The Calm Before the Storm

"You're dying, Greyback. That poison in the dose you were given is lethal." Remus easily removed the hand from his throat. "Where is Voldemort? Tell me, Greyback. Where is he?"

The werewolf managed a tortured chuckle. "And w-what? You'll g-give me the anti-dote? I'd r-rather die than a-accept help f-from you."

Rotan and Lupin shared a quick look. "There is no antidote," Remus told Greyback softly. "The poison is irreversible. Even if you did survive, you will never again transform."

"Well, then, you can keep me company in hell!" Remus tried to get out of the way, but Greyback managed to produce a dagger from his tattered robes and stab it deep into the former teacher's chest. Lupin fell back, clutching at the weapon, even as Greyback slowly rose to his feet, blood gushing from his mouth and eyes. "If I die, then I will take you all to hell with me-"

Greyback cut off in his maniacal laughter when Rotan's sword swiftly decapitated him. The headless body collapsed to the ground, and Rotan quickly knelt next to Lupin. "That hurt," Remus noted dryly, coughing up a little blood.

"Don't talk. Let me see if I can pull out the dagger." Rotan inspected the wound. The blade was in deep, but luckily it had missed all of the vital organs. Greyback had aimed for the heart, but Lupin's last second dodge had caused the dagger to glance off his ribs. Sure, the bone was nicked, but that could easily be fixed. No, the more threatening issue was blood loss, because he was sure that the weapon was enchanted, and he didn't want to risk pulling it out. Rotan tore a strip of fabric from his tunic. "Here, hold that around the wound."

Remus did as he was told, his eyes widening in surprise when instead of stemming the bleeding, the action of pressing the cloth against the wound increased it. "What the-"

"It's enchanted," Rotan growled. Probably the more one tried to stop the bleeding, the more it would bleed, he thought darkly.

"Stupid Greyback." Remus deadpanned, glancing over at the headless corpse.

"We need to get you to a medic." Rotan stood, looking around. "Can you stand?"

Remus tried to get back to his feet, but even with help from the general, his knees kept buckling. "Damn. Looks like it was poisoned, too."

Rotan frowned as he called his guards around him. They had to get Remus into the building, which meant punching a line through the enemy attack. That would take a lot of skill and a minor miracle. The werewolves ahead of them charged ahead, enraged by Greyback's death, and had slammed into Rotan's front line with full force. Their renewed assault had taken the defenders by surprise, and the line had buckled, so much so that the gun emplacement he'd used earlier was now silent, and individual melees and chaos were spreading throughout his section.

Rotan waved over one of his guards. "Make sure he's safe," he ordered, gesturing down at Lupin. "We need to get him inside. Take your men and try to make your way towards the building."

"What about you, sir?"

"I'll keep them off your back. We can't let them get into the building until the defenses are complete."

The ice soldier looked like he was about to object, but then nodded, collecting a dozen men and making his way towards the rear of their lines. Rotan watched them go for a long moment, hoping that they'd be facing less opposition than the unit he'd sent to try and reach the center sections under Hiscohpney's command.

" Forsta !" he shouted in his native tongue, holding his sword high up in the air. Around him, the ice soldiers recognized the call, and those that were not immediately engaged rallied around. "Reform your lines! Dig your heels into the ground! For the honor of the North!"

"For the honor of the North!" the battlecry echoed around him as the soldiers set themselves to meet the oncoming forces of darkness.

...

Hiscophney didn't show it, but he was worried. It wasn't so much that either Rabastan Lestrange or Draco Malfoy were a threat to him, far from it. Individually, their dueling skills, while impressive, were far inferior to his. It was the fact that both of them together had managed to even the odds more than the Count liked to admit. The troops that had accompanied him were currently engaged in a brutal melee with the dark forces Draco and Lestrange had brought with them, and with the battle all around him, the Count found himself unable to use more destructive spells. Add to that the fact that each time he knocked one of them away, he was unable to finish his opponent off, because the other would try and attack him from behind.

What was worse was that he knew they were stalling him. Neither of the dark wizards held out any hope to actually be able to defeat him in single combat - well, maybe Lestrange did, but the man was borderline delusional with regards to his skills in the dark arts. They were merely holding up his attempt to relief the northern flank, knowing that if they could overrun those guns, they would have a clear shot at the rest of the Ministry.

Then something he'd been afraid of during the whole battle happened. The guns on the northern emplacement fell silent as the hiss of a giant snake resonated around the battlefield. The guns picked up again almost immediately, but that brief pause had been long enough for the hordes of creatures to push their way almost to the large cannons. By now, his own troops were cut off from either flank as the defensive lines crumbled, and they were almost completely surrounded. A few stray Dementors swooped down across the lines, sucking out whatever souls they could get a hold of. Out of the two battalions he had brought with him, . He knew what that meant. They were out of time.

Muttering a quick prayer for the desecration he was about to commit, he gripped the pendant that hung around his neck and prepared to unleash one of his most powerful spells. Draco and Lestrange saw him just standing there, and took the opening, firing off the killing curse. Before the sickly green spells could reach the sorcerer, a wave of energy rippled out from Hiscophney, washing across an area a hundred yards in diameter. All of the fighting stopped as the ground began to shake, the marble stairs crumbling under their feet. Ice soldiers, sorcerers, dark creatures, and wizards fought to keep their balance as the localized earthquake shook the ground, but only the sorcerers, and only those closest to Hiscophney, knew what this meant.

The green bolts of the killing curse dissipated against the wave, leaving both Draco and Lestrange staring in open-mouthed surprise. After a minute, the ground stopped shaking and started collapsing downwards, caving in as though the earth itself underneath the Ministry had just disappeared. The wind picked up, howling in everyone's ear as everyone and everything inside the hundred-yard radius of the spell found themselves pulled towards the center of the spell. Hiscophney stood there, seemingly unaffected by the forces acting on everything else as he commanded his magic to create the most forbidden of objects: a black hole.

"O blackness without beginning or end…" the Count chanted as he stood in the center of the maelstrom, his arms spread wide. "One-eyed god imprisoned there, now harken to my call!"

....

Join my P@treon and enjoy the complete book.

Link: p*atreon.com/0LordSilvere0 (Remove the *)

Free members get 2 chapters free.

Join Right Now