Like rain, time pours down upon all things. An unrelenting flow washing creatures to bone and mountains to dust. It is cruel, yet just—an all-encompassing torrent. But Sayth found himself a place of fortune in that torrent. The snakoths had not yet arrived.

Then he saw it. The surrounding shadows darkened to the like of ink. They became opaque, and color seemed to drain out of the world. A black flame sparked in midair above the ship. It crackled and fizzed, growing ever stronger into a giant fireball of darkness. Instead of heat, Sayth felt a deathly chill radiate from it. The flames molded themselves into arms, more and more, a mass of a thousand clawed hands still flickering and burning. It blew leaves off trees with a bitter wind.

From the darkness, snakoths and soulruoths flooded, each black as night with a single red crystal eye plate and scythe-like tail. Sayth counted ten, twenty, thirty, forty-seven emerge before the portal shriveled and vanished. Color and shadows reverted to normal in its absence.

The snakoths were towers of muscle with two arms and four legs, each as large as dragons. Their long necks and tails slithered in the air, and they howled with maws of needle-sharp teeth. Only three soulruoths were present and appeared as levitating liquid shadows.

The demons swarmed the ship, tearing away its bark with all limbs. Branches were splintered, and a rainbow of leaves ripped to ribbons. Sayth covered his ears.

In a deafening boom, the ship exploded, hurling burning bark and snakoths across the kelrite. A massive wave of force and heat roared outward. Raindrops splattered in every direction. Nearby islands were flung into each other from the force, smashing rock and jungle alike. Sayth jumped off his island a second before it was ground apart. Where snakoth blood fell, the surrounding plants immediately shriveled and died.

Sayth hovered in the air, surveying the decimation. The demons farthest from the ship survived and crawled out of the jungle they’d been flung against. Without a second thought or care for their injuries, they rushed after him, jumping from island to island on powerful haunches.

The explosion had killed many of them, but snakoths don’t die easily. He didn’t know how many survived, but at least five were coming straight for him, furiously beating through the rain. Sayth narrowly dodged a blood-red spear of energy from one’s eye plate, which exploded on the jungle behind him, setting it ablaze in equally red flames. He flew backward and phased through the island to throw them off. Three darted around to the far side where Sayth emerged; he shadowed into his dragon form and beheaded one with his tail blade. His pupils opened to x’s with each kill.

Another dove at Sayth, attempting to catch him in its fangs. Sayth fell back into the trees, phasing through branches and vines as needed. The snakoth clawed its way down, effortlessly thrashing tree trunks apart. Sayth carefully watched its movements and leaped straight up, stabbing it through the chest with his tail blade when its guard was dropped. He, too, could play that game.

This was no time for subtlety. Each island sprayed with snakoth blood withered away, but he had no choice: it was kill or be killed. Four more beasts were on his tail.

He jumped off the island and dove down at the golden glow of the core kilometers below. The air warmed, and dense rain faded to mist as he descended. The snakoths fell close behind; each fired spears of energy, attempting to blast him out of the sky. He dodged, left, right, swerved sharply, and flew between two islands a second before they collided with a bang. One snakoth was crushed, but the others maneuvered around it. Sayth flapped his six wings, dodging and beheading another in an aerial duel.

All three soulruoths survived the massive explosion and were even more tenacious than snakoths. One’s liquid shadow extended like a tentacle and caught Sayth’s tail. From there, it oozed up his body in an attempt to absorb him. Sayth phased intangible and swerved sharply to free himself. He turned and burned it away with white energy but doing so gave another a shot to his wing. It stung like a branding iron. He was sent careening into one of the larger islands. Crashing through the foliage, Sayth shifted back to human form to avoid further injury to his wing. A burn carried over to his scapula.

He caught a low branch and hit the ground running. The two remaining soulruoths dropped close behind, slithering through the air around branches and vines like black anacondas. Their eye plates glowed and set the jungle blazing with blasts of energy. Sayth flipped over a tree trunk and blasted one. The other tackled him. It spread over Sayth’s body, furiously attempting to impale his head with its tail blade. He telekinetically pulled a burning tree down on top of it and rolled free.

Sayth was backed against a cliff. More snakoths were closing in fast. He prioritized blasting the last soulruoth into vapor, but this let a snakoth strike. It slashed at him with its tail, cleaving the surrounding plants apart. He dodged low and flip-kicked its jaw, staggering it. Another snakoth jumped, grabbing Sayth in its clawed forearms, and carried them both off the cliff to the erupting gold below.

He struggled to break free, but something unfathomable happened: the snakoth spoke. Oth was speaking to him directly. Its deep voice flowed like wine. “From where falls the dusk in the eye of the king, last of the light over valleys I bring. The sun crests the hillside, the mountain, the sea. To final breath sighed, lost in woe of the free.

“I am the tower in the glow of decay. I am the hourglass dust slipped away. I am the wind and clouds of the height. I am the tide tonight.

“In ever falls sand to rise in lie, architects, tinkerers on gold wings they fly. From the bow of the ship, all in darkness, all die. Ever in moonlight the night.”

Sayth stared in amazement but shook it off. He had to focus; the snakoth must be the one to absorb the force of the fall. They were spinning downward toward the ever-increasing heat of the core; in less than a minute, they would be burnt to ash. He carefully guided their fall to the last remaining island. Milliseconds before impact, he flipped their bodies so the snakoth hit the ground first with a sickening splat. Bones cracked, and organs exploded.

There he lay as the snakoth’s blood ate away the plant life around him and scorched the rock. He’d survived by landing on top of it but could feel the force of the fall in every nerve of his body. Did he finish the demons off? Sayth didn’t know.

No, he hadn’t—two more snakoths were working their way down to him. He struggled to stand. The fall had taken its toll. He didn’t know if he could make it. A spear of dark energy was hurling toward him.

...

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-Rainbows Wane