Chapter 110: Silver Blood
Velma rushed out of the shrine with Athena and Beatrix close behind. The three of them moved with the sharp focus of people who already knew the day had turned against them.
From the northwest, where the low hills pressed against the edge of Gulchtown, more than a hundred Orcs poured down the slopes in a green tide. The Fondel forces—elves and human soldiers mixed—were already locked in the fight.
Steel rang against crude iron. Shouts and wet grunts rose over the morning air. Dust and blood already stained the ground. The smell of open wounds and Orc sweat carried on the damp breeze. Somewhere a horse neighed horribly and went silent.
Velma found Captain Joan near the front lines, tightening the straps of her armor with quick, practiced hands. "How did they come from the hills?" she asked.
Joan did not look away from the battle. Her voice stayed flat and practical. "Countess, there are tunnels in those hills that we never mapped. The Orcs have lived in this land for hundreds of years. They know every crack and hollow better than any of us ever will."
"I'll join you," Velma said, drawing her sword. The weight of it felt unfamiliar and wrong in her hand.
Joan turned at once. "No, Countess. You are the ruler of Fondel. If anything happens to you, the county falls with you. And if they take you alive…"
She left the rest unsaid, but the weight of it hung heavy between them. Every soldier within earshot understood what Orcs did to captured women of rank.
Beatrix stepped forward, staff already in her grip. "Then take us. My magic is strong enough for this fight, and Athena can hold her own against anything short of a mountain."
Joan shook her head hard. "That is exactly why I need you to stay with the Countess. Protect her. If this battle turns against us, get her back to the safety of Fondel. That is an order I will not take back."
Beatrix and Athena exchanged a brief look. Both of them understood the logic even if they hated it. They nodded. "We will."
Joan met Velma's eyes one last time. Something softer passed through the veteran's face. "It was an honor serving you, Countess."
Then she turned and strode into the fight without looking back. Her sword was already rising as she disappeared into the press of bodies.
Velma watched her go, a tight pain rising in her chest that had nothing to do with fear for herself. "I hate sending my soldiers to die while I stand here safe."
Neither Beatrix nor Athena had any words that could ease that weight. They simply stood closer to her, eyes on the field.
The sounds of battle rolled over them in waves—metal on metal, the wet thud of blades finding flesh, the harsh battle cries of elves mixed with the deeper bellows of Orcs.
Athena's divine vision flared. Golden light gathered in her left eye as she stared across the chaos.
She began to speak in a low, steady voice, describing what only she could see.
Joan cut into the Orc line like a blade through soft cloth, her sword rising and falling in clean arcs. Green bodies dropped around her. The elves pressed forward under her lead and the tide of the fight shifted in their favor for a few precious minutes.
Then a tall Orc drove a heavy spear straight through her sword arm. The weapon fell from her fingers. Another Orc swung a notched axe and took her left arm clean off at the shoulder in a spray of bright blood.
A third leaped onto her back like a hunting dog and sank its yellow teeth into the side of her neck. Joan went down under the weight of them and did not rise again.
Athena's voice faltered. "She's gone."
A single tear slipped down Velma's cheek and tracked through the dust on her face. She turned on Beatrix, voice sharp with grief and anger. "You claim to be powerful. Don't you have any magic that can reach that far and help them?"
Beatrix lowered her eyes. Her fingers tightened around her staff. "Most of what I know cannot stretch that distance. There is grimoire magic that could… but it is forbidden for good reason."
"Bea, don't," Athena said sharply. The warning in her tone was clear.
Velma's voice came out hard and low. "It will stay our secret. If the guild association comes for you, I will stand between them and you. I will exonerate you myself before any court in Concord."
Beatrix shook her head once, firmly. "I'm sorry. That magic is so tightly sealed that even I do not fully know what it might cost. I will not open that door. Not even for this."
Velma let out a frustrated breath that was almost a sob and lifted her sword again. The steel caught the morning light. "Then I will go myself and defend my people."
Before either of the younger women could catch her arm, a large hand closed firmly on her shoulder.
Velma turned and looked up into the face of Gabriella. The fallen angel was no longer radiant with heavenly light. Yet, she remained tall, powerfully built, and intimidating in a way that made the air around her feel intimidating.
The white armor clung to her full curves, still faintly marked by the earlier defilement but no less striking. Her wings hung half-spread behind her like torn banners.
"Don't be foolish, human," Gabriella said. Her voice carried the rough edge of someone who had lost everything and still refused to kneel. "Those creatures will tear you apart for sport and leave the scraps for the crows. My Labrys has not tasted a soul since I arrived in this filthy world. It is time I fed it."
"Thank you," Velma said, the words almost a prayer.
Beatrix and Athena watched as Gabriella strode onto the field. The moment she entered the battle, the entire balance shifted as a stone dropped into still water.
One wide swing of the golden Labrys cut five Orcs nearly in half. Green blood fanned out in a wide arc and painted the dirt.
She seized a larger one by the throat with her bare hand, lifted the thrashing body from the ground as if it weighed nothing, and tore it in two from collarbone to groin. Viscera spilled across the dirt in a wet rush.
Panic rippled through the Orc ranks in visible waves. They had never faced anything like her.
Nearly fifty of them fell before Gabriella in a matter of minutes, bodies stacked in broken heaps.
The rest broke and fled toward the trees, some of them still screaming, others stumbling over their own dead.
A ragged cheer rose from the remaining humans and elves, raw and desperate, the sound of people who had expected to die and suddenly found a reason not to.
Velma and the two younger women stood watching, hope rising in their chests. An angel—fallen or not—stood with them, and for the first time that morning the fight looked winnable.
Then a deep horn blast rolled across the field, low and long and full of malice.
From the treeline a fresh flood of Orcs poured out, more than three hundred strong, green bodies packed tight and moving with purpose.
The numbers on the field shifted in an instant. The attackers now numbered well over four hundred. Velma's remaining force stood at roughly two hundred, many of them already bloodied and tired.
Even so, the soldiers did not lose heart. With Gabriella among them, the numbers seemed almost meaningless. She pushed deeper into the enemy line, the Labrys rising and falling in great golden arcs that left trails of green gore and severed limbs.
Something wild and hungry had woken in the fallen angel after the loss of her divinity. She was no longer simply fighting. She was enjoying the slaughter, lips pulled back from her teeth, eyes bright with a savage light that had nothing of heaven left in it.
Orcs tried to swarm her from the sides, and she broke them open like ripe fruit. One she kicked so hard its chest caved in. Another she beheaded with a backhand swing that sent the head rolling into the fleeing ranks.
The battle looked one-sided.
Suddenly, a beam of dark light lanced from the rear of the Orc ranks, thin and black as a knife cut in the air. It struck Gabriella square in the chest with a sound like a thunderclap.
The impact lifted her from her feet and slammed her hard onto the ground, armor ringing against stone and dirt.
The angel gritted her teeth, forced herself upright on one knee, and looked down at the cracked plate over her breast. Fury flooded her face, pure and cold. Blood—her own—silver in color—trickled from the edge of the broken armor.
"What hit her?" Velma asked in shock.
Athena's divine vision stayed locked on the distant rise where the dark light had come from. Her golden eye narrowed. "The Orc King! Garkash has come. And the orc-shaman Jibreel is with him. It must be his dark magic attack. We are in deep trouble."