Emrael stood atop the south wall of the temple compound, staring at the column of smoke that now billowed from the city south of the river, staining the summer evening sky. He could only hope that their fortifications hadn’t fallen already. How had the Fallen coordinated this attack on his brother so quickly after Emrael had surprised and hurt the Malithii forces, and why? Why was he trying to hurt Ban and others close to him?
They were questions for another time, when he wasn’t staring a battle square in the face. His path today was clear, but he couldn’t shake a feeling of uneasiness. Jaina might be able to help him piece it together. If not, Ban would. If they got to him in time.
He turned to survey his men. The seven thousand Ire Legionmen and three thousand Watchers who remained able had suited up and stood in ranks. He knew that many of them bore injuries, some serious. They had chosen to fight on anyway, rather than be left with the thousand or so grievously wounded that would stay behind the walls of the temple compound. He tried not to think about the thousands of men they had already lost in the battle with the Westlanders and soulbound earlier that day.
Worren gave him the signal that all was ready. Emrael drew his sword and lifted it over his head to draw his men’s attention. The ranks below occupied so much ground that not all would hear him, but his men would pass the message back. Not for the first time, he wished he had a voice-amplification Crafting with him.
“Men of Iraea. Watchers that have joined our cause,” he shouted, resheathing his sword. “Many of our brothers and sisters have died today. More of us will yet die. But we fight to save our brothers and sisters who are trapped south of the river, facing the full might of the Malithii forces we fought earlier today. I will not let them die alone, and I am proud to have you join me. We fight for the cause of Iraean freedom and the freedom of all Provincial peoples from the tyranny of foreign invaders. A cause worth more than my life, or any of our lives. We will win today, and when we do, the Provinces and a shared freedom will soon be ours.”
A ragged, tired cheer emanated from the ranks. Emrael smiled. For these men to be cheering at all after the day they had meant a great deal.
He descended from the wall to fetch his horse and lead the way out of the temple compound, riding in the front rank with Worren, Jaina, and Darmon this time. Save for Timan and twenty or so of the Royal Guard, of course, who insisted on riding in front of Emrael.
Their scouts had found no sign that any Malithii-led forces were in the area, and the smoke still rising in a thick, dark column to the south told a clear story. They pushed as quickly as their tired men behind them could march, crossing over one of the river bridges and through a section of toppled stone where the river wall had stood just weeks ago. The silence and lack of contact with the enemy was welcome but eerie after the harried flight from the soulbound just hours before.
They rounded a bend onto one of the main avenues that led to the city center and there they were. Organized ranks of black-clad Westlanders and blue-clad Watchers backing a milling mass of soulbound that surrounded the city center compound. The grey half-dead creatures hacked with heavy weapons at the stone fortifications and tried in vain to scramble with their inhuman strength over the low walls constructed between buildings, but it appeared that the defenders were successfully fending them off. For now. Emrael guessed that his people inside the crude fort were outnumbered at least five to one.
As they came in sight of the fortifications, Emrael heard a voice coming from the pendant at his chest. He held it up to his ear to find that several people were now relaying information and commands through Ban’s devices. As he listened to one of them call out a number, a volley of huge stones soared over the compound walls to crush scores of Westlanders who had been busy constructing catapults and siege engines of their own.
The large column of black smoke rose from what had once been a large building near the cleared space around the fortification. It was now a deep crater with chunks of stone and Westlander corpses strewn on the ground in a circle nearly a hundred paces wide. Wagons and other equipment still burned and smoldered all around the crater, sending greasy black smoke skyward. It was obvious that Ban, Garrus, and the men inside the fort had found a way to target the Malithii forces with deadly accuracy, and had saved or built more of Darrain’s explosives for the occasion.
He raised his Observer to his mouth, actuating the lever to try to contact his brother or those using his brother’s devices.
“Banron. Ban, are you there? This is Emrael, we’re here in the city. I have nearly ten thousand men ready to attack the Malithii forces from the rear. Ban, please answer.”
After an uncharacteristic moment of silence and a series of odd clicks and crackling noises like rustling of dry leaves, a voice asked over the Crafting, “Lord Ire, please repeat. We didn’t hear all of it. We’ve sent for Lord Ban.”
Emrael nearly laughed with relieved joy. “We’ve got ten thousand men and will attack the Malithii from the rear. Just keep those soulbound occupied.”
Ban’s voice responded, nearly bringing Emrael to tears. “Oh Absent Gods, Emrael. I’m glad you showed up when you did. We only have three or four thousand men left. The Malithii and Watchers have nearly thirty thousand, even after all we’ve killed. They’ll be through our walls soon.”
“We’ll show them that numbers aren’t everything,” Emrael replied with forced conviction. He had maybe one-third that many soldiers and knew he was likely marching to his death. “We’ll hit them from both sides, make them wish they had never heard of Iraea.”
“Sure we will,” Ban said. Emrael could hear the strain in his voice.
“Have you heard from Saravellin?” Emrael asked hopefully.
“No, we haven’t. Should we have?”
“No, it’s nothing.” Emrael forced himself to make his voice upbeat as he actuated his Observer to respond to his brother. “We’ll give them all we’ve got, Ban. If we hit the Westlanders and Watchers hard enough, they might retreat. At the very least, we may be able to lead them on a chase back to the north side of the river to buy you time to escape. We’ll have to kill all of the soulbound, though.”
“I may have the solution to that particular problem,” Ban responded distractedly, as he did when he was trying to think and talk at the same time. “Is Darrain with you? I want to ask her a few questions.”
“Shit,” he muttered to himself before responding to his brother. “Ban, Darrain is dead. We’ve been fighting nearly the entire day. I’ve lost thousands already.”
Ban was quiet for a moment. They had been close. “I see. Whatever you do, Emrael, don’t let your men into the cleared area around our walls. You hear me? Don’t go into the cleared space. We’re just about out of infusori, but I think I can arrange one last surprise for them. If it works, our wall and the buildings along the perimeter should fall and crush the soulbound if they’re close enough.”
Emrael looked to Worren, Jaina, and Darmon to make sure that they had heard. He could tell by the encouraged light in their eyes that they had. “That might just give us a chance, Ban. We’ll hit them hard, push as many as we can next to the walls, and let you do your work. Just be sure you’re ready, because we’ll take heavy losses if we have to fight them on even ground for long.”
“I’ll go now. Be careful, Em.”
“You too, Ban. I love you.”
Ban didn’t respond, obviously already off to work on his explosives. Worren, Jaina, and Darmon were already issuing orders by the time Emrael looked back to them, anticipating exactly what he wanted them to do. They were relatively confined in this avenue, but would separate and fan out to attack from as many of the major streets as possible, which radiated out from the city center like the spokes of a wagon’s wheel. Darmon and his Watchers set off to the east while Emrael and his men took this wide avenue and the surrounding streets. Worren and the other half of the Ire Legion marched away to attack from the streets to the west.
As they drew near, the Westlanders and Watchers ahead noticed, as Emrael had known they would. The rear ranks turned, presenting a solid wall of shields and pikes.
“Bowmen, aim just over the shields! Shoot!” Emrael shouted as his men lined up in a shield wall of their own. As instructed, the half-battalion of bowmen left to him aimed and loosed a volley with a chorus of snaps, highly tensioned crossbow strings releasing nearly in unison. A few bolts hit the enemy shield wall with a resounding thud, but the majority flew true, hitting the mass of Westlanders still trying to turn their ranks. Hundreds fell, writhing. The ranks of Westlanders around them whirled around in panic.
“Keep shooting! Make them huddle up!”
His bowmen loosed a volley every twenty seconds or so, which was quite impressive even with infusori-Crafted crossbows. After four more volleys, the Westlanders had positioned shields to shelter most of the men in their ranks. Many had switched their pikes out for crossbows of their own, which they now shot at the Iraeans with surprising effectiveness. These troops knew their business.
Trading pikes for bows was exactly what Emrael had hoped for, however. He left his five hundred bowmen with an equal number of men to cover them as much as possible with large shields while they continued to shoot, keeping the Westlanders grouped tightly.
Meanwhile, he bellowed commands for the rest of the four thousand men left to him to move forward at a quick march. Pikes were gripped tight in the second and third ranks while the front rank loosed their short swords, ready to deal death in close quarters. A few men in the second rank carried heavy broad-faced axes for chopping at the opposing shield wall as well. They knew their part, now all that was left was to play it.
The Iraeans closed the distance quickly and didn’t slow when they reached the line of Westlanders, who now scurried to switch their crossbows again for long pikes with their slender blades. A thundering crash like a hundred trees falling at once echoed through the avenue when the shield walls met. As Emrael had hoped, the Westlander ranks were pressed backward into their already tightly packed comrades, making it nearly impossible for them to maneuver.
The Iraeans took advantage. The front rank thrust their short swords through whatever gaps presented themselves, or swiped low to slash the Westlanders’ legs. The pikes in the second rank stabbed mercilessly at the seams between shields, rending flesh and spilling blood as the Westlanders were pinned against the shields of their own ranks behind them.
Emrael’s men killed hundreds in a few short minutes, stepping over the dead and dying Westlanders to press the attack. Finally, the Westlander ranks rippled as they pushed their own men into the cleared space beneath the walls of the fortifications to give the ranks facing Emrael space to fight properly.
Their ploy had worked. Westlanders now shared the space beneath the fortification’s walls with the soulbound, whom they kept at bay with their shields. He could see to the west that Worren had similarly pushed his opponents into the clearing, but couldn’t tell whether Darmon had succeeded with the enemy to the east. It would have to be good enough.
Emrael looked expectantly at the walls of the fort, expecting them to come tumbling down any moment on the heads of the tightly packed soulbound and Westlanders.
Nothing happened.
His men fought on, now taking as good as they gave. The Westlanders now had room to maneuver, which meant that spears and blades flashed into the Iraean ranks. As he watched, an Ire Legionman in the front rank was disemboweled by an expert thrust of a Westlander blade. The man fell screaming, and all his friends around him could do was pull him back to the relative safety of the rear ranks while another from the second rank pushed forward quickly to fill the gap in the shield wall before the Westlanders could press an advantage.
“We can’t keep this up long,” he shouted at Jaina to be heard over the din of battle, though she sat on horseback right next to him, their legs touching. She nodded.
Then it got worse. A group of Malithii working with the Westlander crews to salvage their ballistas and catapults finally succeeded, sending three large boulders crashing into one of the fort’s stone barricades. Rubble sprayed in every direction as the barricade and portions of the buildings to either side collapsed.
The soulbound that had been beating at the barricades for the better part of an hour now poured through the small opening like a flood. Ban and the people trapped inside would be overwhelmed and slaughtered if many more got in. Emrael had to stop the Malithii from opening any more gaps in the wall to give Garrus’s men a chance to push the soulbound back.
He stood in his stirrups to signal Timan, who had what was left of the Royal Guard fanned out in a loose circle around Emrael.
“Fetch all the cavalry we have here,” Emrael shouted when Timan drew near. “We’re going to lead a charge at the Malithii engineers, just there. The Guard will fight the Malithii while the rest of the cavalry makes a loop through the enemy ranks. Just tell them to get us there, then turn back here.”
He turned immediately to the two Captains Third attending him. “Send orders to the reserve ranks. They are to follow in our wake to pressure the Westlanders’ flanks. Go.”
Timan and the cavalry officers had already gathered to one side. Emrael nodded to them and drew his sword.
“There are too many,” Jaina said urgently at his side. “Killing ourselves won’t do Ban and the others any good.”
Emrael smiled sadly. “If we don’t win here, we’re all dead anyway. There will be no chance at a second retreat. I won’t leave Ban or any of the others here to die alone, and I’d rather die fighting than fleeing. We have to give Ban a chance to do whatever it is he has planned.”
He raised his sword and swept it forward. He let the first cavalry company pass before he, Timan, Jaina, and the fifty or so Royal Guards left alive fell into formation. As they drew near the left flank of their battle lines, the Iraean infantry shuffled backward quickly to let them through.
The five hundred cavalry plunged through the Westlander ranks. Charging horses collided with the Westlander shield wall, throwing black-clad men backward like leaves blown in a gale. A few of the Iraeans or their horses were hit by the enemy’s wickedly barbed spears and flopped to the ground thrashing and screaming.
Fortunately, the enemy hadn’t expected such a fast, violent attack and hadn’t had nearly enough pikes or crossbows ready to stop the charge. To be fair, Emrael wouldn’t have expected it either. This charge made little tactical sense, as it was almost certain to end badly against superior numbers tightly packed in the space beneath the walls. But letting the Malithii take the fortifications would be far worse, and they didn’t know about Ban’s plans to bring the wall down on top of the Westlanders and their soulbound.
The column coursed through the enemy like floodwaters in a dry streambed, first using spears to skewer the Westlanders before drawing their swords to slash at the enemy as they lost momentum.
When the company ahead of him slowed due to the press of tightly packed enemy ranks, Emrael signaled his Guard. They followed as he veered right, turning their column into a wedge formation. Men around him fell screaming but he urged his horse onward, slashing opportunistically as the animal trotted through the madness of battle.
Finally, he broke through the Westlander ranks to the relative calm of the burned-out square in which the Malithii had set up their siege machinery. Ban’s catapults had reduced much of their equipment to scrap, but at least a hundred Westlanders and twenty Malithii priests still operated a dozen machines that had escaped the barrage.
Emrael could feel as much as hear his Royal Guard following him as he charged straight at the crews preparing their catapults for another shot. A slash of his blade cut through a Westlander’s throat, spraying blood all over him and the rump of his horse as he rode onward. When he reached a high stone wall at the edge of the square, he was forced to dismount, as the Malithii’s machinery and supplies left him little room to maneuver. He pulled a small round shield from where he had tied it to his horse and quickly strapped it to his arm.
He was relieved to see Jaina and Timan among those that still rode with him. They and perhaps thirty of the Royal Guard looked to have survived the charge.
While the rest of the mounted Iraeans continued eastward to where Darmon and his Watcher battalions presumably fought, Emrael and his Guard formed a loose half-circle to face the two dozen or so Malithii that were already gathering several squads of Westlander infantry. Emrael and his friends would be outnumbered and only a dozen or so of the Guard were mages—and poorly trained compared to the Malithii, besides.
He drew from the infusori stored in his Crafted armor until he could see the scars on his hands and the exposed parts of his arms glow clearly even in the full light of the afternoon sun. He felt Jaina and the rest of the mages with him do the same as they eyed the Malithii a few short paces away. Emrael beat his sword against his wood and steel shield. His Guard took up the cadence but stopped quickly as the Westlander shield wall shuffled toward them.
“Iraea and freedom!” Emrael shouted, abandoning the safety of his own shield wall to sprint at the Westlander directly in front of him. He wasn’t about to wait for the priest behind the front rank to whip his copper-cable weapon over the top of their shields. Overwhelming the Malithii was their only hope.
Jaina sprinted with him. He dipped his shoulder behind his shield at the last second, knocking the surprised shield-bearing Westlander off his feet to fly backward into the Malithii behind him. Both went down in a heap.
Jaina darted in, her sword whipping quick as lightning to take both through the throat. Knowing she was at his back, Emrael turned to hack forcefully at the Malithii to his left, who was trying to whip a copper cable at Timan while the Imperator grappled with two Westlanders at once, protecting a fallen Guardsman at his feet. Emrael’s sword crushed the back of the Malithii’s skull.
Something hit Emrael’s midsection hard—a Malithii copper cable. Pain seared through his whole body as a Malithii unleashed a torrent of infusori that threatened to tear the very fiber of his being apart. Nearly as soon as it began, the pain disappeared. He ducked and held his shield over his head in a defensive posture while he tried to blink the pain-blindness from his eyes.
When he could see again, he realized that Jaina, Timan, Yirram, and several other of the Royal Guard had closed together around him, protecting him behind a wall of shields and hacking swords. The three Ordenan Imperators held off twice their number in Westlanders and Malithii, their weapons crackling with expertly weaponized infusori anytime they struck an enemy.
He climbed to his feet, head still pounding with waves of residual pain. Without hesitation, he pushed his way back into the Iraean shield wall. He caught a Westlander’s sword strike on his upturned shield, then punched his own blade through the man’s chest with a savage thrust.
He was fully in the throes of infusori-fueled battle rage now, but the desperate, feral fear that filled his chest spoke the truth. If Ban and those inside the fortification didn’t pull off a miracle, and quickly, he and everyone with him would be dead inside the hour.
“Run up a white flag with the Watcher standard below it,” Darmon commanded, staring across the hundred-pace distance between his rebel Watchers and the ranks of the Watchers that still obeyed the Malithii. Both sides waited silently behind ranks of shields, crossbows ready but held at ease. He hoped to avoid killing men he had ridden with just a few days earlier but strapped a shield to the stump of his right arm all the same.
In the two seasons Darmon had been practicing the blade with his left hand he certainly hadn’t managed to regain his former prowess, but neither was he afraid. He reckoned he had little to fear from any but those few like Emrael who had both studied the sword for a lifetime and had the advantage of two working hands.
He suppressed a surge of resentment and old hatred. He couldn’t afford to indulge those feelings. Like it or not, Emrael represented his best chance at expelling the Malithii from his province. His people, his family, had to be valued above his pride. Besides, if there was a “right” side of this conflict, he certainly hadn’t been on it.
A Watcher Captain First near the rear of the enemy ranks turned to talk to three Malithii priests who had just arrived. The Watcher Captain pointed at the flag Darmon had raised, then continued to move his hands wildly as he spoke. Though he could hear the din of battle happening to the west where Emrael and the Iraeans fought, the standoff here was quiet enough that Darmon could clearly hear the Captain shouting nearly two hundred paces away.
The three Malithii stood still for several seconds, until one of them lunged forward with a lightning-quick thrust of a short sword that gleamed for an instant in the afternoon sun. The Watcher Captain slowly toppled from his horse to fall on the dust-caked cobbles of the wide avenue in which they faced off, clutching his gut.
Darmon stared, shocked. None of the Watchers around the fallen Captain First moved either.
“Crossbow, now!” Darmon barked. “Crafted.”
A sergeant pulled one from the hands of a nearby bowman and handed it to Darmon, who dismounted to aim carefully. As good as he had been with a blade, bows and crossbows had always been his weapon of choice.
He breathed in, then out slowly as he squeezed the trigger. The crossbow bucked as the string released. The quarrel raced in a gentle arc to pass cleanly through the chest of the Malithii who had stabbed the Watcher officer. He crumpled to join the Watcher Captain in the dirt.
“Kill the Malithii! Kill the priests!” Darmon shouted, running through his lines and into the open space between the opposing ranks. “Join us!”
He knew the Watchers there could see and hear him, and that they knew who he was. He could only hope that they’d have the courage and the morals to turn on their Malithii masters in the face of overwhelming odds. Even if these five thousand Watchers joined his three thousand and Emrael’s seven thousand, they’d be outnumbered nearly two to one. And that was counting on the Iraean troops to fight as well as the highly trained Westlanders and their soulbound—a tall order.
He sighed in profound relief when the Watchers nearest the two remaining Malithii swarmed the black-robed priests, hacking them to death in seconds. The opposing Watcher ranks turned as their officers bellowed orders, forming a shield wall to their rear as they pulled back from the Westlanders facing the stone walls of the fortification.
Three Captains Second and a squad of Justicers rode to where Darmon waited with Captain Second Vaslat and a squad of his own men assigned as a security detail. They saluted him, though they did it as they’d salute an equal. He’d have to settle for what he could get.
“Lord Corrande,” a small Captain Second with a narrow face said. “What now?”
Darmon saluted back from where he stood in front of his ranks with a wry smile. “We don’t have a choice, do we? We fight with the Iraeans.”
All three of the Captains Second nodded. They knew that they faced long odds now, especially against a horde of the soulbound monsters. But they had also seen as much as he had of the Malithii and their barbarism. Villagers rounded up by the thousands and fitted with soulbinders. Watchers and Provincial Legionmen thrown into battle with no regard for life on either side of the conflict—both here in Iraea and eastward in the Ithan Kingdoms. Their entire society taken over by force and coercion. The men under Malithii control just needed an excuse, an opportunity to rebel.
“Let’s hit them hard before they realize what has happened,” he replied, climbing back into the saddle of his horse. “Tell your men we’ve got nowhere to go if we don’t win here today. There will be no retreat. Only victory or death.”
The paving stones beneath Ban’s feet shook as something exploded to the north and east of where he stood in the central plaza. At first, Ban feared it was a premature triggering of the explosives his engineers were setting to bring down the buildings that made up the fortification’s wall. In theory, the large buildings would fall on the heads of the soulbound and Westlander soldiers who now pressed the attack, trying to scale or destroy their barricades by brute force.
But it couldn’t have been his explosives. He had deactivated the actuator for this very reason. As dire as the situation was, he couldn’t risk bringing down the buildings on his own men. That meant that more of the Malithii catapults had survived than he had thought.
The screams and shouts of battle—and death—grew louder and louder. The soulbound must have made it inside their defensive wall.
He sprinted from where he had been working on building more explosives with a group of his engineers to where Garrus had already formed up his meager reserves to form a shield wall at the mouth of the avenue where the Malithii’s forces had breached.
Ban grabbed Garrus’s shoulder. “We don’t have all the explosives in place. How long can you hold?”
Captain Second Garrus shook his head, a grave look in his eye. “No way to tell how many got in. We’ll find out soon. I reckon we can hold for ten, twenty minutes at least.”
“Call your men back from the wall if you can. We’ve got to blow it now.”
Garrus’s face blanched. “If we bring down the entire wall now, we’ll be overrun, Banron. Everyone inside the fort will die.”
Ban smiled sadly. “We don’t have a choice, Garrus, not now. Emrael and his men are out there fighting to give us a chance, and soulbound are inside the walls. We’ve got to do it now.”
Garrus ran his hand over his stubbled face. Ban thought he might have seen a tear on the man’s cheek. “Absent Gods help us. Do it. Just give us twenty minutes to get everyone clear. We can hold them that long.”
“Twenty minutes,” Ban agreed. “Be sure you hold them.”
Garrus saluted before following his men down the avenue, where the bestial sounds of soulbound fighting with shouting Iraean Legionmen already echoed.
Emrael and the two dozen or so of the Royal Guard that still lived now stood in a rough circle, shields tightly interlocked. Jaina stood to his right, a cut on her forehead making her face a mask of blood. Timan crouched to his left, now dragging his injured leg every time he moved. Daglund stood somewhere behind Emrael, their backs nearly touching. Most of Emrael’s Guard were dead or missing, including Alsi.
They had killed all of the Malithii here in the square in their initial attack but were now surrounded by hundreds of Westlanders. Luckily, they were no longer eager to press the attack now that their masters were dead. Scores of Westlander dead also littered the courtyard, a testament to the deadliness of the Ordenan Imperators and their apprentices in the Royal Guard Timan had created. Emrael himself had lost count of the men he had slain, the infusori coursing through him fueling him past the point of natural stamina and into a frenzy. He simultaneously felt that he was on the verge of vomiting with exhaustion and that he could fight forever. He would certainly pay for the effort later, if he lived.
Emrael’s cavalry had managed to set fire to the remaining Malithii catapults, but if they still lived, he didn’t know where they were. His infantry had tried to follow their charge, but must not have been able to press through the ranks of Westlanders.
Just as the Westlanders inched forward for what was likely to be their last clash with those who remained with Emrael, a cacophony of clashing blades, battered shields, and screams erupted just to the east of the square. The Westlanders hesitated, looking around to see what was happening.
Within moments, a tide of Watcher blue swept into the square behind an immaculately aligned shield wall. The surprised Westlanders fell to the Watchers quickly. As he watched, the men in blue paused, turned their shields aside for the crossbowmen in their ranks to loose among their enemies, then closed ranks again to push forward with spears bristling between overlapped shields.
Before the Watchers had covered half the square, however, the disciplined Westlanders had formed ranks and halted their progress with a thunderous clash of wooden shields. Emrael and his small group were still isolated, separated from their unlikely allies by dozens of Westlanders.
Emrael shuffled closer to Timan, pushing him back inside their circle. The Ordenan tried to resist. “I’m fine,” he growled.
Emrael turned quickly, slamming the edge of his shield against the face of Timan’s. The Imperator stumbled backward into the sheltered center of their formation, unable to hold weight on his injured leg.
Emrael took a step backward, pulling Jaina and the Iraean mage apprentice who had stood next to Timan with him to keep their shields tightly locked. Just as they set their feet, the Westlanders shuffled forward with their black shields while men behind them hefted thick-hafted spears with barbed blades.
Emrael met two black shields with his, and the impact knocked him backward. Only quick feet and Timan’s hand on his back kept him standing. A spear blade flashed over his shield while he was off balance. He recoiled as searing pain consumed his left eye and spread across his face.
His world turned red. He blinked and shook his head, keeping his shield in front of him as he tried to adjust to only being able to see from his right eye.
The Westlander directly in front of him lowered his shield slightly to slash overhead with a sword. Emrael caught the strike on his shield and frantically thrust his own sword at the gap between the shields, releasing a burst of infusori as his blade found purchase. The soldier on the other end of his blade burst into flames, sending greasy black smoke into the sky and filling the air with the putrid stench of burned flesh. The Westlanders shrank back quickly as their comrade screamed, giving Emrael and Jaina a momentary reprieve.
Emrael watched the man burn, half in shock, when a jolt shuddered through the very stones beneath their feet. Jaina screamed in his ear, and something slammed into his shield, knocking him onto his back. His ears rang, the back of his head hurt, and his vision was now white in his right eye and black in his left. He moaned in confusion and terror, thinking himself completely blind, but his vision soon returned to his right eye. The ringing in his ears, however, remained.
He sat up slowly, choking as he tried to breathe dust-filled air. Each cough sent a flare of pain through his skull. He could feel hot blood seeping from his eye socket to run down his face.
The courtyard was littered with rubble and bodies. Those closest to the fortification—where the fortification had just been, anyway—weren’t moving. Ban had finally brought down the wall, and it looked to have worked. Nearly all the soulbound had been crushed, and many of the Westlanders besides, leaving less than half of the black-clad foreigners alive.
Jaina scrambled to him using both feet and one hand, while the other arm held her shield up just in case.
“Fuck,” she muttered. Then, louder, “Emrael?” she shouted. “Emrael, can you hear me?”
The relief was obvious on her dust-covered face when his remaining eye tracked to her.
“How bad is it?” he croaked.
Jaina grimaced as she looked him over. “Bad enough. Only a Mage-Healer will be able to tell us more. Can you stand?”
No amount of soldiering could prepare a man to be so near such an explosion. Most of the Westlanders had been very near the wall of the fortified compound, and so even the ones that had survived were heavily wounded, disoriented, or both. The Westlanders still able to were already starting to regain their feet, however, picking up shields and swords, looking all around with wild eyes. Rather than move to attack, they retreated carefully into a defensive position.
“Help me up,” Emrael grunted at Jaina through the pain, getting to his feet with her help. His head swam and he was still disoriented by only having one working eye, but he could stand. Jaina stepped closer so he could rest his shoulder on hers. He saw Daglund help Timan up and hand him the shield he had dropped. A few others of the Guard still alive joined them, backs to each other, shields up, blades ready. It was utterly futile; there was no way for their small group to fight through the thousands of remaining Westlanders who even as Emrael watched seemed to be regaining their nerve.
Just then, a roar erupted from the south. Emrael nearly shit himself in panic until he realized that the cacophony came from inside the fortification. He watched in profound relief as a flood of soldiers in Iraean green and Raebren teal climbed over the rubble where a wall of buildings had been just moments before. Thousands and thousands of them charged the disorganized Westlanders and the few soulbound left alive after the blast. The Westlanders put up a good fight for several minutes, but where they had once held a strong numerical advantage they were now outnumbered.
The Westlanders gradually began to fall back, then began to flee en masse like a herd of black sheep fleeing from a pack of wolves. The few soulbound left alive were cut down quickly as the stampede began in earnest.
Emrael and the remaining Royal Guard had a new problem. The Westlanders no longer cared to fight them, but they stood in the middle of the thousands trying desperately to escape. They huddled together again, those with shields doing their best to ward off any Westlander who got too close.
“Follow me!” Jaina shouted, guiding Emrael by the hand to a nearby mostly intact building. Daglund continued to half-carry Timan, battering the occasional running Westlander with his large teardrop-shaped shield as they hobbled in tandem. Emrael was glad to see that more than a dozen of his Guard still lived to reach the safety of the ruined building with them.
Daglund eased Timan down next to Emrael as Jaina issued orders to the men and women who had joined them, stationing two on each doorway and broken-down wall where Westlanders might gain entry.
Emrael sank to the rubble-strewn floor of the ruin next to Timan. “How bad is the leg?” Emrael asked.
Timan grunted. “Nothing a Mage-Healer cannot fix.” He leaned closer, inspecting Emrael’s face. “I cannot say the same about your eye, Em. I’ve never seen a Healer manage anything like that.”
A wave of grief washed through Emrael. All things considered, today had turned out far better than he had dared hope. He was alive, and he had reason to hope that Ban still lived. But so many of those who followed him had died. Thousands of people who had trusted him to lead them to a better future now had no future at all.
And losing an eye … for a warrior like Emrael, it was nearly as bad as losing a hand.
Jaina made her way back to Emrael, bandages and waterskin in hand. He nearly fainted from pain when she poured water over his face to rinse away the worst of the grime before securing a bandage to the left side of his face. “I can’t do any more without risking further damage, Emrael. We need a Mage-Healer. Sisters send Dairus still lives.”
After an hour or so, the din of battle outside subsided to the nonurgent shouts of soldiers, and the moans and screams of wounded. The Westlanders had either died or fled.