Meshira rose out of the land like a fortress, a twisted castle of blackened shadow that dominated the skyline. The plains to its sides were drained and dessicated, covered with the brown wisps of dead grass, the soil cracked and devoid of water as if salted. Dark fissures were blasted across the ground, trailing wisps of shadowed mist towards the sky. The city itself was shored up behind glossy walls, fashioned of some strange stone that seemed to twist the eye as the light struck it. Bone-white ribs were visible occasionally through the wreath of black, and the entire city was covered in that familiar black mist.

Even at this distance, Joy could make out the signs of movement. He squinted, magically augmenting his vision, and he felt his eyesight suddenly lengthen and distort as the distance seemed to be pulled towards him. Suddenly, he could make out the cultists that walked the ramparts, their forms like small ants in the distance. A few of them were outside the walls, gathered around what seemed to be the corpse of some massive beast.

Its hide was cracked and broken, its flesh a bright pink under the sun. The cultists were gathered around it in a loose circle, their hands outstretched. As they swayed, a small black cloud seemed to rise out of their throats, hovering in the air briefly before suddenly swarming around the corpse hungrily. In only moments, the carcass was reduced to cracked bones and dust, scattering in the wind as it dispersed.

Joy felt a sudden rage swell up inside of him then, a desperation that came with knowing that they were close—so painfully close to the end. He wanted to howl, to scream and charge forward. He wanted to feel the bloodlust swell inside of him and surrender himself to it. He wanted to face down this thrice-damned god, and tear the fool apart with his claws.

But he stopped.

Joy turned slowly, looking at the men behind him. These were the men that had followed him through this month of hell, watching as their brothers died. And these men looked like death themselves—their faces sallow, their arms thin, their bodies hunched and exhausted. They would more likely keel over from a gust of wind than fight.

And so he held back his wild bloodlust, stepping back behind the hill and giving out the command that they would rest that night. In the morning, with the sun at their backs, they would attack the city. Fifty-some men nodded soberly at his words, hurrying to make camp and rest before the day passed the horizon.

That night, they feasted on what little supplies they had left. They emptied their stores of meats, heating themselves by the campfires as they braced themselves against the cold night wind. None were foolish enough to feast into a stupor, not in such close proximity to the enemy, but few could manage to resist the lull of sleep that night. Fortunate, Joy thought abruptly, that none of the skal’va came for him.

Yet in the middle of the night, a sudden sensation of fear swept over his body. His hairs suddenly stood up on end, his hackles raising as every instinct in his body screamed at him to run. Ice seemed to crawl through his veins, his thoughts fleeing from his mind in panic, and his muscles clenched without release as he found himself unable to move. Indeed, looking around, he saw the others in a similar position of terror. It seems that Atal has not merely been doing nothing while we prepared.

The air itself tingled with crackling power, bitter and acrid as it lingered on the tongue. Joy could feel a looming presence that seemed to press over him, that seemed to crush every aspect of his being with pressure. The presence of a god, some part of him knew, and Kha blinked slowly in assent at the thought.

That pressure never faded through the night, even though no attack came for them. Instead, it lingered at the back of the mind, a constant force, a constant wearing away at the senses. He felt it even as the sun rose, even as the legion was called to form ranks. He felt that weight even as the men rallied, their shields clattering into files.

And the frustration in his mind grew along with it, swelling forward until it crested and crashed like a wave. Joy took in a deep breath, letting raw mahji course through his body until it surged through his veins and crackled into his voice. A raw howl crawled out of his throat, echoing off the air as he screamed.

“FAITH!” he howled into the wind, his voice carrying over the ruined plains to the shadow-covered city, “SHOW YOURSELF SO I MAY BURN YOUR FALSE GOD!”

Then, not waiting for a reply, he drew that crackling mahji out of his voice, quickly spinning it around his claws before shooting it forward in a gout of flame at the cultists gathered outside the city walls. The surging fireball sped towards them in an instant, distorting the air around it with raw heat as it traveled, and Joy watched knowing that the fools had no time to dodge.

He certainly did not expect to see the cultists split apart as if torn at the seams, their torsos abruptly tearing into two halves as a cloud of skal’va flew out of the bodies. The swarms hurriedly dived out of the path of the fire, avoiding the blaze as it swallowed the corpses whole with a splash of flame. That cloud was somewhat smaller that those they had faced previously, although not by much. It lingered briefly in the air, pulsing and shifting like a strange heart before letting out a keening shriek. They then dived forward at the legion, their wings screaming death.

Joy heard the rasping of archers behind him as they nocked their bows, heard the slight crackles as they lit their flames. He pushed it away, steeling his mind and concentrating on the strands of mahji that lingered in the air. He drew them back, coiled them until they were whips in the air. Then, igniting the ones closest to him, he watched as serpents of flame danced in the sky, searing a path through the cloud of skal’va.

The insects wove and spun in an effort to avoid getting caught by the whips of flame, and Joy struggled to keep up with their unpredictable movements. Quicklym he found himself growing fatigued and weary, unable to maintain the level of focus needed to ccontrol the spell, and the whips quickly began to fizzle away. The legionaries behind him shuffled nervously, planting their shields in the ground as they braced themselves.

It was then that the archers fired the first volley, the arrows coursing through the sky with a resonant hiss. The skal’va dispersed in an instant, expecting the attack, and the arrows passed through without harm. It was a fortunate thing, then, that they were not aiming for the swarm of skal’va.

Instead, the arrows impacted the city itself, striking the wreath of shadows and buriyng themselves in that cold muck. Then, from the small tongues that danced at the arrowhead bases, they began to burn. Without pitch, these flames were fed by something else—the human fat that they had collected from the dead. They surged up, briefly showering Meshira with light. But then the black mist around the city seemed to swell and surge, drawing back in on itself to snuff out the fires.

Hurriedly, Joy reached for every last strand of mahji inside of him. His pool had already been greatly depleted, and for the first time in a long while he felt the aching pain that came from being empty. Those pulsing ribbons flowed out of his claws in a scattered skein, and he fought to control them, to shape them. He condensed them, packing them tighter and tighter until they were almost like a spear.

Then he ignited it, throwing it forward with the last vestiges of his concentration. The firebolt seared a path through the sky, traveling fast enough to blast a hole through the cloud of skal before continuing on to strike the city. Upon impacting that cloud of mist, it seemed to hiss and falter, a cloud of steam and smoke abruptly billowing around the flame.

Blood and bones, burn damn you! Joy pleaded desperately as he willed the flame with all his strength, feeling it struggle and fight against the sapping cold. It touched the embers of the fire arrows, drew on their numerous heat. And slowly, bit by bit, he stopped the crushing force of the mist, and they were even—then the fire began to push back.

Bit by bit, inch by inch, the flame swallowed the mist with greedy tenacity until finally the cold seemed to falter, seemed to break, and the blaze let out a sudden pop. Then, in an instant, it swallowed the entire city in a massive conflagration, shadows dancing in pain amidst the showers of orange and red.

The skal’va let out a hurried hiss, flying back to the city in a panic. The cultists trapped in the flame suddenly screamed out as well, barely audible over the crackling fire as they collapsed and tore open with shadows leaping out of their bodies. The skal all seemed to converge together, merging once more into an utterly shapeless, depthless form that blurred towards the ground—towards the entrance of the city.

There, at the gates to Meshira, a sallow and withered form seemed to walk forward. Faith, Joy recognized, and his heart began to pound with excitement, with anticipation.

As the skal struck the withered corpse, the creature’s flesh seemed to gain vitality. Skin surged and rippled, color flooded into its body, and then a sudden gravitas seemed to swell through his very being. Joy could hear its heartbeat—could feel its heartbeat as it shook the very air around it. When those eyes opened, they were utterly black and pupil-less. When he spoke, it was with the hissing sands of eternity, of a timeless god.

“I am here, brother. Will you come out as well?”