Riv twisted in the air, Morn’s spear jabbing at her, fast as a snake. She curled around the spear as it stabbed past her, one short-sword hacking down at the spear shaft, splintering it, the head falling away, her other sword stabbing at Morn’s belly.
The Kadoshim half-breed swayed, too slow, Riv’s sword slicing into her hip, shattering mail and grating on bone.
Morn screamed, hacking at Riv with her black knife. She felt the blade score a red line across the side of her neck, then slammed her head forwards, headbutting the half-breed across the bridge of her nose. A burst of blood and cartilage and Morn’s eyes rolled back into her head. She began to fall, fingers limp around the black knife.
Riv’s hand snatched out and grabbed the knife, watched Morn fall, crashing into a knot of combat below.
Hadran was spinning through the air, two Kadoshim pursuing him. She flew at them, crunched into one’s side, slashed wings with her short-sword, stabbed Morn’s knife into the Kadoshim’s chest. The weapon pierced mail like a hot knife through butter. Riv twisted the blade, pulled it free and the Kadoshim was falling. Hadran had dispatched the other Kadoshim.
“Meical,” Hadran said, and they looked down at the battlefield below them.
Asroth was standing amongst a swarm of violence. Dead Ben-Elim and White-Wings ringed him like storm-wreckage left by the tide.
Meical was the only Ben-Elim trading blows with Asroth.
Hadran’s wings folded and he dropped into a dive, Riv following him. They smashed through the combat. Somehow Asroth glimpsed them coming. He stepped away from Meical and swung his axe at Hadran. The Ben-Elim swerved, the axe slicing through his wing as he hit out with his spear, punching into Asroth’s bicep, but the black mail held, the spearhead glancing away, and Hadran crashed into a knot of acolytes and White-Wings.
Riv was right behind Hadran, hidden from Asroth’s view, and she flew straight at him. He saw her, then pulled his axe back, the spike swinging at her, but she twisted her wings and flew under it, skimming the ground, and lashed out with her short-sword, felt it bite through wool and flesh.
Asroth bellowed in pain.
Riv’s momentum swept her on and she ploughed into the acolytes where Hadran had crashed. She swung and stabbed with sword and knife, righted herself. Grabbing Hadran’s arm, she dragged him upright. They turned and ran at Asroth.
Meical was there before them, leaping in, striking down in a powerful two-handed blow, right to left, Asroth’s long axe parrying, knocking Meical’s sword wide, Meical twisting, a burst of speed that avoided the counter-swing from the butt-spike of Asroth’s axe. He swung his sword at Asroth’s waist, slashing into mail, black smoke bursting from the starstone coat. Asroth grunted, twisted on his feet, axe swinging in a circle, its blade slashing through part of Meical’s wing. Meical stumbled, dropped to one knee, one wing hanging limp, Asroth followed him, a booted foot crunching into Meical’s chest, hurling him twenty or thirty paces through the air, crashing to the ground.
“Cré, coinnigh mo namhaid,” Asroth growled as he strode after Meical, and the ground around Meical began to bubble and seethe. Roots burst from the earth, wrapping around Meical’s wrists and ankles. Meical struggled and heaved, veins bulging purple, but he could not break free.
“Fréamhacha agus sosanna,” Meical gasped, and the roots began to wither, some snapping.
“Greim a choinneáil air, fréamhacha an domhain,” Asroth commanded as he approached Meical, his long axe rising. More roots burst from the ground, snaring Meical. “You are no match for me, with blade or with the earth power.” He smiled, looming over Meical.
Riv slammed into Asroth’s back, her sword cutting into the small of his back with all of her strength. Impossibly, his mail held, the sword turned away, only scraping across it. Asroth twisted, snarling, his elbow crunching into Riv’s nose, even as she lashed out with the black knife. It stabbed into Asroth’s arm, piercing the black mail easily, on into the meat of his bicep. He cried out, dropped his axe, swung his arm, throwing Riv off, his gauntleted fist crunching into her head and she spun through the air, hit the ground, slammed into Meical.
Black stars speckled Riv’s vision. She shook her head, pushed herself to her knees.
“Help, me,” Meical grunted beside her, straining against his bonds. Riv still had sword and knife in her fists. She slashed with the knife at the roots about one of Meical’s ankles and they fell away.
A battle-cry behind them: Hadran was thrusting his spear at Asroth’s chest, a blow that should have torn through the coat of mail and stabbed deep. But the spear just… exploded in a shower of splintered wood. Hadran gazed down at the shattered shaft, confusion on his face.
Asroth laughed and backhanded Hadran with an iron-gauntleted fist, lifting him from the ground, sending him spinning through the air to land a dozen paces before Riv and Meical.
Hadran climbed to his feet, blood dripping from his mouth, and stood guard before Meical and Riv, drawing his sword from his scabbard.
Riv slashed at the roots binding Meical’s other ankle.
“You can’t save him from me,” Asroth said. He drew a short-sword from his hip with a grimace of pain, blood dripping from his arm where Riv had stabbed him. With his other hand he unclipped a whip from his belt. Riv saw the gleam of iron shards and black wire in the leather. Asroth looked up at Hadran and smiled.
Riv cut Meical’s last bonds. Meical lurched to one knee, grasping for his sword.
Asroth threw his arm out and flicked his wrist, the crack of leather and iron as the fronds of the whip hissed out.
Hadran screamed, iron hooks biting into him, wrapping around his arms and torso, his neck and face. Tentacles of black mist swirled around him. He slashed his sword at the leather strips, but they did not break, only pulled tighter.
Asroth heaved on the whip, Hadran fell, screaming, dragged until he lay at the Lord of the Kadoshim’s feet, lacerated and bleeding into the ground.
Riv started to run.
Asroth stabbed down with his short-sword and there was a gurgled cry as Hadran spasmed. A tremor through his wings, then he was still.
Riv screamed, behind her Meical was yelling.
Behind the demon king a bank of black mist poured through the gap between the blue flames. A figure emerged from it, one red eye glowing.
Gulla.
He alighted behind Asroth, stabbing his spear at a cluster of White-Wings locked in combat with shaven-haired acolytes.
A horn rang out from behind Riv and Meical, a voice shouting.
“RETREAT!” it cried, the horn blasts taken up, blaring across the battlefield. All around Meical and Riv, White-Wings were turning and running, filling the space between them and Asroth. Above them Ben-Elim tried to disengage from their battle with the Kadoshim.
Riv looked for Asroth, glimpsed him through the crowd. She took a step towards him.
A fist grabbed her arm, part turning her. Meical.
“Stay and die, or fly and live,” he said to her, an echo of the words she had said to him, so long ago, it seemed, on the day she had saved his life in Drassil.
Riv snarled, her face twitching, tears blurring her eyes.
“Hadran,” she said.
A twist of Meical’s lips. “Only alive can we avenge him.” He looked beyond Riv, at the black mist spreading. “We can’t win this battle, not with a fresh wave of those Revenants. Not here, not right now.”
Riv let out a strangled growl, then grabbed his arm, part dragged him through the air, over the ranks of acolytes and White-Wings. Below her she saw Raina preparing to light the second ditch.