The crumbling earth and rocks didn’t stop even after Riven had been buried in the landslide. Damn it, why did living burial keep happening to him. True, it felt so long ago now when he’d buried under that mountain of dead Sept swept up in the fight between Viriya and her demon. But still. Twice in one lifetime was twice more than it should have ever happened.

The rocks covered him fully this time though. It wasn’t a heavy layer by any means, and Riven was sure he could push them off once he had gathered enough strength to do so. Exhaustion was still there at his back, still hiding in the shadows. It was going to come out at some point, and he was barely keeping it’s force building weight at bay. And was he really lightly covered, or was his Essence taking the brunt of the weight and Riven was well and truly trapped for good?

No way to tell. He’d have to find out for himself later.

Once the sounds of lightning and falling rocks had finally stopped, Riven decided he needed to check on himself before figuring out what to do next. He looked over every bit, testing to see if he had any injuries. Nothing of note. He was mostly all right, despite the battering he had taken at the hands of the Infernal. Scions, what would he do without his Essence? Riven took inventory next. He still had a tremendous amount of usable Sept left, his gun was still intact, and he had the Coral knife he never remembered to use. Sadly, his sword was lost somewhere in the landslide after he’d thrown it. He wasn’t going to miss it much, though. It was hard to get used to another, far shorter sword after using that blue longsword for so long.

Now that everything was fine with him, Riven needed to get out. He focused on himself again, the pressure rising to push out more Essence only for him to draw it all back into himself. The fatigue retreated yet again, but not too far. It was still there, closer than when he’d last pushed it back.

He really needed to ask the Chosen how his Essence could stave off his tiredness, but he suspected that the Scion’s Hand wouldn’t really know either. Essence was so individual after all.

Riven pushed against the rock. It didn’t budge. Shit. Pushing down his panic, he pushed upwards again, trying to force as much strength to his tired muscles as he could. The rocks budged. Yes! He could get out. Sure, it had moved only a handsbreadth or so, but it was still good. It proved that he wasn’t wholly stuck here.

But he also didn’t have the strength to push them off. Drats. He needed to get out of here and fast. There was no telling how long the soldiers in the bastion still had.

Essence. That was it. His Essence had saved him so far, and he needed it to save him again.

He focused. The golden lines drew to a single point above Riven, just underneath the biggest boulder above him. He forced more Essence out, concentrating it all into that single little point as the pressure within him rose to stratospheric levels. Then he let it go.

The concentrated Essence in the little glowing golden ball erupted. A shield expanded outwards, fast as a lightning bolt and with far greater force. The rocks covering Riven exploded outwards, chunks flying into the air as they arced all over. Daylight drew in, and Riven blinked as he got up. Scions, he was free!

He also had a job to do. The soldiers were waiting for his plan, though they didn’t know it yet.

Unfortunately, it looked like the demon wasn’t going to do let him do it. Riven breathed in deep. This wasn’t the time to panic or worry. If it took time, it took time. He was going to be victorious, no doubt about that, and then he’d help those suicidal soldiers get out of here with their lives still intact.

The Infernal roared. “Don’t you know how to die, you fool?”

“I could ask you the same thing!” Riven tried to shout back. Scions, his throat was so parched and disused. He needed water soon.

“Enough of this farce. I should have killed you back in that damned village. I hate wasting time like this.”

“Then come and die already.”

The Infernal cursed, and lighting flickered all over and around it. Then it rumbled forward. A barrage of bluish-white bolts shot towards Riven, but he brought up his shield in the nick of time. They bounced off his golden Essence and he brought out his gun. Of course, the bullets he fired did little to nothing. The Infernal’s scale was unbreakable.

Damn it. Riven charged up the slope. There had to be something closer to the demon, something he could take advantage of and kill it for good. He wasn’t given the time to look for anything, though.

The demon sent out another blistering storm of lightning. Riven wasn’t done, he erected yet another shield, a hemisphere all around him that saved him from the direct impact of the barrage of bolts. But how long was he going to stay away from the Infernal, forced into one spot like this?

All of a sudden, the barrage stopped. Riven willed his outer shield away and blinked at the sight that awaited him. Someone else had come down and engaged the demon in close-quarters combat. Had the soldiers performed a sortie and attacked the besieging Fiends? If so, why was one of them—

Of fucking course. It was the other Essentier!

Riven charged forwards, aiming his gun at the fray. He wasn’t sure what he needed to do here—they both had to die so he couldn’t just pick—but he needed to not let the fight itself get away from him. If one or the other were victorious, they’d turn on him soon enough. He couldn’t let this opportunity pass.

But an enemy of his enemy were supposed to be his friend, right?

“Get back,” Riven told the man attacking the demon with his bare hands. Bare hands. What kind of an Essentier was he?

The man blocked several more blows from the Infernal who had yet to call up her lighting. She was getting desperate. Wasn’t hard to see why. She was being forced back step by step by the storm of blows from the man. Punches aimed at her face or her guts, vicious kicks that landed to make her dance backwards. Silvery Essence wrapped his whole body, and his outline seemed to shiver like that of a Spectre’s.

“Get back!” Riven shouted again.

This time, the man listened. He jumped back, the demon’s blue bolt missing him entirely.

Riven wasted no time, firing away at the demon with shot after shot. She held herself back, throwing up her hands around her head where Riven concentrated most of his shots, most of which pinged off her scales. One went through the gap, though. One bullet flew through the little space between her forearms and shot into the demon’s eyes.

She screamed and fell back, hands covering her face. Riven’s next bullet tore through the wound across her midsection, the same one he had pounded earlier with his fists after he’d caught the Infernal off guard. Another scream tore from her. She blasted lightning at him, but Riven had his Essence ready. The pressure burst free, forming a shield in the air in front of him, stopping the bluish-white bolt in its tracks. The barrage continued, the light so bright, Riven would have been blinded if he hadn’t kept his eyes to slits.

Then he dived to the side, getting another few shots away. The demon hadn’t been expecting that, and the only one of Riven’s bullets that didn’t miss drilled into her knee.

She didn’t buckle. Didn’t even stagger back. More lightning danced across her hands and Riven was caught in his side, too unbalanced to get out of the way. No problem, his shield would protect him.

Just as the demon was about to throw the lightning at him, the Essentier charged in. The force of the impact staggered even Riven who stood a dozen yards away, the man’s Essence-wrapped punch connecting with the left half of the Infernal’s face. He charged past as the demon staggered back, and Riven gasped. The whole left side of her head was missing. Her mouth was open, but she wasn’t screaming. Couldn’t scream, only vent out a keening wheeze, the whole head collapsing to faded Sept dust. The Chasm was that Essentier’s power?

He’d ponder that later. Riven charged. Lighting blitzed out, arc after arc shooting everywhere. A last ditch attempt by the Infernal to take out both Riven and the new Essentier. Riven charged in anyway. His armour was strong enough, and he crafted a shield around himself, the lighting hammering it to leave devastating white cracks and chipping it away little by little. But Riven was untouched. He willed his collapsing shield away as he reached the demon, bringing up his fists to throw a vicious right hook at her head.

She blocked it with her arms, and Riven placed a boot against the cut in her midsection. He pushed himself back and kicked her away, erecting another shield mid-air just behind him. The demon was staggering back at his booted shove, teetering too much to strike back in any way, and Riven threw himself at her, propelling himself by pushing off the mid-air shield with his feet.

This time, his rocketing punch pushed through her raised arms and struck her in the face. Right in the middle where the other Essentier had torn away one entire half of her head.

Riven’s flying momentum threw the Infernal to the ground, and he landed on her hard. Scions, all this would have been so much easier if he had his damn longsword. If Viriya hadn’t run off with it. But he still got it. The impact between Riven’s fist and the collision of the back of her head with the ground made what was left of the Infernal’s head crumble.

He rolled away as he landed on the ground, rising quickly as his legs trembled and his shoulders shook with a mixture of shock and exhaustion. Riven turned, breath held against what he might see next. He sighed.

The demon was headless.

“It’s not over,” the Essentier said, coming over and inspecting the Infernal’s still-moving corpse. He pulled out his gun and began firing everywhere on the Infernal’s body. Once that was done, his Essence crawled out of the holes oozing Sept, until a silvery sheen covered the demon. She finally went still. “There, now it’s done.”

“What did you do to her?” Riven asked, staring at the silvery Essence. It crawled all over her like worms, glowing as if to beguile with their radiance before parasitically eating them up.

“I just made sure her body is collapsing even as we speak.”

Riven reloaded his gun, throwing away the empty magazine. “How?”

The man peered at the demon, inspecting clinically as though he was witnessing and cataloguing a new way his Essence interacted with a subject. He wasn’t much older than Riven, though he had a silver badge pinned on his navy uniform. A Secondmarked. “My Essence. It creates a small extra space around whatever it coats, and thus can cause things to expand to fill the volume.”

“Is that how you took off half the demon’s head?”

“Yes. I—”

Riven’s shot took the man right in the chest.

The Essentier staggered back, clutching the wound in his chest, blood spurting between his fingers. “What are you—?”

Riven fired again. And again. And once more, until the man fell with a thump. The bullets took him in the legs, shoulder, and waist. He stepped closer to the fallen Essentier, making sure he stayed clear off the blood pooling around he wounded man.

“You traitor,” the Essentier gasped out. “You… murderer.”

“Do you want it to be painless?” Riven asked.

There was a brief flicker of silvery Essence, but Riven was ready. He fired another bullet, this time right into the man’s temple. A dark red dot bloomed, blood trickling out like a crimson spring. The Essentier didn’t move, his sightless eyes staring out to nothing.

“Guess not,” Riven said.

#

Riven rushed over to the bastion’s nearest gate. In his absence, the demons’ assault had barged on, surging against the gates and the walls, the defenders unable to leave much of a dent on the Infernals’ ranks.

But Riven was here now, and he was going to get these stupid and hapless soldiers out of here, even if that meant killing every Fiend here with his own bare hands. He shouted as he charged in. His short sword was lost somewhere, but he had his Essence-armoured fist to club them to death with.

Which was exactly what happened to the first demon that turned to meet him. Riven swung a fist hard enough to crack its face, the force of the blow staggering him back. The demon tied to growl as he hammered back with his fists, but Riven’s armour was impervious, letting nothing of the strikes inside. That gave him perfect free rein to hit the demon back again in the guts this time. The Fiend crumpled, and Riven’s clubbed down with both hands on the back of his head.

Along with the golden Essence, the demon’s head shattered as he fell to the ground. His body twitched everywhere, but he didn’t move. Couldn’t move. Not without the head to guide the rest of the body.

Riven turned to the next demon. There were too many around him, and they all surrounded him in an array of multi-coloured spikes and scales, reds, blues, greens, and everything in-between, all distracting him. He couldn’t possibly fight off this many by himself. Already his legs were starting to go numb and his arms were heavier than pillars. The soldiers were shooting from the top of the bastion walls but that did next to nothing to these Fiends.

Shooting. Of course. The demons charged with monstrous cries, and Riven pulled out his gun. He fired, making sure his bullets struck the ground in front of the onrushing Friends. The first few demons reached him before he could enact his plan. He suffered a punch before shoving it away, got kicked in the guts by one more before shouldering that one into another Fiend trying to grab him.

Scions, Riven needed space. He let himself be struck and mauled, letting the Essence armour absorb the blows as it cracked under the strain, but focused all the while. The pressure form within him burgeoned to a frothing torrent and golden lines flew out like it was a damned auric waterfall.

All of which headed to the bullets he’d shot into the ground.

It took mere seconds for the golden Essence to concentrate where Riven needed them to, and all the while, his heart thudded and his lungs clenched as though prematurely dying every time a demon’s blow landed on him. But he’d had enough. Enough fighting, enough wasting time and energy until he was sure both him and all the soldiers would die. Enough Essence on the bullets he’d fired.

With a little bit of focus, Riven created shields. Three bullets he’d fired into the ground, and three shields blasted outwards with the force of falling battleship. They struck the congregated Fiends and threw them away, sending them flying down the mountainside, shrieking and hollering as they went.

One of the shields struck Riven too, and the force took his breath away. Chasm, it was that strong? He was in the air, but he gathered his wits and crafted a quick mid-air shield in his path. The crash was strong enough to cracks his armour and shatter the shield entirely, but Riven fell to the mountain’s side instead of down it like the demons.

He was still close to the bastion, thank the Scions. Riven ran. He was tired—Chasm, oh so tired—but if he had to collapse, he’d do it inside the bastion. The soldiers’ lives came first.

Thankfully, his little interference had freed the gate. There were still a few straggler Fiends, but those got killed by the soldiers concentrating their fire. They opened the gate a smidge as soon as they saw him making a beeline for it, and Riven muttered a silent thanks. He was likely too tired to beg permission to enter. The gate closed behind him as soon as he had gotten in, shutting with a light clang.

That was Riven’s signal. He collapsed to the ground, Essence armour dying.

“Sir, are you all right?” One of the soldiers had knelt beside him, thrusting a canteen of water at him.

Riven took it with a grateful nod, then gulped down as much as his parched throat craved. Somewhere far back in his mind, Riven recalled his mother telling him to always drink slowly, but who gave a crap. He swiped the water from his lips and handed the canteen back . “I am now.”

Several more soldiers had crowded around him, their shadows protecting him from the glare of the sun. Now that Riven was finally able to sit still and not worry about any immediate danger, his body’s woes crashed back with a vengeance. That exhaustion he’d been pushing off with his Essence, galloped back in and conquered him whole. His hands were useless, and he was sure if he tried to rise, his legs would just fall off his body. Damn, even his head was heavy as a boulder.

“Is that him?” a woman asked, voice ringing with authority.

“Yes, Captain,” replied the soldier who had given Riven the canteen. “That’s the other Essentier.”

“Who are you?” the Captain demanded.

Riven raised his head with considerable difficulty. “A passing Essentier.”

“An Essentier from Providence in Ascension?”

He tried to shrug, but his shoulders were uncooperative. Lazy bastards. “Where else was I supposed to come if I wanted to fight Deathless. The big battle is here right?”

“What are you doing here, Essentier from Providence, and what do you want?” There was a dangerous ring in her voice, and Riven only now realized there were guns pointed at him. “Tell the truth. We’ve been warned about Essentiers from Providence before.”

Riven looked around, meeting each of the soldiers in the eye. The buildings behind them all were drab constructs, short, square, and to-the-point. Shouts and screams still swam up from the walls, the blast of gunfire and artillery lending the air a dread weight. Several of the flying demons had gone over the walls, and some of the areas inside the bastion were being hotly contested, Ascension soldiers and insane Fiends fighting for every inch of ground.

They weren’t going to survive long like this.

“Speak up, Essentier,” the Captain demanded. “I don’t have time to worry about being stabbed in the back.”

Riven shook his head. “You don’t have to worry about that. Do you really think I’d kill the demons and help you if I were your enemy?”

“You’re Ascension Demesne’s enemy, which makes you my enemy.”

“I’m Riven Morell, and I can assure you that I’m not your enemy. Or—High Invigilator Orbray has invited me in under a parley, or a treaty, or whatever you want to call it. I was brought here to cooperate, and to have my sister returned to me.”

“Where’s Parce?”

“Who?”

“The other Essentier who went out. Where is he?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t seen him.”

The lie came easier than Riven thought it would have, but it didn’t seem convincing enough to the Captain. Her glare grew harder, and her fingers twitched on her gun. Scions, what was he going to have to do to convince this woman that he wanted them to live?

“Should we go look, Captain?” the first soldier asked.

“No!” Riven said. An opening, one he needed to make use of. “You can’t go out there. You won’t be coming back if you do. The demons are insane and they’ll tear you to shreds. What you need to do is get the Chasm out of here, fast.”

The Captain shook her head. “We can’t just up and leave.”

Far off, a soldier screamed as a demon tore him into neat halves. Well, neat everywhere except at the point of cutting. More soldiers rushed in from somewhere, and the battle continued.

“You need to get out,” Riven said. “That’ll be the rest of you soon enough. You need to—”

“Yes, yes, we understand!” The Captain rubbed a hand across her temples, her eyes closed so forcefully, wrinkles popped up on her face. “How are we supposed to get out of this place though? We’re surrounded on all fronts. There is no escape route.”

“Then we make one.” They were still pointing their rifles at Riven, but he stood up anyway. His legs trembled hard, and really, his whole body seemed to wobble. “We need to pull ourselves together and force our way out in one direction. Which is the best way to get out of here, Captain?”

“The west side,” the soldier said first. “That’s where you did the most damage.”

The soldier was grinning at Riven, and he grinned back. Scions, it felt nice to have some recognition for once. Riven looked over the area, noting the battle taking place everywhere. The demons were routing the soldiers, all right. Blood coated much of the ground, bodies lying everywhere as the soldiers fought on, killing a few Fiends but dying eventually.

“All soldiers to me!” the Captain shouted. “Return formation Crane Wings. Return formation Crane Wings.”

Riven scoured up what strength he had and ran with the soldiers. Most of the troops disengaged from their brawl with demons, drawing back in as orderly a fashion as running for their lives with monsters hounding their heels allowed. They weren’t wholly successful. The Fiends were faster and stronger, pulling down the soldiers at the back though they tried to fight back. There was nothing Riven or the other soldiers could do. Some sacrifices were unavoidable.

“Open the gates!” the Captain shouted as neared the west. There was no hesitation there, despite the very real danger of there being more demons beyond the gate.

There was nothing. The soldiers charged down the mountainside, and every step that Riven took made him think Fiends were going to pop out of nowhere to assault them. Nothing came. The rocks hid no demons, the mountainside free of any Fiends that might have attacked them.

“The gate,” the Captain said, halting to look back as her soldiers passed her.

Riven did the same. Shit, she was right to be worried. They hadn’t attempted to close the gate as they left, deciding it was better to run as the gates couldn’t be barred from the outside. The Fiends would have burst through anyway.

But they were catching up, the demon horde rushing downslope like an avalanche. For just a fraction of a second, Riven thought of counting. But damn everything, there were too many.

The Chosen landed between the retreating soldiers and the onrushing demons. “Go!” he shouted.

Riven blinked. “I thought you weren’t going to show yourself?”

“Changed my mind.”

“Why?”

“I’m tired of watching everyone die.”

“Who in the Chasm are you?” the Captain asked.

Riven ignored her. “You can take them all on your own.”

The Chosen laughed. “Who do you think cleared the path ahead for you?” He glanced at the Captain. “May the Seventh Scion bless your journey and show you the true path to take, Captain. Your stand here has been valorous and commendable.”

“Who are you to commend me?”

“A Scion’s Hand,” Riven said, turning from the incredulous look on the Captain’s face and heading down the mountainside. “Let’s go.”

Behind Riven, the demons started shrieking as the Chosen descended into their midst, and it might have been a good thing Riven didn’t have the chance to look back.