The Great Pandemonium: Nobilitas Obligat

Part VII. Shield of the Wolves (cont.)

Part VII. Shield of the Wolves (cont.)

The air cracked and popped around him as though someone had cast invisible firecrackers into the sky. Drystan caught sight of Nocis' wide grin has he drove both of his hands into the snowbank he had landed in. With alarming speed he shoveled them forward and towards where he stood still trying to pull Sacha out of her hole. Knowing he wasn't going to like what was about to happen he changed tactics and dove into the crater himself, flattening out as best he could to avoid what came rolling overhead.

A horizontal rain of searing acid tore through the air just above his back, followed by what looked like arcs of violet lightning that skittered from place to place across the snow like a whip being slung from side to side. Expecting to receive a lightning lash to the face he was surprised that after a moment or two nothing came. He lifted his head cautiously out of the snow and saw why.

No more than a foot ahead of them Coord stood facing Nocis, the point of her shield rooted into the ground. The bulwark itself had doubled in size, flickering with a silvery-green power around its edges as the waves of acid and lightning broke upon its surface and diverged just wide enough to prevent the deluge from striking those close behind her. She stood with her shoulder braced against the back, barely able to continue standing upright as her legs had only just knitted themselves back together.

The Inferi glanced over her shoulder at Drystan, eyes once again pure white. "Apply your Inquisitor training, Nighttyr. Exorcise Nocis' spirit or we shall die in vain."

Nodding, he quickly apologized to Sacha and pulled the knife from her chest, gripping it firmly in his left hand. Ordinarily one would never use an implement that caused harm to excise a spirit, but no Inquisitor had ever faced down a possessed Exile in the City of Daeis, either. Clasping both staff and dagger in his hands he lowered his chin to his chest and began reciting the rite of exorcism.

"Veni, fuil pravis. Tarlaigh, spiritus evictus. Per gratiam autem beatha fhuascail. Ex croi remittatur peccatum."

Sacha rolled to her knees as he repeated the rite a second time, analyzing everything around her with a wide sweeping look and then scrambling up to aid Coord in holding her shield against Nocis' assault of acid rain and lightning. The white and gray of the snow was rapidly becoming nothing more than a dancing display of violet and black shadows as the creature the Oratio had summoned into his form grew furious at being unable to beat the Inferi back.

"Get ready to make a run for it, Drystan!" shouted Sacha over the cracking thunder. She braced her hands against Coord's shield as her eyes flared with orange fire. "Seta makt til teir, Erathi!"

Orange-white power pooled at Sacha's feet as she and Coord marched forward with the shield before them. Inch by inch they pushed towards where Nocis stood throwing an impossible amount of magical destruction back at them. The air around them blackened as the water of the river crested over its banks and began to answer the Thrall's call for reinforcements.

Shifting the knife in his grip he bunched his legs up beneath himself, calculating the distance left between Nocis and the Inferi shield. He forced himself to ignore the stink coming up from the tar-like water as it closed them in, sucking the air out of the world around them; he would no longer die from something that mundane. Instead he concentrated on calculating the possibilities of what Nocis would do once he attacked the Thrall. Arathron, unburdened by having to focus his attention on controlling a body, had been silently observing everything going on and gladly shared what he knew.