Authors note: a piece written for my current D&D 5E campaign’s lore Wiki (maintained using LegendKeeper), relating the events of the battle from the point of view of Jazara, the newly-minted avatar of Sarak, the god of Death and Hunting.

For another viewpoint on the same events, see The Black Plain.

“Dear gods. Raisa, what is that thing?”

It stood at the head of a tide of Lifestealers, like and yet not, an otherworldly weapon in three of its hands, and a spiked, cruel shield in the fourth that seemed to reflect a great deal of the magical energy thrown at it back at its casters. Jazara watched as a tall paladin of Heslor, wielding a sword of flame, leaped forward through the press and hacked at it, once, twice, thrice, his blade leaving cuts on its body that ran with purple ichor, that surely would have killed an ordinary one (if such a thing there were) of its kind twice over. It staggered for a moment, then lifted its head, almost as if drawing strength from the horde around and behind it, and those wounds closed, in scant seconds as if they’d never been.

The whip in one of its limbs curled out and lashed around the paladin’s leg, flickering with a sickly green glow, and the creature tossed its head back in a mockery of laughter, dragged the struggling warrior into the midst of the tide of ivory and midnight that surrounded it, where he vanished from sight.

Raisa Harrak – Flame, the Hand of Helsor, the Fire Witch – wiped a hand across her damp brow as they stood with a handful of others on a raised knoll just back from the fighting. “I know not, but it seems to thrive on the Lifestealers around it. The more, the better. And the worse for us.” Her expression grew distant for a moment, a sign Jazara had come to know meant a mental conversation with one of more of her fellow avatars.

Conserving what little magic she had left, and hating that she had to, her gaze was caught by Valdara, paladin of Lyra, white cloak over brief mail, hair like spun copper falling about her shoulders, in her hands the newly forged blade, Midnight’s Bane, that flickered and danced like wildfire, angry red runes aglow on its dark blade. She led a doomed charge against a knot of Lifestealers, creatures falling to almost every blow. Behind and to one side of her, a man in the robes of a priest of Kerila, tall, fair-haired and startlingly handsome, wielded a staff. As she watched, Valdara brought the sword up to parry a claw, and it flew away, knocked from her hand by the force of the blow, spinning end over end through the air and landing amid a group of men in the Lady’s colours, where it was lost from sight.

Jazara winced as Valdara fell, clutching at the long wound another claw opened in her stomach: the priest dropped to his knees beside her, as warriors rushed to plug the hole in their line, faces set and grim.

“Jaz?”

Raisa almost never called her that. Jazara brushed a hand angrily across her cheek, turned. “We’re lost. We can’t win this.”

The Tabalin mage took a long, slow breath, slim fingers toying with the enchanted fire opal hanging from a pendant between her breasts. “We can, beloved. Get me and as many as you can to yonder hilltop.” Raisa gestured to a higher hill, a couple of hundred yards away and right in the middle of the fight, where a knot of figures stood in defiance of the tide of clawed abominations. “And then we must hold it for fifty heartbeats.”

Jazara took mental inventory of the magic left to her, made a face. “That would be all I can do. Maybe one more of any consequence after that.” Even avatars, especially as new to the role as she was, had their limits.

Raisa sounded oddly calm. “It will suffice.”

“Raisa?”

The Hand of Heslor pushed lank strands of fire-red hair out of her eyes. “It will have to.”

Jazara swallowed, mouth dry, nodded. She glanced around the small group with them on the knoll, caught her half-sister’s eye amongst them, did a quick head count. Eight. Perfect. “Kasra, with me. And your company.” She took a deep breath and began the words of the spell that would take all of them to the hilltop.

There was an audible grumble from one of Kasra’s companions as they arrived, and were swiftly joined by others via various magics. Jazara took stock: a couple of dozen tired, sweaty, bloodied but unbowed mortals, and the avatars: herself; Mika and Annan, greying and blond, hand in hand; Kazar, her half-brother, expression as grim as she’d ever seen it; Ceros, bearing a scimitar dripping purple ichor; Evin, white tunic covered in the red blood of what she was sure were people he’d tried to save; Nagarr, dusky-skinned face surprisingly unreadable; Sukara, who somehow still managed her impish grin, a flail trailing from one hand, absently worrying on a pair of dice, she was sure, in the other.

No Aerlinn, and she found herself, in an oddly detached manner, missing the tall, cool, wise Hand of Tal in her familiar blue gown.

And there was Raisa.

The latter turned, closed the distance between them, reached up to hook arms round her neck and kissed her softly. “We shall meet again in the Halls of Shadow, beloved.”

“Raisa. No… I…”

Raisa forced a smile that tried to reassure, as tears tracked down the dust and grime on her cheeks. ‘There is no other way. You have the right of it. We cannot win this otherwise. And we have no time.” She let her arms slip free, set a fingertip to Jazara’s breastbone, poked in what was a familiar, teasing gesture between them. “Fifty heartbeats to save the world. Promise me.”

Jazara swallowed. Nodded in the face of Raisa’s gods-driven, unshakable resolve. Drew her sword, and grimly, half-blinded by tears, turned to stand with Kasra.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw the other seven avatars surround Raisa… Flame… in a loose circle, and begin to chant the words of magic she instinctively knew was still as far beyond her as the spell she’d just cast was beyond a child of five. There was a harsh yell from the forces surrounding the hilltop, as a tall figure in black robes shouldered to the front of warriors of the Lady and Lifestealers in almost equal number.

Belazar.

She and Kasra moved almost as one to face him down, and he laughed, a cold, mocking sound. “It is over, sisters. Look around you. Join us while you still can.”

Jazara levelled her slim blade, Mercy, the one that was a gift from, was forged and enchanted by, Raisa, flames shimmering at its tip. “I’ll greet you in the Halls first.” Her heart hammered, hard, in her chest, and she counted the beats. Thirty to go. I don’t remember him enjoying gloating this much before… Her…

He snorted. “The only thing that will save you now is the Gods.” An arm swept to indicate the circle atop the hill. “And they won’t, precisely because fools like you and my twin exist to stand in their stead.”

Twenty.

One of Kasra’s warriors loosed an arrow, hissing with magic, and Belazar lazily swatted it out of the air with a gesture and a contemptuous snort. She licked dry lips. Keep stalling. “Join you? Why in the name of all the Ten would we want to do that?”

Fifteen.

Belazar’s eyes narrowed as realisation dawned. “You’re playing me…” His shape began to shift, twist, into that of a black dragon, the form he preferred.

Ten.

The other avatars’ incantation reached a peak, in which she began to recognise fragments from other magics. And then a familiar tugging at her being, and she was…

…elsewhere.

To be precise, somewhere in what she recognised as the Vale of Anmir, hundreds of miles away. Surrounded by men, elves, dwarves, all of them bloodied, weary and as startled as she was. With the speed of thought she drew magical potential to herself, desperately changed it into actuality. One last spell, just enough power left within her to scry Raisa, but not to reach her.

Her beloved stood, alone and encircled by Lifestealers, on the hill they had just been transported from.

One hand clutched, tugged at the fire opal around her neck, and it came away in her hand. Raisa hurled it, and it flew, on an impossible, magic-aided trajectory that carried it clear over all the hordes around her, leaving a fiery trail as it arced into the grim, cloudy sky towards the High Temple to Heslor on the upper levels of Alcar, forty miles away.

And then she spread her arms, and the clouds parted. She spoke a single, terrible Word, like and scarce lesser than, one of those of Mikanann at the Making of the World.

And for a moment, Raisa, Flame, the Fire Witch, was the Sun, and burning yellow-white flame spread outward from her incandescent form, consuming Lifestealers in its path as the plains of Arash melted and flowed to black glass…

All was darkness, and silence. Jazara fell to her knees and wept.