CHAPTER FIVE #2
Thalia turned toward them, breaking away from the main tide of fighters.
Down a narrow side street, she spotted what had drawn her attention—a group of Warden guards had cornered several teenagers who were still trying to fight their way out of a smaller holding pen.
The youths wielded makeshift weapons—broken chair legs, a cooking pot, a length of chain—but they were clearly outmatched by the five armed Wardens who advanced on them with drawn blades.
Without hesitation, Thalia charged forward, her glacenite sword leading the way. "Over here!" she shouted, drawing the guards' attention away from their trapped prey. She crashed into their formation like a wave breaking against rock, her blade a flicker of deadly light in the cramped space.
The first guard fell before he could fully turn, her sword finding the gap between helm and gorget.
The second managed to raise his weapon, but Thalia was already inside his guard, her shoulder driving into his chest, sending him stumbling backward into his companions.
The confusion gave the trapped teenagers their opening—they pushed through the damaged section of the pen, falling upon the disoriented guards with savage desperation.
One boy—no older than fourteen, his face gaunt with hunger—swung his chain with unexpected precision, wrapping it around a Warden's sword arm and yanking with all his weight.
A girl beside him drove a sharpened stick into the vulnerable spot beneath the guard's arm, exposed by his raised weapon.
The Warden screamed, a sound cut short as another youth brought a heavy pot down on his head.
Thalia engaged the remaining guards, her blade moving in the patterns drilled into her at Frostforge. Duck, parry, strike. Advance, feint, withdraw.
A Warden blade sliced the air inches from her face. Thalia stepped inside the arc of the swing, too close for the guard to recover. Her own weapon thrust upward, finding the soft tissue beneath the jaw, where the armor ended. The guard made a wet, choking sound and collapsed.
The last of them tried to retreat, but the teenagers cut off his escape, herding him back toward Thalia with their improvised weapons. Desperation made his attacks wild, dangerous, but unfocused. She parried one slash, then another, looking for an opening that would disable rather than kill.
It came when he overextended on a thrust. Thalia sidestepped, brought her blade down hard on his wrist. Bone cracked, and his sword clattered to the cobblestones.
Before he could recover, one of the teenagers—a girl with fierce eyes in a too-thin face—snatched up the fallen weapon and ran him through with his own blade.
The guard's eyes widened in shock, fixed on his killer with disbelief that someone so young could end him. Then he fell, and the street was suddenly, eerily quiet.
Thalia turned to the teenagers, who now stood amid the bodies of their former captors, bloodied weapons still clutched in white-knuckled grips.
They were so young—some no older than Mari had been when Thalia left for Frostforge—yet their eyes held the hard glint of those who had witnessed horrors beyond their years.
"Are you hurt?" she asked, her voice gentler than it had been during the fight.
The girl who had delivered the killing blow stared at her, then at the body at her feet. Her hands began to tremble, the sword suddenly heavy in her grasp. "I killed him," she whispered, shock replacing the fierce determination of moments before.
Thalia moved forward, carefully taking the weapon from the girl's unresisting fingers. "You protected yourself and your friends," she corrected. "There's no shame in that."
The boy with the chain stepped closer, his eyes fixed on Thalia's blade. "That's ice-metal," he said, his voice cracking between childhood and whatever came after. "Frostforge magic. Are you... are you here to save us?"
The question hung in the air, weighted with hope Thalia wasn't sure she could fulfill.
She had come here to save two people; her mission to save her family was now becoming something larger, heavier, and infinitely more dangerous.
Her gut instinct, her decision to open the pen and free its occupants, had been the spark to a wildfire that now burned out of her control.
Before she could answer, a fresh wave of shouts rose from the direction of the harbor. The sound had a different quality now—triumph rather than fear, victory rather than desperation.
"The Wardens are retreating," she said, understanding dawning. "They're falling back to the harbor."
As if in confirmation, a group of former prisoners rushed past the mouth of the side street, makeshift weapons raised, pursuing black-armored figures who no longer fought but fled. The teenagers glanced at each other, then at the bodies of their captors, a new resolve hardening their features.
"We should join them," the girl said, reclaiming the Warden sword from Thalia's hand. Her grip was steadier now, her shock transforming into something colder, more focused. "Make sure they don't come back."
Thalia nodded, unable to argue with the hard logic of survival. Together, they joined the growing tide of people flooding toward the harbor, where the last of the Warden guards were being driven back onto the docks with nowhere left to retreat.
The scene that greeted them was one of improbable victory.
Hundreds of former prisoners had converged on the harbor, overwhelming the Warden defenders through sheer numbers.
Bodies in black armor littered the docks, while the surviving guards had retreated to the few small boats still moored at the piers.
Even these were being overtaken, prisoners wading into the shallows to drag the fleeing Wardens back to face retribution.
Thalia pushed through the crowd, searching for any sign of her mother or sister among the triumphant faces.
Instead, she collided with a familiar figure—Ashe, her distinctive red-streaked hair coming loose from its bindings, a borrowed sword clutched in her hand.
Blood spattered her stolen Warden armor, none of it appearing to be her own.
Behind her, warhammer in hand, was Kaine, his usual stoic expression shattered by relief. He let out a breath.
"Thalia… thank the Founders, you’re okay.”
Ashe seized Thalia’s arm. "What in the frozen hells is happening? I was at the eastern docks when I heard the alarms, and suddenly the whole city is in chaos!"
"I freed some prisoners," Thalia explained, the words sounding inadequate even to her own ears. "At the market square—I was discovered, and I had to—"
"Of course you did," Ashe interrupted, her green eyes narrowing. "Whatever happened to meeting back at the cove? Three hours, remember? That was the plan."
"Plans change," Thalia countered, gesturing toward the liberated prisoners around them. "I was cornered. This wasn't... I didn't plan this, but it happened, and now—"
A cry of dismay rose from the crowd at the harbor's edge, cutting off her explanation.
The people there had gone suddenly still, faces turned toward the sea, expressions shifting from triumph to dread.
Thalia pushed forward, Ashe and Kaine at her shoulders, until they could see what had caused the change.
At the mouth of the harbor, a line of ships approached—not just the four that had formed the blockade, but more.
Many more. At least twelve vessels cut through the water, their black sails billowing, their decks crowded with reinforcements.
The setting sun glinted off weapons and armor, transforming the approaching fleet into a dark tide rimmed with fire.
"We need to get these people out of here," Thalia whispered, horror dawning as she calculated the odds. The freed prisoners had overcome the city's occupiers through surprise and numbers, but against fresh troops—trained Wardens arriving in force—they stood no chance.
Behind her, a group of teenagers—the same ones she had helped free from the pen—dropped their weapons and turned to flee. Their path was blocked by an older man, his face weather-beaten, his hands calloused from years working the docks.
"You can't run," he said, his voice rough with exhaustion and something like despair. "There's nowhere to go. You stand no chance at their wall."
"Wall?" Thalia asked, turning toward him. "What wall?"
The man's eyes found hers. "The Wardens built a barrier around the entire city within days of taking it. Twelve feet high, constantly guarded. They use their storm magic to keep it electrified—anyone who touches it dies instantly."
Thalia felt the blood drain from her face. "The entire city? It's completely enclosed?"
"Completely," he confirmed. "No way in, no way out—except through the harbor’s mouth, which they control absolutely."
The implications crashed over her like ice water. She had freed these people from their pens, had helped them reclaim their city for a few brief, glorious hours—but they were still prisoners. The cage had simply grown larger.
And now, reinforcements were coming. Fresh troops who would recapture every person who had dared to rise up, who would punish them in ways Thalia could barely imagine.
Her eyes met Kaine's, and she saw the same horrified understanding reflected there. They had won a battle only to discover that the war was unwinnable. They were all trapped in Verdant Port, with a wall at their backs and a fleet of Warden ships bearing down upon them.