None of us were close enough to move or do anything but of all of those who had come with us, we hadn’t been counting on Mazoga’s sudden appearance. She threw herself over the girl before the Auroran could crush her, even discarding her mace and shield in the process. Using her own body as a shield she slapped the bloodied floor, dropping onto her hands and knees just as the golden boot came down with titanic force.
Mazoga grunted from the impact that left her back plate dented and deformed. There was no doubt that anyone else would have been left with a broken spine and shattered chest and while it had still left her coughing blood she held herself aloft over the screaming child and continued shielding her with her own body.
The Auroran was stopped in place, its glowing eyes widening in surprise at the orcish knight’s actions that for a moment it was stilled. Her actions were so unconceivable that it and the rest of us were given pause before dragging whatever weapons were in reach but its hesitation didn’t last long. Again the pillar of a leg lifted into the air as Mazoga appeared to simply brace herself for the expected impact, but before it could steady itself it was stuck in the face.
A collection plate of all things sailed through the air and it would have loosened teeth if it had any within its blank maw. It stuck with full force, rocking its head back and leaving it shaking its head and rolling its jaw even while swiping a candlestick out of the air as it too was turned into a projectile.
With an arm honed from literal decades of hurling pilum, Carodus had risen from where it had thrown him and cast his destroyed shield aside. His gladius was still jutting from the thing’s hip in a wound weeping silverly streaks that swirled up the length of the blade but he had taken to throwing everything that he could get his hands on. Some of the items would have given the priests heart palpitations if they were in any state of mind to take notice.
An immaculately crafted shrine to Akatosh was thrown, the five-kilogram weight being knocked out of the air by the daedra as it staggered back from Mazoga and the young girl, hissing in rage at the impudence of the man throwing things at it. It had the desired effect though, and for the moment at least its murderous attempts to kill the child and her Orcish protector was forgotten.
“Yeah! That’s right you spavined streak of horseshit!” Carodus roared, putting his full experience in bellowing and inventive insults that seemed to be a requirement for all Centurions. With one hand he gestured to the larger monstrosity and with the other he grabbed and threw a donation box that exploded into a shower of silver and copper pieces as it was knocked out of the air. “Over here you plague-infested whore-son!”
Whether the words had an effect or it was momentarily distracted or annoyed at the constant barrage of thrown objects including a tiny reliquary containing the finger bones of an ancient saint I would never know, but its full attention turned to him nonetheless. It roared, once again its jaw unhinging and opening as wide as a snake’s and allowing the sound of light itself to bellow forth like a punch. They were mostly emotionless beings but there was no doubt that this particular daedra had been enraged and judging by Carodus’ expression he realised the issue of attracting its wrath whilst entirely unarmed.
It never had the chance to move as another projectile struck it in the spine and folded it over with a crash that we all felt in our guts. This projectile was no thrown object but instead two hundred and fifty kilograms of ebony plated Redguard launching himself into a flying tackle. The Auroran was bigger, taller and stronger than all of us but Falid still hit with all the force of a thrown trebuchet stone and there was not much in this world or the ones beyond that could withstand such an impact.
The Auroran still fought despite the fact that its back, spine and most of its chest had been crumpled in by the impact and within seconds it was using its larger size and strength to wrestle the Black Knight. Hands of segmented ebony wrapped and twisted around the golden metal-flesh of the Auroran and briefly it appeared that Falid held the advantage. We were all clustering around attempting to come to his aid and lend our scavenged weapons to slay the daedra but we struggled to get near, let alone render aid.
Both of the creature’s hands fastened themselves around his enormous winged helm, now lacking one of the signature horns after it had been snapped away and we could do little to assist him as it began to squeeze. So great was its strength that we could actually hear the metal creaking in protest as it tried to crush his skull with a strength rivalling a minotaur. As we began hacking and stabbing at whatever parts we could reach Falid continued his grasping and punching until its face was leaking mercury and his arms were coated to the elbows in its silvery blood.
Finally, and under a flurry of attacks it died but its end came quicker than expected when Thedret retrieved his Glaive and hacked down hard on its throat. The thick, spurting stump of its neck began erupting with silver blood that was quickly evaporating into the air but as soon as its head was cut from its shoulders it ceased its attempts to crush Falid’s helmet and skull. It was a victory of sorts but there were still others to contend with.
The other three remaining auroans and the last of the Atronachs were still creating havoc but a second was starting to succumb to the number of foes battling it. Pierced by a dozen spears and having been impaled by a handful of thrown javelins and a pilum or two it was swiping and swinging its weapon feebly around itself against the dozen guards and knights fighting it. The Atronachs were being banished in greater numbers as they found themselves faced with a foe confident and knowing just how fragile they were but the other two Aurorans were a different matter.
While the rest of us were tied down battling their siblings and the lesser daedra these two in particular had focussed their attentions on the crowds at the cathedral doors and more importantly Viconia and her escort. They knew exactly where the mace was and they were focusing their efforts in claiming it for their dread master. Everyone who came close to them died and they were elemental forces bent on destruction and killing and there was no ceasing their attacks. Men, women, children, civilians, priests and warriors died and they killed indiscriminately in naked savagery made so much more terrible by the comparative lack of emotion fuelling it. A swing of an enormous butterfly shaped battle-axe cleaved through a small group of civilians including a family and the other Auroran gripped Kantav; the priest who had first greeted us by the shoulder and hip and tore him in half. Even Viconia’s magic was only enough to slow them down as she couldn’t dare to drop the mace from where she was carrying it to call upon her full power.
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Besides the surviving Men-at-arms a handful of others were still fighting but it wouldn’t be enough to hold the towering monsters off long enough for us to assist. A man dressed in expensive clothes marked with the obvious heraldry of a nobleman fought alongside his small collection of servants and Viconia’s escort and while their weapons were streaked in silver there was little they could truly accomplish. The axe swung through their air in a crescent of drizzling blood from the dozens of lives it had claimed and added his to the tally, hacking deep into his shoulder and burying both curved heads deep in his torso.
He had no time to scream before he died as the battleaxe lodged deep in him and easily cutting through all of his organs and heart. Despite the way his eyes were open and the brief gout of blood erupted from between his lips he was already dead, his mind just didn’t have the time to accept the fact before the Auroran kicked him off its weapon.
The ruined corpse of the travelling nobleman bowled down his small collection of servants and was thrown with enough force that it also knocked down three of the Men-at-arms and Viconia. His blood misted the air for a dozen metres in all directions and the cloud of the coppery liquid thickened as the second Auroran added its sword to the slaughter. Servants and soldiers alike died as the daedra pressed their advantage but in the midst of it all the Mace had been dropped.
Viconia had been knocked down by the ruptured corpse of the noble and the relic had bounced across the floor. In its brief journey across the blood soaked tiles my cloak had fallen away, leaving it entirely revealed for all to see and its effects were immediate.
Even though most of the light within the cathedral was being produced by the cavorting Atronachs and streaming through the stained glass windows, it somehow became filtered and purified by the mere presence of Pelinal’s Mace. The cathedral interior became brighter and yet less painful on the eyes in comparison to that of the light Atronachs but this meant that every single one of the daedra were drawn towards it like moths to a lantern.
Viconia was rolling the noble’s body off her from where she had been knocked down, and some of the Men-at-arms were also struggling to rise as well. The rest of his servants were cut down where they stood, along with a pair of local guards trying desperately to fend the Auroran’s off with their halberds. In the space of three seconds there was almost no one between the daedra and the Mace of the Crusader.
Everyone and everything was converging on the Mace, those of us who had been fighting the daedra trying our best to reach it before every surviving creature reached it. There was little we could truly accomplish though, as the two Aurorans were much closer and only had a single person between them and claiming the Relic for Umaril.
Alone, and picking himself up from the bodies of his fellows a young man barely into his twenties was kneeling less than a metre from the immaculate weapon sitting untouched in a pool of blood. While he was covered almost head to toe in the blood of his lord and fellows he was unwounded if not for the light gash running down his chest from a daedric blade. Somehow he had been lucky enough to be missed from the swings that had ended his friends and master’s lives but was now the only mortal closer to the mace than the daedra.
From the dozen metres away as I sprinted as hard as I could at the mace I could see the shock on his face change to a grim acceptance of his fate and an unwillingness to back down despite it. The thin bladed craftsman’s dagger was dropped to the ground as the Aurorans loomed over him with grasping talons of gold and without any hesitation he grasped the Mace with a single hand.
The Aurorans were expecting resistance, possibly even expecting for someone to use the Mace against them but neither them nor anyone else present was expecting what happened when the young man picked it from the puddle of gore. A vague halo of light burst into existence around the head; a pure and holy light unlike that of the servants of Meridia. Power radiated and pulsed down the haft from where the young man’s hand grasped it firmly, threading through the metal in veins of holy light and illuminating the series of swirling patterns and untranslatable runes. Whether it was the presence of the weapon’s ancient foes or from the dire need of the man wielding it, some deep seated power was unlocked and made itself felt by his touch as it swung to block the descending battleaxe.
As the two weapons came together there was a flare of energy, a heartbeat of silence and peace so minute it barely existed and then the world appeared to explode. The Auroran’s axe, that which had proven so capable of cleaving through some of the greatest and thickest armour not merely shattered, but instead disintegrated into dust without so much as a tremor through the holy mace. Every stained glass window, glass, and piece of furniture within ten metres was blasted into fragments and everyone within twice that distance was knocked down.
The Aurorans fared even worse and before either of them could react, one had been sent back to Oblivion. A follow up blow of such force that the tiles under its feet cratered pulped its head and cracked its chest open and the other hesitated just long enough for the young man to close with it. he had no technique to speak of besides that born of desperation and terror, the adrenaline fuelling his limbs to not rest until the threat was gone.
Each hammer blow ripped through the air and ground like a physical force that snatched the Atronachs from existence as though they were candle flames being blown out by a thunderstorm. Even before the second Auroran felt the bite of the Mace it was struggling to remain in the mortal realm, its daedric essence being leeched away right up to the point that the young man slammed the mace into its stomach, folding it over like a sheet of paper before crumpling its head into the floor.
A pair of creatures so powerful that they managed to face off against dozens of knights and prevail were left as shattered remains leaking their mercurial gore. It was shimmering and raining upwards from the bodies of the destroyed Aurorans and the power of the Mace had been enough to ensure that every single one of the malevolent light daedra had been sent back to their infernal realm. All that was left was a single solitary Auroran bleeding and weaking from the dozen spears, javalins, pilum and pikes tearing through its golden flesh and pinning it down long enough for other warriors to slay it. The battle within the cathedral appeared to have been utterly spent.
