“Really?” Rasmeth asked.
“Praise be to Tiernon!” the commander said.
“I am sure we won’t be able to do it too many times, but right now, while we have the reserves, we can try to make them a bit nervous, to reconsider,” Teragdor said.
Teragdor felt Beragamos’s presence again. I am back. May I borrow your body once more? Everything I am going to do is in your apostolic books and within your power to do, but I am going to be doing three or four things at once, and I fear you have not had enough training to put them all together, Beragamos explained.
Certainly, Teragdor replied.
He felt Beragamos re-enter his mind, his being. Teragdor found himself setting his great shield down. He then removed his gauntlets, laying them down gently. His body moved to an open space on the wall. As he did so, his mouth began to speak in a chant, however it was in no language that Teragdor knew.
Within moments, Teragdor was shocked to find himself rising into the air, his hands held wide at his sides, parallel to his shoulders. Could he be a more obvious target? His body rose to about twenty feet above the top of the wall. His eyes moved to stare at the lich on the ice dragon. Teragdor was at the same height as the lich, and they had a line of sight for direct eye contact.
At this point, all of the Unlife forces outside the moat in their vicinity were firing at him, yet their arrows went wide. Teragdor once more found himself chanting, but this time it was a new chant — a very loud chant, again in a language he did not know.
He felt his eyes boring into the lich’s red-ember eyes. The lich was clearly paying attention, curious as to what Teragdor was doing. Suddenly and without warning, Teragdor’s sight was blinded by an intense flash of light as he felt himself, or rather Beragamos, flowing from his eyes to the lich’s eyes.
Teragdor heard a horrendous screeching noise that he suddenly realized was the lich screaming in pain. As the scream became louder and louder, Teragdor’s sight returned. The lich and his dragon were bathed in a very bright, heavenly light that crackled and danced around them in small bolts.
And then it was gone, the air still, no more screaming lich. Just a cloud of dust floating to the distant ground below. The lich and its dragon were simply gone. The Unlife’s aerial forces had all turned to stare at the lich, who was now no more.
Teragdor found himself floating back down to the battlement, his feet touching down lightly. Beragamos chuckled in his mind. Perhaps that will give them pause. And then the archon was gone and Teragdor slowly lowered himself to his knees, feeling extremely worn out.
“What is that priest doing?” Ramses asked, staring off towards the Citadel. “Is he purposefully trying to make a target of himself?”
Exador turned to look where Ramses was staring. He blinked and shook his head, focusing his demon sight on the priest rising above the wall. “That’s not a priest!” he exclaimed in surprise.
“What is it, if it is not a priest?” Baba Smert' asked in her typical acidic hiss.
“It’s an Apostle of Tiernon… and… if I am not mistaken, there is also an Apostle of Torean up on the wall,” Exador replied, puzzled. “The armor style is also that of the Church of Tiernon in Astlan, not that of Nysegard. This is very strange.”
“Is an Apostle of the Five Siblings similar to the Dark Apostle?” Baba Smert' hissed.
“Not typically that powerful. It is a rank that is higher than a High Pontificate, but a bit lower than a prophet. Technically, prophets are often saints who were apostles when mortal,” Exador said, squinting, “I would argue that the Dark Apostle was most similar to a prophet; however, their methods of ascension to power are quite different.”
“Your time leading the Rod has certainly paid dividends,” Ramses noted.
“There were a—” Exador was cut off, startled as what appeared to Exador to be twin golden yellow laser beams flashed from the apostle’s eyes to those of the monitoring lich.
“That is odd; how can we see beams of light without clouds or smoke to diffract the light?” Ramses asked.
“It’s Heavenly Fire, not exactly a laser beam,” Exador said.
Suddenly the lich and its dragon lit up brightly with coruscating Heavenly Fire.
Exador made a smacking noise with his mouth. “Would not want to be that lich or its dragon.” The light brightened; if he extended his hearing he could hear the lich’s screams of agony.
“That scream,” Baba Smert' hissed. “His phylactery is under attack! Yet it is thousands of leagues away!”
The Heavenly Fire from the apostle’s eyes vanished and within but a few moments, so did the glowing lich and ice dragon. Only a cloud of smoke and perhaps steam remained. Exador shook his head in amazement at the sight.
“How did they do that?” Baba Smert' hissed angrily. “You swore they would be cut off! You have failed to block their off-world access!”
Exador shook his head, puzzled. The old bag of moldy bones was seriously angry. “No. The wards are up, the beacons are working. I have no access to the Abyss, nor can I plane shift. Try for yourself if you do not believe me.”
Baba Smert' muttered to herself for several moments and then said, “Fine, your magic seems to be working. How did they do that?” she hissed angrily.
“Well, they somehow managed to import a couple apostles from Astlan into their fortress before the wards went up. Perhaps they also snuck in a few saints, who are now powering the apostle,” Exador said, shrugging.
“And what are we to do about that?” Baba Smert' asked angrily.
“Any avatars would be similarly cut off from the heavens. They would only have so much mana easily available to them. Yes, they are formidable, but their resources will most likely be applied to priests in the Citadel so that they can heal their people, keep the Holy Water fresh, et cetera,” Exador replied.
“You seem to know a lot about these priests. Your recommendation?” Baba Smert' asked.
Exador shrugged again. “This is a siege. It may be a longer siege than we expected, but it is a siege. We deal with any avatars the same way we deal with any resources in a besieged fortress. We wear them down, slowly, battle after battle. If we hit them hard enough, for long enough, their resources will run dry.”
“I believe Praelgeis said there are over a quarter million mortals within the Citadel. What if they have worship services to recharge the avatars?” Ramses asked.
Exador inhaled deeply, thinking. “There is only so much mana they can store, and they can only process mana so fast. We have to hit them hard enough, long enough to force them to use more mana than they can process and so deplete their reserves.”
Exador looked to Baba Smert'. “It may be a bit more difficult than we expected, but nothing has really changed. You have your largest army ever, and they have the least divine assistance that they have ever had. Victory is still ours.”
“It had better be,” Baba Smert' somehow snarled and hissed at the same time. Exador simply gave her a tight-lipped smile. He truly did not like this revolting sack of rotten meat. He was beginning to see why Bess had refused to even deal with the Storm Lords.
I thought you were going to pray? Ruiden asked Talarius.
I was, but I can’t seem to get my mind still enough to concentrate on a prayer, so I’m trying to meditate, Talarius replied.
We have heard a lot of disconcerting information this morning, Ruiden agreed.
Do you believe any of it? Talarius asked.