Exalted Shield

Susana stood upon the parapet, facing the storm choked chaotic mess that was the Astra Line. Miasma had been gathering along the border all day, twisting and warping and occasionally revealing a glimpse of a grotesque fiend. Attacks on Fort Ende were not uncommon, the fiends tested their defences regularly. But for the sickening miasma to concentrate so heavily required an unheard of gathering of fiends. An unnatural gathering.

“Unnatural,” she scoffed to herself. As if fiends could be anything but unnatural. Fiends would take any opportunity to attack the peoples of Lyr but they were fickle abominations. Greedy. Prideful. It took great power to bind them together for a single purpose. A walking calamity. A Principality. Rebekah and her party had left earlier that week on a hunt for what she had described as a “King of Fiends” in an effort to prevent such a gathering of evil.

“I’m leaving Ende in your care, Susana. If the worst comes, you must hold them. Bleed them. If this abomination makes it past us, the northlands will burn before it can be stopped.”

Seeing the spreading miasma crawling slowly toward the walls of Fort Ende, Susana wondered if her friend had failed or was simply too late. She shook that thought away, basking in the golden light of the sun falling on her shoulders. It wouldn’t be long until the storm clouds spread and cast them all in gloom, so she would take the comfort of Kari’s Light while she could.

“High Priestess? The division commanders are assembled.”

Susana took a fortifying breath and cast out her worries in a short prayer. “Your Radiance guides my hand as a Bulwark for all. Enai.”

“Enai,” the courier said quietly.

--

“Fort Ende withstood the King of Fiends and his army for six days. Six times, the Principality was turned back by the walls and by the High Priestess of the Bulwark, Lady Susana. The Divine Providence of Kari filled the air around her, held her aloft in defiance of the King of Fiends, and uplifted the defenders of Fort Ende. With her holy defenses they were able to reap righteous retribution of the fiends ranks. To all at Fort Ende, it was as if a miracle had descended from the heavens.

And on the seventh day, that miracle fell. Some say it was exhaustion, some a foul trick by the Principality, and yet others claimed treachery. But when Lady Susana fell, the walls of Fort Ende fell with her. But the walls had held long enough. For Saint Rebekah, her return from glorious crusade was greeted by bearing witness to the fall of a dear friend. But that only fueled her fury as she brought an end to the King of Fiends and his army.” - The Lost of Ende, an Anthology of Testimony by Urik Fispline