The ancient city was carved from the bones of a mountain with magics that would have stupefied casters in the modern era with slack-jawed wonder. Its ancient gates were guarded with jackal-headed obsidian statues, somehow still pristine after three thousand years of weathering in the deserts of Bel-Arib.

*****

Deede was becoming increasingly unstable, drifting from lucidity to incoherent babbling. He leaped about like an insect, waving his arms in incomprehensible gesticulations. Many of the Seventh Seal brought their worries to Captain Aldric. The man was mad, and a mage, besides. Who knew what he might unleash in his insanity?

Aldric considered himself a practical man. If there were a tool he needed, he would pick it up and use it for the task it was designed for. His plans were not complex; he depended more upon the flexibility of the people under him to undertake whatever idea popped into his head.

Deede was a wild card, a loose end. It would be simplicity in itself to simply slit his throat and be done with it. However, the Seventh Seal was lacking in mages. To be perfectly blunt, the Seal had exactly zero mages. Mages were an essential part of any military disposition.

The Seal had traversed the desert, moving from one oasis to the next, finding them just as empty and deserted as all the others. Here and there were corpses of the giant wasps, the victim of arrows, javelins, and the strange short swords that seemed to be the Orgus’ specialty.

Deede pointed them out to Daveth when he was collecting them.

“That’s an Orgus Blood-drinking blade.”

“What?” Daveth replied, giving hima baffled look.

“The blades are enchanted. Or cursed. They thirst for blood. Be careful when using them. They don’t care where the blood comes from.”

Daveth nodded at that. There’d been times when he’d used them, only to have them suddenly twist in his hand and cut him instead. Still, they were useful and surprisingly well-made.

*****

The Seventh Seal marched into the city after a lengthy debate on whether or not to leave the Tross behind. If they brought the camp followers, farriers, blacksmiths, prostitutes, fletchers, and quartermaster in with them to the city, they’d be at risk against whatever befell them inside the city. On the other hand, if they were left to wait outside the city, it was entirely possible that they’d fall victim to an attack. With the Seventh Seal lacking in extra manpower, it was impossible to leave behind any soldiers to guard their precious supply train.

Ultimately, the quartermaster elected to keep the Tross outside the city, and so they erected an impromptu base just outside the main gate to the ancient city.

The Seal moved into the city, anticipating ancient, untriggered traps that would send them to their doom; however the only traps they discovered were the type that any city with protective walls would have. The gates themselves had crumbled away to dust; the murder holes clotted with sand. The city proper was elevated off the desert plain, but sand piled in banks in corners, filled dried-up fountains, swirled in dust devils.

The buildings were massive; the doors at least ten feet tall on every building. Guarding each doorway were a pair of jackal-headed obsidian statues with glittering ruby eyes that seemed to follow them everywhere. Some held massive spears, others sickle-like swords, still others held staves and rods.

Every time Deede saw a pair of them, he’d caper and dance and babble incoherently. Honestly, Daveth wanted to wrap his hands around the skinny elf’s neck and squeeze until his head fell off.

“You really think the nest would be here?” Daveth asked Aldric quietly as they moved down a sandswept street.

“I dunno?” Aldric replied. “I’m not crazy-interested in finding out where they live, but Bel-Arib’s a huge fucking landmass. We don’t have the luxury of searching every nook and cranny.” He took a sip from his canteen, swished it around his mouth, and swallowed. “Bleh. I’m going to crap sand for the next week and a half at this rate.” He grumbled, but gestured at the city. “When the Anglish surveyed this place, they determined it was deserted. They had some scholars investigate it, and I think some mages too.” He paused. “But that was back before the War of Liberation. As far as I know, nobody’s been this way in centuries, except perhaps treasure seekers and idiots.”

“You think there’s treasure here?” Daveth asked, interested.

“If there was, the Anglish would have found it already.” Aldric replied sourly. “This place is empty. Deserted. A curiosity. We’ll map the city, then return to Azsig-Noth and tell them we couldn’t find the hive. Jasin’s probably arrived there by now and alerted them of the threat.”

Just then a group of wasps buzzed around the streetcorner, as if on patrol. They immediately launched themselves towards the Seventh Seal.

“Shit!” Daveth yelled. “Archers!” Take ‘em down!”

“Infantry! Shield wall; staggered wedges by file!” Aldric yelled, his order overlapping Daveth’s by seconds.

The infantry immediately rushed into formation, each with shield and spear, creating a defensive wall while the archers let loose with a hail of arrows that the wasps dodged with aplomb.

Daveth himself picked up a fistful of javelins and tried to pick a target; the wasps were buzzing around wildly, making themselves difficult to hit.

Jonan charged forward, shouting and waving his arms, a shield on his left, a hatchet on his right. Several of the giant hornets immediately rushed towards him; Daveth silently wished for the older man’s survival and took aim before heaving a javelin at one of the monstrous vermin.

The bug dodged Daveth’s shot, but brought itself into range of Jonan, who buried his hatchet in the thing’s head. He used his shield to knock the thing off his weapon, and Audra ran up to cover Daveth and Aldric, but skidded in the sand and slipped, falling flat on her face, arrows spilling from her quiver everywhere.

Daveth scooped her up as he fell back towards the Seal, shouting for Eirawen. The white-haired woman shouted, “clachan-meallain!” and a blast of frozen wind shot out from her outstretched hand, along with a brutal blast of frozen chunks of ice that smashed through four of the wasps, dropping their number down to three.

“Shit.” Daveth murmured in awe, as the Wolf sisters broke formation to reach Daveth and Aldric.

“The fuck are you doing?” Daveth raged at them, already guessing that their code of honor wouldn’t allow them to let their commanding officers be exposed to danger.

Jonan. Daveth worried, pivoting just in time to see Jonan try to ward off a lunging attack from a wasp by battering it with his shield. Instead, the wasp gripped the edges of his shield with its legs and lunged with its stinger, puncturing the shield itself. Daveth gaped in shock at this brutal demonstration of animalistic power. Jonan used a shield of hammered steel, and the wasp had simply thrust its stinger right through it. Even in full plate, nobody would be safe from their stings.

Jonan laughed like a maniac and sort of jumped forward into a roll, crushing the bug between his shield and the stone paving of the city. As he rolled to his feet he absently scraped the thing’s ichor and chitinous bits from his shield with his handaxe.

“Jonan you asshole, fall in!” Aldric yelled. Jonan backpedaled, and the two wasps immediately homed in on him.

Daveth dropped Audra, who tried to regain her footing and instead fell on her ass clumsily.

He gave her a baffled look, and she gave him a sheepish look in return.

He turned back to watch the two insects hurtle towards Jonan. Eirawen was the first to react, shouting “Dunmharu!” at the gigantic bugs.

Daveth recalled her saying that Dunmharu worked on the weak-willed, forcing them to attack each other, but it didn’t seem to affect the wasps at all. Perhaps it was only effective against people?

Alysia grabbed Daveth and Audra. “Fall back!” She urged. Lynnabel simply picked up Aldric, who let out a furious bark of surprise as she hauled him back behind the staggered shield wall.

Audra plucked her three remaining arrows from her quiver, and lightning-quick, fired off three shots, one right after another, all three striking one of the hornets, dropping it where it hovered.

The last hornet, in a surprising display of intelligence, immediately turned tail and fled back the way it came.

“You make it a habit of falling on your face, Scout?” Daveth asked Audra, who grimaced. “Not really, no.” She complained, and then wobbled uncertainly as she went to retrieve her arrows.

Alysia immediately turned on Daveth. “Your place is not on the front lines, Lord Commander.” She upbraided him hotly. “How do you expect to do our jobs if you-”

Daveth silenced her by picking her up, flipping her upside down, and gripping her by her ankles as she struggled to free herself.

“Lord Commander?!” She exclaimed, struggling. He slung her over his shoulder while keeping a good grip on her feet, making her let out a terrified shriek as she hurtled through the air, and he made a beeline for Jonan.

“You all right, old man?” Daveth asked.

“As rain.” Jonan replied with a shrug.

“Your shield.” Daveth pointed out, as Alysia continued to struggle and shout protests.

“I’ll deal with it.” Jonan replied. “But we know they’re here, and they know we’re here.” the veteran warned, and Daveth nodded. This was now hostile territory.

He hoisted Alysia up and flipped her back around and set her on her feet; her face was bright red and her eyes hard and hot and furious.

“If you ever touch me again-” She began in a furious snarl, but Daveth waved her off.

“Where the fuck did Deede get off to?” He asked, but she shook her head. “I don’t care where that madman ran off to.” She replied dismissively. “You need to under-” She began, but he cut her off again.

“I don’t care. Right now, this is hostile territory. I think we should find some defensive ground, so we have a place to fall back to if we get attacked again.”

“When, Lord Commander.” Alysia corrected. “Not ‘if’. When.” He nodded in agreement.

Deede was later found trying to climb one of the ominous obsidian statues.

*****

The wasps returned with a vengeance only two hours later. Their buzzing was so loud it seemed like the entire city was humming in reverberation. They filled the skies, they crawled on the ground, they clung to the walls, to the pillars, to the jackal-headed statues.

“There must be hundreds.... Thousands.” Jonan breathed. The Seventh Seal had taken refuge in one of the buildings; its function was utterly unknown as it was completely empty. There was plenty of room for all of the Seal, and the doorway itself seemed an effective choke point.

“We’re fucked. Aldric call the retreat.” Daveth called desperately.

“We’re too fucked for that.” Aldric replied in a bitter voice. “Our exit is cut off.” There was only one way in or out of the building, and that was through the door.

“All we can do is push out to the gate.” Alysia called. “We can rendezvous with the Tross-”

“And then what?” Audra demanded truculently. “Let them slaughter the Tross? There’s thousands out there, and less than two hundred of us.” She gestured out towards the desert. “They can fly as fast as a horse can run. How long can we ride before we run out of supplies? How many will fall before we reach safe haven? What is a safe haven in this circumstance? An oasis? Azsig-Noth?” She started off angry but reasonable, clipping her voice as she struggled to contain the emotions threatening to come spilling out, but she grew more hysteric as she demanded answers from the silver-eyed silver-haired Wolf sister.

Alysia’s face grew stubborn and obstinate as Audra ranted, voice on the edge of hysterics.

“Audra, that’s enough.” Daveth called, and put his massive hand on her tiny shoulder. “This is the golden hour for mercenaries: The time to fight with all we have and die spitting hate in their faces.”

Aldric nodded at that.

“Men, we’re fucked. But we still get to choose how we die. We’ll do a double shield wall just inside the doorway. Archers, take the flanks; they’ll fly over the shield wall. Pick your targets. The rest of you are on cleanup. Swords, axes, knives, pointy sticks, whatever- the moment they’re on the ground, tear them apart. We hold here as long as possible.”

He looked towards Daveth. “Where’d that fucking mage get off to? We could really use his help.”

Daveth glanced around; Audra, Morden, Alysia, the rest of the Seal. All shook their heads.

“Fuck.” Daveth spat.

“It’s said the Gods favored the insane.” Aldric muttered bitterly. “That fool will outlive us yet.”

“Here they come!” Someone shouted, and the first few began flowing in through the doorway.

*****

It was a bleak season for the Seventh Seal. Those holding the shield wall were picked off and carried away to an unknown fate. Archers fired their quivers empty. Those with swords and axes tore into them with a desperate ferocity. A careful rotation of warriors dissolved into a frantic free-for-all as the unrelenting tide flew in.

Alysia and Lynnabel fought back to back, swinging their greatswords to great effect. When the wasps moved in to attack, they led the strike with their abdomen, stinger presented. The Wolf Sisters used that to their advantage; a stinger-less wasp was less of a threat.

Halberdiers used their weapons to best effect; the spearpoint for thrusting, the axe for chopping, the brutal spike for puncturing the chitinous bodies of the wasps so that they could be slung to the side, where the fighters with swords, axes, and maces worked to finish off the crippled.

Daveth opened combat with a massive sword as long as Aldric was tall, casually and seemingly without effort swatting wasps out of the air, but even he had limits to his stamina, the strain was too much, and he ended up casting the gigantic blade aside and switching to a longsword.

Gaps had appeared in their forces; they could no longer rotate out. Archers scavenged arrows from bodies even as more wasps crawled or flew inside.

Night fell, and still they fought. With leadened arms they swung their weapons, with wooden legs they stumbled into place to desperately hold the line that could not be held.

“Well, this isn’t so bad.” Daveth remarked to Aldric as he stamped down on a wasp crawling across the floor; all the legs on one side of its body had been sheared away and its wings were in tatters.

“Like fuck.” Aldric replied. “You got a plan? For after?”

“After they take me?” Daveth asked, and shrugged. “I got no fucking clue.”

Aldric nodded, thinking about the derringer he kept in his bracer. The gun was old, dating back to before the War of Liberation, but it was lovingly well-maintained, and the ammunition was viable. When the time came, he’d face death on his own terms.

Death... With the Gods gone, was there even an afterlife? Oh sure, the Priests of the Nameless Stone swore up and down that when you died, your soul, your vital essence was returned to the cycle of endless death and rebirth into new life, but did they really know? And what of the demon that he’d banished back at the Anglish temple? Would it be waiting for him in the worlds beyond?

Suddenly it became very fucking critical that he stay alive.

“Daveth, what’d you do with that sword?”

“I’ve used a lot of swords today.” Daveth replied, gesturing.

Aldric swigged water from his canteen; passed it to Daveth and cut the head off a wounded wasp with his saber.

“The one I gave you from the temple. The fulgurite blade.” He urged.

“That one?” Daveth reached into the magic pouch at his waist, and drew it out. In the darkness the blade crackled; tiny threads of electricity hungrily trickling through the glass.

The blade was similar to a yamato blade, though it lacked the telltale curve of Yamato forging. Ruler straight, single edged.

Daveth stepped back into the fray, and as he cut into a wasp a snap of electricity flowed from the blade into wasp; then jumping to another nearby wasp.

“We can do it, men!” Aldric encouraged, and urged Daveth back into the fray, but despite the fact that Daveth could slay the wasps by the dozens with each swing of his blade, there was simply no end to the tide of wasps. The corpses began to pile up, and the charred smell of the charred carapaces was sharp and revolting, burning the eyes and churning the stomach.

Aldric began ordering men to pile up the corpses in the doorway; let the damnable things struggle through the corpses of their brethren before adding themselves to the pile. Eventually the pile grew to such a height that it was difficult for them to climb in except singly, in ones and twos. These were easy to dispatch, and the pile grew a little higher. Eventually even Aldric felt confident enough to order the tattered remnants of the Seventh Seal to rest.

*****

A rumble of thunder from outside roused the survivors after only a couple of hours of sleep.

Daveth eyed the decimated remnants of the Seventh Seal. A force of two hundred soldiers had arrived in Azsig-Noth; a scant forty remained, two of which would require magical healing they likely wouldn’t live long enough to receive.

The ponderous drumming of thunder approached the plugged doorway.

Food, tents, comfortable cots, water and wine were just outside of the city; a twenty minute trot at best. Easy and impossible to reach. Assuming anyone in the Tross survived. The remnants of the Seventh Seal would die as heroes, unremarked and unremembered by anyone, starved to death in the sepulchral walls of the building they’d taken refuge in.

[Am’run?]

The voice was thunder itself. If mute stone had a voice, it would sound like that, Daveth was certain.

Another voice responded.

“[Had’mun] [Shuela’vun]”

The pile of wasp corpses that lugged the doorway suddenly blasted inwards in a boiling wave of pure flame that sent sizzling, charred corpses everywhere.

The survivors screamed, and duckked, rolled away, trying to put out the fires. The room filled with smoke as brilliant ruby light splashed across the room. Twin spikes of ruby light glittered in the haze.

[Am’run?]

The atonal rumble of rocks crushed against each other, magnified a thousand times over.

“[Hara'sun], [Aistay'qaz], [Had’mun], [Khas'mun], [Shuela’vun].”

A figure appeared from the smoky haze of the room, lithe with a puff of cottony blonde hair.

Deede looked around the room. “Hey! Anyone got some water? I’m parched.”

Aldric stared at him in numb shock. The ground vibrated regularly now. Daveth looked to Deede, to Aldric, and then back to Deede.

“The fuck?” He whispered dumbly.

“I brought help!” Deede thumped his chest.

“Help? From Azsig-Noth?” Lynnabel asked. She sat back to back with Alysia. Both claimed they could fight for several days without rest, but it was obvious they were husbanding their strength.

“No... no.” Deede affirmed. He rubbed his head and his eyes glazed over. “I can’t even remember where it is.” He muttered, frustrated, but then he blinked a few times. “But it doesn’t matter! I’ve done something really amazing and...” He trailed off.

“I thought there were more of you?”

“I’m gonna fucking kill him-” Daveth decided, rolling to his feet. A shortsword appeared in his hand as if by magic.

“Daveth, stop.” Aldric ordered. “Deede, what ‘help’ did you get?”

Deede gave him a baffled look. “I awakened the protectors of the city. Didn’t you hear me?” He asked honestly. “Patrol, Awaken the others, Destroy the Enemy, use Fire.” He glanced around at the remaining members of the Seventh Seal expectantly.

“Protectors?” Daveth began. Deede nodded immediately.

“Those golems. I figured out how to activate them.” He had the look of an extremely happy child who had been given a new and particularly delightful toy to play with.

“There’s a dreadful lack of information here.” Aldric affirmed. Everyone, we’re falling back to the Tross.”

As they left the building they could see the jackal-headed statues striding down the streets with a purpose. They would stop at each inert golem, a beam of ruby light would flash from the eyes of one of the active golems to the inactive; the inactive would rumble that interrogative, the golem’s eyes would flash brilliant red, and Deede’s list of commands would be repeated. The activated golem would move off in its own patrol.

“Well... shit.” Daveth assessed after witnessing the activation of the golems.

The Tross was exactly where they’d left it; surprisingly unmolested. The eyes of the camp followers eyed the tattered remains of the Seventh Seal’s fighting force and hushed whispers began circulating.

Deede immediately tried to run off, but Aldric tied him to a chair.

“Now tell us what you did.”

“I did.” Deede insisted. “I figured out how to activate the golems of the city. They’ll scourge the city of those wasps.”

“How?” daveth demanded.

“I told them to.” Deede replied simply.

“That’s no language I’ve heard.” Aldric replied, hand resting casually on the pommel of his saber.

Deede gave them a baffled smile. “I don’t know how I know, I just know how to talk to them.” He offered.

“Where’s the guide? The one from Azsig-Noth?” Daveth asked one of the people bringing food into the command tent.

“I’ll get him right away, Commander.” He replied, fist to chest.

The guide was roused from his bedroll and questioned as to the words that were exchanged by the golems and Deede. He only gave them baffled looks and shook his head.

“Imagine if we could stroll into Azsig-Noth with a golem army at our back.” Daveth ventured.

Aldric barked a laugh. “They’d shit themselves.”

Deede shook his head as he struggled with the ropes. “They can’t leave. They can only patrol the city. This city.”

Aldric shook his head. “It’s a dead city. There aren’t even any bodies. The last people to inhabit this city did so thousands of years before your mother made the worst decision of her life with your father.” He spat.

“Golems can only do what they’re told. Only what they’re told.” Deede insisted. The Azsig-Noth guide bobbed his head at this. Mud golems were known in Azsig-Noth. “There’s no room for flexibility.”

“Shit.” Daveth spat. He crammed some meat and cheese into his mouth and washed it down with large gulps of water.

“Don’t you fuckin’ dare eat all the goddamn food yourself you son of a bitch.” Aldric threatened.

“You fuck with my food you’re likely to draw back a bloody nub.” Daveth retaliated, gulping more food and switching to a pitcher of wine. “The more important question is how we get back our own.”

Aldric’s head came up at that. “Say again?”

“The ones that were dragged off. Where were they dragged off, and why?” Daveth asked. “The same thing could be asked for all the Orgus cities we passed. Where did they go?” Daveth pointed at the flaps of the tent. “I think they’re all in there. Somewhere. Maybe dead, maybe not. Maybe just waiting for their brothers in blades to come and scoop them up.”

Aldric hesitated at that.

“We’ve never taken losses like this, Daveth. Not like this. We need to regroup, reinforce.”

“But that’s what I’m saying!” Deede cut in. “The golems! We can use them!”

“You’re an idiot, Deede. A feeb. You’ve been brain-burned by magic. You can’t even sit still for fifteen minutes. Your opinion is irrelevant.” Daveth replied dismissively. “But you’ve got a point.” He looked at Aldric with an intensity that couldn’t be denied. “They cut us into little bitty pieces. We go in there and bring them back out, and we’re returning to Azsig-Noth as heroes.” He spread his hands, and then absent-mindedly picked up a pickle and made it disappear in a couple of bites.

“Fine. First light tomorrow, we reclaim what’s ours.” Aldric decided.

*****

In the center of the city, a tower had fallen against the side of another building, which had collapsed, revealing an underground chamber.

Surrounding the building was a massive ring of ruby-eyed golems, each endlessly repeating their interrogative.

[Am’run?]

[Am’run?]

[Am’run?]

[Am’run?]

[Am’run?]

Apparently they were incapable of going down into the pit.

“It’s not part of their patrol route.” Deede finally decided. “They can’t go down there.”

“Can they follow us in?” Daveth asked Deede, who was thoroughly bound and harnessed with chains, since he’d burned through the ropes that’d held him the night before with magic.

“I don’t think so.” Deede replied.

“Wonderful. You can go, though.” Daveth replied nastily, and kicked Deede over the edge. The man tumbled down the pit with a terrified scream.

Aldric gave Daveth a look. “You didn’t need to do that.”

“He’ll be fine.” Daveth replied casually. “Let’s get down there and see if our brothers and sisters are down there.”

*****

The pit was a nightmare born from some monstrous fever-dreams. The walls were coated with some chitinous resin. Corpses hung suspended from sticky ropes from the ceiling. As the Seventh Seal descended, Deede, free of his chains ran towards them, shrieking hysterically.

Daveth rallied two halberdiers and Eirawen and raced to intercept him.

“My guts they’re in my guts they’re in meeeee!” He shrieked in horror and agony as something flew into view behind him.

It was humanoid, if you were generous with the description. Its jaw was fissured down the middle to split apart into mandibles. Its eyes bulged out of its head on stalks, black multifaceted orbs that searched and probed. Several sets of gossamer-thin wasp-wings hummed with a dull roar as it hovered over Deede.

Deede fell to the ground and immediately began flopping, and jerking. His body heaved, and his belly ruptured as several maggot-like creatures chewed their way out of him. They dove back inside for a second meal and he shrieked breathlessly.

One of the halberdiers raced forward to attack the creature, which immediately attacked with something long and black and coiled like a whip, piercing the man through the gut.

The man stiffened as several bulbous knots pulsed down the black rope and into his body. Daveth and Eirawen gaped in abject horror as the man screamed in agony.

Daveth flung an Orgus blade like a throwing knife and the blade cut through the tube that’d stabbed into his man. One of the knots dripped from the severed end as the monstrosity buzzed backwards, screeching in anger and pain. The orb hit the ground and broke open, a eyeless, headless slug-white worm inched along the ground blindly.

Daveth began shouting the commands that he’d heard Deede yell the night before.

“[Had’mun]! [Khas'mun]! [Shuela’vun]!”

The Golems began dropping into the hole.

Some of them hit the ground and shattered; they were designed to move around the city, but they were carved from obsidian; the impact from the landing caused them to pulverize. Ironically, the remains from the first few golems provided sufficient cushioning for others to land, and ruby beams lanced from their eyes, igniting the air itself into billowing flame.

Something slammed into Daveth, catapulting him past the others into the chamber beyond. Daveth managed to remember how to take a fall from his teacher Darius; he hit the ground, bounced, came down into a slimy pool of stagnant water.

He hauled himself out by grabbing and pulling blindly; water streamed down his face, obscuring his vision. An ancient, halberd-like spear lay wrapped in cloth, the brilliant edge of a blade peeking out from the tattered cloth. Daveth scooped it up and levered himself out of the pool and wiping water from his face, looked around him.

Hundreds, thousands of corpses hung from the walls and the ceiling, mostly Orgus. He saw the faces of his comrades, faces distorted into rictuses of agony incomparable. Maggots squirmed and writhed against his boots; he let out a breathless shriek of terror and stamped down on them in high terror.

A gout of flame raced his way; he tried to roll out of the way. The blast knocked him forward and he could smell the animal stench of burning leather as his vest caught alight. He slammed his back into the wall to snuff the flames, felt the stab of heat from a hundred spots on his back where embers seared his skin.

A ruby-red beam flashed past him, setting everything in the room ablaze. The room where that horrid insect-thing seemed miles away. The maggots under his boots squealed and screamed as they sizzled and popped, Daveth kicked them into the fires and they popped like burst balloons. Apparently whatever the creature had coated the walls, floor, and ceiling with was flammable; the whole room went up like a torch. Daveth dashed away from the flames, blindly feeling his way.

He stumbled, his foot went out into empty space and he opened his eyes to realize for the briefest of seconds that he teetered on the edge of a chasm, just before he overbalanced into the depths.

*****

The insectoid creature lashed out with mantis-like claws attached at the wrist at everything that came within range: human or golem. The golems were incapable of surviving the onslaught, firing off ruby eye-beams as they died. Eirawen marched forward, parrying each of the creatures' bladed attacks relentlessly. Her twin milk-white blades whirled fiercely, Eirawen’s face was blank and unchanging as she strode through the fires, melting walls, bits of fiery resin dribbled down from the ceiling, the floor itself, all ablaze, freezing to ice with each footstep. Snowflakes danced in the air around her.

The thing lashed out with its ovipositor; Eirawen slashed it out of the air as she parried another mantis-like snatch. She began chanting in her strange language, it had the tone and feel of religious cant or scripture; every step forward forced the monster backward, allowing for more and more of the Seventh Seal to drop down into the hole.

The abomination screeched in frustration and pain as Eirawen’s frigid aura leeched the room of heat, covering everything in a rime of ice and frost.

Eirawen suddenly reached out and grasped at the air and twisted; suddenly black ichor-icicles burst from the creature in a grotesque frozen flower.

“The sun rises; the sun sets, but the Void waits. Always.” She spoke flatly, without tone or inflection.

Aldric pushed past her, but then turned. “Where’s Daveth?”

Alysia and Lynnabel joined them, and they marched into the next room, flowers of ice blooming across every wet surface. Jonan stumbled and fell through the scrim of ice in the pool of foul water, floundering about. Eirawen strode across the water, the surface freezing enough to support her as she effortlessly lifted him out of the water with one arm.

“Th-thanks.” Jonan sputtered, wiping crud and water out of his eyes. She nodded expressionlessly.

Aldric eyed the room, filled with exploded corpses.

He shook his head as he sank to his knees in the cold slush. “How many could I have saved if I hadn’t- If I’d just-” He shook his head. “This is all my fault.”

“Lord Captain-” Lynnabel began, but stopped. Alysia eyed the Lord Captain as she scanned the room for Lord Commander Daveth. Further in, everal pits were still ablaze with foul-smelling flames. Still, she pressed forward, hoping her armor would protect her from the fires enough that she could at least locate her erstwhile and absentee Lord Commander. She reached the edge of a pit and glanced down.

Daveth looked up at her, his hand dug deeply into the side of the pit. Blood leaked sluggishly from his fingers from his frantic grab.

“I think I’m fucked.” He offered with a sheepish smile. She knelt in the flames and reached out to him. “Take my hand. It is not yet time for you to die, Lord Commander.”