CHAPTER 2
A chunk of the wall is molten. Only the rightmost side stands. Yet, such carnage! The ground is riddled with holes and huge faults in the earth. Not even shields can stop it; huge walls of bleeding bodies, mountains of corpses! The earth bleeding under the light; a man stands, a staff in hand, and everything is still and silent; as if he is capturing the sounds! Then a light, sucking out the flame out of everything like a giant, pregnant bat! For a split second you hear it, the wind, maybe time itself, being cut apart by a beam of pure light!
The gate! It is blown...
"Charge!"
You climb over the dead. Hurry! Time is catching up to you...
"You will die" you hear the man in front of you say. Slowing to a crawl, his face contorted. "You will die here". Spit and ash cover your face, dirt batters his winged helm: "Kill that wizard! For all that is good in this world, you must kill that wizard!" he says, but time does not move. His lips remain sealed. "If it is the last thing you do, but do it with all the strength left in you! Kill that thing!"
And they break...Your torso is pierced by a stray spearhead. You fall flat, obscured by the mass of bodies. You pierce the sky above. Heaving footsteps clamp your body, yet they are soft. The pain is great, yet it is soft. A voice:
"Stay here...do it again...once more...and break it!"
"It will come a time when you too will have to break at the charge, Heresius."
"We have time still. Do it again!"
You emerge from the mass of the bodies, the gong-hammer risen!
"Behind you, fool-wizard!"
The blade cuts your chest: "Giant!" You lurch back and strike from head to toe at the man! His head bounces. You lunge forward, striking from the side. The man breaks. The secondmost general? No matter, the wizard had stayed behind; now you see him! He is but a cloak of black, no body at all!
"Fool!" he raises his staff.
A sharp pain! Your ear, it is gone! Again, next to your foot you see for a brief moment a small twisting ray erupting into gore! The corpse explodes into thin red mist! You cleave at the wizard with the mace twohanded; but you see that from the place you struck, a twin, green shade appeared. Your mace is enveloped in the black cloak that had remained, twisting it evily. You see now that the green whisp has disappeared to your left side! You grab at the whisp, and it is almost human, but it's eyes look at you void. Choking it, you strike at it with your mace with your other hand!
Laughter! To your shock the whole thing seems to have put itself back together! You step back. The thing is flying away, overlooking the entire ordeal. Formless again, you see that he is invincible!
Now you see... the wizard has become, or has conjured from his vastness a black storm of grey water and red lightning! The first charge, the one of the Legion-pikemen, was worthless! The few remaining flee back into the safety of the gate as the push is lost.