Zarrek would have been faster.
Thrassus fought well. Few could rise to the rank of Second without skill and sacrifice. His strikes were strong, his commands precise, his devotion to the Doctrine absolute. Yet something in his rhythm faltered.
War had two mothers — discipline and scars born of survival. Thrassus had known one all his life, but this latest Campaign was his first true taste of battle.
Another wave of Solutus poured through the smoke.
More than before.
Their numbers seemed to multiply within the dust, grey robes spilling through shattered doorways and broken walls like water through a breached dam. Magic rained from the sky, but the mana was corrupted — tainted by whatever had been in the blast. The spells misfired, some falling back onto the Solutus while others exploded mid flight.
Gritting his teeth, Kailorien cast another ward over the survivors to protect them from the backlash. They wailed, huddling together, terrified.
A group of men appeared from behind a collapsed stall and lunged for Kailorien’s exposed flank.
A blade flashed from the smoke.
They screamed as one was cut clean in half and another was crushed beneath an earth ward.
Silence.
Kailorien did not turn immediately.
He didn’t need to.
The air behind him shifted with a presence he knew better than his own heartbeat — one that moved through battle like a shadow birthed of war and carnage.
Zarrek the Bloodletter stepped from the smoke, his golden eyes glowing, his mouth moving in chant. Glowing runelight spilled from his lips, and the earth ward shifted. The mana gathered into a colossal orb and rolled, crushing more attackers in its wake. Kailorien watched, transfixed, at the sight of what a master Runetongue could accomplish even in the wake of magical backlash.
Determined, Kailorien raised his hand and summoned a portal again.
“Don’t, Resh,” Zarrek warned. “That kind of magic will break here.”
“The blast,” Kailorien said.
Zarrek nodded, his expression as calm as if he had stepped into a training yard rather than a burning district.
Another wave of Solutus charged.
Kailorien stepped left.
Zarrek stepped right.
Their blades fell together.
As Kailorien cast a compressed shell between the rebels, Zarrek jumped to them and swung his battleaxe at the orb. The magic detonated, blasting the group in all directions.
The rhythm of the battlefield shifted.
Where Kailorien struck, Zarrek covered. When the line surged forward, he slid into position at Kailorien’s back as naturally as breath. The two men stood back-to-back amid the smoke and scattered bodies, their weapons dripping red.
Kailorien allowed himself a brief glance over his shoulder.
“You’re late,” he said.
Zarrek grunted in reply as another wave rushed them.
“Not by much.”
