The Rising - Ennead 1

Act 7

Galahad

The silence has never felt as heavy as it does right now. My makeshift crew of uninitiated tough guys does their best to get the survivors huddled together at the center of the courtyard. There a worse places to be caught out in a siege, but this isn't the best place either.

"Are you sure this is a good idea, gathering them all up like that?"

May is more concerned than skeptical. I ignore her question until she asks it again.

"The Number Four is out cold. I don't know if this is the best strategy, but it's better than nothing."

After a pause I add, "If anything goes wrong, I'll take the blame."

"Can you do it?"

I'm momentarily confused. "Do what?"

"Oh, so you can't pick impressions off my mind. I was wide open."

I turn towards her and sigh. "It doesn't work all the time, I barely understand it myself."

She walks up to me, closer than she's ever been since finding out I'm a brujo (which is still several paces away). Her arms are crossed, defensive, and her voice is tinted with tension.

"Why are you still here then?"

"Excuse me?"

"I've been thinking over it. Some parts of this whole thing don't make sense. You don't make sense. Your power... without vows, you and the other one could have just left us - all of us - to die."

I lock my eyes onto hers - "It's not your vows that made you stay. Being Magi didn't make me heartless."

She shrugs and turns to walk away - "That's not what I've heard."

"Wait!" I call out, before she gets too far, "You have to stay here with me?"

"Why?"

"My weapon has reach, but I need to see it in order to gank any threats to the crowd. You'll have to guard my back."

"And if I decide to gut you instead?"

"It takes a lot to kill me."

She clears her throat, a cover-up for her mumbling 'Don't be so sure'.

I'm caught thinking of a comeback when the building wing to my left crumbles into rubble and stone dust.

BA-ORGHHHHH!!

A mournful horn wails, splitting the silence and setting off a fresh round of screams from the survivors. A dark horde pours out of the rapidly settling dust.

The horde has a ton of different darklings, all the types we've seen tonight and more - dark mutts, pictsie, ro-langs, gargouille and some gaint troll creatures I've never seen before.

The waves of snickering pictsie - some on dark mutt mounts - are endless, but even more terrifying is the number of ro-langs. The ro-langs sway and shamble whilst moaning a chilling, wordless dirge.

The fucking dirge gets to me. Magus sight begins to bleed away almost immediately.

Something the societies don't know about Magi - fear kills our mojo. Spider and Mordred claim that their "learnt" basic psychic skills aren't affected. Psychic meditation helps keep the fear away.

I'm not the meditating sort.

May is talking to herself - the stress must be turning her hysterical.