AC 2021 - Final - Storm Veritas

[Storm Veritas]

Whether it was delusion, hallucination, or concussion, the wizard neither knew nor cared. Cazri was riding dead ahead at him, a horse strikingly similar to the one he had dismissed pulling her forward. In the mayhem, she mouthed something as she leaned from the saddle, reaching for him with an outstretched hand. He discerned exactly zero of her words.

Fuck it; let’s go!

Despite horrible protestations from his injured leg, the magician took her forearm and leapt up upon the charging horse. He was dangerously close from sliding off the large muscular ass of the tremendous stallion, but clutched desperately to the waist of his elven savior, his head still buzzing and a ringing sound in his ears. With his ear pressed to her back, he could essentially feel her words through vibrations in her lungs.

“The hell have you done!? I didn’t know their plans, but they beat the hell out of inciting armageddon! And you stole MY gods-damned horse!” She moved forward hard towards the demons, using her elbow to create space between her and the wizard. “Turn around, back to back! Cover our flanks and earn your goddamned keep!”

His body still felt weak, but she had made a cogent point. He struggled to sit up, bleeding from the leg and chest while his ribs, back, and shoulder moaned from obvious injury. His head spun even more now, his peripheral vision cloudy and field of view narrowed. Each bounce of the horse shot a fresh twinge of agony through his body; he wanted the moment to extract the arrowhead that of course was not afforded.

You’ll rest when your dead; your choice if that’s thirty seconds from now or thirty years.

Clenching his teeth, the electromancer exhaled deeply, his eyes watering from the pain of it all. For his physical weakness, he could feel his magical prowess returning with a great fury, pulsing through his hands now and rife with power, like the flicker of light before the burst of a bulb. He turned his torso to reach around Cazri, holding her torso as he struggled to turn atop the horse. In fifteen or so strides he had managed the feet, still clutching to her waist for dear life until he could hook his feet with hers. Leaning back, he could squeeze into the back of the saddle while clinging to her, stable enough to sit up and lay down fire.

“Not a lot of lead left in the fucking pencil over here. Get us out of here, for the love of gods.”

Cazri drove the horse ahead, and Storm could feel her torso torque as she moved to fire her bow twice more. She didn’t respond aloud to him, opting instead to pull the horse further right, back into the fray.

Behind her, Storm was moving his head to the left and right, finding a charging wolf with demon rider atop. He could see the demon using power steering – a short sword was lodged into each side of the wolf’s neck, and by pulling on either blade he could direct the beast to turn its heading. The beast yelped terribly, and the wizard afforded mercy. A singular, awful blast of white hatred spewed from his free hand instinctively, striking the burgundy monstrosity square in the chest and sending him rocketing backwards into the air. One hand and arm still clung to the sword of the rapidly stopping wolf, smoke pouring upwards from the break point.

Holy shit. We’re some kind of juiced, baby.

Cazri didn’t so much as turn her head to acknowledge this; she instead chose to deftly maneuver the amazing horse around a battlefield of absolute chaos. Explosions rocketed about them, arrows sailed around, and they sailed around advancing nightmares left and right. One of the larger rhinocerous-like mounts was less than fifty yards before them when it was struck broadside by a massive, flaming arrow, a scorpion bolt as long as a man that sailed clean through, pouring bile and blood from both sides of the enormous beast as it groaned a final roar, thundering to the ground with a crash.

“Where are we going? Get the fuck out!”

Cazri charged, undeterred. She continued to switch from grasping reins to firing arrows, pulling shots from a quiver mounted to the horse’s mane, acting with amazing speed and precision. Her overall attitude was guided towards a singular target.

Cazri was racing towards the massive, stony gate.