The mage squad fell back to the main street, drifting down to street level. It relieved him to find most of the marines had survived. A thick coating of brass shell casings and dead wildlings and undead lay strewn about the streets. There were fewer bodies than he expected, though. An attack this public should have seen so much more bodies clogging every square foot. But the city was amazingly empty. His brows scrunched as he tried to puzzle out why.

“It’s because the shackler was binding them as fast as they died and then extracted them. This was a measured battle. They reclaimed about as much as they lost. So the net loss was more a drop in quality of soul bound, not so much available personnel.”

This made him tense up even more. If the captain sensed this much, it was hard telling what else she’d already been able to piece together about the battle. He watched as Morwen hopped off the side. The captain dropped to a crouch to peer under the tank. She reached in and fished out a small paralyzed man.

“There you are,” she crooned to the man.

She set down the administrator on the edge of the tank, his legs hanging over the side skirt armor. Akamori could see the wild look in the man’s eye, like someone trapped inside his body, and he couldn’t do anything or say anything. Morwen cast a spell and a giant flaming square appeared in front of her. She gripped the edge and angled it to study the administrator for several moments. Nodding to herself, and Akamori drifted closer, curious what she was up to. An angry mob gathered, and Akamori’s hand unconsciously drifted to his blade’s hilt. It thrummed in his grip eagerly like a humming tuning fork. He gave Morwen’s spell a stiff nod.

“What’s that spell?”

Morwen glanced over to him, as if noticing him just now. “Hmm? Oh, it’s a divination spell. I’m studying the magic bound to his soul.”

“Bound. You’re saying they shackled this man?”

Morwen nodded. “Rather extensively, I might add. At a guess? I’d say it was Ominek.” She waved a hand, and the flaming window rippled into motes of fading aether.

Akamori felt his back stiffen immediately. Fire coursed through his veins and he couldn’t hold back the scowl that dressed his features. “How did you know?”

She gave him a sidelong glance. “Full disclosure? I didn’t. Not completely. Though I had strong suspicions. Inviting us to this parade ambush was the clincher.”

She stepped back and held a palm to Patton’s forehead. Akamori watched as golden yellow light magic flowed into his forehead. Then, Patton suddenly slumped over, like Morwen had cut his strings. He gasped several times and glanced up in fear.

“Please don’t kill me,” he said. There was a genuine, pleading tone to his voice.

Morwen frowned. “I’d not kill you. Not for that. I suspect having to live with what they forced you to do will be punishment enough for you.”

Morwen turned to the gathering crowd of confused and wounded civilians. “People of Hidros. Your leader was the victim of a dread lord’s soul shackling. His will, his very soul, bound to Ominek, the Dread Lord. Trapped within his own skin and forced to dance to Ominek’s will. I’ve broken those bindings and freed him. Though he may be free of the Sauridius, I doubt very much he’ll ever be truly free of the nightmares that will plague him as he carries the weight of what’s happened recently with him forever.”

She paused, as some angry faces lessened, and several grimaced. “I leave him in your care.”

She turned to Patton and nodded, and he eased himself off the tank slowly. As the man walked away, Akamori slid up next to the captain’s side.

“Is this ok?” he said in a hushed voice.

She nodded, gesturing to the crowd as many of the civilians welcomed him among them. “They’re not savages. Above all things, the Brotherhood values its freedom. What Patton went through is the grossest violation of freedom a man could endure. They’ll overlook his role in all this for that alone.”

She paused and turned to face him, and he realized in a way he empathized with the man.

“Yeah. Kind of like being soul bound to a military you didn’t intend to join.”

Her expression fell, and she offered a soft nod. “Yes. Very much so, in fact.”

“Still. I can fight. And I should fight. Guys like him. Like them?” he gestured to the crowd. “They can’t fight back. Father would have insisted I do it for them. It’s why he trained me, and it’s why I’m still here.”

Morwen glanced back up to him and nodded, a little more steel in posture again. Her spirits had rallied at that. He actually caught himself being ok with that. Was he going soft on the Captain?

“Thank you, Lt. I’m glad to hear you’re committed to this fight.”

It was Akamori’s turn to look down. “Yeah. After what they did to my family. To my home. And then here. I know what’s at stake. I may not like the circumstances around how I got involved. But I’m in this fight to the end.”

“Right then. Let’s marshal our forces. It’s going to be a long hike into the Sorrow, and I suspect Ominek is going to hit us with everything he can cobble together.”

Something about the pained look on her expression gave him a chill. He had to ask, “What is it?”

“I’m going to ask the survivors for volunteers to march into the Sorrow. We’ll need every able body we can get. That said, it’s likely they’ll be facing those who died here today.”

He shook his head, disbelief fighting with stunned shock for dominance. “You can’t be serious? After what just happened? These people will probably be first in line.”

Morwen nodded, a somber look on her features. She looked haunted. The long stare of a woman who was about to volunteer survivors to die. “It’s likely most of them won’t survive. They didn’t at Tohrun. I’m running out of tricks, Lieutenant. Everything I do is a stalling action to buy us more time to stop Ominek, and the clock is running out.”

He was understanding the futility of this fight. They couldn’t beat an army that could make attrition a one sided game. Anything the Sauridius killed became theirs. It all boiled back down to time. It was in their interests to defeat Ominek as quickly as they could. A long, drawn out battle wasn’t in their favor. He sighed, throwing his hands up in exasperation, then leaned against the side of the tank, shaking his head. He couldn’t believe they were about to march these people into combat. It felt like sending them off to death.

Morwen climbed back up from the tank and stood atop the turret. She wove an amplification enchantment using air and light magic. A small square and circle of white aether appeared in front of her mouth, ringed with its component runes. Her voice carried further and louder than talking through a speaker.

“People of Hidros. Please lend me your ears. Today you’ve all suffered loss, and pain at the hands of our mortal enemies, the Sauridius. Some of you have lost loved ones or friends. Money or property. Whatever it is, you’ve all lost something today. But the enemy is still out there, lurking in the Sorrow. I plan to march in there and confront them because I believe they are up to something truly nefarious. But I cannot do it alone. I need your help. If you’ve lost something precious to you today? Then I ask you to fight, to protect what you have left. And if that isn’t enough? Then I ask that you fight with me to make them pay. My marines down here will sort you out and help get you situation with Lt. Fennex here. Now, who will join me?”

Silence hung over the crowd gathered before her. Then a young man stood up, dirt smudged across his face. An older woman. A man in a torn business suit. A young woman with cracked glasses. A girl with a bloody gash on her arm. A man with red eyes from crying and bloodstains on his shirt, his expression firm and cold. One by one, all the survivors rose to their feet.

Morwen saluted the crowd. Akamori figured they deserved that much, at least. It was one thing to be forced into a fight. Volunteering, for one, was an entirely different matter. Especially when you could flee from the fighting. There would invariably be losses, of that she was sure. The odds were too stacked against them. But she knew to the survivors it mattered little. This was their home, and the Sauridius violated that safety.

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Akamori watched as the marines split the survivors up into mixed groups with the marines and made an extra company between the rookies and the vets. In the end, it was probably the best play as some would draw from the skill of their peers, where others’ weaknesses would round out. It was the best method, and neither he nor Captain Morwen had to get involved. Lt. Fennex earned more and more of Akamori’s respect with each minute the two men worked together. Funny that they introduced themselves to each other at fisticuffs. He rubbed the bridge of his nose absently, still remembering the ass beating that Fennex and his marines had given him. He still thought hazing sucked and doubted he was alone in that opinion.

Turning away from the survivors, he saw Sala and Sirsir grabbing the bodies of the dead and tossing them into an enormous pile. He could see a lot of the Wildlings in the pile, and plenty of undead, along with a few dragonkin that fell prey to their attacks. They were extraordinarily resilient. He’d seen a close quarters tank shell detonate and catch one square in the blast. It weathered the steel balls, peppering its scaled hide like a champ. That kinda durability really made you rethink your choices; like, why am I swinging this sword at this guy again? And why have I not run away yet? Questions unanswered like these reminded him that sometimes he probably wasn’t as sane as he enjoyed thinking he was.

Akamori walked over slowly, and the moment Sala saw him, the primal dumped the body he’d lugged over his shoulder onto the pile and walked away. Sgt. Sirsir slid up next to him.

“Don’t mind him, sir. Somethin’s eatin’ at him, but I don’t think he means it to ya personally. Kid’s just workin’ through something.”

Akamori nodded, “Yea. Plenty of that going around lately. Any hints on what?”

Sirsir looked at him for a moment before sighing. “Awe hell sir, I try not to get too knee deep in folks' business, but here goes. Most of what I know about the kid is this: He’s a primal. They ain’t native to this sector. A long ass time ago, the primals and the dragons had a big beef about who’d run the sectors. Eventually, the dragons won out here, and the primals won next door. They took the ones that got cut off here on as prisoners. War trophies for the dragons.”

“So how does that involve Sala?”

“His folks were prisoners of Fahnes. I heard tell on Eryn that Fahnes was pretty chill with primals. She gifted hers to Aeryn as wards. Aeryn treated them pretty good. Eventually the kid came along and the Captain took him on. She saved him from a pretty belligerent shit bag. Hells, you’ve seen how Rayshe treated the kid.”

Akamori shivered, “Yeah. Meat grinder material.”

The Sgt. nodded. “Mhm. No respect. The Captain’s the only one that treated him like a person.”

“What about you?” Akamori asked.

The Sgt. glanced down. Was that shame? Or guilt? “It wasn’t my job to treat him like a person. I needed him to fight. To be a soldier.”

Akamori nodded. “Uh, huh... And so now I get to untangle all this trauma you guys have been giving him. Outstanding. And everyone on Eryn wonders why people think Elves and the Federation are a bunch of stuck up dick bags.”

The broad shouldered Sgt. could only offer a muted shrug. “Don’t make it right, I know. Just is what it is.”

Akamori could only sigh, “Yeah. Tell him that.”

He fed his armor a bit of dark energy, and he felt gravity’s grip on him slip as he rose into the air, then pushed himself forward. Once he’d hovered over Sala, he cut the feed of magic and descended in front of the primal. When he wasn’t channeling his spells, he was a pretty small guy. Hard to believe there was so much power crawling inside that tiny frame of his.

“Hey Sala. I wanted to talk.”

The slave private snapped to attention. Akamori waved him at ease dismissively and gestured for them to take a seat atop a tank. Sala remained standing, which he couldn’t fault the kid for. Kid. He referred to this being as a kid, even though, by right, Sala was probably older than everyone in the squad combined.

“You needed something, sir?”

Akamori nodded, “Yeah. I need you to take that stick out of your ass. I know you’ve got a big chip on your shoulders with Dragons. And for some odd reason, you seem to think I’m one of them. But I’m not.”

Sala’s nostrils flared, and his eyes glowed with light magic. “Funny. You sure smell like one.”

Akamori shrugged. “Look, I’m just some hick air nomad from a fringe colony. I really don’t know what else to tell you. Well, I do, so I will. Whatever you think I am? Whatever it is about me you detest? I’m not here to tell you to forget it. I wouldn’t know how to do it myself, so I can’t ask you to. I’m just letting you know that I’m here for you, too. The same way as the Captain. When we’re out there fighting? I’ve got your back. We’re a unit now. Back home, that’d make you part of my clan.”

Something flashed across Sala’s face. A connection to something he’d said. “A clan. Is that like a pack?”

Akamori nodded, “If we’re using the words in the same way I think we are? Yes.”

Sala glanced down at the spell armor gauntlet. It had the single gold private chevron on it, his name stenciled in black. Akamori noted that the primal kept the armor retracted more. It made it easier to adjust to his massive bulk when he channeled his stone skin spell.

“I haven’t had a pack since my parents died fighting the Sauridius. Captain Morwen has been the closest things since then. She’s the first person to really look at me and see me, not just what I’m capable of.”

Akamori frowned. He imagined it was pretty easy to objectify a magic creature capable of smashing damn near anything in his way. “I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for you. It’s been tough enough adjusting to having my home stomped on by the Sauridius. Nevermind a blood feud with dragons. At any rate. I just wanted to make sure you understood that we’re both on the same team here.”

He stood up and backed away to give Sala his space. As he drifted back up into the air and turned to return to the sergeant, he heard Sala call out to him. He turned, pausing in the air to look back, and Sala executed a salute to him. He returned it to the primal. Then he landed next to the sergeant again.

He caught Sirsir giving him an approving look from the corner of his eye. Corporal Yasiin moved to stand with them, his spell rifle cradled in his arms.

“Any idea when we’ll move out?”

“Sir.” the sergeant insisted gruffly. “So help me. I will choke you people if you can’t get this shit right.”

Akamori turned back to see Morwen and Fennex chatting together and gesturing out of the city in the Sorrow's direction. He took a moment to school his features off of amused and back into neutral territory.

“I’d put gold chips on soon.”

Yasiin nodded.

It occurred to him he didn’t really have much time around the corporal. They’d always been on opposite battlefields until now. He’d have to remedy that sometime, and he had a hunch it’d be soon.

“Yasiin, what’s your specialty?”

The nomad’s head tilted like a curious animal inspecting an oddity. “My magic is a mix of offensive and defensive spells. My people were masters of balance and counterbalance.”

“That’s right. And just recently he finally got himself some shadow magic,” the big sergeant said.

Yasiin nodded. “I’m now capable of countering both light and dark magic, and fielding them offensively.”

Akamori whistled, a touch impressed. That sounded handy. Akamori got the impression Yasiin was a thinker, especially given his magic. Come to think of it, the scope on that rifle looked pretty hefty for a standard spell rifle. He thought he caught some enchantment runes on it. Visual amplification made the most sense. He wasn’t well versed in spell rifles, since he’d grown up relatively far from the Federations' reach. He’d grown up with a sword in hand since childhood, and even he had to admit that Yasiin’s rifle looked like something he didn’t want to be on the business end of.