Herag cut a man completely in half, scalp to groin. Aexilica winced, saw the blood fly one way as the ribs split apart and fell away from each other. The berserker stepped through the falling halves like some God made manifest, laughing and swinging his stolen axe again. This time it took two heads off in one blow. Aexilica had seen what happened to his hammer; a big thing, the heavy iron head had nonetheless proven inferior in strength to its wielder. It had missed a fellow berserker's skull and met the stone wall instead, smashing rock outwards into the castle courtyard even as the metal shattered.

That strength was on display ever more with each new second that passed. Soon enough even the brave idiots contesting its wielder seemed to take note, and resistance grew more and more fearful. They cut deeper, killed more. Aexilica felt herself growing tired, even as she saw Herag grow somehow ever stronger. She pushed past her exhaustion, the memory of her previous struggle and desperation to avoid its return proving stronger than the burning weakness in her muscles.

For the time being, at least. For time enough that a second position was swept clear of the enemy, and a second retreat chased back down the halls. This one left far more bodies in its wake, such was the fate of brave men. And they were, of course, chased again.

Back and back the enemy fell, like a river receding in the hot seasons. Aexilica slowly felt her apprehension start to bleed away. They were taking losses as they fought after the enemy, of course, but far fewer than she would have feared, and for every man who died on their side, three or four more fell on the enemy's.

That was to say nothing of the reinforcements trickling in behind them, little scattered pockets of fighters seeing the winning fight and rushing to join it. Aexilica suspected novelty was as much a lure for them as anything else, the defeats had been coming steadily for quite some time. Eventually they turned a corner, and pressed outwards into a wider hall. More men stood within, ready to meet them with violence. Herag was as undeterred by this as ever, of course. But one thing among them got a reaction from him. One thing among them dragged him after like he was on the end of some great rope and a Demigod's tug on the other.

High Priest Hagor stood among his men, staff ready, eyes focused, air shimmering with power. The warriors around him were near-exclusively karls, and their position was good. He was ready for this.

It was obvious, so obvious, how ready he was. Herag must have known, he must have even were he not a trained and experienced berserker. But he did not seem to care.

"HAGOR!" He roared, voice booming across the room. "YOUR BLOOD IS MINE!"

Hagor only sneered at him, and the two forces were crashing against each other like opposing waves about a cliff face. Aexilica, never a particularly fortunate woman, was of course among them. Everything became blood and chaos.

She shouldered a large man off his feet, raised her weapon to finish him and caught movement in the corner of her eye—darted back to evade the swing which would've taken her across the neck otherwise. Saw another, parried, moved to stab. She slipped on blood, missed the man's heart and watched her battle-blunted sword scrape along his rib to slide away instead. His mace crunched into her face, put her down on the ground blinking and staring as it came high to be brought down on her again. A spear came out of nowhere, ripped the man's neck open and dropped him. Aexilica blinked the stars out of her eyes, rolled back up and stumbled her way into the fighting once more.

Aexilica barely even knew what she was doing, her head hurt and her eyes slipped off everything they tried to focus on. She swung, and saw a man fall. Swung and saw another man not fall, for some reason, ended up bursting out through the back of the enemy's ranks—to her own confusion—before clumsily spinning around to leap back into them.

The death toll was rising, now. No more were they cutting through volunteer forces, this was their best against Hagor's. The blood was flowing and the lives ending. Men were fighting with cohesion and intent, following smart orders and improvising well. Aexilica was more than equal to any one upon the enemy's side, but there were a lot more than one.

And they had the numbers. Two for each of her own side.

So it was lucky, then, that Herag remained so devastating an ally. One moment he was to the left of her, cutting men apart with a great axe and biting another's throat out. Then he seemed to appear yards away elsewhere, caving in a head by butting it and hoisting an impaled man feet over head to toss him down on his own allies. The air was thick and misted with spilled blood, thicker still with the noise of metal on metal and metal in meat.

A circle was forming around him, not through any great coordination or deliberative effort. Simply from so many men singularly deciding not to fight this one in particular. Herag stared out at the peeling-back row of men, face twisting with disgust.

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

"Cowards!" He roared. "No wonder you turned traitor, each one of you is a fucking coward! Hurry up and kill me you pathetic fucks!"

But none did, and he roared in rage again, began charging forwards to bring the fight to them now he knew they wouldn't oblige him, and was stopped only when a blast of boiling light struck him in the side.

Lightning, Aexilica knew. The stuff of warring clouds, manifested down upon the surface of the world. It blasted him off his feet and threw him back hard enough to bowl over several of the enemy. Aexilica saw several more getting ideas about striking him while he was down, and swiftly hurled an axe she found abandoned nearby to put a stop to it. By the time they'd recovered from one of their allies' heads being split in half, Herag had recovered from his flight.

He stumbled away from them, growling, swearing, sizzling. Flesh burned and blackened, cracked and oozing trickles of sludgy blood. As miraculous as his survival was, he clearly would not be taking more attacks like that and continuing to fight.

Another blast of sky-light emerged, cutting the air. It was jagged, Aexilica saw, seeming to move along a haphazard trajectory as if it were confused about its own pattern of flight. Where it passed, everything grew warmer, steam hissing and miniature forks of power lashing out to kiss surrounding ground and flesh. And all of this she saw only as a stinging afterimage in her vision, because it struck for Herag practically instantaneously.

He had, of course, prepared his defence before the attack was even set loose. The sky-light smashed into a body the berserker had hefted from the ground instead of him. A body? No, a living man, surely, for Aexilica saw the limbs jump and spasm as the power collided with their owner. The air reeked of burning meat and the body fell fully in half as it was charred fully in half. Herag emerged from the smoke so much of its matter had become, pouncing for Hagor and roaring his fury.

The High Priest's barrier met the berserker's swing, and the impact made a sound like a landslide. Hagor slid back; five feet, ten, twenty. Not a large man, and clearly fine to be displaced from the reach of Herag's blade.

Flames leapt up, now. They gave more warning than the seemingly instant strike of Hagor's sky-light, and the poor sods between him and the berserker had sufficient time to scream and scramble as far as a yard before the wave of fire rolled over them. Herag, for his part, did not seem to blink, nor did he feel the need to adjust strategy. Shielding himself with another man as he had before, he simply sprinted through the heat.

Aexilica spent one moment staring in awe at his resilience, then winced as he emerged. Red burns, turning already to blisters, littered much of his visible flesh as the corpse fell away. Herag was still alive, still mobile, but he was far from invulnerable. Aexilica began moving herself, positioning for an attack against Hagor. Right now there seemed to be some kind of duel between him and the berserker, one that was silently understood by all present.

If Aexilica interrupted, she feared it would resume the wider battle. And she didn't like her own side's odds at all of holding their own while Herag was tied up in combat. No, better to watch and wait. If Herag lost, Aexilica could at least try her hand attacking a wounded High Priest. It was, she thought, better than nothing.

But not by much.

Herag was a snarling wolf, young and in his prime. All vicious energy and flashing fang. Hagor the bear. Aged, slow, yet so much more than his enemy's equal despite it all. Swinging axes and hammers broke against the shield, found replacements from the ground. Nine out of every ten blows almost landed on Hagor did nothing for the barrier about him, and the remaining one would barely score glancing blows. A gash over one eyebrow here, a nick in the forearm there. Certainly he was not escaping harm.

But he was dishing out far more than he took. Herag's body was worn deeper into uselessness by the moment, movements slowing, ferocity fading. There were limits, Aexilica saw, to rage and hate, always a point where the cold physical facts of a man's condition would superscede whatever motivation to fight he'd found himself with. Herag was at that limit, and passing it more with every second. Hagor knew it, too. He fought less conservatively, pressing his advantage and channelling ever more of his energy from defence to offence.

It all ended as two blasts of sky-light ran through Herag back to back, leaving him to convulse in a heap at Hagor's feet. The High Priest grinned his victory—

—Then promptly screamed as Aexilica's swing took three of his fingers off.

He had, after all, chanelled more and more of his energy from defence to offence, and not seen her coming at all. The weakened condition of his barrier, combined with all the scores left in it by Aexilica's far stronger ally, let the tip of her blade slip through.

But it was not nearly enough.

Axilica had aimed for his neck, missed. Missed, somehow, by feet. Hagor was wounded, perhaps enough to be slower, but Aexilica was not nearly close enough to Herag's equal that it would give her a chance.

And by the surging of his forces, she wouldn't have been allowed to use that chance even if she had. Apparently Aexilica's race or ambush, perhaps both, had waived her rights to the same personal combat Herag had enjoyed against the old man. Hagor glared pure, venomous hatred at her.

"Your kind are all the same." He spat. "Mewling animals, ignorant to the forces that move our world from the heavens. Well fear not. You'll be a fine contribution to the Gods, whether you want to or not."

He called out more loudly, now, addressing the whole room at once.

"I want this one alive, she is to be sacrificed upon the altar. Her power will turn to the Gods' power, and their power will reward us richly for handing them so fine a feast."

Aexilica looked around, panting, licking her lips. Herag was still in a heap, breathing but not moving. His men were falling back, morale crushed in a single stroke at the sight of their invincible leader's defeat. Hagor was breathing heavily, wounded, but…It wasn't nearly enough.

She had given up hope entirely when the energy lance flashed through the air.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.