The Forsaken Hero

High Valley was entirely ringed by towering mountains and sheer cliffs, with the only clear entrances being the channel cut by the river flowing through the valley. Small groups could easily have braved the mountains as I had, and slipped past the ruins of the old forts and walls, but for an army, such paths were impossible.

As a result, there was really only one way in, a broadening swath of broken foothills and scattered ruins. I watched quietly as Haven projected battle scenes, turning the healer’s tent into an impromptu command center.

”This is...bad,” Rylam murmured, sitting beside me on a cot.

I nodded, lacking the words to express it any differently. Demon hordes were not built for holding defensive positions. Their only tactic, baked into their instincts and ceaseless hunger, was to attack. Evla had placed packs of stronger, more intelligent demons on the slopes and peaks surrounding the valley entrance. Still, by this point in the battle, they had surrendered to those instincts and abandoned the tactical advantage of the high ground, using it to fuel their charge. The first few minutes had been chaos as both battle lines dissolved, and packs of demons and squads of soldiers found themselves deep within enemy ranks. But by this point, those pockets had mostly dissolved, and the battle had stabilized.

At least, that should have been the case. But it turned out the narrow choke point of the valley served the coalition far more than the demon horde. They had fewer mid-level souls in their host than the demons did, but they were able to utilize almost all of them at once, while the demons’ larger size and poorer cooperation left them scattered and disorganized. The human front lines punched right through the demons, driving toward the valley like a spear into water.

”It would have been better to challenge them on the open plains,” Luxxa muttered, shaking her head. ”At least then the demons could use their numbers to their advantage.”

”The apostle overestimated her control,” Rylam agreed. ”Her strategy was sound, but she should have known the demons lacked the discipline necessary to execute it.”

”I still think it’s odd. Why did the church attack so early? There’s no way they had enough time to gauge the demons’ strength properly,” Luxxa said.

A low hum sounded in my ears, and I looked around. Rylam’s ears twitched at the noise, and Luxxa lowered a hand to her sword. Then, the ground trembled, shaking the tent, and the hum turned to a roar.

Rylam’s eyes widened, staring behind me, and I turned, gasping as I saw a terrifying scene play across one of the illusory scenes. A massive vortex of darkness had opened in the mouth of the valley, directly above the vanguard of the human army. Screams were swallowed in the roar as scions and soldiers were swept into the air and tossed into the vortex. Chunks of earth and ruined bulwarks were torn from the ground and consumed.

The destruction escalated as the vortex fell toward the ground like the maw of some terrible beast. Waves of power radiated from the expanding tide, flattening trees, scions, and soldiers across the mountains, reaching us, deep in the heart of High Valley.

”What was that?” Rylam asked. ”The apostle?”

Evla descended from the sky, her staff clutched in both hands, her face a mask of concentration. The eight-circle spell she wielded, a veritable black hole, moved at her command, rolling like a spherical tornado into the heart of the human army. Thousands perished beneath its tides, or were crushed by spinning debris and corpses.

”Demons aren’t just numbers,” I breathed, resting my hand against my chest. My heart palpated quickly, apprehension making my tail curl. I’d learned through bitter experience that when one side’s elite made its move, the other was sure to respond.

My instincts were spot on. Evla’s vortex ravaged the battlefield for a few precious seconds before a half-dozen auras rose to challenge her. Several beams of blinding light burst from the backlines of the divine army, speeding toward her like arrows. Seventh level, all of them.

Evla reacted quickly, and a pure white sphere snapped into place around her. She swerved through the air, evading several of the lances, but a few connected. Explosions crawled across the sky, seeming to spread slowly because of their scale, but in reality, they devoured hundreds of yards in the blink of an eye. Had they struck the ground, even large cities wouldn’t have emerged unscathed.

But Evla wasn’t a city. She burst from the clouds of destruction, streaming smoke and fire. Her wards had held, albeit cracked and trembling. She waved her staff in the direction the attack had come from, launching several tree-sized beams of blackness back. They strafed the army, and instead of exploding, melted into thick vapor that spread across the ground at knee height. The air shimmered above it, and soldiers collapsed, their weight magnified manyfold. Arrows fired immediately dropped to the ground, and even spells seemed affected, veering down and detonating in the midst of the mages’ allies.

Despite the tension, I couldn’t help but feel amazed. This was the first time I’d seen Evla unleash her full power, and the results were breathtaking. Devastating vortexes, controlling gravity, fighting multiple sixth- and seventh-level mages at once...She might be weaker than Korra or Gayron by the quality of her soul, but on a battlefield, Evla was utterly terrifying. Her spells had even more presence than Selena’s, a true ninth-level mage!

For a moment, it seemed like she might win the battle all by herself. A few short seconds had been enough for her to completely obliterate the church’s momentum, and incapacitate almost a quarter of their total numbers.

But just as quickly as Evla’s spell had broken their army, it shattered beneath a blinding nova. An aura brighter than the sun overwhelmed her darkness, banishing the weight of her spells and sending her hurtling toward the mountains. She skidded through rock and stone, tearing furrows across the valley. I gripped my skirt, tail tense as another shockwave rocked the tent, causing the poles to clatter anxiously.

”What was that?” Rylam asked, steadying me with a hand on my leg.

”The inquisitors.”

He grimaced and turned back to the illusion. It had shifted, showing a small group of white-robed figures standing on a ridge overlooking the battle. I focused, and the picture sharpened, taking us near.

”Do you recognize them?” Luxxa asked.

I shook my head, my voice taut. ”Those two in the front are eighth level. The mage who cast that spell, and the warrior with the two swords. The other three are only seventh, but...that one, there--” I said, pointing to the sixth and final inquisitor, might be ninth.”

”Ninth?” Rylam sat straight up, his ears rigid. ”That’s not possible. Why would they send someone like that here?”

Luxxa was a little calmer. ”What do you mean, ’might?’”

”His soul is hidden. Clouded. And, well...I didn’t know there was another ninth-level inquisitor. Just Grand Inquisitor Korvin.”

”Then what makes you think he’s ninth?”

I hesitated, chewing on a strand of hair, before letting out a sigh. ”I don’t know. It’s just a feeling. But no matter what, he’s dangerous.”

I refocused on Evla as she flew out of the trench, wobbling slightly. She dragged the back of her hand across her lips, wiping away a trail of blood, and turned to glare at the inquisitors. They were just white dots in the distance, but her tail bristled, and she raised her staff.

”You’d better be able to handle these,” she muttered, glancing back at the wall of mists rising beyond the mountains. ”Don’t you dare die.”

After pondering a second, regathering her mana, she flew directly away from the inquisitors. I didn’t blame her. For all of her power, she was highly specialized in large-scale destruction magic. She might command more magic power at once, but she would struggle focusing that against a single target.

The inquisitors seemed to realize that too. The eighth-level warrior took off, charging across the hills after her. He didn’t fly, but his feet barely touched the ground as he leaped from hill to ridge, and back again, cratering the ground and releasing sonic booms in his wake. He quickly caught up to Evla and sheathed his twin long swords in mana, cutting at her from the side.

Evla spun in the air, thrusting her staff upward. A circular shield manifested in the air before her. Sparks erupted as the inquisitor slammed his blades into it. Wind blades erupted across the shield, deflecting out and obliterating an entire pack of third-level demons and the mountain they occupied. The shield cracked, but Evla used the momentum of the blow to escape, leading the inquisitor further from her army.

In the wake of her magic, the forces of the Divine were scattered and disorganized. The demons flowed into the gaps, forcing themselves onto the plains, exactly what my companions had thought they should do.

The battle churned in chaos for a few minutes until, slowly, battle lines were reestablished and the church began to hold their ground. And then, the sky lit up with eight magic circles. The eighth-level inquisitor mage had begun casting again, this time a spell weaving cold and water mana into a single, concentrated point at the base of their ridge. It erupted without warning, unleashing a wall of frothing, ice-blue water.

The tidal wave struck hard and fast, sweeping across the southern flank of the horde. It gathered momentum as it crashed across hills and ridges, swallowing entire packs and rending them in its depths. The mage was careful not to catch their own up in it, which minimized the destruction to the bulk of the horde, but when the waters subsided, dropping debris and corpses across the slopes, a gaping hole had opened, baring the way to the valley.

At last, the rest of the inquisitors moved, leading a battalion of soldiers into the breach. Without Evla’s might, the horde had no recourse against the seventh- and eighth-level beings, and were driven back before they could fill the gap. Two thousand soldiers managed to slip through before they rallied, and forced the rest of the human army back onto the plains.

I stood, my tail flicking slowly, and let the illusory screens blink away. The star guard shifted, checking their weapons, and Rylam rose, giving me a concerned look.

”Where are you going?” he asked. ”You’re not thinking of interfering, are you? They might be outnumbered, but the Crimson Guard is strong. They won’t be defeated easily.”

”Three hundred, against two thousand and the inquisitors?” I shook my head. ”Courage, alone, cannot prevail against such odds. Don’t look at me like that; I’m not going to throw my life away. I’m just going to even the odds.”