-bulwark-

[https://i.imgur.com/LoYByv0.png]

“Seeker-One to Assault-One.”

Hanna’s voice called my division’s call-sign over the comms channel.

“Go ahead, Seeker-One.”

“We’re getting reports of an unknown creature rampaging in the southeastern Maarin district. Has your team encountered anything?”

“…”

I glanced down the road to my right—where blasts of dark orange magick were illuminating the city.

An arc of raw magick blew the walls of a home apart and before the rest of the building could collapse a dome of the same colored magick radiated outward, pushing the structure into the air.

Brick, wood, and clay tiles rained down all around.

A woman emerged from the shrapnel, undisturbed and unharmed. She stared at me, her eyes emitting smokey orange wisps of magickal energy.

“Assault-One?” Hanna called out to me again.

“Ignore those reports, Seeker-One. The ‘rampaging creature’ is Assault-Four.”

“The creature is… what? No, we have reports of jet-black hair and glowing orange skin and eyes.”

“That is correct. You are currently describing Assault-Four.” I replied in a flat tone. “Seeker-One, add a note to the personnel file that Assault-Four has another tier of transformation. Describe it as… Caprian.”

“Caprian? What, uh, is that supposed to mean?”

“I refuse to call it Capricornian, Seeker-One.” I barked back in exasperation, “Just note it down and refocus on the war.”

“A-Acknowledged, Assault-One.”

The comms channel went quiet and the hum of static returned, but my mind was too preoccupied to care about the minor annoyance.

Ikuye, the usually cheerful and kind girl, was indeed rampaging through the city. Waystrider Tomin, Knight Jeffreys, and the adventurer Strea were following after her.

None of our divisions had reported any friendly fire incidents from her, so I decided to just let it be. For now.

The radiant angelic girl took to the sky again, her wings were illuminated by misty tendrils in the trademark orange of her and Airis’ chaos magick.

“She’s more terrifying than any demon my legion fought evacuating Skaern and Ingmont.” a small voice commented idly next to me.

I looked down to find the newly promoted Knight-Lieutenant Tatsuko standing next to me.

The elven woman was a whole two feet shorter than me, her forehead barely reached where my stomach was, and had a real knack for sneaking around in my blind spot.

We watched on as another group of unfortunate Renaultians rushed Ikuye only to be stricken with fear as they entered her aura’s radius.

I shuddered. “The thought of fighting her makes my skin crawl.”

A mass of gangly limbs was knocked into the air, landing on the ground in front of us in a gnarly splattering of viscera.

It was one of those grotesque void-beasts with human-like faces.

Tatsuko flinched at first as it came down. She collected herself and approached it cautiously.

“Dead.” she said, prodding it with the end of her staff.

“I guess that explains why Ikuye transformed into whatever the strange form is. Mind cleaning that up?” I indicated at the body.

Tatsuko nodded in understanding and cast a fire spell to set the body ablaze.

It combusted quickly and was reduced to ash in seconds.

“Great job. Now, let’s leave the rampaging celestial warrior to her work and secure more of the city. We’re moving on!”

I rallied my raiding division’s Assault teams and we pushed further into the Maarin district.

Every time we passed by a new alleyway or building, I’d dispatch one of the teams to clear it and continue on. Once they had secured it, they’d form back up—or if they ran into resistance, they’d call Command for additional support. Usually in the form of a targeted ballistae volley.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“This is the place, Commander.” one of my sentinels confirmed our target over his communication rune with a Specter team.

We’d arrived at a large stone-walled fortress-like structure along the eastern inner walls surrounding the Maarin district. It was the entrance to a large military complex for the Maarin Republic—their headquarters being located above us, in a large stone tower overlooking the docks and central spire.

“Assault teams Seven and Eight secure the perimeter,” I ordered, “Assault-Six, you’re on point. Prepared to breach on my command. All other teams fall in behind me.”

The two teams quickly began to circle the building, checking alcoves and overhangs for anyone lurking around.

“Assault-Six to Assault-One. Ready to breach, Commander.”

A hurried transmission over the open channel a moment later and we were ready to go.

“Assault-One to all teams on active channel, Operation Forward Base starts. Breach. Breach. Breach.”

A series of explosions echoed through the courtyard as the front doors to the fortress were ripped apart by a mix of magick and black powder-filled satchels we’d received from Rias and her artificer friend, Lira.

“Lobby secured!”

“Two hostiles down, moving to clear!”

“Room clear!”

“Locked door, need a breaching charge!”

There was a chaotic mix of shouting and transmissions over the comms channel as the soldiers cleared the ground floor.

“I’ve got a locked cellar here, bring a charge!” a knight called down the hallway at Tatsuko and me.

“I don’t need some silly charges.” she muttered under her breath.

Her fingers caught fire and she placed a hand over the metal lock. It glowed red hot and she simply pulled the mechanism apart in her hands.

I pulled the chains off the cellar door and heaved it open on a count of three.

Tatsuko cast a spell and an orb of light appeared in her hand, illuminating the space and revealing a long staircase. The knights and I descended carefully with her support.

“Bodies.” a knight to my left alerted us as we reached the bottom and the space opened up.

Tatsuko conjured additional lights and sent them all throughout the room.

We’d entered some kind of underground holding room. Standalone iron cages and proper prison cells were located along the walls in all directions—and they were occupied.

Among piles of lifeless bodies, there were still some people who were alive, though you could barely call them that.

A few dozen men and women in visibly awful condition were recoiling from the bright lights.

“I am Julius Adaemus of the Vanixian Empire. Declare yourselves and we may provide assistance.”

My voice echoed through the room and my knights spread out to ensure it was secure.

A dry voice weakly answered my call from within a cell in the back, “High-Protector, is that truly you?”

I approached the man. He was emaciated, with sunken cheeks and an unevenly shaved head. Though he knew my previous rank and seemed to know me, I wasn’t able to recognize him.

“Knight-Protector Zachary Taylor, Vice-Commander, Second Division,” he coughed weakly, “It’s damn good to see you, sir. Did you escape one of the camps? I had no idea you were in the city.”

“Camps?” I questioned, “No, Vice-Commander Taylor, we’re leading an assault on the city under Her Majesty’s command. Are there other places like this where our people are being held?”

I sent a sentinel topside to report to Command what we’ve found and we began freeing the other prisoners.

A Seeker and Light team arrived soon after with supplies and healers. All the captives were either members of First Division that I could barely recognize or a few members of Second Division, like Taylor.

“Ahhh, it’s a blessing to have clean water to drink.” Taylor said while weakly gripping a small canteen. His voice was shaky and his eyes were wet.

“I thought it was our last day,” he continued, “when you all came down the stairs with those blinding lights… Those Renaultian bastards hadn’t come down in four days and I figured they’d finally shown up to finish off whoever didn’t die of thirst.”

His expression darkened as he glanced at the bodies still lying in the cells.

“You mentioned camps earlier,” I prodded, “do you know where other holding sites are?”

“There are four of ‘em,” he replied solemnly, “They moved us around a lot at first so that we couldn’t organize. Then they executed any officers above lowercore third rank and I was transferred here.”

“And this place is what?”

“Processing of some sort. I think they were going to ship us outside the city for forced labor but something happened to delay it—which I see now was the arrival of your army… that kid’s an Empress now, huh?”

“Not that terrible of one either,” I joked back, “And these camps, topside or underground?”

“Topside. They barricaded the streets and outward-facing doorways of our district’s residential blocks. People are living there like mass prisons.”

“Well that’s better news than everyone having been killed already,” I sighed, “How about casualties? We haven’t been able to get a solid view into the city before we knocked down the gates.”

Vice-Commander Taylor’s expression tightened.

“Of the forty-five hundred in First Division, I reckon only about six hundred total remain. Last count of officers was around thirty before I was transferred out of the northern camp. Second Division was better off, about half of the twenty-six hundred were still accounted for, seventy officers. We didn’t have as many high-ranking folks since we weren’t operating in Command much.”

Taylor went on to detail what he knew about the Divisional losses from combat in the first days of the coup and the subsequent disappearances of imprisoned soldiers over the last few months.

Eventually, Luke turned up with a handful of raid-sized divisions with fresh faces.

The Maarin headquarters in the tower above had been cleared out and the process of turning this into our forward base of operations began.

“Have fun cleaning this shit hole out,” I clapped my hand on Luke’s back, “I’m off to go rid this city of its murderous traitors.”

“I’ll hold the fort, Commander. Let me know if you get tired, I’ll swap places with you.” he saluted.

My party resupplied and we headed towards the inner city gate, reinvigorated to push the Renaultians into the abyss.