The convoy reached the bottom of Cimmerian. The approach to the chasm was an ominous haze as the mist-shrouded vales. Valerius peered into the obscurity as he saw a silhouette take shape into a figure of a man. His hand ready around the grip of his sword. Even when he saw it was Gallagar, he already sensed a change in him, even before he saw his eyes rimmed with red. His cloak was torn off, revealing the stained splendor of his midnight-blue armor. Tears streaked clean channels through the blood and grime on his face.
"Gallagar," Blackthorn said sternly. "Where is the High Mage?"
Gallagar drew out a gleaming, silver stone.
Valerius fumbled back, suddenly breathless.
Elysia gripped Blackthorn's arm, her face blanched. Valerius gathered what was left of himself, steeling his resolve. With so many of those he cared for dead, he had died a thousand deaths.
Elysia steadied herself and spoke. "Our… sole tribute to him is to make a better world than how he left it."
She collapsed on the spot. Blackthorn pulled himself from the throes of grief. He inspected the wound she sustained, and it was worsening. There was no more time for any more delays but for the Avangard; one life mattered as much as the many. And Valerius refused to lose anyone else. They made camp in a small glade at the edge of the vales. Elysia was laid inside a wide but shallow cave with the rest of the convoy camped around.
"You sure you know what you're doing?"
Gallagar returned from his brief forage in the forest. It was all he could find on such notice. "After I fled Etherlund, I was on my own for a long time. I had to learn fast or die."
He took wild herbs and crushed them before he sewed them into her wound to combat the infection. She was whale-bone white and lost too much blood. She needed a blood transfusion and Blackthorn was the first to volunteer. It was a gamble of fate whether they would be a match. Gallagar prepared plant stems, stripping away the outer layers carefully to expose a clean inner surface. Gallagar fashioned a makeshift tourniquet to place above the point where the blood would be drawn. He punctured Blackthorn's vein, allowing the blood to flow into a container sterilized by fire. He then transferred the blood by connecting the plant stems to the sterilized container with Blackthorn's blood, then carefully transferring it to Elysia. After that, all they could do was wait. No matter the outcome, come dawn, they had to fulfill their duty.
Sleep eluded them all that night.
Fires were lit, whipped by the wind. The seventeen score of soldiers sat crestfallen by the cold flames. Valerius sat at the opening of the cave. Gallagar stood opposite him, leaning against the frame of the entrance, slipping into shadow.
Blackthorn waited at Elysia's side with her limp hand held in his. "Live to hear your hymns. Do not be diminished to a song sung in the saga-tales."
Midnight came and Elysia did not move an inch, no sign of life.
"Thirteen," Gallagar began with his face cast in shadow. "Those were the winters on my back when the Verdantia recruited me. Desperation drove me to kill a man. They saw potential. Fifteen winters I gave for my service."
Blackthorn's eyes flitted to Gallagar. Valerius rested the back of his head against the stone wall.
"I had purpose. I had brothers," he said, his voice taut with sorrow. "I was loyal to the order. So much so that I unearthed a conspiracy about the powerheads of Etherlund. I hid the evidence and confided in my squadron, so we could expose their treachery. Their loyalty, however, was measured in currency." Menace leathered his voice. "I was tortured for days to yield the evidence I hid. My brotherhood betrayed me. No hesitation. No honor."
Valerius's eyes flickered to the ground.
"You all showed me something different." He revealed himself to look out at the soldiers, drawing their gaze. "You are not just willing to die for king and kingdom alone, but for each other as well. A valor that honors your fallen brothers and that shall safeguard the realm. Come dawn, you shall forge a legacy, standing on the precipice of destiny itself."
Resolve settled upon them as they conceded encouraged nods.
"You all expected the Electus, a savior, but warriors of Dorindale. You hold not only your fate, but the fate of all who call this realm home. When generations beyond reflect, they shall see your names inscribed in the annals of legends."
A slow, sluggish applause yanked their attention to Elysia.
She hauled herself up, bleary-eyed and disorientated.
"Gallagar making gallant speeches. Now I know I must be dead."
Gallagar smirked. "So, the beast-feller lives."
"For there are still many to fell."
"As weak as you are, you could die doing so."
"And what a privilege it is to have something to die for." Her eyes found Blackthorn and Valerius, then it lingered on the soldiers beyond. "For we can stand against the encroaching night like a flame against the shadows."
"A noble sentiment," Gallagar said with his voice lashed with hostility. "We no longer have Zephor or his magic."
"We have you," she retorted. "For him, that was enough."
~
The convoy wound up the waist of the mountain. Again. This time, they reached the apex with minimal incident. Valerius wasn't the only one who took notice of Gallagar's eerie lack of words. Blackthorn begged Elysia to remain in the cave and recover, but that alone was a hopeless battle. Blackthorn requested reinforcement from Gallagar, but his mind was elsewhere. Valerius had Zephor's soul stone dangling safely from his neck with the thin leather straps bound around the sphere.
"It wasn't your fault," Valerius said first, his eyes set ahead.
"I wish it felt that way."
By the time they reached the apex, they were all covered in a sheen of sweat. The threshold of Verlax. A plume of black billowed out, like the mountain exhaled a deep-drawn breath. Everyone paused. They had survived all the battles thus far and were rewarded with a war. Valerius was sure that Zephor's magic would have been the one to seal the rift. Now he was no longer certain. And neither were his men, but they were ready to follow him into the realm of a hundred hellscapes. The remaining seventeen exchanged embraces, gripping each other's forearms, and letting their foreheads meet for a few moments.
Blackthorn held Elysia's face and planted a kiss on the crown of her head.
"Isn't that sweet?"
Gallagar commented before he hooked his arm around Valerius's neck.
Valerius flicked him a scowl.
Gallagar slunk away from him. "I suppose we're not there yet. One day, maybe, you will loath me a little less."
His eyes were hard but a glint of approval in their depths.
Gallagar spun around and pioneered first towards the threshold. He stopped abruptly and turned around to lift a halting finger. "I forgot to mention." He pointed at the Sunshard in his breastplate. "The only good thing to come of Zephor's release was that the stone did wake." A spark ignited a red glow in his eyes like dark blood. "Who knew that the soul of another would stir my own?"
In an instant, a crimson blast shot forth, each strand an extension of Gallagar's formidable will that sent everyone tumbling to the ground, some even too close to the cliff. Elysia groaned as she turned to gawk back at him. His silhouette radiated an ominous luminescence—a dark red brilliance that bespoke of danger.
"Gallagar," Blackthorn grunted as he shifted himself.
"If I succeed, the realm will need you all."
"I thought you said you didn't do noble deaths?" Elysia shouted back.
"To my surprise, I lied," he said, his eyes still radiating red.
Gallagar turned his back on them.
"Gallagar."
Gallagar went to stand inside the threshold. Valerius clambered to his feet and hobbled to the threshold. A tremblor shot through the ground. Raw, red energy crackled around Gallagar as he reduced the roof of the entrance to rubble. In seconds, Gallagar brought it all down with massive boulder-size debris blocking the entrance. Valerius hurled a fist at the stone barrier, leaving a deep indentation. He freed a roar as he dented the surface with a succession of blows until his knuckles bled.
Gallagar retreated. He delved into the fathoms, traversing the cavernous expanse, illuminated by a pulsating, otherworldly glow that seemed to breathe with an unsettling life of its own. The air was heavy with brimstone and the distant echoes of abyssal whispers. The ancient stronghold where the veil between the natural realm and the hellscapes hung thin as gossamer. A wrenching shriek made Gallagar hunker down. In that moment, he wished he paid attention when Zephor speculated on ways to seal the rift. But he was too occupied by his own interests. Gallagar breathed deeply. He could hear his heart beating in many places within him. Everything around him sharpened into a new form of clarity. He couldn't tell whether it was adrenaline or fear.
He tunneled deeper into the subterranean realm. Soon he found the breach that yawned like a cosmic maw—an aperture that seemed to defy the laws of reality. From the breach, tendrils of dark energy slithered out like spectral serpents that clung to the edges of the eldritch rift.
Hellions stood as abominable sentinels in the fractured space. Their forms were a grotesque merging of infernal and earthly elements with eyes that burned with demonic fervor, and armor forged from the obsidian bones of the netherworld.
Gallagar stumbled into a view with his hands on his hips. "Could anyone help me?" He looked around with his nose scrunched up. "It seems I've gotten terribly lost."
A deafening sound was released; a crescendo of hellbound screeches. The Sunshard erupted with red light, and Gallagar released a burst of projectiles that took out many mid-flight. A troll-like creature raged towards him and a jet of red slammed into it. Gallagar made a sprint for the breach with a warband of abominations in tow. Gallagar grunted, sent spiraling into the air. There was an earth-shattering crack when his body smacked against a wall, all the air driven from his lungs when he crashed onto the ground.
Gallagar arched against the floor from the explosive impact. His vision flickered. Countless shadows rushed at him. He snapped out his arms and a crimson energy shield domed over him. A rivulet of blood streamed from his nose. The rift was a doorway. Even Gallagar knew that he would have to make certain that it could never be opened from either side again.
He felt the pulse of ancient power coursing within. He allowed that intensity to build up, his jaw unlocked, and he screamed until his voice broke, then he released it—an explosion of energy eviscerating through most of the hellions and incapacitating the rest of them. Enough time for him to peel himself off the ground and run for the rift. Before anything could impede him, he did a swan dive inside—a descent into a dimension unknown—flashing through a surreal panorama of colors.
In that infernal realm, the skies were strewn with hues unseen by mortal eyes.
A portal spat him out on sheer rock, plunged to a place where the gateway awaited. The origins of Murvis. Gallagar rose to see the towering but thin gateway; the monstrous maw threatening to devour all worlds. All that stood between him, and the realm's redemption was an army of abominations. Gallagar unsheathed his short swords, imbuing them with his power.
"SAJATAI."
Gallagar knew not from where the voice came, but knew it was Murvis.
"No." He brandished the light-wreathed blades. "I'm something far more dangerous."
Gallagar clashed with demonic forces, each stroke of his sword cleaving through the very fabric of reality, sending shockwaves that echoed across the dimensions. Shadows converged as he waged a one-man war against the forces that sought to unravel mortal existence. He jabbed the blades into the ground and the impact burst out in all directions to consume them—causing them to implode from the inside, drenching the battlefield in bloody ichor. The Sunshard that stood like a conduit to the sun, harnessing the power of a hundred burning stars.
With a final, resounding strike, Gallagar reached the gateway. He plunged his blades into the ground so they could stand on their own. He moved to stand within the soaring doorway. He extended his arms to place his hands against the frame of the swirling gateway. Gallagar focused his power. Suddenly, the ground exploded as an enormous burst of energy ripped through the battlefield, tearing through countless hellions. He sought to do the same to the gateway.
He redirected his fervor, concentrating his power until he could feel it expand and contract within him. The very air trembled as the portal convulsed, its dark energies writhing in agony. The mass surge mounted to a supernova; the magnitude unfathomable—its crushing weight depleting his life-force. He persevered. He had to. Crimson cracks broke through the frame, eroding its integrity. With a bellow that eclipsed the roars of a thousand infernos, the gateway began to crumble.
Gallagar sucked in a shearing breath. A shadowy blade struck him.
The gateway shook ferociously. Gallagar wrenched it free before he fell back unconscious, carried away by the last celestial current, vacuumed in by the void. Gallagar's form was funneled through the collapsing, ever-narrowing passage. The rift spewed him out right before the breach was sealed for ages everlasting.
Gallagar laid unconscious on the ground, the inside of the mountain raining rubble. A large chunk thudded beside him, jerking him awake. He woke to a world of agony, his soul set afire from torment. He held his perforated bowel as he sought to escape the fathoms. His one hand clutched his bleeding stomach as the other darted, using his power to swat debris from out of his way. Eventually, he reached the enclosed entrance. He summoned his ebbing strength to launch a blow through the center. The entire convoy snapped to their feet, watching Gallagar leak out of the hole.
"I didn't sacrifice myself, so you could die waiting—go!"
They all raced down the path. The apex shook like the rumblings of a dormant volcano soon to erupt again. Gallagar was gasping laboriously. Much of the blow was absorbed by the breastplate, but a deadly length still managed to puncture his gut. A booming eruption threw Gallagar to the ground. Valerius pulled him to his feet and held onto him as they made their escape. All too soon, the rumble of a thunderous stampede pounded behind them. An avalanche of rubble that they could not outrun. Gallagar slipped from him to stand in front of them all. Both hands snapped out and an energy shield domed over only a handful of them. The rest were smacked away and buried alive. A tsunami of rocks crashed against the shield. Gallagar endured once more, his heart-rending scream dwarfing the rumble of the avalanche. He held on for as long as he could before darkness swallowed him whole.