IN WHICH A CITY IS BRIEFLY VISITED.

How many steps had we taken, since we had set out to thwart HIS armies and atrocities? Not enough, it seems.

Once we had crawled out from under the shadow of the tower, and made it a little way up the road, Alaxoria sat down. Or rather, Alaxoria collapsed, nearly taking out Keller in the process. Sometimes decisions just... make themselves. Zephyr conferred with John about the prayers he had used, the position of the broken bones, while Keller scaled the nearest hill to check how close our pursuers were. A shrug, was all the message we received, and he came back down to join us around Alaxoria. Nothing seemed to have left the tower, we were alone out here amongst the ashen sands. John held Alaxoria's hand and asked Her Radiance to give Alaxoria the strength to bear it, while Zephyr ran thin blue feelers through the front of her shin, opening up the skin and parting the flesh. Blood welled, and her eye twitched, but she turned her head away to talk to me instead. "Did you see me up there? HE not so strong. I see again, I take my axe, yes, have proper fight. Next time, I grab that poncy helmet in hand a-"

CRACK

Alaxoria shuddered once, then tensed all over.

CRACK

There was a squelch of parting flesh, Zephyr pulled a finger's length of bone right out of her shin. The segment of bone had a long splintering line running down the middle of it, and was chopped precisely at either end by cutting spells. It glistened, trailing strings of meat pulled from her calf muscles. The hillside lit up as Zephyr got to work, the normal blue glow of the mage doubled, tripled, the spurting blood gleamed black in the pulsing light. The removed lump spun in mid-air, melted into a homogeneous slurry of bone and flesh, mixed with a handful of silvery powder from John's pouch, before doing a loop and flowing back into the open wound. The skin folded over itself and pinched together in a bloodless white line. Beneath the instantaneous scar, the congealing metalised-bone made the flesh jump and twist like mad. "Acceptable," announced Zephyr after a moment "given extremely unacceptable conditions. Any future breaks, do not walk on it until after full repairs have been completed. Or the leg will need to be removed at the knee. Or worse."

Her arm was still broken, but hadn't been put through the strain of the gruelling retreat, so no heroic reconstruction was required. Zephyr proscribed one of the two remaining alchemical concoctions I was carrying, and locked her arm in place from shoulder down with a neat little spell. It was a modified hex that normally froze an entire body in one position. I'm sure you can imagine what that was normally used for.

We had to keep moving. Keller kept backtracking to try hunt down our possible pursuers, but eventually even he had to agree, nothing was coming after us out of the tower. The bloody ruin we had made on the way into HIS outer sanctum, the devastation we had wrought at the core of HIS assault on the mortal lands, had been answered with...

Nothing.

I didn't want to think about what that could possibly mean.

Somehow, despite the horrors of last night and early this morning, despite the lack of sleep and the hasty surgery, things somehow slipped back to normal. The five of us had a way of travelling that worked best for us, so we fell back into it like nothing had changed. John trod the road ahead, pulling ahead and slowing up as needed, sword sheathed by his side and hands free. Even with her just-repaired leg, Alaxoria alternated between a stolid rearguard position, and flitting between the trees that closed in on either side of the path, ranked sentinels observing our passage. Keller and I just walked in silence, and I couldn't possibly express to him how thankful I was for that. Zephyr floated at head-height, occasionally probing down below the ground, or drifting up above canopy level to make sure nothing was approaching from either direction. I had managed to explain to Zephyr a few weeks ago that having a glowing blue phantom hovering directly above my head, just out of my vision, was Not The Done Thing. Despite their protests about protective spellcasting and efficient warding schemas, Zephyr now hovered to my left at a more sensible altitude.

Despite the terror that either crept or sprinted behind us, we had to stop by midday to catch our breath. We were- most of us were only mortals, after all. I got to watch Alaxoria bow deeply to an injured deer, before tenderly punching through its skull with four outstretched fingers, and oversee a scuffle between Zephyr and Keller. The former had whispered a spell that separated the deer carcass into neat piles of bones, skin, flesh, viscera, blood and partially digested grass before the latter got a second knife out. "I've seen you use that on an ogre! I cannot believe this, you don't use combat spells on my food!" Alaxoria just tutted while Zephyr protested back, she fished through one of the piles to find the tongue, brushed off the road dust, and popped it into her mouth.

"Less speed, more haste, wizardling. You crack egg with a mallet, it end up on face, yes?"

We all got a laugh out of that. We needed that laugh even more than the food. While Zephyr put Alaxoria's teeth back into her gums one by squelching one, I sidled over to John's half of the fallen tree. The meat crackled and popped above the smokeless blue fire. "Listen, want me to take a look at fixing that sword? There'd be hardly more than splinters missing." He shook his head and gave me a John smile.

"It's true-forged steel, and I had it reconsecrated against spells the last time I visited the abbey. Your make-and-mend would melt right off, or else it'd just snap again the next time I parried anything. Thank you though, I really appreciate it."

And he would. The grateful bastard. I can't believe I forgot all about his trip to the abbey.

"We're nearly at the citadel, we've made good time," Keller sucked his fingers of deer grease, then wiped them on the grass "What will we tell them when we get there?"

"...What do you mean?" said John. I saw what Keller was about to say, and glared at the side of his head. I knew he could feel my stare, and he knew, that I knew, that he was ignoring me. There are some things that you just Don't Tell John.

"Well, if we, sort of told them something like. 'HE is dead'. Then I don't suppose they'd let us... I 'unno... head off?"

"You can't- are you suggesting we desert? Now? After everything."

"Hey, no, it's just," Keller had his hands up "Zephyr could get us out of here, right? We pack up, we go. You saw what happened up in that tower. If HE wants to kill us it's just," Keller tore up a handful of grass, and let it trickle down between his fingers, dirt clinging to the roots, dirt under his nails.

We packed up and kept walking soon after that. Nobody wished to linger.

We made it atop the last row of duney hills by late afternoon, the last downhill stretch before the coast, and the ocean welcomed us back, a blue glare that shocked the sickened eye after the green-tinged glutted sky behind. Nestled against the sea in the curl of the river sat a half-forgotten pearl: the Western Citadel of the First Empire of Free Mortals. The last citadel. All else had fallen, or fallen silent, or turned to HIM. This was the fallback point for the routed armies, the refuge of innocents from five hundred razed towns, the most heavily warded ley-zone this side of the sea. And for us, home. For now. Keller didn't say anything as the city gleamed beneath us, but I knew him. I knew he regretted his words, regretted suggesting we flee for our lives in the face of overwhelming odds. Or at least, I hoped I knew him, and I hoped he regretted. The tall defensive walls wrought from bone looked like the finest quarried marble from our vantage point, and the telltale glint of enchanted steel marched a not-pattern up and down the gorse beneath our feet. The army manned the walls in life, and the honoured dead would know no rest from battle till HE fell: they would be added to the walls. And the walls had grown high indeed in recent months, wrapping the grown civilian population in what safety could be scavenged. Perhaps in another time, that unthinkable necromantic ritual would've seen the Western Protector dragged into the streets by a howling mob. But ours was an age when the unthinkable became, merely necessary. The flesh went into the grave, and the bones to the walls, lest we all lie unburied in the street, or march again in HIS armies.

John looked down at the city. His city. He was the only one of us that had been born here, even if he had spent more than half his life away under the not-quite-cruel strictures of the Dawnbringers. And of course, living through this war. Still, I could imagine how he felt. No matter how it had changed, the citadel was where he belonged. Must be nice to have a place like that to come back to. "We should look in on the situation at the ports," said Keller, quickly, "to check what can be done for the children." I felt a knot of tension in my jaw unhook slightly, I didn't realise I had been holding it. I still knew him. John looked a mix of grim and delighted at the thought, helping the helpless was his highest ideal, but to tear apart families on the eve of the very last battle? To send the heart of our people further West from here, from this very last bastion of defence? Bad. Very bad. Unthinkable, even.

And necessary.

If I closed my right and squinted my left eye, I could see the guiding beacon issuing up out of the Second Tower of Understood Disasters. That light was maintained by the wizards of the tower, it turned a certain type of compass towards the citadel, with a second needle that pointed at the nearest storm. Once upon a time, it was bad luck to have a wizard aboard a ship, now sailors had a second shrine to pray to. Not that their prayers made the wizards very happy. When the wizards had cleared the wreckage of the Tower of Wisdom, and rebuilt it from new foundations, they have given it that name as a reminder: it doesn't matter what you believe you understand, just what you actually understand. I could see the light as a sort of, peppermint colour. Not green, mind you. Peppermint. Zephyr had been trying to teach me the secrets of higher perception, not for them the flesh-and-bone senses that perceived magic as through a veil, Zephyr "saw" the truth of every spell. Me? Peppermint.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

I turned idly to look at Zephyr with my eye still squinted just so, just my bad luck, the flash was a preposterous corrugation. I clapped one hand to my left eye that stung with acrid tears, opening my other to see them: explode. A shriek like a forgotten kettle went through us all, hissing upwards through a whistle, into a silence that had Alaxoria clutching her head. Zephyr rose into the air, juddered, flipped inside out, flashed through all their faces in a second, and divided into a hundred orbs with a thundercrack that bounced across the hillside. The orbs were spaced out across a region the size of my old village, blue blobs rippling and writhing entirely unlike the sea. A few orbs spat out remnants of something black that vanished up towards the clouds, or moved sideways in a way I couldn't quite follow. Moments later, Zephyr came back together, the orbs colliding and coalescing into a shapeless whole, that clumped into their mostly mortal form. It was not the strangest thing the four of us had seen Zephyr do, but...

"The wards are down." said Zephyr, already rising upwards again and pulling three, four spells into readiness.

"The wards?" I said stupidly. "What do you mean the wards are down?" I continued, also stupidly. Keller just grabbed me and turned me to face the citadel. Off from the centre, away from the castle, there was something wrong. The wizard's tower. The wards. The wards were down. Something was wrong. A segmented structure of black light was revolving around the tower, twisting tighter with every turn. All that was left was something wrong. Parts of the wrongness tried to twist away and get out, get out into here, wherever "there" was. The wizard tower made a hollow booming noise as it went, piece by piece, the rug of reality pulled out from under its feet.

"That's not magic," said Zephyr, they weren't breathless after their exertions, but there was an edge in their voice that I hadn't heard before. "It's not magic, HE has made, some kind of deal, this is part of HIS bargain."

"Zephyr, what does it mean, that the wards are down?" said Keller quietly, as we watched the wizard tower leave.

";" said Zephyr. It was one of their talents.

The Tower of Understood Disasters left, swapped with a blank scoop of earth and a wobbly pile of black nothing. And took the citadel wards with it. We were about to find out what it meant, to have the wards down.

----------------------------------------

First of all, every single man, woman and child in the central keep of the Western citadel, including the Western Protector and his family, and every general and captain and attending archmage in the grand building, every horse and dog and goat and pigeon and ant and flower, was killed, beheaded, by something moving faster than the eye could follow. Windows smashed open, doors staved in, a shape only seen by its passage. Arterial blood shot out in spurts, painting ceilings and walls in abstract dripping ships. That was a spell like nothing the world had seen, or likely would ever see again, or perhaps some manner of demon, or some other more ancient and noxious thing. It didn't really matter what it was exactly, whatever was doing the killing left the bodies slumping, strings cut, moving on to the next victim before confused hearts had stopped pumping fluid all over the floor. All the heads were arranged in neat lines in the courtyard below, sorted by age and species in perfect rows. A slurry of blood dribbled out, mixing with the filth of the road to form a red unfired clay.

The screams hadn't even started yet, and they were already all dead.

Then, lightning struck the top of the decimated keep, struck the very top of the tallest tower, struck the steel and silver spike designed for that very purpose. The thundercrack was much like the one Zephyr had made when they disincorporated, only a mere fraction delayed by our distance. The steel and silver spike took another three strikes in quick succession until it was melted into slag, the next lightning bolt struck true. Burning stone was blasted away, falling down on the roofs below, crushing severed heads down at ground level. The bolts came out of nowhere, out of the clear blue sky - clear, but marred with a tinge of green. They came in, thick and fast, in dollops and flurries, until the sourceless storm settled into bringing a new blast twice a second or so. It hit the top of the tallest tower again and again, melting through the mortar, setting fire to the floorboards, rendering it down by parts into a burning stub. The sound. I cannot describe the sound. It was not deafening in the slightest, anyone in range absolutely heard every, single, bolt as it landed, again and again, twin hammers to the temples. Once the scorched tower was below the height of the next tallest point of the keep, the lightning switched targets, then alternated between the two. Eventually the bolts roamed at will across the castle, a chisel chipping away at the tallest points until the building was a pile of burning rubble, stone melted by the sordid heat and forming into water-drop-splash patterns. It kept on striking even after the keep was unrecognisable, electric fingers stirring through the mound, lest a single brick remain whole, lest a single stick of wood remain unburnt.

On the other side of city, the earth split open beneath the Cathedral of Our Lady the Dawnbringer, swallowing it whole, without nearly as much fuss. The stained glass shimmered with the thunder and gleamed beneath the lightning, then shattered as the place of worship was folded up and sucked down.

Lines of fire grew in the greying sky, lances that curled into orbs that landed in particular points: crowded thoroughfares, flocked market squares, barracks and law-houses. The library. The library... my heart sank when I spotted that venerable old building burst into kindling. So many dead, so much annihilation, why was that the one thing that struck me? It was obscene. The fireballs did not burn or explode, but both at once, a continual forge heat that burst flesh like squashed grapes, cleansed the roads of grime and melted the flagstones to a polish.

The defensive wall, an entirely unique necromantic artefact, was ignored. Flying gargoyles were summoned above the hapless defenders, to pluck them off and drag them above the burning, subsiding, lightning-struck city they had sworn to protect, and dropped, to crack like eggs.

The six of us stood on the hill and watched as the citadel was decimated. Perhaps the entire city could've been obliterated with a snap of HIS fingers, a single cataclysmic spell to teleport it into space or out of time, or turn it all to sand to blow away in the wind. But, one single spell is one point of failure, a single secret, that could perhaps be uncovered and reversed, one day. Perhaps that was a risk that was not worth the efficiency. Or perhaps... such a single moment of destruction would be literally inconceivable, a feat beyond mortal minds to perceive. And HE wanted us to understand. HE wanted us to appreciate the horror, to feel the helpless ache of the still-living. Whatever the reason, the destruction of the citadel was inefficient. We had time to watch.

Something is wrong, said the little voice in my head, and I could feel myself screaming and breaking inside. Something is wrong, insisted the little voice, despite me threatening to- what? Reach into my own ears and pluck out my brain? I'm sure I could cast a spell that would blow my own head off. But. That didn't matter. Something is wrong.

John. Oh, John.

Keller, too far away to see the people burn, but the imagination does the work when the eyes do not suffice. There would be ministering touch of Zephyr to ease them to bright sleep this time.

Alaxoria, knuckles calloused and gentle around the handle of her axe, thumb and forefinger tapping out a promise.

Zephyr, a cypher. They knew what it meant that the wards were down.

Myself, trying to push down the little voice while I counted my friends.

One, two, three, four- five-

Six?

I reached towards a direction I couldn't look, towards an object I couldn't see, holding a device wrought from sea-glass and a spider's kiss, and pulled the trigger. A line of dark red energy spat out and splintered into a dozen spiralling trails, hissing at the air and sending up pungent clouds of smoke where they collided with the dirt. A black gauntleted hand closed around my wrist, and as I looked up at HIS implacable visor, it felt to me like a measure of respect passed between us.

The fight went even worse the second time.