Chapter 3

Damen Hitema readied his shining red bloodsword as the two voidspawn attacked.

The one on the left - a creature like a great black cat with a barbed tail - pounced at him in a single bound. Damen responded with an overhand blow, his crystalline greatsword cleaved the demon in midair. Separated nearly in two, it dissolved into Blight. The second lowered its curved, ram-like horns for a charge. It crashed full speed into Damen’s armoured body ... only to recoil as if it had smashed into a boulder. Unmoved by the impact, Damen launched a casual backhanded strike against the stunned voidspawn.

Angry Betty’s crimson glow faded as he ended the last demon’s cursed existence.

“Both ‘spawn have been destroyed,” Damen reported via his radio.

“Enjoy your lead while you can,” Oathbinder Trevor Blythe’s voice responded. “Fall back - time to lure the rest of the demons in.”

“On my way,” Damen replied.

The veteran druid relaxed his qi. He allowed his strength and resilience to return to normal, then willed the bloodsword to absorb itself back into his body. With his flashback in town still fresh in his mind, he considered the brief skirmish and how far his abilities had come since Vyk’Tohl.

Part of it was due to the power of the masterwork artefact he possessed. Bloodswords enhanced a druid’s powers, but Angry Betty was to a normal bloodsword as a rocket launcher was to pistol. The other part was experience. Damen had been a trained soldier in the Imperial Soelanar Army when the Void invaded Vyk’Tohl, but he’d never personally fought a demon. In the subsequent events on that distant continent and the years of fighting incursions after he joined the Order of Lightbringers, he’d personally slain more voidspawn than he could easily remember.

The moment of introspection passed. Damen turned to retrace his route back to his fellow Lightbringers.

“Sorry, Brother Hitema,” a feminine voice spoke softly over the radio. “I must have missed them leave the main group.”

Night had fallen over the barony of Durant while the Lightbringers investigated several areas flagged by the ‘Spitfire’ aerial drone. They’d had no contact for hours until Drue Arden - the squad’s recon specialist - reported a demonic presence in a forested area. While enroute to her position, Damen had almost literally stumbled upon the voidspawn that attacked him.

“That’s why he’s on point, Sister Arden,” Blythe responded. “To flush out the stragglers. Just try not to let a whole swarm get by. Even our mighty druid might get in over his head with that.”

“Thanks for your concern,” Damen said with heavy sarcasm as he broke into a qi-enhanced sprint.

“You’re very welcome,” Blythe replied magnanimously.

Damen journeyed swiftly, even though little light from the moons penetrated the canopy of leaves. With his qi - or life force - flowing freely, all his senses were subtly enhanced. His eyes picked up even low levels of light while his ears caught every snapped twig and rustle of wind through the foliage. In addition, his mystic, druidic senses were inundated with input from the life force of the surrounding trees, shrubbery and wildlife, like living beacons which helped guide him through the woods. In the natural places of the world, druids were in their true element.

It wasn’t long until Damen saw the flat glint of artificial lights past gaps in the trunks ahead. He broke through the treeline into a large clearing and rejoined his squad. Minus Drue Arden, the Lightbringers all stood in the centre of the open field with their backpacks on the ground and a pair of electric lamps to provide illumination. The lamplight gleamed off their reflective, form-fitting white body armour with a soft, nimbus glow.

As Damen ran closer, he reduced his speed. He picked up the end of a conversation between Oathbinder Blythe and the green-skinned troll, Horgal Lad’ja Tanegra’ma.

“Do you wish me to bestow the gift of precognition for this fight, Oathbinder Blythe?” Horgal asked.

The Master Necromancer’s plainly designed, all-black uniform was in dark visual contrast to the Lightbringers’ white body armour. Damen noted that her usual level of extravagance was subdued, though she still spoke with flowery turns of phrase.

“Not yet, Master Horgal,” Blythe replied. “But if you could forewarn us of danger ... even the best-laid plans rarely survive enemy contact.”

“The Void is an ancient master of deception,” the mature female troll agreed. “It strives to twist and distort the future on behalf of Its greater servants.”

“I appreciate you doing what you can, Master Necromancer,” Oathbinder Blythe said respectfully.

Damen came to a halt and the Oathbinder turned to face him.

“Welcome back, Brother,” Blythe smiled and they clasped forearms. “I hope that little jaunt worked out the last of your kinks. The real work is about to begin.”

Damen glanced around the wide open clearing. He appraised the distances from the treelines to their location and nodded.

“Hunker down and suck ‘em in?” he asked, mostly rhetorically.

“A sound tactic when the opportunity presents itself,” Xi-Pen responded.

“Not complaining,” Damen shrugged. “Worked plenty of times.”

“Think up a better name than the last time, though,” Blythe said wryly.

Damen grinned, but because of his armour only he knew it. He turned to the second-in-command.

“Angry Betty amplifies my stone affinity, Brother Lao,” he said. “I’m best suited to do the heavy lifting.”

“I will follow your lead,” the other druid agreed without protest.

Damen centered his awareness and drew upon his qi. First, he summoned his bloodsword to hand. Scarlet fluid oozed up through his armour much like blood, then crystallized to form the massive greatsword. He raised the weapon in a two-handed grip then plunged it point first into the ground.

The red crystal flared to life as he tapped its potential. It vibrated in his grip while Damen extended his mystic senses through the length of the weapon, down its tip and into the soil. His awareness of everything below him expanded exponentially, far deeper than he was capable of alone.

“I would not make such an effortless probe, even with the bloodsword to assist,” Xi-Pen said as he moved to stand beside Damen.

“Practice makes perfect,” Damen replied absently, though he appreciated the compliment. His eyes were closed as he used his mystic senses to search below the ground for the required materials.

“Truly spoken,” Xi-Pen agreed.

Xi-Pen touched his shoulder and Damen felt the other druid’s qi expand behind him. They joined their magical strength together to accomplish the task at hand.

Damen’s body strained as if he were physically lifting something of great weight. Tremors began beneath his feet, accompanied by an increasingly audible rumble. Rough-hewn stone formations burst up through the soil in front of Damen, then more stone rose up behind and on all sides. The rising walls of rock formed an uneven, circular enclosure around the entire team. When the unearthed stones reached waist height, it began to flow and morph into evenly spaced gaps along the top of the wall. After the gaps formed all movement finally ceased and the rumbles in the ground subsided.

Damen’s body had grown hot under his armour and his breath came heavily as he ceased his stone-shaping with relief.

“Congratulations, Brother Hitema,” Xi-Pen said. He sounded just as tired as Damen felt and wiped at the sweat which streamed off his brow. “It would have taken at least five druids to do as much so quickly without the artefact.”

“Old girl’s got her tricks,” Damen said wearily.

“Looks decent,” Oathbinder Blythe said in a deliberately bland tone as he looked around, then he broke into a smile. “I’m sure the demons felt that.”

“Definitely, Oathbinder,” Drue reported through Damen’s earbud. “Even I felt it. Both visible wights and at least fifteen spawn are heading your way, like the Void Itself is behind them.”

“Thank you, Sister Arden,” Blythe replied. “Brother Hitema, do you have the name yet for your little creation?”

“‘Last Stand of the Lightbringers’,” Damen said. He tried to inject humour into his voice but he still wasn’t fully recovered from the magical effort.

“Too morbid, don’t you think?” Blythe asked. Despite his light tone, his eyes acknowledged Damen’s weariness with a look of sympathy.

“Well, you didn’t like the name from last mission,” Damen shrugged. “Thought I’d go for something a bit more epic.”

“I thought I hated ‘Betty’s Boudoir’, but even that’s better than your new one,” Drue said. “The demons are thirty seconds from your position. I’m still trying to scry the third wight.”

The Lightbringer’s scout was an accomplished arcanist. Drue used magic to enhance her other skills and abilities: invisibility to remain hidden from her enemies, scrying to reveal that which they in turn tried to hide from her.

“Keep on it but watch your tail,” Blythe said. “Voidwights are canny - it’s probably looking for you.”

“Teach a dragon to hoard treasure,” Drue rebutted and Blythe chuckled.

“Brother Rak’ja - arcane flare,” the Oathbinder said as he turned to the blue-green-skinned troll.

The squad’s gunner had already removed a pistol-shaped device with arcane runes engraved on its oversized barrel from his utility belt. At Blythe’s command, he rotated a ring inscribed with tiny numbers and runes, set at the mouth of the barrel. He pointed the flare gun overhead and everyone turned away to shield their eyes as a brilliant white spark shot up into the sky. Up it went until it abruptly stopped as if stuck to some unseen ceiling. There it remained, suspended in thin air to illuminate the clearing.

“Brother Lao,” Blythe continued, “time to armour up.”

Xi-Pen Lao bowed. As he straightened, he was enveloped by a cloud of microscopic granules which glimmered with a white sheen. When the cloud collapsed inwards and his druidic armour formed, its appearance was almost the opposite of Damen’s. The smoothened surfaces and elegant curves were in contrast to Damen’s rough-hewn, craggy appearance. Blue characters in Mashalan calligraphy flowed down the right side of Xi-Pen’s torso. His faceplate was a white mask without nose or mouth - for eyes the mask had ovals in the same vivid blue as the characters written down his chest.

“The demons have slowed their approach,” their scout said over the radio. “Revised E.T.A. - twenty seconds.”

“They’re up to something,” Damen said at the news.

Blythe nodded. “Anything yet on that missing wight?” he asked.

“I’ve scryed a trace of its trail,” she replied in barely more than a whisper. “I believe it’s flanking your position. I’m in pursuit.”