The charge down the Hill of Sighs did not seem real. The wind screamed in Geneviève's ears, but it did not cover the frantic beating of Duraz's heart. The dwarf horse, exhausted from three days of restless marching, was giving everything he had, driven only by loyalty to his mistress.
Before them, the demonic ocean seethed around the walls of Carcassonne. They were still a kilometer away. A kilometer of sloping ground, strewn with rocks. To the demons, that army of tired and dirty mortals descending from the ridge was a joke. The Daemon Prince had not even turned around. The Bloodletters continued to scale the walls. The beast's ignorance was its arrogance.
Geneviève felt her muscles burn. She felt the weight of the Gromril armor become unbearable. We won't make it, whispered a part of her mind, the rational part, the human part. We are too few. We are too tired.
And in that moment of absolute fragility, as death raced toward her, Geneviève's mind fled back in time.
The noise of battle faded. The purple sky of Chaos dissolved. Geneviève was no longer on horseback. She was kneeling in the mud of a hidden clearing in the Forest of Loren. She was barely sixteen years old. She had fled her burning village, dressed in boy's clothes stolen from a corpse, clutching a rusty sword too heavy for her. She was alone. Hungry. Desperate. She wanted to die.
Then, the mist had parted. From the placid waters of the mirrored lake, She had emerged. The Lady of the Lake. She was not a woman of flesh. She was made of moonlight and dew. She held in her hands a Chalice that glowed with a light that hurt the soul with its purity. The Lady had not looked at the boy's clothes. She had not looked at the filth. She had looked inside.
Geneviève remembered the sensation of cold water on her lips when the Lady had offered her not the Grail, but a sip from her cupped hand. "Drink, my daughter," the voice that was like the sound of a thousand harps had said. "I do not offer you peace. I offer you the strength to carry the weight of the world."
Geneviève drank. And the pain vanished. Fear had become steel. In that moment, the peasant girl had died, and the Paladin was born.
The memory exploded, bringing her back to the present, in Duraz's saddle, five hundred meters from the horde. But the sensation of holy water on her lips had returned. Fresh. Life-giving. And the voice returned. It was not a memory. It was there, in her ears, louder than the roar of the demons.
"You have carried the weight, Geneviève," said the Lady. "You have hidden your face. You have honed your spirit like a blade. You have walked in the mud to protect my lilies."
Geneviève felt a liquid heat expand from her chest, from the spot where her heart beat beneath the painted Three Nails. It was not adrenaline. It was Divine Ambrosia.
"There is no longer a need to hide in the shadow of iron. The Chalice is full. Drink it all. Become my Wrath."
It happened in the blink of an eye. Geneviève inhaled. The fatigue vanished. The bruises healed instantly. The hunger, the thirst, the pain in her ribs... all erased. Her eyes, behind the dark visor, ignited with an ethereal azure light.
Her body became a conduit for the pure power of the Grail. The black Gromril armor changed. Not physically, but spiritually. It became a mirror of white light. The sword Vesper's Light erupted in holy flames, a column of white fire three meters high tearing through the purple twilight of the valley.
Geneviève rose in her stirrups. She was no longer Sir Gilles. She was no longer a woman. She was a Living Saint.
The aura remained not confined to her. It exploded outward, a shockwave of Grace. It washed over Duraz. The dwarf horse neighed, not from fatigue, but from newfound power. His coat returned to a glossy shine, his muscles swelled with divine vigor, his hooves began leaving footprints of blue fire on the ground.
The wave hit Duke Tancred to her right. The old Duke felt the years fall from his shoulders. His sword lit up. It hit Tristan. The boy's fear vanished, replaced by ecstatic courage. It hit the three thousand men behind them. Lame horses began to gallop again. Blunt swords became sharp. Wounds stopped bleeding.
The entire Bretonnian attack wedge was no longer an army of refugees. It was an arrow of solid light, loosed from the hand of a God. They shone so intensely that the shadows of Chaos physically retreated at their passing.
Down in the valley, the demons stopped. The Daemon Prince turned slowly. His eyes of black fire narrowed. He had felt the change in the air. The smell of ozone and blood had been replaced by the scent of lilies and clean rain. He saw the avalanche of light descending the hill. They were not mortals. They were the Anathema.
The Demon roared, a sound that shook the walls of Carcassonne, ordering his horde to turn and face the threat. Thousands of Bloodletters, Horrors, and Chaos Beasts turned, snarling against the light that burned their corrupt skin.
Geneviève was at the tip of the spear. One hundred meters left. Fifty meters. The earth shook so hard that stones levitated.
Geneviève did not shout an order. There was no need. They were one mind, one heart, one sword. She gripped the hilt of her weapon, now light as a feather. She looked straight into the eyes of the Daemon Prince. I am here, said her soul. And I bring the end of your night.
Light and darkness were about to touch. And the world held its breath for the explosion.