That Hierophant would be standing atop a flat floating stone was sadly not unexpected, nor were the smaller rocks circling around him with visibly shifting runes carved into them. That the Grey Pilgrim would be stand with him there, though, head cocked to the side as if he were listening to someone talking as he corrected some of the runework, very much was.

“- being very helpful,” I heard Zeze say, tone appreciative. “I could talk to Catherine about remuneration, if you’d like, or draw from Arsenal discretionary funds.”

Well, that was nice of him.

“A kind thought,” Tariq drily replied, “but the Ophanim require no compensation for their help.”

Wait, had he been talking about paying the Choir of Mercy? Godsdamnit, Masego, we definitely didn’t have room for that in the budget. I cleared my throat as I got closer, as it seemed both of them were too involved with their work to be paying attention to their surroundings.

...

“And you,” the old man said, sounding amused. “We have been lending a hand to the Lord Hierophant, you see, as his work has proved to have… surprising provenances.”

“I figured out how angels smite people,” Zeze said, sounding very pleased with himself. “More or less. When the Ophanim tried to kill us all at Lyonceau I got a good look.”

“That was not their intent at all,” Tariq sighed. “The death of the Tyrant of Helike – a necessity, I’m sure you’ll agree – was all that was sought.”

“By smiting,” Masego helpfully specified. “Which I am now reproducing, only without the angels.”

...

“It’s not an inaccurate description,” Tariq said. “They’re very interested in seeing if it works.”

...

“If a Choir does not power the smiting, what does?” Hierophant enthusiastically asked.

...

“Smiting is being used as a purely technical term here, with no religious connotations,” the Grey Pilgrim serenely replied.

Tariq, you shit, I uncharitably thought.

“Besides, if this endeavour succeeds it may be possible to reproduce it purely using Light,” the old man airily continued.

...

“How fortunate,” I replied with a grunt. “What is it you’re using, Masego?”

“I had thought to use Night, at first,” the dark-skinned mage idly said, “but Sve Noc did not seem willing. So instead we will draw on Arcadia for power and use runework to give the power shape.”

- Book 6, Chapter 65: Cross-Check

---

We were high up enough that neither arrows nor javelins were a worry, and magic would be seen long before it became a threat.

“Abyss and firmament,” the Hierophant said, and though his voice was quiet it rippled. “I take the shape of the star and the depth of the pit, borrowing laws high and low.”

Below us, moving as a single entity, seventeen thousand undead heads turned to gaze up at us.

“That can’t be good,” I muttered.

“I have woven curses into hymn, stuffed a heart with straw,” the Hierophant called out, voiced cadenced. “That which is hollow I have raised onto the dais, revered as glorious under three skies and revered by nine corners.”

From below a tide of darkness rose, but I realized after a heartbeat that it was not a ritual. It was a few thousand curses, thrown at us together from as many hands. I clenched my staff closely, hoping to the Hells that Masego was done with that incantation soon.

“Behold,” the Hierophant said.

I winced, covering my ears at the horrid grind that lay behind the word. The Sisters murmured uneasily in the back of my mind.

“Behold,” the Hierophant said, “all ye with eyes, for I have made a god of clay and it is an idol of wrath.”

The sky screamed. There was no other word for it. The air wavered and shrieked and twisted, an alien gleam filling my vision as I pulled down my hood to shield my eyes. As if a god had breathed out in front of us, the wyvern banked wildly and had to struggle not to fall – the Summoner screamed, voice shrilly – but after less than a heartbeat the pressure was all gone.  I first glimpsed Masego, panting as he stood surrounded by fading runes, and only after making sure he was fine did I glance down. Gods, I thought. There was a smoking crater in the swamp, maybe a hundred feet wide, and though water was streaking back in it looked like the… smite had baked the very mud. How many undead had been vaporized with that, I wondered. Two, three hundred? Likely more, and a great wave was going through the swamp that toppled more than a few soldiers. Of the curses that had been rising to hit us, there was no trace. Much like, I thought, a child throwing a pebble into the path of falling mountain would not be able to pick it out afterwards.

“Can you do that again?” I asked, tone calm.

“I believe so,” Masego noted. “Though not many times.”

“Then do it,” I ordered with a hard smile.

...

I wove Night over my ears and dug my feet in, as Masego’s voice swelled in incantation again, wondering how many shots we’d get in before he was too exhausted to continue.

The answer, as it turned out, was six.

- Book 6, Chapter 68: Opposition

---

It was a Choir, Hierophant realized. There was a similarity to what he was Witnessing and a spell he had crafted with Tariq Isbili’s help. The smiting miracle, as some had taken to calling it.

- Book 7, Interlude: Legends II

---

We’d gone up, after brief hesitation, and now I hid in the shadows and leaned against the balustrade as I watched a battle unfold. The halls beyond the great one we’d escaped were lesser but numerous, a maze of roofless rooms overlooked by great galleries that hugged the ceiling – one of which I stood on. The small halls were fed into by the corridors leading to the spire’s great gates, and as Named and soldiers spilled into the labyrinth I finally understood why the Dead King had made this place.

It was a slaughterhouse.

Every inch of it was trapped. I watched a company of bright-clothed fantassins blunder into a room whose sides were a pit trap covered by an illusion, gathering in the middle in time for holes to open in the walls and undead wedged inside them to begin unloading crossbows into the thick formation. Doors exploded, tar-covered floors were set aflame and swarms of poisonous insects poured out of hidden panels. I saw a doorknob turn into a leering devil that bit off the hand of the legionary that’d tried to open it, fangs crunching through steel, and even as she began screaming clouds of acid were blown into the room through small holes in the floor. All the while bows were fired into the labyrinth from the gallery above, arrows falling like rain. Death everywhere, and that wasn’t even the worst of it.

I had wondered why so few Revenants had fought us when we fought our way out of the Hall of the Dead, and now I had my answer: they were here. Dozensof then, maybe as much as a hundred. They tore into the troops like wild animals, armoured battering rams and storms of sorcery that went through even heavy companies like butter.

...

"Abyss and firmament. I take the shape of the star and the depth of the pit, borrowing laws high and low.”

...

“Behold,” Hierophant called out, “all ye with eyes, for I have made a god of clay and it is an idol of WRATH.”

I shielded my eyes from the cold, alien light just as it came down. The clamour of the battle went silent as a grave, as if Hierophant’s miracle had killed noised itself. When I took my hand off my eye it was to the sight of both Scourges withdrawing, which after hesitation I allowed. After all, where they were headed I’d find it difficult to pursue: the latter half of the great room that I had pointed out to Masego was now a plain of red, glowing glass.

Nothing else was left.

The front half of the labyrinth, having come into Grand Alliance hands through hard fighting while Zeze and I made a spectacle, burst into cheers. The dead there were good as routed, and through our advance was stopped until the glass cooled it was now open grounds to the great stairs at the back of what had once been a maze. The surviving Revenants fled that way, ignoring spells and arrows, and when I glanced up at the ceiling where the poison clouds had been gathering I found with some amusement it had been glassed as well. The heat had dispersed whatever the Tumult was up to, sparing us a spot of trouble on top of all the rest.

- Book 7, Chapter 66: The Empty Grave