Joy paced angrily, the warmth of the sunlight doing little to dispel the shivers that ran through his body. They had lost much—too much last night, and still that spire stood in the distance, surrounded by skal and black mist. It mocked him, swore to stop him from marching any farther south. And yet, as he spread his gaze out over the wounded remnants of his army, he knew that there was no way for them to assault it.

The cultists had fled from the battle the previous night; even if some had been killed, the rest were certainly in large enough numbers to hold them off. If only they still had the catapults, then perhaps they would have some way to lay siege to the spire. As it was, the legion could hardly make is less than a hundred paces without being torn to pieces by skal.

Not, he thought inwardly, that the legion was in any shape to be marching anywhere. The previous night had been bloody, and in the end, they had barely two hundred men left in fighting condition, with another two hundred wounded. They suffered all manner of injury, from arrow wounds to limbs that had been lost to the skal. Many had taken to fever and fatigue, their bodies slick with sweat and their breath sour with decay. Indeed, illness had taken to many of the whole soldiers as well—he doubted that many of them would last longer than a week.

All the more reason to end this as quickly as possible, he thought to himself.

But those men had been terrifying—the ones that Kha called cultists of Atal. Their bodies were touched by the skal, not unlike the possessed Malifori that he had seen so many lifetimes ago. That bond had given them incredible power and inhuman tenacity. He remembered storming the archer lines with the legion, ripping one man through the throat only for the mangled thing to whirl around, spearing a legionary through the stomach before dying with a gurgling laugh. He had even seen one with shadowclaws the size of bear’s arm, had watched at it tore through a soldier’s shield like it was parchment—and tore through the man hiding behind it just as easily.

Even worse, Joy had seen as their corpses frothed and trembled, night-black skal oozing out to swallow legionaries foolish enough to wander near. They had needed fire—blessed, glorious fire—but even then it had barely been enough. In the madness of the fight, Joy could not remember how many of his own men he had burnt, how many youthful faces had twisted with horror and dread as they were illuminated by radiant flame. He barely remembered himself, howling madly with the feverish high of magic, purple mahji trailing behind him like whips of flame that he brought to bear, lashing out at any cultist that dared step to close.

He remembered the stench of battle, the sweat and bile, the blood and char, the smell of death that hung heavy and cloying over the fallen. He remembered the screams of the men—his men, as they were devoured by shadow and flame, the crackling of the flame and the hissing of the burning skal.

“My lord…what shall we do?” Kha hissed from beside him, and Joy swiftly pushed aside the memories of the past. There would be time enough for that in death; for now, the living demanded his attention. “The wounded…require our attention…”

“We do not have the time to deal with them, nor the means to do so.” he snarled back, feeling bitter guilt bubble up in his chest even as he tried to push it away. “It would be best to kill them now, and give them that much as mercy.”

Kha paused a moment before responding, those slitted eyes flickering over the campsite. The air was filled with the incessant moaning of the dying, the miasma heavy in the air. “They fought well… at the very least… a warrior’s death to them…”

“Aye.” Joy managed to growl out. That much, at the very least, was true. The legions had surprised him with how quickly they had adapted, with how swiftly they had overcame their dead at the Gates. Their eyes were haunted, their bodies weak and worn, but they still had the steel of soldiers nevertheless.

And now, he wanted to strain that steel once more.

“Have them gather the dead and dying. They know who those are.” he told Kha, his voice strangely distant in his ears. For some reason, he could not stop seeing Sister’s smile as she died, as her body was consumed by soulfire.

“And have them say their goodbyes as well.”

Two hundred dying men were slowly gathered in the middle of the campsite, lying on the dirt with bodies slicked with blood and sweat. Their armor and other supplies had been removed, knowing that they would need it no longer. Many were struggling to remain conscious, managing so only the sheer force of will as they gingerly clutched with wounds. Their friends remained close to them, faces solemn and movements tense. As the last few arrived, the grounds quickly fell silent, four hundred legionaries looking up at Joy.

“I will be quick.” Joy snarled out, struggling to find the words that he wanted. “You have fought well. Now you will die.”

A low ripple ran through the crowd, although none disagreed with him. Most merely nodded tersely, their expressions grave.

“I ask of you wounded now, to lend me your strength one last time. To save your friends. To spare them from meeting your fate. Will you die for them?” he asked simply. Subtlety, charm, those were not skills that he possessed. But these were soldiers, and they had no need for flowered words. They only needed the truth.

The camp was silent for a long time.

The first few whispers trickled in slowly, many of the dying struggling to remain coherent through their pain. Yet one by one, as their brothers prayed over them, their assent became clear. And as their brothers knelt, tears trickling down their faces, Joy began to cast his spell.

He saw their spirits, a brilliant white with shimmering color. He felt their thoughts pressing against him, like a collage of memories that formed a swirling river. He reached out to all of them and drew them closer to him. There was a tension in each one, a faint resistance that he pressed to overcome. One by one, he felt their tethers. One by one, they broke.

Each man gave a small gasp as he died, something involuntary that signified their final moment. Then, a flickering mote of light began to shimmer out of the mouth, slowly floating towards Joy’s palm. It started out as a trickle, one by one, but soon it began to swell. More and more of their souls followed, forming a glimmering stream of light that swirled around his palm.

It had been a long time since he had last used his title, but Joy remembered it nevertheless: Shai’mon, master of the spirit. He used that command now.

Raw power flickered around him, dancing in the form of two hundred balls of light. He drew them in close, feeling them pulse against his own flesh. Little by little, he influenced their pulsing, slowly changing two hundred heartbeats into a single one—a single pulse of the earth. It was a slow beat, a steady one that echoed over the eons.

Then, he shaped their souls with a single thought: fire. The hungry flame that roared with brilliant life; the raging flame that scorched the lands black with ash. The souls responded easily.

Their vahma burned with a sudden spark, the air around him suddenly blasted with a raging firestorm, a pillar that stretched up to the sky. Wild, rampant fire—precisely what he needed. He channeled it, drew it out, and sent it surging towards the spire in the distance.

White fire burnt a scar across the sky as it crashed down on the spire, too blazingly fast for the skal within to even respond. Even at their distance, he felt the shockwave as the air itself pulsed outwards, distorting with heat as the flame impacted the building. White soulfire clung like oil to the shadows, those writhing black forms scarcely visible within the inferno. At this distance, it felt like a second sun that raged on the plains, turning that blackened spire into a pillar of white that stretched up to the heavens.

In only a manner of minutes, the soulfire had devoured it all. Skal, cultist, even the potent influence of a god, the flame had rendered it all soot and ash. As the last embers faded away, the air itself seemed purified, a heavy weight lifting from his shoulders, and Joy turned to face his army, their expressions mingled with grief and wonder.

And as the dead among them breathed no more, the living began to cheer.