2.14 United We Stand

They were almost through.

The broken arch of the ancient gate with the two rhinos loomed ahead. Beyond it lay the bridge upward, and then to the Khan's city’s lowest levels—the sewers, and a way out. 

The tunnel behind them howled with madness.

The enthralled came in waves—goblins with vacant eyes and twisting limbs, crawling through debris, scaling broken walls. Arsec struck wildly with the black spear, every blow untrained but powerful. Ronai moved around him like a wall of will, his massive plank sword cleaving air and ice into their pursuers, freezing flesh and stone to buy them space.

“Almost there,” Ronai grunted, sweeping the blade in a wide arc. “Just a few more—”

The air turned cold. Not from Ronai’s blade. From something worse.

A greyed, heavy figure stepped from the shadows beyond the arch. Not a goblin. An ogre.

Jarad.

Behind him came more, all of Ronai's company—paladins once proudly cloaked in capes honoring the Living Waters, now corrupted by Cycloth’s touch. Their faces twisted with cruel, quiet intent. Their eyes were voids.

“Well, well,” Jarad sneered. His voice was a low snarl wrapped in mockery. “Look what crawled out of the gutter. Still dragging strays around, Ronai? I thought you’d at least have the spine to die with dignity.”

Ronai planted his blade in the stone and exhaled slowly, frost curling around his breath. “Not you too, Jarad.”

Arsec turned to his ogre friend, "Isn't that—"

"Yep, that's him..."

"It can't be, Cycloth got to him too? What is happening upstairs?"

"Somehow, it doesn't surprise me Cycloth got him..."

Arsec stared at Ronai for a moment as he pushed away three goblins coming from the back.

"Y-you don't seem that shocked that your boss just got corrupted too..." Arsec said, confused.

"Our relationship was never easy... to say the least."

"But still!"

Jarad’s smile widened. “Pathetic mud-eater, you always disappointed me, you have disobeyed direct orders from General Akrumei, and I'm more than authorized to kill you!”

Arsec and Ronai finished up a wave of goblins as they tossed them and pushed them away, sending them flying across the ruins.

"Ok," Arsec said, "I kind of understand now."

Both of them exhaled, as their muscles had been tensed for the last hours. The two had seen nothing but fighting ever since facing Samina.

Without warning, Jarad charged.

"Leave him to me," Ronai said, steeling his resolve.

Ronai met him with a roar, the plank sword grinding against Jarad’s own in a burst of blue-white sparks. Ice exploded along the ground where they clashed, freezing one of the paladins mid-stride. Jarad was taken aback as the frost spread to his sword's tilt, forcing him to drop it.

"You little!" the bloated ogre cursed.

Arsec held his ground. His heart pounded. He saw a mob of ogres turn to him, eager for a rematch after being humiliated on the main street a day prior.

"Die, human! Now you'll see who you're dealing with!" one of them roared.

Despite their muscled and large frames, they were nowhere as fast as the mutated rodents Arsec had faced at the gray hills of the Southern steppes. The blows that met him bounced away almost harmlessly, moving Arsec from one side or the other. His counters, however, sent them reeling with force against the walls.

Jarad looked around and found himself overpowered at every turn, with Ronai walking towards him triumphantly, aiming his blade at his chest.

"Surrender, Jarad, just let us through."

The heavy ogre gritted his teeth, his eyes widening in crazed frustration, "You don't tell me what to do!"

"See the frost on my blade?" Ronai said, just as Arsec sent another group of ogres and goblins flying, some burning in red flames, as if covering for him, "I have unlocked the secret arts of the Living Waters. His power is mine to command with this sword. By our ancient laws as Paladins, I have risen above your rank."

"You still cling to those laws, you little mudfish?" Jarad scoffed, "Always the saltwart, always the idealist... Look where such things took your insignificant master to!"

Ronai frowned, pressing his sword against Jarad's chest. Cornering him into a ruined wall.

"Eek, don't you see?" Jarad panted, his breath taken away by the slate's weight and its freezing touch, "Those laws, those oaths, they're long gone, only Cycloth is eternal, forever powerful! You should join him, Ronai! You should see his eclipsing light too, then, I'm sure even a mud-headed wretch such as you will also understand—"

Jarad's breath failed him as Ronai pressed further. The stone wall behind his superior began to crack.

"Ronai!" Arsec, "More are coming, we should go now!"

The ogre took one last glance at his superior, a High Paladin of his order, with a dismissive and disenchanted look, "You are corrupted to the core, Jarad, you don't need an evil being to lead you astray. You are not even half of what she was."

Jarad lost consciousness, as his chest was completely frozen now. Ronai relaxed and looked to his new friend, Arsec, with a weight lifted from his chest.

Both of them acknowledged each other and began walking towards the bridge before them.

Silence followed.

Then it was broken by a sound not of this world.

A screech—high and wet—echoed from above. Dust drifted down like ash.

They both looked up.

The cavern ceiling split with a crack of stone, and from it descended a monstrous shape—limbs splaying wide, chitin glistening black, a bulbous abdomen twitching with unnatural rhythm. Its legs struck the stone with terrible weight.

And upon its back, a single eye—large, wet, and void-black—swiveled in its socket, staring at them with one single goal in mind.

The creature reared and screamed.

A glob of dark venom launched from its mouth, sizzling where it landed. Ronai barely rolled clear, frost exploding behind him. Arsec ducked as another splash grazed his shoulder, flame hissing where the goo touched it.

The spider advanced, movements too fast for its size, legs stabbing the stone like spears. Arsec countered with wide, burning sweeps of his spear, keeping it at bay, but every step backward cost them ground.

“The eye!” Ronai called, planting his sword. “It’s guiding it!”

Arsec nodded, then charged—his fire reigniting. “So-sha-nim!”

He drove his spear toward one of the creature’s legs, and hit. The limb buckled. The beast screamed and spat in all directions, forcing Arsec to retreat behind a toppled statue. Another glob hit the stone, eating through it like rot.

The eye blinked.

Suddenly, a wave of black energy outlined in white edges surged from the eye itself, sweeping in a low arc. Everything it touched warped and melted like heat.

Ronai hurled a chunk of frozen rubble to break the beam’s focus, then rushed forward while the creature turned. He slammed the flat of his sword into a leg, freezing it in place, then ducked as the spider struck back with two more limbs, shattering the frozen joint.

It hissed.

The ground trembled.

Then came the sound—the chittering.

Dozens of smaller shapes burst from beneath the spider’s abdomen. Spiderlings, slick and sharp, crawling from its underbelly in a tide. Ronai hacked through them, each swing of his sword launching waves of frost. Arsec turned, flaming spear sweeping in wide arcs to hold the line.

But they were slowing.

Every step was heavier. Every breath shorter. Their strength was already at its limit.

And the spider still loomed, barely hurt by their attacks.

Arsec stumbled beside Ronai. “This isn’t working.”

“No,” Ronai muttered, eyes narrowing. “We’re not enough. That thing is on a whole different level, it might've been what overpowered the wilderkin back—”

Then the earth growled.

A deep tremor surged beneath their feet—then the wall to their left exploded. Dust and stone flew outward as a massive claw tore through it, followed by a broad, shaggy head. 

Glowing eyes. Red fire trailing from fur.

The mother badger.

She burst through the rubble like a beast possessed—her fur glowing red with divine flame, gifted and remembered. She roared, not with fury, but with purpose.

The spider screeched, turned too late.

They collided.

The badger slammed the spider against the cavern wall, flame erupting with the impact. Venom sprayed across her flank, hissing and smoking—but she didn’t stop. She bit down, claws raking across the spider’s chitin as the eye pulsed wildly.

The spider tried to retreat, legs flailing, but the badger pressed forward, pushing it across the stone in a storm of fang and flame.

Ronai and Arsec stood frozen, watching the primal chaos unfold.

“That's... your doing, right?” Ronai asked, breathless.

Arsec nodded once,  still unsure.

The spider reared, aiming a final burst of black venom—but the badger struck with both front claws, pinning it in place. With a savage cry, she bit down on the eye, crunching through with a sickening crack.

The black orb burst.

The spider spasmed, making the earth tremble as it fought to free itself from the mother badger... but then fell still.

Silence returned, broken only by the crackling of flame and the labored breath of the victorious beast.

The badger stepped back from the corpse and turned to them. Her eyes still glowed.

She did not wait for thanks.

She simply turned and padded toward Arsec, nudging her head against his. The weakened human almost fell under the weight of the giant badger.

"Yes, yes, thank you for that..." he said.

His mind suddenly flashed with the slaughter of the badgers, all lying down, and the black ooze that came from Cycloth's minion on the ground like pools of venom.

He ran his hand across the wilderkin's head, "You avenged them well, mother."

The badger cub came running to his mother's side, also nudging and pressing Arsec.

Ronai leaned on his sword. “Remind me to never insult wilderkin again.”

Arsec just smiled.

The mother lowered herself slightly. Just enough.

Ronai raised a brow. “She wants to carry us?"

"It seems so," Arsec said.

"You sure she can carry both of us?”

“If she's as strong as Malimali, then she'll do just fine.”

"Who's Malima—Oh right, that ram you brought... wait, you changed that one too?"

"Come on, Ronai," Arsec said, grabbing the mother's fur, "Stop with the questions and climb, Mesui and Narwa are not far ahead!"

Ronai placed his sword on his back while rolling his eyes. They climbed carefully, finding handholds in the thick fur between her shoulder blades. Her body radiated heat—not searing, but steady, like coals after the storm. As they settled into place, she rose again with a rumble that vibrated through their bones.

With slow, deliberate steps, the mother badger turned toward the archway—toward the bridge and the last passages, her cub faithfully jogging beside her. 

They walked with purpose, paws thudding softly against the ground, the heat of the mother's body warding off the chill of the deep. Behind them, the ruins of the ancient city faded into shadow. The spider lay still, the enthralled, silent at last.

Ahead, the first breeze from the upper levels reached them—dry, metallic, and full of dust. But it was air not touched by Cycloth. It was freedom.

Ronai exhaled, resting his sword across his lap. “I'd rather ride a rhino.”

Arsec smiled, the first real one in hours. “Last time I rode a rhino, I got these powers.”

Ronai turned slightly. “That's a story for another time.”

With that, they rode onward—fire, frost, and fur—carried by the last wild miracle of the caverns into the uncertain dawn.

*******

Malimali stood still, towering above the restless boar-mounts of the Tulag goblins. Steam curled from his nostrils. His ears twitched.

The memory of a young human cloaked in red, smiling and tenderly running his hands across Malimali's massive fur. The warmth, the love, all of it surged like a sudden inspiration. Malimali realized that his shepherd friend had been gone for too long. 

Like that one time when he suddenly departed with a pack of boars and left him with his mom, at that time, Malimali was but a defenseless lamb, cowering next to his mother. However, he had grown stronger, bigger, mightier than the biggest of rams in his herd. Malimali knew all too well, for an animal, that the human boy he had befriended for the last months was the one responsible for this change. 

That one time, Malimali had caught up with the boy, and they even played tag briefly upon reuniting! All before coming to this cramped place filled with goblins and... other goblin-looking people. He had been sitting and resting far too long. The boars next to him nuzzled and cuddled up to his side, probably trying to find a hiding spot from the attackers outside. Somehow, Malimali wasn't worried about the unintelligent goblin thralls outside.

No. The boy was all he worried about now.

As the gates shook and the enthralled outside got even more violent than ravenous wolves stalking at night, the sense of never seeing that little human again turned him restless, and Malimali decided enough was enough. 

He moved, brushing the boars to the sides.

With a snort and a thundering step, Malimali surged forward. The stable doors burst open, and he was through—head down, horns forward. The crowd outside scattered as he charged, his path cutting straight through the chaos.

As Malimali rammed a few attackers, and made sure to shake those attacking from the rear, he realized something.

The goblins didn't hesitate when they saw him. Riders vaulted into saddles, hoots and calls ringing out as the boars followed their elder leader, who spouted orders here and there like some desperate shepherd trying to rally their flock. Before they knew it, Malimali was already at the outer wall, gathering speed. 

Any other grazing beast would've seen the three-story wall before them and immediately turned to seek another route. However, Malimali did not waver. Somehow, a new instinct had been ingrained in his primal knowledge: a dirt wall, no matter how reinforced, was no issue for his new form.

He gained speed, his head tensed forward. Before he knew it, his two curled horns ignited in red fire, and with a single, definitive push, he slammed through—fire bursting, bodies flying aimlessly in the air, and the mud-made walls and wooden palisades of Makeb crumbling down.

Sunlight poured through the breach once the dust settled.

Arrows rained down from the battlements above—archers on the surviving ramparts firing in panic at the charging beast. But the shafts bounced off his thick hide or tangled harmlessly in his mane. Malimali didn’t slow.

Beyond the wall, he stopped only for a moment. His great head lifted. Nostrils flared. He turned in a slow, circling trot, sniffing the wind, as if the very air might carry a trace of the boy—his boy. Somewhere near. He was sure of it.

From atop his boar, Gray Fang watched the charge with wide, ancient eyes. The elder goblin turned to his caravaneers as they emerged into the open air, clutching packs and weapons. The great beast had drawn enemy fire and now ran loose beyond the city.

“Blessed winds, the Princess was right on bringing such a beast with us! I never doubted her boys! Didn't I Hurmag??” Gray Fang said. 

"You never did, elder!" Hurmag praised.

Gray Fang turned to the whole group, now shouting louder: “To the hills! While the path is open, hurry my boys!”

The Tulag goblins and the last of the inn’s survivors poured through the breach, following Malimali’s wake as the giant bison-ram began to circle the outer wall, ignoring the people he had just helped escape. 

Gray Fang stopped to watch back at the monstrosity and sheer enormity of the being assailing the city. Strangely enough, the crazed goblins and denizens of Makeb didn't follow beyond the city's limits. As soon as the survivors made their escape run, they simply turned to admire and bask in the massive, pulsing object hovering just atop the Khan's palace. 

"Twin sisters, what has befallen our land?" he said, "Is there a way to stop this?"

"Gray Fang!" Hurmag yelled, "Which direction should we go?"

The old goblin furrowed as he looked back into the Khenet steppes.

"Where can we possibly go?"

The steppes provided endless routes and an open space to escape, and yet, for the goblins of the Khanate, it now seemed so narrow.

*******

The wind howled over the broken walls of Makeb, thick with ash and the scent of madness. Above the city, Cycloth’s presence shimmered—a ripple in the sky like a wound in the world. His name echoed from the many houses of the Khan's city, chanted by the enthralled like a dirge.

General Akrumei raised his arms from one of the city's surrounding hills, basking in the dark contrast of his master's form. His bronze-scaled armor caught the sick light of the being's eye, and his voice boomed with triumph.

“Behold the glory of Lord Cycloth! Makeb is yours, master, and soon the whole world will be! The time of a new age is here!"

Below him by the slope, bound and bruised, Mesui spat onto the ground. “Bastard, I’d rather see this city, and the whole steppe burn.”

The goblin princess still held her head high despite her bindings. Beside her, Narwa crouched in silence, stoat mask cracked and eyes burning with fury. Mesui's three cubs huddled in the cage, tied with ropes, watching the sky.

Akrumei turned to his guard almost in a ceremonious way, "My time has come, I must greet our Lord atop the palace's highest point."

He began walking towards the city, followed by a contingent of goblins. He spotted his two prisoners, exchanged glances with Mesui's eyes, and grinned.

They were about to have another exchange, one of triumph, and another of defiance, as they've had for the last hours.

Then came the rumble.

Distant at first. Growing louder.

Akrumei turned.

Down the hill, a blur of fur and horn tore across the grass, lifting dust.

"Guards, what's that?" The general asked.

Mesui turned to Narwa, and the goblin princess smiled. Despite her mask, the stoat girl could not contain her excitement.

"Is that...?" Uttered an enthralled goblin.

"A ram?" Said another.

"No, it's a bison..." Another corrected.

"It-it's huge!" Another remarked on the back.

Akrumei's eyes darted to his goblins, and a line of archers aimed at the incoming beast.

"Fire at will," he ordered.

Malimali, charging like a thunderclap, eyes wild, breath steaming, hooves churning soil.

Enthralled goblins at the edge of the battalion shouted, drawing weapons.

“Now!” Mesui shouted.

The cubs exploded into light.

Three spirit forms surged outward—whipping wind and gleaming fur, spectral weapons warping through bindings and scattering the guards. Narwa snapped her arms free and dropped to a crouch. Her voice was barely above a growl.

Two glowing white paws appeared, flanking her—stoat claws, massive and ethereal. She stood, mask whole again, eyes blazing.

"Bastards! You will all now fear me!"

Then the chaos began.

Malimali crashed into the first rank of the enthralled, scattering them like leaves in a storm. Narwa vaulted over the wreckage, slashing with her summoned claws, her movement sharp and ghost-fast. The spirit cubs howled through the camp, as they circled around Mesui and scattered any who came close.

“Kill them!” Akrumei shouted, sprinting to the city walls “Buy me time, my subjects."

More enthralled poured out of the closest gate and from ropes coming down from atop the walls—a tide of blades and hollow eyes.

But from the cracked tunnel at the city’s edge, another roar boomed through the battle.

The stone crumbled as the mother badger emerged, red fire rippling across her back like banners in a storm. Behind her, the cub lunging at anything that moved. On her shoulders rode Ronai, sword drawn, and Arsec, flame in his hands and his black spear glowing.

“THERE!” Arsec shouted, pointing to the tower.

Ronai leapt down mid-run, skidding into a slash that froze a goblin mid-swing. “I see them!”

The group slammed into the fray—Arsec spear-first, Ronai behind him, and the badgers tearing a clear path to the rest of the party.

Mesui’s face lit up as she saw them, even as the enemy surged again. Arsec propelled himself upward, charging his fist with red flames.

"So-sha-nim!"

He slammed and dispersed a group of goblins that were charging at Mesui and the cubs.

“About time you showed up!” she called, kicking away a dazed foe.

“Wouldn’t miss it," Arsec said.

He reached her side just as she dodged a spear and swung his own, fire lashing around them both. Narwa dropped beside them, panting, black blood on her mask but standing firm.

“You brought the mother badger,” she said coolly.

“I know how much you liked her,” Arsec replied.

"And... The ogre," Narwa added.

"Come on now!" Ronai complained.

"We're glad to have you here, Ronai," Mesui remarked. 

The ogre joined them, and the four of them stood in a circle formation, back to back. Fighting to beat the relentless goblins under Akrumei's command.

Malimali wheeled back toward them, bruised but unbowed, scattering the last ranks of goblins who dared stand in his way. The mother badger roared and stood behind them defiant.

Akrumei had reached the the walled gates. He turned, eyes wide as he saw the united party.

He spat and aimed at them with his hand, thralls burst forth from the city—a wall of bodies between him and his pursuers.

Ronai looked at the running general. “Are we going after him?”

Mesui drew a bow and arrows from a from a fallen guard and flicked blood from a blade. “Let’s make him pay for what he did here."

"I'll gut him!" Narwa declared.

"Together,” Arsec said, raising his spear.

The three beasts behind them roared.

Akrumei saw that he would not reach the palace on time. Moreover, he realized that his lord's new army would be depleted significantly.

He darted to the nearest tower on the wall instead, just as he heard the clash of his thralls against that detestable party.

They surged forward as one.

The fire-blessed badger roared and slammed into the final rank of enthralled. Ronai cleaved through the center, freezing ground with each sweeping strike. Malimali trampled the desperate, clearing a straight path toward the city wall and the one tower rising above it.

Yet soon, at its peak stood Akrumei.

The goblin general had reached the highest platform, framed against the twisted sky. His arms stretched wide as the wind howled around him. Tattered banners fluttered. Ash fell like snow. The sun lit his shadowy frame as it continued to rise in the horizon.

Arsec’s pace slowed, eyes narrowing. Mesui and Narwa drew up beside him, staring upward with the same growing unease.

“…he’s acting,” Mesui whispered. “Just like… Voidmaw did. In the Gray Mountains.”

Akrumei’s voice rose above the gathering clouds, toward the hovering orb above the palace. “Cycloth! Hear me!”

The sky darkened further, a ripple of shadow gathering above the monster like a mouth preparing to speak.

“You promised me power—deliver it now! Let your enemy burn in the eyes of your will!”

The wind stopped.

And then the Eye turned.

The Eye of Cycloth—massive, lidless, eternal—shifted. Its black sclera swirled with motion, and the pale-lined iris twisted to fix upon Akrumei alone.

Akrumei gasped, lifted from the tower floor as if pulled by invisible strings. His limbs went limp, then taut. Slime poured down from nowhere—thick, black, glistening with a dull sheen. It wrapped around his face like a shroud.

When it settled, an organic helmet had formed—featureless save for a single eye in the center, eerily mirroring Cycloth’s own: black sclera, white lined iris, staring in all directions at once.

More slime curled around his limbs, swathing his form in a pitch-black cloak that moved like smoke but clung like flesh. The transformation was silent, terrible in its certainty.

Mesui stepped back. Ronai slowed, uncertain.

Arsec stared, heart cold.

Then—

A second figure appeared behind them.

From the cracked tunnel they’d emerged from, the stone trembled again. And there—emerging not in violence, but in stillness—walked a second cloaked figure. Smaller. Lighter. Equally shrouded in black. Her steps were delicate, but every footfall echoed with strange weight.

A mask like Akrumei’s—Cycloth’s eye etched upon it—hid her face.

But Arsec knew.

Even before the wind shifted.

Even before her head tilted—ever so slightly—toward him.

He knew.

“…Samina,” he whispered.

She said nothing.

But she did not need to.

"Impossible, she died!" Ronai exclaimed, gripping his sword.

Akrumei descended gracefully from the tower down to face the party. On their rear, Samina stood silent as if preventing any escape.

Then the two spoke in unison.

"Power is true beauty."