A man in embroidered tunic and well-tailored pants was walking towards us from the keep, clapping mockingly while orcs jogged around him and then knelt, drew bows, notched arrows, and aimed at us. Within moments, at least two dozen bows were trained upon us, and more orcs hustled out of the keep with swords drawn in readiness. The man's dirty blond hair framed handsome features with a strong nose, and his voice was confident, with a soft roll to his accent that I couldn't recognize when he spoke.

“It seems that I have been remiss in my training, Domenico. We will review that move, and I will teach you how to counter it.”

The newcomer’s attention turned to us.

Human. ???

I was beginning to suspect that my Analyze would not work on those who were much more powerful than me. Or maybe Analyze needed to be a higher level?

He said in a mild voice, “As you can see, unless you are very lucky or very very fast, it’s time to surrender. You won’t be able to survive the cloud of arrows that flies towards you if you try to flee.”

His tone hardened.

“Now step away from my student and drop your weapons.”

My companion glanced in my direction and then at the bows pointed at us and moved away from the groaning man at his feet to stand protectively in front of me.

My companion answered back softly, “Julius, let us go. I don’t want this, and neither do you.”

The man started.

“How do you know that name? How!”

My protector answered with a note of nostalgia in his voice, “Come now, Julius, you don’t recognize my voice? Well, I suppose it’s been quite a while since we sang together.”

Julius’s face whitened and he froze. He grated out, “Who are you? Are you among the First-Born? Which deity do you serve?”

The man in brown chuckled, and now his voice held sadness in it.

“Such hubris. Deity? You know better than that, Julius.”

“Stop calling me that!” he shouted at us. “Lift your hood! Show me your face!”

My companion turned his head slightly and said in a low voice pitched for my ears alone, “When I yell ‘run’, sprint as quickly as your legs will carry you. I will hold them to give you time, but my strength is not yet what it once was. I am not certain if I will be able to stop them all. Julius will have grown strong over the years, and I am still recovering.”

I didn’t understand what he meant or how he would be able to keep me from becoming a pincushion, but I had seen too much of what this man could do to doubt his claims.

I whispered, “Will you be able to join me?”

He hesitated.

“We shall see.”

The man in brown dropped his rusty sword, and clasped his hands behind his back like a teacher about to pace and instruct his students. They began to glow softly blue.

“Julius, my friend. What has become of you? What dark deeds have you performed to rise so high in Cyril’s service? Do you really enjoy being his slave?”

“Slave? I am no slave. I rule!”

Sadness in his voice now, my companion spoke. “We both know the truth, Julius. Only Cyril rules in your deluded pantheon. Once, I called you friend. Renounce him and stand with me. You don’t have to be afraid. He is not as all-powerful as he claims.”

With that, the man in brown tossed his head, and the hood fell back onto his shoulders, revealing his countenance. Julius took an involuntary step backwards, shock evident on his face.

“No. No! You’re dead! That’s impossible! You’re dead!”

The glow around my companion’s hands was growing brighter and brighter in my sight, but his hands were behind him and hidden from the eyes of the orcs and their master.

With a grimace of anger...or terror...Julius raised his hands abruptly, and black fire spewed forth, racing across the distance between us in a heartbeat. Bringing his hands around from behind his back, the man in brown threw up a shield of bright blue. With an audible WHOOSH!, the two powers crashed against each other. Waves of force bent the air around the contact point, and orc archers swayed from their kneeling stance, losing control of their bows and releasing arrows wildly in all directions.

I fell to my knees, and the fencer Domenico slid several paces away from the minor cataclysm.

The black fire ceased. Julius snarled and clenched one hand into a fist and pumped it down hard, and the earth cracked open in front of us. An obsidian hand reached up from the fissure followed by another hand and then a black obsidian body pulled itself out of the hole.

Earth golem. Level 22.

Level 22? How powerful was this summoner that even his servants were level 22?

The golem heaved itself to its feet and lumbered towards us. My companion spun his hand in a small circle and then pushed with it and shouted two words. An invisible force slammed into the golem, driving it backwards until it fell back into the fissure. He clenched his other fist, and the fissure rumbled closed. The golem’s hand rose out of the fissure just before it shut completely, trapping the creature under the earth with just its fingers showing above the ground.

His face a mask of fury, Julius reached high above his head and brought both hands down together in enormous claps while shouting strange words that shook the air as they left his lips. Creatures began to pop into existence around him. Diaphanous and semi-translucent, every clap brought forth another creature until nine or ten were floating in the air ready to do his bidding.

Erinyes. ???

At least I knew what they were called.

The erinyes screamed in fury. Bird-like with strangely human faces, sharp fangs jutted out from their mouths and claws reached out as they dove towards their prey--us.

Now it was my protector’s turn to rely upon fire. Blasts of searing red flame spewed from his hands, hitting erinyes after erinyes, turning the summoned creatures into burning balls. They screamed in anger and madness and exploded when hit, but there were too many to kill all at once. A concerted attack left three of them still alive to reach the man in brown and claw and bite him.

For the first time, he was wounded. He crossed his wrists in front of him and shouted a word that blew the erinyes back, but the damage had been done. He bled profusely from huge rents on his arms and sides that had been ripped open by the erinyes’ claws. Three deep scratches had sliced into a cheek, and his strange-looking hat had fallen to the ground behind him.

The three remaining air elementals hissed and gathered around their master. Julius had begun a deep guttural chant. His orcs regained their balance. Arrows began to speed towards us, and my savior was forced to raise one hand to create a blue shield of protection. Arrows peppered it, but it held.

My protector turned his head and shouted to me, “Run now! This transformation will take time and keep him distracted, but when he is done it will be his most powerful spell. Run!”

“But--”

“Run!” he roared. He turned back to the battle before him. One hand was held up to maintain the blue shield, and a flame appeared around the other one, a white so intense that I was unable to look upon it with my naked eyes. Feeling like a coward, I turned and ran for the gate.

Just before I passed through, I took one last look at the raging conflict behind me. The summoner, Julius, was changing. Growing. Now he was ten feet tall...fifteen...twenty… His skin became mottled and then a striated crimson and black. Thick corded muscles bulged all over his body. Sharp glowing horns grew from his forehead, and the pupils of his eyes changed to resemble a cat’s. Claws jutted from his fingers, and dark liquid dripped from them onto the ground.

Finally, with a roar, he leaped forward, reaching his enemy in one huge leap. He slammed his doubled fists down again and again onto my savior’s blue shield which began to flicker with every blow.

With a sob of terror and disgust at myself, I raced through the gate and out of the castle walls. I emerged onto what might once have been a road but was now merely fallow earth. In the distance perhaps half a mile away I could see the beginnings of a forest.

With my heart in my mouth, I ran desperately. Had the man in brown fallen already? Was anyone chasing me? The trees were getting closer and closer and then finally I was passing into the sparse outer edges of the forest. Gasping, I turned with dread in my chest to see if I had been followed.

The land behind me was empty, but a tempest of titanic forces battered the castle and its walls. Bright flashes of light, blinding even in the daylight would burst periodically up from ground somewhere near the base of the castle, and black clouds were forming high up in the sky.

How powerful were these people, and why were they interested in me? Who could I have been to deserve the attention of these beings?

Suddenly, an enormous white flame roared up into the sky at the same time that a huge lightning bolt struck the highest tower of the keep. A crack sounded that must have been audible miles away, and I felt the ground jump beneath me, causing me to stumble and fall.

When I looked back up, I saw the keep crumbling inside a whirlwind of fire and force, blasting it to dust. Spiral Castle was no more.