19.

“Close those doors! Captain Lee, get your men into the walls!” More orders and more chaos as hands pried Nevia away from him and led him to the side.

“By the Cold God’s frosted nuts look at the size of him!” Erak grimaced at the epithet. The Cold One was something not evoked lightly, but these thin blooded Southerners knew little enough to take its name so lightly.

“Shut the fuck up Horvath. Captain Nellis is on her way. Sir, just wait here.” A hand pushed against him, urging him to back up. Erak gripped his spears tighter, but didn’t switch to his free hand. There were numerous nervous soldiers around and he didn’t feel like testing his armor against an army.

“Lord Bloodsworn is mute! I am his translator, when I can see that is,” Julius declared. He was breathing hard but sounded alive enough. Erak just waited as his dim eyesight sharpened as his eyes recovered from whatever it was that the soldiers had used to clear the skies.

“Lord?” A woman’s voice, sharp and intelligent, asked. Erak stabbed his spear down, heard the crack of stone and someone’s curse. Squinting tightly he managed to get his shield off and started to pull the gauntlets free.

“I am Erak, Bloodsworn to the newest Queen and on an official mission of the Throne,” Julius translated as Erak fished the ring free to show to the blurry shape of an Imperial officer.

“Another Ring Bearer. We are up to six now. I had only met one in my whole life and now have six here. Strange times. Let’s get you to the Prince and General. They are most distraught with your maneuver.” Erak made out a middle aged woman with dark skin and darker eyes. Her shaven head had traces of silver and she had a pair of large soldiers behind her.

Erak gathered his gear and followed her, taking in the Armory and everything inside of it. With every moment his vision got better and he saw the horrors of the war inside of the Armory.

Civilians sat in clustered huddles, thousands clinging to the shadows of the outer buildings, trying to stay out of the chaos of the soldiery. Different uniforms were everywhere, patches and insignias not matching as officers herded the defenders from one spot to the next.

Dead lay in stacked piles like cordwood. Wounded lay in a morass of misery, moaning or crying, or just deathly still, as they waited. Frenetic medics ran between the cots or blankets they had been laid out on and Erak watched as white light enshrouded their hands. Flesh knit back together in moments and the cries stopped as a fully healed soldier got to his feet.

There were so few healers and row after row of wounded. They spilled out of the infirmary and across the lawn of the building. Everywhere he looked Erak saw misery. Tens of thousands were moving about the massive fortress, in the walls and across courtyards, dozens of buildings hidden by the high walls.

Then there were the floating docks in the center of the Armory. It had originally been a keep that had been expanded into a massive working elevator that shuttled goods up to the sprawling docks that were over two hundred feet above their heads. If the sky hadn’t been shrouded in smoke, then they would have walked in the dockyards shadows. Now they simply marched in murk.

He wasn’t the only giant blooded warrior here. Seven foot tall behemoths of muscle walked about, strapped down with gear and weapons, acting as porters as they ran supplies across the vast distances. The tram lines that had once allowed for the rapid resupply of the walls vacated, the shining metal rails stepped over without looking.

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“General Foy has taken command. Most of the general staff were killed in the opening minutes of the portals opening. They were outside the walls and by the parade grounds. They never made it back,” Captain Nellis broke the silence. Erak didn’t.

“Then we had Prince Sammus stroll through the doors like nothing was wrong. An official Heir. They have taken over a joint leadership role.” Nellis’s voice was contemptuous of the prince. Erak remembered reading about the prince in a dossier before coming here, but there was little about him. He was deemed a non-threat.

“Here!” Nellis pointed to a squat building, no more than a hut, with a single guard outside of it. She passed by with barely a glance from the guard, and threw open the wooden door. Erak followed while wondering what surprises were waiting for him.

Julius stayed stuck to his side and when Erak looked back he was surprised to see Ruteldge had attached herself to their small procession with no one mentioning her.

She was a sneaky woman when she wished to be.

The shack was just a covering to a metal stairwell that led down, Nellis’s boots already clanging away as she trooped down. Erak followed more slowly keeping his head on a swivel and alert to the sights. There was little to see, just steel walls and the soft blue light of whatever it was that had replaced the illumination strips.

“Similar to what was in the dungeon,” Rutledge muttered behind him.

“Professor, do you still want this orb?”

“Of course my dear boy, keep carrying it will you. I am not as strong and young as I once was.”

“Of course Professor,” Julius sounded disheartened but didn’t try to fight back against Rutledge.

The stairs led them down, deep into the heart of the hill. Four times the stair twisted back, each of them ten steps downward. Forty feet under the earth, or close enough for Erak, when they passed by the first doorway. It was a open hatchway that led to a long tunnel lit with more of the pale blue lights. Soldiers were camped out here, laying about or playing dice and cards, their weapons close at hand. A dorm.

They passed two more and had to be sixty feet deep when Nellis turned down a hall and got off the stairwell. There were no markings anywhere and Erak wondered how long it took for everyone to remember what went where in the uniform environment.

This wasn’t a long dorm like the other stops had been, but rather a round room with maps spaced out everywhere. In the middle of the room was a holographic display that showed off the state of the Armory. Erak paid close attention to the display and noticed that it was changed too.

“General, we have visitors,” the display said. Erak looked down at it for a moment before turning his attention to General Foy. An old woman with white hair cut brutally short to her wrinkled scalp. Piercing gunmetal gray eyes and a spine so rigid and straight Erak thought one could use it as a ruler. She hardly glanced their way, turning her head back before snapping back up again.

To look at Rutledge.

“Helena, I didn’t know you were alive,” Foy had a soft voice, but a firm hand as she pumped Rutledge’s vigorously.

“Neeta, it is good to see you. It’s been years. I had thought you had retired?”

“Next month actually was the official retirement date. I was only a few weeks away from being on my estates in the Middle Kingdom. Alas, the world.”

“This is Professor Julius Meckard of the Archaeology department. And Erak, the Bloodsworn to our new Queen. And Ring Bearer.”

“Another one?” Incredulity filled a melodious voice, coming from the young man who had been standing in the corner. Whipcord lean and dressed in fashionable golds and blues, a ceremonial long saber rode on his hip. Red hair tucked back and into a warrior’s knot showed the angled tips of his ears, hinting at his ancestry. Cream colored skin and emerald eyes, his lips quirked up in amusement as he strode forward to introduce himself, hand leading.

“I am the 17th Prince, Sammus Greenbough.”