Chapter 8 - Part Eight - Lights in the Darkness

Kalashae convulsed as jade fel flames erupted across her body, her teeth clenched together with such force that she expected them to shatter, and her daggers twitched violently at the end of arms wracked with spasms. Instincts took over where rational thought had been banished by sheets of indescribable pain, and she summoned a cloak of shadow to douse the hell fires, thanking trainer Ormyr Flinteye as she did every time the mystical trick saved her hide. She did not crash to the ground upon her face, but very nearly so, twisting with the grace of a cat, the rogue landed roughly on her forearms and knees, a small cloud of dust bloomed from the cracked earth mere inches from her chin as she exhaled.

The smell of scorched leather and singed hair invaded her nostrils, and it was difficult to see through the bio-optic kill-shades protecting her eyes as they were heavily streaked, scorched and damaged from the fight thus far. One entire lens was a spider web of shattered crystal, and she quickly flashed a hand up to remove it from the frame with a deft flick of the wrist. One exposed eye, she rationalized, was as much a liability as being half blinded by lens fractures. With the lens gone, she could scan the area properly and noted that Thendoral was nowhere to be seen, perhaps hidden from her view by the outcropping of rock to her right, and Illimael was staggering to her feet on the far side of the demon. Kalashae sighed in relief, having thought the demon’s blow to the warlock’s head was the end of their quest, but the blood coursing down the side of her face still left that grim possibility in place.

As she watched, the demon lunged with all its size and strength into Armida. The warrior planted her large legs and braced behind the formidable shield in an attempt to counter the charge, but she was no match for the speed and mass of the demon. The impact sent her hurtling through the air to crash against one of the numerous, jagged rock outcroppings bordering the area. The sound of the impact, metal and leather and flesh and bone drew an involuntary cringe from the rogue, but a flash of fel fire drew her attention back to the demon before she could verify if the warrior would rise. Fearful the fires were once more directed at her, Kalashae was quickly, but ever so briefly relieved to find that they were not, as she saw Vanesse engulfed by the green flames and collapse to the ground writhing in agony. Without pausing to gloat, the demon spun to face the rogue, but the human had been surviving at this for far too long, and the instant the monster faced her, she detonated a small pouch of flash powder and some smoke satchels, using the distraction and cover to vanish from the demon’s sight.

Thendoral regained her footing where she had been thrown at the edge of the mostly level ground. She had been spared the jarring collision of Armida’s impact by landing short of the jagged outcroppings. Surveying the scene, she realized she was the only one of the group able to threaten the demon, and he was taking the fact to heart, bearing down on her with a wicked expression and a firm grip on his large axe. The death knight hefted her own two handed axe and met the demon’s charge. Bracing one hand high at the axe head and the other low, she used the haft to parry the incoming attack, then released the high grip and dropped to a crouch, swinging the weapon in a wide arc, her second hand catching a low grip mid swing and adding to the power of the attack.

The heavy blade bit deep into the thigh of her large opponent, ripping a snarl of pain from its maw, but the demon was quick and the draenei still recovering from her recent hit. The monster’s blade flashed back and impacted wide and flat against the death knight’s head, her horns sounding a resounding clang against the steel. Staggered, Thendoral had no way to defend against the follow-up strike with the haft spike as it was driven down, into her shoulder above the collarbone. With a cry of pain, the death knight toppled backward as the big demon towered above her and raised the axe in a two handed strike to finish the draenei. One long, white finger flipped upward in a weak gesture of defiance and an unintelligible syllable hissed from the ice blue lips as a crackling implosion of temperature surrounded the gloating demon and encased him in a sheet of supernatural ice. Victorious for the moment, Thendoral collapsed into a heap upon the ground.

Suddenly, Vanesse was there. Wisps and trails of smoke drifting from a hundred scorched places on the druid’s armor and skin. One fist sized section of burnt hair was missing from the back of her head just below the ear, and her eyes were pained, despite the obvious pulses of mana coursing through her system attempting to heal what wounds were the gravest. Stray surges of mana drifted about her in the form of faintly glowing leaves. A gentle, but pain wracked hand closed quickly about the pale woman’s bloody shoulder, despite the haggard condition of its owner. The death knight regarded her gravely, the elf’s lips and limbs trembled with the pain and one eye twitched uncontrollably.

“No one is dying on my watch,” the druid managed to utter with some coherence, despite the instinct to clench her quivering jaw against the pain. Thendoral gave her a strange look the druid could not place within the haze of agony, but might elsewhere be recognized as profound respect, but just as quickly, the expression narrowed and grew severe.

“Already dead,” the draenai muttered the fact as she shoved Vanesse bodily with all her might, sending the druid flying backward to land hard upon the packed earth several feet away, “Hate to have you join me.” With a shearing sound part steel and part bone, the demon's large axe bit deeply into the ground where the healer was so recently crouched, severing the draenei's arm above the elbow. Thendoral screamed as any mortal would, but it rapidly evolved into a rage filled growl as she yanked a large, wickedly curved dagger from a sheath at her belt and brought it down with all the force and leverage she could muster. The demon, grinning malevolently at the dismemberment wrought by its axe, paused a moment to free the weapon from the grip of the packed ground. It was more than enough time for the death knight to drive the long blade through the creature’s forearm, impaling the limb and anchoring it to the earth. She announced loudly in guttural, agony laced syllables, "Someone better take advantage of my pain.”

The demon howled and drew his own dagger from a wide belt, slamming it in a downward arc to kill the frustrating death knight, but abruptly, amid a flash of movement, Armida's shield was between the blade and the white woman. “Next time, draenei,” the warrior advised, “Bring a shield if you want to guard.”

“You’re a mighty big shield to follow, Armida,” Thendoral admitted, then added weakly as she slumped to the ground, “I wouldn’t want to try.”

“You did your part,” the night elf observed, and between shield blocks and sword stabs, verified with a quick glance that the druid was still alive, “Vanesse! Thendoral is dying. Kalashae and I will give you the time you need.” The rogue wasted no time taking advantage of Thendoral and Armida’s actions, leaping silently from stealth; she landed lightly on one of the demon’s back spikes, and to another higher up. The creature thrashed in a vain attempt to dislodge the annoyance, but could not ignore Armida long enough to do anything directly. It was already too late.

The rogue was airborne. Bounding high above the shoulders of the big demon, she sheathed her offhand weapon with a flourish and brought the large, main hand dagger beneath her. A gleeful smile spread across her features as she whispered an arcane command. The blade below her began to shed dull contrails of mana before quickly expanding to the length of a sword. The cross-guard grew several inches, curving slightly into the perfect shape for a soft boot. Kalashe settled both feet, one to each cross bar and prepared herself for the impact, balancing her weight as the blade below her sprouted to double its size just before it impaled. The enlarged weapon pierced the demon’s flesh with all of the momentum and weight of the rogue perfectly balanced behind it.

Kalashae’s blade drove through the demon and exited his chest, spurting gouts of blood pulsed from the steel-cored wound. Armida drove her own blade into the creature’s ribs from the side and felt it scrape against that of the rogue’s, both blades withdrew with a hiss of steel on steel for second strikes. As the demon howled in pain and attempted to reach back and rend the rogue from his shoulders, Armida exploited the gap in its defenses and charged with all her force, slamming into the demon’s knee with a crashing cacophony of noise, metal, hide, wood, bone and muscle all yielding to physics, but it was the demon’s knee which failed and buckled beneath him with a resounding crack. The warrior braced her thick legs and back, raising her shield to catch and deflect the mass of the monster as it fell.

Vanesse knelt beside the wounded death knight, many years of combat experience manifest in the focused expression borne upon her face. The tide had turned for the moment and that gave her a chance to save the draenei. A healer’s calm of disembodied perception slammed around her senses as she reached for the white woman and more importantly, the severed arm. There was little blood within the animated dead, but handling any severed limb in the presence of the still living and suffering owner of that appendage would try the stomach and nerves of even the most hardened warrior. It took much skill to learn not to view them as more than objects until the healing was done.

Thendoral lay quietly on her back, a twitching of the corner of her mouth and two fingers the only indication that she was not dead. Vanesse lifted the severed arm and laid a hand on the shoulder it was so recently part of. The icy glow of the death knight’s eyes flashed open, battle instincts alive despite the grievous injuries, but the druid was thankful to see that her friend-or-foe instincts were also still intact; when they opened, a murderous flash of self-defense brought instant clarity to the pain laced eyes, but once the face of the night elf registered, Thendoral’s vision drifted swiftly down into an indifferent haze of suffering.

“Lie still, Thendoral,” she reassured the woman in a soothing tone, her voice steady once more now that the draenei’s sacrifice had bought her spells the time to mend many of the druid’s wounds, “I need to try and weave this arm back into your being while I still can.” Thendoral nodded and muttered almost lazily.

“Hope it hurts,” she wished in a strained voice. Vanesse blinked, taken aback by the comment.

“Pardon?” She actually took the time to ask, the surreal conversation helping to keep her mind off of the clash of battle not far away and the disembodied arm held within her grip.

“I’m fading,” the death knight offered weakly, “Need a focus.” The druid nodded in understanding and promptly shifted her grip on the shoulder down to the edge of the wound. Gripping tightly in preparation to align the arm and weave a spell of mending, she was sure the pressure would cause pain. It did. Thendoral winced, relaxed and began to tremble. Her eyes did not open, but a knowing smile of relief stretched one corner of her mouth. Satisfied that her patient was not going to slip away, the druid swallowed a large lung full of air and began a prayer to Elune to mend the animated flesh and bone.

Illimael staggered back into the fight, splashes of color and darkness still pulsing across her vision, and one eye was sticky, dark and blurred. She lifted a heavy arm to wipe at the eye and noted blood on the limb, so much blood, smeared along the length from previous, vain attempts to wipe the fluid from her face. Heavy droplets of it collected on the underside of her forearm and dropped onto the rough, dusty ground. Through her still unsteady vision, she fought to bring the events around her into focus. The death knight was on the ground with Vanesse pumping mana steadily into her. The draenei looked gravely wounded and the druid was burned and singed from head to toe. The clash of battle cut through the muffling throb that dominated her hearing and she turned to that stimulus, concentrating to refocus as her world spun slightly. The pact maker was on the ground, one leg at an awkward angle, slashing with bared claws at Armida. The night elf withstood the frenzied assault with precise determination, parrying and blocking each attack, a bastion now that the tide had turned against the weakening monster.

The sight of the faltering demon that had been the source of so much of her grief bolstered the wounded warlock and became the epicenter of her frazzled consciousness. Fel energies surged within her and erupted through an instantaneous conduit to the monster who had given her access to that very power. Distracted by the dual assault of the rogue and warrior, the demon did not sense the warlock’s attack until it surged through him. The monster roared and thrashed as agony and corruption bloomed across his large form, but much of that dark power originated from him and it lacked the full power it would against another. Illimael compensated for that fact by bolstering the hellish effects with a malefic grasp spell, channeling a river of fel energy into the creature.

Armida retreated warily from the incapacitated demon, cautious that the fight was not yet over and fearful of the warlock’s unleashed fury. One glance at the dusky woman, unsteady on her feet, blood coursing down the side of her face and staining her thin tunic, with a mad expression of murderous resolve etched into her features not only assured the warrior that Illimael was intent on finishing this fight, but impressed a concern that she was possibly as dangerous as the demon in such an elevated state. Kalashae circled quickly around the thrashing monster to join the others at Thendoral’s side. The death knight was barely conscious, but alert to the tension around her, attempting to see the events unfolding, but not able to adequately turn her head. Vanesse soothed her brow, but turned her attention to the warlock, confident that the draenei was going to survive without her undivided attention.

Focusing all her being into maintaining an open portal of deadly energy, Illimael could sense the conduit falter and diminish as the demon succumbed to its wounds and collapsed into death. She swayed unsteadily as the bridge between her and the corpse closed abruptly. The demon lay still, and into the sudden rush of silence that followed the end of the battle, the warlock issued a loud, incoherent sound of loss and victory and long restrained joy. The utterance took her companions by surprise, and they started, all but Thendoral, and could only stare as Illimael collapsed like a stone to the rugged earth. Her fall was so quick and silent and final, that though all held out hope, none were sure that the warlock was not dead.  

 