The man in silver armor began to jog forward.
"Sir!" The Acolytes stuttered back before the booming voice of an Initiate took control.
"Form ranks! Candle and Lantern Squads assist!"
Twenty Acolytes peeled off from the prisoners as step by step, Onslaught advanced. Muck splashed outward as the warrior cleared the tunnel and entered the fitful light of the intersection, and Rafny's heart soared. Someone had come. Finally.
The Acolytes advanced as one, their pikes leveled and each of their bodies flaring with a range of orange and golden lights. The weaponsmith knew the Silver Rank Guilder could take the bastards, but she wasn't so sure about the three Initiates that were here. Indeed, her stomach dropped as one of them stepped forward and raised his hands. They began to glow with a golden radiance, but before it discharged, spears rained from the sky.
*KLANG! KLANG! KLAAANNGG!*
"RAAAUUUUUUUUAHHH!"
"HURK!"
The Initiate dodged out of the way of two spears, but others found their marks. Two others were hit, one Initiate taking it in the shoulder and the other getting pierced by two different spears through his breastplate. Blood fountained as the latter collapsed to his knees, his chest sucking air.
"Ambush!" the original Initiate shouted. "Eyes up! From above!"
A woman dropped from a smaller tunnel nearly directly above them, her body covered in white-enameled armor that was vaguely similar to the Order's own. But she held a silver spear in her hands, this one chased with gold details, and as she fell she screamed.
"Spear of Tribulations!"
A swell of power was her only warning, and the Dwarf threw herself atop the others, dragging them all to the ground. The spears burst into cyclones of air Mana that shredded the accumulated muck in the tunnels, and sent sparks flying from the Initiate's armor. The one who had been pierced, however, burst into bloody chunks of meat and bone.
Rafny looked up from the ground and saw chaos.
The spearwoman was furiously battling one of the Initiates, her silver weapon clashing with the zealot's burning sword. The two of them moved in a complicate dance that Rafny had experienced too many times to not recognize. The young woman was well trained, her footwork more than a match for the Initiate's own. Meanwhile, across the chamber, Onslaught finally hit the rows of Acolytes like a reaping scythe. The Inviolate Order fell before his axes, some even getting tossed into the air by his Strength and momentum. The unluckiest were bisected by his blazing silver weapons. The Acolytes weren't helpless, however, and they had been trained to fight against greater odds. Shields were pushed closer, and a weaving of golden light permeated their defenses. Their pikes thrust forward in a wave, strikes coming from all around the warrior, trying to penetrate his weakspots.
Fools, Rafny thought with a grunt, lifting herself from her friends. The Onslaught doesn't have weakspots.
The pikes glanced off his armor, not even leaving scratches as a shimmer of silver, metallic vapor inundated Onslaughts form. The armor itself seemed to swell, increasing in size and thickness, turning his arms and axes into even more deadly instruments of war. The screaming was deafening, so loud in fact that she almost missed the thick, spiked chain that launched from yet another tunnel. It wrapped around the injured Initiate and tightened with a squeal of metal on metal.
"An-another--yeeeaarrgh!"
The Initiate managed only that before he howled in pain and staggered to the side. It was like he struggled with a considerable weight even as the blades on the chain dug into his joints. Rafny got to her feet, slowly helping Heva and the others chained to them as well, but she never took her eyes off of what unfolded.
The Initiate was yanked to the side by a sudden tug, and out of the dark tunnel a figure began sailing through the air like a crossbow bolt. She moved fast, but it was clearly a woman, and she held up a fist that was covered in a purple-white haze. Before she landed that haze resolved into a foot long spike of ice.
She hit the Initiate, spike first, thrust into the space between his breastplate and pauldron. Fully opposite the open spear wound, and from the man's scream, Rafny guessed the hit penetrated. The woman began to stab mercilessly with the ice spike, until it was stained red.
"Who are they?" Oveh asked, her vague eyes finally showing a measure of clarity. "Where did they come from?"
"Who cares?" Rafny grunted. "It's our opportunity. Keep your eyes peeled."
That was when lightning lit up the intersection, overwhelming the magelights with its intensity. It was thick as a tree, bursting from the slope leading to the Domain entrance, and a dark figure fell through it from somewhere above. He landed lightly, as if the lightning cushioned him somehow, and faced the last Initiate. From the distance, Rafny couldn't make any details out, but the man seemed to hurl something dark forward at the Initiate. Whatever it was hit the zealot's extended blade, and a burst of sizzling liquid was deflected to the side.
"Heretical dogs!" The Initiate snarled, before shoving the lead prisoner into the Domain's entrance. Strung together, the rest were sucked through as if something was pulling them. The Initiate grinned at the young man. "Too late for them!"
"We're saved," Heva whispered. Rafny looked at her, confused, but saw the old Hobgoblin's eyes were filled with tears. "I can't believe---He's come to save us, again."
"Who?" The Dwarf asked. She looked at the man's broad back, covered in a beige canvas jacket. "Him?"
A piercing crack filled the air, overwhelming for a moment the barrage of violence from the Onslaught, and the man leaped forward. Chips of shattered stone followed his feet as he sped through the air. But a spark of brilliant orange light emerged from the Initiate, and a golem made of fire and stones was conjured directly in the challenger's path. The heat was so intense Rafny could feel it from forty feet away, but then it was followed by a wave of utter, arctic cold that made them all shield their eyes.
There was a sound of frustrated screaming, and the sounds of physical combat. Metal scraped against metal, flesh hit flesh, and there was a terrible squelching sound from beyond the foundering golem.
"What was...an arrow?" The Initiate gasped. "GAAAAUUUUUH!"
To Rafny's surprise, the golem burst into a column of wildfire, scorching the ceiling and plant life for ten feet in all directions. An Acolyte, still guarding the prisoners, stumbled back from the pillar of fire, nearly dropping his pike. Taking the chance, Rafny leaped up and threw her manacle chain over his neck.
"HURK!"
With her considerable Strength, she squeezed until she felt the man's gorget crumple and his face started to turn purple. With a sharp, final twist, a kill notification floated before her eyes. Wordlessly she dismissed it.
"You!"
The other Acolytes rounded on her, their eyes wide and filled with rage. Two of them rushed at her.
A weak fire bolt hit one of them directly in the face, singeing his mustache, while the other floundered and fell. A stone club had shattered into pieces against his knees. Before either of them could recover, two figures fell on top of them, digging their fingers and activating Beginner Tier Skills against their eyes and mouths.
In seconds, it was over. Heva stumbled to her feet, her sharp nails coated in blood and spit from where she'd forced them down the bastard's throat. With a heave, she pulled a still snarling Oveh off the other Acolyte, the Dwarf's low level Stone Forging Skill leaving chunks of rock embedded in the man's ruined face and neck. Heva met Rafny's gaze and gave her a shaky nod.
Siva be praised, Rafny thought, stunned, but then was startled by another realization.
It had gone terribly quiet.
She looked back and saw the other prisoners looking around them in wonder and no little awe. Onslaught, his silver armor covered in blood that was clearly not his own, marched forward and struck apart another set of manacles with his axe. Rafny panned the room, noting the two women standing nearby, looking over the crowd. One was the chain wielder, her black hair wild from the fight and blood across her mouth, and she caught the Dwarf's eye and offered a red grin. The other was the armored maiden, her spear missing, who somehow did not look disheveled despite her struggles against an Initiate.
And standing above them, still on the hill near the Domain, was a broad shouldered young man that Rafny recognized. The boy Jacinda had recommended, the one Elle was still designing armor for...and his eyes were glowing a bright, electric blue.
"The Blue Eyed Fiend," she heard Heva whisper. Several other prisoners turned toward her and also began whispering.
"Vellus bless," Oveh said, her voice louder. "We're saved."
The tunnels around them suddenly shook, and the Fiend turned toward the Domain entrance. Were her eyes fooling her, or had it grown?
"We have to hurry," the Fiend said. "It's beginning."