Lyrua could see Highward Toldremand Lykksen clearly as they approached. His short, twice-braided beard was bright white, illuminated by lamps under the Residential Arch. A single braid ran tightly across the middle of his head, ending in two braided tails. It carried only a memory of the black his hair had in his youth.
The Highward was an elegant fighter and cunning tactician. He was responsible for the intensely structured training that folk endured for years to earn the title of Spellknight Warden—The Spellwards. Thick hair covered his chest, visible for the open white vest he wore. He carried his spear with bulging arms as hairy as his chest, and a familiarity typically only seen with Children of Iron. An extension of his own body, achieved not through soul-binding as the Iron did, but countless hours of training, decades of experience and battles fought at the precipice of death. Tall and wide, his grizzly presence was imposing even beyond his stature.
Lyrua craned her neck to see who was standing with Toldremand. It was Highward Fourstaile Stolthed, head of the Crown’s Coincounters. She was much shorter than him, a florafolk, pale green-skinned with lush, leafy vines for hair topped with fourteen magenta chrysanths that sprouted from her head. Her gentle posture was the image of dignity, calm and confidence. Her eyes turned to Lyrua, but her head remained still, and the knowing gaze of her brown eyes teased her immense intelligence.
The Highwards were flanked by three other Spellwards that Lyrua did not know the names of, but the resentful clacking of Ove’s beak told her one of the men was named Dag. If he had been up at Athen’s room, and met with Torfinn, then he had made it here quite quickly. Toldremand and Fourstaile were facing someone just at the edge of the lamp-light, so only their chest and a hand on their hilt were in the light, but they were not dressed in the white of the Spellwards. By the edge of an old breastplate, and the curled scruff of a long beard, she imagined it could be General Bartholomaeus Gammel, but why would he have come here?
Lyskilde waved a hand at Lander. He nodded, and followed her forward towards the Arch. His reflective body caught the attention of the Spellwards immediately, but Lyura could only see where his cloak rippled behind him in the dark, and the silvery edges of his head under the silhouette of his tricorn. Toldremand and Fourstaile did not turn from the figure under the Arch, even as Lander and Lyskilde stepped into the light. As they recognized Lander and Lyskilde, the Spellwards sheathed their blades, and saluted Lyskilde, a firm arm against the front of their waists.
“Well, if it isn’t Lander Nickellegering.” Bart’s gravelly voice came from beneath the Arch, loud but muffled as though a wall were between them, “We were just discussing what to do with the Queen when she arrived here.” He almost let the side of his face breach the edge of the light as he turned his head. “Where is she?” The contempt in his voice compelled Lyrua to pull Athen closer to her.
Bartholomaeus Gammel was a belligerent man who led the King’s Army. On a normal night, that would mean very little; there had not been a real war in his lifetime. He and his predecessor were responsible for the state of Manataklos’ guard. They cut salaries and hired only from the desperate poor, fed them rehearsed dogma to instil a counterfeit sense of importance instead of legitimate training. He fancied himself a member of the nobility, and never missed an opportunity to stick his heavily-bearded chin into a room with them. That he was here now did not bode well for the rest of their morning.
“A very good question,” Lander answered dismissively, “I have a better one though.” He turned his shining head to the Highwards. “It’s nearly dawn, are the city cleaners not coming to take this trash to the fire?” He jabbed a thumb at Bartholomaeus,
Toldremand let a deep laugh shake him, a rare sound from him, and the first sound Lyrua heard from him since reaching the Arch. “No, I’m afraid the cleaners aren’t equipped to remove hazardous waste. We may have to take care of this mess ourselves.”
Bart hacked up phlegm from his throat and spit into the street. “Save yourselves the embarrassment of being wiped from the face of Ankermune like the scum that you are, and hand over the Queen.” The man’s grip was so tight on the hilt of his blade that his arm shook with every word. “You arrogant pricks think you own this city because you kicked a few stones around the Glass Desert? Do you believe you can survive direct conflict with the King’s Army with only six Spellwards and an old Iron?” Bart took a step forward so he was fully immersed in the light. His beard was unkempt, as if he had come right from bed. His thin brown hair was equally disarrayed. The man was muscular, and likely still a capable warrior, but the real threat was the army he commanded. He raised his fist in the air, and an echoing percussion erupted from beyond the Arch, trailed by a handful of scattered cheers.
“Ten thousand men march under my command tonight!” he stuck out his chest. “You will give me the Queen, unless you fools wish to die defending her pathetic life.”
Poor training or not, Lyrua was not confident that so few Spellwards could defeat ten thousand of the guard, if Bart had truly brought so many. And to fight them in the city could endanger everyone in the Residential Quarter.
To Lyrua’s surprise, it was Lyskilde who stepped forward to face the old General, rage in her face like a boar ready to charge. “What would moulded cheese like you know about our training?” She spat at his feet, “And you dare mention the Glass Desert when you have never been within sight of it?” She tossed her cloak over her shoulder, revealing the sharp hook at the end of her right arm. Her entire face contorted with contempt.
Bart barked a laugh. “Your special training made you a cripple? Am I supposed to be intimidated?”
“You should be intimidated by a woman who can kill a dracolisk by herself after it already glassed her arm,” she scowled. The General forgot his mouth open as she berated him. “But you have probably never even seen anything more dangerous than bandits. A fat city guard cannot know what it means to stare death in the eyes, to feet its chilling embrace around your throat, and find the will to deny it.” There was a quiver of fear in her voice, but it was not for Bartholomaeus.
“Impossible,” he sneered, “I have seen a dracolisk before, recently even. There is no way one of you curs could kill one, not even a juvenile. What I do understand is how you tricked the common folk of Manataklos to see you as heroes with those lies. But the King’s Army will not fall to pond scum. We will crush you beneath our boots, and our allies will find wherever it is the Queen cowers in fear of the King’s will and they will destroy her!” His fist shot into the air and a chorus of support came through the Arch behind him.
Lyskilde stared unflinchingly at him as he screamed at her, and he did not seem to know how to react to her rigid silence. His arm hung in the air as the army behind him fell awkwardly to silence. He lowered his arm, and placed one foot behind him as if about to leave.
“Your allies?” Fourstaile said calmly. She did not so much as twitch a leaf in movement, but she spoke with such firmness that she did not need to. Whatever spell hung over them still stifled the sound of her voice, but even so it came through clearer than the others, carrying easily like petals in the breeze. “Surely, you do not mean these?” She issued a command with a twitch of her wrist.
Figures began to appear along the low buildings that squatted around the Arch. They tossed dark things from the roofs, and then turned to grab more. They rained from the rooftops until the streets were littered with dark cloaked forms. The General’s eyes bulged in his head watching the creatures pile up until the heaps began to collapse themselves. Lyrua covered Athen’s eyes.
Black-robbed, with white gangly limbs that had barely any flesh on them. Dozens upon dozens of stalkers, dead like flies under a flame. Yet, they had encountered comparatively few. Lander crossed his arms with a look of disappointment as a glare from Toldremand sent Lyskilde back to his side.
Fourstaile tilted her head to meet Bartholomaeus’s eyes. “As always, you underestimate the Spellknight Wardens. If you sought to defeat us and slay the Queen, you should have brought a few thousand more of these things.”
The General chuckled, confidence seeming to return to his posture. “No, you are the ones who continue to underestimate us. Our numbers far exceed yours, and we have layer after layer of contingencies in place to ensure our absolute victory.” He threw his arms wide in challenge.
“Then you have chosen death.” Toldremand raised his arm skyward, “Any man in the Residential square who wishes to live, be elsewhere when my spell is complete.” His face hardened with focus, and he spoke words that Lyrua knew gave power to his mana to strengthen the coming spell. “The sky peals, a calamitous spear that descends to maim the world in blistering obliteration.” His voice shook the walls like thunder, rattling windows in nearby buildings that had them. Strands of hair on Athen’s head rose between Lyrua’s fingers as the air crackled. General Bartholomaeus stumbled backward and fell to his rear. He turned to face the Arch, and in an instant, it appeared.
A flash as thick as a tower ruptured the sky, arcs grasping the Arch, spreading through the air like webs. It carved a path through the night to strike the square and exploded with a devastating cacophony that suffocated all other sounds.
Lyrua barely made out the shapes of Spellwards lining the rooftops before she shut her eyes, and spun around to bury her son’s face against her chest protectively. In the same instant it had appeared, the flash had gone. Even the sound-dampening spell hanging over the street did not mute the blast enough to stop her ears from ringing. She opened her eyes to see Wards hopping down to the street and illuminating the area to replace the ruptured lamps. General Bartholomaeus stumbled to his feet howling with each breath, and tripped over an incinerated corpse that had blown through the Arch as he made his way through to where Lyrua could not see him. The others let him go.
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Lyrua pulled Athen to his feet and stumbled with him to the Spellwards. She faced the Arch, turning her son away, but the lamps in the square beyond it had been destroyed, so she saw only darkness peppered with tiny flames along the ground. A breeze from the south brought the stench of burnt flesh, and as her hearing cleared, she heard the screams and wails it carried as well.
Toldremand’s voice barely made it into her thoughts. “That’s it, my Queen.” Athen was sobbing into her blouse, and for the moment it was all she could do to pat his head and tell him it was all right. “Half the city will be awake after that,” the Highward said. “The time for subtlety has passed. We make for the Dust Quarter, and whatever awaits beyond. Better be careful, I won’t remember how to do that again until tomorrow.” He strode off towards the Arch, and the Spellwards followed him.
She did not have time to ponder what he meant by ‘remember’. She watched the three Wards who had been with him from the start pass her by, offering shallow bows as she met their eyes. Then she started as Captain Gottfred bowed to her, his two-dozen Wards from the Queen’s Arch marching in a double-file behind him. Torfinn followed, and she found enough right in her addled mind to ask him about the sweep of the Citadel. “The action is out here, my Queen,” he said, “we go where the Highwards command. Unless you would have us do otherwise.”
Lyrua shook her head.
She did not have the mind to count, but Captain Torfinn seemed to have about two dozen Wards with him as well. He drew a circle with his finger as he approached the Residential Arch, and something cracked in the air, causing a flood of pure, clear sound to rush in as the lingering spell was broken. Hundreds, thousands of footfalls tickled her ears, many quite distant, while screams of death, and cries for help ravaged them. Spellwards dashed across the roofs as well, gracefully leaping from building to building, and a rare few floated through the air.
The plaza flooded with light as the Wards marched through, and she saw a battlefield the likes of which would make the Archangel Quareel grin. Guards were rushing in by the hundreds, only to be cut down by agile blades or separated from their limbs by heavy axes. Four men in leather armour surrounded Lyskilde by the plaza fountain, and she tore one across the throat with her hook when he got too close. Spying an opening, another swung down a morning star, but she avoided it with such ease and grace that she almost did not seem to notice it. But she caught the chain with her hook, and pulled the man into her blade. She cut the last two across their face and neck.
The fountain past Lyskilde dominated the centre of the square, bearing a statue of the Archangel Balaans, the district’s architect. It was blackened and melted, and only wisps of steam remained of its water. All around were piles of corpses, charred beyond recognition, only a few studs in leather or rings of chainmail that had survived the Blistering Obliteration spell identified the husks as guards of the King’s Army. As the battle aged the bodies deepened, until she could almost not find the charred ones anymore.
Lander fought nearer to her, mostly standing still unless a threat dashed for the Arch. He eyed the greater battle enviously. Lyrua did not know how long it took, but in time the Wards pushed the Army from the square, and Lander turned to her.
Her mind told her to run away from it, to try to return to her tea and flowers. She imagined her thick comforter and down pillows, but even the images in her mind were marred by the harsh scent of char, and they appeared scorched in her thoughts. So her body moved without her telling it to, and all she could do was whisper to her son that it would be all right. But she did not know that. This was not what she had wanted. She wanted to slip away quietly, she wanted her son to believe they travelled for fun or adventure. She had not wanted war in Manataklos.
Two Spellwards remained behind the greater battle clearing the way for them, dragging bodies from their path so if they stared straight down, they only saw the blood and the ash and scraps of cloth or flesh seared to the street. It was more than she deserved, but she was grateful if only for Athen’s sake.
“My Lord,” came Ove’s voice. She had snuck up from somewhere and was walking alongside Athen, dabbing tears from his cheeks with a handkerchief.
He turned to her pensively, clutching Lyrua’s arm with both hands. “Is everyone going to die? Mother will not tell me anything.”
“Not today,” she replied, trying to ignore the warning glare Lyrua was giving her, “we will be okay, The Spell Wards will never let harm come to you. But, you need to be strong too. Your mother needs you to be strong.”
“I am quite alright,” Lyrua protested. She could say whatever she wanted, but Ove would always know how she truly felt.
“Of course you are,” Ove continued, “but that is why she needs you my Lord, to make sure she stays all right.” Ove withdrew one of her puppets, an extremely pale woman, with cream-coloured hair to match her pearly skin, and bright red eyes. She wore an elaborate pink dress that was almost all frills and lace. It seemed dubious to believe anyone could sew a dress with so much detail for a grown woman let alone in a doll’s size.
A smile crept back along Athen’s face, and for a moment the horrors of combat seemed distant. “Maybreth Freyrill!” he exclaimed cheerfully. Maybreth was his favourite, he loved her pink dresses. Somehow Ove had come across—or sewn herself—a dozen of the pretty little things, and Athen loved to dress Maybreth up for evening tea with the Kasder Wilsen doll.
“When you feel scared, think about how strong you are. Just like Maybreth and your mother.” Ove straightened Athen’s hair, and he still smiled, but his eyes told her he was tired, and certainly still scared. Lyrua admired how Ove always seemed to find the right words, so much so that her own spirits were lifted even though she was not the target of her encouragement.
“I do not feel strong.” He stared quietly into his doll’s red eyes.
“No, and neither do I,” Ove said sullenly. “Neither does your mother, and believe it or not, but neither does Lander. So cry as much as you need to, but think about that when you don’t feel strong enough.”
Ove slipped back into the dark. Athen still flinched at the crashes of steel echoing through the dark, or voices howling their final breaths, but he was able to distract himself a little with his doll.
Lyrua could hear Lander exerting himself, even when she could not see him directly, and the sounds of his foes collapsing came frequently. She tried to imagine the soft thuds were anything else, a cushioned chair tipping over because Athen sat on the back, or servants dropping a mattress. But she had to look to walk, and saw the truth in the street. Most of the combat was further away, and not a single one of the bodies she saw wore the white tunics of the Spellwards.
As they wove through the dark streets of the Residential Quarter, the clash of steel and cries of death echoed from every street and alley. Heavy footfalls came from the east, and a group of guards came around a building. The building had a wide sign that Lyrua could not see clearly hanging in front, but a sign marked it as a shop or business of some kind. One of the guards held his torch to the thin tapestry that decorated the shop’s walls, and it took flame.
They had not noticed her, or Lander for that matter. The Iron took a deep breath, pulling air into his body to heat it. The guards trotted towards them unsuspectingly in the low light. As they were nearly on top of her, Lander released the moisture he collected from the air in a blast of steam that shrouded the street in mist.
The guards jumped, spinning to find what lurked in the dark, but he was upon them before they could react. He did not even need to take care for their weapons, as they could not harm him. He cut them down as easily as a child hitting sticks in the dirt with a practice blade.
They continued on, crossing street after street. A pair of guards had abandoned the fray to pick their way into someone’s home. Lyrua could hear terrified cries faintly through the steel walls.
Lander reached for a wooden cart but she waved him off. That cart belonged to someone. Someone who was cowering inside at the sounds of violence in the street. Someone who would have to leave their home in the morning to find the streets flooded with the blood of the folk who were supposed to protect them.
She called an arrow of Light and released it into one of the guards’ skulls. His head burst against the door. She gagged but held it down, striking the second man in the face with another arrow as he turned around.
She thought she saw city folk poking out of their windows above burning tapestries, and then quickly retreating inside. She realised that some of the Wards she saw dashing about were not seeking foes to strike down, but were patrolling the homes of common folk who had no say in this war. It gave her relief, but that was why she had put Toldremand and Fourstaile in charge of the Wards. Between the two of them, they always considered everything.
Shattered carts and smashed stalls of the common people peppered their path with splinters. The weaved rugs and colourful flags of cloth they used to decorate their homes were torn and burned, and it ached her heart to see the dullness of the walls no longer abated by colourful expression. For as much as she would do anything to protect her children, she had not wanted this.
The only solace she found in the destruction was that their homes were, as everything else in Manataklos was, made of solid steel. Their decorations could burn, erasing the artistic legacy of generations of their families in plumes of black smoke, but their homes could not, and with Wards patrolling in the wake of the battle, they would be safe. Tonight, she thanked the Gods for the city’s dull steel walls.
Something was different in the sounds of combat as they caught up to the greater battle. There were fewer flashes of light or missiles of flame. She no longer saw the occasional guard tossed into the air to fall on his head with a crack, or flashes of lightning splitting the sky. The Spellwards were out of mana. She had still not seen a single fallen Ward, but without their spells they had only their blades to rely on, and they would be tired and outnumbered.
Lyskilde came stumbling out of an alley, pursued by a score of guards. They quickly cornered her, circling around her to block the road. Sweat matted her short hair to her face, and she breathed heavily. Even Lyrua could tell she was drained of the energy she had been full of earlier.
The guards taunted her, voicing their excitement at finally having advantage over a Spellward with crude and demeaning calls. Then her mana appeared like an aura, visible to Lyrua’s attuned eyes. It formed the familiar strands of the detection net, but then something else happened to it. It setted on them like silk as they sneered and swung blades at her arms.
The net suddenly became solid, dicing them up with petrifying howls of terror as they watched cubes of their flesh tumble away. The mess covered the entire crossing. Lyskilde cocked her head apologetically before disappearing down an alley. If Lyrua ever found time to rest again, those screams would haunt her sleep. At least Athen had not had to see it too.