Page 416 of Of Empires and Dust

Belina hauled herself upright, looking down to see a sliver of broken bone jutting from her arm. “Fuuuck.”

She grimaced, then looked up to see the entire column of Koraklon soldiers had stopped in their tracks, those at the rear now staring at her.

A torch sat in a sconce on the wall only a few feet away.

“Help!” she called out, glancing at the torch. “My arm’s broken. My wyvern… she’s gone.”

Belina limped towards the soldiers, who were still hesitant, approaching her with caution. As they should. When those closest to her relaxed for just a moment, Belina broke into a sprint, snatched the torch with her good arm, and hurled it into the thick of the soldiers. As it whirled through the air, Belina prayed to every god she could think of. And when her mind landed on Elyara, screams pierced the night and a blazing inferno ignited.

The soldiers closest to her turned back to their companions who were being swallowed by the Godfire, and as they did, Belina fled down a side street into the night.

“Andurii! Break!”Dayne surged forwards, the Andurii breaking from their shield wall as the Narvonans atop their monstrous tharnas mounts smashed into the back of the Koraklon forces, ripping them from formation. Dayne had first encountered the tharnas and darvakin when he’d sailed with Belina to Daris. The creatures were akin to living battering rams, with teeth and claws that could rend steel.

Everywhere Dayne moved, Koraklons died, his níthral spraying blood in wide arcs. Iloen and Dinekes fell in beside him, as well as Tarine of House Valanis and Juna of House Toradin. They carved a path towards Alina and the others as Dayne roared Marlin’s words. “Do not hesitate!”

“Do not contemplate mercy!” Dinekes answered, ripping his spear from a Koraklon throat.

“You are the Andurii of House Ateres!” he roared again, feeling the rush of battle overcome him, the thirst for blood. “You are death and deliverance! You are the darkness that all men fear!”

“AH-OOH!” came the reply.

Both pride and fervour swept through him. These men and women were Dayne’s Andurii. The stories of legend would know their names, written in the blood of their enemies. They would be the spears that set Valtara free, or they would die in the trying.

Dayne leapt forwards, side-stepping a spear lunge, and slammed his shield into a Koraklon brow, feeling the skull split beneath the force.

He should have had no strength in his body, no power to lift his shield or swing his spear. But hate fuelled him, rage refusing to let him die. Loren Koraklon and all of his name would be burned from this earth.

In the thick of the fighting, Dayne saw a face that brought joy to his heart. The face of a man he’d seen only days before: Gaimal, Loren’s eldest son.

Dayne charged forwards, deflecting a spear thrust with his shield, his eyes fixed on his target.

Gaimal turned just in time for Dayne’s níthral to miss the man’s chest and instead slice open the flesh on his upper arm. Gaimal twisted further and brought his shield down.

Dayne roared and planted a foot flat on the man’s shield, kicking with all his strength.

Gaimal crashed backwards, slamming into the ground.

Dayne leapt atop him. He swung his shield arm down, the heavy rim snapping Gaimal’s sword arm with a crunch, bone shredding skin, blood spurting. With a twist of his hip, Daynedrove his níthral into the man’s shield arm and ripped it through the muscle and flesh.

He placed his foot on the breast of Gaimal’s cuirass as the man screamed in agony. There was pity in Dayne’s heart, but the memory of Baren bleeding out in his arms set that pity on fire.

“You will be the first,” Dayne said, looking down at Gaimal. “The first to pay for your father’s sins. But you will not be the last. You die today because your father set your path. A man should know why he died.”

Dayne drove his níthral down into Gaimal’s chest and stared into the man’s eyes as his light vanished.

Around him, the battle was thinning. The Narvonans were in full force, sweeping through the yard in their gilded black plate, their monstrous steeds driving fear into Lorian and Koraklon hearts alike.

He watched as one of the Narvonan Isildans swung his massive glaive from the back of a darvakin, that glorious pearlescent plate of Atalus shell shimmering in the light of the blazing fires. Bolts of lightning and plumes of fire streaked towards him, only for the Atalus armour to drink them in. Dayne had seen the power of Atalus shell in Narvona, but only as a simple pendant. An entire suit of armour was something else entirely. It had been centuries since the last Narvonan invasion, and the Lorian mages had no answer to this kind of power.

“Andurii!” Dayne roared. “Tonight, the Wyvern of House Ateres will fly over Achyron’s Keep. Valtara’s freedom is here, will you take it?”

“AH-OOH.”

Dayne’s Andurii swept around him, carving through the Keep’s defenders, the wyvern glistening on their shields.

He drove his níthral into a woman’s throat, yanking it free, blood sluicing. As he did, he spotted Aeson weaving through the chaos, his blades ablur, bodies falling with every step hetook. Verma charged with him, the pair moving as though intertwined.

Shouts rose to Dayne’s right, and a wyvern smashed into the ground, crushing Lorian soldiers beneath it. Three more wyverns crashed, followed by a chorus of shrieks and roars in the sky.

---