KEEL THE DEMONSLAYER

13 - The Battle of the Three Peaked Mountain

When we fell like flies, crushed by superior forces...

That bold assault was also desperate. Almost all of the winged troops of the allied armies fought together. Our numbers amounted to little more than a thousand air units. And some mounts could carry two or three fighters from elves, dwarves, humans, catmen and lizardmen.

Raastad was now riding a young dragon named Helstarost, the younger brother of Aztazûr. He was training it for little more than a decade. There were also fighters flying without mounts. They used magic or even arcane artifacts, like some weird rugs, brooms, and shields and stretched skins on wooden frames. The number of dragons was less than fifteen, one of them, larger than the late Hel. It had quite frightening dimensions. The rider, a mysterious stranger, dressed in black had his face covered. On the huge dragon's back also rode two dozen dwarves. I was curious about that black-suited warrior, but I never had the chance to know what or who he was. But surely, he was of great help.

Some said, but I disagree, that he and his dragon (or the dragon itself?) were a manifestation of the Gods, interfering directly in this battle. Who knows? For me, Gods would not get their hands dirty with blood. That's why they created the races, I suppose.

Gods aside, the flight from Lake Kiv until the Three Peaks was facilitated by a strong current of wind in our favor. Forthálikand and a dozen of his disciples of the Ilksuut temple, among them Scarlett, summoned help from air elemental forces.

I wouldn't care about what others might say. Shasticara and I traveled together on Aztazûr's back. We're fire and ice united. She held me tightly as we flew in strong winds. The trip was short and even with the imminent danger we didn't give in to anxiety. We were ready for another important battle.

Below, images of plains punished by wars and fires replaced what was once a beautiful place. Over the horizon, the Three Peaks emerged looking like a fork ready to pierce the sky. The whole area was covered with soot and smelled of burning. A valley of ashes, plagues and torment. As we approached, we could see clouds of winged demons surrounding the peaks.

Still far away from the peaks, the confrontation began. We were engulfed by the winged hordes, making the day become dark. It was useless to catch every possible fight so our strategy was to pierce the enemy's formation. We had a formation in the shape of a cylinder with a large drill on its tip. Some warriors revolved around the central axis to ward off demons from the core group. Up front, our main projectile launchers managed to open our way with some success. Every moment one of our men went down or was taken away from the formation. At the formation's core, the troops less prepared for combat flew protected.

The group of air elementalists, led by Forthálik, left the formation as planned. They summoned a strong typhoon around them. The typhoon offered protection from the rear, avoiding the demons that came after us. I could see only glimpses of this or that, because Shasticara and I were too busy shooting bursts of fire and ice, without ceasing, to protect the formation. Aztazûr made our work easier as I didn't have to worry about directions. Our primary focus was to destroy or drive away the demons.

As expected, the formation's tip broke and we ran the risk of our advance stopping. A new group led by the great dragon took the position. Until now, they preserved their strength traveling in the formation core. We flew to the frontline joining the other dragons. Now it was our turn to continue drilling the enemy formation.

Despite our efforts to keep the formation steady, we continued to lose units. That's when the view cleared and we could see glimpses of the peaks coming closer. We finally left the enemy's cloud. No more than one fifth managed to get through effectively. Kriegor Steffundil went forward and led the dive. We lost a lot of altitude and accelerated heavily gaining some distance from the cloud, where some fighting still occurred.