Drinn grunted as if stuck in the gut, and Tarlene screamed. Both reactions were familiar to Jasside; it hurt trying to commune with the newly dead. Steeling herself for the worst, Jasside surveyed the damage.
Twenty-nine of the five hundred companies had been hit. It was easy to count them. Paths carved through her allies’ lines, filled with the shredded remains of flesh and steel alike. Thousand-man units reduced to a hundred or less in an eyeblink.
The conduits moved. New lanes for attack opened before them.
“Extend shields over the exposed companies,” Jasside said. “And get reserves into those gaps!”
“Third army requests assistance,” Drinn said.
The third army was their center. Not good.
“Where?” she asked. But looking down, she had her answer, and saw right away why they needed help so desperately.
Whereas the rest of the afflicted companies had been spaced out along the line, on the left side of third army there had been three all right next to each other. Her allies had been unable to plug up the hole in time. Ruvak now held the ground—including a pair of conduits—and were ripping into the surrounding human troops, widening the gap with each beat.
She could no longer wait. Jasside flipped open the pouch at her side, pulling out two metallic spheres. She popped the clasps. Darkwisps swarmed into the air all about her.
She energized.
“Brace yourselves,” she said to her young charges.
She released a wave of shapeless darkness. It crashed among the interposed ruvak, then morphed into a dozen discs, razor sharp and spinning, black blades whirling from which no one could escape. She directed them, mowing down hundreds every beat. With the press of flesh both living and dead so thick, even the conduits were caught and churned into little, bloody pieces.
A red, silent circle now lay where once had been ten thousand souls.
Jasside shook, as much from the effort as from the weight of death now pressing on her shoulders. She could smell the blood, the excrement of vacated bodies. She could taste it.
Too close. Even for me. I can’t imagine what this is doing to . . .
A child vomited behind her. She didn’t turn to see which it was.
Directing the platform, she floated back and away, putting distance between them and the scene. Her only consolation was that she’d managed to keep her messengers from harm’s way.
“Transfer reinforcements from armies one and five,” Jasside said, turning to grace them with a gentle, reassuring smile. “Half their troops, casters included, are to reinforce the third. The ruvak are pressing most heavily in our center. We can’t afford to lose it.”
The two gave her small murmurs of assent, and she was proud—and a little disturbed—at how quickly they were able to press on through the horrors of war.
“Also, contact the commander of the city war engines. I don’t care how close the enemy is, we’ll be overrun without their support.”
“W-we can’t,” Tarlene said, tears brimming in her eyes. “I meant to t-tell you . . . but . . .”
“It’s all right, child. What happened?”
The girl only shook her head and pointed behind them. Jasside felt her eyes widen as she took in the sight.
Abyss take us . . .
Panisahldron, jeweled city of the world, was in flames.
Arivana tried to keep her panic subdued as she fled the fires building up behind her. The tension in the air had become palpable, marked by frequent wide-eyed glances over shoulders, quickened steps that only served to further jostle an already crowded street, the raised pitch and volume in every throat that called out to strangers made siblings by their shared trial, and the sharpened reek of sweat and tears from children frightened by things they did not understand and from parents frightened by things they could not believe.
Five thousand years of history, going up in smoke.
Just buildings, she tried to tell herself. Just wood and stone, cloth and steel, and far, far too many glittering things. Panisahldron is its people. So long as we live on, our nation, our legacy, will endure.
But even the combined might of humanity—mierothi and valynkar included—didn’t appear capable of standing up to these ruvak, these invaders from the void. Living on might soon become a rare commodity in a world with no place for even simple luxuries.
“I’ve got an idea, Your Majesty, if you’ll hear it.”
Arivana blinked, returning her focus to her immediate surroundings. It was Richlen who’d spoken.
“Yes?” she said. “What is it?”
“If you’ll look ahead,” he said, pointing forward, “you’ll see the road splits. Everyone is going right, for that’s the shortest path to the shipyards, but the crowd gets so thick there it’s barely moving at all.”
“I take it the left route doesn’t connect?”
“Right you are, Your Majesty. If you stay on the street, that is.”
Arivana felt a hopeful pang take hold of her chest. “You know a shortcut?”
“I do indeed,” he said, smiling. “Used to live in these parts. We’ll have to cut through a tenement and a few narrow alleys, but I’ll bet my next month’s pay we’ll get to the launching platforms in a fraction of the time.”
“We’ll have to keep an eye out for looters,” Claris interjected. “But I think we can handle them.”
“Looters?” Arivana said. “How can anyone think of theft at a time like this?”
Claris shrugged. “People with nothing—and nothing to lose—will take any opportunity to increase their position in the world. Especially when the odds of facing recourse is nil.”
Arivana felt a bubble of fury begin to rise within her. Then, she remembered the secret stroll she’d taken through the outskirts of her city over a year ago, and the quiet, forceful sense of desperation that seemed to salt the very air.
A memory sprang to her mind of something her father had once said. Though the context was lost, the words sounded in her mind with rare vividity.
“When you’re in a bad situation, it always seems like you have nothing but bad choices to make. Don’t judge someone until you at least make an attempt at understanding them.”
She supposed he would know. He’d been a commoner before marrying into the throne.
“Very well,” Arivana said at last. “Please, Rich, lead the way.”
The guardsmen pushed gently across the crowd that separated them from its edge, allowing their formation to break off into nearly deserted streets. The sudden loss of pressing bodies felt like rising up from being too long underwater and taking that sweet, first breath.
True to his word, Rich led them down an alley with their first turn. The guards, wearing thick pauldrons, had to turn sideways to fit through, and the sound of steel scraping against stone shrieked like a menagerie during a storm. But they were moving at least. They emerged from that narrow space for a handful of beats before diving straight through a ghostly, creaking tenement. Something foul assaulted Arivana’s nose.
“What is that smell?” she asked.
“You don’t want to know,” Claris said.
Arivana gritted her teeth. “If I hadn’t wanted to know, I wouldn’t have asked. Stop trying to protect me from truths you think too ugly for me to handle.”
With a sigh, Claris nodded. “I believe someone left a cook pot on, and it has now boiled over.”
“A cook pot? You can’t mean people eat something that smells like . . . that.”
Claris shrugged. “Not everyone gets to dine on stuffed crocodile and peacock eggs.”
Stung by the rebuke, Arivana hung her head. “I suppose not.”
They exited what she now knew to be the front door of the shared dwelling, stepping onto something almost meeting her expectation for a street.
“Not long now, Your Majesty,” Rich said. “Just a few blocks to go, then one last alley. You’ll be flying out of this mess in no time.”
“Thank you,” she replied.
<
br /> After a mark of quiet walking, Arivana peered back over her shoulder, surprised to find the street behind them filled with hundreds of civilians. There’d been none when they’d first arrived. Most, as far as she could tell, seemed to be coming from the same building they’d passed through in a steady stream.
“It looks as though we’ve started a trend,” she said, gesturing towards them.
Claris turned her head, then flashed a wry grin. “Those along the edge of the crowd must have been eager to follow their queen.”
“Is that it, you think?”
“Most definitely.”
“Well, then, I’d better lead them as best I can.”
Rich held up a fist. “Halt!”
Arivana peered forward as they stopped, wondering what obstacle might now stand in their way. But even a careful evaluation of the street ahead revealed nothing.
“What is it, Rich? What’s wrong?”
He pointed straight down the lane. “Do you see that, Your Majesty?”
“See what? There’s nothing there.”
“Exactly. And that should not be the case.”
Claris stepped forward. “What happened to the barricade? Where are all the guards!”
“No idea, Lady Baudone. On last checks this morning the garrison commander reported all the outer posts were fully manned.”
“I don’t understand,” Arivana said. “Did they desert? Or take to looting as you feared?”
Claris raised a hand, spinning light before her eyes—a far-vision spell Arivana had seen often before. After only a beat of squinting evaluation, she jerked her eyes towards Rich.
“Blood in the street.”
Sixteen swords wrenched free of their sheaths in an instant, filling the air with an echoing ring.
Claris grabbed Arivana’s arm. “Stay behind me,” she hissed.
Arivana began shaking as the guardsmen formed a line across the breadth of the street, unable to banish from her mind images of the last time loyal soldiers had jumped to her defense. Only then, it had been in the garden . . .
. . . and Claris had been the one leading the ambush.
“Wh-what’s happening?” she asked.
A moment later, the question was answered, but not in words.
In screams.
Claris spun around her. “Behind us!”
The guards pivoted, stepping past them back in the direction they’d just came.
Arivana caught a glimpse of greyish figures leaping down from the low roofs of the surrounding buildings. Dozens of them. Crashing down among the milling, helpless civilians.
The enemy was here.
In the very streets of her city.
Breath and blood both seemed to freeze as she witnessed the slaughter unfold.
Richlen yelled something she couldn’t understand, and the guards broke rank and surged forward. Claris, raising one glowing hand and drawing a slim blade, outpaced them.
The ruvak turned from their savagery, shrieking like raptors approaching prey.
One guard fell without a sound, his head impaled on a hooked blade swung on the end of a chain.
The rest ducked behind shields and slammed into the ruvak.
Bodies tumbled. Flurries of stabbing steel were punctuated by gasps and grunts and cut-short screams.
Scorching light lashed out from Claris, snapping across inhuman faces as she danced between their attacks and snipped with precision at exposed bits of waxy flesh.
After an instant or a toll—she wasn’t sure which—Arivana felt her pulse return and filled her lungs with air that felt too sharp. It was over. Two guardsmen lay still upon the ground, and five others moved with pained expressions, leaving dark smudges in the dirt-filled street wherever they stepped. The civilians . . .
Arivana rushed among them, helping find the few left living among the steel-shorn dead. She soothed children and reassured mothers and smiled with determination at the men. Claris began healing those who still clung to life.
“We need to warn them,” Arivana said.
“Warn whom?” Claris asked.
“Everyone!”
Lifting blood-soaked hands from a woman whimpering in pain, Claris nodded.
Gilshamed coughed. It was difficult to avoid doing so. So much smoke and ash rose from the city below it had become impossible to even see, much less breathe. It did little to diminish his effectiveness, however; due to the enemy’s nature, he had already been fighting blind.
“That’s the last of them,” Vashodia said. “From this wave, at least.”
He nodded, coughing once more. As much as the destruction below chilled him, it was her voice that drove real shivers through his bones. Gone was the arrogance, the unflappable bravado, the confidence that knew no bounds.
He knew her. Better, perhaps, than all but a handful in this world. She planned for everything, calculating with forethought that would give even the dead gods pause. Whatever was happening now had strayed, somehow, from her impeccable vision of the future.
The weary blanket of hesitation as she’d spoken was the most frightening thing he’d ever heard.
Gilshamed felt his balance challenged as the domicile listed to one side again. Not all the damage had been sustained exclusively by Panisahldron.
“Are you ready to continue our defense?” he said, peering down at the darkly robed figure at his side. “That will not be the last attack to come today, nor have we seen, I’m sure, every tactic the ruvak have to offer. We must be prepared for anything.”
Smoke whirled around her head, but she did not seem affected by it. “Yes,” she said. “I’m ready.”
Gilshamed shivered.
“They approach,” Vashodia said. He no longer questioned how she knew. “Six ships, this time.”
“Only six?”
“Yes.”
“Not much of a challenge after that last group.”
“It might be when each of them have twice the mass of all those we’ve faced combined.”
He cringed, then looked below. Most of the ground-based war engines had been destroyed in the last wave, and over half of the fifty escort ships had been shot from the sky. Even with the valynkar and mierothi and the House Faer greatship still in the fight, their combined defensive power had been severely curtailed.
Steeling himself, Gilshamed straightened his back. He began pulling in more power through his kin, feeling their exhaustion and their resolve as surely as they felt his.
“We are not done yet,” he said.
“No,” she replied. “Not yet.”
He raised his arms, ready to face whatever may come.
“Councilor Gilshamed!”
He turned at the high-pitched voice and saw a valynkar boy, no older than thirty, coming towards him at a run.
“What is it?”
The boy came up to Gilshamed, bowing breathlessly and nodding. “It’s from the queen through her advisor, councilor. She says the city is breached.”
“Breached?” Gilshamed furrowed his brow. “That cannot be. We would have had word from Jasside, or someone else along the front. You must be mistaken.”
“No, no!” the boy said, shaking. “The front is to the north and east. Lady Baudone said they’ve taken out the guard posts and infiltrated from the south!”
Dread filled him like a wave. They had erected only minimal defenses along that edge of the city, sure the harsh terrain in the surrounding countryside would prohibit ground attack.
It appears that we were mistaken.
“The queen requests immediate assistance,” the boy continued. “Whatever assets you can spare.”
Vashodia laughed, a sour sound lacking even hints of her usual mirth. “And so we come to it again.”
“Come to what?” he asked.
“Choosing which is more important—life . . . or victory.”
“You honestly still think we can win this battle?”
“I do. But not if we let ourselves become distracted.”
&nbs
p; “Protecting innocent lives is not a distraction!”
Vashodia sighed. “A point on which the world and I seem to differ.”
Gilshamed shook his head, then gestured to the figures huddled nearby. “Then we shall let them decide.”
The valynkar and mierothi all turned attentive faces towards him.
He cleared his throat, lifting his voice. “If you think the battle still has a chance to swing in our favor, then stay. But hundreds of thousands, if not millions of innocent people are sitting exposed to the enemy, with little to stand between them and certain death. And is not the whole point of defending this city to safeguard the lives within it?
“If you think those people are worth saving, then divide yourselves, every other one . . . and go help them.”
A span of only ten beats passed before half of each group had separated themselves and dove, wings spread, from the domicile’s edge. Lashriel gave him a quick smile as she followed.
“I hope you’re happy,” Vashodia snarled. “You’ve just ensured our defeat.”
Gilshamed felt the absence of half his kin’s shared power. He could only grit his teeth and turn back to face the approaching enemy, and glimpsed, through the smoke, six massive ships begin to shove past the city’s shield.
“Nothing is assured,” he said. “Not even your plan. Most people, however, choose humanity over monstrosity.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Jasside watched the Phelupari go. She and Chase, conferring briefly, had agreed that it was the only logical thing to do. The fleet-footed soldiers, now sprinting fearlessly through a burning city, were best suited to help the situation on Panisahldron’s opposite end.
But with their departure, she could now clearly read the writing on the wall: the situation was hopeless. They couldn’t win, but neither could they pull back without disaster. Not with so many of those conduits of chaos still to contend with.
Jasside knew what she had to do.
She turned to her two young companions. “Stay here,” she said. “Stay safe. You remember how to use the controls, right, Drinn?”
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