Lastlight's Revenant #12

The battle raged on, steel clashing against chitin, screams melding with the guttural snarls of the horde. Garran cut down another duskhound, its spine-spear shattering against his blade, when a panicked shout drew his attention.

"They're over the wall! They're over the wall!"

Garran turned. A section of the western battlement had been breached—not by climbing, but by stacking. The vermin-touched had used their own fallen as grotesque ladders, heaping corpse upon twitching corpse until they could claw their way onto the ramparts.

"Go! We can handle things here!" Edric exclaimed, ducking under a thrust, ramming the duskhound attacking him into the wall, only for two of his men to quickly impale it with spears.

Sylrithiel, for her part, also nodded.

"With me, men!" Garran barked, rallying a handful of nearby soldiers.

They charged, hacking through the shambling horrors before they could spread further. Rotting limbs flew, blackened nails scraped against armor, but step by step, they drove the abominations back to the edge.

Garran kicked the last one over the parapet, watching as it tumbled down the macabre slope of its kin. His stomach turned—not at the gore, but at the tactics. The Maw’s spawn were learning. Adapting.

"Burn them," he ordered. "Now."

Soldiers scrambled. Barrels of oil were hauled to the edge and upended, the viscous liquid cascading down the mound of corpses. A single flaming arrow followed.

The pile erupted in a roar of fire, greasy black smoke billowing into the sky. The stench of charred flesh was overwhelming, but the message was clear—no more climbing.

For a moment, the assault lessened. The flying demons still circled, the vermin-touched still pounded at the gates, but the relentless tide had ebbed. A ragged cheer went up along the walls.

Then—

The earth trembled.

A hush fell. Even the demons seemed to pause.

Beyond the tree line, the forest itself parted.

A monstrous shape emerged—not a demon, but a living siege engine.

Towering, pulsating, its body was a grotesque fusion of muscle and bone, its form resembling a colossal, slug-like battering ram.

Its "head" was a single, gaping maw lined with rows of grinding teeth, its flanks studded with thrashing tendrils that dragged its bulk forward.

From its back, something stirred—a cluster of spined sacs, each one pulsing as if ready to burst.

Garran’s blood ran cold.

"Take cover—!"*

The sacs ruptured.

A hail of barbed projectiles screamed through the air, shredding through stone and flesh alike. Soldiers fell, impaled or screaming as the spines burrowed into their skin.

The siege beast lurched forward, its maw dripping corrosive slime.

The gates would not hold.

Garran watched in grim silence as the soldiers reeled from the siege beast’s assault. Bodies littered the ramparts—some motionless, others writhing as barbed spines burrowed deeper into their flesh. '

The city’s own siege engines sat rusted and broken, their mechanisms seized by neglect.

A charge outside the walls might cripple the monstrosity, but it would be suicide. He'd need at least a dozen men foolish enough to accompany him on—

"Do not despair, children of Vaeldrith!"

A voice, spectral and resonant, cut through the din of battle. Garran turned.

Sylrithiel hovered above the carnage, her body alight with crimson energy. The runes along her skin blazed like forge-fire, her hair whipping in an unseen wind. Her black eyes had turned molten, her voice no longer her own as she chanted:

"Varethis sol’en drak! Fyr’un del kharad—BURN!"

The air itself split.

A beam of scarlet light lanced from her outstretched hands, carving through the battlefield like a god’s blade. Duskhounds evaporated mid-leap. Vermin-touched burst into cinders.

The beam tore through the horde without slowing, until it struck the siege beast—

—and cleaved it in two.

The monstrosity’s halves collapsed, its acidic innards spilling across the field in a steaming tide. The spined sacs on its back detonated harmlessly, their projectiles reduced to ash before they could fire.

Silence.

Then—

Sylrithiel fell.

She crashed onto the battlements with a pained groan, her glow extinguished, her skin pale as death. The runes along her arms were now blackened, as if the magic had scorched her from within.

Garran was at her side in an instant. "What the hells was that?" he demanded.

Sylrithiel's lips moved weakly, her voice barely a whisper. "Who...are you? Where...am I?"

Garran frowned. The sorceress's silver eyes were unfocused, her pupils dilated as if staring through him—through the very walls of the city itself. Before he could respond, her body went slack, her head lolling to the side as unconsciousness claimed her.

So her magic does have a price after all.

But there was no time to dwell on it. The battlefield still raged around them. Garran seized the nearest soldier—a young man with a gash across his brow—by the shoulder.

"You there," he barked. "Take her somewhere safe. Now."

The soldier hesitated, his gaze flickering to his comrades—some dead, others bleeding out, the rest still locked in desperate combat. For a moment, Garran thought he would refuse.

Then the man's jaw set. He gave a sharp nod, scooping Sylrithiel into his arms before sprinting toward the nearest intact tower.

Garran turned back to the battle. He opened his mouth to rally the soldiers—

—but Edric was already ahead of him.

"Hold the line!" the young lord roared, his voice cutting through the chaos. "The fight isn't over! Reform the pike ranks! Archers, to the—"

The ground trembled.

Then it shook.

A deep, rolling vibration shuddered through the stone, rattling teeth in skulls. Every head turned toward the tree line.

Five more siege beasts emerged from the forest.

Each one was larger than the last, their pulsating bodies oozing corrosive slime, their spined sacs swelling with fresh ammunition.

Garran's blood turned to ice.

"Evacuate the walls at—"

The world exploded.

The first volley of spines tore through the battlements like arrows through parchment. Stone shattered. Bodies were flung like ragdolls.

Garran barely had time to raise his arms before the shockwave hit him—

—then everything went black.

A high-pitched ringing filled his ears. His vision swam, darkness creeping at the edges as he fell toward the ground. Distantly, he felt himself hit the ground, the impact sending a jolt of pain through his ribs.

Smoke and dust choked the air. Screams—muffled, distant—reached him as if through water.

Somewhere in the haze, a soldier was shouting.

"—alive! Get the commander—"

"—gates won't hold—"

"—the wall's been breached—"

Garran tried to move. His limbs refused to obey.

The siege beasts lumbered closer, their sacs already pulsing with another volley as his eyes closed.

...

Garran woke to the sound of scraping wood.

The room was dark, lit only by a single guttering candle. The air smelled of herbs and damp stone.

He turned his head—slowly, gingerly—to see Kaelvar seated beside him, carving a piece of wood with a bone-handled knife.

The Varekai warrior didn’t look up, but his hands stilled as he spoke.

"You’re awake. Good. The ancestors still have need of you."

Garran pushed himself up, expecting pain—but though his body ached, it was a distant throb, not the crippling agony he’d anticipated. He flexed his fingers, then touched his ribs where the blast had struck him.

No broken bones. No open wounds. Just the dull, fading memory of injury.

"How am I still alive?" he rasped.

Kaelvar held up a small clay vial, its surface etched with spiraling runes. "Moonbloom elixir. Brewed from flowers that grow only in the Maw’s shadow. It can heal anything... except death."

Garran’s smile was bitter. Of course. Again, he had lived. Again, he had survived like a stubborn cockroach, scuttling through the carnage while better men died screaming.

'What worth did this life have? What purpose did it serve?'

The thought coiled in his chest, venomous and familiar. His mind dragged him back to the library, to Sylrithiel’s mocking words: "With this, you could demand your oaths be restored. Walk into battle clad in divine light again."

If he had swallowed his pride, if he had bargained with the Duke, if he had demanded that the clerics scrub the Oathbreaker’s mark from his skin—would it have changed anything? Would he have been strong enough to turn the tide?

Or was this just another failure in a lifetime of them?

He exhaled, forcing the thoughts aside. "What happened after I fell?"

Kaelvar’s knife resumed its work, the blade peeling thin curls of wood. "The walls broke. The demons poured in. The city burns."

Garran exhaled through his nose. "Thought as much." He flexed his fingers, testing his strength. "The Duke’s son? The sorceress?"

"Edric lives," Kaelvar said, not looking up. "Barely. Took a spine through the shoulder. As for the elf..." He shook his head. "Haven’t seen her." The knife stilled. "Many died. But survivors holed up in Ardun’s church nearby. They’ll last a while longer."

Garran nodded and pushed himself to his feet. His sword leaned against the wall nearby, its edge nicked but serviceable. He reached for it—

—when a roar split the sky.

The sound was unlike anything Garran had heard before—deep, resonant, more a physical force than mere noise. It rattled the walls, sent dust drifting from the ceiling.

Beneath it, the heavy, rhythmic thud of vast wings beating the air.

Garran turned to Kaelvar, brow raised.

The Varekai warrior merely shrugged.

"Only one way to find out," Garran muttered, hefting his sword and striding toward the door.

Behind him, Kaelvar stood. He placed the finished carving on the table—a dragon, its wings spread, its jaws frozen mid-snarl.

Then he followed Garran into the burning city.