CAPTURED PART ONE

The foothills of the Neoth Range gave way to the jagged, unforgiving slopes of the mountains themselves.
The path Elara led us on was less a trail and more a memory of one.
The air grew thin and bit at our exposed skin, carrying the scent of cold stone and ice.

Xerta with her 'low centre of gravity' and enviable endurance was a natural on the treacherous terrain.
Her gaze was constant, and so was her distrust of Tulote and Cassandra.
When Tulote offered a hand to help her over a difficult ledge, she simply grunted and found her own handhold.
When Cassandra offered a bit of elven way bread, Xerta pulled out her own block of hard, dry tack.

It came as a relief, though, that with me, her walls were much lower.
We often walked together, if you can consider that a measure of trust.

As we paused for a brief rest on a narrow ledge overlooking a dizzying drop, I remembered Erton's advice.
Hence, I focused on the vague threads of Order around me - the solid structure of the mountain, the faint life-force of the hardy lichens, my companions.
It was in this state of heightened perception that they returned.

"You've grown, Arda." Usasha said.

"When we first met, you shaped the creation energy, or should I say Order, now that you know, like a baby learning to walk. Now I'd consider you on the same level as we were at our prime. You are becoming what you were always meant to be, hero."

Before I could reply to Usasha, a second voice joined the fray.

"He stopped trying to wrestle with my damn sword and started listening to it," Silus grumbled.

"But it's about time. You've come a long way from our lovely forest endeavour! But don't get cocky. The power you wield is not just for mending. It is a key. It can unlock things, and it can also lock them away forever. You'll know what it means when the time comes."

"Be wary, my child," Usasha added. "Dietha's general in these mountains is not a brute like Malakor. He is one of her oldest and most cunning. His strength lies not just in his hordes, but in his ability to control them."

Their voices faded, it was nice to hear from them again, although there was a chilling premonition.
At that moment, Elara, who had been scouting ahead, scrambled back, her face as pale as death itself.

"Demons," she hissed, pointing up the trail. "A patrol. At least a dozen of them, blocking the pass ahead."

We crept forward, peering over a rocky outcrop.
She was right.
A dozen heavily armed demons, larger and more disciplined than the rabble we'd fought before, stood guard.

"We can't go around," Tulote murmured, "and we can't let them report our position. We take them out. Swiftly and silently."

The ambush was a 'model' of deadly efficiency.
Xerta, with a grunt of effort, single-handedly dislodged a massive boulder, sending it crashing down the slope.
It was aimed at the narrow section of the path behind them, cutting off their retreat.
As they turned in confusion, Cassandra did what she does best, and beheaded the two rearmost guards before they could even raise an alarm.

Tulote met the main group head on, with his Flamma in hand.
He drew their full attention, creating the opening Xerta and I needed.

We charged from the flank.
I moved in a low crouch, the Gladius in hand, while Xerta's hammer whistled through the mountain air.
I saw a demon captain raise a horn to its lips, but I didn't have a clear shot.

"Xerta, the horn!" I yelled.

She threw her hammer with a powerful roar.
The massive weapon spun end over end, crossing about thirty yards in an instant and crushing the captain's skull.

But as the captain fell, something else happened.
Its body convulsed, a wave of energy erupted from it, washing over the mountainside.

A deep hum answered from the valley below, a sound that vibrated our bones.
Then came the roar.
A unified cry from the entire demonic horde.

"It was a trap," Cassandra hissed.

The sight was apocalyptic.
It was as if the slopes below us came alive, as a black tide of screaming demons swarmed upwards.

"Back to the ledge!" Tulote commanded. "Make your stand there! Elara, find us a way out!"

This battle was different from any we had fought up to this point.
There was only one thought on our minds.
Survive.

We stood shoulder to shoulder on the narrow path.

Tulote used his Terra Flow powers to raise stone barricades from the path.
Cassandra stood close behind him, dealing with any demon that managed to get past Tulote's guard.

Beside me, Xerta swung wildly, sending demons plummeting into the abyss below.

We fought back-to-back now.
I would perceive flaws and attack them myself sometimes, other times I would notify Xerta of it, and her hammer would shatter it.
She shoved me clear of a lunging, unseen demon, taking the blow on her thick leather pauldron with a grunt, to which she repaid the demon the favour by crushing its skull.
It was a marvel, truly.

But for every ten we killed, a hundred more took their place.
They were inexhaustible.
We were not.

"ARDA! ABOVE US!" Cassandra screamed.

The horde parted.
And descending from the peak were three new figures, but unlike the statute of Greater Demons I had faced before.
They were leaner, and clad in a weird, shifting armour that seemed to be forged from chaos itself.

What were these things?

One High Demon, as I will now call them, its armour swirling like black oil, pointed a single finger at Tulote.
The very air around him seemed to thicken and solidify.
He roared, straining against an unseen force as a field of crushing gravity enveloped him, forcing him to one knee, his powers sputtering.

A second High Demon, this one adorned with barbs of shadow, made a complex gesture towards Cassandra.
The shadows on the cliff face writhed, leaping from the rock to form a net of tangible darkness.
She tried to phase through it, but could not.

The third Herald, its helmet shaped like the spiralling eye of Dietha, fixed its gaze on me.
I felt a pressure on my mind.
It was trying to sever my connection to order.
I resisted, the Gladius flaring with light, but the mental assault was staggering.

"ARDA! RUN!" Tulote bellowed.

His face contorted as he fought the crushing gravity.

"GET OUT OF HERE! WARN THE FIRST COMPANY!"

The demons swarmed over them.
Tulote was buried under a pile of bodies, his strength finally failing him.
Cassandra, trapped in her net of shadow, was hoisted into the air.

I wanted to charge, to unleash the full burning power of Order, but Xerta held me back.
Erton's words echoed in my head again, it would be suicide.
I was outnumbered and outmatched.

"Hero, this way!" Elara's terrified voice cut through the roar.

She was pointing to a narrow crevice I hadn't seen, a crack in the rock face hidden by a frozen waterfall.

"It leads through the mountain! Go! Now!"

Xerta grabbed my arm, her grip like iron.

"She's right, Arda! We can't win this! We live to fight, or we die for nothing!"

The decision was one of the most painful of my life.
I was a hero.
I was a protector.
But here I was running.

We scrambled towards the crevice, Xerta covering our retreat with wide, desperate swings of her hammer.
I cast one last look back and saw Tulote and Cassandra being bound in chains of corrupted energy, their struggles weakening.
I had failed them.
I had failed Yui.

We slipped into the freezing darkness of the crevice just as the horde converged on our position.
We ran, stumbling through the tight, lightless passages, the sounds of the battle fading behind us.
When we finally emerged hours later, bruised and exhausted, on another face of the mountain, the sun was beginning to set/

I collapsed against a rock.
Despair, cold and absolute despair threatened to drown me.

"I left them," I whispered, my voice breaking. "I left them behind."

Then Xerta's hand gripped my shoulder, hard.
I looked up into her eyes.

"So what are you going to do about it?" she demanded. "Sit here and cry? Is that going to break those chains? Is that going to save them?"

She shook me once, rattling me to my core.

"I lost my home to fanatics because people were too scared to fight back. I'm not losing anyone else. So you get up. You get up, we find them, and we get them back. Simple as that. No more running."

Her words were like a bucket of ice water to my soul.
She was right.
Her pragmatism was what I needed in this dark hour.

I took a deep breath and stood.

"You're right. No more running."

Elara, who had been studying the valley below, pointed a trembling finger. 

"Look."

We crept to the edge of the cliff.
Below us, spread across a wide plateau, was the demonic encampment.
It was built around the base of ancient, half-human ruins, as if they were mocking the past.

At the heart of the ruins, there was a heavily guarded, fortified structure built into the rock.
They were using the ruins dungeon.

As we watched, a procession of demons dragged two figures towards it.
Even from this distance, I recognized them.
Tulote and Cassandra, bound and defeated, were forced into the dungeon.

There was no time to waste.