Kirs saw them coming through the dome. A crowd trailing near a dozen and a half tethered. A fraction of the ones who went out fighting. Horror twisted her guts as she turned around. She whipped out the door and pelted down the stairs. Zubair called after her, but she ignored him.
He could follow or he couldn’t. Into the cloistered courtyard, she could just barely see the tail-end of the ragged procession setting down elsewhere in the palace gardens. Her throat burned and her legs prickled as she ran across the grass and snow. Never had such speed come to her. Never had she sprinted so far or so fast. Still, she was too slow.
The gardens passed her at a snail’s pace, the random walkways that should be a simple leap to cross suspended in mid-air for minutes at a time. The withdrawn flowers and palace walls slipped past at a leisurely pace. No matter how she fought the distance, it only grew ever larger.
Eventually, the plane gave way to her will and desire. The grounds changed, snow becoming down trodden. Voices calling out, screams, and for brief moments, quiet. Then the chatter of voices. People were flying to and from the location, obviously on a mission.
Then the camp emerged. Pavilions, rather than tents, people were milling about carrying bodies. Many sat slumped, staring into nothing. Most of these appeared uninjured, though a few had ghastly seeping wounds.
And there he stood. Blood-stained and hard-eyed, rainbow light glistening from those frozen orbs. He talked another person over and they hoisted an injured person onto a cot. The worker stepped away, shaking their head and dry-washing their hands.
He turned about before she reached him, those eyes locking onto her approach. There was a foreboding energy to him, as if he was attempting to push her away with the simple force of his gaze.
She barreled into him. He staggered back as she wrapped both arms around his head and hugged him to her chest. Ash and more lingered on him, and he breathed in sharply as he caught her. His arms tensed against her hips, a slight pressure to push her away. She forced him closer, stroking his neck and back. Her fingers were stained in the grime encapsulating him, but she didn’t care.
Then he was crushing her. Arms she’d forgotten, the strength of creaked her ribs. Time stood still as they held each other. “Esmund—“
He shook his head, pulling away. “Not now.” His eyes gleamed liquid with unshed tears. “Help me.” She stroked his cheek and nodded. If that was what he wanted.
Healers were busy separating the injured into three categories. Each was still small, but he took her to the loudest and most visibly injured one.
“These need to be on the cots over there,” he said, pointing to the pavilion furthest away.
Kirs nodded, staring down at the man weeping and writhing before her. Something had punched a hole clear through his forearm. Ice encapsulated the injury, but her tentative probe discovered no healing.
Grunting with the effort, they carried the man across the grass and to a cot. She read the sign — the broken seat of a chair with scorched lettering — non-lethal. She drew in a shivering, racked breath and looked back toward the injured. A new meaning now dwelt on the quiet ones.
“Where’s the others?” she asked, just to have something to fill the silence. Es steadied himself on a support pole and drew in a steadying breath. Then, with a twist of his will, steadied himself. “Dovar is outside, gathering more people. He’d gotten a near score injured following him by the time I joined his group.”
“Is he…”
“Injured?”
She nodded.
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“We all are. But he’s… coping.”
“That’s good.”
“Grev…” he paused, looking toward the second group. Kirs searched for a moment, then saw Sansir sitting next to a cot. If she squinted, she could be convinced there were tufts of pale hair sticking out from the blanket covering the patient. “He hit his head. He is still confused.”
Kirs hissed in a sharp breath. Head injuries could be tricky. He could seem fine one moment and fall over dead the next. Restoring the skull and brain was difficult and often left the patient weakened.
“Ayvir’s here somewhere.” Es shook his head and looked down at his feet. “I think he’s back in the estate, Kirs. There’s nothing behind his eyes. From one terror to another.”
They collected another person and moved in silence. She saw the next group arrive. Another four or five tethered. The flow was already slowing down, though she recognized Dovar at the front. He looked as devastated as the rest. A block of ice surrounding his hand. She could not see the injury, but the size made her mind queasy.
“This can’t be all that survived,” she muttered, staring at the milling crowd. The patients had already been sorted into their groups. “Where are the triplet masters?”
Es coughed into his hand and sat down. He slumped onto his back, unmindful of the snow. She sat next to him, taking his hand. The gesture brought a hint of a smile to his lips. He winced as the move split crusted injuries and a blood seeped slow down the side of his face. Another smear among all the other dirt covering him.
“They died, at least Kanaan did. She took Saif and Pashar into a separate space. If they aren’t dead, they are as good as.”
Running her fingers over the only uninjured part of him, she ignored the tent filled with silent injured. Nurses, but no healers, walked between those cots. Es’ eyes had closed, though she could feel him still holding his power. The vision chilled her. Lying bloodstained in the snow, she saw before herself a much harsher outcome. One that would find him outside the city, lying much as he was now.
His eyes shot open. All around people stilled. With a rare few exceptions, every man and woman in the area froze to the ground. Here a worker stumbled in confusion, there a nurse or administrator frowned in consternation. Even the patients had gone quiet.
“It’s beyond me,” she whispered. Staring in the direction every tethered now turned.
“She…” Es paused, lost for words. “Halted.”
“Stumbled.” Ayvir said, coming up on their side. He appeared only mildly injured, though there was nothing of the confused set to his eyes that Es mentioned. “She stumbled. Like a fatal arrow that has yet to kill the dear.”
She could feel it then. The attention of tens of thousands of tethered reaching into the distance. Waiting with bated breath. Then, suddenly, power roared from behind them. She turned to see the window of her tower erupt into ice as Zubair barreled through. He raced toward the wall.
“Is he fleeing?” Ayvir asked.
“No, he’s heading toward one of the shield stations, I think,” Kirs said.
Eyes returned to the dome, questing for whatever had alerted him. People were muttering, their fear a quiet rumbling taking the crowd in slow increments. Each vocalization, a slight rise in tension.
Then came the outcries.
She felt it too, then. A moment before it darkened the ice. Storm winds and rain and sand tore through the dome, shattering the ice and ripping into the ground. Mana struck the city like the fist of a god. Or the head of a serpent, shattering all resistance to the attack.
Storm winds overtook the walls, howling over top and into the palace. Unlucky windows shattered, other gaps howled in the storm gust. One pavilion, storage luckily, toppled and snow was kicked high by the updraft created.
“Was that Ranvir?”
----------------------------------------
Pashar hovered in the air. Beyond the dome, she sensed dread. Foul realization personified into horror, sitting high in the sky as it gathered power and momentum, readying to strike.
Ranvir was further altered than when he’d shown up in the pocket-space to save them. He barely registered as human. Ice broke beneath the animal will that now drove him. One of the greatest feat of human civilization, enhanced by the power of a triplet master, shattered like over-dried firewood.
Shadows embraced her, flecked with dark red sparks. Water, warm to the touch, spattered her from standing so close to the impact. All that remained of the ice that should’ve struck her.
“What happened in that space-” she said.
“Is a topic for another time.” Saif brooked no bargain nor competition on the matter.
She sighed and nodded. She couldn’t hear the people through the covering of fiery smoke, but she could imagine the scurrying activity. How many people had he struck? There were tiles on the roof. They could’ve hit a person.
She’d told Dovar that Saleema and Ranvir fighting was better on the environment and people than armies clashing. Would that still count if they continued through the city? She’d heard of sackings, entire cities put to flame, but she couldn’t imagine that as anything other than hyperbole. Could so many people go so far over the line?
“Is it him up there?” Saif asked. “Still?”
“I don’t know. Ranvir would’ve never attacked like that. On top of the city.”