Like ants, they were crushed before her. Like ants, they were smeared out of existence with but a single thought. Like ants, they could do little but scatter in her looming presence. Like ants, those soldiers were reduced to nothing but feeble insects scurrying in the mud. Her skal’mo was utterly silent, utterly emotionless as it swiped down with a massive hand, billowing a trail of black smoke in the air behind the giant limb. Where those fingers touched fleeing soldiers, it dissolved armor and flesh faster than any acid. Black smoke crept in through the cracks, chilling the skin to ice before it shattered from the gentle force. The body swiftly crumbled to ash, to a frozen powder, as if from that gentle wind of the shadowy smoke.

The ranks of the Savos legion had collapsed almost immediately, any hope of unity and cohesion broken from the first blow of the skal’mo. Like salt in the rain, they were dissolved with that first swipe, scattering into the gentle wind. Some of them vanished into the river, their remains lost in the torrent. This was her power, and a part of her reveled madly in it. The strength that she commanded at her fingertips, the strength to make men panic and flee like nothing more than hunted deer, it nearly drove all reason from her. Some part of her mind reminded her what she needed the skal’mo for, of what she had paid this price to save. Yet she could not remember why.

Her memories eluded her—or perhaps they had been torn away completely. In her hurry, in her haste, had she truly forgotten what all the sacrifices had been for? She wracked her mind in a blind panic, struggling to recall why. As if teasing her, the briefest of memories flickered through her mind—a bloodied throat, a soldier among the corpses, someone worth saving even through hell. Yet if it was a name that she sought, she would not find it. Even that fleeting image, that ephemeral memory, was quick to slip out of her grasp almost as quickly as it had came.

Her gaze was drawn to the battlefield then, to the tilled soil that was seeded with the bodies of the dead. A soldier, it had been? A bloodied body amongst the corpses? That was no scarcity here, where the very dirt was dark with crimson. The one that she sought was most likely dead already, no different from his brothers that lay beside him. What she saw before her spoke the truth to her heart, a chilling wind snuffing out that spark of hope that was still nestled in her heart. He is most likely already dead. Those words were like a poison to her spirit, a gentle venom that seeped into her flesh with every heartstroke. Already dead. She had been too late. Truly then, she had failed. Truly then, this had all been for naught.

I did warn you, the voice echoed in her mind, mocking her, taunting her. She felt a sudden fury burst aflame inside of her, the skal’mo below responding to her hate. Dead. They were all dead. There were no tears to blur her eyes at the thought; there was no trembling to overtake her knees. She felt only emptiness at the notion, felt only an unfathomable cold that seemed to spread inside of her like a creeping winter. Dead. All dead.

These fools had killed them. These ants had slaughtered them, by sword and spear. All those she had ever loved, those now-nameless, now-faceless memories that she had condemned herself to hell for—these crow-cursed soldiers had butchered them. Her swirling thoughts seemed to condense into a needle, white ribbons wrapping ever tighter, ever closer around that single thought. Beneath her, the skal’mo struck out with a fist large enough to scrape the horizon, dispersing into black fog as it punched the ground. Kill them all then. She would see them all dead before the fiery chains dragged her down.

That roiling black fog billowed across the ground, sucking all heat and hope out of the air that it touched. At its slightest gesture, men found their strength fleeing from them, their every movement growing tenfold more laborious. At its gentle touch, their muscles failed and their arms fell slack, a terrible cold creeping over their skin until it became ice, until it became snow. At its sweet embrace, they slowly dispersed, their body cracking and falling apart into minute ash, the last thing to go the expression of terror that was frozen on their face. Frost-glazed armor fell to the ground with its bearer gone, the steel shattering like glass as it struck the frigid earth. That billowing mist swept away any final remains, the battlefield becoming the furnace of a frozen cremation.

She watched on impassively, soundlessly urging on every silent death. There were no screams that escaped those outstretched lips, no dying words to be spoken. There was only the peaceful quiet of death, as she watched as that fateful reaper collected amongst the ants. Her heart felt no joy as another man fell; her grief did not lessen with each black-ashed corpse. Yet her gaze was drawn to those plumed officers in the back, standing proud atop panicked mounts. They sought to flee, sought the warm embrace of life and safety. Her hate was like a knife at that thought, like an arrow as she wanted nothing more than their bodies burnt by cold. Yet even as she directed the fog of the skal’mo towards those distant figures, a sudden animalistic roar tore through the air, less a warcry and more the sound of a predator beginning the hunt.

Behind you, that voice laughed, those thousand overlapping voices mocked. She whirled about abruptly, panic a shadow falling over her heart. Even as her gaze fell across the river, she could not believe what she saw: a menagerie of abominations lay scattered across the mudbank. They bore bodies of beast and men, fused in grotesque amalgamation, complete with wings and claws and bone-faced visages. Metal fell over their bodies, sunlight glinting off the plates even at this distance. And at the head of the demon horde stood an all-too familiar figure—their king, one of the few bereft of armor.

It was then that a heated anger filled her, for she remembered what else she had sought when she had damned herself: that the world would be cleansed of these monsters. That memory had not fled from her; it stood out like a brand against her heart. That they had come to her, of their own accord, could only be attributed to fickle, capricious fate. Had she a smile to give, had she a laugh to throw, she would have, that these creatures had spared her the trouble of seeking them out.

A silence crept over the field, as if they too understood her overbearing strength. For a tense moment, time itself seemed to come to a stop, not a single thing moving in the lands. Yet that was shattered by the king, by the white-scaled demon that slinked besides it. The air buzzed with fervent magic, surged with channeled energy, and she watched in careful curiosity. She watched as the air itself seemed to split with thunder, light flashing out faster than an instant towards the skal’mo. She watched as a torrent of flame shot towards her, a column of hellfire that seemed almost liquid with heat. She watched as the magic bored a hole in the mist, as the heartbeat of the skal’mo itself suddenly flickered in the back of her mind. Like the bite of an ant, it drew blood. Like the bite of an ant, it was but a fleeting wound. Black shadow swiftly knitted the hole closed, snuffing out that blaze with icy cold.

As if in defiance of her, that piercing chorus of demons suddenly raised their voices into a fevered pitch, their bodies suddenly matching the temperature of their fervent hearts. Flame burst out, first with one or two, then swiftly spreading throughout their ranks until they seemed to have brought the molten rills of hell up to surround them.Their armor glowed a brilliant white, purple magic dancing madly in the air. The air became filled with the scent of char and smoke, smothering even at this distance.

Such passion, she scorned hatefully. Such ambition, she knew, for these creatures would seek to spread across the lands if they could, feeding on man and beast alike. Her anger burned ever hotter with the knowledge of her righteousness, that this fight she took was for the sake of her people. She could not allow these demons to spread like pestilence across this country. If she was doomed to die, if she was cursed in hell for it, then she would do so. This sole hope now, this single aim was all that she had left to seek. If this was to be her last fight, then may both coasts gaze in wonder, that the flame of a martyr’s vigilance scorch the very heavens.

At her command, the skal’mo strode forward with but a single rolling step. Its massive figure had no legs, instead dispersing into a rolling mist that billowed across the ground. Where it passed, the earth crackled and broke, a thin layer of hoarfrost growing on the edges. Even that surging river, still steadfast with its currents despite the corpses blocking the rapids, could not halt its march. Water froze in its presence, becoming a clear rime so quickly that it still held the shapes of the waves. More of the water surged over the frozen river, climbing higher only to ice over as well. Higher and higher that river crept, until at last the entire stretch was a glass serpent, winding through the lands. It was a clear demarcation—on one side was nothing but winter, frozen earth and barren wastes. On the other was hell itself, the ground seared from the heat of the demon’s flames. That former mud was now an arid clay, a parched desert spiderwebbed with cracks as every last hint of moisture was sucked out by fire.

Fire, hissed that voice in her mind, hissed those thousand tongues. They spoke with a fear, an abrupt warning that would have her flee. Yet she would not flee. She could not flee. She would have her final stand be here, before she lost whatever was left of her fleeting humanity and became monster as well. She would fight, and with that very thought she saw the arm of the skal’mo sweep out like a gale, like a torrent of wind to snuff out the flame.

Black mist surged as it struck the ground across the river, seeking to reduce the demons to nothing but ash and frozen dust. Those magicked flames shuddered at its presence, the wind alone reducing them to candleflames, hardly more than embers. She felt nothing but scorn as she watched, certain in her victory.

Yet the devil was not so swift to see its servants gone, for the fiends fought back with an almost suicidal madness. Consumed by bestial madness, they charged forward into the mist with fangs and claws bared. They came by foot, claws striking up plumes of dust behind them. They came by air, fliers spreading leathery wings as they swooped directly into the center of the cloud of shadow. Their armor glowed brilliantly, magic thick as honey in the air as flame once more shrouded their bodies.

Like a swarm, like a plague, like a flood, they descended on the skal’mo. Voracious fire latched greedily onto the shadow of the skal’mo, spreading swiftly into an inferno. They were like embers in a fog of black, yet those miniscule embers were suddenly threatening to burst into a conflagration. In the back of her mind, she could hear the skal’mo screaming in pain, that frigid mist helpless against the rolling waves of heat. The demons ravaged her child, tore into the mist with fangs and claws of fire. Panic sank into her heart, a sudden fear that froze her in place.

Fool! The voices in her mind screamed, a storm in her mind amidst the firestorm below. They echoed with the timeless sound of eternity, an eternity that seemed about to end.

Flee, now, lest you too fall! Flee!