Penumbra’s ear, “look up!”

Oh no.

Above her, casting her into a shadow, were three writhing, segmented creatures.

The Worms had come.