Nothing that happened next was pretty. I really wanted to stand tall and swat this thing down, but in all honesty, that explosion powered by blood flame hurt. People closer to the rakshasa than I was were killed instantly--worse than killed, it was like someone designed an ability to rip people into bite-sized chunks of meat, cutting through bone as easily as flesh. Worse, I was pretty sure that when that creature killed things, it stole more blood flame from them--that explained instantly why it was blood flame and not some more innocent appearance. This thing was powering its magic with the souls of those it killed.

It didn't kill me, but I felt like I'd taken several blows to the face. Me not being some kind of superhuman, I fell backwards screaming in agony. I wanted desperately to immediately call Xethram here, thinking that my godly body could probably crush it, but the idea that the Rakshasa had the ability to steal soulflame was terrifying enough that I didn't dare.

Regrettably, I realized with a shock, I had not actually transferred my godly Key out of my body the way I had been told by the council of gods. Which, now that I thought about it, Ciel'ostra had reminded me of when she said she would "bring me back to kill me again" if I died on her battlefield... along with whoever took the key from my body. It had been optimistic of her, perhaps, to think that I would die to an enemy soldier rather than a soul-stealing monster.

Either way, I forced my Avatar to burn power to save my life, part of that just making sure I could keep a level head, because the wounds I received were not minor. In fact, I realized after a moment, the explosion had destroyed one of my eyes--the normal one, not the one I had switched out for a godly weapon. That one was fine, but I doubted it would survive much worse than that.

As soon as I realized that eye was still okay, I used it one more time. I was as sneaky as I could be under the circumstances, which probably wasn't sneaky at all, but after thrashing around on the ground for a minute, I guess I had given the creature the impression that I was beneath its notice, because this time the attack--powered by a not-small chunk of gold flame--landed. It wasn't quite enough to turn the whole creature to dust, but it blew a hole in its torso large enough for me to crawl through, turning everything within that section to red sand and knocking that sand backwards with the force of an explosion.

The look on its face was something, but I couldn't revel in it. I was scared it would regenerate, so I crawled to my feet, stumbled over, and gave its face another blast, maybe a third as strong as the last one. It couldn't block that either, and it was done.

I sensed a whole mass of blood flame hanging in the air after it died. I wasn't sure what to do about it--if like ashen flame it had some kind of trick to it, I didn't want to let it be, so I forcibly reached out and dragged Alanna into my shadow, muttering something like "guide me" under my breath as I did.

Alanna was, to put it mildly, shocked to be summoned, but I didn't care--couldn't care, because unless I was mistaken, there was still an army of these things coming.

"Need help," I muttered. "Blood flame... these creatures... how do I... what do I...?" What could I even say? What could I ask?

Instead of answering, Alanna did something very odd. Suddenly, one hand reached up out of the shadow, a hand so full of pure radiant light that it blinded even me, and the only eye I could see through was a godly one. I sensed a sharp and immediate change, as she gathered the stolen souls into her hand and released them back into the air. The souls, I could tell, were no longer "stolen"... but neither were they whole, like ashen flame. The hand retreated, and Alanna said all she could possibly say under the circumstances, which was "don't die," and then retreated, I presume because she was in the middle of something else.

Honestly, that was what I had most needed, though. I pushed with my own godly powers to try to restore my body, but kept an eye on the ambient soulflame--only to watch it disperse, as the flame was not dedicated to me, Alanna, or any god, and was no longer bound by the creature. It was, simply, broken souls of the dead, and not for me to meddle with. Fine by me.

Finally, after all that, I struggled to my feet to look around. Several people were watching me; the company had, after a small magical bomb had gone off in the middle of it, immediately gathered into a defensive shell around us. The commander was injured, one arm very badly mangled and one hand probably completely lost, and the aide who had told me Eglare was alive was about half chopped into pieces, more than enough that there was no way he would recover. I wouldn't be surprised if a whole squad had gone up at once, and maybe another half that in extras around the edges.

So I struggled over to the commander and saluted, although it was more sarcastic than anything at this point. "As I was saying, sir," I said, my voice sharp with pain and exhaustion, "goblins."

"What the hell did you do to it?" The commander, to his credit, was trying to maintain poise and an aura of authority, while an assistant put a tourniquet on his arm. Between the two things, he was definitely distracted. "I've never seen magic like--" and then he seemed to see my eye and it shut him up.

"I am Ryan, Vicar of Eyes, sir, and Xethram, God of Eyes, acts through me." I snarled, vaguely aware that in the middle of my wounded and bleeding face, the Eye of Mars seemed like a portal to another world. "He has Seen all things turn to dust, sir, and with his blessing, I can make it so--a bit, at least. Damned thing blocked it somehow, though, at first." The snarl turned into a grin that I hoped was fierce. "But it was enough."

"Is that all of them?" Again, practical. I was happy, as much as I was also distracted keeping track of an influx of soulflame from nearby soldiers. Honestly, I should just ignore it, but some part of me just wanted to keep track.

"No sir. Some crack in the ground to the south, back a ways... I think..." I paused, since this wasn't something I had Seen, yet, but I guessed it to be true. "I think they're coming."

"Right." The commander raised his voice. "Merge with the other companies! Form a line! Leave the dead." He gestured for me to follow. "Are you going to be able to fight?"

"I doubt I can run," I said glibly, "so I don't see what choice I have."

"Good man." He patted me on the shoulder with his good hand and turned his full attention to making sure his people were safe and in position.

I waited until I was back on the hill before I turned back around and swapped out my Eye of Mars with a more general, far-seeing eye... one that always looked to the horizon, and beyond it. As soon as I activated the eye, I was swallowed up in a great image, one larger than I could physically see, like a camera that produced an image too big for the display you were viewing it on. I could have just shrunk the image back down, but then all the new detail included in this image would be lost. It was like aiming a giant telescope, except the telescope was already seeing everything, and I was just not able to process it all at once.

It was a little hard to figure out, and a bad time to experiment, but after a bit I realized that I had spent gold flame to restructure my mind for... pretty much exactly this purpose. I wanted to be able to see more than one thing at a time, and well, this gave me more than a mortal should have been able to process.

It was weird to realize it, but I had been kind of under-utilizing the ability, because it didn't feel natural. I could activate the ability when I was using magic sight or something else, and it helped me tell the difference between instincts and godly insight, but in general, I still thought of myself as being, first and foremost, human. I wasn't supposed to be completely different from everyone around me.

But with the combination of the eye and the ability to see so much more... I was suddenly keenly aware of everything that the image was showing me. Most of it irrelevant, yes, like blades of grass moving in the wind hundreds of feet away... but there they were, creatures cloaked from sight by more blood flame, charging across the low rolling hills, still a ways away but going at a full-on sprint with no signs of fatigue.

"They're coming!" I wished I could do the voice-amplification trick. "They are... there is some trick to hide them from sight. They are not yet on the next hill, but they are approaching fast."

I felt an immediate and ugly sense of fear rising from the entire side I was on. I realized immediately that there was no way they could win this fight without seeing their enemy. But I had burned so much power trying to directly oppose the enemy's magic that I wasn't sure how much more I could do.

I'm back, I felt a whisper in my mind, and realized who it was. Sorry, I know you needed more help. Tell me what I can do.

Instead of responding to her directly, I stepped forward in front of the line of soldiers, knowing that pretty much everyone on the front line turned to look at me, at least momentarily. I spoke out, clearly, hoping my voice carried to everyone who needed to hear it.

"My name is Ryan, Vicar of Eyes... and I pray to Alanna, Goddess of Light and Knowledge, to Show these people what my Eyes can See."

In my mind, Alanna--more like Lucile, in a way, if the two had different personalities--seemed amused by the request, but a beam of warm light came down upon me, for only a moment and then hundreds of smaller lights came down from the sky, like lightning bugs or faeries, and surged outwards towards the enemy.

Be careful, I warned her in return, they were able to block my abilities. I just don't have enough power...

I feel that. Already, they resist me. Alanna's voice in my mind was far more at peace than I was, and it was reassuring. Don't worry, there are two ways we can do this. As long as you can see them...

At once, although I doubted the people on the battlefield could tell the difference, Alanna reached down and offered our soldiers Knowledge of what I saw instead, turning the fairy lights into illusions, so she wouldn't need to overcome their power.

"Archers to the fore! The rest of you, make ready to charge! Be careful of the tall ones!" The three commanders were all quick to jump into things as soon as they understood what was going on. The last bit surprised me, but after looking carefully, I did see several taller goblins--none, I think, as tall as the one I dispatched. They were by far the minority, but there were a good half dozen of them.

Those are the evolved ones? The tall ones?

Yes. Alanna's voice was close now, as she had basically opened a channel directly from me to the soldiers. It's not perfect, but height is a good tell for which are dangerous. Those should be Hunters, the ones that command the goblins.

What about... I offered Alanna scattered images of the taller, magic-using thing I had killed.

Xenma's crotch-rot, Ryan, that's a Scholar. Alanna's voice and the feel of her soul both became a lot more tense. I, uh, could definitely have used without that mental image, even if she used it as a curse. Probably a hundred times smarter and able to use a lot of magic. You sure it's dead? I offered the image of it sans head, and she relaxed... a bit. Okay. If you see another, don't let it get that close. This is going to be bad enough without any of those things.

While I agreed with that assessment, I didn't understand how bad it was until the goblins got within bow range. When the three commanders gave the command and we let loose swarms of arrows all at once, I could swear the entire battlefield suddenly slowed to a crawl.

The rakshasa army seemed to form a barrier out of blood flame and willpower, and that barrier ate up the arrows that hit it. Literally ate; if it weren't for Alanna's power connecting me to the others, I doubt anyone else but me would have seen it, but it felt like dozens of hungry mouths appeared in the air and bit the incoming arrows in half, letting... maybe one or two through, but not more than that.

That didn't help our morale at all.