Chrysalis

Morrelia blinked the sweat and blood from her eyes as she bared her teeth in a snarl of rage. Berserk fury pounded in her veins, empowering every movement, every strike, but also narrowing her vision. Every fibre of muscle yearned to be unleashed, to slash and cut and stab until the fighting was done. However she couldn’t lose herself to the rage like she used to, not anymore. With a monumental effort of Will, she restrained herself, took hold of her own mind and forced it to heel.

“Reform the line!” she bellowed, tearing her gaze from the monsters in front. “Where’s the cover fire?”

“Monster spawned behind them, tribune,” Gyrex reported, most of his centurion’s plume burned away, “they’ll clean it up shortly.”

“They better,” she growled as she shoved her two swords into their sheaths.

It was teeth-grindingly painful to force herself back from the rage, but she did it, recentring her emotions to that point right on the brink, where she might reenter berserking at any moment. It was a mental exercise she had been forced to improve rapidly, and one that she still struggled with. Apparently, her mother was a master of it, able to dip in and out of rage at the drop of a hat, but Morrelia was far from that level. With her new rank and leadership role, she simply couldn’t berserk as she pleased anymore.

To her left and right, the massed ranks of the Abyssal Legion stood strong against the tide of monsters. Before them yawned the same opening to the below ground tunnel complex she had been defending for weeks, and in all that time, the Dungeon spawn had never stopped coming.

“The backline is occupied for a few more minutes,” she snapped to a runner, “inform the centurions.”

The woman tore off at an incredible pace. She would cover the whole front in under a minute before returning for the next instruction, waiting alongside the other two runners.

Gyrex yawned widely as another deep roar echoed from the depths before them, rising over the din of battle.

for you, centurion?” Morrelia asked, an eyebrow quirked

a full night’s sleep in well over a week, tribune,” he excused himself.

be great if we could get eight hours a day,

flickered across the man’s

eight hours? I could sleep ten,

eyes ran up and down the line, assessing

fifth reserve group committed to the blue line,”

your will, tribune,” Gyrex said, turning to the runners. Before he could speak,

on the front should

and she chuckled with amusement

calculus of war. Aside from those precious moments where she permitted herself to fight, she was immersed

her mother ever been able to stand it? Despite being her daughter, or perhaps because of it, she knew better than most just how much the famed berserker hated everything that took herself away from the

had not only managed to cope with the demands of leadership, but excel, as she always did, to the point she had been appointed as Consul. It may be difficult for her to admit, but Morrelia was self aware enough to understand

duties with the same grim determination he attacked everything in life, and she found herself modelling her decisions