To Love A Villain

>>Lyal

We were losing. I could see it in the way the knights moved, their strikes slower, their defenses faltering. The bonewraiths were relentless, their numbers growing as more of them emerged from the darkness, their hollow eyes glowing with a terrifying hunger. We’d managed to take down a few, but it wasn’t enough. We were being overwhelmed.

Hael and Corvina were gone, and I had to make a decision.

"Fall back!!" I shouted, the words tearing from my throat. My voice cut through the chaos, and I saw the relief in the knights’ eyes as they began to retreat. They knew we couldn’t hold our ground any longer.

The knights came running back into the temporary barriers Archmage Deus was making. They didn’t hold for long but they allowed some time for the knights to breathe.

Then, without warning, flames erupted from behind us.

!?!?!

All of us shot our heads back to look at the immense amount of magic. The flame burst forth like molten lava, a torrent of fire that roared into the night.

Is that the rift? The flames are coming up from there. The heat hit me like a wave, and for a moment, everyone froze, their eyes locked on the inferno that now dominated the battlefield. The flames cast everything in a hellish red glow, shadows flickering wildly across the trees and the bonewraiths that prowled among them.

"We’re retreating!! Take out your scrolls! We’re going back!!!" I yelled again, forcing myself to focus. The knights were already moving, tearing open their scrolls, their figures disappearing in bursts of light as the magic whisked them away to safety.

I held my scroll in my hand, waiting until the last of them had gone. I couldn’t leave before that. The flames still raged, but I could see movement in the shadows—more bonewraiths, drawn by the fire, their twisted forms cutting through the darkness.

With the knights gone, I closed my eyes as I opened my scroll and then ripped it, ready to leave this hellish place behind.