55.

The Armory’s broken walls had taken more damage, pieces of masonry crumbling along the ramparts. Two more holes had been blown clean through and piles of Infernal Soldiers were piled up on the ground in massive mounds that rose nearly ten feet high. A wave of gasps and shock spread out from the assorted crowd of party-goers, courtesans, and citizenry.

Erak jogged up the road with Illyria and her guards right beside him, the barricaded front entrance was already rolling back as a handful of Imperial soldiers walked out to meet them. They were scarred and burnt out, their eyes hollow and haggard as the leader waved a hand at them to continue past.

Erak brushed by them, smelling the stench of burnt flesh and antibacterial ointment wafting off of them. Bloodstained bandages were woven under their clothes, clotted black and yellow and red. They had sustained some sort of assault that must have nearly broken them if this shell of a warrior was all that was left to man the gates.

“This is a nightmare. I knew that this would be a likely outcome, but to see all this. It is nothing short of despair,” Illyria whispered to herself. The interior of the base was packed with wounded and civilians. Funeral pyres burned in corners, men tossing the bodies on the flames constantly feeding the incineration of a generation.

One of the tanks sat by the door, Del sat on the hatch with a canteen of water and his normal twisted grimace as he watched them march in. The second tank was nowhere to be seen, but the thousands of extra bodies inside of the Armory showed that they had at least been somewhat successful in their rescue mission.

Del looked over at him and his face cracked just the barest of grins. He slapped the top of the tank and leaned into the hatch, his voice a whispery shout that was a pale ghost of what it had been the previous day.

“Oi, Conny, that big fella is still alive!” A muffled shout came from the tank and then Erak was walking past them, eyes scanning the crowd for Foy. He wished to drop off this crowd and then climb to the Sword with the mantle bearer.

“If you’re looking for Foy, she’s dead,” Del said behind him. Erak turned and looked at him, shocked about the old general’s demise. She hadn’t seemed the sort to put herself in danger.

“Big battle last night, right as the sun sank. These fuckers came out of the sky, we burnt them down, but there was a lot. Then a big push and they started scaling the walls. It was all a distraction apparently.” Del leaned over and spat.

“Sneaky bastards came in and cleared out the entire command team and did something to the A.I. Nothing is going right and Gressen is overwhelmed, seeing you back should keep spirits high though.”

“Where is Gressen?” Illyria asked.

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“The colonel is over there, by the second breach.” Del pointed to the side and Erak began to move that way immediately. Foy’s death and the elimination of the command staff was a terrible setback, but he had his orders.

Gressen was standing with a few junior officers looking worse than he had when they had met at Titus’s Square just a day and a half ago. The squire was still attached to his side, looking pale and wan as he swayed at the Colonel’s side. The old man placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder to steady him as Erak loomed above them all.

“Ring bearer, you live. I heard many say they saw you leap from the ship and I figured you had died. Now you arrive with a half-thousand more people to fill these cramped walls,” Gressen’s voice was weary and whispery as if he had been yelling for hours.

“I am Illyria, sixteen Prince of the Throne. I bear the mantle to the Sword of Empire and wish to ascend to take command of the warship,” Illyria’s words indicated she was asking for permission, but her tone said she was simply giving notice.

“Your highness. Your brother is aboard that ship last I heard. Prince Sammus. I am sure he will be thrilled to see you again. Is there anyway we can move more people into the ship? At her height, the warship was manned by nearly two thousand crew and could hold another thousand warriors. It would do much to relieve the strain on the Armory, especially now that the A.I has collapsed,” Gressen pleaded.

“Dull is dead?” Pomp asked appearing out of Erak’s chest.

“Oh. A dragon.” Gressen stared at Pomp with dull confusion for a moment before shrugging his shoulders.

“Not dead, but no longer responsive. A team of infiltrators managed to sneak in and eliminate the command staff and damage Dull before we could eliminate them. I was only spared since I was on the walls at the time.”

“I will see what I can do about hosting more of the population. Do we have an evacuation route planned to leave the city?” Illyria asked.

“No ma’am. We lost one of our two functional tanks and with Dull no longer functional we can’t get the base to continue producing munitions. It won’t be long till we’re left with nothing but sabers and our individual casters. We don’t have the power to force a route open and retreat.”

“What about heading toward the Palace?” Pomp asked for Erak.

“Scouts have went that way, but the enemy is thick and higher leveled. Out here we are dealing with hordes of lower ranked demons. Closer to the Palace the ranking of the creature’s climbs. Most my men here are only in the low teens while the demons between us are in the twenties. We wouldn’t make it halfway to the Palace before we are destroyed.”

“Plot a route to escape the city and we can use the Sword to blaze the path for you.” Erak moved to protest, his orders were to kill the guardian in the portal.

“After we kill and disable the portal that is letting in the demons.” Illyria met his gaze without slowing down and Erak nodded in acceptance. After the portal was closed, he cared not what they did. If it could save more lives then then all the better.

“In the meantime, we found and killed a group of their officers as we moved here. We were able to gather these papers, but we can’t make heads or tails of them.” Illyria handed over the parchment to Gressen’s squire and the boy winkled his nose in distaste.

“Some payback is nice to hear. I will begin drawing up plans for an orderly retreat out of the city. Where should our destination be?”

“We are not far from Iron-Beard’s Claim, are we?”

“The old dwarven city? It’s in the Blue-Sky mountains, maybe fifty miles from here. There is nothing but a small settlement left there, more a museum than an actual town.”

“Good, they might have been spared if they passed without notice. The halls are wide and deep and there is ancient magic in the building of their cities. We shall retreat there and hope that it is enough.”

“Your will be done, your highness.”