“Martin make sure that arm of his doesn’t fall apart. Tie it to him or whatever, just make sure it’s tight. He’ll need it once they can reattach it.” Sion watched as Martin wrapped the last of his gauze around the fellow soldiers left arm. Then, Martin carefully secured it with a belt to the man’s hips. Sion was surprised it had worked. The cut across the soldier’s arm was severe, even the bone was shattered into bits. The arm was held together by raw sinew. You could see through parts of the wound. Martin looked satisfied with his patchwork but Sion could see fresh blood soaking the bandage. He placed one hand on his book and felt a rush of energy radiate and become displaced. His hand glowed. Fingertips lightly burnt. He felt his feet begin to rock unsteadily beneath him. Martin grasped him by the shoulder before his knees could buckle.

“It’s only temporary. I am...okay,” Sion muttered back.

“Very rarely does it hold true—that you are okay any time you have to assure someone with certainty... And Sion, aren't we friends?" Martin replied softly with a coy inflection. "There is not a man whose body doesn’t ache and burn with pain. No need to lie.” Sion grinned past gritted teeth; Martin was spot on, all of him did not feel ‘okay’. He could barely fight and his mind felt all loose. Like lukewarm spaghetti left to stew in the water. His thoughts were fragmented and adrift. He couldn’t think in clear sentences even though he still continuously barked orders without end. He was surprised he still knew the right things to say and manage to utter them. His voice had long since grown hoarse. But at least, the wound had become sealed. The bleeding quenched for a time.

“I am hardly lying Martin. I never took you for a weakling. Bodies are temporary. I was speaking of the pure nature of my soul. Our flesh is temporary. My soul is just fine.” Martin laughed behind him, cracking him with a painful slap to the back. The other newly gathered comrades also chuckled. Many, were hurt too badly to break into laughter. In total, around them gathered thirty men. Each still a bit alive. Still holding on, together: one badly mangled collective.

The enemy had too, separated into pockets after taking similar heavy losses. Everything and one drifted around the main line which formed an upside down U. Sion’s men were resting and soon would try to gain an advantage by pressing forward at the enemy still harassing their countrymen. The front line was still by some miracle a solid fixture of the battle. Men seemed to fall in equal number on either side and as such a tenuous balance was maintained. It was short-lived, the enemy pulled together on the defensive. They saw the cavalry on the horizon ready to charge. Their front line shrunk back in fear of getting trampled as did their other stretched out remnants.

Sion, at the edge of the combat, had attempted to rebuild a small enough force to skirmish pockets of the enemy on either side; especially those that attempted to slip to the rear and butcher the many lifeless wounded and those few medics left alive. As of now though—the enemy had retreated towards the front. Knowingly waiting on their reinforcements.

“What shall we do commander?” The patched-up soldier asked. He walked forward, overtly lankier than most others, with his arm tied comfortably to his side.

“We must—.” Sion was in the middle of reassuring his men, keeping them busy and focused on living. A horn blew. The cavalry began to swell forward. The enemy infantry rushed ahead with new stamina—leaving gaps for the riders to slip through. Everyone seemed stunned, both the ardour of the infantry and the rolling thunderous hooves struck out against all friendlies. Sion shouted “Brace!” to all friendly men. Then he turned his head. He felt the rushing wind envelop him. Then the cavalry struck, trampling many all across the front as new spears and swords plowed forward. The front was lost. No… Everything. The battle was certainly beyond salvage. He was not a man to work miracles. He saw small pockets of resistance holding on, but almost everyone else lay dead or dying. Enemies were rapidly charging towards him and his men.

Desperation. “So that’s what it feels like.” Sion thought to himself. He flung his sword down and took up a fallen shield bearing an unknown crest. He had wedged it on to his arm in preparation to catch enemy spears. But, they were too busy at the not so distant, demolished centre. Instead, he lunged and his shield smashed in the teeth of a nearby enemy who rushed in drunk on the sudden unexpected reinforcements. The man howled and fell to the earth, where he clutched his bleeding mouth and there a long sword was plunged into his chest and moved like a lever until he stopped moving. His men would not perish like mere dogs. He braced himself alongside them, facing the swelling enemy horde.

He stopped. A crackle like a whip snapped through the air. A strange gust unnaturally flowed and warped the very air stirring an inner softness of flesh down to the very stomach, butterflies. He tried to twirl his head but he felt his body shift against its own will. The pressure built around him. His ears popped and silence roared. Everything ahead and around him burst into gold flame. One after the other, giant globs of orange mucus slammed into the earth. Thunderously crashing apart each with its own wave of shock. Inside the thin membrane, a curtain of fire unleashed itself against the world. The air took on its own mind. He felt a stiff shock resonate through him as his body was flung backward and a devastating gust of wind kept him rolling and tumbling away. He wound over a pile of corpses and though they slowed him some—to his relief he continued rolling. Until he felt himself be pinned by the corpse of a black mare. His head lay on the dirt. His back against the recently dead animal. He could feel a heartbeat. Was it the horse? Still clinging to life? Or his own very much the same way. He didn’t know where anyone was. He felt stiff all around. He could barely move his limbs but the vantage point let him see twelve figures balanced on two wings, hovering far above the battlefield.

Artillery Drakes. Emperor’s most elite shock troops. He remembered the detail, reflecting on the academy's teachings. He never imagined he would ever feel their heat up so close—his own skin burning up. He badly wanted to shed all his clothes. His thirst reached a new height. He freed the water skin from a nearby soldier: possibly the rider who was flung during the first impacts. There was wine within. He snorted it in and to his surprise drunk the entire thing.

He found enough strength to arrive at his knees. He watched men burn alive through the orange smokey haze. His eyes reflected the flames: they danced and fumbled, some sprinting onward as if given a new life. Some embers would eventually grow still, other possessed new fuel. He heard them too. He wished that silence had not left him. His ears could not shake the sound. He wanted to weep. The field of battle filled with the moans and the high throated screaming. His teeth unwittingly started to grind and shake. His tongue tasted char. It seemed in this moment that everyone had perished amidst the flame. He felt a hand reach to his ankle, an older soldier with a singed mustache looked up at him mouthing something. He could see the man’s back, lit on fire. Before he could even attempt to purge the flame the man’s hand slowly tensed and opened. His fingers curled back. He drew his ear to the man’s face and heard no breath.

His mouth hung agape. His sword had vanished. The roaring flames were already dissipating. Not because the flames lacked potency but because anything the sticky mixture reached already was twisted into a melted black husk. He couldn’t tell animal from human. They were all too warped by the heat. Only thin stringent flames remained. Strangely, out of the blue, he watched a division of archers emerge in the distance. He looked around and quickly understood why. Those like him at the rear could still be alive. There were few, but enough for simple target practice and he would never make it to those archers. He could never prove to them he had been alive all along. Not across the scorched field of flame, still smouldering. Too hot for the naked touch. His throat burnt like no other, he subscribed it to the heat. He shuddered. An inescapable fate. One volley after another. Until he would sprawl out riddled with arrows. Left to slowly bleed to death. Dying in a hell. The last place he would see; the last place he would smell. Nose filled with its fill of burning meat, overcooked human flesh, burnt flesh, charred flesh. Mixed with all other vile concoctions expunged upon death. The smell forced his body to shudder and his mind to bitterly ache. It was suffocating.

Even the drakes where uninterested in his defeat as one after another they slowly peeled away and flew to who cares where. He shrugged his shoulders. Then turned one last time to see the last drake bearing a strange polka dot pattern hover in the sky. He turned back as a flurry of arrows was let loose. He could see them flying, both by their shadows rushing across the landscape and their small thinly bodies slicing the air. Almost none tumbling each true and deadly. Suddenly all of them fell to the earth as thunder crackled. A solitary drake snapped its wings right above them sending them falling down on a precarious dive. The drake twisted its body, rider holding the reins tight as the creature veered for another path. Completely setting the rider’s ear parallel to the ground.

Woosh. The creature’s wings closed with a thunderous clap and she fell over the enemy. Actively avoiding arrows with its narrow profile. Suddenly a pure, wide orange billow of flame drove itself through the enemy formation igniting the comfortably dressed archers. Only one man carrying a wide shield above his body emerged unscathed. The rest were at least medium rare. He watched the enemy commander signal the remaining archers with his hands. They were still too many alive! He watched them knock their bows. The drake had lost much of its energy it was flapping frantically attempting to climb high enough away so the arrows wouldn’t reach. Exposing the rider from the rear.

Sion cried out reaching out to the figure as a flurry of arrows all engulfed the rider. He saw the drake scramble, diving once more. The figure was already falling, no help from the drake would keep him in his seat. The helmet slipped off and the rider’s long hair was revealed.

Falling through the air she looked like an angel or an estranged porcupine. The drake screamed as it sensed it’s rider falling, It howled vividly drowning out any other noise with a deafening blast that left ears ringing for miles. Sion felt his heart grown heavy to the sound of the screech. The figure seemed to be closer by each second. Toppling through the air like an unsightly doll. He could see her shadow slowly begin to glide in accordance to her impact point. He stretched his hand outward—toward the falling rider. His body moved as if unified attempting to reach her.

He rose slowly his hand leading him forward. His body weary, The heat of the fire still radiating through the air. His hand could sense the hot spots. He avoided them as he stumbled forward. He watched the blond hair of the falling figure reverse as a gust of wind almost knocked him off his feet.

She fell, cushioned by the air curtain kicked up by her drakes wings. Straight onto a familiar pile of corpses. Sion stumbled forward crossing the momentary barrier of wind. He looked down, his squinted eyes opening fully. Long locks of golden blonde hair. He almost unwittingly reached out to hold them. His eyes glazed the rider over.

A woman, all riders were women he loosely recalled. Her complexion: all bloodied on the right side from a grazing cut across her temple. He kept his vision steady, even though his ragged breathing was giving him away. Her body was covered in leather and light drake-scale armour. She was covered in arrow wounds: arms, legs and some in her chest and abdomen. He stopped counting past thirty. He felt his confidence rise and fall with his breath. The arrows were all stuck in: some had entered at a slant, the few wedged between the scales plunged deep into her chest.

He looked around. He could see her chest rising and falling. Straining to draw in an unfamiliar putrid air. There was no one to help her. Only disfigured corpses running through the thick haze of the smoke. “Another casualty of war,” he thought to himself looking across her wounds. His hands were lightly jittering. Shaking. He smiled. A simple and kind gesture into empty space for no one’s benefit, not even his own. His consciousness began to drift. He opened the latch at his side. The tome emerging into his left hand. He flipped through the many reinforced and highly detailed pages—barely seeing them. He knew what he was looking for before he saw it in his peripheral. His left hand froze and began to trace the mysterious constellation. Stars connected by spiralling diagrams. He felt them vibrate through his skin. An eerie chilling touch from within the page. He placed the mirage firm into his mind, until nothing else remained.

He then plucked the arrow from her arm with ruthless force throwing it aside. Blood immediately squirted out of the wound channel. The vision only strengthened the determination in his eyes. Even his brows furrowed further as the lines tightened.

“Coagulation,” he whispered. It felt like someone had smashed him in the chest with a righteous fist leaving a vacuum. The drain filled the empty space. The right hand channelled the incantation over the wound. He watched the blood stop its torrential flow. With the bleeding staunched he flared his spirit again flipping a page and tracing a new set of braille-like lines across the page.

Square patterned lines this time—with a triangular centre core. “Torsion,” he whispered. He felt his own core squeeze in upon itself. His breath pulled away from his lungs. He unwittingly began to pant. The hand replicated the spell upon her. He saw the flesh tighten, and a clean scar formed. He flipped back to a familiar page, a worn and stained one from weeks of use. A spell he knew. “Mend.” He whispered. He wanted to feel joy at the well versed, practiced spell, and somewhere deeper inside he did. But his eyes weren’t beaming. There was no energy left in them.

He clenched his cold fists feeling faint. He steadied himself whilst sitting on his knees. He couldn’t collapse. Not now, not ever. The battlefield pressed in on him. The strewn rotting corpses, now charred mounds looked on. He felt the pressure build around him for a moment. The remorseless dead would not haunt him today. He would show that life can be given on the battlefield. He would prove it. He plucked another arrow from the pulp of her shoulder. He repeated the process. The wound sealed itself. He threw the arrow away. He felt the recoil jolt through him. He shivered growing colder. He tried to breathe, his chest and body feeling heavy.

It didn’t feel like his own limbs were acting. His hands plucked a new arrow, but his mind drifted away. Above the battlefield circulating as a mist all around. Watching from behind the mirror, the curtain, and running meaningless whispers through the wind. Her armour was growing soaked in blood.

He felt himself be wrought back into reality. The urgency now gripped him as did his obligation to the nameless dead. The next one needed to be done quickly. The eyes of the dead looked on approvingly. It looked to have serrated itself into her lungs. He would need to push this arrow through. That’s how far it sat within her. He imagined each constellation and diagram. He felt them form a coherent idea. Then he pressed the arrow and with both hands pushed it through her. He pressed each hand on either side of the wound and repeated the process.

“Coagulation. Torsion. Mend.” he spoke forcefully and briskly, each word triggering a new spell, melting it into the flesh, and while one hung in the air it quickly pulsed to the next. Energy rushed through him thrice. Like a thunderous wave, crashing through him. The world around him began to spin. The vertigo attempted to throw him from his knees. He turned and vomited. The skin on his face turned icy. He knew he was losing any colour his complexion might have ever had. Hopefully, his hair wouldn’t fall out after this he musingly thought to himself.

He swiped the film of oil and sweat from his forehead. Then leaned in wiping her face down with a rag and the remnant drops of his wineskin. She was beautiful. Blue eyes, almost like gemstones… especially here. Fair complexion, and noble features even whilst unawares. Almost like an Emperor’s concubine. Someone whose beauty alone elevates her above the likes of most folk. He pressed his ear to her chest. He shuddered—he could hear her quietly wheezing. There were three more arrows. Stuck in her lungs. Tearing at them, letting blood through. He ripped each of them out. They were shallow enough that it would have done more damage going through. His vision became black. Sounds became dim. Breathing became hard.

He lost the ability to tell time. It passed on indiscriminately until eventually—his vision returned. He was drenched in sweat and blood. He briefly couldn’t tell where he found himself. His mind lost the ability to form coherent thoughts long ago. Clarity. He felt the warmth radiate from his hand. He willed his fingers to move again. After a delay, they gradually complied. They closed around a warmth. He blinked. Her hands encircled his. He turned to her. Inhuman. She was smiling, radiant and supreme joy emanated. He felt for a brief interlude his weariness melt. Mould into her. The warmth of her being: an extended outward gentle heart. He grasped her willingly merging with her vibrant energy. They both took a breath in unison.

She smiled exposing just the tips of her snow-white unspoiled teeth. Sion looked down to their intertwined hands. His hand was covered with her blood. He tried to pull away. Staring at his palm where the blood was already beginning to thicken, turning darker till an almost black. She did not let him go.

“Thank you.” She whispered to him. Giving him a soft, gentle squeeze. "I am so sorry..." Her voice was rough and callous but with a hint of mature beauty. Despite her youthful complexion, she seemed wise beyond her years. He remained frozen on his knees. He simply gazed at her profound beauty. Still covered in several wounds; scratches by comparison. She might still bleed out, he quietly thought to himself. His eyes reluctantly turned back to her face. Her chest seemed to be rising rhythmically, unburdened. Her eyes were fearless and bright. He wondered how his own looked by comparison. His cracked lips parted and an air rippled and thrashed in his throat forming a gruff sound. He looked down embarrassed as she replied to his unsightly voice.

“I don’t know why you chose to save me. But… you should know… I am the one to feel remorse. ” She took a pause taking a breath, coughing repeatedly. Her hand wrapped back around his and squeezed, he squeezed back. “I couldn’t accept it…it was cruel. All of you, just an empty sacrifice. All set to burn… Down to ash... It’s not fair.” Her bottom lip quivered and she paused coughing loudly this time, convulsing as she went. Blood escaped her lungs, splattering on to her hand. She looked at him, centring her gaze and following up with a bleak smile. “Sorry, I...” Her hand brushed past his cheek in a simple caress. He saw a light flicker in her eyes. Then, she fell backwards, her body limp. Face at ease—back on to the corpses. Sion stroked the scar across her temple, stunned.

He fell into a certain madness. A hot fever spring to which no end existed. He would not yield. His hands moved without stopping. He fell into it with no restraint, not for himself, not for the world. He was in action as if a man already dead. One who had already died today. Once his fate was assured he held no reason to hold back anymore. He was already amidst the dead. He would trade whatever lingering vitae he carried for one angel. He would join his comrades and the vast nameless ranks turned loose in the wind. He would save the saviour of anyone who had avoided the carnage and the endless barrage of flame. He would give everything.

Suddenly he looked at her. Each arrow wound was healed. He had drawn the blood from her lungs. The flesh on his left hand had melted together and a vicious coil like burn had spread up his arm. He could tell blood was streaming from his ears and nose. His eyes had been given a red tint—each vessel having burst. His left hand was covered with a thick coat of blood that had spread to the sacred tome. He looked around shaking from the cold. It felt like night time during winter. On the floor there lay an unfamiliar horn. He pressed it to his lips and blew one note. He stood up and saw figures hidden by smoke. Revenants of the dead rushing through the thick haze. The horn fell from his hands. He felt them tingle with a needle-like pain. All sense in his body was slowly seeping away. Beside him, he saw a man skewered with a spear. Was it his horn?

He knew what was happening to him more or less. His body was breaking down from stress. His blood grew acidic as he clung to life. A deep catatonic state brought on by inducing absolute energy starvation. By draining his body completely of energy. Ketones now flooded through him attempting to keep him alive. But even they would not replenish him. He could hear shouting, though he knew the blood in his ears made it difficult to separate out the various noises.

“Commander Sion! Sion! Commander!” It sounded familiar, a youthful, vigorous voice. In certain times it might rouse one to life, that desperate cry for your existence. “But…” Sion thought to himself. “I am too tired, life... too sleepy to bargain with you.” His lips attempted to murmur it, but no air truly escaped past them. He blinked and he could see the sky slowly darken. He heard shuffling around as the remnants of death, black-cloaked figures, swooped in surrounding his body from all angles. Then as he felt his form jerked up the darkness swallowed him whole. Heart and soul. His last thought was of the woman: the angel turned saviour who toppled from the heavens. He only wished to have learnt her name, but he knew fate was fickle, and thus completely abandoned himself to the nether abyss. Assured, and comforted by the lingering emotion her immortalized form brought him.

In the inferno, his life mixed with hers; his flesh melted, and the warmth touched her heart.

Cataclysm.