Michael didn’t have time to hesitate when he saw the rift close. He pivoted to charge at the horned men’s reinforcements that were coming toward him and the Prince. He smashed his mace into the knees of one and then the other to incapacitate them as he located the next closest rift. Someone on the other side must’ve closed the first one. It was an effort he would’ve praised had he been on the other side of it, but in that moment he wanted to throttle whoever had done it.

  He fought his way to the other rift, trying to draw as much attention to himself as he possibly could. The Prince signaled the lizardmen to shift their efforts to the next closest rift as well. They were slower to react than Michael would’ve liked, but it wasn’t as if they were soldiers. Most of them were just servants a few weeks ago, and while they threw their fireballs at their enslavers with enthusiasm, it didn’t make up for their lack of discipline.

  Michael moved to cut off a horned man that charged at one of the lizardmen and was forced to tank a cleaver blow that cut deep into his shoulder. He smashed the flat of his shield into that horned man’s throat, healing himself and several of the nearby lizardfolk that had been wounded.

  The horned men had rallied well, and the next rift was going to be much more difficult to reach. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to push through while keeping the majority of the others alive.

  The Prince began pushing forward. His magicka surged with so much power that Michael could feel his own channels reacting to it. The Prince created barrier platforms on the ground beneath groups of horned men and launched them into the air, sending them flying off as they screamed. He yelled in his native tongue as he sliced through bone and sinew with a gesture, until the path to the rift was mostly clear.

  The other lizardfolk rallied with the Prince. They began pushing harder, combining their spells and throwing balls of fire and bolts of lightning as quickly as they could manage. The plan had been to preserve most of their energy for protecting themselves and the others once they were through, but if they didn’t make it through at all, that wouldn’t matter.

  With the renewed push, Michael launched himself into the center of everything. With every strike of his mace, another horned man was felled even as their reinforcements surged toward them. Between him and his allies, it looked as if they’d be able to make it.

  …

  Ollie was thrown from his horse as one of the chitin-armored soldiers slammed into them. He managed to fly off the saddle just in time to keep himself from having his leg shattered, but his momentum caused him to run directly into a horned man. He barely managed to keep himself from being impaled as he threw himself backwards, raising a hand and throwing a cutting spell that eviscerated the horned man. He stumbled backward, trying to take stock of the battlefield.

  The well-organized lines that they had started in had collapsed into chaos as the fighting had gone on. Dead on both sides crowded the battlefield, but Ollie saw far more humans dead or dying on the ground than he saw rift monsters. He raised a hand and sent out a torrent of flame at a small group of lizardfolk that were beginning to channel something, then smashed his staff into the face of a horned man that was distracted trying to kill a soldier to his right.

  He was close to the second rift they’d targeted, but not close enough for him to reach it with his will. Some of the other knight and diviner groups seemed to have succeeded in closing their rifts, but he had no idea of how many or even exactly where they were. He hoped that Lataxia was still holding.

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  A spear smashed against a barrier he’d summoned and he went to throw a fireball in response when he saw Laird already running through the horned man that had thrown it. His armor was covered in blood and a cleaver was embedded in the back of it. He was yelling with fury as he carved his way through. Lance and Blake had somehow managed to stay mounted and had grouped together with a small core of other knights to fight one of the scorpion beasts. Lance had already managed to take one out himself, but he was still swinging, fighting like a man possessed even as soldiers dropped around him.

  They were all fighting hard, from the knights down to the militia, but they were losing. The regular horned men were strong, and with the support of so many lizardfolk mages, and the elite chitinous monstrosities that took a heavily titled knight to even harm, it was not going well.

  Ollie dodged another spear by throwing himself into the air, sending a fireball into a small crowd of rift monsters as he did so. He could feel his magicka bottoming out and he dropped a bit from the sky, getting lucky as it caused a small bolt of lightning to fly harmlessly above him. He pushed his way forward, throwing a fireball to clear his path as he landed right next to the rift. He raised both of his hands and blasted flame outward in a circle, clearing a path for himself.

  He reached his will out toward the rift and began to grasp it. He threw more spells around himself as he did so, working on autopilot as he tossed fireballs and lightning, trying desperately to at least seal one more rift. He managed to make it start to seal a bit more, when he felt an impact on his back. There was no pain for a moment, just shock and surprise. Then he looked around to see the tip of a scorpion tail protruding from him, and the searing pain began. He was thrown toward the rift, his body skipping like a stone then rolling toward it. He got a look at the monster in front of him, with its four arms and elongated body. Its almost human face and its tail dripping with his blood. He began to gather his magic as it moved toward him, but hesitated as he felt something through his connection to the rift. Something else was coming through. Something big. He turned toward it, deciding to aim his last bit of magic in that direction.

  There was a flash as something came through, and Ollie dropped his magic and started laughing. Blood started to pour from his mouth as he cackled madly. Nykas’s laughter joining his within his soul.

  A warrior with a golden mace stepped through the rift, and the moment he did, all the enemies that had been closing in on Ollie stepped back. Screaming with surprise and fear as Aur-ma, the Wrath of Gold, appeared before them.

  …

  Michael stepped from one battlefield into another, and the moment his feet touched the ground in his adoptive world he felt a surge of strength unlike any he’d experienced before. He could see a half dozen glowing phrases written in light slam into him from the air, and the voices and touch of the gods all returned to him in a surge all at once. At first it seemed like they were yelling, but in fact they were singing, their voices like a choir in his ears.

  He saw Ollie in front of him, laughing with his own voice and Nykas’s, blood pouring from his mouth as he did so.

  Michael raised a hand and healed him, summoning a barrier between himself and the surrounding enemies as he helped his friend to his feet.

  “I knew you were alive,” he said, wiping blood from his mouth.

  “Of course. I’ve still got work to do.”

  Ollie laughed as the surrounding enemies began to rally and move toward them, a spear bouncing off Michael’s barrier.

  “There are going to be a lot of lizardfolk coming through behind me. They’re friends, not enemies. Don’t close the barrier until they say so, and please don’t hurt them.”

  “Of course you made friends over there.”

  Michael rolled the mace in his hand as he stepped toward the scorpion monster, shifting it into a sword and sending a fresh burst of holy flame across its edge as well as his shield and all across his armor. He felt a fire burning in his chest as the choir of the gods in his ears reached a crescendo. He could sense the hurt and dying all around him, their cries and their pain all settling in a thick miasma of misery. He gathered all of it together, even as he started healing all his powers could reach, and stepped forward sending a wave of pain toward all of the rift monsters arrayed against him. They screamed.