BT - Book 1 - Chapter 40 (Patreon)

As they charged, Micah cast wind shield and flight.  The last battle had showed that even if his minions were more powerful than their opponents, it wasn’t impossible for the weight of numbers to overwhelm them.  Earth magic might have let him make a shield of rocks, and fire magic would let Micah ring himself in flames, but he simply didn’t have access to proper defensive magics.  All he could do was fly and protect himself from arrows, forcing the battle into the air.

The Brensen and the Luoca could fly with him, swooping down to kill or maim Durgh while drawing the battle out.  As for the Onkert?  Micah didn’t hold out much hope that they’d survive the battle even if everything went perfectly.  

As it was, heavily outnumbered and with high leveled Durgh such as the Khan thrown into the mix, the Onkert were dead and his only real chance was to keep flying.  The Durgh would have some way to attack him, a group of blessed that size surely would, but if he remained on the ground they would overwhelm his small group with sheer numbers in a matter of minutes.  At least in the air, he had a better chance at limiting the size of the engagement.

Micah lept and the wind caught him.  Soaring up amongst the finely carved stalactites he ignored the barrage of arrows and javelins that followed him, trusting in the wind shield to deflect the projectiles.  Seconds later, the flying daemons joined him as he began casting haste, his mind's eye touching the tethers binding him to the Brensen.

A ball of flame struck the stalactite next to him, reducing it to half molten shrapnel, easily deflected by his wind shield.  He finished the spell and frowned down upon the small army of Durgh.  

The Brensen swooped downward, haste speeding their descent as they struck like hawks, squawking happily as they slashed their skeletal claws through victims before returning to the cavern’s roof.  Near him, the two Luoca flapped amidst the crags of the roof lazily, waiting for Micah to finish their casting of haste so that they could join their siblings.

The spell completed, settling over the Luoca just as a pair of Durgh rose from the column, batlike wings from their blessings sprouting from their backs.  Almost casually one of the Luoca darted forward, its wings blurring through the aggressors, bisecting them and letting their dissolving bodies fall onto the Durgh below.

Micah winced as half of the chains binding his Onkert to him snapped before withering away.  He glanced down at the battlefield.  It was as he’d suspected.  The Onkert managed to bring down a single careless Durgh before the higher level amongst their numbers disabled them with a series of spells and blessings long enough for those on the front lines to dispatch them.

Even as he watched, a great cylinder of stone, carved from earth magic, fell from the ceiling onto the daemons, crushing and instantly killing another two.  Again, he felt the connection between them sever.

His attention snapped back to his situation as a silver harpoon simply ignored his wind shield and slammed into Micah’s leg.  For a second, his mind went white as the weapon shattered his thigh.  

The barbs bit into his flesh, and pulled him toward the ground with an overpowering jerk.  He screamed.  Despite his agony, Micah’s vision was pulled toward the Durgh holding the chain.  A giant like all of his subterranean race, his mouth was wide with laughter, exhibiting his tusks and sharp teeth.  Around him the other Durgh cheered him on, one clapping him on the back, congratulating him for spearing Micah.

Without thinking, Micah touched the invisible chains binding his Luocas.  One blurred past him, too fast for Micah’s eyes even as he knew it was coming.  Its wing dipped slightly in the air before it sliced through the harpoon’s chain.  The other slammed into the ground in the middle of the Durgh formation, killing a handful with its bulk before lashing out with its wings and tail.

Micah blinked back tears, taking some small satisfaction in watching the Durgh that had skewered him vomit from the backlash as his Luoaca shattered the chain of his blessing. The other interposed its body in front of him, intercepting a volley of spells and blessings that lit the dark cave up in a pyrotechnic display.

He hissed in relief as augmented mending deadened his nerves and knit the bone back together.  Micah’s HP had dropped dangerously, at a lower the harpoon would have killed him outright without any need to reel him to the ground.

Another volley of spells struck the Luoca while Micah recast his spell.  It whined slightly, the repeated attacks finally beginning to chip away at the great Daemon’s prodigious health.  The minute Micah’s calf muscle knit back together and his hit points crested above eighty percent, released the daemon mentally, sending the entity to vent its frustration on the swarm of Durgh.

It veered away from Micah, preparing to dive toward the column of soldiers only for the gigantic head of a flail, wreathed in flame, to slam into it and drive the Luoca into the cavern ceiling.

With a thought, Micah flowed to the side, frowning at the reddened and newly hairless skin of his forearms where the heat from the flail had seared him.  The ball of the flail itself continued rotating, grinding the Luoca against sheer rock.  His eyes trailed back along the chain, a series of glowing red links that illuminated the otherwise dimly lit cave, to find Krosst.

The Khan met his gaze.  Where he was once twice Micah’s height, he now stood at least four, maybe five times as tall, his body the dull orange of molten rock.  Magma hissed as it dripped from the creases in his body, leaving a trail of dim lights behind him.  Unsurprisingly, none of the Durgh came within a dozen paces of him, unable to bear the heat radiating off of his gigantic body.

The flail head rocketed back toward Krosst at speeds that left a dull afterimage in Micah’s vision.  The Durgh caught it in his left hand, a feral grin twisting across his burning face as the Luoca emerged from a crater in the ceiling, its human head screaming incoherent defiance.

Wordlessly, Krosst dropped the head of the flail to the cavern floor, the impact knocking several of the nearby Durgh off balance.  Without breaking eye contact with the Luoca, he extended his left hand.  Flicking his fingers toward himself, Krosst beckoned silently.

Micah began casting haste on his Luoca.  As powerful as they were, he didn’t have any confidence that they could beat the Khan quickly without his help.  

Orange and red flashed across Micah’s vision as Krosst threw a glob of magma at the Luoca with enough force to knock it almost ten paces to the side.

Mentally, he amended his assessment from ‘quickly’ to ‘at all.’

Haste let the Luoca correct its course, narrowly dodging the chain of Krosst’s flail as it whipped by.  Micah switched to his Sun mana pool in an effort to give his Moon mana a moment to replenish itself and began casting regeneration.  Given the heat mirages rising off of the gigantic Durgh, even if his daemon fought the battle perfectly, even striking the Khan would damage the Luoca.  Foresight could come next, but for now it needed staying power.

Micah wove through the stalactites on the ceiling, using the carved pillars of stone as cover against the javelins and magic of the Durgh as he finished his spells.  Just as he finished casting foresight a jet of pressurized air shattered the cavern next to him, spraying Micah with shards of stone that his wind shield barely deflected.

He glanced down and frowned, almost twenty Durgh flew toward him under the influence of spells similar to flight or under the power of some blessing.  One of them held a great metal apparatus similar to a blacksmith’s bellows and as Micah watched, she pushed down on the accordion.  Sigils and glyphs running up and down the spout of the device glowed briefly and a spear of pressurized gas roared past him once again.

A handful of rapid thrusts from Micah’s spear sent the Durgh scattering as one of their numbers fell to the ground bleeding from a series of holes drilled in him by the spears’ enchantments.  Micah turned his attention back to his daemons as he wove through the air, taking advantage of his flight to throw off the aim of the Durgh on the floor.

The Brensen dove in and out of the swarm, leaving grievous wounds or claiming heads entirely.  Of course, despite their power and magical reinforcement, the Brensen didn’t operate with impunity.  The Durgh were far from defenseless and each swoop into their ranks triggered attempts to rob them of their aerial advantage.  Although this took the form of nets and spells, more often than not it resulted in Durgh, drunk on the potential honor of bringing down such an illustrious foe, attempting to tackle or bear hug a daemon.

It didn’t take long, only a moment to disrupt the Brensen’s momentum, and the rest of the mob would swarm upon it like ants attacking scraps of food at a picnic.  Sometimes the Durgh in the area wouldn’t be strong enough to hold the great daemons down, and seconds later the Brensen would flap away from a charnel scene of blood and limbs.

At least once however, a Brensen had been tackled by a high level Durgh with a clan leader nearby.  Even though the Durgh was only slightly more powerful than the daemon, she was able to prevent the summon from fleeing with a series of rapid attacks while her kinsfolk ripped it to shreds.

Taking in the multiple open wounds on his surviving Brensen, Micah began casting healing wave.  He’d need to resist the urge to support the second tier daemons further with mana intensive time spells.  Despite the damage they were dealing, the Durgh army stretched deep into the cavern.  He held no illusions about winning the battle conventionally.  Instead he needed to survive twenty eight more minutes.  If he were to see the light of day again, Micah would need to conserve both his mana and his stamina.

The Luoca on the other hand faired much better.  One of the duo rampaged through the Durgh, it’s very steps warping and melting the reality of the rocks it stepped upon as its wings and tail sheared through even the thickest of armor.  Shamans did their best to restrict its motions, creating cages of stone and prisons of ice.  None of them did much.  The aura of Elsewhere weakened the magic, made the bonds frail and brittle enough that the Luoca’s wings cut them apart with ease.

Krosst on the other hand gave a much better account of himself.  His Luoca used the power of foresight and the speed of haste to dodge each attack by the barest of margins.  The moment the Khan overextended himself, the daemon’s tail would lash out, already knowing from foresight that its attack would succeed.  Each blow struck a weak point, sinking shoulder deep into the magma of a knee or shoulder.

Through his connection to the daemon, Micah could feel the stifling heat burning away at the Luoca’s HP.  By the same token, each blow from its tail fundamentally changed some of the molten rock that composed the Durgh Khan.  Joints hardened and became brittle, and blow by blow he began to move slower as the magic of his transformation was eroded and morphed by the essence of Elsewhere.

Micah frowned at his mana reserves and began casting foresight once again.  The spell was expensive, but he needed Krosst eliminated if Micah was going to survive.  Already the Durgh were calling up warbeasts specialized for their specific situation, giant twisted arachnids capable of spitting webs into the air to trap and bring down the evasive Brensen and mutated bats, likely to hunt Micah himself.

Renewing foresight on the Luoca, Micah quickly recalled two of the Brensen from their attack runs with a thought.  The flying Durgh were regrouping and it would only be a matter of time before the flying warbeasts rallied to their aid.  

Hovering, juking, and dodging far above the battlefield might put him out of reach of his average opponent, but that wasn’t a situation that could last forever.  Most of the Durgh might be focusing on the daemons directly attacking them, but Micah’s summons were too heavily outnumbered to draw all of his enemies’ focus.  In the end they would notice him, and even if only one or two powerful melee combatants closed to within spear range of him, it would force Micah to spend mana on defensive spells that he could ill afford to lose.

The bats and Durgh rose toward Micah, the warbeasts screening the more powerful warriors from Micah’s attacks.  With a shrug, he dipped into his mana once more and cast sonic bolt.  

The spell's biggest weakness was its range.  Despite its name, sound didn’t stick to a ‘bolt’ format naturally.  More than a couple paces out, it began to disperse and spread.  In reality, it was more of a ‘sonic cone.’  Against powerful opponents, that meant closing to point blank range in order to ensure penetration.  Against bats that used their sensitive hearing to echolocate prey?

Half of the warbeasts dropped from the sky bonelessly, their large ears leaking blood.  It didn’t really matter whether the spell killed or disabled them, the hard stone of the cavern floor equalized everything in the end.  The other half swerved wildly, their direction and control compromised by the sudden assault.

The two Brensen protecting Micah dove into the confusion, their claws scattering and killing the remaining bats.  At their best, the warbeast might have slowed the cyclopean vultures gleefully scything through their ranks, but damaged and confused, they didn’t stand a chance.

The Durgh behind them fired a volley of javelins and magic into the bats’ ranks to try and slow the daemons down, blades of water, fist sized rocks that detonated into shrapnel, fireballs that left Micah blinking away after images, and of course the large air pressure cannon.  It worked after a fashion, the Brensen emerged from the mass of bats riddled with small cuts, their wings smoldering from fire based attacks.

Micah simply cast augmented mending again, circumventing the spell's lack of ranged effect by touching both of the daemons’ tethers.  Through their eyes he saw the recognition dawn on the flying contingent of Durgh as the wounds closed.  He released his mental grip on the Brensens’ bindings when they lunged forward with dizzying speed, claws outstretched to tear through the suddenly undefended and inexperienced fliers.

Below, another Brensen died, the pop of its tether severing drawing Micah’s attention as he hid himself behind another outcropping of rock on the ceiling.  One of the great spider warbeasts had caught the daemon in a net made of webbing and reeled it back to the cavern floor before it could escape.  It gave a good accounting of itself, tearing the legs from the arachnid that doomed it with its claws even as the webbing bound its wings together.  

By the time it finally collapsed, three bone spears piercing its body, almost a dozen Durgh corpses surrounded the daemon.  With a shudder, the arachnid stopped moving.

For a fraction of a second, Micah considered recalling his Brensen.  They weren’t as robust as the Luoca and their injuries were beginning to add up.  His eyes flickered over the chaos of the battlefield. 

He couldn’t though.  There were too many Durgh.  If they weren’t under constant pressure from the swooping daemons, the enemy would have a moment to think.  Micah had a sinking sensation that any planning by the Durgh would involve ‘focusing fire on the squishy pink summoner.’  Even if constant action meant taking losses, he needed to keep the Durgh off balance long enough to avoid that outcome.

Touching the connection to his Luoca, Micah grit his teeth and began casting foresight once again.  The spell was powerful, insanely so, but its short duration almost made it a liability in an endurance battle like this.  Almost.

Krosst was slowing.  The angry orange of his body dimmed to a dull yellow as tail strike after tail strike from the Luoca warped and twisted the magma that made his gigantic battle form. Thanks to the haste and repeated castings of foresight, after the first surprise attack with his flail, Krosst hadn’t struck the Luoca again.  It was still just over half of its health, a natural outcome when combat forced it to jam an appendage into magma.

The ground around the Khan was soaked in glowing yellow and orange liquid, the molten rock refusing to harden even as it cooled.  Then Krosst stumbled, his right knee giving out slightly.  As he fell, the Luoca’s tail slashed across his throat, the serrated appendage already in motion before the Durgh even began moving.

Magma sprayed across the nearby Durgh that formed a circle around the two of them, protecting the sanctity of their duel.  It wasn’t quite enough to kill any of the veteran warriors that made up the Khan’s honor guard, but more than one burst into flames as the superheated rock touched the dry cloth and leather that padded their armor.

Krosst’s form blackened, the heat disappearing in an instant.  The Luoca screeched defiance and lunged forward, its wings shattering the hollow statue.  Inside the rubble of his defeated combat form lay Krosst’s normal body, naked and gasping for breath.

Before anyone could react, the Luoca’s tail darted forward, impaling the Khan.  The tail extended, holding the body high above the battlefield.  The entire conflict settled into a lull, the eyes of every Durgh not actively fighting a daemon focusing on their crippled Khan.

Krosst twitched, his hands, each the size of Micah’s head, reaching for the tail lodged in his chest.  They grasped at the limb as he tried to pull himself free.  

Then they started to dissolve.  The hands.  Krosst’s torso around the wound.  Great drops of flesh and refuse dribbled from them as they seemed to melt.

Krosst looked up and opened his mouth as if to say something, true fear in his eyes for the first time.  Instead, his mouth remained slack as the light left his gaze.

The Luoca bellowed, an incoherent sound of triumph and challenge.  It smashed the still form of the Durgh leader into the stone, crushing the lifeless body into a paste of meat and bone.

The Durgh surged in rage.  Where before they attacked joyously but cautiously, now they struck out with abandon uncaring as they wasted their lives and mana in an attempt to bring down Micah’s daemons.

His summons responded to their ferocity in kind.  Ignoring their injuries and counting on Micah’s hasty castings of regeneration to keep them in fighting shape as they reaped life after life.

A Brensen fell, its lower body encased in stone after a shaman summoned a great hand of rock to pluck it from the air.  Tens of Durgh lay injured or dead around it before a glaive finally clove the great vulture’s skull from its shoulders.

Then another.  Micah had to change positions as an earth spellcaster turned the ceiling next to him into a great fanged maw that snapped at him.  Without even looking, he directed a Luoca to the caster and a pair of insect wings bisected the man.

He began to lose track of time.  A spell or attack would wound him, Micah would heal.  A spell would run out on his daemons and he would renew it.  The world became a blur of action as Durgh and daemon alike fell, bathing the dark battlefield in blood.

Finally, a horn blew from the Khanmoot itself.  The remaining Durgh began to extricate themselves from combat.  With a tired thought, Micah called back his daemons.  What remained of them.

One Luoca and three Brensen survived, all well below half health.  The Luoca that had defeated the Khan was targeted almost immediately by the Durgh.  Even though it out leveled everything around it, the unending string of attacks  eventually ripped the wings from its back, crippling the daemon.  That battle had drawn the attention of the Durgh host’s elite for almost fifteen minutes.  

Without its sacrifice, Micah tiredly realized that he would have died.  Even if the Luoca were more powerful than any of the Durgh other than the Khan himself, quantity had a quality of its own.  That monomaniacal focus on their leader’s killer allowed the rest of his daemons to regenerate enough hit points with the aid of his magic to survive to the end of the battle.

In a half hour, his summons managed to kill just over fifteen hundred of the Durgh.  Not even half of the host.  Another five to ten minutes, and his skull would be joining his Luoca’s on the cavern floor.

A large Durgh stepped forward from the army as his soldiers claimed trophies from the fallen on both sides.

“Micah Silver!” The Durgh’s voice boomed forth over the background noise of the crowd.  “You have fought honorably for a half hour and I would parley with you.”

Reluctantly, but exhausted, Micah flew down from the ceiling of the cavern, his clothes burned and torn to shreds.  Each hole and tear a testament to a deep wound that he’d healed in the heat of combat.

The floor was cold under his single bare foot.  He’d lost it entirely to a Durgh warrior whose blessing let him throw a spinning blade that would boomerang effortlessly back to him.  Regeneration had regrown the limb, but it still felt strange and new as Micah put his weight on it for the first time.

“I stand before you, Laghra, Khan Candidate and third in command for Khan Krosst,” the Durgh nodded pleasantly at Micah, his face devoid of hostility.  “You fought well today.”

“As did you,” Micah replied tiredly, the accumulated stress of combat dulling and clouding his perception like great puffs of cotton.  “I am sorry about Krosst, he seemed to be a good man.”

“He was,” Laghra agreed, “but he also died well under the approving gaze of Ankros.  No Durgh could ask for more.”

“Now,” Laghra nodded at Micah.  “Krosst made a deal with you, that you might request a cessation to our hostilities and preparations to invade the surface if you survived a half hour of open combat.  Do you make that request?”

“I do,” Micah replied, unable to put any energy behind the words.

“Very good,” Laghra nodded.  “Congratulations on your victory, human.  The next time we meet, the Durgh will be better prepared.”

Without a further word the Durgh turned and walked away, attempting to organize the chaos of the post-combat cleanup.

Micah began walking away, his daemons trailing after him.  Each step took his entire focus as he tried to line one foot in front of the other.  Micah’s vision faded and flickered, transforming his journey into a vignette of carved rock and darkness.

Finally, he came upon Telivern, a shining white beacon in the heavy night of the Great Depths.  Not knowing how, where or why he came upon his friend, Micah stumbled forward, tripping and collapsing into the deer’s soft white fur.