The solid impact of melting flesh sinking to the earth was highlighted by the comparatively subdued forest. Only the rustling of leaves in the calm breeze provided contrast to the silence. Smoke from the charred corpse rose in grey streams before being taken westward by the wind.
Both Mosel and Hayle ran over to their travelling companion. He wasn’t in good condition. He was losing too much blood from his torn apart shoulder and his leg was clearly broken. Hayle reached into one of his pouches and produced an antiseptic poultice and a roll of bandages. Within a minute, the bleeding was stemmed and the wound was dressed. He checked the leg too, it was bad, but they were short on time. He cut through a sapling and strapped a length to Reid’s leg before getting up, taking one if his arms, and rolling over him in a swift motion. He came up from the roll carrying the wounded man.
“Let’s get moving, we’ll be walking all night without our horses.” Hayle said “Just try to make sure we aren’t being followed.”
He stepped around the charred corpse and proceeded east. The setting sun was at their backs as they began the long trip across the rolling hills.
“That one was probably the last straggler of a group, his friends must have eaten our horses. I’ve got to say I didn’t know what to expect from this forest, but this wasn’t it.”
The walk back to Einstadt was uneventful, though Hayle was looking near the limits of his stamina by the time they made it there. The sun was already inching past the horizon to the east when they got to the outskirts of farmland at the far reaches of the city.
When they got closer to the keep, their peculiarity began drawing looks from the locals. Reid was an injured noble on the back of a knight, Hayle looked exhausted from carrying him, and Mosel wasn’t a normal sight for any regular peasant to see during their morning errands. Ahead of them a few people were rushing away. Probably going to inform some kind of authority about the wounded party walking through town.
Before they could make it past another dozen houses, a group of clerics were hurrying toward them. They came with a covered wagon and a trio of horses. Two pulling the cart and one with the captain of the guard riding alongside them.
“Oh no no no, this doesn’t look good at all. Lord Reid requires our most urgent attentions.” They helped Hayle around the cart and helped him put Reid gently down into a pile of blankets in the back of the wagon.
“Thanks lads.”, Hayle nearly collapsed to the ground upon finally being released of the burden but managed to stay upright. “Is he gonna be alright?” He asked as he started regaining his composure, sweat and exhaustion making it difficult.
“You let this happen to him didn’t you!” Another, yet unnoticed character joined the fray, Lord Einstad. “You let my son be defiled by those beasts!” The cleric who appeared to be in charge tried moving into his path as he stormed toward Hayle.
“Sir, please, I doubt we can lay blame on him-” He was cut off as the noble shoved him aside, he looked surprisingly well dressed considering the hour. He had probably been up for some kind of meeting with the nobility.
“Einstad I-”
“Silence!” he shouted, getting right into Hayle’s face. “You utter worthless knight I should strip you of all rank right here and now! Why did I think you would be worth leading my army when you let something like this happen to my son!”
Hayle felt his strength returning and tensed, this ungrateful son of a bitch, I just walked for hours with your damned pathetic excuse for a man “son” on my back! A snarl began threatening to impress onto his face but before anything could happen, Mosel interrupted.
“Sir, I believe Hayle is not entirely at fault here, your son was quite incautious during the mission, and had our friend the knight here” He gestures to Hayle, “he would absolutely have been dead before I could have reacted. “If it wasn’t for him, Reid would have had his torso crushed before I so much as flinched to try rescuing him.”
He clearly wasn’t satisfied, but he gave Hayle one more malicious glare and snapped at Mosel.
“Come! I’m going to ride with my son, if those clerics can’t help him I’ll have them all excommunicated from the church!” he stalked to the back of the carriage and climbed in.
The horses were whipped into motion and turned their wagon back toward the heart of the city.
The head cleric walked up to Hayle. “Sorry sir, he’s understandably displeased at the sight of his son. My name is Aith, I saw him, he will not keep that arm unless we can acquire more powerful casters from the capital. I hope he does not hold that against us.”
Hayle spoke through gritted teeth, beginning to cool down, but still angry at Einstad. “Yeah, I’ll just do what I came here to do and then leave.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, the momentary boon of adrenaline wearing off and leaving him feeling more drained than before. “I’ll try to remember you Aith, let me know if there’s anything I can do to help, after I win this war.”
He looks around at the houses and then back to Aith. “Do you happen to know of an inn near here, I’m afraid I need to rest”
“Well, there is one on the next street over, I’m sure you’ll be ready for the assault we’re planning tonight.”
“Tonight?” Hayle was mildly shocked at the expedience with which they planned to attack Albin’s forces, considering his foray into the forest had been their most in depth scouting mission so far. “I suppose I’ll leave Mosel to tell you the details of what we saw, I’ll request they wake me by noon if they have to dump me from the bed into a tub.”
A couple of hours later, Hayle was fast asleep in a cheap bed paid for by mere coppers, on the other side of the city, however, his old friends were filing in. A dozen of the finest men Hayle had ever known, hulking masses of muscle, armour, and weapons. They called themselves his shields.
“Looks not too bad!” Eiric boisterously boomed as they got into a visual range to truly take in the mountain range the keep was embedded in. He was the commander of the shields, a sergeant for Knight Hayle. In their leader’s absence, he was in charge of the group, and through him the shields commanded the entire fighting force. Behind them were over two thousand soldiers of Hayle’s banner.
“Yeah, I didn’t really know how beautiful this place looked.” A slightly smaller man still large by any other comparison chimed in. He was adorned in heavy robes that looked as though they would stop a sword mid-swing and negate the force of it just as well. The man was named Karl and he was as much a spellcaster as a frontline brick wall of muscle could be. He came complete with a greying beard, the aforementioned robes, and a great hafted weapon with a short blade on the end akin to a wizard’s staff.
They would arrive in the city within the hour and begin setting up a temporary war camp to the west of it. Then they would get a nice feast going before they went to war.
The dozen of them continued on with their forces in tow.
Hayle’s door rattling woke him up.
“Mr. Hayle, I was told to wake you up.” came a slight voice from the other side.
He groaned and sat up, he’d fallen asleep the instant he had lied down. To him, the moment his eyes had shut was the moment he opened them. His mind rushed to get used to the surroundings, it was a bit faster for him than it would have been anyone else. The moment he recognized where he was he jolted upward in the bed.
“Yeah thanks” he managed to get out. “Eengh.” he sat up the rest of the way and swung his feet over the side of the bed. “I’m up, I’m up.”
He stood up and got ready for the day to come.
Ten minutes later, he was walking out the front door clad shoulders down in steel, sword at his hip. He walked downstairs and took some bread and cooked sausage off the chef, leaving a gold piece in the innkeeper's palm and walking out.
He stretched his weary muscles and walked back toward the main road. It looked as though an army had trampled through the streets. He smiled.
“Right on time, men.” he thought, and began walking west toward the smoke of cookfires over the hilly horizon.
When he arrived at the camp he was greeted by one of the corporals.
“Afternoon sir, we’re all set up and ready to go at a moment’s notice!” he said.
Hayle put his hand on the man’s shoulder and informed him of the evening’s plans.
“I’ve been informed by Lord Einstad that we’ll be attacking Albin’s forces within the hour. How many of the shields are here?”
“All of them, sir.”
“Right, well then, I’ll see you later, I have to get to the command tent and go over this with them.”
A few minutes later he was walking in through the command tent’s front, guards saluting as he entered. The men inside looked over to see who had interrupted them but ended up roaring in recognition as they recognized him.
“The man himself returns!” shouted Eiric.
The men all stood from their chairs and gave him a round of nods.
“When will you have the men ready to move out?” Hayle asked.
“We could have them move out within the hour sir, they’re just finishing lunch.” a familiar voice came from his left, Karid stood next to the large table, still wearing his heavy chainmail and the layer of steel plate mail overtop. His weapon though, lay stood against the table, it was a heavy broadsword at least six feet long and four inches wide.
Hayle smirked at the memory and suppressed a little laugh at the memory of him cutting not only an armoured rider, but also his mount, completely in half during an older battle with that weapon.
Before they began talking about the battle they had a quick few moments discussing the happening back in Candegron’s capital. It turns out the king had been implementing new laws that made it more difficult for the common folk to rise into the nobility. This wouldn’t normally have affected Hayle himself, considering he came from a noble family and just managed to rise to a better position within it. However, all but one of his shieldbearers had come from peasantry that fought alongside him, the exception being Karl, a man who trained under the court mages in his childhood.
Though he had been cast out for an incident involving a roast boar and several gallons of oil, he was still a member of the nobility. It was a good thing that each of these men had been knighted personally by himself, ensuring their place for now. When he returned to the capital later that month, however, he would be petitioning against these new laws.
They proceeded to talk about the strategic arrangement of the troops, and decided that they might as well have the army moving at the end of the hour.
Among the army that Candegron had provided him, were twenty divisions of a hundred soldiers each. All men bore decent armour and weapons, there were men at arms, spearmen, swordsmen, bowmen, and even a support company for a handful of minor mages. They were roughly 80 swordsmen with shields tasked with protecting about a dozen adequately capable mages. The king had been generous for this, as he should be. The wildlands were once thought unconquerable, and finally it seemed as if they wouldn’t even have to subjugate them by force, merely destroy the last vestiges of barbarism, and assimilate the new city.
Mosel managed to spot Hayle from a few dozen meters away. He wanted to tell him of his intention to join in on the battle. Some uneasy feeling was crawling inside him, it was not a foreign feeling and he knew to trust it. He knew that Albin had some kind of trick up his sleeve. He wouldn’t declare war on a numerically and strategically more advanced force without some kind of devastating secret weapon.
He began making his way through the crowd of preparing soldiers. Several swordsmen were giving their weapons a final whetstone swipe or two. The spearmen were checking their points, and the bowmen were stringing their bows. The attack was to come within the hour, and everyone looked set to be ready by then.
“Hayle!” he shouted, but he was older, and his voice was swallowed in the din of battle preparation. “Excuse me, I need to talk to your lord.”
The men in front of him looked him up and down for a moment before adopting a couple of bemused looks and getting out of his way. He continued on his way toward the knight, but noticed him walking up onto a hastily constructed platform. He rushed between the groups of soldiers milling about and got up to the stairs.
“Whoa whoa, who are you?” asked the voice of a brick wall of a man in what looked like extraordinarily heavy robes.
“I’m Mosel, court mage to Lord Einstad. I was with Hayle on his scouting mission.” Hayle saw the two and called out to Karl that Mosel was fine to come up.
“Let him up, he’s fine.”
Karl gave him another look, and he felt as though he were being appraised before he stood aside and motioned for him to proceed.
“Hayle, I feel as though we are being observed, I first noticed it in the forest. Someone is spying on us.” he said.
“Hmm, that will certainly make this next part a bit awkward, I’ll have to give a speech without revealing any kind of strategy to the men.”
“You’re not going to stop, even though there’s a spy?”
“Sometimes, Mosel, the best way to deal with a spy, is giving them the information they think they want. Now do you happen to have any magic that can make my voice louder?”
He stared for a couple of moments before saying “ah, yes I do. Fortis Vocado.”
Hayle began, “I don’t expect you to lay down your lives for nothing.” People stopped, his booming voice carried throughout the camp. “I don’t expect you to fall in the field of battle for a war we do not deserve to fight. I do not expect you to see our enemies as vile twisted savages beyond our mortal comprehension. What I expect, is that every man among you will see the import of defeating a threat that has terrorized countless generations. They are men like you or I that have decided in their hearts and minds, that they will bring about terror, not salvation. They are men like you or I that have woken up each morning, not to a god, but to a tyrant, and have followed him every inch of his path. Yet they are men that would forsake common decency because they believe they can do better by destroying what we have built. They believe they can rape and pillage and burn their way to a better life. I ask you all this, what man of honour would fight for themselves, when they can fight for their family. What man would fight for their self interest before that of their children, their legacy. We go into this war, to finish it. I will have no mistake of our intentions here, we are exterminating the last of a plague that has long scoured our land. We will rip them out by their roots and destroy any last piece that we find remaining! Because that is our duty as civilized men! We fight in their darkness, so that we may uphold the light!”
Cheers rose from the camp, the men shouting and roaring agreeance with their commander.
“Now assemble into fighting formation!”
Hayle walked down the steps and went off to get his horse.
---
A hawk flies overhead, travelling from the arrayed army to Albin’s war camp in a matter of minutes. During her flight, she sees that Orrocs lie in wait in the forest, but she knows that they will fight for her. They are scattered, and Hayle’s recent foray into her domain had taught him a lesson, but she didn’t manage to kill him there. It would have taken more than the token sentient beast to kill a man like him, especially with his wizard friend there to provide real power.
She gets to the war camp and descends, landing in the raised command structure. She hated the building, placed in such a spot as if it was specifically meant for the enemy to see it, and the worst part was that they actually did use it for meetings.
“They are preparing to come and attack us my lord, I estimate we’ll find them here within three hours. Shall I prepare our defenses?”
“Yes, go and do what you will.” Albin barely acknowledged her, an unfitting way to treat an asset like her. But she would soon find herself the strongest warrior in a field of the dead, and then she would show him why the forest was hers.
---
The forest was full of life, as they entered from the clearcut grasslands it felt ominously like they had passed into a new world. The rhythmic thudding footfalls of a well trained fighting force kept the uneasy feeling at bay, but only just. He rode at the front of a wide blade of men, the sharp edge to the keen steel that they were.
“Something is not quite right here.” Mosel speaks, his own mount trotting alongside Hayle’s. “I felt it starting back there, as if the forest itself has some kind of spell on it.”
“I feel it too, do you have any idea what it is?” Hayle responded.
“I know it must be some kind of magic, but it’s woven very well into the area, if I didn’t know any better I’d say we’re walking into a trap, I didn’t feel this energy the last time we were here.”
Warhorns sounded in the distance and mixed in with the sound of his troops. Hayle barked an order to halt and the army got in position to shatter an enemy charge.
“Heh, this is similar to another time we were fighting off raiders in the north, it was smaller scale, but interesting how it feels the same.” Hayle said, Barod looked at him out of the corner of his eye and a smirk showed for a second before he got serious again.
“I can assure you this will be quite dissimilar to any other battle you have had, there is most assuredly a very strong magi in these woods.” Almost before the last syllable left Seras, there was a creaking and thrashing as thousands of loose pieces of underbrush began clinging to people.
The small twigs were suddenly tough as steel and latching on to anyone they could. Shrieks rose up from the arrayed troops and panic overtook the men. Some began shredding their gauntlets trying to remove the horrible plants, but they were sharp as well.
---
Seras glided gently through the air, humming to herself in a low and odd way that she found she could only manage in this form. She was forcing human melodies to come from the throat of a hawk, and she felt it helped her concentrate. The defensive traps had activated and now held most of Hayle’s army in place, unable to move.
“Now for the next part.” she thought.
She reached into the world of her mind, finding the other minds she had previously bonded, that of a couple hundred orrocs. She had spent several weeks getting enough of them into the area to pose a real threat, even now though, they were not social creatures, and avoided conflict if they could. Fortunately for her, they were quite susceptible to her mental commands when she could concentrate her whole will on it. She just had to get them within range of the troops and surely they would become too confused to do anything but fight. They would of course be killing many on both sides, but that wasn’t her problem, she just wanted the scum to die and leave their corpses as fertilizer for her beautiful woods.
Soon, both armies would be too crippled to resist her might. Then she would kill them. Then she would win.
---
Mosel reacted as quickly as he could, “Depello!” he shouted, it was a spell meant to destroy curses and drive away the influence of other wizards. The plants within a couple hundred feet of him immediately lost their horrible traits and went back to just being underbrush. The men who had been wounded by the sharp strands though were still eyeing them as though they would strike again at any moment.
He hurriedly continued, dispelling all that he could.
---
Hayle noticed something else amiss, the vines were now being taken care of, and the enemy army was now in sight, but there was something else in the noise. He took several moments to strain himself to hear it, there was another force of something large coming from the north and south. He looked and saw massive grey shapes moving in on his flanks.
“Domnall! Cathal! Orrocs to our north and south!” he bellowed. “Get our flanks ready now!”
The two hulking men sprinted in opposite directions, leaving behind small pits of dirt under each footstep.
“Dammit, I’ve never seen them in such numbers. They should be avoiding us, they hate war!” he thought to himself. “This must be part of the sorcery me and Mosel felt.”
---
A battlecry shrieks out over the battlefield as two tides of steel shattered against each other. The battle had been met, and now all that was left was the brutal melee. Mosel though, looked to the sky, forcing his emotions to a simmer and trying to pinpoint the cause of the hostile magic. He had only just finished getting rid of the cursed underbrush, he was out of breath and feeling quite weak at this point.
“I shouldn’t be doing this at my age.” he muttered before letting his magical senses take over and finally finding the source of the hostile power.
“Ha got ya.” he said “Sectus.” he whispered only loud enough for himself to hear, but it severed the mental bond he found between this mage and the orrocs that were currently acting so far out of their nature.
---
Seras felt a massive twinge of pain as the link was severed. She fell several feet before managing to recover.
“Dammit I didn’t get them right into the fray, at this point they’ll just run away!” She raged and tried to regain the connection but found it blocked. That damn wizard thought he was a match for her! “Hanc Clepeus” she thought, a kinetic shield warped it’s way into existence around her and shaped itself continuously as she transformed back into a human. Being several hundred feet in the air, she began falling like stone. “Forma Lapis” she said, the air carrying away her words as ‘like stone’ became less metaphor and more reality.
---
“That won’t stop her for long” Mosel thought, and she was pushing hard against his mental block on her. He was now making his way toward Hayle, he was riding along behind the front line, not fully dedicating himself to the melee yet.
“Hayle!” he tried to shout, but before he could even begin forming the word, the man beside him exploded into bone and blood, the ground beneath him being thrown up into the air just as he was. For the brief few moments he found himself falling instead of flying upward, he knew what the cause of the detonation was.
---
Before the last of the dirt and shrapnel hit the ground, Seras had already dashed from her crater and delivered a devastating blow to the chest of the enemy mage. Before he could fully even feel the impact of the blow, she immediately sent several more punches into him, shattering him completely and leaving nothing but a crumpled pile of… dirt.
“Fuego!” came the response from behind her, he had somehow managed to apparate himself in midair, leaving behind a simulacrum, and lit her on fire. Unfortunately for him, she encompassed all the properties of stone, the fire would not harm her, but it would put anyone near her in danger.
“Seriously? Are you that stupid!” she shouted, flames spraying off as she spun around to face him.
“Forsari!” he shouted in response, she felt herself being grated into the earth, but she was strong enough to overcome this. She kept walking forward, each step shattering stone, the pathetic man before her just another small obstacle.
---
Hayle had noticed his friend in danger as soon as the hostile mage had slammed into the ground behind him. It had created quite a dent in his men as the two wizards began hurling around inhuman powers. Mosel had clearly been trying to create an opening for him. He leapt from his horse and charged toward her while she was distracted by the increased force on her shoulders.
He kicked her hard in the ribs with all the force of his run, it was like kicking a stone pillar, a short, thin stone pillar that wasn’t attached to the earth. She went flying away from him and sprawled into a flaming mess on the ground, nearly hitting a couple of his men as they rushed toward their own fight.
---
She tried to get up but froze as she heard another shout. “Sectus!” She felt her stoneform drop, her kinetic shield already having been used up with her stunt of falling from the sky. She was left defenceless. Not totally, she still had her magic, but then she began burning. She held her breath and shattered one of the spells she had trapped in a rock on the ground, dispelling all magic for several feet around it.
She got to her feet, shakily, the soldiers eyeing her as though they thought they could bring her down. Hayle and the mage were right there, she could kill them both with the right-
“Forsari!” shouted that damned wizard again, this time she felt her feet leave the ground as she was flung up into the sky like a doll being tossed by a child.
As she found herself soaring into the sky, a terrible thought wriggled into her mind.
“Forest fires are only natural.” She grinned and began forming a ghastly spell. “You like to play with fire then mage?!”
She transformed back into a hawk in a shimmer of flesh and feather. Magic flared into existence as the enormous power began syphoning into a large ring around the field of battle. From up here she could see the thousands of men shoving their brutal weapons through each other. Such barbarous people, she reflected on her own hypocrisy for a few scant moments before finishing her casting. Surrounding both forces in flame had taken about a minute of her concentration. The smoke began rising rapidly from the burning ring of flames and she used her will to guide it inward.
---
Mosel had lost track of her as the enemy troops poured toward them. He managed to keep up the mental battle preventing her from taking control of the orrocs, but beyond that he couldn’t find her in the sky. He doubted she would fall and die, she had probably transformed back into a bird of some kind. It was around this time that he began seeing his own lines truly buckle. Hayle had run to the front and was now forcing his way into the melee. They had still yet to see the opposing warlord, he must be waiting for something, perhaps he had fallen to Hayle’s trusted men, though that was unlikely for a man of his reputation.
---
Albin walked casually at the front line, he had gone mostly undetected by any of the major players in this fight.
“Pheh, what a bunch of idiots.” He thought while flicking his sword through the neck of one of Lord doods guys, not even hesitating in his stride as he did so.
Screams of both men and metal resounded around him as he continued through the contested area toward his opponent’s core. He saw Hayle for a moment fighting at the forefront a couple dozen metres to the south and began making his way toward him when Seras slammed into the ground. Hayle’s pet wizard began slamming spells against her, she responded in kind, and then she seemed to retreat back to the sky. Unfortunately, during that time, Hayle had retreated to add that additional pressure onto her that his mage seemed to have needed for driving her off. No matter, it wasn’t as if any of these peons could touch him, he was the son of a conqueror, brought low by misfortune. Hayle would not have the same luck twice. Soon the dirt would be dyed with his blood.
---
Hayle looked up toward the sky for a moment, he assumed Mosel’s spell had flung her skyward far enough to prevent another flurry of offensive interrupting spells.
“Keep her at bay Mosel! I’m going to find Albin and end this for good.”
Something was rising on the horizon, it looked like smoke.
“What the hell is-” he was cut off by the shout and attack of a foe he barely reacted to in time.
He trudged through the trampled forest growth back into the front lines and was immediately met with a flurry of slashes. He managed to react and parry each one, his years of combat experience aiding him as his loyal servant.
“There you are, fucker!” Albin roared as his several attacks failed to land but put extreme pressure onto his foe.
Hayle remained as calm as he could, and adopted a very aggressive stance. Perhaps rainstorm form was not the best way he could handle this, but he was getting more angry by the moment. He unleashed several grunts, partnered by their far more effective companions, stabbing sword thrusts. Albin was pushed back, if he didn’t retreat he would have been skewered and he knew it. Before he could form any kind of effective resistance Hayle was already pouring on more attacks. He found himself on the back foot almost immediately before the enraged man.
Scratches and dents began overtaking Albin’s platemail as the attacks kept striking home. He managed to keep the attacks away from weak points with his maneuvering but he still hadn’t managed to score a hit on Hayle. He ducked back under a blow and managed to unleash a desperate slash to force his foe back for a moment.
Unfortunately for the both of them, they were in the middle of the battlefield now, and the footsoldiers from both sides sought to pile onto the enemy commander. They found themselves swarmed and fighting enemy troops for several minutes before the soldiers began backing off. Everyone noticed the flames surrounding them at this point, they rose almost as if in response to Hayle and Albin locking eyes, their respective attackers finding them too strong to fight. It seemed as though both sides had collectively agreed to let the two warriors fight between themselves.
---
Albin takes a moment to revel in the flames, everyone is aware of their imminent deaths by now. Both he and his opponent are bleeding. That won’t stop them though, he begins charging toward his quarry and is immediately responded to by the same. A warcry lets itself out of both men. Their weapons clash with twin shimmers of steel. Sparks fly from the blow, and again, and again. The swords continue their blurred motions before Hayle takes his gauntleted fist and slams it into Albin’s face, sending him reeling back.
All he can see for several moments is white and all he feels is pain. In the sound of the roaring fire around them, it sounds like the voice of his father passes by.
“This isn’t for revenge son.”
His vision came back, his opponent’s sword already driving itself through his side. He stilled and gasped in pain, but managed to recover before the weapon could be pulled free and landed a headbutt on Hayle’s open face. Pain exploded in him again as the sword was violently torn out, no doubt causing much more damage.
“This is for freedom.”
Hayle stood firm before him, falling into stone stance. He also took up a fighting stance, a dangerous look tightened onto his features, something between a grimace and a snarl. It was too late for a second wind though, Hayle’s blade came too fast for him to parry, block, or dodge. There was a moment in time that the firelight reflected in his eyes, the mortal gaze piercing his foe, before his head parted with his shoulders. It fell to the ground, followed shortly by the a final, particularly frantic pump of blood and the rest of his body.
Albin’s corpse lay headless on the ground, the dry earth drank his blood greedily without letting much of a puddle form around his various wounds.
The fire was an immediate threat to the rest of the living, friend and foe alike, they wanted to live a life that didn’t end screaming in flames.
Mosel barely managed to suppress the flames, unfortunately it was just the flames to the west. The fanatics who would follow Albin after death were gone, and all that were left were men scared to die uselessly. There was a sound from the sky, it was like a howling wind mixed with yet more fire. He looked upward and saw that there was a funnel of flame reaching downward from the clouds to the ground.
Seras had returned to the field of battle, her flames reduced Albin’s remains to ashes. Before the eyes of anyone watching, the flames grew higher, her tornado of fire became a raging maelstrom of flame. It was as though Albin’s unbreakable will had gone into her very magic. Standing at the center of this new hell she stood, undaunted and furious.
Albin, his army, his very idea is dead.
Nothing remains of Alban’s legacy but dead men, and ashes.
The battle is over, with him…
