Every step through Dytifrourá cracked Kosta’s heart a little more. Broken homes. Storefronts ravaged. Precious items were left carelessly behind in favor of utility and anything which might be good to trade. Art forgotten.
Beautiful things abandoned in favor of the useful. Kosta hurt to see it.
Smooth, beautifully polished wood, once part of various gorgeous pieces of furniture or adornment, had been smashed to bits. Some bore his father’s mark. Others were marked with Kosta’s own signature. It was all he could do not to gather up the materials and mourn the loss of something that he had made with his own two hands.
All the time, all the planning, all the effort, all the love…all undone in the blink of an eye. Why must that be the nature of things? Why must the thoughtless act of destruction be so much easier than the act of creation?
Devastation was reflected all around him.
Lovingly smelted and crafted bronze, marble, and wood statues which lined the street had toppled. The more delicate materials had shattered or broken, the strength of their enchantments undone by the wind’s fury and the will carried within, while others simply stared off sideways as they lay in the streets.
Stalls of linen, cotton, and more arcane materials had been ravaged. Their contents now lay sodden in the wet streets. Stones ranging from mundane quartz, sapphires, rubies, and emeralds to the more fantastical such as lustrite, precious aionolith, and even tiny dots of phaetra the size of his fingernail were steeped in flowing water and half-hidden beneath debris..
It pained him not to gather those precious stones (he ached to run his fingers through the muck just to grab the supplies) but he had no time.
The only consolation was that Kosta hadn’t yet encountered more familiar faces staring dead-eyed up at the grey sky. Dytifrourá was densely populated despite its relatively small size, but the sections along the main road were most prized. The swelling population had only expanded into this auxiliary area a few years ago.
Ten thousand souls in Dytifrourá—thank the Aretans that most had managed to escape before the Hesperians breached the walls! He could only thank Headsman Linus and the militia for that; even if the town itself fell, the people might survive.
His parents might survive.
All Kosta could hope for was that the Hesperians would be content with their victory and spoils today. Perhaps they’d have no interest in hunting down the survivors.
Kosta rarely considered himself a sentimental person unless it concerned his projects, Clymere, Evanthe…perhaps he was a bit of a sentimental fool. Regardless, he’d never thought himself overly attached to the orderly streets and the cool trickle of the Ischyrópota as it wound through the town’s center.
But it was still his home.
To see it brought so low wounded him.
Anger bloomed within even as he crossed the bridge which would take him across the Ischyrópota. He felt that rage rush from his heart to his veins, glowing hot as blood pounded in his ears, but the steady trickle of the river below distracted him from his fury.
The Ischyrópota’s waters were ripe with the power of purification. Kosta wished nothing more than to dip his hands in the surging river, fed greatly by the earlier storm, and take part in its cleansing properties to wash the grime of the day, fatigue, and pain from his body.
Intrusive thoughts whispered in his ear, begging him to simply dive in and let it cleanse him entirely of pain, corruption, want, memory…it would whisk him away, and the pain of his ravaged hometown would never bother him again.
But no, that would never be his fate.
Not when he could hear Clymere roaring orders from the crossroads across the bridge. Kosta felt his spirit surge as a plume of fire rose in the sky just past the bridge, a bright marker that acted as a signal rather than a weapon. The clamor of many working hands rang out from the market, complemented by the clink of stone and shifting of wooden beams. No doubt they were constructing barricades to help secure this area from the invaders.
The Hesperians wouldn’t be long now. How long could the gate possibly hold against that force?
Kosta’s fists clenched.
The barbarians would pay for what they’d done today.
While Kosta longed to join Clymere immediately (although she would probably try to strangle him for not leaving) he paused and eyed the bridge speculatively as he stepped off onto the other side of the river.
This bridge marked one of the only crossings between the two halves of Dytifrourá, as well as the largest. Since the Hesperians had broken through near the main thoroughfare, that side of the town would fall first.
Any combat-focused practitioner would have the ability to cross the river one way or another, but that didn’t mean Kosta couldn’t make it more difficult on them. Who knew? Perhaps those precious seconds might add up to something significant.
The majority of Kosta’s thoughts wanted to protect himself, Clymere, and whatever garrison fought under her command.
The rest? Well, Kosta was feeling a bit spiteful today. It would be a pleasure to inconvenience the barbarian bastards as much as possible.
Both were victories in Kosta’s eyes.
So he surveyed the bridge. The bridge itself was fairly short, built for function rather than form. The Ischyrópota was narrow here, its clear waters only thirty feet across as it flowed south from the distant mountains, and so the crossing didn’t need to be ostentatious. That was in his favor as well.
Light enchantments had been etched into the limestone, but nothing exceptional. Meaningful power would have been wasted here. Even the mist and vapors surging from the purifying waters of the Ischyrópota steadily gnawed away foreign magic and restored the stones to their original state.
The river’s cleansing nature was an inconvenience (given that it required active maintenance rather than slapping a few transpoietic arrays on the construction to ensure its stability) but Kosta couldn’t complain. It suited his current purposes.
Kosta urged his power to flow and stir to life despite the pounding ache in his head. He’d healed somewhat from the brick, but full recovery would take time. His power was slow and steady as always, but soon waxed to become a potent force. At least his magic still came easily.
He couldn’t deliberate for long. Time was of the essence! Kosta tapped the bridge once to pulse his magic through the stone and paused for a few seconds to interpret the feedback trickling through his mind.
There! The benefit of his stoneworking experience drew Kosta’s eyes to the weakest points in the vaulted bridge. He analyzed them, formulated a plan, and set to work.
His hammer and chisel tapped the points quickly even as light raindrops pattered down upon his skin. The storm wasn’t coming down in sheets, but it was clear that the break had only been temporary. Perhaps the Merakian needed to rest after shattering the walls.
Kosta prayed that the Dream-steeped Merakian wouldn’t take to the field. Their hopes of resistance would be dashed entirely beneath Stelios’ fist.
Magic transferred easily through his chisel and drew a satisfied nod from Kosta as the stone’s integrity weakened at several key points. The enchantments carved into the stone faded, soon worn away by the Ischyrópota’s vapors, and now only mundane material was left.
Grey light suffused his chisel as Kosta fed power into it. He bit his lip as he found the perfect point to strike along. Kosta hurried over to Clymere’s side of the bridge, sent more magic flowing into his chisel, and struck. He felt ill for a moment as power pulsated through the bridge in a measured, controlled spike of energy, but soon found his breath again.
He could have just brought his hammer down with brute force to break the bridge, but Kosta would’ve been exhausted by the blow. Work smarter, not harder. Finesse demanded time, but that was a price Kosta was willing to pay.
Boom.
It wasn’t quite the shockwave of the Merakian’s thunder, but Kosta couldn’t help but feel the bloom of victory in his chest as a vast majority of the small bridge came toppling down into the Ischyrópota’s waters. They settled quickly, the smaller pieces tumbling downstream as they were carried by the current’s flow, and Kosta eyed them for a moment before shaking his head.
They weren’t worth the trouble of fishing out of the purifying waters. There would be other material available.
“What the hell was that?” Footsteps came pounding down behind him. A spear clacked against the road’s wet stone. Scorching heat exploded behind him so fiercely that Kosta worried he was under attack, but no flames came to devour him whole. “Halt! Who goes there…Kosta?!”
“Clymere,” Kosta acknowledged as he turned to face his sister. “You look awful.”
That was being a bit generous: Clymere was a mess. Soot and ash streaked across her face thanks to the rain, but at least she appeared uninjured. Only a few strands of her black hair peeked out from beneath her helmet, with the rest hidden away. A few ragged holes had been torn in her armor, but nothing had managed to dig into her flesh.
He didn’t miss the blood that adorned her spear. No doubt a trophy of her time at the wall.
“Whuh—” Clymere’s face twisted into an expression of shock, which then descended into a confusing mix of worry, anxiety, and fear before finally settling on pure, unadulterated rage. “What the hell, Kosta?! Why are you still here?”
Black smoke laced with red embers burst from Clymere’s nostrils as the heat radiating off her doubled, then tripled. Raindrops sizzled into steam as they struck her. She paused to take a breath, calmed herself, and bellowed back at one of the gawking warriors behind her.
“Eunike, continue work on the fortifications! Tell Amos to keep his damn eyes and ears open. If Kosta snuck past him, we’re absolutely fucked. I’ll be a moment. Understood?”
“Got it, Clymere!” Eunike, a red-haired soldier who Clymere often drank with, saluted and hurried away. She cast one last curious look at Kosta before she rounded the corner with the other two warriors that had joined Clymere.
“You’re supposed to be with Mama and Papa. You’re supposed to be safe. Now I have to worry about you too!”
Kosta simply let her anger roll off of him. It was expected. He sighed as he patted his pack and the precious phaetra core within it. “I tried going to the walls—”
“Stupid or mad?” Clymere hissed. “Both, I say.”
Kosta ignored Clymere’s interruption. “I tried going to the walls to reinforce the wards, but I was too late. Philo helped me up. I forced him to let me come here.”
“You forced Philo?” Clymere looked at Kosta’s lean frame. “You mean the giant, hammerlugging warrior who’s killed a bear with one blow? You did—ow!”
He thumped her on the arm. It wasn’t the time for it, but Kosta couldn’t stop himself. “You mean the giant, hammerlugging warrior who can speak in complete sentences?”
Despite the poor mood, Clymere snorted. Great streaks of black, coiling smoke puffed from her nostrils as she at last smiled.
“I just couldn’t help myself. You should’ve seen your face!” Clymere chortled, but sobered quickly. She might be a loudmouth, but Clymere was a disciplined warrior. Emotions wouldn’t distract her for long. “Fine. Fine. You’re here with me in this hell pit rather than safe on the road keeping Mama and Papa company.”
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Kosta rolled his eyes. “Can you blame me?”
Clymere looked pained. “I can’t say I do.” She sighed. “But I wish you were with them anyways. There’s no easy escape, you know. We’re likely to die on Hesperian spears.”
“Yes.”
She looked away for a moment. “I can’t babysit you, Kosta. You’re a proud defender of Dytifrourá now, even if you don’t look the part.” Clymere’s gaze flicked down to peer at his waterlogged chiton. She slammed a fist against the enchanted linen weave which protected her chest. “Fight like a cornered rat if someone comes for you. Follow my orders. Stay back and manifest barriers whenever you see a chance. Don’t get involved in the front or you’ll end up like Sparky.”
Clymere’s words were stern, but Kosta could sense the desperation there, the fear. He could only nod.
A swift, keening wind swept over the ravaged town. The current carried debris and lost belongings with it, and it stripped the leaves and branches from Dytifrourá’s trees. It whipped against his face and chapped his lips as the cold came with it.
“It begins,” Clymere stated simply. Her mouth was a flat line. Sparks spat from her mouth as she clapped Kosta on the back. “Let’s go, soldier. It’s time.”
With that, Clymere led him a short distance to their defensive position in the small market. A single glance was all it took Kosta to find it wanting. The garrison was determined to hold Dytifrourá’s southeastern crossroads. To do so they’d cobbled together rudimentary defenses to secure most entrances while still allowing room for civilians to drain through.
The crossroads were ordinarily another site of market stalls, largely for those merchants without the reputation or capital to set up shop in the central agora. Ordinarily, sellers would swarm this place to hawk their wares at passersby. Hunters and farmers preferred peddling their catch and produce here since the crossroads were situated at a more residential area. Foodstuffs would be snatched up within an hour by anyone with a hungry belly.
Those stalls were all gone now. Some had been flung about by the Merakian’s great gales, but most had been broken down and repurposed by the militia. Splintered beams and chunks of wood were hauled to the gates to be erected into haphazard barriers, while useful products such as rope, clothing, tools, meat, and vegetables were bundled together into packs by a wounded young militiawoman.
Another soldier passed the completed packs to civilians as they were processed through the crossroads. Most were blank-eyed and shocked by the sudden attack, sodden to the core and brutalized by the elements. It felt as if the sky itself had turned against Dytifrourá.
“Hurry, hurry! Let’s go!” A tall man urged the civilians. Several wounded guards hobbled with the small group of refugees as an additional layer of protection against raiders or opportunistic Hesperians. Most bore minor wounds from the wall: mottled bruises, shallow gashes, and other souvenirs from their time at the wall. Each was in fighting shape, though. “Take your packs. Ready your children. The eastern gates won’t be safe for long!”
His words worked. The civilians pushed forward with renewed effort and soon vacated the crossroads. Clymere dipped her head to the wounded warriors escorting the party out, then looked pointedly at Kosta.
“I’m staying with you.”
Clymere sighed.
Kosta surveyed the crossroads. With the civilians and their protectors gone, only twenty soldiers remained. Most set to their tasks with the steely resolution of men and women who had signed their death warrants: bandages were tied swiftly and roughly, lumber was hauled with little regard for splinters or bruises, and words were scarce.
Only a few displayed visible fear or quaked in their boots, and even those who quailed beneath approaching death seemed determined to hide that fact from their ironclad brothers and sisters.
His heart fell. “Only twenty?”
“Twenty of the best damn warriors in Dytifrourá!” Clymere declared to a chorus of agreement. Her voice tightened. “We’ve had to send civilians with escorts to ensure they make it to the walls. It won’t be long before the Hesperians secure the eastern walls and turn to flush out any resistance. They’ll find us soon… and I’ll burn them to ashes for what they’ve done! Every drop of Dytifrourán blood spilled will be returned tenfold!”
Some of Clymere’s warriors cheered upon her savage proclamation. Others worked silently, too lost in their own thoughts to respond to her bravado.
Kosta took a moment to look over the ‘fortifications’, which were little more than the broken beams of the stalls which had been lashed together with rope to form rudimentary defenses. Thin openings in the trash heaps allowed individuals to enter. It would allow civilians to find this safe haven while also allowing the garrison to funnel enemy Hesperians through one at a time… if they played by the Dytifrourán’s rules, that was.
It was clearly the work of desperate, rushed soldiers that had snagged every solid scrap around and flung it into an enormous, unsteady heap that might even topple beneath the wind. They would slow down the Hesperians, but a single warrior who had trained in applications of force or wind might scatter the barriers with a single working of magic.
“Those walls are useless!” Kosta hissed to Clymere. She nodded, eyes flat as she barked out orders to various militia members. One perched up on a nearby house in a makeshift guard tower shouted a warning to her, although Kosta couldn’t decipher the coded message.
“Fix that one as best you can. Five minutes.” She pointed to the wall that faced the western approach. “The rest of you, eyes on me!” Clymere roared and pounded the butt of her spear against the damp cobble. Sparks exploded from her spearhead and came down in a brilliant shower. Men and women saluted. “Erma, Elek, do one last sweep for nearby civilians. We have to send out everyone we can right now. Anyone else will have to find their own way. Heli, give me an alert if you see any moving past us. We want them all coming from one direction for as long as we can, understood?”
Kosta quit listening to Clymere’s sharp orders as he jogged over to the western ‘wall’. It really was a sloppy, imperfect thing. Ugly.
It irritated Kosta that he had little time to achieve his usual standards, but he was quick to put his skills to good use. Grey magic bled from his hands as he laid them upon the mishmashed heap. Kosta spotted chunks of broken doors, torn walls, and whatever rock the soldiers had managed to find all strapped together in this heap alone. There was another piece as well, one that scratched at his memory.
A crude body hewn from limestone. Exaggerated facial features. Poorly carved clothing.
That was one of his! It was an old construction, a messy rendition of a local merchant’s wife that he’d crafted shortly after his Dòrognosis. Damn it! Kosta sent a dirty look over at some of the warriors currently adding onto another barricade. They’d tossed one of his old statues in as if it was rubbish!
Frustration reared its ugly head, but a small part of Kosta was relieved that it was an old shame like this rather than one of his modern works. Every piece that he crafted had a little fragment of him in it, but this one was admittedly far from beautiful.
Had he really been so awful at noses back then? It looked more like a cyclops’ bulbous snout than something belonging to a human. Ugh!
Kosta didn’t let it distract him for long. More and more slate-hued magic burst from his hands and settled over the entire wall in a thin haze. Kosta’s mind struggled beneath the sheer strain as he cast his power far and wide.
A mass reshaping wasn’t something he was accustomed to: it necessarily sacrificed detail and care in exchange for time and efficiency. They weren’t things that Kosta particularly cared for, but time was a precious resource at the moment. He’d generated more of a net here than a focused tool, just a simple boundary within which he could work his will upon the world.
It was crude and the finished result wouldn’t possess any sort of elegance, but Kosta hoped it would be effective for Clymere’s purposes. He shivered in the cold as he worked. The chill carried in by the previous storm had only renewed with the rain; it chewed him to the bone.
But that didn’t matter. Kosta allowed himself to slip into the hyperfocused trance that enabled him to work his literal magic. Part of him (a very small part, mind) was grateful that a piece of his own craft had been placed within the heap. It gave him something to anchor upon and work against, even if it was a statue that Kosta hadn’t embraced in so long. His power flowed easily in and around the statue.
Seal gaps. Knot wood. Shift stone. Reinforce, reinforce, reinforce!
His will became reality. With the most glaring issues taken care of and the wall’s structure now somewhat stable, Kosta turned his attention to reshaping the hole for civilians and the side of the wall which would face them and the invaders.
Scrape wood and smooth jagged bits to form a small archway. Small enough for unarmored civilians, but with little hooks and points to catch anyone in bulky armor. Sharpen stakes outside and above, make them long, vicious, and pointed to ward off anyone who attempted to jump over.
Protect, stand strong, protect, endure, protect!
His professional sensibilities were offended by this hack job, but Kosta pulled away from his project with a gasp as soon as it was functional. Kosta eyed the new barricade with thinly veiled disappointment. Right now the edges had been smoothed and various pieces of wood carved and shaped to interlock so that it was more of a true wall than just a pile of rubbish, but it was still so ugly!
If only he had more time…
“Kosta, stop lollygagging! Get to the walls. Carve us an escape. We may be fighting like a bunch of cornered rats, but that doesn’t mean we have to die like them!” Clymere thundered to a chorus of cheers. She quickly turned to her soldiers, who set back to various tasks. Some attempted to rearrange the eastern and northern barricades to better match Kosta’s, while others pillaged the local stalls and storefronts for anything that might be useful in the fight and flight ahead: cloth, food, enchanted gear, anything that nobody wanted to leave for the foul hands of the Hesperians.
“Lex, fill the buildings behind the barricade with all the dry tinder you can. I’ll need it.”
Kosta frowned, but turned away from his unpleasant creation. He longed to turn his power to it again and make it a true bastion, but Clymere was right. As of this moment, they would all die in this place. There was no way that the Hesperians would allow them to leave through Dytifrourá’s eastern gate, not when they aimed to spill as much of the invaders’ blood as possible.
No, they would devote their full power to crushing this last holdout.
So he hurried to the section of the walls near the crossroads and began to work, cognizant of any foe that might attempt to sneak up on him. Clymere’s soldiers had locked the whole area down, but it was impossible to know what strange magics were commanded by the Hesperians.
Kosta found a likely section that was slightly hidden from the road and which would take them out to the south of the town. It wasn’t truly ideal, but perhaps the Hesperians would have fewer eyes here than on the main entrances. This section also led out to the woods, which may protect them from the prying eyes of the griffins as they fled.
The walls were still thick and strong, but the touch of magic had left them. Everything had been spent in defense of Dytifrourá, but the terrible power of the Merakian had been more than it ever could have anticipated.
What had a monster like that been doing here? Kosta shuddered as another cold gale swept through, quieted his mind, and invested his power into the stone. It was little more than slab upon slab of limestone and debris set between exterior layers of brick now that the wards had been broken. Sturdy and resistant to both physical and magical attacks, but simple for Kosta to reshape.
It still took some effort for Kosta’s power to penetrate the stone, particularly after his previous working, but Kosta steeled himself. This was no time to falter!
The stones retained some memory of the magic that had once bound them. It had saturated the walls for more than two decades now. Even broken, the walls still knew their purpose.
They were to resist foreign magic. They were to guard against attack. They were to protect Dytifrourá and its people against whatever foes may come.
So they fought against Kosta’s power at first. But he had crossed these gates a hundred times. He had laid his hand against their stone and felt the vastness of their strength. Kosta and Clymere had hurled balls against its sturdy lines and chased after them, laughing.
And so before he could open them, he must convince the lingering purpose woven into the construction. His magic intermingled with the fading traces of the wards, the mighty working of some mason of the Dipoli, and Kosta fed his purpose through it.
You protected us for many years. Your service is done.
We are sons and daughters of Dytifrourá. We must leave you now.
Protect us one last time.
The walls shuddered as they accepted his magic. Kosta was weary from his fading head wound, his flight from the workshop, and the magic that he had used to shatter the bridge and rebuild the fortifications, but he pressed on slow and steady as always.
He did not miss that his power went further than it should have. With his purpose accepted, the walls fed their last remnants of power to his own. Where his magic went, so did the wisps embedded in the stone flock.
Brick groaned as the outer layer peeled away and crumbled to the ground.
The limestone and debris broke, pounded to dust and pebbles by his magic, and spilled out like rocky entrails.
His magic pierced through the rubble one last time and the exterior side of the walls broke as well. One last working sent the debris tumbling out to open up a small archway. It was only large enough for one person at a time, but Kosta hoped that it would be enough.
He didn’t have it in him to break even more of the wall. Its magic had been exhausted fully now, and Kosta couldn’t spare the strength to widen it more. Not without draining himself.
Kosta wheezed as he regained his focus and stamina. He steadied his breathing and shut his eyes for a moment, allowing himself to draw whatever power he could from the wellspring of his soul, and rested one hand upon the phaetra in his pack.
It was blessedly warm.
As he felt wisps of magic return to him, Kosta busied himself with collecting a few broken shards of brick. Perhaps he could use them to reinforce some of the barricades? But to be honest, Kosta just felt better with a stone in his hand.
He luxuriated in the pulsating heat of the phaetra for a moment, then paled as an enormous plume of flame exploded into the sky behind him, terrible and mighty and scorching his exposed skin with the heat that poured off of it.
“To arms, brothers and sisters! To us, Hesperians! The last Dytifrouráns await you! Fall upon our walls, die upon our spears!”
A great chorus of pounding spears came from the crossroads behind. Surging magic from Clymere’s rearguard as a dozen warriors made their presence known with all they had. Lightning, ice, ethereal light, and a sonic scream joined with her billowing plume of fire, and Kosta knew that it was time.
Dread filled him. They were here.
These were not monsters. These were not cunning beasts. These were humans.
Clymere was the only human he’d ever fought. When they fought monsters, she never carried a shield. Too slow, she said. Too clumsy. She’d rather have a free hand to cast flames with.
Besides, she had Kosta.
His pounding heart slowed a tad. His weary hands steadied. Kosta tore a tiny chunk of Eneas’ bread off and chewed it down, luxuriating in the sweetness of the honey-glazed loaf. More than that, the magic kneaded into the dough by Eneas raced through his veins and restored a measure of his power.
It was time to be Clymere’s shield once more, just as she would be his spear.
Let them come!