As Thrassus worked, Kailorien followed at a distance, searching for signs of the Solutus and any magical threat. The smoke was too thick for mortal eyes to see, and he activated Kenaz to help him navigate through the murk. He bellowed one command after another, guiding his men to gather survivors as they ran in panic from collapsing buildings, disintegrating walls, and shattering glass.
His men grabbed some of the runners, wrestling them to the ground and putting out their burning hair and clothes. Fragments of crystal and stone had sprayed in all directions, eviscerating some on contact and leaving hundreds of others bleeding out on the streets. If it wasn’t for hisdefensive preparations, the majority of his men would have been nothing but crimson smears on stone.
Zarrek would have challenged me,he thought, watching Thrassus.Two rows of shields, one blade and spear to scour the corners. He was always more aggressive. Thrassus is loyal, but he obeys too readily. Too blindly.
The rebels did not wait long. While the Han district was still reeling from the blast, they rose like specters from the ground, pouring out of every crevice in rivulets of seeping ink. They wore ivory masks and long grey robes striped through the shoulders and hems in crimson. On their chest was a symbol — a crimson bird with broken wings.
The Ashborne, a creature of legend, fallen from grace.
A tremor rippled through the stone beneath his boots as another cluster of ivory masked figures vaulted over ruins of a collapsed Crafter home ahead. They gathered as a unit — twenty or more — and pushed ahead. His Reskala raised their shields.
Thrassus signed for them to hold.
Horns rang out. Not the Onyx ones of the city, but the wailing stone horns of the rebellion. The sound split the air, high pitched, loud. The sound spread out, melding with the smoke. More horns joined in from all sides, a tactic created to intimidate and disorient. The first of the Solutus crashed against the Reskala line moments later, bursting from the thick smog in a synchronized assault.
Steel shrieked against Rödom crystal as curved blades struck the shields in a storm of ringing blows. The rebels moved with fluid coordination, their grey robes whipping through the smoke as they lunged and twisted for openings. Most were young — temple children stolen in the night and turned to the rebellion through secrecy and lies.
Kailorien stepped into the gap between the two shield rows.
His blade flashed once.
The nearest row of attackers fell before their war cry could form, ivory masks splitting and shattering beneath the force of the strike. A spray of blood arced into the air. Incantations shouted from deep within the dark. The crackling of failing magic. A second row jumped over the corpses with unnatural speed, knives and curved daggers arcing toward Kailorien’s throat.
He held up a hand, and for a moment, the light from his azure magic illuminated a face warped with fury and hatred. Steel met ward, but the attackers did not stand a chance.
He curled his fingers into his palm and whispered,“Shera’eth thor.”
Morvane pulled at the runes between his shoulderblades as his Runesgram summoned the Resh’Agar’s magefire. When he released it, it roared outward, enveloping several rows of Solutus. They screamed. Shrieked. But still they attacked. If they could move, they charged.
Undaunted. Zealots beyond redemption.
The Reskala shield wall absorbed the next round of blows, the Rödom crystal flaring faintly as rune-forged daggers struck the surface. Thrassus gave another signal. Several Reskala thrust spears through the openings between the shields and drove the rebels back with more cries of agony.
Has anyone asked them why they rebel?Auryn’s voice caught Kailorien off-guard. She’d asked this question in Council several times, but no one had an answer. He’d thought it a moot point, but with the rising attacks and the way these men did not flinch from fear or pain…
He shook his head. Not now.
Raido blazed to life as he took off at blinding speed, circling the formation, culling attackers trying to surround his men and reach the survivors they were moving to shelter. The rows he’d assigned to guard them held, larger Reskala meeting the Solutus with brute force, knocking bodies backwards with their bulwarks — kicking, casting targeted blastsof mana to keep the Crafters and their apprentices safe within the ring of shields.
“Advance!” Kailorien ordered.
Thrassus relayed the command in a swift series of signs.
The Reskala moved as a single wall. Gleaming white shields surged forward, forcing the Solutus back through the rubble-choked street. Heavy boots stepped over charred corpses. Wave and after wave. Bodies piled on shattered stone as the rebels pressed harder, their ivory masks weaving through the haze like pale skulls rising from the nether.
Kailorien shifted his stance, angling himself to the left flank. Preparing another series of webs and magefire.
Behind him, the motion should have been mirrored.
Instead, the space remained open for a breath too long.
Several attackers slipped through the gap.
Kailorien twisted, letting one knife glance off the rune-etched plates of Morvane before driving his sword through the attacker’s chest. He turned, slicing through his torso and freeing his blade. It swung in an arc, beheading another man.
Thrassus stepped into position at once, his axe cleaving another attacker from shoulder to spine.
Too slow.
