A Breaking in Resolve

This – This is power!

Ol-Lozen’s body had become ensconced in a sapphire glow, and his runic collar burned brighter than a falling star. His wounds down to the smallest hurts had turned tail. In truth, he’d felt better than he’d had in years. Like a young Orkan again, bursting with vitality. The demons were almost on him again yet not one drop of fear ran down his nose. Coursing magic had purged fear from him, and he roared mightily in the face of their folly and outstretched claws.

“COME TO ME, INCURSION! TOGETHER WE SHALL DANCE INTO THE ENDLESS DREAM!”

He dropped low, leg muscles bulging in preparation, and leapt from the earth with enough force to shatter the ground that held him, soaring past outstretched claws and into their open sky. They followed, the demons, drawn to prey without wings and no hope of escape so far from safety of solid land, up and up and up chewing Ol-Lozen’s trail until he could discern each protuberance in their yolky forms. Face in wide rictus, he took his people’s blade in hand. He only wished that day’s sky had been cloudless.

Onyx-frosted metal flashed, and the booming air suffused golden with Incursion remains. Whooping delight heralded his fall.

Arms spread wide, black hair like a waterfall in the wind rushing by, he embraced a bird’s-eye view of the former mining town below, its layout much like those dotting the countless blueprints poured over in the life long behind him. A central, disorganized collection of structures denoted where the town had begun: an alehouse, a few hovels, the inefficient well to draw clean water from. Further haphazard structuring as the town expanded and new arrivals competed for prime social spaces. Neater outskirts when the planners and aspiring builders had arrived to make their mark in fertile soil. A castle on the west end had three-quarters of its roof caved in. He’d have sighed, if the whooshing air wouldn’t balloon his cheeks to comedic proportion, at the nostalgia of designs conceived in ancient minds – genius likely scattered across the roads. Carried cloudward.

Speaking of the clouds, to his empowered eyes several distant beyond the walls appeared to be moving quite a bit faster than expected. And lower in the sky – befitting an area of higher elevation – though that did not explain their bronzed hue. The longer he delayed his safe landing to watch, the more difficult it became to deny his fears as a simple trick of the light.

The clouds gaining size were intent on Goldhome-In-The-Dell, and they buzzed with activity.

Wasting no time, Ol-Lozen turned his mind to survival. His prospects beyond a red-splattered future were falling fast, and he’d wasted enough time already. Stop my fall. Cushion it. Harden my body, but gods let me live!

A gout of sapphire light burst from his left shoulder blade. Another from his right. The light flared outward, bent, and flexed new joints along with white plumage; trappings giving Ol-Lozen cause to doubt his eyes. “Silly” was not a strong enough word. If the power he wielded truly drew from Mouse’s own then it made sense a young girl’s magic would take this form, but for an Orkan it was unseemly in the worst.

Although… taking to the skies in aerial combat promised a thrill all its own.

Before the ground had a chance to embrace him, the Orkan’s direction sharply angled without loss in swiftness, and he snagged a young boy captivated by sights never dreamed with one free arm, gust in his wake to match the furor of a hurricane, Tankbuster gripped and drawn for use in the other. Joshua gaped numb-tongued at the feathers shining pale, luminance born of latent magic.

“Our demon’s grown bird wings,” he mumbled.

Wings of magic at his back, Ol-Lozen had ascended to a demon of the skies. A thought could turn him, drop his pace or push the magic’s acceleration, or climb him higher. He tore through the city streets at the speed of thought. A plume of dust marked the route he followed, its source Jackbee, inspired to run faster than ever before. The wagon sped along, bouncing cargo and passengers. Ol-Lozen shifted his grip, startling Joshua, and he gave the boy a wink.

“This is where you get off.” To Joshua, it was a jumble mess of growling and throaty undulations. Ensuring his velocity matched the wagon’s, he tossed the lanky body in with the rest before flying up to Daigay’s side. Concentration on the road superseded any surprise at his new appearance, a mere glance the only look she was willing to spare. A city gate rose at the end of the straightaway, smashed open like the last.

“More Incursion seek us out!”

“How many?” she shouts in reply.

“They come as clouds, too many to count!”

She hissed a curse. “You’ll safeguard us competently, I trust?”

“Of course! But, I will require more power for a battle of this magnitude! Mouse, you will provide the orders, yes?” He threw a wild-eyed grin back to the wagon. From around an unrestrained barrel the girl peeked out, the trademarks of nervousness plastered across her face. He thought he saw her nod, and returned the gesture. “Keep your new friends safe,” he shouted, regarding their terrified passengers, “and leave the Incursion hordes for me!”

“One’s already gotten our scent if you’ve half a mind to act!” yelled Daigay. A yellow swarm boiled over the city wall where she pointed, the buzz of hundreds churning the air into butter.

With pleasure, he thought, a shiver running up the length of his body. Magic propelled him ahead and towards the approaching swarm while the wagon pressed on, Daigay urging her steed faster with a shimmering hand. The gate loomed, perpendicular to their current path; turning would be impossible – for any driver not a magus. At a snap of her fingers the earth reshaped, rose, sloped, becoming the curved quarter pipe skateboarders dreamt of gliding along, and would deliver them to the gate without breaking pace.

“Ride on, old friend,” she whispered to the donkey. “Let not your faith falter, and I will guide you true.”

Wagon and steed hit the pipe and slid perfectly as planned – traveling horizontally along the curve, for a long, terrifying moment in the passenger’s mind, cantilevered solely by centrifugal force – ending a straight shot from the gate opened wide to the land beyond. In a second they were outside the walls. Muted yellow on the horizon announced more pursuers not more than a few minutes away.

Ol-Lozen knew himself capable of dispatching thrice what he faced now in that time. Further power at his fingertips, whenever Mouse deigned to provide the strength he demanded, would only see his supremacy to greater heights. Gripping his weapon, he seared a sapphire path towards the Incursion swarm, laughing as the creatures peel away, yielding to his threat. In the throes of battle thrill, a moment was spared to gaze upon their pitiful work. It was a transparent tactic, and he laughed all the harder for their effort. Surging not at Ol-Lozen, but around him, the cravens sought to envelop him in bodies, like a white blood cell preparing to consume a pathogen.

How best to take these feckless creatures apart? Options arranged themselves out in front of him, each equally tantalizing. Of this worldly joy, there was no end to be found; the power born of aligned interest between summoner and summoned trivialized any foe he’d face.

“Your labors will win you nothing – nothing but death, and the taste of my blade!” Ol-Lozen rushed into glorious fray.

And an unearthly noose cinched tight.

Air stopped in the narrow channel of his throat, unable to pass down or back, crashed against the tourniquet of runic light. His eyes bulged against their sockets. Nerves burst into flame. Disoriented, he swerved off course as the wings bent at odd angles, nearly costing his grip on the Tankbuster. Ills of all Orkan colors ignited to life in his bowels.

Something was wrong. Very wrong. The collar was choking him without discernible reason. Such would only occur when he disobeyed. If they are dying as she’d wanted, then why can’t I breathe? Fingers scrabbled at his throat. The runes were hot enough to burn. His eyes streamed, and through his teary blinks beheld a more harrowing sight: the Incursion closer than he recalled, blotting out the sky. Their wings jittered. Jumped like odd frames in a film reel, the evens clipped out, bodies shifting blue and back again.

His world lit by battle thrill flickered, like a sapphire lightbulb about to burst.

The demons had nearly enveloped Ol-Lozen in their swarm, an empty patch directly behind him but filling fast. He tore for it swinging. The Tankbuster cut just as well despite fleeting power, but numerous outstretched claws and edge pieces of wing and scab caught his clothes, hair, and skin as he pushed through the bramble bush of Incursion bodies, and he emerged from the golden burst flecked with red tears.

Down below, impressive headway has been made in escaping. Formations of hard packed clay and stone constrain Jackbee and the wagon to the road strewn with desiccated remains of life that was, armored and unarmored. He aims for them, pushing the magic for all its worth as it bleeds away, the edges of his vision growing dark. Relentless buzzing eggs the Orkan to push harder. Breath was a dream he longed to reclaim.

Dread sound of slurping milk sucked the wings off his back. Freed from magic, the Orkan tumbled down with meteoric force. None in the wagon noticed his descent.

At the swiftness of his fall, Ol-Lozen made a gamble. He turned into it, one arm protecting his head. His other he stretched out, Tankbuster held in white knuckles. Sheathing its extensive length into a narrow channel bouncing at his back was impossible, and so it was kept out. As the force it expelled was proportional to the strength of the blow landed, he decided against throwing the sword a safe distance away, and braced himself – closing his eyes in the face of inevitable impact. Had he kept them open, he would have seen the circle of armored knights who’d died in loyal defense of Goldhome-In-The-Dell his trajectory would place him within. At an upcoming turn, Daigay again reshaped the earth ahead in preparation.

Ol-Lozen struck the earth. Tremors rippled across the stone. Had Orkan biology not developed the way it did – a dense calcium-rich skeleton, condensed layers of muscle and fat, thick organ walls – he would have died on impact, or, if not then, when the liquid within the Tankbuster performed its intended function, flinging him once more, as well as multiple corpses clad heavily in armor caught in the blast. One in particular was flung in the direction of the road, angled slightly ahead of where the wagon would soon reach.

Successful as before, Daigay urged Jackbee to keep his speed constant, never faltering, promises of extra oatcakes, brushes and pets painting pretty pictures in the animal’s obedient brain. He hit the pipe, its curve forcing the steed to turn, which in turn swung the wagon just as a sizable portion of armored torso landed with a metallic thunk directly in the path of its forwardmost wheel.

Every passenger inside was hurled bodily against one side of the wagon the moment the corpse jammed against it, any unrestrained crates, barrels, satchels, boxes, bottles, and chests following after, of which there were more than enough to discomfort those inside.

The rightmost wheels lifted off the ground, as the wagon started to roll.

While he hadn’t expected for this style of conundrum to befall him, the man who’d built the wagon – the same whose son now felt a bit uncomfortable, compressed between the wagon bed and a barrel of apples – was of solid intelligence, acquired over years through learned experience during his time as a farmer and frequent traveler to the markets. His vehicle bore an impeccably placed center of gravity alongside proper weighting. Should he have suffered the same tribulations the passengers currently confronted, his wagon would have righted itself and brought all four wheels back to ground without issue, preserving his goods and any who might have ridden within.

Which would have been the case here – had Daigay not enchanted his wagon, soon after buying it, with a spell to manipulate localized gravity and thrown that hard work out the proverbial window. And, so, the wagon rolled over completely.

His reins attached to it, Jackbee was thrown screaming with the wagon’s momentum atop the old magus riding him, and rolled in a mass of flailing limbs, cracks, and dust along the rough stone until the wagon finally came to a halt.

---

Ol-Lozen rose on shaking limbs. He was thankful to have risen at all. All was pain and loud ringing. On the edge of consciousness, a harsh thrum. Sharpness in his chest told him at least one rib was broken. Red coated the arm that had endured the brunt of the fall.

Power. Mouse can fix this if she’d lend me power.

He drew a ragged breath, noticing air flowing unrestrained down his windpipe. Falling had, somehow, he figured, been in line with her order.

“Mouse…” he groaned. “Incursion. They’re still coming.” He looked to the sky, wincing in pain. The clouds overhead were close enough now that he could pick apart individual figures. Soon they’d be upon him. He’d be sliced into hundreds of sheer, bite-sized pieces. Orkan pastrami. Eat it raw, fry him on the grill, stuff him between two slices of white bread, bake in sauce of mustard, garlic, and white wine until desirable. He thought too much of himself.

Still on the ground, powerless, no one around, no one responding – nothing but green chopped liver.

Maybe they’d managed to escape, he thought, turning his head downroad. No cloud of dust, only another buzzing one on approach. Jackbee’s a speedier donkey than I’d thought.

Then a dirty, bloodied form hobbled across his vision. One arm flopped uselessly at its side. He listened to the panting before remembering who she was. Daigay had slapped a muzzle over her face.

“Oh, that’s one of the peasants we rescued,” he mumbled to no one.

Realization struck him harder than he had the ground. Not one crack of the neck away was the wagon lying in pieces, the silent body of Jackbee beside it. The other peasants were crawling out. Numerous injuries marred their bodies. They ran, but not quickly.

“No. no, no…” Sword in hand, fingers locked in a permanent death grip, unresponsive to commands, he tore a mad dash towards the wagon. “Nonononononono,” he moaned, more out of panic than hurt.

A hand holding a hatchet slapped out of the wagon, with Joshua connected to it. Blood sheeted down his face from a gash on his forehead, and his nose was crooked and dripping. “Get back here!” he shouted to one of the women. “Stay together!” His young legs carried him to her, calling all the while for her to return.

“MOUSE! DAIGAY!”

“Demon…” came a teary voice.

Ol-Lozen’s heart flew. On all fours, the girl crawled into view. She slumped against the cracked bed, crimson matting her rat’s nest of hair. Her hands were scraped, and bruises were already forming but, mercifully, nothing about Mouse appeared physically broken.

“Where did the others run to?” she asked when he was closer. Her voice was weak, the lower lip split and bleeding.

“Joshua ran after one.”

“And Marken? Shouna? Polully?” When he looked at her dumbly, never having heard those names, she swallowed hard. “Lift me so I can find them.”

He lifted her atop the broken wagon, setting her down where she could see all the runners. “Mouse,” he started, looking past her to the golden, thrumming clouds, combined those with the ones he knew were behind. “We’re surrounded. If nothing is done, this’ll be the end of the line for us.”

“Where’s Grandma?”

From where he stood, the body was out of sight. Jackbee was still, he knew that; the donkey might have crushed her under his bulk. Ol-Lozen started to speak, hesitating, before he gave his answer. “I don’t know. I didn’t see her. Mouse…”

The girl’s eyes drooped down, and her face sagged. When the shriek came, her head snapped to the peasant hanging limp, skewered on a black scabbed arm, elbow deep in their chest.

Mouse’s eyes widened, and her small frame quivered violently in his hand.

“Mouse, listen to me. Only you can get us out of this.” He may as well have been a thousand miles away for all the acknowledgement he received; another scream had captured her attention, and a person she’d saved collapsed limbless to the earth under a trio of yolky weights. Every drop of blood drained from Mouse’s face. Some poured from her broken lip.

Gods, this is how it ends.

To Joshua did her gaze at last drift: the boy had made a wall of his body between Polully and the hordes. One swooped down, claws flashing. He turned his body, elbow keeping the woman behind him. With a mighty chop he took the demon’s arm, face wide with triumph. The other arm lanced and he ducked low, punched up with his buckler to deflect the attack, opening up another swing, and took the second limb.

Its first regrew in that span of time, and carved valleys through the boy’s stomach. He went down screaming. Polully, too, as the second limb regenerated.

Ol-Lozen stepped away from the girl and her empty stare, instead turning to face the golden swarms moments from their throats. “I will take as many as I can with me. If you won’t act, then I choose to die swinging over begging.” The thought of offering his life for the girl gave him small comfort. There was a queer peace here, at the end of the road, knowing there were only so many more actions to take, so many more words to say. Every little choice felt a thousand times more meaningful. If this was to be his purpose, to die in defense of another, even if his defense proved ultimately insignificant, then he was content to die carving a bloody path through all who sought to rend him apart.

He charged forth, roaring his last, Tankbuster gleaming in the light.

And the girl rose, screaming for her own.

“KILL THEM, DEMON. KILL THEM ALL.”