[2] WEEPING MONK║you're not what I was looking for

70| The End (Part One) - II

[CW// Blood. Violence. Gore(ish). Strong Language. Major/Minor Character Death. Major wounds/injuries]

The war is here.

Lancelot pressed his hands firmer into the ground whilst a cacophony of howls and screams split the metallic air around him. The wall of fire had served its purpose but now its size crossed the line into treacherous. He wasn't the only one on his knees with his sword by his side. Four other Fey— three of them Ash— with affinities for water crouched by him, and all called to the slow moving river in the depth of the forest where the Paladins had made their camp.

As he strained to pull the water from the river, one of his eyes remained on Hector. His brother fought amongst a circle of others who were guarding them here where they were vulnerable on the ground. Lancelot had kept his bloodied sword within reach, ready to grab if their guard broke, but they were holding strong, fending off red cloaks that were getting too close.

He'd seen the Trinity Guard in the distance before the battle had begun, but they'd been nowhere in sight since. They hadn't crossed the field nor the fire. If they'd stayed back, then the wave of what Lancelot could feel now rushed towards the battle would certainly flush them out.

Energy drained from him with each second that he called out through the earth. Those at his sides were weakened too. But the river water flowed, it ran to them like the first rains of the driest summer, and the wall of flames hissed in a sound Lancelot had never heard so loud— as if a bucket had poured from the sky and doused the embers.

Black smoke rose instead of grey and black cloaks pierced through the dying veil like spat out embers fighting for life, soaked to the knees and gold masks glinting. Lancelot took one last fortifying breath, flexed the muscles of his hands to relieve their aches, and drove up onto his feet with his sword ready for attack.

The scar above his hip pulled as Lancelot landed his first strike to the waist of a red cloak, splitting the man's soft flesh a foot deep and twisting his sword out with an arc of blood spurting in the air.

He was onto his next before the first had hit the ground. Cutting his way through the chaos and advancing towards one face only. One face of a man that Lancelot should have cleaved from their body long ago.

The horizon rumbled beneath the slate grey sky as if the gods themselves were displeased with this war.

Lancelot slashed a thigh of a red cloak who fell, screaming, right into his blade that swept for his throat. Cartilage cracked, split, and blood spurted like a fountain. He had only two seconds to glimpse glinting spearheads and swords and black horses barrelling from around the flooded forest.

Riders dressed in blue.

Other faces made the mistake to turn. Struck unawares by a blade, they fell and bled out into the dirt like animals— Fey and red cloaks alike. He tried not to look at the set of dirt painted wings being stomped underfoot, or the scaled skin laying lifeless on the ground.