The gap in the vines allowed the Aethelgard soldiers to slip through, but Gorvasha's immediate response was a calculated distraction.
She swung her massive warhammer downward, not at Nerith, but at a section of stone inches away from the druid's feet.
BOOM.
The impact sent sparks and debris flying, creating a cloud of dust that masked Nerith's retreat.
Both women turned away immediately afterward, their faces hardening into masks of war.
They never looked at each other again, but the unspoken pact hung between them like the scent of blood in the air: they were fighting two different wars, but they were fighting them together.
The battle raged on with a sickening, relentless momentum. The corridor had become a charnel house, a narrow throat of stone choking on the entrails and broken steel of two civilizations.
Bodies piled up in grotesque mounds, some still twitching from nerve damage, others already cooling in pools of spreading crimson.
