I cannot recall the last time we heard from the Heavens. Some whisper that they have abandoned us. Others believe it a test for our Angels, to see if they are capable of protecting this world on their own. If only they knew the truth I have come to learn - even an Archangel can fear.

--Highlord Oswald’s Journal, 8th of Withering, 461

ARC 4 - RADIANT

CHAPTER 11 - A THEORY PROVEN

Raegn tore through the streets of Elysium. Such speed might never have crossed the cobbled streets for how full they were in the day, but in the empty night he couldn’t quite tell if it was wind that blew against him or the still air resisting his will to go faster. With the Light there was no fatigue for his body to feel. His lungs took in air, but there was no burn in them. His legs rippled with the impact against cobbled streets, yet his muscles and joints did not ache. His heart beat, that he felt true, and for every beat of his he feared the last of Tera’s neared.

Where the Slants butted up against Market Street he encountered two Templar fleeing in the opposite direction. A male and a female - a glimmer of hope. It vanished as quickly as it came. Brown hair beneath the steel helm and brown eyes wide in panic. Not Tera. Raegn cursed and didn’t slow as blew past them, then planted hard to make the turn onto muddy streets. His boots didn’t dirty, for the Light carried his stride above the filth.

Biscan’s Bakery was in no way a well-known establishment within Elysium. The bread they made was liable to come out of the oven stale, just like the mood of the people that worked there. Within the Slants, however, it could be considered notable simply because it was one of the few locales with a sign hanging out into the street. And there, just a few buildings further down, Raegn saw an open entry - the storehouse in question.

It was good fortune that the slight burn in his eyes let him see the door at the base of the dark stairway, else he would’ve crashed through it head-first. He would have survived, of course, but the shockwave that shattered the rotten wood instead gave him a moment's glimpse into the room before he was in the fray. A swordsman, clad in gambeson and tall greaves, was the easiest target. With all the momentum from his mad leap, Raegn hurled his spear with the Light fueling its flight. It took the swordsman in the chest and buried itself into the far wall.

There were other armed men that would present a problem if they were to attack at once, but they all seemed to be keeping a good distance. Fools, Raegn thought. That would only make it easier to cut them down with lances of Light. That was, it would have been if he weren’t immediately put on the defensive by some sort of mangled human-voidling mix.

He parried two swings of its arms, but they hit like battering rams and Raegn rolled to the side to avoid a third. The Void had surprised him in the Battle of Bastion, first with the Voidborne that shrugged off a mortal wound and then again when the six-legged horror of a voidling had appeared in the cave. He would not be surprised again. Not in tactics, at least. What he faced now, though, was still not a pleasant sight.

It stood on two legs like a man, but its knees looked to bend the wrong way with how far back its lower leg curved away below the joint. Muscles bulged across its body and Raegn could clearly see where ligaments had torn away and bone been pushed out of place. It wore no clothes, yet seemed entirely genderless and, despite the thick blood oozing from wounds born of uninhibited physical growth, its face was easily its worst feature. The usual parts were there: a nose, a mouth, two eyes; but everything was wrong. The eyes were black and gleamed like two dark gemstones, the nose looked as though it had been filed off, and the mouth as if the skin hadn’t grown to match the size of the head. Instead, the corners seemed to be pinned back towards the ears, permanently baring sharp teeth while the lips tore from the tension.

The creature roared and were Raegn not already fueled by anger he might have been put off-kilter. It wasn’t that he expected it to do much talking, but the tone was disconcertingly close to a human scream, despite the under-pinned note too deep for any man to make.

The creature lunged forward with seething hate born on its stride. For all that it didn’t look like any normal voidling, it still fought like one. Blind aggression was predictable. Raegn’s, on the other hand, was focused. He danced through its reckless attack and let its own bodyweight carry it onto his sword. The blade met more resistance than it normally would thanks to the thick muscle it pierced, but he felt the tip find freedom out the monster’s back.

Yet the Void did not always die easily. Instinct alone bid him duck. Raegn felt the wind in the wake of the claws impact his hood and he forced the creature onto its back with a heavy shockwave. In the moment’s pause between the other two beasts leaping toward him, he scanned the rest of the storehouse. Parts of bodies, Templar by the armor, lay strewn about. Some were laying in awkward positions atop crates and splatters of blood reached areas that shouldn’t have been possible. The more he saw, the more death lay in every shadow.

For a brief moment, sorrow settled into Raegn’s bones, but was quickly replaced by seething hate. How much must the Void take from him? Family, home, friends. There would never be an end to the loss until there was an end to the Void! Before his blood was hot from the exertion of his run. Now it ran hot in vengeance.

That was, until he glimpsed someone back towards where he’d entered. She seemed wounded at first and Raegn’s anger turned inward as he feared he’d been the one to inflict it. As she made her way to a fallen Templar and hefted the sword he came to realize it was fatigue, not pain, that slowed her. Regardless, he recognized the face even though it was masked by desperate fear.

He wanted to watch her, to make sure she could defend herself from the swordsman that bore down on her, but the monsters gave him no reprieve. His eyes were torn away to keep track of claws that would tear him apart.

In any fight, be it with sword or fist, positioning was key. Raegn constantly moved to keep himself from being surrounded. The beasts were forced to stay at his front, not that it gave him much of an advantage. He dove over a lower swing that would have cut him off at the knee and spun back. Through the gap between his foes, he saw the swordsman had Tera by the throat.

The Light took a moment to manifest. Always. Even the most skilled in its ways were immobile for the blink of an eye when firing a lance. It left the caster defenseless and was, at best, inadvisable when an enemy was close.

Raegn didn’t care.

A line of golden-white flashed out from his hand and through the swordsman’s head. Two sets of claws came crashing down into his arm a moment later. The small barrier he formed above the limb saved it from being severed, but the force carried through. Raegn wasn’t sure if it was the sound of the barrier cracking or his bone, but he grimaced all the same.

The fight might yet be winnable, though not if he was fighting for someone else. He needed to be alone where there was no fear of injuring another - and no need to watch anything but the enemy.

“Run!” he called out.

Tera didn’t move. He was forced to peel his eyes away again, letting the visions of razor-like claws fade against those in his soul. The stillness of a lake to preserve his body and dull the pain in his arm. Churning that water into a violent stretch of rapids to fuel the barriers that helped shield him from harm. Again and again he flowed through forms of preservation and strength, biding his time. Disappoint came upon him at the realization that the monsters showed no signs of tiring. He, however, could feel his limit approaching. At the edge of his consciousness, burning pressed against the coolness of water.

Nora would arrive, eventually. At this rate, Raegn wasn’t sure he would survive to see it if he stayed on the defensive. The field needed thinning. Creating space only let the creatures dodge his lances. Perhaps the opposite…

He stepped back and let the tips of the beast's claws scrape the links of mail that peaked out above his collarbone. With a rush of Light, he lunged back into his foe’s chest. It was far taller and looking up into its vile maw as it bent over and widened its jaw to accommodate his shoulder was not a pleasant sight. Fortunately, even if the monster had been smart enough to recognize his attack, his hand was already against its chest - there was nowhere for it go. The lance shot through its torso and the creature reeled back before toppling over and thrashing wildly on the ground.

Raegn’s recovery came a moment too late. The second of the creatures closed the gap between them and he barely turned in time to face it. Two blows like falling trees rained down from above and were blocked by both arms raised above his head, but he failed to see the third. His mail caught the claws, allowing only the tips to pierce his abdomen. Still, the power behind the swing was massive and Raegn was flung through the air. His back met the wall first, his head a moment later.

A Justicar’s mask might function like a helmet, but as Raegn tried to blink away his blurred vision he cursed the thing for not being able to prevent his head from being rung like a bell. Tera still stood motionless, or what he guessed was her since he could no longer make out the details of her face.

“Run.”

The word came out like a gasp, his lungs not quite filling with air after the sudden jolt. In the absence of steady breathing, exhaustion crept in at the fringes of his mind. The barriers had been small, but they had taken a lot of Light to keep whole. Strengthening his body to absorb the impacts had been far beyond the normal level of enhancement, too. If Nora didn’t arrive soon, they would both die. Or just one of them, if Tera would leave.

The creature he’d put the Light lance through had finally stopped writhing on the ground, but the one he’d left his sword in was upright again - and absent his blade. The remaining two didn’t charge, though. Instead, they made their way in front of a man in gray robes with a gnarled walking cane and a white gem dangling from his neck. The other swordsmen stood on either side of him and Raegn’s vision cleared enough to allow him to count. Six. Six armed men, two of the beasts, and an older…cultist, Raegn supposed.

If the robed man being guarded by the beasts and dressed differently than the rest wasn’t enough to signal he was in charge, the fact that he was the only one that spoke did. His voice was raspy, but full of pride.

“You’re a fool, Justicar,” he declared. “Valiant, but a fool.”

Fighting outnumbered was, as any experienced fighter would know, a horrible decision. Raegn had been taught that lesson since he was no more than a boy. Here though, he had no choice. It was kill or be killed, even if the chances of him killing them all was low. Fortunately, he saw a way to even the odds. History showed that entire armies had crumbled because of the death of one - their leader. If the robed man wanted to highlight himself as such, Raegn was more than happy to make him the target.

“You’re a fool if you think you’re leaving here alive,” he growled and pushed himself upright.

The cultist’s prideful smile vanished and a frown of hatred took its place. He raised his gnarled cane and one of the beasts charged forward.

Interesting, Raegn noted.

It took only three strides for the horrid creature to be upon him. Hardly time to come up with much of a plan. Raegn got through the first two steps, though.

“I said, RUN!” he shouted at Tera.

It wasn’t a large shockwave, but it was focused directly at her. She tumbled back towards the door like a leaf in the wind. Raegn rolled beneath the attack of the beast that had charged him, drawing the two knives from his belt and burying them in its thigh as he did so. Unfortunately, the blades didn’t come free and he was forced to leave them as he came to his feet and ran at the robed man.

Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed Tera fleeing up the stairs. Good. The first two steps of his plan were complete. The downside of not having the other details hashed out, however, meant he was now entirely unarmed. He could probably still strangle the old fucker, if he could get to him. Doing so would prove easier said than done.

The third creature stepped into his path.

Stopping to groan in frustration and rethink his plan would have been acceptable. Instead, he continued his headlong run and mentally cursed himself for not having another spear or sword. Shit, he’d even take having some claws like the monsters did, or at least more knives. The last time he’d fought empty-handed against an enemy had been the assassin at Lord Caulmond’s manor and he’d gotten lucky then, even if Erkan didn’t think so. What would he say if he heard tried to fight one of these horrid voidlings? The stupid cook would probably have the gall to tell him that as long as he had the Light he’d never truly be unarmed. What a load of shi—

The sudden realization wasn’t a plan. Only a fool would call it that. It was aspirational at best. And Raegn practically laughed when it worked.

The beast stepped in front of him and took its deadly, yet predictable, swing. Raegn raised an arm, but not to block it. Not fully, anyway. With his fist clenched he forced the Light through the limb, manifesting it off the end of his knuckles. It wasn’t clean, but it took the vague shape he was looking for.

The creature severed its own limb on the short blade of Light that crackled above Raegn’s hand and it went flying across the room. Raegn heaved himself forward, driving his legs and tackling the beast to the floor, all the while punching a dagger of Light into the thing. It howled and thrashed and after a dozen punctures to its chest and two to its throat, lay still.

Raegn picked himself up off the lifeless monstrosity, took two steps towards the robed cultist, and collapsed to his knees. Effective as it may have been, it took a large toll to keep the Light in that shape. He managed to lift his head as two swords lay themselves on either side of his neck.

He’d been so close.

The robed cultist waited as the other swordsmen took up positions around Raegn’s position in the middle of the room. They were quite careful despite the obvious exhaustion of their quandary, or at least not so inexperienced as to throw caution to the wind when victory was near. The weight of their swords wasn’t much, but Raegn could feel the resistance they put on the rise and fall of his shoulders.

Come on, he thought, willing the cultist to step forward. A final taunt, the words before the execution spoken from within arms reach, were the only way he might get his hands around the man’s throat.

“Stronger than I would’ve thought, but not quite enough,” the robed man said from a distance. “When you have the Light you are a force to behold, but you see what you are without it? Nothing. No stronger than the rest of us. The Light is a lie. A temptation unworthy of humanity’s investment. You were a fool to trust it. To look to it.”

“You still think you’re leaving here breathing?” Raegn sneered.

The cultist grimaced, but came no closer.

It was over, then. Raegn’s head hung low. What a pity. And horribly disappointing to die at the hands of ordinary swordsmen. It certainly wasn’t glorious. Tera had made it out, though, and he could find some pride in that so long as—shit. Through the throbbing in his head Raegn became aware that there was no sound of the creature behind him. It would have chased her, then. He cursed under his breath and tried to shrug the swords from his shoulders, but the effort of a downward press from their wielders kept him on his knees.

If defeat had been unsatisfying before, now it was just plain insulting. What would Ulrich have to say about such a failure? Raegn could imagine the Old Bear scolding him from the Heavens for running into another fight he couldn’t win, all because he’d been blinded by his desire to fight the Void. If he thought about it, though, hatred wasn’t why he’d been so reckless. Not entirely. Yet, even so, he hadn’t done the one thing he’d meant to. He should’ve stayed closer to Tera, or simply fled with her. There were so many other possibilities that might have brought success and with each alternative that ran through his mind he became more disappointed in himself.

The cultist cocked his head to the side and smiled at the Justicar drowning in guilt before him. Then, like a cool breeze beneath a brutal sun, a single sound brought relief. It was little more than a splash, a footfall in the distance, but in Raegns ears it brought the strength of a stampede. Somewhere in the street above a boot had pressed hard into mud and shlucked its way back out.

Raegn chuckled.

“You’re a fool to think I’d come alone.”

Nora’s timing was, in that particular moment, perfect. A bit late overall, perhaps, but better late than never. By the time the swordsmen heard her feet hit the ground at the bottom of the stairs, she was upon them. An arcing band of Light, carved out from the swing of her holy blade, cut through the two swordsmen at Raegn’s sides and the two that had taken up spots behind him. Their swords fell away from his neck the same as their bisected bodies. The robed cultist, for all his frail looks, managed to raise his hands in surprise and a barrier of shadow swirled up in front of him. Panicked as it may have been, the wall of dark vapor saved him and the two swordsmen that had stayed near.

While some might have lowered their defense to better see the next attack, doing so against Nora was unwise. Not that keeping it up had ever done Raegn much good, either. If there was one thing he’d learned from her it was to be relentless from the onset. She spun with the follow-through of her first swing and slung another band of Light at the swirling black. For a moment it looked like it might cut through as it pressed against the barrier like a knife in thick canvas, but ultimately it failed to. It did, however, force the shadow to fold over on itself and both manifestations disappeared as one absorbed the other.

Raegn made his move the second his foe was visible. It wasn’t pretty, but he managed to lunge at the robed cultist with two targets in mind. He knocked the cane out of the cultist’s grasp with one hand and wrenched the white gemstone from around his neck with the other. Without being sure what either one did, both had to be removed.

The two of them toppled to the ground a moment later with Raegn’s forearm pressed against the cultist’s throat. The man was so thin Raegn felt like he might break his frail bones were he not careful despite his own fatigue. That was, until the tiny veins in the cultist’s eyes began to swell and turn the entirety of the whites to a deep red. Raegn felt his arm being pried off by a grip that shouldn’t have been able to hold a sack of grain. It was all too familiar - the same strength as that of the crazed patron at the brothel.

Keeping the cultist alive was a thought that had crossed his mind at some point, but no longer. With his free hand, Raegn pressed a fist against the man’s face and used the last bit of energy his soul could summon. The Light burned all the way from his chest down to his hand, but a dagger flashed into existence before the cultist could put the newfound strength to use. Raegn never saw the Light itself the manifestation had been so brief, but the slit in the man’s face as he took his fist away and the sudden limpness of the cultist’s body was victory enough.

Thankfully, Nora had the rest under control. Raegn watched with tired glee as she made the final two swordsmen look like rank amateurs. Justicar Margew, his stern but playful trainer, had called swordplay a dance. Raegn could see it in the movements, sometimes, and understood how the idea of the word was portrayed by the position of one's feet. In watching Nora, however, there was no better description. She was graceful and fluid, her sword merely an extension of her body and not the finest of movements out of place. Everything had been practiced until it was as natural as getting dressed.

A well-placed parry put one foe off-balance so she could focus on the other. That poor bastard took the length of her blade just beneath his sternum on only the second attack. The other lost his head as she pulled the glowing steel out and glided back so quickly the swordsmen might not have even had the time to be surprised.

Raegn crawled his way over to where the cane had come to rest on the dirt floor and set himself in an upright seated position with his back against a crate. Nora wiped her blade on one of the fallen, then let it slide into its scabbard with a crisp rasp as she made her way over.

“You alright?” she asked, crouching down to study him.

Raegn gave a stiff nod. “Had to leave you something to fight. Didn’t want you to feel left out,” he said, groaning slightly. Given her timely appearance, another hope of his had been restored. “You’re not in a foul mood,” he noted. “Tera’s alright?”

Nora scoffed, but nodded before rising to look about the room. Apparently the joke, pained as it was, was enough to convince her that he didn’t have any serious injuries. As her eyes scanned Raegn could see the added gleam that revealed she was using the Light to help trivialize the darkness. Necessary, but even without it the room did seem a touch less glum now that the fighting was done.

“Those things are horrible,” Nora said absently.

“And stronger than any other voidling I’ve fought,” he agreed.

“Take a few minutes to rest. The two Templar that I saw on the street should have made it back to the Citadel by now. I imagine the Order will send more to clean up this mess soon.”

Raegn was more than happy to oblige that particular suggestion. He set his head back against the crate and closed his eyes. His body was beyond tired, but the pain in several places kept him from being able to doze off. For one, he had a few tiny punctures in his abdomen and while they weren’t bleeding horribly a touch of healing wouldn’t have been unwelcome, not that he had the energy for it. His left arm was also throbbing and might have been broken and now that the thrill of battle had faded the ache in his head was growing in its place at a steady rate.

Doing his best to ignore the grievances his own body levied against him proved increasingly difficult. He thought about getting up to help Nora search the bodies of both cultist and Templar alike, but the effort of picking himself off the floor sent agony soaring into his temples and he quickly abandoned the idea. Luckily, rather than having to go anywhere, a distraction had made its way to him instead.

As he opened his eyes after a particularly bad wince he found Tera standing in front of him. Her armor was covered in flecks of blood and her distraught face was partially covered by her short, raven-black hair. She looked a bit like a pensive child, her hands clasped tightly above her breast and her eyes looking like they were about to burst.

“Raegn?”

He frowned, then realized the source of her doubt. He slid his mask up onto the top of his head and wiped away a line of blood from his brow before giving her a smile.

“Oh, thank the Light!” Tera gasped and fell on top of him.

Raegn grunted at her weight and tried not to wheeze as she leaned her head into his shoulder. It couldn’t have been comfortable, what with how he was covered in chainmail and a pauldron where she placed her cheek, but Tera didn’t seem to care.

“I didn’t mean to leave you,” she said once her tears subsided. “I should’ve stayed.”

Raegn did his best to make his voice sound normal despite fighting through a grimace. “It’s fine,” he assured her. “You’d been fighting for a long time already.”

“I’m not sure I’d call it fighting,” she said and pulled herself up to sit on her knees. Wet lines were wiped from her cheeks and it took a hard sniff before she was willing to speak again. “You’re alright, though?”

“Roughed up a bit, but no worse for wear,” he said with a forced smile.

He saw her take a glance around the room and recognized the instant shame was about to take hold. She wouldn’t have been in charge as a Templar, but Tera was proud. There was little doubt in Raegn’s mind - she would feel as though these missions were her doing. And that meant she would feel responsible for the deaths of the Templar, even if it weren’t the truth.

“Here,” he said and reached out his arm.

It would be little more than a distraction to her, but he’d been looking for one when she’d arrived. Now she was the one in sore need of keeping her mind away from thoughts that would pull her into the abyss of despair. Tera held out her hand and he dropped the white gemstone, still attached to its silver chain, into her gloved palm.

”Why are you giving this to me?” she asked.

“I thought it was pretty?” he said with a weak shrug.

“Are you…are you joking? For fuck’s sake, Raegn, that has to be the dumbest reason—”

“Fine,” he admitted and shifted some so he was more upright against the crate. “It’s because you started this. You were the one who found proof of a Void Cult. None of them will be telling you anything,” he said, looking around at the bodies of the swordsmen before pointing to the lump of white. “Maybe that will.”

Tera held the gem up by its chain between the two of them, letting it twirl slowly in the light of the few torches that still lay scattered on the floor. It was odd, how the gem treated that light. It didn’t gleam or twinkle at all from the fire. Rather, it seemed to have the faintest shine all its own. Almost as if it came from within.