The dawnmartyr couldn’t tell how much time had passed. It could have been fifteen minutes or thirty or even hours. She didn’t have time to even think about it as she raised her sword again, cutting through a dead man’s torso. Her strength and magic were depleting and that was evident in how Iratallin only went through three-fourths of the way through. With a grunt, Veriel had to kick the undead to pull her sword out with a sucking noise. The creature fell onto its back, still squirming until she slammed her foot into its skull. Perhaps it was the decomposition but the bone cracked easily and his flailing limbs went slack.
By the time she looked up, two more had taken its place and came for her. Veriel raised her weapons and swung them for the hundredth time. Her heart was pounding against its bone prison and every breath burned her lungs. She turned to see how Lorgan was breathing even harder, his blade lowered and nearly touching the ground.
It seemed the corpses were rising less and less, but not as fast as she hoped. They might not last long enough to completely obliterate the horde. She had considered the option of retreating, but any time an undead managed to slip past the main gates, they started running full speed towards the direction of the escaping villagers. At least the two dawnmartyrs now had positioned themselves between the horde and the path. No undead should be able to pursue without Veriel knowing. But they were stuck here, forced to face down each and every one of them.
A cult member must be nearby, directing them or manipulating them somehow. but she didn’t dare risk leaving Lorgan by himself. The younger knight didn’t even notice when a rotting child tried to lunge at him from behind. A duplicate of Dawnstrife flew just in time to decapitate its head. Lorgan turned to realize what had happened and before he opened his mouth to apologize, the siltori shook her head. Veriel couldn’t blame him. He had lasted longer than anyone would have expected from him. He should be proud of himself.
Veriel kept her dancing blades close to her as she weaved through the rotting bodies, refusing to waste her aether. She hadn’t even cast any affliction since the battle started, but she had been weaving in preparation. There were no more dead bodies rising, just the eight left. Still, her eyes kept scanning their surroundings. The knight-captain had learned the hard way that the cult liked wearing out their opponents with the undead. They would eventually show themselves, but the matter is when.
It seemed like they read her mind.
Just as Lorgan raised his sword to cut down the last undead, two figures in robes jumped over the walls and into the village perimeter. A man and a woman. Their garments were enough to tell her their identities. Menders. Always so predictable. On any other occasion, Veriel would have felt a little bit of pride at predicting it, but not this time. Not when she was paired with a novice and they had spent most of their wasting their energy.
The young woman could only curse to the skies in her mother tongue before turning her head to Lorgan and grabbing his arm. “You need to leave right now.” His eyes were bewildered, so she tightened her grip so he would focus.
“What? I can’t leave you here, lieutenant,” Lorgan shot back breathlessly. The tip of his greatsword was already touching the ground.
“You’re exhausted and I can see that you’re reaching your limit,” she said firmly, her silvery eyes blazing. There was no time for them to be arguing. “I need you to run and catch up with the others. Once you find them, ask Jerys to fly back to our camp and tell them what happened.”
He turned to look at her, hesitating.
“If you don’t go now, we’ll both die. The only way we both survive is for you to get that back up, do you understand?! Now, go! That’s a direct order!”
Veriel turned her back on him and returned her attention to the two cultists who closed their distance during that brief exchange. They didn’t seem concerned about chasing Lorgan down. Perhaps they were confident that they would be able to catch up. At least she could hear his footsteps going further and further.
Now, she needed to buy time. Both to build up her affliction and for the backup to come. It would take some time for Lorgan to even reach Jerys and it would take Jerys at least half an hour to fly back to the main camp. And for the other dawnmartyrs to reach her by horse… The avialae knights would be able to arrive faster, but she couldn’t bet on that. Two to three hours, longer if she was unlucky. Veriel could at least hold out that long, right?
“Sacrificing yourself for your comrades? It’s because of these foolish sentiments that you dawnmartyrs will never get rid of us,” the man mused as he kicked over a rubble standing in his way. He wore the familiar white and red robe, the fabric unnaturally pristine considering their environment. His features were elf-like, his long hair golden along with his eyes, but his ears were rounded like the humans.
As they approached, the male cultist seemed particularly interested in looking at each and every one of her weapons. He opened his arms with palms raised up and smiled. “I must be blessed by the skies, it is an honor to meet the Dread Witch herself,” the man said, giving her a mocking bow.
Despite everything, the siltori swallowed her weariness and stood up straighter. She made sure her voice was loud and steady, almost taunting in nature. “You know me? I am truly flattered.” As she spoke, her swords doubled to a total of eight - two of them the originals, the rest were just copies. She would have liked more, but she shouldn’t push herself while half of her aether was twisting and turning the hexes inside her body.
The cultist shrugged. “You’ve made quite a name for yourself. It’s rare to see a warrior of light and justice with an appetite for cruelty that could rival ours. Just a few weeks ago, there was this woman who came back to us with small wounds all over her body. It wouldn’t heal, no matter what she did. She bled and bled. She died screaming in pain, all thanks to you.”
Veriel shrugged, mustering up the bravado she wasn’t feeling. The man wasn’t wrong. There was no doubt that her curses had brought suffering. But if it also brought cultists down, she’d do it again and again. “Oh, you didn’t like it? I figured if anyone would appreciate my creativity, it would be you people. Anything to cleanse this world of filth right?”
The female’s eyes flashed and Veriel knew she pushed just the right button. She watched as a red blob bubbled up from the cultist’s back, growing larger and larger. It slowly grew arms, almost a dozen of them, each skeletal with inhumanely long fingers. What resembled a skull slowly took shape, having a slit as its mouth.
Veriel had no interest in finding out what on earth it was. Her blades shot out and speared themselves into the transforming flesh. Both the cultist and the weird creature screeched in pain. Unfortunately, neither of them seemed severely injured by it. The blob now grew legs, slowly peeling itself off its creator. Two more blades came at them, one at the monster and another at the female, but the odd long arms swatted them off.
That’s when the dawnmartyr broke into a run, closing her distance to the cultist. It was clear that the woman couldn’t do much but stand as whatever it was grew. Swords raised, Veriel was ready to slash at the woman.
An invisible force then slammed into her chest, sending her sprawling on her back. Her eyes turned to the male cultist and he was grinning. A summoner and a kinetic. By the time, Veriel jumped to her feet again, the demon had fully formed - a sickening amalgamation of skeleton and muscle. It bore no eyes but the elf could feel its attention honed on her. It stood almost twice as tall as its summoner, long arms on its back swaying and clawing at the air.
So. Three against one. Perhaps this was the time for her to start praying.