So he went to Inni the Destroyer and asked her for help. She was the only one who could do as he needed, of course. “I need you to find the one who will command Nyth’s armies. He will endure more strife than any other, and he must not crack. No matter how terrible his life is, he must not be like his mother.”
Inni did as she was asked, choosing a little swimmer from amongst the thousands. She chose one, not to give it love and laughter as she had so many times in the past, but to give it pain and suffering. She condemned this little swimmer to a life she would not wish on an enemy. She destroyed its chance at the life it’d been destined for.
And she wept.
Maeve Arden appeared from the shadows only twenty feet in front of the Stormbringers. Stone exploded at their feet, shards of it piercing their chain mail. Like a walking earthquake, she strode toward them, her body covered in perfectly fitted armor made of pure sapphires. The perfect armor to fight Stormbringers.
Lightning ripped across the battlefield, and many strikes hit her. It did not harm her, for lightning cannot find a path through sapphire.
In her hand was a spear made from the same gemstone, her preferred weapon. Shadows exploded from her body toward theenemy as they tried to rally against such a formidable foe, and rather than grasp at them or send them to the Void as Echo would have done, she used them to obscure their vision. She was not strong enough to attack this large of a group with them. Like a cloud of midnight, her shadows covered the Stormbringers, keeping them from organizing, attacking, or realizing that the army of the Undying was racing toward them.
The House of Earth, more than any other, could function without sight. Her powers let her sense anyone touching stone, and a thousand shards of crystal exploded from her, each covered in razor-sharp edges. All of them found homes in Stormbringers.
Then Cole attacked. Flying just above the shadows, he fell into their midst, wielding his black steel sword in two hands as he’d done throughout his long life. Flames surrounded him with such heat that it melted armor and weapons.
The two of them knew the Undying would struggle against the Stormbringers, and so they would have to be the spear driven into the chinks of Marek’s army.
The King of Flames had trained for war for almost a thousand years. Even now, among a new type of foe, he was known as the greatest warrior on Nyth, and while he did not have his wife’s abilities to protect himself, he didn’t need them.
The Undying hit the ranks of the Stormbringers, their red auras draining the life from everything they touched. They lashed out with hands that caused death in seconds. Lightning struck the ground around them, but it couldn’t pass through the haze of this army.
And behind them were the humans bearing traditional weapons. Swords and spears. Bows and crossbows.
Of all the gods, Lysara was the closest to the humans, especially the ones who’d felt the kiss of death before.
Maeve walked through them with impunity. Her spear broke armor and pierced hearts. Her open-handed shoves crushed bones and threw soldiers into any bit of coordination that the Stormbringers could rally, shattering any chance of them working together.
The Queen of Earth and King of Flames were not champions, nor were they touched by Lysara, but they did not need those powers. Where they moved, Godforged died. Lines broke. Fear ran rampant.
Until Brandor Halden stepped into the fray and faced Maeve. He was an older man, looking to be in his late fifties, but he was endowed with even more grace than the rest of the Stormbringers.
Lightning warped the air around him with a steady crackle. The winds picked up so strongly that bodies from both sides were lifted. They slammed into the ranks of the Undying, quickly followed by blasts of electricity. The Undyings’ powers may have been able to shield them from lightning or small projectiles, but the bodies were too large. As soon as they lost focus, the electricity found them, killing them instantly.
The battle still raged around Maeve, Cole, and Brandor, but those three didn’t move. A battle was won or lost in two ways: make the enemy champion yield or force the army to retreat. Maeve andCole could end this battle now, but if either of them were forced to give up, they would lose.
It was a risk regardless, but after all these years, the two were tired of the bloodshed.
Maeve acted first, shadow walking behind Brandor. The winds buffeted her strikes, but with Earth-enhanced strength, she could maintain her position and still fight. Anger raged inside her, the activating emotion of Earth. Lightning struck her over and over again, but it made no difference, as her armor protected her flawlessly.
A body collided with her side, and she was knocked down. Brandor leaped toward her immediately. His sword smashed into her armor repeatedly, cracking it in dozens of places.
She shadow walked out of his attacks and was on her feet and striking with her spear in the space of a breath. But Brandor Halden was like the wind, impossible to hit. His body flowed effortlessly between strikes.
Bodies swirled around him, lifted by the winds he controlled so easily, in a maelstrom of destruction. These dead Undying and Stormbringers became a constant barrage of attacks. While the Queen of Earth was faster than any human, she did not have the grace of a Stormbringer. Each time one struck Maeve, she was knocked over, and the champion attacked again, his sword cracking the sapphire armor that protected her from his lightning.
All of this happened in mere moments. Dozens of repetitions, each leaving Maeve with more and more cracks in the sapphire.She didn’t have time to repair them. Brandor would have won, had it only been Maeve standing against him.
Eventually, her armor would have broken, and that lightning would have found a pathway through her.
Then Cole was there, his body covered in flames that seemed to be a part of him. He’d grown, become twice as large as Brandor, and the bodies which had knocked over his wife barely unbalanced him. Lightning struck him, and unlike Maeve, he wore no armor to protect against it.
Burns covered his body, but he knew all he needed to do was land a single strike against Marek’s champion to disrupt the fight. And just as quickly as lightning struck him, his Steel powers healed him.
They weakened him, but the few moments he stood beside Brandor Halden were not enough to incapacitate a king of a Great House. His sword moved with a thousand years of training, and even the most dexterous man in Nyth couldn’t evade his attacks completely.
The black steel bit into Brandor’s back just enough to throw off his balance for a moment. Then Maeve shadow walked, disappearing into the darkness at her feet and reappearing beside him with her sapphire spear pressed against his chest.
Everything stopped. The storm that raged around them ended. The bodies fell from the sky, and the lightning was quenched in an instant.
