《The Golden Fires of War》


 Prologue: Part I; A Chilling Beginning

    Prologue: Part I


    A Chilling Beginning


    White strode through white as the knee-high snow beneath was parted by the large fur-clad arms of the five beasts that trudged forward dutifully at their riders behest. The icy-blue eyes of these creatures that showed a latent intelligence and ferocity beneath their currently docile demeanor, set into the smoother fur that covered their face just over their large powerful snouts; remained vigilant through the heavy snow that fell from the clouded sky and turned everything in the region into a tapestry of encompassing surrealness. The riders on the backs of these saddled creatures having to attempt to be at least fractionally as vigilant as their mounts in order to guide them in the direction they intended.


    The man in charge of this, leading the pack a handful of paces ahead of the rest, but not so much as to be lost in the haze of snow that threatened to consume everything from sight if merely a handful of feet were given; was clad in a mixture of brilliant ornate silver-like steel and heavy dark leathers, the symbol of Udesis clearly emblazoned on the chestplate of his armour indicating the sect of the Faith the Holy Knight belonged to for anyone to witness and admire. A similarly marked black and red embroidered cloak latched at his steeled shoulders and draped down across the back and hindquarters of the four-legged ship he sailed through the terrain on with a gliding ease, as all the beasts muscle bound frames forced through the weighty snow with no difficulty and a surprising amount of grace for their size.


    Gripping the reins in the gloved hands of his gauntlets, the leading man tightened the leather straps that fastened across the maw of his mount, guiding its eyes towards the tall evergreen trees that just appeared in the near-distance through the quickly waning light of the coming dusk. His silver-white hair that matched his armour and surroundings in a breathtaking display of class and natural physical charisma danced against the top of his armour as a bone chilling gust of wind cut across the ground and buffeted the heavy wet snow into the faces of all the riders. Nevertheless, the leader didn''t even wince in the light of the dreadfully freezing cold that surrounded him, all the snow that touched his skin actually melting and drying into the fetching paleness of his body.


    "By the gods, are we ever going to find somewhere to stop. Is there nothing but flat snow this far north. Eskil, I don''t know how you guys do it¡­." The voice of one of the riders in the back of the formation, a rather gruff man with a matching pair of armour to the man leading the pack, spoke out in complaint to himself and the rest of the group, his head canting over his shoulder to the left as he spoke the name of the man riding beside him. Before anyone responded to him however, his eyes shot open and narrowed just as fast as he craned his head forward past the three in front of him. "Wait, nevermind, spoke too soon again." The sight of the treeline they were being led towards cutting off his main reason to complain, he shifted to petty complaining instead as he turned his gaze back to the large man to his left once again, "Still, why anyone would live up here by choice is beyond me. You''re whole clan is clearly crazy, there''s no two ways about it."


    A higher pitched feminine chuckle coming from the rider directly in front of Eskil, the blonde-haired knight looked back across her shoulder at the two riding behind her, a humoured smile on her face inadvertently dazzling the two with her beauty as she enjoyed the man''s lighthearted complaints and decided to jump in on the fun. Looking first at the instigator, his short light-brown hair slicking up on his right side due to the continuous gusts of wind that battered the group, she chuckled again momentarily at the sight before twisting a tad more in her saddle and settling her striking green hues on Eskil. "Oh I don''t know Alano, I think he''s just more resilient than you."


    Smirking playfully at Eskil as she uttered her dual compliment and criticism, she turned back around in her saddle and brought her eyes front again, gaze lingering on Alano for a moment as it passed, to humour herself in his initial reaction before returning her focus on the march with another innocent chuckle.


    Alano however wasn''t going to be done with the topic quite as quickly, as after his initial shallow sneer, he quickly followed up with what was clearly ramping up to be a long winded speech, "Now now princess, I''ll have you know that I am exceptionally resilient. Surely you haven''t forgotten about my treacherous adventure in the Calahorran deserts."


    Cutting in with an answer to the prompt, the woman teased him with a playful tone, "Certainly not. How could I forget such a dashing and gritty tale." Smirking to herself after saying this, she remained silent as Alano nodded his head in agreement and carried on, turning his focus to Eskil as he spoke, "Viola''s right you know, now that she pointed it out, I was pretty damn dashing."


    Adding a flare in his voice as he was clearly having fun with the tale, he rested his hazel eyes on Eskil''s well bearded face as he asked, "How about it big guy? Want to be dazzled with a story of bravery and heroism?"


    Not yet having a feel for the dynamics of this group, Eskil was hesitant to add anything to the discussion. After all, he was traveling with two legends of the order, not to mention he was still a rusty with their language. But nonetheless, he was enjoying the vibrant banter that suddenly broke out to fill the silence, and since he was being singled out, he decided to go along with it. Answering the smaller man''s question with his deep gravelly voice, Eskil shrugged his plated shoulders with a smirk, "Sure, sounds interesting."


    "Of course it is, we''re talking about the great Sir. Alano Vasco here, the bringer of light in the darkness, slayer of monstrous fiends and -" Immeadiately leading off into a dramatic start to his tale from Eskil''s assent, Alano was interrupted by the man riding in front of him, the man''s words cutting into his own.


    It was obvious that Alano and Viola understood the man''s foreign eastern language, since she suddenly blurted out with a short bout of laughter and Alano shook his head with an exaggerated dismissive motion and knowing look. Eskil himself however was left to raise a brow at the words of the dark skinned man, his curious blue eyes having no way of discerning any kind of hint to their meaning from the man''s face, since his head was hidden away beneath the enclosed silver-steel helm of his armour, the only one of the five to be wearing one.


    Glancing back at him with that cute smirk of hers, Eskil caught Viola''s gaze as she clued into his lack of understanding. Translating the words for him, she shifted her gaze between him and Alano. "He said you really must be crazy if you''re willing to encourage Vasco to keep talking."


    Smiling himself at the revealed joke, Eskil turned his eyes towards the mostly silent eastern man with a new appreciation. It seemed that most of the group was a bit more open and friendly than one might expect out of a group of esteemed Holy Knights, Alano continuing to showcase this as he followed up on the quip, "There''s nothing crazy about being swept away by the power of my masterful oration."


    Smiling in good humour as Alano continued, Viola blurted out another quick chuckle as the fully outfitted man shot out another quip in his eastern tongue, Alano''s face twisting up slightly in annoyance before he quickly retorted, "Listen here Omar, you may as well quit trying to make me look bad in front of our northern friend here. It''s obvious that I was wrong before, he is clearly far more cultured than you."


    Raising a brow again as he watched the two continue to carry on with each other from there, Eskil smirked as he witnessed the pointed bantering of two comrades, even though he could only understand half of the conversation.


    As the next brief minutes passed, Eskil was reminded of his brother in the light of this little show, all the inevitably harmless arguing and roughhousing they would end up getting into over the smallest of things, as well as all the fun they would share with their childish pranks and general troublemaking. It really brought him back. However, just like his father would crush their fun with a stern order in the past, the group was brought to task with a simple command from the leading man that cut through the bantering and joking with a simple controlled tone, "We''ll set up camp for the night a few yards in from here."


    Deep cobalt eyes glancing back over his shoulder towards the group, the leading man added in a sharp tone, "Stay alert, the further north we go, the closer we come to the den of those fiends. Every step takes us further into danger."


    "If you get anymore serious Acario, you could kill any fiend that finds us with a glare. So by all means," Raising a gleaming arm up to salute the man with an exaggerated gesture, Alano continued to try and relieve the tension that had just started to build up with Acario''s words, "Put our fun in the ground so that we may learn this power."


    Smirking to himself at the witty response from his comrade to his right, Eskil was surprised again at how open this group was. After all, for Alano to talk back like that to a superior, the High Commander of the Holy Order in Ziema no less, a legend among men¡­ well they had to either be incredibly friendly, or Alano was just incredibly brave, and stupid. Stifling his smile however, Acario''s quick and final response lead Eskil to believe it was the latter option.


    "Enough joking." Dropping his heavy gaze on Alano directly as he gave this command, Acario then turned his focus forward again, looking off towards their prospective campsite in thought for a moment as he pulled in on the reins of the beast beneath him, stopping its advance a couple feet from the nearest evergreen of this sparse collection of trees one could scarcely call a forest.


    With no further retort from Alano aside from an exasperated sigh and a defeated shake of his head, Acario kept the attention of the group as they closed the small distance between them and came to a stop beside their leader. "We''ll dismount here and leave the Oghur beasts beneath the cover of these wider spruces." Saying that, Acario stood up against the stirrups of his saddle and brought his right leg across the back of the Oghur, hopping down into the snow knee deep with a minor clattering of metal plates. Reaching now for one of the large brown saddlebags that hung down across the hindquarters of the mount, he opened one of the smaller pouches and added, "Fiori and I will go out and set up a perimeter before we lose what is left of the light, the rest of you clear out the snow for the camp and set up the tents."


    Viola and Omar nodding in agreement, Eskil started to dismount his Oghur as he watched almost expectantly for Alano to say something, but was somewhat surprised to see a slightly more focused look take shape in the man''s features as he dutifully dropped from his mount and started to lead it by the reins towards the nearest tree Acario had mentioned. Landing down in the snow beside his own beast, only shin deep, Eskil placed a hand against the side of the creatures head, giving it an assuring pat amidst its thick white fur to calm the slight restlessness Acario''s words had caused. "It''s alright, he didn''t mean anything by it."


    Icy blue eyes turning to take stock of his sky blue hues at level, the creature let out a low disgruntled growl for a moment, but lowered its head to Eskil nonetheless as he guided it by the reins to follow Viola and Alano over to what would be their hitching post for these creatures. As the three proceeded to fasten their reins of all five around the trunk, Acario and Omar Fiori trudged off through the snow with a steady pace, Eskil losing sight of them after only a half a minute through the still falling flakes of ever frozen water. Once they were securely tied in place, Eskil looked down past his shoulder to Viola as they both began to unbind the straps that secured some of the saddlebags to the Oghurs backs, his eyes betraying him for a moment as he began studying the braiding in her bright blonde hair, "Is he always like that?" Posing the question with a rather rough accent, Eskil turned his eyes back to his work before she looked over to him with a face full of surprise, quickly growing into a friendly smile as she was glad Eskil finally initiated a conversation with her on his own.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    Luckily for him, Eskil could barely make out her reaction from the corner of his eye, so he didn''t have to worry himself with the meaning behind that earnestly innocent smile, whether it was her finding the way he spoke her language pitifully funny, or if it was some reasoning in the opposite direction. Regardless, Eskil cursed himself in his own mind. It wasn''t right for a man of the Eska clan to be fretting over simple looks and comments, averting his gaze out of embarrassment and stealing glances of her when he can. It was the bashful nature of a prepubescent boy, not fit for a grown man. It was shameful, and yet, there were no woman like Viola he had yet seen in the north, and in front of her beauty, he couldn''t help reverting to this weakness. That of course, he knew, was the reason he had been shunned among the Eska. Because he was hopelessly weak.


    "Do you mean Acario?" Snapping him out of his depressing thoughts, Viola''s gentle voice responded to his question, Eskil nodding in answer as he pulled on the leather strap for the final time, freeing the bag held firm in his hand while he steeled himself and turned to look at Viola as she looked back at her own efforts in thought. "I suppose yes and no would both be good answers." Bare slender fingers working against the leather, she also tugged the strap she was working on loose, holding the large heavy pack in her other hand with little effort, a surprising strength for the average woman. Resting her free hand on the side of her Oghur, sinking her fingers into the warm fur of the creature whose back stood tall over her head by half a foot, Viola looked off towards the direction in which Acario vanished into the falling snow.


    "He''s always been the focused and resolute type I guess, but he''s been known to crack a smile from time to time. Even our resident jokester wouldn''t push it as far as he did a minute ago otherwise." Clearly referring to Alano as she went on, Viola raised the bag she held onto and slung it over her shoulder, the satchel covering the embroidered white symbol on her heavy blue back towards Eskil with another smile on her delicately featured face, she added with a reassuring tone, "He''s just worried about us on this expedition is all. Please don''t think badly of him for it."


    Nodding to her again, Eskil took her words to heart, his view on Acario shifting slightly as it turned out he wasn''t as much of a hardass as he was starting to consider him to be. "I understand." Assuring Viola of that understanding with another gruff phrase, Eskil watched with some more contained awe as her smile widened and she returned his sentiment with a grateful tone, "Great! Thank you." Stepping forward and hitting him with a light punch on the arm, she joked with a more playful tone, "I''m glad to see you''re such a friendly guy. We might have another Alano on our hands if this keeps up."


    Laughing quietly to herself at her own quip, Eskil couldn''t help but share a smile from her infectious attitude. Before either he or she could follow it up however, a sudden frenzy of wind exploded outward from inside the forest, working up the Oghurs for a moment and blasting a layer of snow onto both them and the two that stood before them. Then just as suddenly as it appeared, the wind vanished, having accomplished its task. Unworried by the event, yet mildly frustrated by the sudden interruption, Eskil shook the clumped up snow off of his shoulders, his face refreshed but clear as his aura control kept his body temperature more than high enough to counteract the cold and melt the snow that touched his skin. The same was true for Viola, who was instead patting down the Oghurs beside her with a rare look of annoyance on her face as she muttered a gentle curse coupled with Alano''s name under her breath.


    Seeing that, Eskil couldn''t help but let out a short deep laugh that brought Viola''s emerald eyes back to him with annoyance now turned to momentary confusion. Just as quickly as it appeared however, that confusion was replaced with another smile as she asked in a coy voice, "And what are you laughing at mister?"


    Surprised at himself that he would be so forward with his reaction to her, Eskil savoured this brief feeling of openness with Viola, shaking his head before her as he turned about to head towards the source of the wind, "Nothing." A single rough word was all he offered as he started to trudge through the snow, but the jovial connotation was enough to bring a more meaningful smile to her face as she watched the back of his large gleaming chestplate gain distance from her, Acario and herself being the only two to be a rank requiring the wearing of formal cloaks.


    Wanting to follow after him and play with him some more, Viola was distracted by her tenderhearted tendencies, as she felt obligated to wipe off the heaping of snow that was dropped so unceremoniously onto the coats of the Oghurs. So, with a childish pout and another muttered curse for Alano, she spent the next couple minutes doing just that, further prolonged as she scooped out the snow that had also managed to sneak into the packs that remained attached to the saddles, not wanting the contents to be ruined by the water.


    While she remained preoccupied, Eskil kept hauling his pack into the woods, very soon bursting through the border of the deep snow and stepping onto the unveiled and windswept ground of the campsite. In the midst of this large circular clearing, standing off to the side tapping his silver-plated boot against the frozen rocky soil, Alano was clearing thinking about something in some uncharacteristic silence. Deciding to rectify that, he perked up and turned around to see Eskil entering the site, one of his hands that had previously been resting on his hip now waving him over as he broke the silence, "Perfect, you''ve got the tents. Bring them over here, we''ll get this over with quickly so I can get back to regaling you with that story you wanted to hear so badly."


    Seeing him smirk amused at his own words, Eskil was whisked away by his friendliness as well, smirking in response before he consciously willed it. Gripping into that sign on Eskil''s otherwise hearty and threatening face, Alano egged him on a little bit more, "Hurry up now, we only have all night, I might have to start cutting things out at this rate." Both of them laughing for a moment at the joke, Eskil walked over to him and dropped the pack to the earth. Kneeling down and loosening the neck of the bag, Eskil started to dig around for the anchoring staves for the tents. Feeling the bundle of them at the bottom of the bag against his fingertips, he clutched ahold of it and pulled them free, tossing them up for Alano to catch a moment later. Doing so gracefully, Alano went about unfolding the thin leather patch that the small pointed iron pegs were wrapped in, turning away from Eskil as he did so.


    While Eskil continued to pull out the rope and tents themselves from the bag, Alano made quick work of this portion of the setup, as he brandished each peg like a tiny javelin that he drove into the frozen ground with an easy flick of his wrist, each one leaving the flattened top the rope would tie onto high enough out of the ground as he spread them out in the general layout he knew the tents would be taking. When he had spent the sixteen staves, he stepped back over to Eskil as the taller man started to rise to his feet. "You know, I couldn''t help but notice that you were cracking up a bit more than usual over by those wolves of ours."


    Handing out one of the tents to the man as he began, Eskil raised a brow as he listened and started to walk the rope over to the site of the first tent. Given what he knew of Alano so far, he was quick to assume where this new line of conversation was about to go, and as he passed by the man, he was quickly assured that he was correct. For as Eskil passed, Alano turned to follow him as he continued, "Now unless they only start talking when I''m away, you must have been chatting it up with our resident princess."


    Shaking his head at the big reveal over the obvious as he knelt down beside one of the pegs, Eskil suddenly froze up for a fraction of a moment as Alano walked up behind him and blurted out, "You like her don''t you? In more than the widespread desire to share her tent for the night I mean?"


    Breaking free from his momentary freeze, Eskil snapped his eyes off in the direction of the Oghurs, relieved that he could still see Viola''s outline hovering around the massive wolves, out of earshot. Seeing that, he quickly side-eyed the man standing behind him as he stood there with a big knowing grin on his face, acting perfectly innocent as he unfurled the tent in his hands. Thinking for a moment on how best to respond to this man who he had only barely started sharing words with, Eskil finally came up with a simple low toned rebuttal, "You''re wrong."


    Laughing aloud for a moment at the words, Alano was as quick as ever to respond as he walked past Eskil''s left side and started laying out the fabric, "I know that you''re still getting used to speaking our language, but I think you mis-used the word ''wrong'' in that elaborate thesis of yours." Chuckling again at his own words, Alano kept his eyes on the work in front of him as he waited expectantly for Eskil to react in some other amusing way.


    Instead, there was merely silence for a couple seconds, since Eskil was actually processing Alano''s suggestion and realizing that he might actually be right. Before anything else came of it however, Viola broke through the small border wall of snow around the campsite as she strode towards the two with hands on her hips in a disappointed fashion, "The next time you use wind magic Alano, try not to cover everything we own in whatever you''re blowing away."


    Laughing in response to her scolding as he was bent over the now outstretched tent, Alano stood upright again as he threw out his hands in a mockingly defensive gesture, "Whoa now, I was only trying to rescue poor Eskil from you. Any longer and you might have gotten your hooks into him." Freezing up again as he heard this, Eskil kept his nose down and feigned ignorance to the conversation in front of him as he moved on to tying an end of rope onto the next peg. Because of this, he completely missed the startled expression that Viola let slip on her face for a mere instance as she darted her eyes from Alano to Eskil for a moment. A showing of the hand that Alano did not miss, his studious hazel eyes picking up on the micro-reaction with a devious smirk.


    Despite that however, Viola was quickly recovered, reacting to the quip with perfectly naturally paced retort, "Hmph, don''t you mean to say that you''re sorry for not being as skilled as Omar?" Smirking slyly to herself as she knew how Alano would react, Eskil was left isolated in the conversation for a time as a bickering banter began between the two, his name being brought in as a witness by both parties sporadically as they all continued to work at a responsible rate. Not that Eskil was even given a chance to respond to any of his rhetorical summons to the conversation, as a returning-fire retort would blow past the chance immediately. That being the case, he just kept out of it as the minutes passed and the tents went up, a fireplace in the center of the formation being carved out of the frozen ground and filled with torn branches from surrounding trees stripped of their needles.


    Some twenty minutes later in total, when the tents were up and the bedrolls and food had been carried over, the three sat down around the small pit with a sigh from both Alano and Viola. Now that they were done setting up, and the beginning of the bickering had long been buried beneath plenty of diversions and leading comments, the three now sat in silence for a moment. Leaning forward after this short time, Alano stretched a gloved hand forward towards the bundle of dying wood that Eskil had quickly gathered up. With a simple wave of this hand, the pit ignited in flame, engulfing the branches and taking hold with a series of spontaneous crackles.


    Leaning back again and swiping his hands behind him to rest his weight on, Alano watched the flames die down a bit after the initial ignition before the heat stabilized and started to creep out to touch them with a welcomed embrace. As he did so, Viola and Eskil shared a brief glance at each other before they focused their gazes elsewhere, the unfamiliar embarrassment Eskil felt towards her after what Alano had gone and said affecting him more than he would like to admit.


    Noticing that moment of course, Alano smirked to himself again as he clearly pondered on what to say to break up this silence, the decision making of whether he should bring the subject up again evident on his face as he glanced between the two, Eskil''s sharp look to him relaying that he very firmly should not. With a sigh, Alano accepted the atmosphere and perked up again as he shifted his focus onto Eskil alone. "Well, now that we''re done, I guess it''s finally time for -"


    Interrupted again before he could get started on his tale in earnest, a familiar commanding tone came from the edge of the campsite, Acario and Omar walking towards the three as Acario informed them, "The perimeter is set, and I see you got everything set up, very good." Continuing their approach towards the fire, cobalt hues eyeing the rising smoke that billowed upward from the burning spruce branches, he added, "Although I think this is the last time we should have a fire. Our encounters with wild fiends continue to become more frequent as we go. At this point we should avoid drawing any unnecessary attention to ourselves."


    The very next moment after the last word came from his mouth, as if on cue, the five Holy Knights froze in place and at attention as a gentle melodic tune wafted in on an unnatural breeze, chiming in their ears with a heavenly incessance. After only the briefest of pauses, Alano finally questioned with a knowing, concerned tone, "Hey Commander, is it just me hearing that, or did you just jinx us?"


    Silence following his grave joke for another few seconds, the three sitting before the fire jumped to their feet with an explosive urgency as the normally calming sound of those pleasantly tuned chimes was completely drowned out by a singular and deafening screeching roar from deeper in the forest. The sound of it alone simultaneously blood-curdling and violently grating as the very ground beneath their feet shook under the force.


    "So definitely not just me then¡­."

 Prologue: Part II; A Tune of Blood and Death

    Prologue: Part II


    A Tune of Blood and Death


    The serenity of the camp was still ever present after that powerful roar of some unknown creature died away, silence rushing back in to fill the void in its wake with a complete ignorance of Alano''s anxiety backed joke. All standing now amidst the gentle and uncaring snowfall that peppered the shoulders of their silver armour with spots of white, the five remained motionless as they all showed extreme focus, straining with enhanced senses to get some clue as to what it was that had broken their perimeter and whether it was coming towards them.


    For a moment more this continued, the knights as still as the looming blue-spruces that towered strong and wise over them with their centuries old life, turquoise needles quivering almost indistinctly now as Acario''s ears perked up, quickly moving into action with a swift stride over to the pack beside the entrance to his tent, "They''re coming, ready yourselves!"


    Following the command without hesitation, Eskil turned around and knelt down beside his pack, whipping it about with a heavy hand to reveal the large dual bladed axe strapped on its back. Hurriedly unlatching the single heavy steel head, he followed to pull the handle through the remainder of the resting straps and freeing the weapon for his use. As he did so, the other knights behind him freeing their own blades in a mirroring fashion, Eskil couldn''t help but wonder what Acario had meant when he said ''they'' were coming. Pushing through his muscled legs, he came back up to his feet, ready for a fight, but confused nonetheless. That is, until the threat that Acario had picked up on graced Eskil''s lesser tuned senses, head careening off in the direction of the prior roaring shout as sky-blue eyes went wide.


    It was barely noticeable at first, as there must certainly be at least a mile between the Holy Knights who were all now positioned ready for a conflict, and whatever it was that was barreling their way at full tilt, but what began as a subtle rumbling quickly became louder and more daunting. With every passing second, the barely noticeable motion of the branches and needles of the trees above them quickly evolved into a shake as the ground beneath them all started to hum with the pounding of dozens of hammering footfalls. Even more concerning was the increasing yips, howls, screeches, squacks, and even wails that pierced through the air to instill a primal fear in the five that were to be hunted, the effect of them all compounded by the unnerving and gastly form these sounds took, as if they were the calls of creatures that defied the very meaning of what is natural. The definition of a fiend.


    "This won''t be like any of the encounters we''ve had since we left Coille Re¨°ta, I want you all to be careful. Watch each other''s backs." With Acario''s words cutting through the shallow silence, Eskil snapped out of that momentary shock that gripped him shamefully and glanced over to his commander. Everyone else followed suit, naturally gravitating towards the charismatic tone of Acario''s voice as his words were met with the more gruff and jovial tune of Alano''s making, "Please, commander, you''re going to make Eskil think you care about us at this rate."


    Everyone looking to the jokester in question, his concerns about what was coming masked beneath the face of a man who had none, there was only some surprised faces for an answer to his words. Eskil himself wasn''t shocked by the fact that Alano would make a quip at a time like this, but was actually reminded of some of the better memories from his past: the pre-battle high Eska warriors would force themselves and their fellows into in the face of the overbearing uncertainty and death to come. It actually filled him with a warm nostalgia that brought a smile to his face just as Viola and Omar broke out into a short bout of laughter. To his surprise, he even saw Acario crack the beginnings of a smirk before he turned to look off in the direction of the encroaching danger. One could almost see the tension that was building slide off their shoulders as Viola added in defense of their commander with a sweet tone, "There''s nothing wrong with having a caring leader."


    Quickly snapping back in his usual comedic sense, Alano stepped up to the side of Eskil, an amused smirk on his face as he clanged his gauntlet against the plating on the larger man''s upper arm with a bit of weight to make a point, "Have you seen this bear of a man? If a cruel prick of a commander doesn''t keep him in check, he could end up eating us all whole! Could you imagine the horror!? The great Alano Vasco taken out of this world like he was a tasty cream tart, eaten with one bite? Oh, the world would crumble at the news." Making a show of his exaggerated drama by waving his hands about and ending in a mock mourning pose, Alano succeeded in raising the morale of his fellow knights with his talent for humour and a gift of gab.


    Even Eskil, who could have taken the joke as an insult under different implications given the jabs and slings he had received about his height during his time in the south, expanded a genuinely entertained smile over the smaller form of nostalgia, furthering into a chuckle as Viola and even Omar sounded true laughter in response. Resting a bare hand against the cold metal of her armoured waist and waving the other in the air in front of her, she retorted in a playful fashion, "I can''t imagine anyone describing you as a ''tasty cream tart''." Bringing the hand she waved up to her chin in thought, she added, "Although I suppose a minstrel might try to think of some kind of paste that rhymes with Vasco. Something dramatic sounding that tastes bland to the tongue mayhaps." A mischievously humoured glint in her green hues as she finished, Viola continued to chuckle as she watched Alano''s stricken reaction to the words, a hand resting on his plated heart as if he had been pierced.


    Fluidly transitioning from that into another quip however, Alano fired back with an air of vindication, "Well whatever song they come up with, it''s touching to know that you think so highly of me to the point that you would hire a minstrel. I always knew my tale would go down in the annals of history." Winking back at her with some cheekiness of his own, he added, "Maybe it will be you that travels the world to spread the great deeds of your hero, after I get slurped up by Eskil here like some kind of paste apparently." Laughing aloud in a mocking sense towards Viola, who was clearly thinking up another response, Alano was interrupted by Acario.


    "I''m glad you are all having fun, but it''s time to get ready. We will be beset before the next minute passes." With these words bringing the focus away from the merrymaking once more, Eskil took a single step away from Alano as he looked onward again. That friendly sense of security that Alano perpetrated with the help of Viola was certainly helpful, but as Eskil very soon realized, wasn''t as effective as the frenzy he had remembered earlier. That was a different sort readiness, a baser, more animalistic sort. One that wouldn''t even factor in the violent quacking in the soil beneath his feet as the opposing forces charged, nor the grim cacophony of the howling fiends which sought to rend their flesh and devour their souls.


    But as the knights all focused their minds and came to grips with the threat they were about to face, Eskil realized that this was a far superior frame of mind. The worry that he felt not for just his own life, but for that of Viola and Alano, as well as Acario and Omar, that worry would keep them all keen to protect each other when needed, even amidst the bloody carnage and chaos of battle. Something a berserker mindset could never manage. Thinking about this as he tapped his fingers against the sturdy wooden handle of his axe, Eskil''s attention was brought over to Acario again as he started giving the group commands, "We will have to keep them away from the Oghurs, so we can''t let them pass through the camp." Waving his hand towards the rough southwest direction of the woods, he went on, "Alano and Eskil, you will take the left flank. Viola and Omar, the right. I will halt them in the center."


    Firing off his orders in a quick and concise manner, Acario then began walking forward, deeper into the woods towards the oncoming fiends. "Now spread out and prepare to halt their advance." With this final command, Acario released his aura in an awesome display of power as the very air throughout the camp became heavier as Acario himself became surrounded by a translucent golden gas of energy. Shocked for a moment at this display of power, Eskil couldn''t believe that it actually became harder for him to move simply because Acario stopped restraining himself. Actually straining himself a little to begin walking away, he continued to side-eye their leader as the man raised his left hand into the air. When he did so, what looked like a viscous, almost metallic silver liquid started to form in the air around him as some of that golden aura coagulated to form this strange new matter.


    Eyes jolting down all of a sudden when he felt an impact against his shoulder, Eskil now looked at Alano walking beside him with a brilliantly inscribed and enchanted sword in hand as he lowered his other from Eskil''s shoulder. "Now isn''t the time to be getting starstruck my big bearded friend. Not until you''ve seen me in action anyway." Smirking in a reassuring gesture, Alano gave Eskil one more thump on the arm before he started to walk away from him as all the knights started to fan out a good distance, calling out one more thing before he took more than a couple steps, "But please try to contain the awed comments until after the performance." Another laugh from him was the last thing Eskil heard for a time aside from the pounding of his heart and the thumping of heavy claws, paws, and gods knows what else in the distance.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    Trying to keep that unconsciously rising fear and dismay from taking root, Eskil focused on his preparation. Unfurling his left hand from the shaft of his axe, he brought it up before him, palm outward and fingers slightly spread. As he did so, a cyan hue of gaseous aura emanated from his arm and hand, swirling together before his palm for a moment before it took the shape of a large floating sigil. This large formation of energy, which took the form of several outlining circles of varying sizes within the largest bordering frame, started to fill with ethereal etchings of this same energy. Remaining focused on this for the next handful of seconds, Eskil tightened his right-handed grip on his axe as he tensed the muscles in his legs in anxious preparation.


    When his spell was ready, Eskil held his breath as he looked past the gaseous energy with dreading anticipation, the shaking in the ground now louder in his own head than his quickening heartbeat. The source of it all - the thunderous shuddering beneath their feet, the repulsive hollers and shouts that emanated a melody of terror and doom, and the stinging sweat that began to bead up on his brow despite the sub-zero temperature, it all took form before his very eyes against the serene background of gentle white snow that obscured the distant trees.


    The wall of death that raced towards their camp like an unstoppable tide was a sight to behold. A final sight. Fiends of all forms made it up, types Eskil had never seen before, and certainly types that he had never even heard of working in unison with each other. Together they made a stunning display of vibrant colourings amidst their mangled hides, furs, and scales; ranging from crimson reds to equally deep violets that streaked through an encompassing mixture of blackness. If anything, Eskil mused to himself for the briefest of moments, they would at least be easy to discern given the landscape.


    That being the only calming thought that managed to escape from the whirlpool of panic that started to fill his mind like a fracturing dam that threatened to swell a river, Eskil honed in on the grotesque shapes whose black and red eyes fell upon him. With little more than two bounds, the smaller of the beasts, whose bodies mirrored a form of direwolf with two heads and a pair of wide gapping and grizzly jaws, which leaked out a wafting trail of an almost deep wine hue of gaseous aura; closed the distance between them with an excited chorus of howling and an explosive strength that tore apart the earth they bounded off of. Behind them, with just as much terrifying speed, was a pair of truly monstrous beasts whose rough leather clad bodies and heavily scaled backs stood well over nine feet tall. Their double jointed hind legs, coupled with a long scaled tail that followed through from the back and could slash through a man with a half-assed swipe, were perfectly suited for hunting down its prey with a predatory propulsion and precision. The long arms that came to a vicious end with a pair of reptilian hands that each sported three long black talons made them just as capable and precise with their ability to grab into and tear apart their prey.


    All of this killing potential literally coming to a head, as the most prominent feature of the beast''s body was the pair of long grisly horns that jutted out above the eye on either side of the head, the points of which could gore three men in a row with ease. These unnatural weapons crowning the jaw that made up the majority of the creature''s scaled face, which opened wide for Eskil to see the several rows of serrated and pointed teeth as they both let out a deep and resounding roar that shifted the snow around his feet. A coupling roar that was joined by the other dozen or so, equally as horrific types of fiend that formed the ranks of what now charged towards Eskil with a logic defying pace.


    There wasn''t even any time to fully process what was before him, as the midnight black wolves were upon him within a second, two of them leaping forward to sink their jaws into his neck and body as the other seven aimed to rush past him, some going to surround him, others to pass, and others still trying to head over towards Alano in the distance. Just behind them was the remainder of the smaller fiends, that including the giant raptor-like monstrosities, lagging by merely a single second.


    Just before it all came to an end for Eskil under this tide of Chaos however, the sigil that hovered before his outstretched hand flashed in a brilliant momentary flash of cyan light, a pulse of energy reaching out in an instant as the whole gathering of beasts was suddenly halted in their tracks as the very earth seemed to desire their deaths. Upon the activation of his spell, the entire field before Eskil erupted in a dense collection of jutting staves of ice that filled the air with the snow they displaced as the points found their home in the warm bodies of the fiends they skewered. A grating ensemble of horribly pained screams and yelps filling the air in answer with a sound that remains just as unsettling to the ear as their cries of excitement.


    Out of the corner of his eye, Eskil caught a brilliant display of streaking white light to his right that clearly tore through the fiends that fell upon Alano, as their shouts and whinings of pain joined those before him with perfect timing. However, as the initial flush of relief and excitement started to well up within Eskil, the growls and snapping that came from the two suspended wolven fiends before him brought him back into the proper frame of mind. Even now, as these two suspended fiends before him were skewered through by nearly a dozen pillars of ice each, one of their heads completely splattered across the cool translucent surface of one such stave, they fought with a gruesome ferocity to free themselves as the wounds began to mist with their dark energy, melting away at the ice within them as their flesh began to regenerate.


    Knowing full well of this trait of aggressive regeneration that all fiends possess, Eskil immediately jumped into action in order to take advantage of this initiative his spell granted him. Bringing his axe up with an experienced hand, Eskil guided its engraved edge through the neck belonging to the remaining head of the first wolf, the cold cleansing steel slicing through the matted black fur and tough skin with ease, leaving a burning stump behind as the beast''s head fell slack-jawed and lifeless to the snow beneath. Meeting the shaft of the weapon fluidly in mid-air with his free hand, Eskil pivoted his foot to the side as he brought the blade down two-handed on the base of the second fiend''s neck, where the two heads joined the body, throwing his weight into the swing as it came down with the finality of an executioners chop, fully ending the creatures abysmal existence without wasting a second before moving onto the next.


    Just like this, the looming spectre of a mountainous reaper danced through the fowl creatures with a surprising grace, Eskil taking each motion in stride as he delivered devastating and unrecoverable assaults as quickly as he could, watching each fraction of a second tick by on the clock that screamed at him with more and more insistence as he watched out of the corner of his eyes while the majority of the fiends quickly freed themselves from their brutal constraints; some shattering the ice with their sheer force of might, others eating them away from the inside with their regenerative energy. The remainder of them melting the ice away in sickening flashes of crimson-black flames that burned with the heat of a blue wildfire.


    Still, Eskil knew that he had to deal with the smaller pack animals first, as they would be the ones that would inevitably catch him off-guard in a skirmish if he was foolish enough to dismiss them simply because there were bigger beasts to deal with. That being the case, Eskil waved his left hand through the air in a haze of cyan energy as another hundred staves erupted to assault the remaining fiends. Using this time to end the final two wolves, Eskil''s axe sang a tune of blood and death through the snow for another moment before he turned on his heels to head into the frey of the other beasts.


    Going wide-eyed in surprise when he did so, Eskil watched his axe sing its song through the darkening sky by its lonesome as all the air in his lungs blasted out of him in an instant, mingling with his own blood as his hulking body sailed backwards through the air and crashed into the thick trunk of one of the beautiful blue spruce trees, splintering its bark and forever leaning its proud top lopsided against the sky. Losing his sight and sense when his skull smashed into the wood, Eskil''s mind flashed with no thought other than a terrible sharp pain that blurred the passing of time. When he opened his eyes again, a thought of terrible fear filled his mind as he thought he had gone blind. However, the unfocused backdrop of pure white started to come into focus as he saw the contrasting darkness of his own blood dripping down from his mouth and slicking down the silver-steel surface of his armour, pooling slightly in the caved in divot of his breastplate. Coughing slightly, painfully, Eskil brought a hand up to investigate the source of the sharp throbbing pain in his head, ignoring for the moment the similar, more obvious pain that flashed throughout his chest, very clearly the result of some broken ribs and any number of other internal injuries. Luckily enough, as he gritted through the pain of moving with a wince, he discovered that his skull wasn''t bare to the world, probably.


    With another pained cough, he dropped his heavy bloodstained hand down into the snow beside him as he tried to gather his energy. As he did so, Eskil tried to come to terms with what had just happened in the span of an instant, cursing himself for the stupidity of being caught unaware like he was. Thinking he had skewered the nearest raptor-like monstrosity enough to keep it rooted, he got close enough for it to destroy only the staves that were required for it to swing its body around and whip into him with the end of its tail. It couldn''t care less if it caused an unbelievable amount of harm to itself as it ripped itself apart with what was left of the ice, it merely saw the opportunity to kill him, and the bastard took it. This was another reason that fiends were so feared by peasants to knights alike. Just like everything else about them, they had an unnatural cunning and wisdom when it came to killing the living.


    Evident by the fact that when Eskil surrounded himself with a thin veil of translucent golden energy and brought his eyes up to finally expand his waning senses away from his own body, he came face to face with the scaly hide of the beast that almost sealed his death with one swipe of its tail, the only thing saving him being his aura enriched body and enchanted armour. Not that either of these would do him any good this time when he could barely even form a word without first healing the crippling blow that marred the back of his head.


    All Eskil could do was moan in defiant pain as the blur of scales before his eyes opened into a world of crimson-black flickers and ever expanding rows of yellowish daggers all slathered in a repulsive clear slime. A disgusting liquid that was splashed into his face as the roar of this embodied force of destruction filled his ears and shredded his eardrums with a painful ringing for the last time in this life.

 Prologue: Part III; The Fiendish Reality

    Prologue: Part III


    The Fiendish Reality


    To call the pain Eskil felt when this fiend released its almost taunting roar directly into his face terrible would be a gross understatement. The disorienting shock that nullified his ability to defend himself was grossly amplified to an utter agony in this moment. His shredded eardrums all but burned into his very skull as the ringing reverberated throughout every bone. What limited blurry eyesight he had going completely awry now as those vibrations hummed throughout his head and shook his eyes like a pair of shallow ponds.


    He could no longer see or really hear the death he knew was about to come at any moment. Nor could he react, or even think for that matter. All he knew in this instant was pain.


    Pain that would be shamefully released by his death.


    ¡­.


    ¡­One


    .. Two


    .Three


    Three seconds passed. Three seconds and the pain continued, dimming slightly with each added second as Eskil¡¯s divine aura slowly regenerated his wounds.


    Four seconds now. Four seconds and his vision began to clear again, almost like he was surfacing his head from a murky whirlpool. As his vision recovered, his eyes went wide at the sight before him.


    Eskil was no longer staring into the open maw of the fiend that stood before him, awaiting for it to either close around his neck or burn his body and soul to cinders. Instead, his slowly returning mind was filled with surprise as he looked up with great effort at the creature that towered over him, now having stumbled back several steps into the deep snow as it appeared to be writhing in agony.


    As another couple seconds passed, and Eskil¡¯s ears started to ring less while his blown-out eardrums reformed, he could hear that the earlier roar had been replaced with a higher-pitched wailing of agony. The shocking sight was a welcome turnaround as far as Eskil was concerned.


    Welcomed, but confusing.


    Thinking about it for the next couple seconds, he realized that it was clearly the doing of one of his fellow Holy Knights. But as he brought his eyes up and tried to scan the area around him, a pulsing headache thanking him for the effort, there was little for him to see.


    Aside from the still partially blurred image of the fiend before him, the only thing to be seen in Eskil¡¯s peripherals was the dense falling snow that added a sense of natural calm and beauty to the mass of chaos and death that was filling the forest at this very moment.


    Still unable to move however, aside from flexing his fingers into the cool packed snow he sat partially submerged into, Eskil instead focused back on the scene before him as he continued to recover.


    Upon a more and more focused inspection, he could see the beast¡¯s arms grabbing and scratching at the base of its neck, as it apparently tried to rip out whatever was causing it such immense pain. However, as the image became clearer, Eskil¡¯s mind clicked in realization of what it was that had impaled itself through the abomination¡¯s throat.


    Gleaming slightly through the cover of the beasts clutching claws that tore into its own flesh, showering the surrounding snow in an almost beautiful contrast of deep crimson red, Eskil could see the familiar sight of the strange silver metallic-like liquid Acario had created before they separated. This was the first time Eskil had seen anything that his commander was capable of in combat, but as the seconds continued to pass by, he was very quickly becoming aware of one of the reasons he was considered to be an almost revered legend.


    Since the fiend had seemed to completely forget about Eskil while he continued to heal back to full strength, instead absorbed wholly and desperately by its attempt to rid its body of this foreign substance as it had all but ripped its own throat out in a haze of blood, torn flesh, and a clouding of its dark aura; he was able to keep on witnessing as the silver liquid was apparently burning and melting away its flesh like some form of corrosive acid.


    Worse yet than that, Eskil could also see a webbing of silver lines that streaked beneath the fiends hide and spread out from the initial impalement of this silver liquid spike throughout the entirety of its body. From the looks of it, Eskil assumed that the liquid had invaded the creature¡¯s bloodstream and was high-jacking the system to destroy the beast from the inside out.


    Surely enough, by the time Eskil was healed enough to bring his hands up against the tree at his back and support himself to stand again, he could only remain shocked and speechless at the sight of this massive creature slumping down onto its knees in the snow, all its wailing having ceased now as its head was little more than a dripping mess of rancid and burnt sludge.


    Shocking him even more as his eyes somehow widened further, Eskil looked out behind the large stump of the beast before him that continued to melt away, only to find that over ten more fiends behind it had suffered similar fates, some of them still bellowing in infernal agony as they were being melted away from the body up.


    In the span of what he realized now couldn¡¯t have been much more than half a minute, over a dozen monstrous fiends had been slain, every single one of which could have been more than a match for Eskil. Hell, one of which was almost the end for him.


    Looking around as his mind cleared fully, his head and internal injuries having recovered under the veil of his golden aura, Eskil tried to get a sense of his surroundings again. He had been thrown back dangerously close to the camp and couldn¡¯t see much with the cover of the falling snow, but as he focused more, he became aware of all the auras surrounding him.


    Surely enough, Acario¡¯s massive presence hadn¡¯t moved from his starting position in the center of their formation. Viola¡¯s incredibly powerful aura was also around the same position she began in, although hers was smaller and somewhat more intense. It wasn¡¯t all that surprising, even though this was his first time seeing her aura released like this. She might have delicate features, but her strength and skills had earned her the title of ¡®Heaven¡¯s Fist¡¯. Eskil knew before he ever met her that she was incredibly powerful.


    That wasn¡¯t to say Alano and Omar fell all that short of her. While he noticed their presence wasn¡¯t as dominating as Acario and Viola, they were certainly in no way small or weak. They both blew him out of the water as far as Eskil was concerned, evident by the fact that they were snuffing out equally as powerful fiendish auras at an alarming rate.


    Even still, the horde of fiends that had fallen upon them was truly staggering. Each of the even moderately powerful ones could massacre an entire town in their own right. And here in this forest was a wave of nearly a hundred such threats. The force their aura¡¯s alone put on the mind was truly staggering, but nonetheless, the tide of their fiendish presence was held at bay and ground up by the bulwark of his four comrades.


    Both sides were unrelenting in the carnage, and for a moment, Eskil just stood in awe of it all. Not even the stomach churning stench of the gurgling and sizzling hunk of now charred meat before him took away from the moment.


    After another passing second however, Eskil was snapped out of the astonishment as he noticed the large aura of some fiends spreading out around Alano, moving through the space in the formation he had been shaken from thanks to his own carelessness.


    Clenching his fingers into fists as he cursed himself once more for this carelessness, Eskil focused his aura in on himself as all the muscles in his body tightened and swelled as if he was flexing them past their natural state. Now that he was fully healed, he had no intention to waste even a single second more and let Alano get blind-sided. So without much thought, Eskil strained his legs even further, his musculature at the moment making him look more monster than man as he exploded forward in a cloud of snow, leaping over the deceased fiend that had almost killed him a moment ago in a single bound.


    As he sliced through the deep snow with inhuman speed and an ease that surpasses the Oghur beasts that got them all here, Eskil honed in on the auras of the three closest fiends that had started to surround his comrade. He had made a split second assumption that nearly cost him his life before, but he¡¯d be damned if he was going to let the same thing happen before he killed his fair share of the enemy.


    He may have left the Eska clan for the south, but the image of Eskil as he blurred through the white backdrop of the falling snow towards his targets was still that of a berserker. Unfortunately, Eskil had no idea where his axe was, which left actually injuring the fiends rather difficult. Nonetheless, as another second passed and he had cleared more than half the distance towards Alano, Eskil opened his large fist and focused on creating another ice magic sigil.


    He had only just started to learn how to really manifest his divine aura, having grown up being exposed to little of it, and mostly learning ice magic. As of now, he was only capable of enriching his strength and senses far more than he could in the past, as well as learning to accelerate the natural regeneration it affords him. Neither of which would help him put down a fiend for good.


    That left him with only the fundamental beginning for utilizing this power in combat: fusion.


    Since the manipulation of one or more elements at a time is naturally easier for a human, those with a divine aura start by learning how to mix simpler magics with a divine essence. Doing this would make the spell more powerful, as well as give it the property of some divinity, thus giving it the ability to actually damage a fiend. Sadly, it was far harder to get a grip on than it might sound, which is why Eskil hadn¡¯t infused his initial area spell with it to deliver a truly devastating starting assault.


    As he dashed forward now like a force of nature however, he focused as hard as he could on weaving his divine aura into the small ice magic he was preparing. If ever there was a time to take some success from his training, this was it. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    Seeing the honestly frightful auras he was chasing take shape through the blurry snowfall in front of him, Eskil made one more impressive bound before crouching down and straining his legs once again. When his legs looked like they might burst through the metal plating of his armour from the force of the muscles within, he leapt forward off of the soft snow and frozen ground beneath his feet, sailing through the air and appearing before the first fiend in the span of a single breath.


    Without the slightest pause, the sigil over Eskil¡¯s right hand started to glow an almost yellowish cyan hue, the tip of a single ice stave starting to materialize out of his palm just as he slammed it into the head of the large bipedal, four-armed abomination before him. With the force of his leap following through, Eskil knocked the fiend off of its feet as they both soared through the air another couple of yards.


    Coming to a stop by slamming the large head of the beast he had managed to catch off guard into the ground with a crash that reverberated through the earth and snow around them, Eskil let out a heavy breath as he stood up over the upper body of the much larger being. As he did so, the sigil over his palm dispersed in a small puff of energy as he wrapped his hands around the cold surface of the ice sticking up out of the side of this fiend¡¯s head.


    Yanking it free with a bit of force, Eskil¡¯s hand was then splattered with the blood of his kill, bringing the blood stained ice stave up in front of him with a fair amount of surprise. Looking down at the body before him, he could see that its gruesome wound wasn¡¯t regenerating. Actually smirking to himself with a morbid satisfaction, Eskil basked in his successful follow through of infusing his aura.


    This was the first time in the chaos of a battle that he was able to do it, and while it wasn¡¯t incredibly powerful, it gave him the ability to injure these fiends that had already pivoted towards him. With that and his enriched body, where most of his energy was currently being directed, Eskil felt confident that he could at least contend with the two fiends that remained on the flanking side of Alano.


    Turning towards the two threats that were coming towards him, Eskil steeled himself against the anxiety and hints of fear that welled up within him in the face of these creatures. One of them was the same species as the one that had nearly killed him not even a minute ago. The other was smaller in height but no less imposing. It stood on all four of its feline legs at almost five feet, with its body being more of a slick toned build over a bulky frame. With a quick assessment, it was clear that this fiend was the speedy predator type.


    With the clearly defined muscles beneath its furless black hide however, Eskil was concerned at just how fast it was going to be. As far as he could tell, speed and maneuverability was going to be his only chance here. With as much energy as he had pumping through his body, he was confident in his strength, but after taking that hit before, Eskil wasn¡¯t too sure how it would stack up to the strength behind that deadly tail.


    With a roar from the taller beast as it stomped towards him unfortunately, Eskil ran out of time to think about it. Jumping into the action as more streaks of light from Alano¡¯s direction lit up the dimming dusk in the background, Eskil strained his legs and gripped his simple cold weapon firm as he leapt forward at an angle to the raptor-like fiends right side. Since the smaller one was on the left, Eskil hoped he might be able to dash into a position to blitz this one quickly.


    Soaring straight for one of the sturdy spruce trees of this forest, Eskil planted his feet on its bark for little more than a moment before kicking off of it and sailing straight for the fiends side, leaving the trunk in splinters as he did so. However, in this blur of a motion, Eskil spotted another blur in his peripheral as he intended to plunge the point of his stave into his target¡¯s eye. Making an incredibly split second decision, Eskil aimed as accurately as he could in this situation and released the stave like a javelin instead.


    Surely enough, the very moment after he did so, his body ragdolled in the air as he was impacted with an incredible force from his right. Crashing into the snow in the later half of the same moment, Eskil heard the pained roar of the larger beast as he now strained his arms with every ounce of strength in his body to stop the jaws that now had ahold of his body from sinking deeper into his armour.


    Eskil couldn¡¯t believe the speed of this second fiend. It had managed to dart around its fellow beast and intercept him like it not only kept up with his pace, but knew exactly where he planned on striking. It wasn¡¯t only its speed that was astonishing, but the strength he was now fighting against in its jaws was equally as ungodly. Feeling the pressure of its large and pointed teeth denting and starting to pierce through the enchanted metal of his breastplate as his arms were slowly but surely failing him, Eskil¡¯s mind raced with some way to free himself from this deadly situation.


    As it stood now, he was already resting inside the fiend¡¯s mouth, having just been able to get his right hand under him in time to grip against its lower jaw as his left stopped the top. Grimacing with pain as another second passed and both of his bloodied hands were pierced further by the two fangs that had impaled them, Eskil came up with the only thing he thought would work short of sacrificing his arms.


    Forming two cyan sigils of energy around the teeth impaling his hands, he focused with everything he had on once again weaving his divine aura together with the spell. Sensing this happening in its own mouth however, the back of the fiend¡¯s mouth started to heat up as sparks of its dark aura began to appear and flicker into small pure black flames.


    Knowing what was coming, Eskil put everything he had in this moment into the magic he was casting. In the next couple brief moments, as all the chaos in the background outside of this struggle faded away, the two sigils flashed in another yellowish blue hue, a freezing fog surrounding the teeth of the fiend¡¯s jaw as a result.


    Just as the skin on his face started to burn from the growing flames in the throat of the beast, Eskil used every single ounce of energy he could muster and channeled it through his arms as he pushed up and down on the jaws that promised to kill him with a violent force.


    In the next second, just before the growing inferno of blistering flames erupted out to engulf him, Eskil managed to open the fiend¡¯s mouth wide enough for him to now crush down on the teeth that kept his hands lodged in place with his fingers, shattering them like ice as he pushed away from the beast and dropped into the snow by its feet.


    The moment he did so, the air above him jumped in temperature, the snow around him melting and the ends of his hair singeing as a pillar of black fire erupted from the fiend¡¯s mouth. As his eyes reflected this terrible light, Eskil could all but see his own death in those flames, a death he just narrowly avoided. Not thinking about it however, he brought his left hand up before him as another sigil took shape above his palm, his feet trying to find some grip through the snow into the ground somewhere so that he could push himself out of this still incredibly dangerous situation.


    Just as he found this ground however, the fiend above him got over the brief pain he caused it as it lowered its head and brought the fire it was breathing out down with it towards Eskil. Sweating profusely in the proximity of it, the air in front of him glowed again for a moment before the image of the fiend above him skewed slightly through the nearly clear visage of the ice shield he formed in front of him.


    Immediately starting to melt as the black flames washed over it however, Eskil used the leverage beneath him he discovered to kick off with some force and slide away from the fiend. Earning a couple yards in distance with this desperate move, Eskil was quickly hampered by the heavy bunching of snow on his back that slowed him a lot more quickly than he would have liked.


    With his little barrier of ice also having been shrunk by far over half its original size in the span of that one second of direct contact with the fiend¡¯s flame, Eskil was seriously finding himself backed into a corner. Quickly getting to his feet, he hastily tried to come up with an effective next step.


    From what he could see, the faster fiend had ceased its breath attack the moment after he had slipped away, but rather than pounce on him immediately, which he knew would have likely resulted in his death as things would have gotten much more desperate; he watched as it started to slowly step around him with a measured pace, terribly intelligent dark red eyes with black slitted pupils gazing right at him as if they were soaking up his ragged appearance and desperately calculating expression.


    Of the two, Eskil quickly changed his mind into thinking that this one was by far the more dangerous in all respects when compared to the raptor-like fiend. Speaking of which, Eskil turned his eyes ever so slightly so that he could keep both beasts in view, now seeing the other one a good distance away as it was trying to reach its long deadly claws around the shaft of the stave that he had managed to plunge deep into the fiend¡¯s right shoulder. Judging by the fact that its entire right arm had gone limp, Eskil guessed that he had managed to sever some important muscles and nerves with the attack. That was also probably the only reason it hadn¡¯t directly jumped in to help rip him apart with the smaller fiend.


    Luckily even though he had missed the intended kill-shot through the eye, his ice stave had struck just low enough to miss the much harder scales on its back and on a good enough angle to be out of reach for its other arm, no matter how much it strained and roared out in pain. Although Eskil knew well that its aura would eat away at the invasive material and then repair itself in no time at all. Even with the small amount of divine essence it contained, he couldn¡¯t see it lasting for much more than another dozen seconds.


    With that being the case, Eskil turned his attention to the more dangerous of the two for the moment, keeping an eye on the other in his peripheral as he reached down with a grimace and pulled the points of the fangs still buried in his hands out, two bleeding holes remaining to drip down rather profusely and stain the snow beneath him as he couldn¡¯t afford the energy to heal himself at the moment. Every ounce that Eskil had in him was being used to strengthen his body enough to keep up with his opponent, as well as fuel the magic sigil he created over his injured right hand.


    Seeing this, the fiend which had been stalking around him slowly like a predator having fun with its cornered prey stopped and turned its head towards him, knees bending ever so slightly as it prepared to pounce at a moments notice. Eskil doing the same with his own legs, there was a brief second where the two faced off with a silent gaze shared between them as his sweat continued to drip down his lightly burned face without him even noticing.


    The moment after this incredibly tense stare-down, Eskil took one deep breath to try and calm the heart that was trying to beat out of his own chest, although failed to help at all as both him and the fiend then erupted into a blur of motion.


    Over the next ten seconds, the two danced a violent exchange of competing explosive speed against measured movement. Eskil instantly learned that while he might have the strength to explode forward with an incredible speed, the agility of his opponent and its ability to maneuver in the middle of a movement far outclassed him. He also became away of the three long spiked tails the fiend had as he was delivered a passing hit by one in the first exchange. The only thing that prevented him from being gutted by the blow being his currently steel-like body and enchanted armour.


    And that¡¯s how it continued for the most part, Eskil being out maneuvered and played with by this fiend and taking hit after hit, only being able to dodge or avoid them by activating his ice magic periodically, none of which were even able to cut the surprisingly dense hide of the fiend with such quick casting times. All they managed to do was knock it off balance a step or two in order for him to avoid, block, or redirect one of the fiend¡¯s claws or tails.


    Now by the end of this blurring blitz, Eskil stood dripping with both sweat and blood amidst the snow that had lost all of its untouched beauty at this point. Looking up at the beast in front of him, as it licked the part of its left forearm where he had managed to deliver one solid blow to no real effect, Eskil realized that he was against an enemy he had no hope of defeating as things stood. If he had his axe with him, he felt that it would be a different story, but with so little experience in fusing his magic, he could only accept the reality. He was too weak to be facing this opponent.


    Watching again as the fiend started to methodically circle around him, Eskil knew that it was enjoying what it saw. Standing before it was a man dressed in what was once full plated armour and was now a metal coffin for the man contained within. His forehead had been cut severely and was bleeding down into his right eye, obstructing his eyesight. The breastplate around his torso was mostly flattened and dented inwards from several powerful strikes which had fractured many of his ribs and was making his breathing both incredibly painful and difficult. The holes in his palms only continued to bleed profusely down his slumped fingers and into the waiting snow below, as the bone in his left forearm had also been shattered from a block, leaving him unable to raise it up without flashing a dangerous level of pain throughout his mind.


    All in all, Eskil was at the end of his rope, even more so than simply physically since he had expended so much of his energy so quickly just to try and overpower the fiend that stalked about before him completely unfazed. Hearing another roar behind him as he thought this, Eskil tried to focus on what it was without turning away from the beast in front of him, instead trying to focus in on the aura of the familiar fiend that seemed to be closing in on him fast.


    With a weary bloody smirk, Eskil guessed that the second fiend had dealt with its injury and was coming to return the favour. However, as he continued to smirk, he decided that he was going to at least try and tie these two up for as long as he possibly could before he died. To at least go out like a true warrior who fought to his last breath.


    Resigning himself to this fate, Eskil raised both of his hands above his head as his mind went numb from the pain in his arm and body. Staggering on his feet for a moment, he collected his consciousness again and focused on creating a large sigil hovering over his overlapped palms. As he did so, he couldn¡¯t prevent his eyes from widening in surprise of what the fiend in front of him did in response. Hovering in front of the beast¡¯s maw was a large sigil formed of its own dark aura, its eyes leering into his own as Eskil tried to come to grips with the fact that he was actually seeing a fiend use magic, something he had never even heard of, let alone seen.


    Despite the fact that Eskil had accepted he was going to die here, he couldn¡¯t help but be shocked by the action as both their sigils quickly began to fill out. With the sight of it going hazy however as his consciousness wavered once more, Eskil lost his keen interest on the scene before him as he sensed the aura behind him quickly approaching as it roared once more.


    Regardless of what kind of magic this fiend before him was about to use, Eskil knew that it was all likely going to end in the next few seconds anyways. Even without that stunning realization, he figured that the magic he was going to unleash would only give him the smallest opportunity to kill the fiend charging his rear, but even if not, he would at least keep them contained here long enough for his fellow Holy Knights to clear through more of their numbers and be better prepared to take on these fiends from the rear, or stop them from heading into the camp.


    With another, more content smirk, Eskil focused solely on the completion of his spell, no longer truly fearing death in this moment.


    That is, until a blinding white light of hope streaked across his vision and seared into the flesh of the fiend in front of him, interrupting its magic preparation as it snapped its head off to its right with a mix of pain and anger towards the source of this attack. A more vocal reaction coming from Eskil¡¯s back as the second fiend once more roared out in pain just before he heard, or rather felt, its large body drop onto the ground behind him.


    Blinking suddenly as he brought a hand down to wipe some of the blood away from his right eye, Eskil followed the suit of the stronger fiend and looked to his left with a far more relieved and expectant feeling than his onlooking counterpart.


    Coming into view now through the snowfall and to the snarl of the fiend, Eskil looked onto the familiar image just prior to it lowering its hand and speaking out with a gruff and flamboyant voice, ¡°Whew, to take a hit from the legendary Alano Vasco, I see Eskil has been over here hogging the glory kill all to himself.¡±