Shedding the camouflage of surprise, the fleet of warships began to rapidly accelerate. Sails which had faintly waved in the gentle winds now billowed with the influx of air. Dimly, Alex registered that this meant their Evokers had begun to actively propel the vessels. Fifteen minutes, he thought, the part of his mind responsible for self-preservation paralyzed in shock. Fifteen minutes until we’re dead.

“-lex. Alex!” His mother, plagued by no such hesitation, was aggressively shaking his arm. He turned his head to look at her, coldly absorbing the panic in her eyes, the tremor in her hands, and the flaring of her nostrils. He waited as she brought her left hand back, confused by the motion, before the shock of a cold slap on his bare skin jump started his mind. They were going to die. His breathing became laboured.

“Alex, don’t you dare. Don’t you dare panic. You’ve got a job to do. Exercises, now.”

Grasping the internal reservoir of power within, he started to cycle neutral power throughout his system, separating threads of attuned energy before merging them with the greater whole. It was a basic training exercise for young Imbuers, meant to familiarise them with the separation of attuned energies from the neutral whole, but it was also routine, concentrated, and required his full attention. He cycled the energy through his arms, then legs, and finally his head, before allowing it to settle once again at chest level. The whole thing took only a scant few seconds, and he refocused his attention on his mother - panic abated, for the moment.

“Good. Now listen, son.” He could tell his mother was beset by a self-same urge to panic, but she was suppressing it to the best of her ability. “You and Ellie need to get back to the shop. In my workbench - left side, third drawer down - you’ll find your documents and some emergency money. Get out of here and make for the capital.”

In the short time they’d been speaking, a flurry of activity had whirled into motion around them. Adult men and women, young and old, were hauling materials of every variety: bundles of canvas-wrapped spears joined containers of lightly-rusted arrows, disused quint-cannons were unveiled and tended to by dockhands, and Master Redcliffe even began to wheel out barrels of aspected crystals. The old captain of the guard stood in the midst of it all, issuing rapid fire orders to the untrained militia that was the occupants of Seaport. He caught Alex’s gaze, and his lips thinned.

“Sarah, Alex, get your arses over here! I need these arrowheads fire-charged yesterday!”

His mother grabbed him by the chin, forcing his attention back to her. “Ignore him, son. You’re not dying here today. Get going.”

“But-” he said, a war between responsibility and self-preservation raging within. “Mother, I’m a man now, to leave would be…”

She nodded. “Desertion. They don’t string up boys for running from war, and I’d rather see you in a cell than dead on the ground. Your sister needs you. Move.”

At this, Alex glimpsed his sister. She was staring across the water, droplets of sweat falling from her forehead, absorbed in intense concentration. Ellie wasn’t preparing to run. She was preparing to fight. That, above all else, finally cemented his decision. Wrapping his arms around his mother, he squeezed her tightly, breath catching in his throat as he foresaw what was about to happen.

“I love you, Mother.”

Releasing his hold, he swung around her and grabbed Ellie with his right arm, launching her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. A strangled sound escaped her throat, concentration shattered, and a series of light punches to his back did a fine job explaining just how she felt about that.

“Alex! Put me down, we can fight! Alex! Mother!” she screamed, struggling ferociously against Alex’s hold as he shot away at a dead sprint. From the corner of his eye, he saw the captain recognise his flight, but the man said nothing: simply returning to his preparations. They wouldn’t be stopping him by force, then.

“Mother!” Ellie screamed once more, and Alex took a moment to shoot a look over his shoulder. His mother stood, flanked by the wide ocean, and shot them both a soft, sad smile. All the while, the black fleet approached.

***

The pair reached the shop in record time, though it was a rare occasion that saw Alex sprinting with such fervor. Barrelling through the front door, he dashed up the stairs two, three at a time, slamming through the door and into his mother’s workshop. Six, seven minutes, he thought. We need to be fast.

The commotion outside was deafening. Footsteps thundered along the old cobbles of the road, and the unmistakable clanking of metal could be heard from all directions. The shouting was growing more orderly, now, driven less by sheer panic and more by the will to survive. Seaport’s militia drilled for this, scarcely once a year, but it had never been accompanied by such urgency in the past. He supposed the threat of impending death was a stellar motivator. With every passing second, the myriad noises grew more distant, as the town mustered in the square and at the docks. Now, the crying of children became more audible, as well as the hasty reassurances of older siblings. They’d be joining that crowd soon.

Alex dropped Ellie on the singular chair in the room, and began rooting around the workbench for their emergency kit. Her determination had turned to fear over the course of the run, and now it appeared to land on resignation: a few tears slid down her cheek, but her eyes were fixed on the ground. With guilt, he considered it a blessing. Can’t carry her all the way to the capital.

A moment later, Alex slid open the correct drawer and retrieved a weathered travel pack, designed to be worn as a shoulder bag. Within were his and Ellie’s certificates of birth, a few days worth of hardtack and dried jerky, and a mix of copper and silver coins that he guessed added up to around ten silver. This hadn’t been put together at the last minute. Why had his mother kept such valuable supplies squirrelled away? Gods knew they could have used the extra food, let alone the money. A question for another time.

He took the liberty of a few moments to add some extra supplies to the pack: a half-discharged light crystal, a hand-annotated copy of Common Tinkerings, and the most valuable of his family’s possessions, his mother’s crystal stele. With that, he might even be able to find work, a distant concern as that might be right now. Securing the bag over his shoulder and locking the clasp, he turned to their next concern.

“Ellie, look at me.”

The young girl’s eyes twitched as he spoke, but she didn’t otherwise respond, eyes glued to the floorboards. She was clearly morose; but if Alex knew his sister, it wasn’t just that. She was angry. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to have a conversation about his decision right now, so he’d have to do it the hard way.

“Idiot, what do you think this is? Stop being a baby and look at me.”

That did it. Ellie’s eyes flicked to his own in challenge, wrapped in a complex web of emotions, yet he’d managed to draw out the anger. Angry was good, right now. He needed her angry to get her out of here. Sucking in a breath, Alex gestured toward the window. Where only last night it had been a portal to the festivities he had been missing, right now it showed only the final approach of the invading fleet. Close enough to make out the figures on board, though much too far for faces.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“Mother told me to get you out of here, and that’s what I’m going to do. I can’t carry you all the way to the bleeding capital, though, little sis. You’re going to need to run. Can you do that for me?”

“We don’t need to run!” she shouted, teeth bared. “If we all worked together, we could-”

Her protestations were interrupted by a thundering boom from the shoreline. The disturbance wrested their attention from the argument, and they were greeted by an alien sight. The old quin-cannons, more of a curiosity, had begun to unleash their payload. All along the dock, the accumulated energy of dozens of crystals turned into raging projectiles the equal of any conjured by a Silver-rank Evoker. Fireballs, chunks of solid ice, and even the occasional bolt of lightning blasted across the open ocean toward the enemy fleet. A spark of hope lit in Alex’s heart.

It was not to be. Ice met fire, fire met ice, and the town’s attack was neutered by an equal and opposite showing from the opposing side. Even the lightning, notoriously difficult to block away from solid earth, was ripped apart at range. They had a Ruler or two on board, then. With that realisation, everything became twice as real.

“You see, Ellie?” Alex said, his eyes glued to the window and the scene beyond. “That’s a professional army. Thousands of Evokers, Imbuers, Augmentors and Rulers are about to kick our teeth in. Still think we can fight?”

With the militia mustered in the town square, the outcome was plain to see. The town had fielded around six hundred, a force composed of the entirety of the adult population, but they seemed a candle in the wind in the face of the approaching incursion. Even at this distance, Alex wouldn’t guess any less than two thousand men sailing upon those warships. They were gargantuan. How could he have ever thought they were fishing barges?

Three formidable warships took up the centre of the formation; easily over fifty metres in length, and fitted with their own quin-cannon emplacements on the broadside, they hardly compared to the smaller caravel that their own Kingdom rarely docked at Seaport. A swarm of smaller ships in their dozens accompanied the three great vessels, ranging from ten to thirty metres in length, but no less intimidating for their lesser size. It was this swarm that led the charge, armoured men and women aggressively gesturing to their clearly armed crew in the direction of his small town.

Each ship, no matter the size, had their hull painted a dark, absorbing black. He doubted this entire fleet would even be visible in the darkness. His trained eyes picked out deep etchings indicative of quintessence circuitry, too - though too far for him to even guess at their function, that meant a full fleet of enchanted warships was knocking at the door. They didn’t stand a chance. More importantly for Ellie and he, they didn’t have any time left. The first ships would hit the shoreline within minutes.

“I’ll run.”

He turned to look at Ellie, who herself was staring out at the scene, mouth agape. Earlier anger had been fully overwritten by fear, and though her emotions were no less mixed, the instinct to survive had risen to the fore. With a grunt, Alex double-checked the travel pack at his side, surveyed the room one last time for anything useful, and made for the door.

***

Despite their initial pace, owing to the empty roads, the pair quickly found themselves caught in a crowd. The press of frightened children and adolescents was chaotic, though the pair of town guards standing at the gate were doing their best to keep things organised. The fear was present in their eyes, too, but they maintained their professionalism despite the circumstances.

“Quickly now! Through the gate, quick as you can! Run the Regnal Road to the crossroads, then split up - a third of you make for Alvora, another to Riverfix, and the last to the Capital. We’ll hold them as long as we can, but they’ll be on your heels!”

Alex knew them both. Barely a few years his senior, but committed to evacuating as many of the young they could. His shame was only slightly alleviated by the sight of a half-dozen peers, those of his age group, ushering siblings and cousins on to safety. At least he wasn’t the only adult fleeing the fight. He briefly spotted Amelia struggling through the crowd with her pair of younger brothers, and his gut churned briefly, before he stamped on the emotions. He was worried about a dance, now, with his mother…

He shook his head. There would be time to follow that train of thought later, when Ellie was safe and there wasn’t an army at his back. The crowd progressed forward at a steady rate, limited in their movement by the small path through the gates, but eventually they approached the front. He locked eyes with one of the guards.

“Gods be with you, Alex. Take this.”

The man handed him a knife. A dagger, really. He’d spotted them handing out weapons for the past minute, sourced from a small box to the side of the guardsmen, but hadn’t really considered how it would feel in his hand. It made him feel… not safe, but more prepared. Like he had more options. Not that it would matter against a trained soldier, but it was welcome.

“And you. Good luck.” he replied, pushing through the remaining dregs of the crowd, hand around his sister’s arm. No amount of luck would save the other man from what was coming, but he owed him whatever sentiment that could be mustered. At least he was going to stand and fight for his family. Maybe some of them would make it out.

Emerging through the gate, he was greeted by hundreds of fleeing youths. Their feet pounded the stone road, a cavalcade far removed from any organised march he’d ever heard. The clever drew on their power, with Evokers channeling the wind into a backdraft, and Augmenters sending air quintessence into their legs: powering them into a sprint that few could challenge. That had dark implications for just how fast their pursuers would be.

He took a moment to drop to his knees, gesturing Ellie over where she stared at him in confusion. Placing his hands on both his boots and hers, he channelled his own power, imparting the air aspect on his energy and imbuing their boots with a minor, temporary imbuement. It wouldn’t amount to much, but any advantage could save their lives.

When they both took off at a run, he was briefly surprised when Ellie replicated the trick employed by the older Evokers. The wind before him parted so as to not slow his run, and reformed behind them, pushing him forward at greater speed. It was a struggle to keep his balance, at first, while Ellie dialled in on the appropriate amount of power to dedicate to the effort. She worked quickly. A ghost of a smile flicked across his face, feeling ridiculous given the circumstances, but he couldn’t help it. Damn good work, Ellie.

It was erased when the screaming began. The invaders had made it ashore, as the unmistakable sound of clashing steel echoed through the air. It was quickly followed with more primal markers: the whooshing of flame, the crackle of lightning, and the tinny sound you could just hear when fresh ice encountered heat, magnified to be audible at distance. Their mother would be down there, bow in hand, letting out as many imbued arrows as she could… or would she already be lying dead, burning in the heat of the invader’s power? He shuddered. That didn’t bear thinking about, not now.

The carnage lit a new desperation in the crowd, and even the dimwitted began to employ their power. Those burdened with young children fell behind, often forced to carry underdeveloped bodies unsuited to the task, while groups of teenagers and young adults ploughed ahead. Through their combined use of power, he and Ellie had made it to the middle of the pack. Gods forgive him, but he was glad for those behind them.

He didn’t know how long the militia would hold. Sweat cascaded from his forehead, this level of exertion wholly unfamiliar to him, and he knew Ellie would be feeling the same. How long had it been? Five minutes, ten? There was no way to know, and it didn’t matter. They would run until they were safe or dead.

Ahead, a commotion stirred from the side-road to the Manor. An ornate carriage burst from the thicket, a construct of rich wood accented by pure silver, accelerating at speeds unthinkable from the two horses that drove the vehicle. He recognised the circuitry immediately, for it was one of the most common employed on transport belonging to the wealthy, though this was a particularly extravagant example. Dual-air imbuement, both to replicate the feat Ellie was currently performing and to lighten the carriage as a whole.

He winced as the carriage mowed down three of the children leading the charge. They were Augmenters, he knew, but very much doubted they’d spared any energy for earth durability. A collision at that speed would have shattered bones at the very least, though he reckoned the natural durability afforded by energy would have staved off anything deadly. Still. It was barbaric. He would bet their entire meagre wealth that was the Lord and his family, so brazenly leaving mere teenagers for dead, and for what? Wasn’t the Lord a Platinum-rank? Or a Ruby, maybe? Out of anyone, he had the best chance of escape by far.

Anger and disgust stirred within as the horses carried the carriage far into the distance at astonishing speed, outpacing the entire crowd in mere seconds. He’d never seen the Lord in person, as the man rarely opted to venture into town, but the sight rankled him. All that power, and he willfully consigns three children to death just to add a few extra seconds to his own escape. Why?

Alex grit his teeth. There was no use in thinking about it for now. All he could do was focus on placing one foot in front of another in their desperate rush to the Capital. Maybe there, he’d have the luxury of thought.