Mud splattered as Alex ran towards the noise.

Thoughts like; ‘it must have rained pretty recently’ and ‘though judging from the trees this might be a swamp,’ passed through his mind like strangers at the edge of his vision. They did nothing to impede his process as he again dove into this source. His brow creased, the only outward indication of the worry he felt over the lack of magic therein, he had never been so low before, and quite frankly, he didn’t know if his offensive spells would work like they should. Letting the magic flow through him, he prepared a sign, a simple one this time—simple for him at least. Varti, the sign of the the divine, and his right hand lit up in a silvery light. With it prepared he layered another sign over it, Flits, or as the old tome had described it; Call upon the flames of heaven, upon the thunderheads that might strike down even the mightiest of foes. Alex smiled to himself, just calling it lightning would have saved everyone a lot of time. But that’s not how tattered old tomes work.

He pulled himself out of his thoughts. The noises were closer now, and he could make out voices among the clamor, as well as the sounds of monsters. Clicking, gurgling, chewing, shrieking; the sounds of hell come alive.

“Too me, too me!” someone bellowed, his voice carrying across the clearing with the strength of someone used to making themselves heard on a battlefield. “Cover the prince, lay down your lives if you have to!”

Alex offered a quick thank you to the universe that the translation magic he had put on himself and Emily worked just as well here as it had on Mónvell. Another few steps forward along the road, and he could see them. First they were only spots of color among the trees, and bushes; hidden behind wide oaken trunks and the thick crowns of young beeches. Alex quickly made his way around the bend in the road and the thicket it avoided. Finding himself before a clearing he stopped and leaned against a tree, his breathing heavy and legs numb after the run.

The ground was mostly dirt, as grass, shrubbery, and flowers had been cleared away by the many people that had used it as a rest stop. A couple still smoldering fires sat forgotten within rings of stone, and tents lay collapsed or cut down where men had forced themselves out. A single lonely banner still stood were all others had fallen; it depicted a golden griffin passant upon backdrop of royal purple. It was clear the voidborn had taken them by surprise, but then, who expected to run into the spawn of darkness in the middle of a cheery forest. The sun shone from a mostly cloudless sky, and its bright light shimmered off the many soldiers clad in full plate, crowding in the center of the clearing, their swords following the ten voidborn circling them.

Abominations of twisted flesh; vile creations of a cold, dark universe. Both descriptions too kind for the horrid purple creatures dominating the clearing. Limbs, and eyes, and mouths in all the wrong places. Some crawling or sliding across the ground on smoking trails of mucus, others bumbling through the air on misplaced wings. They had but one goal upon this star; to consume flesh and blood, be it human or animal, it mattered not to them. The solders had held their own surprisingly well, and only a handful of the almost thirty soldiers showed any signs of having thrown up. Though five or six, it was hard to tell with what was left, had already been killed, and two voidborn were stuffing themselves on the solders’ sweet innards.

Alex wrinkled his nose when the sweet smell of rotting and melting flesh hit him, and he wished he could close his ears to the crunching of bones and ripping of skin. He let his cloak fall to the ground and wiped the sweat of his brow, then he stepped off the road and started across the clearing, towards the circle of soldiers. As much as he would have wanted to stay as afar away as possible, his lack of magic forced him closer, or the lightning might be too weak to break through the voidborns’ thick hides. It didn’t take long before one of the soldiers noticed Alex, that he was able to relay this information to the commander was nothing but an extraordinary feat, considering the circumstances.

The commander spun towards Alex, his brown hair coming lose from his warrior’s ponytail, his face clad in sweat and blood, and yelled, “Run away, you fool!”

“There’s one behind you,” Alex shouted back, and watched as the commander turned and threw out his sword against a flying voidborn. The sword struck against its hide with sound of hitting a drum clad in stretched leather, and the creature was flung back, but otherwise unharmed.

Alex stopped barely ten feet from one of the voidborn chewing on a leg it had pulled out of its armor. This close his eyes watered as the smell stung in his nose, and he mumbled a quick spell to keep his last meal in its intended place. Then he raised his right, and with a thunderous crack that silenced all other sounds in the clearing, lightning shot out of his palm. For a moment the thunderhead lit the clearing in a brilliant white that left sparks dancing in Alex’ eyes. But the spell had done its job, and nothing remained of the voidborn but for a charred spot on the ground. He looked up towards the remaining foes, and noted that they had all turned towards him, forgetting their old targets in favor of this new one.

Again he raised his hand, and this time—confident the spell worked as it should—he let his magic lose. With another crack, lightning shot from his palm, this time it did not stop after the first voidborn, but bounced onto the next, and the next. When the light settled only eight creatures remained. The dwarves had always said the creatures of void did not know fear, but if they did, the ones remaining would have been pale. Alex wondered if a pale voidborn would take on a more pinkish hue, or stay purple; he would probably never know. With another firing of his sign another four voidborn died; two left spots of black on the ground, the other two fried in mid air. The divine magic erasing their perverse flesh from this mortal realm.

The last four seemed to hesitate for a moment, wary of the light that had slain their brethren. But they were creatures driven by nothing but an endless hunger, and eventually it overwhelmed them. Alex raised his hand for the last time as they surged towards him, and let the his last bolt free.

The calm that settled over the clearing was as unnatural as the pandemonium had been. The soldiers stood frozen in their defensive positions, swords half-raised as if not sure whether he was a friend or foe. The commander was the first to move. Lowering his sword and pushing his way through his petrified soldiers, waking them up as he touched their shoulders for them to move. Alex didn’t move, rather he wavered where he stood. His magic was all but used, and his head swam even as he stood still. It had been a long day, and the short nap he had taken after leaping through the gate had not been enough, not by a long shot.

He wasn’t sure what it meant when the commander suddenly stopped, and raised his arm as if pointing to something behind Alex. But then he felt something behind him, and fell to his knees out of instinct, barely avoiding getting his head swiped by the passing voidborn. He cursed himself, of course there was one more, creatures of the void always traveled in packs of thirteen; something he had forgotten in midst of the chaos. He didn’t have enough magic left for another bolt of lightning, nor did he have the magic needed to activate another sign. Shaking his head, he forced his eyes to focus, and let them dart across the ground. He found what he was looking for, and as the voidborn came back for another strike, he rolled, somersaulting forward. Hearing the creature strike the dirt behind him, he reached out and snatched up a sword lying on the ground, beside the bloody and half-eaten remains of a soldier.

Forcing himself to ignore the sight, Alex gripped the sword with his right and let whatever magic he had left turn divine as it flowed through the sign, into the blade. He got to his feet—a little to fast and his sight blackened for a moment, then he turned to face the last voidborn. It looked like a baby, if the baby had been born six months early, and by a mutated giantess. A massive bald head criss-crossed with bulging blood-vessels sat upon a body barely larger than the head, with two misshapen arms, both ending in stumps rather than hands. It’s legs were different sizes and horribly bent, as if broken in three places each. And upon its back two tattered bat-wings flapped frantically to keep the creature in the air. But worst of all was its eyes; different sizes and shot with blood, one darting as if crazed, the other fixated on Alex with a bloodcurdling stare.

Unfortunately for the voidborn, Alex had stared down more intimidating foes, and when it charged, he had not frozen in place as it had expected him to. Alex waited for the last moment, then he spun into a pirouette, a move he had picked up during his many sparring sessions with Emily, and pushed the rest of his magic into the sword. The blade lit up in a silvery light, and for a moment, it shone brighter than the sun. It sung as it cut through the air, then the voidborn sung in pain as its massive head was severed from its body. The wings continued flapping for a couple seconds before the body figured out it was dead, and it fell to the ground beside the head, the divine magic shed by the blade slowly withering the twisted flesh.

As the last of his energy left him with the waning effects of adrenaline, he thrust the sword into the ground, and with a heavy sigh he laid his weight upon its guard. He knew Emily would have had his head for treating a blade like that, but at the moment he could not bring himself to care. The signs in his palm vanished as his magic ran dry, and and the blade flickered until its light went out. He blinked and watched his red guiding-line flicker out of existence; its job finished. Then he had no more time to ponder, for the commander was approaching, his soldiers watching warily from their defensive positions. Alex only hoped gratitude could be exchanged for information, and maybe a little food.