Page 54 of Of Empires and Dust

Steel met leather. Leather failed. Flesh parted.

The Lorian soldier collapsed on the ground in a heap, blood flowing from his opened chest. All about Kallinvar, Lorians charged from log buildings, some in full leathers and armoured plates, others in little more than their smallclothes. They threw themselves at the knights who descended from the sky.

The Taint was so strong in this place that even allowing himself a second to stop and think almost turned Kallinvar’s stomach, the oily tendrils probing at his mind. What in the gods was happening here?

A flash of motion signalled in his periphery, and he swung his free hand, catching the head of a warhammer in his grasp. Even through the soldier’s helm, Kallinvar could see the shock in her eyes. He lifted his foot and planted it into her chest. The strength given to him by the Sentinel armour ripped the hammer free from her grasp and sent her careening through a nearby log wall. Her spine snapped on a support beam, cutting her screams short.

More movement sounded to his left. He released the hammer’s head, tossed it into the air, snatched its shaft in his grasp, and swung. The hammer crashed into a man’s chest with enough force to collapse his breastplate inwards with a series of sharp snaps. He hit the ground, his screams drowned out by the sounds of him choking on his own blood. Kallinvar swung the hammer back down and ended the man’s misery, crushing his skull like a rotten melon.

Emalia and two knights of The Tenth surged past him and crashed into a clutch of Lorian soldiers, scything them down. These soldiers were like children next to knights in Sentinel armour.

Just as the guilt touched Kallinvar’s heart, a well of the Taint pulsed behind him, and he turned to see two Fades emerging from the shadows, their pale skin taking on a pink hue beneath the moon’s light.

“Urithnilim.” Achyron’s voice was a hushed whisper in Kallinvar’s mind.“There are more here, my child. This place hides something. Send their souls to the void.”

“With pleasure,” Kallinvar whispered. He sheathed his sword and charged at the Fades, calling out to his Sigil.

Green light burst from his closed fist, illuminating the night. By the time he brought his arm across his body, his Soulblade had taken shape in his right hand, the warhammer still gripped in his left.

The Fades lunged at him as one, black-fire Soulblades bared. He blocked a strike from the left, green light bursting as the two blades collided, then swung his blade back across and caught the arc of the second Fade’s blade inches from his helmet. The creature smiled at him, its lips a pale blue, its light-drinking eyes gaping.

Kallinvar rammed the head of the warhammer into the Fade’s gut, bonescracking. As the Fade howled and staggered backwards, Kallinvar swung the hammer behind him, hoping to catch the other creature off guard. Instead, the second Fade twisted unnaturally, the heavy steel head gliding past its face. It stretched out its hand, and a surge of the Taint erupted from its palm. Kallinvar barely had a second to think before he was sent hurtling through the air.

He smashed through something wooden, hitting the ground hard. He dragged himself to one knee, gasping for air.

Another surge of the Taint pulsed, and Kallinvar was lifted from the ground and hauled into the air, helpless as a newborn babe, his arms pinned to his sides.

“The arrogance of your god…” the Fade hissed as it pulled Kallinvar closer. “You reek of it.”

The second Fade stepped into Kallinvar’s vision, that same eerie smile still pasted on its face, its head tilted sideways. Cracked bones twisted from broken flesh where Kallinvar had hit it with the warhammer, but the creature showed no signs of pain. “I’ve always wanted to see what you look like on the inside of that armour. Are you human?” His black eyes scanned Kallinvar. “Like a… what do the humans call them? Crabs? Hard shells on the outside. Tender meat within.”

“Yes,” the other responded. “Crabs.”

Shouts and screams drew Kallinvar’s gaze to the wall. Arden surged along the battlements, knocking soldiers from the walls through his sheer momentum. The young man leapt from the parapet, raising his hands in the air, his Soulblade forming in a burst of green light. The Fade who held Kallinvar in its unseen grasp turned, but not fast enough.

Arden’s Soulblade cleaved the creature clean in half from crown to groin, the weight of his landing lifting a plume of dust into the air. The Fade’s two halves remained standing for a heartbeat as though they might knit themselves back together, but then they wavered and folded to the ground, bloodless and forsaken.

The bonds of Blood Magic that held Kallinvar in place faded, and he dropped to the ground, recalling his Soulblade in the same motion and taking the second Fade’s head from its shoulders as it turned.

“You talk too much,” Kallinvar said as he stared down at the creature’s severed head, its mouth agape, empty black eyes staring at nothing.

Ruon appeared at Kallinvar’s shoulder, her helm removed, a crack spreading down the side of her armour. She followed Kallinvar’s gaze. “A Battlemage. Took three of us to take her down. Under the moon’s light they are savage,” she said with a shrug. “You all right?”

Kallinvar grunted, giving the crack in her plate one last look before gesturing to Arden, who had risen and released his Soulblade. “Thanks to Brother Arden.”

Kallinvar looked about the courtyard that fronted the fort’s gate. Bodies were strewn through the dirt, the dry ground absorbing the blood like a thirsty sponge. Horses neighed in the stable as Brother Yorik of The Tenth dragged his blade from a man’s chest and let the body slump to the ground.

In the silence that followed, Kallinvar heard the Sigil Bearer’s heartbeat slowing in his mind. And then Kallinvar’s own Sigil burned with a roaring fury and Ruon’s eyes widened as they both felt Sister Rialis’s soul leave the world.

“Where’s Emalia?” Kallinvar scanned the yard frantically. All of The Second remained, but he could only see three knights of The Tenth walking amidst the Lorian fallen. He searched for the pulse of Emalia’s Sigil, his eyes drawn to an archway in a wooden gatehouse that led through to another yard. Agony and fury flowed from Emalia at the loss of her knight, seeping into Kallinvar.

I will not lose another.He charged towards the gatehouse. “With me!”

Shouts rang out as Kallinvar and the knights surged towards the arch. Chain rattled and a thick iron portcullis dropped into place as arrows rained down from soldiers who’d scrambled to the battlements over the passage. Pulses of the Taint erupted from the parapet and arcs of purple lightning tore strips from the earth. A bolt caught Lyrin in the chest, and the knight hurtled through the door of a building, ripping it from its frame.Panic flared in Kallinvar, only easing when he felt Lyrin’s racing heart through the Sigil.

“Arden, Ildris, Varlin!” As Kallinvar charged, he summoned the Rift to his right, his Sigil burning, ice sweeping over his skin. Two green orbs burst into life, one at his side, the other in the air above the ramparts, spreading into the familiar black, green-rimmed portals. The world rippled as Arden, Ildris, and Varlin sprinted into the black waters of the Rift and emerged through the other side within the span of a breath, dropping onto the shrieking soldiers and mages above.

All the while, Kallinvar continued his charge, his long strides eating the ground beneath him. He drew a solid breath into his lungs and reached out through his Sigil.

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