"Don't stop for anything!" Liosse bellowed. "If you can't run, get carried. Do not stop!"

Smoke drifted down, lit from underneath by torches and sprites.

Tallah rose into the air and gestured for the mob to keep going. Vergil did not look back as he ran past her. He kept up the assault, elbow to elbow with Liosse and Sil, taking no breaks, stopping for nothing.

Several explosions rocked the forest. Leaves fluttered down. Trees fell outward with deafening crashes. Vergil stumbled. Fell. Rose again and kept going. His head spun and his vision reduced to a narrow cone that saw nothing but the ever twisting path through the trees.

And then they were out, the sky opening above them, mountains replacing the vista of trees. Vergil skidded to a halt, drew aside and gestured for the others to pass. All soldiers coming out did the same, forming a defensive corridor for the civilians to follow. More explosions shook the night, Tallah setting the forest aflame behind them, monsters screaming as they burned or were crushed under falling logs.

There would be no retreat back to the Rock. Tallah had made sure of that.

Like them, the daemons exploded from the trees. Vergil rushed to the first that ran out, drove his sword through whatever mass it could see of the monster, twisted and yanked sideways. More thick blood spilled over his threadbare clothes, seeping into his trousers to scald his skin. A kick sent the spasming monster back into its fellows.

"Fuck!" Vergil groaned as he saw the thing following behind.

A squat, thick figure emerged. It was twice as tall as he, its arms long, torso as wide as a barn. Coal-red eyes pinned onto him with hateful intensity as a jaw oped up almost the size of a child. It wasn't another troll, but damn close and twice as ugly.

It swung a tree trunk at him, far faster than anything of that size had any right to. Vergil braced for an impact that never came.

The club slammed into an invisible wall and cracked.

"Eyes up," Sil called as she ran by him. "Cut it at the knees."

Vergil shook himself and followed the suicidal healer. Where was she getting the strength to keep going? And more, what the fuck was she thinking?!

Sil's mace shone suddenly as she swung it at the monster. It caught the weapon in one furry paw, roaring as it squeezed. The light exploded and blasted its meaty fingers apart.

Vergil ducked under the panicked follow-up swing of the club, rolled back to his feet, and dove in between the monster's stubby legs.

Sil surrounded herself in barriers as they fought together, weathering another blow from the creature with barely a hint of fear.

More daemons burst out of the forest just as Vergil tried to dig his sword behind the knees of this one. A heat lance punched through the monster's chest and burned a hole the size of Vergil's head in it. Tallah floated above, wreathed in lances and fireflies.

"Quit dawdling!" she yelled at them. "To the ravine. Quick."

"Where?" Vergil gasped out the question. "Where's that."

Tallah spun in the air and loosed lances into the onrush of monsters. "Follow the soldiers. Don't fight stupid fights."

The dolls were there too, but they were much reduced from before. Whatever strength had kept them going was gone now, their opposition to the rest of the monsters just enough to slow them.

Vergil obeyed, turned on his heels, grabbed Sil's arm, and they ran back together. Tallah was right. They'd been lured back to fighting when they should've been running. Part of him recognized his own lapse of judgement, but was quickly silenced.

"You're mental," he gasped at Sil as they rejoined the cordon of soldiers.

"Not one to talk," she answered. There was mad laughter in her voice.

So, of the three of them, Sil was the first to go completely balmy. Vergil's would've worried if he had the time and the energy for it.

Where the forest ended, the mountain pass began. Narrow enough for three or four people to walk abreast, this was the fabled ravine leading out. It looked, for all the world, like a maw of broken fangs ready to snap shut.

"Set up walls," Liosse roared as the civilians attacked the incline. "Many as ye can. Keep 'em out o' our hair!"

Sil shook herself free of Vergil's grasp, turned and straightened. The first daemons to break out of Tallah's defence line smashed against invisible walls, clawing madly at the air.

Sil grunted with the effort, just like all the other healers.

"Form a cordon in front of 'em." Liosse had taken charge, easily guiding the soldiers to where they needed to be to plug up the retreat.

Vergil could see in the predawn light how the mountain pass suffocated just a hundred meters away. Rocks the size of houses blocked the way forward, the whole place just a giant dead end. And they'd walked straight into it.

Tallah zoomed overhead at such speed that she was barely a streak across the bruised sky.

"What do we do?" he asked Sil.

"Wait. Hold the line." The healer's forehead creased in concentration as more monsters gathered against the invisible wall. "Get the shard from my neck," she ordered. "Take it to a clear area. Organise people in groups of ten. Move."

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Vergil hesitated just for a moment. Arin was at the very tip of the defence line. If they walls broke, he'd be the first in the fight. Licia was several paces back, bleeding and cradling an arm. She spared Vergil a grim smile before allowing her friend to hastily tie a tourniquet at her shoulder.

Then Vergil did exactly as instructed, taking the shard from Sil and running to catch up with the civilians.

He passed through the cordon of soldiers and the line of healers that all focused just as Sil did. People huddled worriedly at the mouth of the ravine, eyes scanning the rocky heights.

"Groups of ten," he demanded. "Form up. Hold hands. Wait."

Vilfor joined him, repeating the order. Even with another arm missing, the large vanadal was just as imposing, his voice rock-steady. He held his axe in the hand he had left. Gore dripped off it.

People began dividing as instructed, forming orderly lines waiting for whatever was to happen.

The sky above lit up with the first signs of dawn. It did nothing to help Vergil's dread of what was happening. Already the barriers were failing, healers falling from exhaustion, few of them anywhere near as capable as Sil to maintain the defence.

Still, they all fought on and the daemons scratched at the wall, howling and braying, a mass of claws and teeth just waiting to reach them. Some managed to climb the rocks, but were easily dispatched with crossbow bolts.

Moments stretched. The sky grew brighter above and the forest fire raged in all-consuming hunger. Black smoke climbed into the air from where the dragon still roared. What it was doing, nobody could see, its figure obstructed in the clouds of ashes punching up into the air.

Vergil waited. And shivered.

Sil's strength waned and he felt every agonising moment that squeezed by. A strange kind of balance hung in the air and he felt himself drifting away from the moment. Monsters at the gate, again. A thin, invisible wall keeping them out. The line of soldiers. The lives waiting to be crushed. Tallah somewhere, alone, getting ready to save them all… or perish in the attempt.

He was crashing, heart beating in his chest so hard that he feared it would rupture. He felt it all the way into his eyes, veins bulging with the pressure of waiting. Sil would have to cut the tether to his helmet soon, and he didn't know if he would manage to keep his feet under him.

Already half of the healers had given up, panting on their knees, the effort too much to bear. More shimmering cracks formed in the wall. They shone and spread, turning the air into a glittering glass mosaic.

He would be useless when the tide crashed onto them. He knew it. The waiting was murder on what remained of his nerves.

"Come on, Tallah," he groaned, pacing the small area where he and the civilians huddled. "Come on. Come on. Come on."

Could he draw the dragon to them somehow? Or was it too busy?

Lines of white light spread in the barely-there wall. There were too many monsters scratching at it, a sea of red eyes unperturbed by the sun cresting over the razor peaks. They howled in expectant euphoria.

A sudden pop and rush of air, and Tallah was there. She bled from a thousand cuts across her chest and arms, and swayed on her feet, but she was definitely there… and she was upright. Her mask was covered in black blood, the silver hidden beneath the gore. Lighting coiled around her arms.

She looked about, almost surprised there was nothing to fight.

"Blasted crows," she groaned. "First healer, go."

One of the collapsed healers got up from where she waited. Vergil recognised her immediately: the girl from the ward, Castien. She approached unsteadily.

"Do you have a charge?" Tallah asked.

"Enough for a barrier," the girl answered, voice barely more than a whisper.

"It'll do. Pass quickly." She turned her laser focus on Vergil. "Get them arranged. We're going last. I'll hold the line. See that everyone goes through."

And, like that, she spun on her heels and headed down the hill towards Sil. She didn't even wait for an answer from Vergil. She didn't need one.

One by one, the healers peeled away from the barrier and ran up to where the shard was, taking groups of ten along for the teleportation. Kor did this three times, going back and forth when they'd ran out of able bodies.

It all took barely minutes, by Vergil's understanding. It had felt like hours. It had felt like forever, watching the trickle of humans escaping this hellhole.

By the end, it was only Sil reinforcing the barrier. Tallah stood next to her with Liosse on one side. Vergil watched the last group pass through, picked up the shard, and headed back to the three women.

"We can go," he said, pushing the shard to Tallah.

She nodded, not taking her eyes away from the monsters. "I'm going to break their backs one last time," she said. "So they won't follow right away."

Sil's nose bled profusely, the blood flowing down her face and chin as she swayed. It was all the healer could do, it seemed, to even remain upright.

Red lightning wreathed Tallah's arm, buzzing with accumulated power. She didn't take aim yet, and Sil didn't drop her barrier.

They all waited. For what? Vergil looked from one to the other, seeing only grim determination on their faces.

"Come on, you scaly bastard, get up," the sorceress said.

"What are you doing?" Vergil asked, feeling a kernel of panic popping. "We need to go."

"We will," Tallah answered. She watched the burning forest. "Come on. Come on."

Vergil turned his eyes in the same direction, watching and waiting. And then he saw the shape rising up through the smoke, great wings beating against the up draft of hot air. The dragon rose. Figures dropped off it like it was shedding scales while it fought for height.

"Drop!" Tallah said.

And all of a sudden all the daemons were coming up the hill, swords raised, howling like the end of the world.

Tallah raised her hand, grinned and cast the red lightning spell. It blasted down into the mass of monsters with notes of finality.

The spell scythed the front ranks, punched straight through the entire army, and exploded into the depths of the burning forest. The whole world trembled with this final declaration of defiance.

Monsters burst apart and were atomised. Flesh melted off bone and marrow exploded into vapour. They died in scores, reduced to little more than steaming flesh in that first instant of discharge.

Tallah toppled back without a word, her knees buckling beneath her. Both Vergil and Liosse rushed to catch her, while Sil gripped the shard in one still-trembling hand.

Above, the dragon roared triumphantly. It passed overhead in a low swoop, heading into the mountain range. Figures on dark wings chased after it.

Vergil thought he could spy, in the flames that consumed the forest, a long figured walking unhurried among the corpses. It was tall and willowy and had entirely too many legs.

Later, he wouldn't remember if he'd imagined the thing, or if it had been there.

Liosse grabbed Tallah's other arm, slung the sorceress over her shoulder, and they all clustered around Sil. The healer placed her hands on theirs, and the world dropped away in a flash of azure light.

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