Hierophant3

Vanat slid backwards on the sand, his daiklaive held up and while it had blocked the strike from the great beast the force of the blow had pushed him backwards a good 20 yards. The Sun was high in the sky, the desert rippling with heat and the very air shimmering from the scorching rays. He and his circle had been fighting this monstosity for over an hour now. They had been doing a tour of some of the more far off villages of the Realm, mingling and seeing the people and helping or hearing their voices or thoughts when they learned of a monsterous creature nearby that had been terrorizing them.

Even though he was the head of the Solar Deliberative he was not a man to send others to do things when he acting himself would be just as good or better. So he and his circle promptly promised to stop the beast and travelled into the desert wastes to find and slay it. A great lizard, much like a snake though in shape but instead of smooth sides it had a hundred great tentacles to move it through the sand. 200 feet long it was no surprise the people had been unable to do anything about it.

The beast rose up before them and roared, the awesome size and power of the behemoth causing a supernatural fear to try to seep into their flesh and paralyse them where they stood. He and his brother in arms, Exquisite Steel took the brunt of it. Vanat raised his blade, the golden daiklaive flaring with celestial flames until it seemed like he held a shard of the sun and he and his Circle knew not fear.

This circle was the most famed and greatest in all the lands under the banner of the Realm and beyond. Vanat, the Hierophant lead it. His daiklaive a masterwork forged by the Gods for him to carry into battle during the later years of the Primordial war was a sight to behold. Intricate runes of power flowed up its golden edge and when he drew it with lethal intent then entire blade would thrum with barely contained might. Three great Hearthstones glittered on it. He himself was clad in ornate superheavy orichalcum plate. His shaven head bore no helm and his castemark and essence burned around him.

Exquisite Steel was on his left. A tall slim man he had a full head of long golden hair that was lifted lightly by a breeze from his right. He carried two daiklaives. He had light blue eyes that even after years of warfare had not lost their vibrancy. Armored in only a simple orichalcum breastplate but carried a number of other smaller artifacts with him. In his right was a reaver daiklaive, dark purple essence rippling around it from the spells and enchantments woven into it by the Twilight of this group. In his right was a broken weapon. About the size of a reaper it was what was left of a weapon that had shattered in a battle with the fetich soul of He Who Holds In Thrall. Though broken, it had destroyed the creature. He refused to forsake the weapon that had done so much and would not let any seek to repair it. He personally rewove the magics into it and carried it with him always into battle.

A sudden gust of wind and heat from behind him told Vanat that Servan had started to bring to bear the mystic spells of the Twilight castes. The largest and tallest of the group by a good head he was a man who had a musculature that bordered on being unnatural. Even the golden plates of his armor did little to hide his size and the strength that was almost palpable around him. His reaver was a cunning mix of orichalcum and starmetal that he had taken from the Wyld and then forged in conjunction with a number of materials that would likely never been seen in Creation again. Thought it was plain in appearance no one could mistake it for a simple blade of battle. A lion of essence and golden flames roared out a challange to the behemoth, his hands and mouth working to craft a spell of destruction.

Vanat felt someone lean against his right side. Only one person was that cocky in battle or anytime. Sleeping Flower of the night caste. She held a single reaver in her hand, a blade of moonsilver that was a gift from her husband. It never looked quite the same whenever she used it, but no one ever saw it actually change shape. Mysteriously tight lipped about the weapon its powers remained a mystery to him. She favoured mixing martial arts with blade, currently in the Shifting Sand Tiger Form. Dark chestnut hair hid part of her face and she smiled to Vanat as if almost bored with the whole situation. She claimed that she had never been struck, and her husband when properly intoxicated had supported that claim about the flawless nature of her skin.

That left the eclipse of the circle somewhere behind him, most likely covering the twilight as he worked his magic. Sanaria was her name, a dark skinned woman of the south. She had a golden tongue, a honeyed voice, and could handle people with a velvet touch. Feirce though in battle her apparant smooth nature contrasting against the Grand Daiklaive she carried. A gift from a friend in his will she had named the weapon after him and had spent the better part of the last century mastering the weapon and its power. A reinforced breastplate of orichalcum protected her, the metal showing images of wolves and deer in a great hunt.

The beast bore cuts and bled from a hundred different places where blade had cut its hide. Each blow seemed to go unnoticed though, and it was still fighting with as much energy as when it had burst forth from the sand to try to ambush them. Each solar had layered him or herself in defensive charms and were conserving their essence and playing it defensive and cautious. A beast of its size and nature could easily turn their bones to dust and their bodies to ash with a hit upon their unprotected flesh. Even with charms some things are dangerous to let happen. Behemoths they had fought before and they did not die like normal creatures nor did their ways of fighting and talents match what made sense to a human mind.

Servan spoke a single word. "Now." The four others charged at the rearing beast, moving with blades held high and at the ready as above them great burning disks of light screamed through the air towards the ancient beast. The air filled with the sounds of once again as the Chosen of the Sun took it upon themselves to end this beast.