It was Caymus's turn to raise an eyebrow at Aiella. "I'd heard you'd been giving orders, Miss Aiella," he said. "Did somebody promote—"
The massive explosion that cut off the question knocked Milo from his feet. The world tumbled before his eyes for a brief moment until he suddenly felt a hard force against one of his sides. He knew it had been him that had hit the ground, but it felt more the other way around.
What felt like an eternity passed while colors swam around in his vision. A muffled ringing sound was all that he could hear. Milo knew he wasn't dead. He was fairly certain, too, that he wasn't badly injured, but until he got his bearings again, he knew for sure that he was vulnerable.
He reached out with one hand, felt cobbled stones under his fingers, and managed to determine which way was up. His vision was still cloudy as he pushed himself up to one knee, then both knees. He could make out shapes moving in front of him now, and the ringing was starting to melt away, leaving raised voices in its wake. By the time he was able to stand, the scene before him had solidified.
The gate itself was gone, reduced to planks and splinters, some of which were still raining down around him. Half of the wall surrounding the gate was still there, holding the bent, creaking portcullis in place, but dozens of hands and shoulders were pushing against the iron lattice, knocking bricks and mortar loose. Two of the dark figures were already pushing through one corner; the rest would pile on the moment the portcullis fell.
A thick mass of black smoke plumed from a large fire that burned on the spot just the other side of where the gate used to be. Whatever material it was that Black Moon had used to destroy the gate, the remnants of it were still smoldering. He knew it hadn't been graysilt or Rill's sludge: those smelled different. This smelled…sweet. The krealite soldiers, knowing they were near-impossible to burn, casually stood amongst the flames, pushing against what was left of the Grass-Guard Gate. The blackness of the smoke made the figures seem as though they were shadows given life, emerging from some dark realm of nightmare.
Milo had been thrown a good fifteen feet by the blast. He took a quick look around. Four of the soldiers lay nearby, obviously dead, shards of oak as large as Milo's leg sticking out of their bodies. Most of the rest, including Aiella, were still picking themselves up off the ground, going through the same motions he had gone through mere moments ago.
Caymus, though, was a force unto himself. Milo didn't know how it was that his friend had recovered so quickly, but he was already walking, flaming sword held in both hands, toward the invaders. Milo could feel the heat of the air radiating out from him.
"Set, then push," he heard Aiella say. Milo turned to look at her, and nodded. She turned to address the rest of the soldiers, most of whom were, by now, on their feet. "Remember what the knight said!" she shouted at them, pulling her rapier and waving it to get their attention. "If you try to cut, you will die! Set your blade, and push!"
Some of the men nodded understanding, making motions with their swords, practicing the things that Caymus had taught to the willing the previous night. Others just scowled, or paid her no mind. Milo felt sad for those men; their families would miss them when they died.
Milo regarded his bow, lying on the ground at his feet, apparently having been thrown from his shoulder. One of the tips, meant to hold the bowstring in place, was broken, rendering the weapon useless. He sighed. He'd really liked that bow, had been using it for a good five years now, but it wasn't of much consequence anyway. He'd listened to Caymus last night too. Hard as he'd tried, he hadn't thought of a way to 'push' with an arrow. Instead, he'd gone and borrowed himself a pair of sharp knives from the Keep's kitchens—cooks always kept their knives sharper than soldiers ever did—which he now pulled from his boots.
He hadn't had much chance to practice with them, but really, how hard could 'set and push' really be?
He was about to find out, and he grinned in anticipation of a new discovery. As the portcullis finally broke free from what was left of the gatehouse and came crashing and clanging down upon the street, he readied himself for the onslaught.
The initial half-dozen krealites never stood a chance. The first thing they met when they poured through the portal was an angry fire knight, and he cut them down before they could even ready their weapons. The area they stood in had been designed as an open marketplace, however, so the smarter Black Moon soldiers began giving Caymus a wide berth, getting around him so that they could attack just about anybody else.
The first one that found Milo was a brute of a fellow. The man was about a foot taller than him and nearly twice as broad in the waist. His granite-colored face carried all manner of scars and pimples. A thick, brown beard matted his neck and the bottom half of his chin. The head of the large axe he carried had a mean-looking blade that only ended about a third of the way down the shaft. Milo thought it a fitting weapon for the man; he was pretty sure it was called a 'bearded' axe.
The man seemed to have no fear of Milo at all. He made no effort to guard himself as he swung the axe with both hands in a huge arc. Milo took a half-step back and simultaneously pushed against the man with a ball of air, preventing him from achieving his full reach.
Milo took stock of his position. The first thing to do was get that sharp axe away from the nasty man. The grungy face seemed surprised as Milo took a half-step forward, grabbed the weapon's shaft in the crook of his elbow, and placed the tip of a knife against the back of the man's hand. Set and push, Milo thought. He pushed.
He was fairly certain that the yelp the brute gave was more of surprise than actual pain, but he couldn't be sure. As the axe clattered to the ground, one of the man's anvil-like feet took a big step backward. Milo sent a thick gust of air against the retreating foot, making the man just unstable enough that he could be brought down onto his back with a solid kick to the chest.
Milo didn't waste any time or movement. He followed the burly figure down with his knife. He hated this part. While the bearded face was still wondering what it had tripped over, Milo set the tip of his blade against a point just over the man's heart, then pushed. The man wasn't wearing any armor, so there was only the skin and a bit of crusty-looking fabric to get through.
The sensation of the knife passing through the flesh didn't feel difficult or even strange. Milo supposed the fact that this man's skin was light gray, rather than black, meant that he wasn't all that invulnerable to a blade yet. He wondered if the man had known that. Maybe he'd have worn some armor if he had.
Milo didn't wait to watch the man die. He didn't like to see that kind of thing. Instead, he quickly pulled the blade free and stood just in time to dodge out of the way of a sword point that had been aimed at his chest. As the blade passed before his eyes, he noticed it was covered in fresh blood. Somewhere, nearby, there was a dead soldier belonging to it.
The fighting went on that way for awhile. Milo wasn't sure how long it was before he got a spare moment to get a good look at his surroundings, but he felt he'd killed a good half-dozen krealite soldiers and witnessed another dozen of Kepren's defenders go down in the span.
Two of the krealite monsters, the huge insects, had arrived. Caymus was dealing with one of them. The second was attacking a group of three soldiers who seemed like they were managing to keep the sharpest of the claws away from themselves. Aiella was driving her blade down through the neck and torso of another burly-looking krealite. Milo wondered how many men she'd been forced to kill today. Krealite soldiers kept pouring through the opening in the wall, but more of Kepren's warriors also kept arriving. For the moment, they seemed to be fighting to a draw.
The thing that really concerned him, though, was the fire. The flames from the destroyed gate had managed, somehow, to spread past the edges of this marketplace. Milo took another good look around and noticed that a few of the krealite men carried torches which they were tossing onto the roofs and into the windows of the buildings around them. Kepren had been so dry for so long that materials caught easily.
Even the stone buildings had some wood in their structures, and almost all of them had flammable furniture inside.
Milo wasn't sure what to do. They were holding back Black Moon for now, but it wouldn't mean much if they lost the city to fire. Caymus was supposedly a fire-shaper, could probably do something about it, but that sword of his was the single greatest reason they were holding here, and they needed him to keep fighting. Milo could try using wind to blow the flames in another direction, but he knew that stood an equal chance of just giving them new life.
"Milo!" Aiella was yelling at him. When he turned to her, she looked over her shoulder at the flames. She'd seen them, too. "Can you keep the soldiers away from me?"
Milo wasn't sure what she'd meant, but when she turned and looked at him again, she held a deadly serious look in her dark eyes. "You must keep them from me!"
He was about to ask her why, but she was already moving, running toward one of the buildings that was just beginning to burn. As she passed krealite soldiers, some of them turned to take a swing at her. Her movements, however, were flowing, graceful as the water she worshiped, as she dodged or shoved them back, not attacking, but just keeping them from pressing in, then leaving them in her wake.
Milo followed behind. Focused as the krealites were on Aiella, the men were easy prey for him. One got a knife in the back of his neck, the other in the left kidney. As he pulled the blade from the second, he watched as Aiella clambered up onto the roof of one of the burning buildings. He wanted to ask what in the winds she thought she was doing, but before he could open his mouth, she was nodding at him, then closing her eyes and kneeling.
Confused, Milo decided to just go ahead and hope the girl knew what she was about. He turned around and did as she had asked, making sure she was protected from the krealites around her. Hopefully, he thought, she's doing something about the fire.
His task didn't turn out to be very difficult. Up above the carnage as she was, Aiella didn't catch the attention of many of the attackers. Only two of them actually tried to get past Milo and up on to the roof, and neither counted on the speed of the knives he wielded. The scariest moment was when a krealite crossbowman noticed her and decided to take a shot. Milo had seen the leveled crossbow at the last possible moment, and had deflected the bolt away with a quick, vertical gust. The shooter hadn't seemed to understand what had happened to throw off his shot so wildly, but Milo had closed the distance between them quickly, so he'd not had long to wonder about it.
Nearly five minutes passed. Caymus had killed the monster he'd been tangled with, as well as two others that had arrived since. The other insectoid had slain four of the royal soldiers before a few of them had figured out a strategy to take them down: two of them held the huge claws and teeth back with large, metal shields, while half-a-dozen others flanked the monsters on both sides, pushing their swords deep into the abdomen.
Another of the buildings was catching fire, though, and Milo turned his face up to yell at Aiella. When he looked up, though, he felt a chill in the air around her, a clammy sort of cold that surrounded her like a second skin.
He could feel the cold somewhere nearby, too. As he ducked out of the path of another sword and sunk a knife into a krealite soldier's heart, he felt excitement rising in his chest. The very air around them was cooling down, just a little bit. She was doing something really interesting.
The effect wasn't particularly large or grandiose, but it was effective. Small streams and rivulets of water began appearing out of the ground, as though forced up through the buildings' foundations by some invisible presence. Specifically, the water seemed to be pouring out of the ground in a large arc around the marketplace, creating a sort of barrier between the buildings that had already caught fire and those which hadn't.
Even as he dodged out of the way of a thrown spear, Milo laughed out loud. She'd found a way. Somehow, she'd pulled enough water out of the ground to keep the flames under control. They would still have to make sure that none of the krealites spread the flames by hand, of course, but now that a small moat of water surrounded their field of battle, there was no danger of the buildings catching each other.
"How long have you been able to do that?" Milo yelled up when Aiella finally opened her eyes again and gulped down air in deep breaths. He'd known her father had some talent for pulling water, but nobody had mentioned that he might have passed the Aspect on to her.
Aiella didn't answer, but gave him a curious smile and put her finger to her lips. Milo understood: this was a secret, for some reason. He wondered if even the ambassador knew the extent of his daughter's talents.
Milo returned his attention to the fight. The stalemate continued, but too many of Kepren's soldiers were dying. Their bodies, either still or writhing in agony, littered the wide street. At least their deaths were counting for something. Every drop of Kepren's blood was spilled holding the line, keeping the forces of Black Moon from advancing any further. He could see it now: something in faces around him, in the ferocity with which the defenders of Kepren were fighting, told him that right here—right in this spot—was where the battle would be decided.
Milo felt himself flinch bodily when the hot air from Caymus's sword passed over his head, taking out the eyes of one of the krealite crawlers. Milo hadn't even realized the thing was there, but he quickly jumped back out of the way of the flailing claws and teeth as Caymus moved in to finish the job. Milo was really glad they had Caymus on their side. The men of Kepren were fighting valiantly, but they would already have been beaten without the Conflagration's champion.
He knew Caymus's very presence was bolstering their courage, too. He knew it because he felt the same effect in himself.
Caymus noticed him watching, and the two of them exchanged knowing nods. The fight could go either way from this point, the tide capable of turning on a single moment of luck or hesitation. In that second, though, they were both still alive, and that was enough.
Then, a voice came that shattered the battlefield, bringing both Kepren and Black Moon forces to their knees. The voice called out from somewhere in the Grass District, so loud and so strong that it shattered Milo's vision, making him feel like he'd been knocked backward all over again. The voice seemed as though it had risen up from the very ground, as though a portion of the world had opened up to let the sound through. Milo thought the voice seemed so angry, so lost, yet it had cried out only a single word.
"KNIGHT!"
***
"Stop him!" Rill cried out as he ran. "Burn me, somebody stop him!"
A dozen startled people turned to watch the hooded figure tear past them in the narrow street, but none reached out to halt its progress. Rill cursed again. This part of the Guard District was so crowded with people right now that this villain shouldn't have had anywhere to run, but no matter how thickly people lined the streets, the figure kept making progress.
He supposed it wasn't fair to demand that the people of Kepren worry about a foot chase right now. They could all hear the explosions, the screaming, the intensity of the fighting going on within their own city. They looked terrified, not knowing what to do or where to run. Most of them probably didn't give the billowing cloak or its pursuer a first thought, much less a second.
At least Rill was making progress. When he'd first rounded the wall of the Keep, the saboteur had been nearly fifty yards ahead of him. Now, he was within a few strides. Rill wasn't particularly fast; rather the figure had turned out to be quite short, which had reduced his relative speed. Rill supposed, given the stature, that he could be chasing a woman. He'd been trying to remember if the arm he'd seen had appeared muscular or lean.
When the figure rounded the end of a building and ducked into an alleyway, Rill slowed and nearly skidded as he came to a halt at the corner. Whoever this person was, he still had a bow, and he could easily be waiting for his pursuer to turn that corner so he could put an arrow in his chest. Rill weighed his options and sneered at the conclusion he came to. He didn't
like his plan much, but he didn't have time to think of anything cleverer.
Taking a deep breath, he pivoted out into the entrance to the alley. Rather than stop or run after the figure, however, he continued the pivot until he had his back against the wall on the opposite side. He'd been right to do so. The brief glimpse he'd seen was of a hood with a drawn bow, and of an arrow pointing in his direction.
A second later, the arrow flew out of the alley and cracked against the stone of the opposite wall. Rill seized his moment and ducked into the narrow area between the buildings, moving as quickly as possible in order to catch his assailant before he could nock another arrow.
He heard the clatter of the bow hitting the ground at the same time he saw the cloak billowing out behind the turning, running figure. As he was just a few yards away, though, Rill made up the distance before his opponent could pick up speed. When Rill finally grabbed a fleeing shoulder, he also trod upon the cloak, causing both of them to go tumbling down to the ground.
When the alley finally stopped moving, Rill found himself on top of the saboteur. His knees were on the fabric of the cloak, which was wrapped around the dark figure so tightly that the man was effectively pinned, helpless. Rill felt immensely relieved that the chase was over. "Gotcha!" he said, and pulled the hood down.
He nearly gasped when he saw a boy's face looking back at him. An incredible hatred filled the boy's eyes as he stared up, defiantly, at his captor. Rill couldn't remember ever seeing anybody look so malevolent. Rill tried to figure out what could cause somebody so young to hate so much. Then, as the boy made a useless effort to squirm away, he was struck by a sudden realization.
He knew that face.
"Well done, Engineer Rill." Rill, still a little stunned, turned and saw another dark figure approaching from the alley's entrance. This figure also wore a cloak, though where the boy's was a dark gray, this one was pitch black, the hood pulled back to expose an ancient, shriveled face.
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