Chapter 100: The Vanguard


    They were already hundreds of yards from the entrance when it started to close, as Jordan knew it would. It had to. A narrow set of stairs down into the darkness to defeat the thing that had done all this without a single guard in sight was obviously a trap.


    Still, that certainty hadnt been enough to stop him from obediently following the Crusades Paragon. His only act of defiance had been to count his steps as they went because Jordans backup n was never far from his mind. Hed sworn to himself that he would fight alongside these brave men until the end, but at the same time, he had no wish to be the very thing that they were fighting once he died.


    He hadnt really wanted to stay behind in the Temple of the Dawn either, though. Hed never personally been to a ce that reeked of evil and death as much as that ce. Well, at least not until he descended the stairs and made his way to the temple beneath it. There, amidst the miasma of evil that was so strong it was almost palpable, he made sure to stay close to the Paragons light even as the darkness crowded around them.


    Fear not, my brothers, Brother Faerbar said as the stone door theyd entered slowly rumbled shut somewhere behind them. We are not trapped down here. It is the monsters of the pit that are now trapped in here with us!


    There was a rallying cry from the other men to apany that, which was frighteningly loud as it echoed into the dark. After that, Jordan could hear the other men talking about how the Paragon had done exactly this sort of thing before when he purged Fallravea of the degenerate Oroza worshipers.


    He found it hard to concentrate on that, though, with the dull echo of their earlier. In fact, as he listened, he realized that the echo was getting louder again like it wasing back to them.


    Sir ummmm, your Paragon-ness, I think that Jordan started to say, but the gruff older man interrupted him.


    Theyreing, he said quietly.


    Jordan could hear it now. Even as everyone around him drew their swords, he could hear the distant rumble getting louder and louder until it was nothing but a keening horde that was so loud he couldnt think straight.


    Theyd passed through the main under temple, through the main exist, and had been following an borately tiled corridor with irregrly spaced exists on either side. Up ahead, the mage could see that the corridor expanded out into arge room, but even with the volume of the sound, or perhaps because of it, he couldnt quite figure out which direction the sounds wereing from.


    The answer turned out to be all of them. Even as the Paragon forced his way forward into therger hall where bodies had been stacked like cordwood along the far wall, the tide of evil wasing for them all. To the Temrs credit, nobody turned and ran, though Jordan would have if there had been a direction that was free. There wasnt, though. He had walked into hell itself, and the gates had been mmed shut behind him.


    Jordan feared that at any moment, he would see more zombies, ready to fight him in wave after relentless wave. That wasnt what happened, though. Instead, they were assaulted by dozens of oddities that looked utterly inhuman. The first came a wave of screaming skulls that were on them before he could even decide what spell to cast against them. They were covered in blue-white fire and blew up on impact with the first line of warriors.


    After that came an assortment of anatomical oddities. There was a giant snake made from the limbless torsos of a dozen people with a mouth full of rusted swords for fangs, a jellyfish made of a disembodied brain dragging a small thicket of semi-translucent tendrils behind it, and a ball of arms that was sorge that it moved by pushing off the ceiling and floor simultaneously.


    Each of those seemed almostical on the face of it, and Jordan almost started tough hysterically as a strange sort of coping mechanism. It wasnt so funny when they got close, though. The serpent seemed to have no issue ripping people in half with its powerful jaws. The weird ball of hands lost a few as it approached the men with swords, though it quickly started to strangle everyone around it like a particrly aggressive octopus, and the brain, well, it didnt seem to do anything. It just sort of floated there halfway across the room, and then people started killing each other.


    For the moment, Jordan found himself immune to whatever magics the hideous thing was using to make Temr turn against Temr, but as soon as Brother Faerbar surged forward to deal with the twisted serpent creature, Jordan immediately found himself filled with paranoid delusions. He could feel the hate that the religious men had for him. He knew exactly what they would do to a mage like him. Any moment, they would stab him to death. He could practically feel the des piercing his organs, and the urge to set all of them alight before they could deliver such a gruesome end became almost too much to bear.


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    He did, though. Instead of spraying fire at the knights in all directions, he called upon the thunder and struck the brain entity instead, noting how jellyfish-like it looked as the energy arced back and forth between its gently waving fronds until it burned itself to a crisp and fell slowly to the stone floor as a collection of cinders.


    Those werent the only monstrosities to appear, though. They were just the first wave. To me! the Paragon yelled as soon as his serpentine opponent finallyy still, but very few men answered his call.


    Most of the worst monsters that seemed to be made out of shadows more than flesh gave Brother Faerbar and his aura a wide berth, but they quickly cut swathes through the brave, holy warriors. The Temrs slew their wraithlike enemies by the score, but when you are outnumbered by a perpetual tide of damnation, what did it matter if you killed a dozen or a hundred before they finally ripped your still-screaming soul from your body?


    The room behind them had been reduced from one giant battlefield with two sides to a hundred smaller battles that ranged in size from skirmishes to duels. Jordan doubted that the other men in the hallway leading to this point were doing much better based on the echoing screams that made it this far. A minute or two ago, theyd been a single unified line against the darkness, but it was impossible to fight these things with any martial discipline when each of them was a unique monstrosity that had been created by a clearly deranged mind, and Jordan was quite sure that if they managed to fight their way free of this horror show, he would never have a good nights sleep again.


    Brother Faerbar continued to slice a bloodless path through his enemies, ying as many as any other ten men in the room put together as he pressed toward the nearest doorway where they might be able to establish some kind of coordinated defense. That seemed like a pipedream at this point. No matter how many times he wove the threads to summon a wall of fire to ward off his enemies, he could feel them getting closer with every beat of his heart.


    Part of him wished hed just stayed at Abenend and died with his friends. He would have still died and been raised as a soulless servant of some dark god, but at least he would never have had to endure the sights hed seen tonight.


    Then suddenly, without warning, he was grabbed by the color of his robes. He thought for sure that was the end, and rather than fight it, Jordan went limp and epted his fate. No teeth knawed at his throat, though, and no sword was jammed through his heart. Instead, he realized toote that it was Brother Faerbar. Hed grabbed him, yanking the mage off his feet and pulling him behind him.


    Jordannded in a mound of the actually dead. At least, he hoped they were, as he pulled himself to his feet. They were in a small alcove that had been reduced to the storage of moldering dead. For a moment, he almost broke down in tears. He was never meant to be in such a ce. He didnt give in, though. Being trapped like this made it easier. Now, Jordan knew he had only one choice. He started to chant.


    Up until now, hed only channeled fire and lighting. They were easy enough spells that did great work against the shadows, but he would run out of mana long before this pit ran out of shadows, so he focused on the number of steps theyd take since they left the army behind. It was only 48 steps down and 200 steps eastish to get back to the temple entrance. That was doable, even with other people.


    It was the solid stone between here and there that made that an iffy prospect. Well, that and the fact that there were certain to be more monstrosities waiting for him there.


    The mage tried to ignore the Paragons desperate hymn as he fought back against some deathless monster in the doorway. He tried not to think about the fact that the fanatic was all that stood between him and a death too gruesome to mention as he focused on the facts.


    It wasnt like he could just teleport the two of them free and clear anyway. The edge of the wall of shadows was just over five thousand steps away. That was too far for anyone but an archmage.


    It felt like an impossibility, but he didnt let that stop him. The inescapable fact was that thest time hed cast this spell, hed ended up miles from anywhere hed meant to be and had been lucky to be alive. Every fiber of his being was telling him not to do it again, and yet he was certain that even a messy death where he ended up fusing with a tree or a wall and dying in agony was immensely preferable to whatever would happen to him after he died down here.


    So, with that thought in mind, he aimed for almost a mile away, toward what he recalled as empty fields, while he focused on the words and the gestures necessary to bend the world to his will in such aplex way. His odds were certainly less than one in a hundred with all theplicating factors involved, but Jordan ignored them. Brother Faerbars light was gging, and his strength was failing. It was time to roll the dice, so with hisst syble, he reached out and grabbed the shoulder of the Pargon and took him along for the ride.


    Jordan was sure that the man would have vehemently refused such an act and that he might well kill him when they reached the other side, but it wasnt like they were leaving any of the living behind. Theyd been separated from therger group and forced to face an endless series of monstrosities alone for a while now, and everyone who had stood by Brother Faerbars side was already dead.


    As the world disappeared and vanished into a sh of light, he left with a clean consciousness. Jordans heart might have been pounding out of his chest, but this time he felt sure that he hadnt screwed up the spell.