Liliana Vess Defiant Necromancer

While Ignis and Jace followed the trail of odd stone outcroppings, people all over Innistrad were dealing with the madness infecting the plane - and sometimes giving into it themselves.



The scent of angel's blood. There was nothing like it in all the Multiverse: a biting bouquet, sweet and brackish, tinged with spice and sharp with power. The aroma met Arlinn's wide wolf nostrils as she raced up the sheer incline of a gorge toward the town of Lambholt under siege. She snarled at the smell of it, cursing. She hadn't been fast enough. She should have been the one to draw the blood, to fell the angel, to earn its wrath. She was the protector of the Ulvenwald.

Faster.

She had witnessed the mad angel's descent on Lambholt from afar; the divine being had dived down, past the rooftops and steeples. Cries of horror and flashes of light had followed. Moments later, the angel had surfaced, wings bloody and sword aflame, only to plunge in once more.

Though Arlinn hadn't seen all that had happened beyond the rooftops, she could imagine it well enough. There was only so much that mad angels did. They were broken, shrieking and maddened, crying out Avacyn's name as they careened through the sky. And where they flew, the wails of innocents, roars of flames, and cackling of corrupted beings soon followed.

The desperate trumpet of a cathar's horn - a Goldnight's, she knew the tenor - spurred Arlinn on. She summoned strength from the forest, pumping the thick muscles of her legs, pushing herself up the slope. Faster. But she feared it was already too late. Blood had been shed, and not just angelic. Human blood too. The cathars. Arlinn could picture them, holy weapons raised, magical invocations on their lips. But they would not be blessed with the power they prayed for; Avacyn was no longer answering human prayers.

( How had it come to this? )

"Who was that angel?" the boy asked. "She was still good. She was protecting us."

"I don't know," Arlinn said, still internally reeling at the feeling of holy power that had arisen in her in answer to her desperate prayer. "She said her name was Sigarda."

"Sigarda," he whispered. "Do you think she'll be all right?"

"I don't know," she said again. I don't know if anyone is going to be all right after this.

[Adapted and HEAVILY modified from "The Archmage of Goldnight" by Kimberly J. Kreines. NFI, NFB, you know the drill. Sigarda first seen here and, more recently, here.]

The Ashmouth was, as to be expected, an unpleasant place. The largest infernal gateway on Innistrad, it was a huge chasm deep enough to glow with magma from below. Ash-ridden smog rose from it, mixing with the dark clouds above that kept the area in perpetual gloom. Adding to the dimness were the mountains of the Geier Reach that seemed to claw at the belly of the sky. There was a faint miasma of sulfur and rot with every breath, and the ground underfoot was gritty and barren of plant life.

To be honest, it didn't seem like a place where any kind of life thrived.

That wasn't strictly true, of course. There were the Ashmouth dragons that nested in the mountains, waiting for weak or unwary travelers to devour. There were the Ashmouth Hounds, large, skeletal beasts that burned with an internal fire and left flaming footsteps in their wake. There were Ashmouth Stallions; large, black carnivorous stallions that glowed with an unholy blue light. Then there were the devils, spewed out from the pit according to some eldritch pattern only the demons understand.

And, of course, there were the demons. Pure manifestations of black mana, they took on hideous forms that seemed to be taken by humanity's most awful nightmares, beings of hatred and malice and power.

Even if Liliana had taken the time to explain to them what would await them in the Ashmouth, she would have found herself completely underestimating the horror and chaos they found when they walked through. Because they once again found themselves on a battlefield, with scores of angels in gleaming armor and bright white wings were battling giant demons and bands of red devils. But even just a brief glance at the field showed the angels were winning. They outnumbered the demons by a fair margin, in the grips of holy fury and ecstasy both, revitalized by the return of Avacyn and once again obeying their old edict: battling the forces of darkness to protect the innocents of Innistrad. "How nice of them to finally show up," Liliana snarked as the portal winked out behind them. Still her eyes didn't linger long on the battle, but were cast upwards towards the sky in the direction of Thraben.

She didn't have long to wait. What was, at first glance, dark smear against the gloomy clouds soon resolved to be a host of flying demons, led by a monstrous creature with wings large enough they looked like they could blot out the sky, massive curling horns that reached his shoulder, and arms that terminated not in hands, but curling scythes. He had only been ten feet tall when he'd escaped the Helvault, but during the flight he'd resumed his natural height of nearly twenty feet, a veritable giant of a demon.

And why wouldn't he be? He was the unquestioned lord of the demonic host on Innistrad and his size was a reflection of his strength and power. Liliana didn't know what magics he'd cast to arrive at the Ashmouth so quickly, but she was almost grateful for it. Now that she was here, she just wanted this over.

Griselbrand and his newly-freed horde dove down from the sky to the battlefield, Griselbrand landing hard enough to cause minor tremors around him. He roared a challenge, which every other demon and devil on the field echoed, and immediately swung an arm around to bisect an angel. Suddenly the numbers were much more even and the outcome of the battle swung towards doubt.

Liliana didn't care. She wasn't here for a battle between angels or devils, they could murder each other for all she cared. She was here for Griselbrand. Finally, after months of searching, he was only the length of a battlefield away.

She reached up to brush her fingers over the burnished links of the Chain Veil and then, without a single word, walked into the fray, hands already glowing with power, the writing on her skin blazing with purple light.

It was time to end this.

[Last one! Thanks to everyone who read this and most especially thanks to chef_chocobro for going through this massive undertaking with me! NFI, NFB, OOC is great. This follows this post and this one.]