The reinforcements streamed together, and Riley exulted in the feeling of camaraderie and fellowship that can only happen when facing down death with a line of other soldiers.
Ashmayne led the charge mounted on a white stag, slicing a deep channel through the enemy troops and towards Beast. Gargantuan tentacled shadows loomed from the sides, their slimy limbs striking and pulling at the humans and their allies.
Riley rode just behind and to the right of his warrior father. His horse had tucked in her wings, galloping across the terrain on flashing silver hooves, sharp enough to slay at any enemies unfortunate enough to fall beneath them.
The sky was thick with battle, and so the main force stuck to the ground for this final assault, supported from the air by a pair of blue eagles that streaked lightning across the air, downing swaths of bats and stunning gargoyles.
The electricity in the air made Riley's hair stand on end as he swept his blade down to behead a bubbling, disgusting creature.
Was that it's head? He sliced off the top of it, anyway. He couldn't glance back to make sure it stopped moving, there were too many other creatures to fight.
He gripped his sword tightly. His father's sword. The Valor sword. It had been a symbol of his father's continued protection and guidance over the house after Ashmayne's death, but now his father was here, fighting alongside him. It was a strange thing to absorb.
He swept it across the throat of a crablike monster with a lizard's abdomen. The creature howled and lurched forward towards him, flipping onto its back in pain. A long, slender spine shot from its pale underbelly faster than any arrow. There was no time to dodge or react.
It entered Riley's torso, tearing upward through his ribs and exiting his back at the shoulder blade.
There was no groan, no scream that could do justice to the pain that tore his reality in half. He lost all feeling below his stomach and his body went limp.
He fell from his seat on the white horse, though her wing spread suddenly in an apparent effort to catch him or cushion his landing.
It was no use.
He hit the ground, his head impacting with a sickening crack on the rock hard carapace of an enormous dead beetle. Riley saw stars for several seconds, or longer. Consciousness was tenuous at best. He tried his best to curl in on himself, but his legs refused to work.
One arm hugged his torso, trying to stem the flow of blood. The other cradled his head as the thundering charge of his own army trampled over and past him.
He had the strange sensation of being jostled as his legs were ground into the earth by the giant foot of an armored, horned creature. He felt no pain from the stomping, and wouldn't have noticed except it moved the rest of his body slightly.
Just as instantly as the pressure was there, it was gone. The humans and their allies pressed forward at a neck breaking speed. Though some probably noticed him and tried to avoid him, there was no stemming the tide of the attack.
And they shouldn't break their momentum. They should charge forward. He was as good as dead, and stopping to help him would only impede the success of the war.
He continued to cover his head with one hand, but the urge to cough overwhelmed him. He choked and vomited; a spray of crimson blood streamed from his mouth.
That wasn't good.
He raised his eyes, though his vision was darkening. Or was it the sky?
All around him was death, and gore, and carnage. His blood would mix with the stinking, fetid corpses of countless horrible creatures.
And far too many good ones.
Not far away, he saw a face he recognized. Lysander lay on the ground, a gargoyle's twisted frame across his body.
His eyes were open in a lifeless stare.
Riley closed his for a moment, pushing away the feeling of oncoming death. He concentrated. Ashley would need a pretty body to bury.
His face was scraped and bloody, his legs useless. His hair probably looked awful. He grimaced and choked another mouthful of blood out onto the ground.
There would be no saving his good looks for a nice funeral. He should have told Roland–if the man was still alive somewhere–to make sure his wife and children didn't see him like this. Let their last image of him be as the dashing, handsome hero.
Not this.
His heart stuttered and struggled as the blood loss became too much for it to endure, and Riley took a final breath of putrid air, knowing it would be his last.
He was jostled again as something else tripped over his inconveniently-placed body.
Riley barely registered the crash of a gargantuan creature hitting the earth.
_
Shayn and Simone ran through the city, ducking and avoiding most of the nightmarish beings lurking and hunting in the flickering shadows. They had nearly reached what appeared to be the main forces when the great charge towards Beast began.
"Let's hurry," Shayn grabbed Simone's hand, wanting to join the fight but unwilling to leave her alone and unprotected.
She was doing admirably, and he shot her a smile. She hadn't vomited once. He almost had during his first battle, years before.
Shayn waved for attention. He and Simone were cutoff from the rest of the good humans, and needed a way to join them without being slaughtered. His brother-in-law, Peter, spotted him and blew a short blast on his horn to signal a maneuver to the soldiers nearest, just as the enemies closest realized the two humans were not on their side.
"DUCK!" Peter cried as a rocklike creature hit the ground with two hulking fists and blew towards the pair. Simone reacted instantly, perhaps recognizing the type of creature from her research. She yanked Shayn down with her as an icy wind froze the heads of the enemies around them.
"Run," She said. "It only lasts about thirty seconds, and icy golems can reportedly only do it twice a day."
Without even taking time to acknowledge the statement, the couple sprinted past the frozen and disoriented creatures in a dash to reunite with Klain forces before the effects wore off. The golem's attack wound up being crucial to their escape, as the slow moving monster could not catch them.
"Peter!" Shayn saluted his superior even while addressing him informally. War was a strange time. "What can we do?"
The older man pointed toward Beast's rampaging form, which was missing several heads. "Join the main charge. We have things handled here at the flanks, but they'll need reinforcements."
Shayn nodded, and looked briefly down into Simone's eyes. Peter's orders didn't really apply to her since she wasn't a trained soldier, and he would leave the decision about whether to stay here in relative safety or accompany him.
She made a face, clearly irritated that he thought she might want to be anywhere except next to him, and he nodded.
"Let's go."
Together they stalked forward over the battlefield, jumping over the dead to catch up to the leading charge near the top of the hill. Shayn's eyes were ahead, but Simone suddenly jerked on his arm as she tripped.
"Oh!" She cried, nearly falling over. He caught and righted her, but the body which her feet had caught on–
"Riley!" He gasped. Simone knelt to check him, and it was all Shayn could do not to yank her back up.
An image flashed through his mind–Kyler, ten years ago, kneeling to help a fallen soldier, only to be trampled and–
"We can't stop," He told her.
"We have to! The General–"
"Would berate me for abandoning my mission and leaving us vulnerable to attack," Shayn insisted. The tongue-lashing he'd gotten from his eldest brother that night was seared indelibly in his memory.
Following orders is not what got Kyler hurt. Kneeling down in the middle of a battle is what did that. Following orders of people who know better than you do is what keeps you alive.
Peter had told them what to do. He couldn't stop, even as his vision blurred looking at Riley's broken body.
The man was clearly already gone. The blood had stopped spreading from the open wound, which could only mean The General's heart had stopped trying to pump it.
He was dead.
"Let's go," Shayn told Simone a little too harshly. She stared up towards him. Her mouth was open, shock etched across her expression. She took his hand and pulled it back the way they'd come, and he resisted in confusion.
"RUN!" She screamed, pointing upward.
He trusted her judgment enough to begin sprinting with her before he looked, but a brief glance told him something black and gargantuan was spiraling out of control from the sky directly towards them.
He leapt with Simone over a crack in the earth just as it broke apart further. A mighty rushing of wind threw his aim off-balance, and Simone's with him.
They landed, roughly, in a heap on the ground as a massive, growling dragon gathered its wits behind them.