Michael charged forward, aiming himself like a missile at the scorpion monster that still had Ollie’s blood on the tip of its tail. He dodged a desperate lash of its tail and caught a claw on his shield that immediately began to bubble and burn from the heat of the holy fire that was all across him. He stabbed Rend deep into the creature's stomach, causing it to let out an unholy scream as it flushed the air from its lungs.

  Michael didn’t stop there, launching himself toward the next nearest foe. The enemy was still reeling from the pain he’d sent their way, but were beginning to rally as he healed the men whose pain they were experiencing. He cut his sword through one of the horned men, and then began to carve his way into the thick of them. He was a beacon of golden light as he fought. Horned men dropped by the dozens as the holy fire that danced across his blade and mace washed over them behind each of his strikes. He batted aside their attacks with his shield as if they were nothing, and those he didn’t block either slammed hard against magical barriers or simply shattered midair as if the divine itself protected him. His every strike caused a burst of fiery light to rise into the air, and before long he was trailed by a golden pyre of dead rift creatures.

  He reached Lance, Laird, Blake and a cluster of other soldiers and knights. He shifted his sword into a mace as three chitin armored horned soldiers attacked him at once, the tortured forms of the lizardmen used to power their protective barriers visible as they moved. He caught two swords on his shield, and the third on the flanges of his mace. He roared as he pushed them back with rapid strikes of Ruin and his shield. The first chitin-covered monstrosity's protective barriers and enhanced strength faded quickly, and Michael felt the lizardman on its back expire, leaving it vulnerable. Michael crushed his ribs and swung around to the others.

  Lance took advantage of the distraction Michael had caused and launched himself onto one of their backs, managing to drive his silver hilted-sword deep into its neck, killing it.

  With only one left bearing the weight of Michael’s strikes, it was dead in moments.

  Michael turned his attention to the wounded all around him and raised his mace high in the air. He sealed spear wounds, and cleaver rents. He restored burnt flesh, and even lost limbs. Soon, dozens of men that had fallen or been faltering were back up and fighting for their lives, and the lives of those next to them.

  “Draw close to me!” yelled Michael. “I won’t let you go down before they do.”

  There was a roar in response as the soldiers around them redoubled their efforts.

  Michael saw Laird dragging himself out from under one of the chitinous creatures he seemed to have killed. His eyes were wild behind his visor and he was absolutely filthy with viscera.

  Michael reached out a hand to him, and Laird took it.

  “My wife. They’re attacking the city… I have to reach her.”

  Michael grabbed his shoulder and looked directly into his eyes. “You will. Lataxia will not fall. I won’t have you die before you reach her though. Stay close.”

  A bit more of the usual stoic sense he was used to from the man returned to Laird’s eyes and he nodded, taking a breath as he steadied his sword hand and moved back into the cluster with the others.

  From there Michael began fighting his way back to the rift he’d arrived from only minutes ago. He needed to make sure it stayed open long enough for the Prince and his people to arrive, but no longer. If they arrived with enough of the horned men following them, taking advantage of Michael’s effect on the rift then it would be a disaster.

  He carved and smashed his way through the thinning enemy army and suddenly the enemies he was facing started to fall rapidly from fireballs, lightning, and even portals opening below them and dropping them from great heights onto one another.

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  He reached the angry red rift to see Ollie and the Prince fighting side by side, throwing out spells one after the other, devastating all those who came within range. Soon there were no enemies left between them and Michael’s growing column of men that would not fall was able to reach the rift with no trouble.

  Michael could see hundreds of the lizardfolk all clustered together, many with their arms raised to summon a barrier that borrowed from their combined magicka in order to keep their young and infirm safe. Blake approached one of those clusters ready to strike.

  “Wait! These are allies! They came with me! Look!”

  He pointed to the Prince who twisted his wrist, causing three horned men’s necks to snap at once as they attempted to charge them.

  Lance grasped the situation quickly, and used a spell to project his voice across the battlefield “These lizardmen are allies! You know the strategy! Encircle the mages! Keep them safe so they can focus on slinging spells!”

  The column responded to the orders quickly. Every knight, militiaman, and soldier quickly found a place in the line. The entire time Michael kept healing them all, extending his will as far as he possibly could to make sure that no one he could keep from falling went down.

  “Aza, are your people through?” he asked.

  The Prince squinted in concentration as he added a translation spell on top of everything else he had been doing.

  “Yes. I left a ring of fire around the rift entrance on the other side, but I don’t know how long it will hold.”

  Michael nodded, and added sealing a portal to his focus on healing even as he smashed a spear aside and summoned a barrier to block a globule of acid aimed at his helm. He felt his energy reserves sharply falling, but didn’t falter, or stumble. He could feel the eyes on him. Not only the ones from the men and women fighting next to him, but also those in the distance who could see the golden glow of his fire and healing, who could see that the divine was still on their side, and he refused to let there be any doubt in their minds.

  He sealed the rift behind them, and with the lizardfolk securely protected, they were able to shift fully to offense from defense. They began throwing out volleys of fire, choking black smoke, and devastating hails of small stones out across the enemy forces.

  Michael and his column began to push toward the next nearest of the rifts, aided by fresh mages at their back. The rift monsters fought hard, but the momentum had shifted. Only instantly fatal blows were bringing those with Michael down, and as he moved he connected with other scattered forces, the column with him growing more and more cohesive and powerful as they moved forward.

  At the next rift, Knight-Captain Leon was defending a wounded diviner from a half dozen chitin-armored warriors. He was keeping them at bay with wide powerful swings of his claymore, dancing left to right and scoring wounds on them with nearly every strike of it. Enemy lizards that tried to shoot magic at them he dodged, or even smashed their spells against his blade making them disappear in the air.

  Michael rushed forward to help, a salvo of magic clearing the way for him to reach them. He began healing both of them, finding the Knight Captain should’ve fallen long ago from deep gouges in his side and leg. As he reached them he smashed his mace into one of the armored horned men, cracking through the last of its resistance and killing it. Behind him, Blake had charged, and she immediately rushed to Leon’s side to help him finish off another of them. By the time Michael had cleared another, his allies had finished off the rest.

  The Knight-Captain didn’t stop to acknowledge them, instead pushing straight toward the nearby rift. He carved his way through, and Michael fought his way next to him, helping him to cut down anything that came through the angry tear in front of them. Looks of terror and surprise covered the enemy’s faces as they realized what they had jumped into as these two men wearing armor covered in flame and the blood of their allies bore down on them.

  Michael sealed the rift, feeling himself nearly stumble as he added the exertion onto everything else he’d already done, but he cut down a fleeing spearman anyway. There were no rifts left from what Michael could feel. He and the knight commander rejoined the rest of the column, which had swelled and regained cohesiveness as knights rejoined knights, soldiers, rejoined soldiers, and militia rejoined militia. The chaos they’d been embroiled in returned to discipline and focus along with new allies.

  The remaining rift monsters abandoned their position to charge toward Lataxia. Michael could see that somehow, someway, the city had managed to hold on. He began to run, Laird right behind him, and the other remaining soldiers doing their best to keep up as they all charged toward the city, hoping to crush the enemy before they could break through and find a foothold.