For perhaps the first time since he knew of the battle to come, Ash felt a spark of hope in the possibility of victory. No, more so. An inferno raged within the souls of every human and goblin that bore witness, and every swing of Senniaxx's fists stoked that blaze to ever greater heights.
The goblin chief's arms were a blur of movement as he struck at the metal pyramid that shielded the gargoyle, each impact leaving a crater the width of a tree trunk upon its surface, until with a final, thunderous clang, the pyramid was shattered and the gargoyle bereft of its defense.
Or it should have been, but the innards of the structure laid empty.
“Elder?!” roared Senniaxx, his eyes wild. The shaman was quiet, her face twisted with concentration before her eyes grew wide and she pointed to a patch of earth between them.
Senniaxx was upon it in moments. His arms came down like meteors and gouged open a massive chunk of dirt and dust with a single empowered strike, revealing the monster hidden within.
The creature's gaze revealed surprise and frustration in equal measure, and then pain as Senniaxx commenced his frenzied assault, his fellow tribesmen chipping in to distract or harry the tier five whenever it attempted a counter.
The tide of the battle was shifting, Ash knew then. The gargoyle was powerful, no doubt, and easily the better of Senniaxx or Sylaxxa or any other one goblin, but against them both, with the aid of so many tier threes?
It was losing, attendant to the Lord or not. It. Was. Losing.
And the Everwatch cheered with every fiber of their being. They saw victory close at hand. Just a little more.
A few more spells.
A few more strikes.
It was almost theirs.
Ash supposed that he should have known better.
Life was never so simple.
The gargoyle was blooded by then, a viscous grey liquid seeping from the innumerable wounds upon its body.
The goblins were hardly unhurt to be sure, but their numbers had allowed them to avoid and counter the worst, and despite its strength, it had become apparent to them that the gargoyle was not an offensively focused beast.
But neither was it willing to just submit. Its pride would not allow it, nor would its Lord watching the bout.
The gargoyle grimaced as it skid to a stop at one end of the clearing and Senniaxx at the other. Whatever wounds the chief had taken healed again at a blistering pace and he unleashed another bellow, eager for the battle to continue.
A moment passed.
The gargoyle looked upon its defiant foes for a few seconds, its eyes narrowed, and then it did something it hadn’t for all the battle so far.
It spoke.
“It is a stain on my honour and that of my Lord that it has come to this.” Its voice was spoken right into the minds of every being in the clearing, and though it lacked the Lord’s abundant power, the weight of it was still enough to send more than one goblin to their knees.
Even Ash had to grimace through a sudden, pounding headache as its deep gravely baritone, like the grinding of rocks against one another, continued to echo within his mind.
“No matter. I will repent for this, but for now, no more. I will not allow further shame to besmirch the Lord. You have fought well, little ones, but there shall be no more holding back.”
And with that grave declaration, a tier five finally deigned to take its foes seriously.
Ash tensed, his mana flared defensively in expectation of whatever was to come. Senniaxx and his kin did the same, none daring to underestimate their foe. It still wasn’t enough.
“DESCENT OF THE MELANCHOLY EARTH GOD.”
The air grew thick, sluggish, and then heavy. So unimaginably heavy. Ash slammed into the wood beneath his feet, his eyes wide as his mouth opened in a wordless scream. Goblins all across the walls dropped like flies, their petite bodies crashing into the ground with such force that many simply knocked themselves unconscious or tore open grisly wounds upon their heads.
A few of the stouter warriors like Myr managed to fall to their knees but stay upright nonetheless though her muscles rippled and her skin grew red from the sheer exertion required to fight the power.
And they were the lucky ones for many others simply died, their bodies unable to endure the aura of a demi-god's wrath.
The warriors by Senniaxx and Sylaxxa's side fared better, shielded as they were by their own tier three natures along with the buoying presence of their elder and chief, though they too were forced to suffer.
For those who could endure the weight pressing down on them had to then endure the sickly, languid mana that stole away the strength from their limbs and the quickness from their thoughts.
Even Senniaxx found his wild scarlet mana restrained in the face of the gargoyle’s full power though his might allowed him to at least stand with his back straight and his eyes fierce.
Sylaxxa how ever, was different. She was pressed low, her face marred by effort, but a wild smile crossed her lips nonetheless.
It was a smile that the gargoyle noticed, and how could it not. Despite the goblin chieftain’s power and skill, it had been the elder who the gargoyle had paid the most attention to throughout the battle, having noted how her esoteric command of spells could push it into disadvantage. And now, despite his power released to its maximum, he grew wary.
“I have been waiting for this moment.” groaned the elder as she raised a wrinkled arm into the air.
The gargoyle furrowed its brow and mustered its mana. Unleashed as it was, it could rain death upon the elder with a far greater speed and ease than it could bring to bear before.
But it still wouldn’t be fast enough. For fate had decreed that she move first, and fate...
“FATE IS MINE TO COMMAND!”
The gargoyle froze, as did every other being, not just in the clearing, but across dozens of kilometers of forest, and for a quiet second, nothing happened.
And then everything happened.
The sand dial by Sylaxxa’s side emptied and crumpled to dust, its power spent, and the gargoyle roared as it felt its skill reverse, the weight and melancholy it had brought to bear against its foes turning on itself.
The earth beneath its feet crumpled as it fell to a knee, a grimace across its lips as its mana was stolen and fed back into its own spell to further fuel its power in a vicious cycle.
“Go!” roared Sylaxxa, her expression fierce. “Slay it now!”
None of the goblins needed to be told twice. Senniaxx erupted into a wind powered lunge and the hulking goblin followed soon after. Torrents of poison and earth and wind and more followed in their heels.
The gargoyle saw the attacks coming and snarled.
“It shall not be so easy!” it declared as its power flared and it wrestled against Sylaxxa's control over the spell. It was a fight that it was bound to win, it knew, for even though the elder was aged and powerful, she was still a tier his lesser.
But it would cost him precious few seconds and that was time that it didn’t have, and so the gargoyle chose instead the most expedient solution. It grappled enough control of the spell from the elder to simply cancel it, and the field of weight and lethargy died away, leaving it the focus to spend on defending against its foes.
Senniaxx loosed a bestial bellow and brought a scarlet-clad axe down in an executioner's swing that cut deep into its shoulder. Earthen spears tipped with steel rose in defiance of the blow to gut the chief, but Senniaxx cared little for the grievous injury and instead allowed the spears to drive deeper as he charged forward and bodily gripped the tier five in a lock.
The gargoyle roared and the chief's impudence at daring to contest it in a game of strength but found another pair of arms wrapped around it in the form of the hulking goblin. Their might combined allowed them to restrain it long enough for the rest of their kin's spells to connect squarely against its body.
An explosion of mana and earth and power shook the clearing and sent Senniaxx and the hulking goblin, now reduced again to his diminutive true form, flying back. They landed on their feet and though his kin struggled where he stood, obviously exhausted and weary, Senniaxx remained strong still, his wounds knitting themselves back together by the second.
Together, their collective breath held, the goblins waited for the dust to clear and their foe to make itself known. Ash too held his breath as he climbed back to his feet, his head still sore and limbs weak, but otherwise fine.
The seconds ticked by as mote by mote, the clearing grew clear until finally, the gargoyle made itself known.
It stood with a hundred weeping wounds staining its body. Metal covered portions of its skin and it seems to have done work in deflecting the worst of the damage, but other portions remained stained with poison or torn by thorns and earth.
Ash thought that it was a miracle that the beast was still standing and that it perhaps spoke of the sheer tenacity possessed by a monster of tier five.
Still, tenacious or no, the fight was decided. The goblins were tired and some wounded, but they could fight yet.
“Surrender.” demanded Sylaxxa, her tone powerful despite how tired she looked. “This fight will only lead to your death.”
The gargoyle was quiet a moment, its eyes slowly closing as if in thought. Every goblin upon the walls prayed then that it would stop there. That the meaningless blood shed came to an end.
And for a hopeful moment, he thought it would be so.
The gargoyle's eyes opened, its choice made, and it thought one word as unyielding as the metal that shielded its skin.
“No.”
And then it healed.
The grass and dirt around it, already lifeless and battered from the monsters lethargic aura and the barrage of spells sent its way, cracked and died in an ever expanding circle.
As fast as thought, dozens of meters of forest lost its vitality, all of it funneled by magic beyond understanding into the gargoyle until he stood whole once again, not a single mark to make obvious the battle that has just been fought.
The goblins looked on as it happened in wordless silence, unable to comprehend just what they had witnessed. The battle had almost been theirs. Victory and been within arms reach.
But it had been a lie. A falsehood dangled before the desperate.
Ash glanced towards the Lord, its myriad faces shifting and churning, but its gaze remaining the same throughout. And in those eyes, he saw disinterest.
Everything the Everwatch had fought for and bled for was meaningless in its view for its victory had always been assured.
Ash supposed that it should have been obvious. And it had been. But they’d allowed themselves to believe otherwise for one glorious moment.
His felt like a lead weight in his chest as he turned his gaze towards Myr seeking some sort of comfort there, but the woman had none give. Her eyes never met his. Instead she looked onward, her mien one of resignation.
He grit his teeth.
The sounds of battle echoed again throughout the clearing. No matter the fact that their foe had healed itself, Sylaxxa, Senniaxx and all the warriors continued to give the battle their all nonetheless.
They couldn’t allow fear to slow them, for it was those moments of stillness in which despair would strike, sinking claws shaped of hopelessness and resignation into them with far greater ease than any spell the gargoyle could have ever cast. So, they fought.
Even though some amongst them started to fall either by exhaustion or the gargoyle's relentless onslaught, they fought.
Even though they knew they couldn’t win, they fought, every prolonged breath a gift they sought to use to its fullest.
They fought and fought and fought, until only Senniaxx and Sylaxxa stood upon a field of corpses, their expressions strained. They were both spent.
Senniaxx had long since returned to his normal form, his body littered with a litany of wounds that would no longer heal, and Sylaxxa, herself heavily wounded and seemingly on the cusp of fainting, her every breath weaker than the last.
To their credit, their foe too seemed haggard. Healing itself had cost the gargoyle, no doubt, and the battle that followed had squeezed out the rest of its might and mana. It too was on its last legs, though it would still claim victory here.
That much was certain, and it knew it.
“You have fought better than any could have expected of you, little ones. Yours is a tribe deserving of honour, and one whose name I will remember unto the days to come. But this is the end. Die now as the valorous defeated.”
The gargoyle raised an arm and prepared its mana for a final strike. Neither Senniaxx nor Sylaxxa looked to be in a state to either dodge nor block.
Ash from his vantage point knew then that it was their end. He clenched his fists so tightly his nails cut into skin. Would he just allow this to happen?
Even though he knew he could do nothing, would he still attempt nothing? He took a shaky step towards the parapet. What of Calixxa? If he died… she would.
Myr turned to him then, a warning in her eyes.
He looked away, brokenhearted.
The gargoyle’s magic came to life.
Senniaxx and Sylaxxa prepared to meet their end.
And a goblin screamed.
“Everwatch tribe! TO LIFE, DEATH AND BEYOND!”
A small figure jumped from the wall. Ash gaped as he watched the goblin charge at the gargoyle, a sword in hand. She wasn’t particularly threatening for a goblin, or even middling. His senses registered her as a mere tier one, weaker even than him.
But she was loud, and she shamed them all with her courage.
“THE EVERWATCH STAND!” roared a familiar voice and Ash recognized his sparring partner Roxxa as the second on the ground, her wind empowered steps carrying her quickly past the first goblin in her charge.
After her went a third and then a fourth. And like an avalanche, more and more leapt to the defense of their heroes, war cries on all their lips.
Ash watched them go to their likely deaths, fully aware of that fact, and something in him broke. He slowly turned to Myr who met his gaze, a warning against a y foolishness in her icy blue eyes.
And then he jumped. Or was about to. Myr reached for him in a vain attempt to stop his madness, but she was too slow and too far away. But he was stopped nonetheless.
“No interference shall be tolerated.”
The Lord had spoken. It had been mere words, but it swept across the clearing like a tidal wave. Roxxa was the first to feel its impact. She staggered mid-step, her daggers raised high, and then collapsed to the earth, blood oozing from her every orifice and her eyes wide open as if in disbelief.
She was dead.
Every other intruder on the field followed.
In one second.
Dozens of proud, brave, courageous goblins had died miserable deaths.
From a single sentence.
Senniaxx gazed upon the carnage before him and bellowed, his voice full of rage and grief and so much pain that it was nearly a weapon in of itself. He charged with his axe raised, and though his steps were weak and he stumbled twice, the chief refused to allow himself to fall.
The gargoyle watched him come with a pitying look on its face before it struck. Earthen spears rose from every direction around the Everwatch chieftain and gutted him like a fish on a skewer. The goblin gurgled blood that leaked down his mouth and nose, and yet, despite the agony, his eyes remained defiant as he hurled his axe with what little of his strength still remained.
It landed laughably short of its foe, not that it mattered. Senniaxx was dead, his last mark on an uncaring world an act of unyielding defiance.
The gargoyle then turned towards Sylaxxa and noted curiously that the elder wasn’t even looking at it anymore. She wasn’t even gazing at the field of her tribe’s dead laid before her. Her silvery eyes were instead locked onto Ash.
The youth was frozen in place by the shaman’s stare, and tears streaked down his face as he saw her begin to mouth a single word at him.
“Believe.” she said, before the gargoyle’s spell ended her life.
Ash numbly watched her die, a smile on her face as she finally found the rest she’d sought for so long, He was quiet then. He didn’t think he’d be so quiet. So contained. But he was.
He simply stared at her lifeless corpse – at all their corpses - and then turned not to the gargoyle, but to the Lord itself.
And then he jumped.
Myr screamed as he hit the ground, but he cared not. He just started running, his blade drawn.
The Lord deigned then to turn its near godly attention towards the insect that charged towards it, a feeble sword in hand, and felt nothing. Not amusement. Not irritation. Not respect. Nothing.
It simply commanded one of its attendants to end it, unwilling to even waste another ounce of its power on such pointlessness.
The creature, a bird-like beast of imperious bearing, bowed and shifted to obey. A scythe forged of wind was summoned and cast at the hapless tier two human.
The blade crossed the distance between them in the span of a thought, its razor edge nicking his chest before Ash had even the mind to consider what was happening.
He was going to die.
He would die.
And yet, he didn’t.
"Begone, pest.” he said in a voice both his own and not as he swung his blade. It was so slow, like his arm was moving through molasses, and yet it shattered the wind blade in an instant, and in the next, cut apart the bird monstrosity with laughable ease.
