Chapter 47 – The First Line of Defence

If you think that the worst of his Goddesses is the beastgirl, then you are sorely mistaking. Frankly, Of War, Of Beasthood and Of Darkness are the ones I hope to see on the battlefield.

- Excerpt from a letter between White Pantheon Generals, dated back to the Great War.

Elijah ran. He ignored the bodies in the room and he ran. Beniamin left his mind and he kept running. He vaulted down the shattered staircase, and he kept running. He heard the team of men behind him keep scrambling, and he kept running. He turned a corner and he…

He came to stop.

The sentries he had left outside, the fourteen men… There were only eight left, scrambling, spears lifted and running backward. “STOP!” Elijah shouted. “WHAT HAPPENED?!” The first sentry simply ran past him, back towards the throne room. Elijah would reprimand him later.

The second slid to a stop in his heavy armour. There was red blood over the golden plate. It was fresh, still undried. “Is that yours?” Elijah asked.

“Not mine.” The Seeker responded quickly as he shook his head. “I… The-There-There-There…” His words turned into incomprehensible gibberish as he tried to utter something out. “I-I-I-I-I….” Elijah sidestepped the panicked man and went to the next Seeker. “What is going on?”

Someone grabbed Elijah’s shoulder and pulled him to the side of the corridor. “LOOK MAN!” Elijah’s eyes followed the arm in golden armour, the plate cracked and streaked with blood. His eyes travelled along the ruined walls, to the end of the hallway.

A flood washed over him, a flood of fear and panic. Standing there was a beastman.

But then Beastmen didn’t have their faces half-eaten by worms, with insects crawling out of hollow sockets that once carried eyes. Beastmen’s fur was thick enough to serve as a winter rug and they kept it clean and groomed, not matted with blood into old clumps, interspersed with patches of baldness. Beastmen didn’t have their ribcages exposed and their chests were filled with muscle and organs, not see-through. Most importantly, beastmen bled from open wounds.

Elijah blinked as his eyes glazed over. The… the…. The thing took a step. Its cracked hoof slamming down on the ground as the band of sentries ran further into the fortress. Behind the monster, another appeared, shuffling behind it. The first was a wolfman, this one had a goat’s skull for a head. Then another. And another.

Someone grabbed Elijah’s hand. “Come boss! COME!” It was Samuel. Elijah saw the man’s eyes through the visor in his golden helmet. It was shameful that this man carried himself so much better than Elijah, especially when Elijah was supposed to be in charge of this whole expedition.

“Where?”

“Give an order, retreat back to the throne room.” Samuel said. Those words finally kickstarted Elijah’s mind. Orders, command, men to lead. Atis’ soul. There were things to do, people that relied on him, people he had to return to. He couldn’t panic here.

“TO THE THRONE ROOM!” Elijah roared with a renew vigour. He lifted his spear, aimed it at the monster as it took another step, this one faster than the last, and channelled Allasaria’s holy light once again. It carved through the monster’s chest and the beam faded away. Elijah’s confidence faded when he looked through the beastman’s chest. The light had tunnelled a hole straight through the first and the second beastmen.

Both kept moving. Elijah blinked, turned, and saw his Seekers already running away. Elijah followed them. Through the ruined hallways of this ancient dwarven hold, he jumped across the ruined stones, the cracked statues and shattered swords. Through corridors painted in dried blood and finally through a massive doorway; the doors had been collapsed inwards. The rest of the Seekers, forty-four now, stood there, assembled. The campfires stilled roared, but no one tended to them anymore.

Some were red-faced after a sprint, others nervous and looking around, several were jumping at shadows. Elijah looked around the throne room, he knew it had breaches, but he didn’t pay attention to them apart from idle curiosity before.

The ceiling was pockmarked with holes, both of the sides had corridors leading away from the throne room too. There was the entrance behind them, two more tunnels leading deeper opposite that. Even a corner of the floor was missing. He should run…

To where?

Splitting up would only lower the amount of firepower they could put out. Allasaria’s magic worked best when it was concentrated. Two Seekers had the combined strength of three individuals, but forty could beat four-hundred. “HOLD!” Elijah shouted as he marched to the throne, the soul jar containing what was left of Atis was still sat there, good. “SPLIT INTO GROUPS! TEN MEN TAKE THE FRONT, THEN ONE ON EACH SIDE. THE REST SUPPORT! YOU ON THE SIDE, KEEP WATCH, CALL OUT IF YOU SEE ANYTHING!”

“YES HIGH SEEKER!” The forty-four men responded in unison. Instincts forged through years of training started to awaken slowly. They may have never seen monsters like this, but they were still Seekers; men chosen by Allasaria herself to be the first line of defence against the forgotten monsters of this world. The Sects of Guguo, Maisara’s Paladins, Fortia’s Guardians, even Elassa’s precious mages could only bow their heads to the prestige of the Golden Order.

Elijah marched up the steps leading to the stone throne, turned and looked over the heads of his men. His legs were working by themselves now, he was hanging off a cliff and his body was simply working by itself. He knew the moment he let any thought enter his mind, it would crack whatever sort of shield was safeguarding his sanity.

A monster appeared behind the men. Then another. And another. Elijah saw the ones he had blasted a hole into. He shut his mind up and directed his men, it was better for them not to think either. “PHALANX” The men in the centre ran to support. Thirty spears aimed straight ahead. “CHARGE BEAMS!” Elijah ordered and the mass of spearheads started to glow with light.

More of those undead beastmen rose from the ground, there was some humans interspersed in too. In clothes that once would have been colourful shawls, they were now dirtied through being buried, ripped and bloody. “HOLD!” Elijah commanded. It was better to let the monsters build up. “HOLD!” Elijah shouted again. Let them have a few steps more. “HOLD!” Let them build up a second more. The horde crossed and shuffled forwards. A huge one was in the back, it was probably a risen minotaur. Two huge horns on either side of a skull, its head half covered in muscle, the rest exposed bone. Elijah almost panicked, he gave the command more to steady himself than for the men.

“FIRE!”

For a moment, it was as if someone had turned on a spotlight aimed directly at the undead.

In the next moment, chests slid from their legs, heads disconnected from their legs, and limbs crashed into the ground. Elijah’s eyes readjusted to the darkness of the hold after the light almost blinded him. Three quarters of the corridor had been wiped clean. Destroyed, annihilated, certain sections of the creatures had been incinerated from the existence. What remained lay lifeless on the ground. Hopefully it was permanently this time. The team of thirty Seekers cheered. Elijah threw in his own.

They would be going home after all! The rousing cheer was dampened by one of the Seekers on the side. “THERE’S MORE HERE!” Then the Seeker from the other side added his own alarm.

“AND HERE TOO!” Elijah looked straight ahead, there were more approaching from the front too.

“REARRANGE FORCES! TEN MEN ON EITHER SIDE! TEN TOWARDS THE FRONT! THE REST WATCH THE OTHER ENTRANCES AND SUPPORT WHERE NEEDED!” Elijah watched his men rearrange themselves, he couldn’t keep the smile off his face. They were Seekers, they would survive. How could they not? They were the chosen of Allasaria. “THEY CAN BE STOPPED! SEND THEM BACK SIX FEET UNDER!” Another series of cheers. “PHALANX AND FIRE AT WILL! CUT THEM DOWN AS THEY COME!”

The three teams became lightshows. Beams of lights shot forwards from them as they were each a giant flashlight being rapidly flicked on and off. On and off. Elijah’s eyes quickly became unadjusted to the darkness of the fortress, but it was obvious what was happening. Each flicker of light was slightly longer, the beam slightly thicker as it pushed further and further into the corridor. Elijah took a deep breath, his fingers gripping his own spear tightly. For the first time since he had seen that hand, he felt as if the way forwards was opened.

He looked straight ahead, with each flash of light from his men, there was a flicker of gold. He squinted, beastmen rarely wore gold, and certainly not full plate armour, what was… His question was answered before he even finished it. A flashed through the air, it hit one of his men.

It was a golden spear, almost a pike. Simple, with a broad head for channelling magic. A spear belong to one of his own Seekers. It dug itself deep into a man’s chest. The man screamed and fell backwards. Elijah’s mind raced along with a figure running towards him. A Seeker in golden armour, his head at an odd angle as if his neck had been snapped.

The men fired faster and faster, all aiming for that newest ghoul. It rushed towards them, collapsed onto the ground and slid towards the ground into their formation. One man was caught, the armour on his calves split in half by the ghoul’s blade. Elijah picked up his spear, aimed it at that new ghoul and blasted it with magic.

His beam split it in half. He swung his spear again. And now into quarters, the golden armour was strong, built to withstand any magic apart from Allasaria’s light. Why would Seekers need protection from their own weapons? He had questioned that choice once, not now.

A figure fell from the ceiling. Another undead beastmen. Its legs were bared bone, they crumpled as they hit the ground and the undead collapsed, chunks of meat exploding over the floor but there was no blood with them. Then another. This one fell onto the next. It similarly hit. A third. A fourth. The seventh landed on a pile of bodies. The eighth landed on the seventh. The ninth stood up, saw a Seeker and started shambling towards him.

Elijah drew his sword, the blade encased itself in white light. He hefted his spear, the tip already glowing. “SEEKERS!” He shouted. “THE LIGHT GUIDES US!”

“THE LIGHT GUIDES US!” He got as a response.

“CLEANSE THEM!” Elijah shouted.

“CLEANSE THEM!” The rest repeated the war cry. He swung the spear and three of the walking corpses which had fallen from the ceiling split in two. There was a reason the Golden Order was the most elite fighting force in existence. They were feared in the Great War.

They were feared now.

Creatures of the dark; flee.