The Song of Roland Ch. 21

Murder and fire; ruin and damnation. Roland trailed along the perimeter of the inner wall in heedless flight as the world around him burned. His lungs wheezed and his chest palpitated from the effort. He had retraced his steps through the gutted hovels as he watched the ruin of the Cultist's home play out before him. Madness stalked the streets, gibbering monsters and pugnacious sycophants of a ravaged and vengeful Goddess leapt between the flames and sexually gorged themselves on the pliant flesh of their victims.

The ground beneath the southern gatehouse was a mortuary. Imp corpses were piled sometimes three feet high in places, burnt to a crisp or perforated with arrow shafts. A salty, acidic stench coated the air, reminding Roland of roasting, rotten meat. He had smelled it before, though never in such numbers. Coming out onto the main causeway, he stumbled across splayed out bodies, his eyes alighting upon that singular Priestess who had been guarding the entrance all this time, a stone rock amidst a sea of frothing, snarling beasts.

Almyra stood, her back to Roland as she stared blithely up at the empty wall above. Her clothing was burned and tattered, the intricate lacework on her outfit having come undone in the exertion of movement. Her hair flowed freely off the back of her head, giving her the look of a fierce spirit of war standing stoic upon the remnants of a battlefield. She was calling out to the ramparts, her voice carrying in it the kind of desperation reserved for a cornered animal, or the mother of a child in distress. She turned to look at Roland as he approached, a wide-eyed glaze coming to her expression before she recognized him as human. Bloodied, haggard and exhausted, the two made a surprisingly apt pair.

"You." She said, her voice trapped between a sigh of relief and a huff of indignance. "So you live then."

"Aye." Roland replied, grasping at his wounded arm as he took stock of his own person. It was a miracle he remained as hale as he was. "As do you. Nice work. Least the little mongrels didn't come through this way."

The Priestess affixed him with a cold glare. "I bid you, hold your mocking tongue; innocent lives are not yours to make light of, mercenary."

Roland hadn't meant it as a jest, but he was too fatigued to challenge her assessment. He let out a grunt and strode up next to her. "Gates are closed." He murmured, staring up at the empty parapets above as he came to grasp the intent of Almyra's actions.

"Of course they are. We've also no time for your insolence." She said, tossing her hair across her shoulder in exhausted annoyance. "I've been trying to call up to them, but it seems they've left us stranded."

"The Demon's balefire took out a chunk of the wall's defenders on the other side." Roland said, inspecting the nearby piles of corpses in a vain search for a serviceable weapon. "Odds are good they're a bit busy up there, at the moment."

"Gosvin protect them." Almyra whispered, her voice cracking as her stern facade fell in the face of this abiding horror. "If the town guard cannot hold them-"

"We're through the worst of it." Roland said, "A Demon attack is always shock and awe... at first. The Imps' numbers have been thinnin' out for a while now. If we can keep them at bay for a while longer, they'll have spent themselves. Only true threat at this point is the Demon."

"Which one?" Almyra snapped, turning angry eyes in his direction. He quirked an eyebrow at her.

"The one who didn't fuck ya." He replied, his voice colorless. He had neither the time nor the inclination to indulge her scornful ridicule. "Last I checked, these Imps have tried to kill or fuck me to death multiple times. I've spent the better part of an hour getting chased by the thing that's leading them. Yer little Wind Witch saved my life."

"Emilde?" Almyra asked, "Gods is she out in this? I told her to remain with the flock!"

"Worse luck." Roland said, turning away so as not to see the Priestess' reaction. "She's dead. The Demon knocked her from the sky."

There was a long silence, and then a shuddering sob. "No." Almyra whispered, as if to verbalize the true emotion at the root of all this agony. It was pain, and loss and regret all mixed in together. If nothing else the Demons had succeeded this night in their dreadful mission: they had inflicted misery onto the loyal servants of the still-living Gods.

"How did she-" Almyra paused, then gulped audibly. "No. There is no time. We must get the gate open, the battle is not yet lost."

"Best of luck," Roland said, spitting onto the ground as he felt phlegm build in his nostrils, the result of the noxious smoke of the fires. He felt literally ill amidst the assorted piles of eldritch monstrosities that surrounded them. "That gate is hard wrought-iron, and these walls are Dwarven made, no handholds to speak of. You're lucky to have found this old fortress, else the lot of ya might have fallen far sooner."

"Spare me your dismal levity, Roland." Almyra replied, though her voice did not have the same fire in it that it had once borne. She seemed to be latching onto her latent hostility to him, more for something familiar to cling to than out of any sort of genuine disgust. The look in her eyes told him her thoughts were far away from their specific conversation. "I know our plight, I just do not see an alternative. We must get inside."

"Then allow me to help." Muttered a ghostly voice, it was caramelized with the whispering comfort of the grave. From a bend in the mists to their right emerged Bogdan. The bony Volkhv moved with unnatural speed, as if the very murder perpetrated in this awful, endless evening had somehow only amplified his might. The more the wholesale carnage spread, the more alert and vivacious the Priest of the Dead seemed to become. He approached Roland with a manic look in his eyes. "I am forbidden from entering the sacred courtyard, but perhaps the two of you can engender some form of vengeance against these beasts."

He waved his arms in a macabre rendition of rigor mortis, lifting his hands as a low, guttural noise emerged from his lips like the venting air of a bloated corpse. The creatures about them began to rise, pulling themselves to their feet with charred bones and lolling tongues. Coagulated blood built in the corners of foamy mouths, empty eyes stared listlessly from sunken sockets as they moved in tandem to the Volkhv's conducting.

Crawling forth with ruined forms, the crowd of creatures began to assemble a rough ladder from their bodies trailing up and up the wall in ever growing numbers. The shouting and sounds of fighting began to grow closer on the walls, and Roland's mouth twisted in repressed terror. The thought of diving back into the fray after his harrowing experience with the Succubus sent shivers down the stoic veteran's spine. Roughly shoving away his own concerns, he turned to Almyra who struggled to conceal her own disgust at the sight of her fellow Priest's powers.

"Have you any men left outside the walls that we can bring with us?" He asked.

She nodded, "The men on the outer gate, the Imps ignored them completely. I know Maghas is somewhere out there, I've felt the tremors from him for some time, now."

"The Dwarf is indisposed." Bogdan said, striding forth with sharp, jerky movements to them. "-And you've little time to call upon him."

Roland privately agreed, but deigned to remain silent on the matter when he saw the look Almyra gave the grey-eyed man. "Bring them here at once, Bodgan." He said instead, "When I lift the gates, we'll have need of as many men as possible."

"You?" Almyra said, her copper eyes regarding Roland with mistrust. "Am I to simply take you at your word?"

"You can," Roland replied, "Or ya can try to scale the walls using them stick-thin arms and then lift the gate yerself." He was starting to get used to her excoriating expression. "Come along quick, Priestess. We've little time to lose."

"Best of luck, Roland." Bogdan said, a ghost of a smile gracing his overthin lips. "May Horax grant you a brief respite from his fatal touch." the faintly sardonic tone of voice added an element of black humor to his prayer. Bogdan seemed to only half-mean what he'd said.

Gritting his teeth, Roland reached out and took hold of the first imp within arms length on the corpse ladder. It blinked its unseeing eyes at him as he hauled himself up its arm, reaching higher and planting his boot upon its bulbous nose to ascend. It was grueling, distressing work. More than once as he climbed he heard the sound of flesh ripping or a bone snapping as his weight stretched ruined body parts beyond their limits. Almyra was beneath him, and she let out small gasps or disgusted groans every so often as she scaled the bodies of the very monsters she had slain.

Roland reached the peak of the pile just as the sound of shouting rose like a keening wave from within the Inner Cloister. Poking his head between the crenellations, he saw no immediate threat, hauling himself up to the parapet and brushing himself down, his wounded arm throbbing with pain. As Almyra climbed the last few bodies he took a moment to look out over the interior. What he saw stole his breath away.

The last stand of the inner guard was playing out in the very center of the cloister, at the foot of a great, unlit bonfire. The area was ringed with assorted furniture and makeshift barricades that had been hastily erected and behind which a score of men and women of varying states of age and ability fought madly against the final tide of Imps that surrounded them.

Ringing the inner circle were eight very different styles of church, one for each of the original Gods. Their doors were all barred, and already there were small bands of the accursed creatures trying to break in. A smaller host of guards were pinned to the largest of the churches, fighting hand to hand at the foot of Gosvin's great hall. Presumably the remainder of the Cultist's noncombatants had fled there for sanctuary - for what little good it would do, should the doors be breached.

More guards were pouring in off the walls to aid their beleaguered comrades, but still more Imps were flooding in as well; most came from the charred stretch of the western wall that the Succubus had bathed in balefire in a vain attempt to catch Roland in the conflagration. The fact that he had stymied her licentious ambitions gave the wounded warrior no small sense of satisfaction, despite the pain, and the collateral.

"Gods." Almyra said, stepping up next to Roland on the empty wall. The Imps had long since learned the lethal lesson of approaching from the southern gate, and with no more guards to fight and ravish they had left the area totally unmolested. As Almyra digested what was in front of them Roland searched around for a weapon. No such luck. "I have to help them." She said, her voice like iron and her eyes blazing with the heat of her God.

"Then help me get this gate open." Roland said, spotting the heavy lifting mechanism below and moving to descend the nearby stairs.

"There is no time. I must trust you to keep your word." Almyra said. Before Roland could so much as stutter out a complaint, she stepped off the side of the side of the wall, gripping the edge of it with her arm and pushing forward, minimizing as best as she could the damage from the fall.

"I- yea Gods, woman!" Roland shouted, caught off guard as he rushed to try to save her. His reaching hand clenched only air, and Almyra plummeted to the flat ground beneath them. In the shadow of a hollowed great oak whose prone, cavernous innards had been converted into a church for the worship of the elven nature Gods she landed. The impact was hard enough for even Roland to hear the snap of her ankle, a dozen feet above. Almyra let out a small cry but immediately put a hand to the wound, whispering a prayer before lurching forward to her feet. She moved directly towards the fighting, a slight limp to her steps instead of a crippled gait.

"Thrice-damned fanatics!" Roland muttered to himself, breaking out into a run and descending the stone steps three at a time. He only reached the stairs in time to see Almyra disappear into the conflagratious horde of bodies and ripping flesh that the center of the Inner Cloister had descended into. Hopping off the side of the stairs near the bottom, he sprinted for the gate, coming to a halt just as the party of men - led by Bogdan - halted at the portcullis.

"Best hurry." Bogdan whispered. "The mortal struggle is upon us."

Spotting the winch, Roland began to pump it hard with his straining muscles. His injured arm screeched in protest with every revolution, but he kept at it with dogged determination. Anything less and the monsters might win. Once there was enough space to crawl, the first batch of men clambered under the toothy undercarriage. Once there was enough room to crouch, they came in droves. Eventually all but Bogdan and a last few stragglers were through, gathering as a single group before pushing onwards in a makeshift charge towards the front lines of the fighting.

"I wish you all the luck this evening." Bogdan said, turning away and stalking out of sight. His voice carried as though he were still standing next to Roland. "I think you'll have need of it."

The last of the men went through, flanked by a young, frightened boy not over a dozen years, armed and armored in mismatched clothes. He made for a sorry sight, and an even poorer soldier. One look at him told Roland that he was a lamb amidst a sea of hungry wolves.

"Oi," Roland said, grasping the terrified looking boy's arm as he made to follow after his older companions. He stopped short, his eyes wide and his lower lip trembling. "Give me your sword, lad."

"But-" He said, trapped between the duality of wanting to help his friends but being panicked of the result. Roland reached out and firmly pulled the overlong weapon from his grasp. He put a hand to his shoulder, indicating the lifting mechanism with the tip of his acquired blade.

"I need a strong set of arms to stay here and lift the gate should more help come. You can manage till I'm back, yeah?" The young man nodded. Roland gave him a tired grin. "Good. Keep a sharp eye out, we'll be rid of these things soon enough."

Satisfied that he had given him a worthy enough contrived task, Roland patted the young man's shoulder and turned to face the fight that had engulfed the central plaza. The reinforcements from the outer wall were just now reaching the melee, and the battle had at last begun to turn decisively in favor of the Cultists. Robbed of their surprise, speed, and strength in numbers, the uncoordinated and unarmored Imps began to fall in droves to the well armed platoons of guardsmen. Led by a grey-maned beast of a man bearing the familiar seven-legged spider upon his livery, the frantic free-for-all began to resemble something akin to a mop-up operation.

However, as Roland ran towards the culminating fight, something red and menacing caught the corner of his eye. Charging forth from the side of a hitherto-unchecked angle behind an innocuous looking church, the Succubus herself leapt forward into the fray, flanked by a cadre of demonic Imps who, with flashing claws and snarling teeth, laid into the nearby guardsmen with brutal efficiency, slashing throats and biting off limbs. The Succubus herself slinked behind a large fellow and curled her prehensile tail about his neck. With a firm twist and a clench from her tail, she crushed his windpipe, killing him in a swift, smooth movement.

Waylaid by a small group of Imps, Roland found himself in the thick of the fighting, still on the other side of the bonfire from the growing cloud of creatures slicing their way through the Cultist's flanks. A blue light filled the air, and suddenly a swath of the area around the Succubus was cleared away, humans burning and screaming amidst the fray as the Imps leapt in through the conjured opening.

"Stop!" Cried a voice. Almyra stepped to the breach, standing opposed to the Succubus as she lifted her hands and chanted a liturgy of Gosvin's righteous fury. Bright, orange fire leapt from her fingertips and scorched the Imps who had entered the gulf created by the Succubus' attack. In a pale reflection of the Demon's own powers, Almyra turned the whole clutch of Imps into a set of matching candles. The Succubus screamed out laughter, stalking forward with murder in her eyes and death dancing a fiery jig upon her fingertips.

"So many Priestesses in this village! I can hardly keep up with them all!" The Succubus shot a jet of flame from her hand and Almyra rose to defend herself. A cocoon of light surrounded her and the fires broke like a wave upon her person. She staggered, her lamed leg trembling in place as she matched eyes with the Succubus. Even in the midst of battle, the slayer in Roland spotted the telltale sign of the demon's diminishing balefire. Despite its searing heat and destructive power, he could see that it was weakening with every spell. She was running out of fluid. He pushed forward, attempting to reach the Priestess through the undulating chaos.

The surviving guardsmen gave the dueling women a wide berth, regrouping behind the bonfire pit and forming a heavy line of slashing swords, hacking axes, and stabbing spears. The Imps fell before this advancing line, their numbers beginning to thin so considerably that their darker natures got the better of them. Instead of maintaining the assault, some sordid beasts decided a temporary pleasure was better than immediate death and turned upon those poor, unfortunate souls still on the wrong side of the battle lines, laying into their victims with the reckless, bestial abandon of condemned men devouring their final meal.

Almyra glared at her opponent. "Begone, spawn of Huzra, and befoul this place no longer! Leave us, and return to the fetid pit that awaits you!" She shot a plume of flame, but the demon merely dodged around it, leaping forward on all fours like an ape as she propelled herself with unholy speed.

The Succubus snarled, "You Cultists have denied us our feast for too long, little sister. I'm so hungry I'll even settle on your prudish meat!" She swept her hand out and curled a tongue of blue flame like a whip towards Almyra's face. The Priestess ducked, and it snapped against the bonfire behind her, setting it alight. Hobbled by her earlier, self-inflicted wound, the Priestess could do little but return with a clumsy burst of fire that sputtered and died before it ever reached her foe.

The Demonic entity cackled, "Oh how we've watched you, scurrying about like busy little bees, under our noses all this time." She surged forward, and Almyra was unable to respond. The beast grabbed her by the neck, lifting her in the air as her red tail curled and twisted in excitement behind her. Almyra's hands reached out, her eyes bulging from her head as the air was unceremoniously cut off from her lungs. The Succubus licked her lips with languid joy at the mental images she was conjuring up. "You will make a fine morsel, Priestess. If you're truly worthy, perhaps I'll let you become one of- auugh!"

Whispering with the last of her breath, Almyra cast a spell of searing heat upon her palms, placing it overtop the Succubus' own, like she had before with Roland. The Succubus let out a horrid shriek and released her, reaching out to grasp her burned and smoking arm. "You WHORE!" She roared. Roland was still too far away. Desperate to reach them, he kicked an Imp full in the face and slashed at another, but was waylaid once again by two more of the beasts who were not too busy ravishing their latest victims. He wouldn't make it in time.