Sergeant Aldon pulled a man back onto his feet as he started barking orders to the others.

“Get up, we need to press the advantage! The healer wasn’t the only priority target! The daze of the spell will only keep them all incapacitated for just a few minutes!”

Gunnar listened, placing his spear down to help the nearest mage up onto his feet. He’d never seen magic like that before. His own magicka channels were too thin to do more than light a fire or cleanse a bit of water, but that kind of pure energy was incredible. Just being near that concentrated power had left his whole body vibrating.

“Thank you,” said the mage in a ragged voice as he helped him up.

Gunnar nodded, noting the blood leaking from the man’s eyes and ears as he began to stumble into his planned retreat.

“Alright, let’s get past these trees and make sure that the target’s down!” yelled the Sergeant.

Gunnar picked his spear back up, cursing under his breath a bit as his boot got caught in muck. He hated this fucking swamp. The fighting to conquer Vyndar had been much better. Sure there were some mountains and hills, but he’d take that over all this kingforsaken mud any day. He didn’t know what King Castor saw in this land, but he wasn’t about to start questioning a man who had doubled Burndan’s territory in less than ten years. As he pulled himself free, grateful for the increased strength he’d received as a soldier, he looked toward where the blast had felled the trees, noting the perfect circles that had been carved to fell them. If he looked a bit above them, where their bottom halves remained, he could actually see through the trees and foliage all the way to the blue sky through a perfect circle created by the spell.

As he moved to catch up with the other soldiers he froze, a sense of intense dread hitting him. Everyone else had gone quiet as well.

“What-what are you waiting for? Clear out that front tree and let’s push!” yelled Sergeant Aldon, his voice trembling a bit.

The soldier closest to the tree swallowed and went to put his hands on the trunk of it.

A fiery sword cut through it in that moment, splitting the trunk and the soldier in front of it in a single blow.

Gunnar’s blood ran cold as their target burst through the trunk, stepping over the corpse of the soldier in front of him. His sword was covered in the golden fire he’d seen before and so was his shield. Golden flames were bleeding through the gaps in his armor as well, and the eyeslits of his helmet had them licking outward, making him look more like a possessed suit of armor than a living man.

The sergeant didn’t hesitate, he held up a hand and sent up a black burst signal. “Attack! For the glory of Burndan! For King Castor!”

The soldiers rallied in spite of their fear and charged forward, even with the dread in his chest Gunnar managed to move forward, feeling buoyed as a number of titles settled on him.

The man in the golden flames began moving steadily toward the nearest of them. Canton tried to stab at him with his spear, but it seemed to shatter in the air in front of the man who then cut his head clean from his shoulders, his body bursting into golden flames as his sword hit him. Hinton tried to sweep the man’s legs with his spear, but it shattered against them without even causing their target to flinch and he smashed his shield into Hinton’s head, crushing his skull.

Their knights started to reach the target next, their already enhanced strength and speed benefitting the most from the sudden influx of titles. Gunnar didn’t know the knights, it wasn’t his place to, but he still felt horror as one of them went to block a blow from the healing knight only to have the healer’s sword shift into a mace mid-swing and cave in the man’s shield and arm in, immolating him as he crumpled into the muck..

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Two other knights attacked at once, and the golden figure managed to block one of them, but the other sunk his sword deep into his side. The man who had scored the hit collapsed suddenly, clutching his side as if he’d been the one who was struck, while the golden knight turned his attention to the other, caving in his breastplate with his mace before stomping in the helmet of the man clutching his side on the ground.

The winged began to fire their slings off at the man, but he raised his shield above his head and kept moving forward, even as a sword was still sticking from his side. Seeing his defense open, more soldiers surged forward with their spears, but every time they managed to hit him, they would fall over in pain and he would finish them off. Soon he had three spears. On in his arm, one in his shoulder, and one in his hip, but he kept moving slowly forward. The winged in the trees began to fall as well, clutching invisible wounds, their necks breaking against roots as they landed and their wings becoming too muddy for them to be able to stand back up, causing them to drown in swampy muck.

Gunnar realized that he’d stopped moving forward. He hadn’t realized when it had happened, but his legs were longer listening to him. The mud he was in was shallow, so that wasn’t the cause, and there was no magic binding him. It was the knight in front of them. They outnumbered him still, with more than twenty soldiers, four knights, and a handful of winged in the trees. In spite of that though, Gunnar knew that if they kept fighting they would all die.

He wasn’t the only one who’d stopped moving forward, watching helplessly as another knight that had fallen from some kind of phantom pain was run through. Sergeant Aldon was looking on helplessly, his mouth opening and closing, but unable to form words.

“Re-retreat!” he cried, raising his hand up to send a bright white signal mark up into the air.

They all broke immediately, with the soldiers nearest to the golden knight who’d been unable to move another step toward him easily finding the ability to move in the opposite direction. As they all broke, the golden knight kept moving toward them, his gait steady and sure despite the fact that he looked as if he was mortally wounded.

Gunnar turned and started to run, but his foot sank too deep in the mud and he tripped. He held out hand out, asking for help, but no one even turned to look at him. He felt heat at his back as if the sun was suddenly at his back. Heat and power radiated from behind him and the mud in front of him was lit in golden light. He turned himself around to look up in fear at the golden knight.

He managed to keep himself from begging for his life, he was proud of that.

The golden knight raised his mace, shifting it into a sword as he did so, but stopped before he swung it downward. The golden flames that had been sprouting faded from him, and Gunnar got a better look at him. His armor was covered in blood, both his own and that of Gunnar’s comrades. His breathing was ragged and now that the eyeslits of his helmet were no longer spitting flames Gunnar could tell the man’s eyes were wet with tears.

“Go,” said the knight, pointing with his sword at where Gunnar’s comrades had just run.

Gunnar considered reaching for his spear. He could earn a title from killing someone like the knight, not to mention a land reward from the King. He didn’t though. He knew only death would come of that decision. He pushed himself up and started running.

…

Michael stood watching the last of the Burndan ambush run from him. He’d wanted to kill him, to drive his sword through his chest, but when the man had looked up at him… Michael placed his mace at his hip and began to tear the swords and spears from himself, dropping them into the mud below. Once they were out the healing that had been keeping him standing was finally able to seal his wounds. He was empty. He’d had no energy left halfway through the fight and had blacked out several times during it, but hadn’t fallen. He couldn’t feel his exhaustion though, only the gentle warmth of oblivion that encroached at the corners of his perception.

He looked at a nearby body of a winged. His eyes were stuck open and his neck snapped on a nearby root. He bent down to carefully close his eyes. He then folded his hands and bowed his head.

“Seras, Nykas, Bruntus, Veras, Durand, please grant these men peace in whatever comes after.” He could hear some kind of acknowledgment from them, but they seemed far away at that moment, and he couldn’t make out any of their words. He turned and walked back toward his friends, his eyes welling up with tears again with the knowledge that there was one less of them.