Page 414 of Of Empires and Dust

Streaks of purple lightning ripped down from a tower and were met by arcs of blue lightning that erupted from Verma Tallisair’s fingers, the light blazing against the grey stone of the Keep.

“Can you handle this?” Verma asked Aeson, gesturing at the Koraklon warriors.

He nodded.

“Pylvír, Andira, with me. Let’s go take down a tower.”

Alina looked up at the tower the mage ran towards. One of Achyron’s three peaks. Three hundred feet tall and crafted from solid mountain stone.

As the Koraklon warriors drew closer, they broke into a slow charge, and Aeson stepped forwards. The air seemed to shift around the man’s hands, hundreds of slivers of broken rock rising. A wave of air swept dust upwards and the slivers bolted forwards like loosed arrows, bouncing off shields and slicing through necks and legs. He charged and lifted his hand. A wave of concussive force tore a path through the Koraklon shield wall.

Alina snatched up a fallen spear and threw herself forwards. That shield wall could not be allowed to reform. Savrin, Glaukos, Olivian, and Alcon matched her stride for stride, two on the left, two on the right, while Vahir, Evrian, Baris, and Karilin took up the rear.

They smashed into the gap created by Aeson, scything down Koraklon soldiers as they tried to regain their footing. Alina dropped her shoulder, a spear slicing past her head, then rammed her spear up into the wielder’s throat, ripping it free in a spray of blood. She twisted, ducking low to avoid the next thrust, then swung her arm back and smashed the rim of her shield into a Koraklon face, the nose guard of his helmet collapsing, nose breaking, jaw snapping.

Savrin swept past her. The man moved like some sort of spirit, his feet barely seeming to touch the ground, his spearpainting death with every stroke. Alina had never seen him fight when she was a child, when he’d been at the peak of his powers, but she trembled to think of how this man could have been any greater a warrior. Achyron himself would be jealous of the sight.

As the Koraklon soldiers closed in around them and Lorians pushed in from the outside, shrieks rose above.

Scores of wyverns swooped down, crashing into the Koraklon ranks, ripping them apart, but even as they did, lightning tore down from the towers and more of the Keep’s garrison poured into the main yard.

“Stay with me,” Savrin shouted, pressing his back to Alina, Aeson and the others surrounding them as they protected Rynvar.

A shiver ran up Alina’s spine as a voice thundered unnaturally across the sky. “Warriors of House Koraklon, your High Lord has turned tail and run! He leaves you to die while he flees like a coward. Ask yourselves, is this the leader you would follow? Or one who stands with you in the fires of battle?”

Alina lifted her head as a bright white light burst into existence atop the inner wall. Dayne stood on the crenelation, his chest bare and a glowing white spear in his hand.

Some of the Koraklon warriors looked from Dayne to Alina and the others. She could see the hesitation in their eyes. But it lasted only a moment before a streak of lightning tore upwards towards Dayne, collided against an invisible barrier, and smashed into an overlooking tower, and the fighting was ablaze once more.

The Koraklon soldiers pushed forwards, shields held high, spears stabbing.

“Warriors of Valtara!” Dayne roared again. “By blade and by blood, today is our day!”

A cry rose as, somewhere in the fighting, the Andurii answered. “AH-OOH, AH-OOH, AH-OOH!”

Dayne leapt from the wall, lightning streaking from his fingertips, that white spear glowing in his fist, and he vanished into the thick of the fighting.

A Koraklon spear stabbed at Alina’s head. She slammed the shaft upwards with her shield, twisted, and drove her own spear forwards. The steel tip glanced off the man’s cuirass and buried itself into the pit of his arm. Alina ripped the spear free and as she did, Rynvar craned his neck forwards and snapped his jaws shut around the man’s torso, razor teeth slicing through steel. The wyvern lifted the man from the ground and shook him side to side until his body tore in half, blood and guts spraying over the Koraklon warriors.

Alina slammed her spear off her shield and roared, “For Valtara! For Freedom!”

Belina sprintedthrough the archway and out onto the ramparts of the city’s inner wall, a spear gripped in her fist. She’d left Dayne’s nephew locked in a small granary store in the lower levels of the city’s keep. She strongly doubted anyone would go rushing for a snack in the midst of all this, and if worse came to worst, the young boy would never go hungry.

Koraklon and Lorian soldiers lined the ramparts, staring down at the fighting in the main plaza. Archers were lined along the gaps in the parapet, nocking and loosing in a neverending cycle.

She stuck her hand into the pouch at her side, feeling three more clay jars of Godfire. She hadn’t known there would be Narvonans here, and she didn’t look forward to explaining how she’d come across enough Godfire to blow open a city gate. She just hoped nobody told them anything about the port of Ankar.She might be Narvonan by birth, but those people really didn’t like finding Godfire anywhere but on their ships.

As Belina ran, the first soldier caught her out of the corner of his eye. He turned, and she slipped her left hand to her knife belt. A whir of steel and the man dropped backwards from the wall.

After leaving Arkin, Belina had run for the walls as quickly as her legs could carry her. And there she was. The only problem was that Belina hadn’t quite thought through what she would do when she actually got there.

Something big, plenty of fire. That tended to work well. Things also had a way of simply working themselves out. She was lucky like that.

The second soldier noticed her. Another flash of steel. Another dead body falling from the walls. Unfortunately, that drew the attention of even more. And within seconds, arrows were slicing through the air past her head and shoulders. She thanked the gods these warriors had worse aim than a one-legged, blind goat with cockrot.

Belina reached into her pouch, grabbed a jar of Godfire, and launched it. The jar soared over heads, then smashed against the ground.

She twisted, an arrowwhooshingpast her head, then snatched a flaming torch from a sconce attached to the wall and hurled it after the jar of Godfire. She took a breath, and then the wall erupted in flames.

---