36. Cleaving the Heart
Cleaving the Heart
It was just past Curfew when an explosion ripped the Han district apart.
The Shields howled.
The Daesa Major roared.
The Han wailed in agony as its streets, market stalls, and homes burned in a roaring blaze.
Kailorien stood amidst the chaos and destruction, his cracked wards still hissing, supporting one of his Reskala who hadn’t covered his ears quickly enough.
Blood flowed down the man’s jaw. His mouth was open on a scream, but the choker on his neck was dim, not allowing a single sound to escape his lips.
Thrassus, the Resh’Agar’s Second, took the man by the other arm and signed for support from their battalion.
Three other warriors came to take him away, their rune-lit faces ashen, dazed.
They looked upwards where towering Crafter homes had once defined the lattice line, seeing only rubble, torn metal, and sundered crystal.
Kailorien gripped the hilt of his sword, raising his other hand and casting fresh wards around his men. The scale of destruction wasn’t something a mortal mind could comprehend, but in nearly two millennia, he’d seen worse cataclysms.
While his men stood shocked, his eyes sought to calculate the scope of damage.
Wounded — some, enough to guide to shelter.
Dead — most had been evaporated in the blast.
Rogue magic — everywhere. His Manasight blurred his vision with the amount of scorched mana and shattered leylines surrounding them.
He lifted his arm. Tested a portal summons. When the magic sputtered, he swore under his breath.
His men looked up at him. Thrassus signed, requesting orders. Kailorien paused, deciding what to do next.
It was Shardfall. The middle of the week. Most temples in the Han did not receive fresh supplies until Moonfell, but they were the most warded places in the city.
How fitting.
It was said that decisions made on Shardfall often led to cleaving. It was a day reserved for Council sessions of utmost import. A day when fate lurked in every word and action.
Destiny.
Perhaps that was why the Solutus chose this day to cleave Krystopolis in twain. For years, they’d bombed the city. Alchemical concoctions, runestones clumsily bound in torn linens and bags of mage’s sand. There were deaths. Damages. But this…
Just moments ago, the district’s heart was bustling with trade, the streets filled to the brim with peddling Crafters, excited merchants, and apprentices running errands with their arms full and their faces bright with focus.
Kailorien had been inspecting this quarter after a report of suspected Solutus activity. Something in his gut had warned him to cast extra wards, to conjure a web over himself and Thrassus as they walked the alleys. If he hadn’t followed that instinct—
‘Your Quintessence, what is the protocol for this level of assault?’ Thrassus, his Second, signed beside him, his battleaxe drawn and his runes blazing gold across his face and neck.
His short cropped black hair was streaked with dust, and his golden eyes glowed with the power of his magic. His signing was clumsy with the weapon in his hands, but Kailorien made out the words.
“They will come,” Kailorien said, drawing his own blade.
“Hold. Tell the men to take formation. Visibility is low. Tell those with Seros runes to stand one man behind, guiding the others. Ascendant rank webs over the survivors. I want two rows of shields with me and three to gather those who live and get them to the nearest temple.”
Thrassus made the sign for obedience, bringing his hands together and thumping his fists to his chest. ‘The Void will see it done.’
His Second jumped to follow his Commander’s orders, signing to his Reskala. He gathered ten men first. Five per row. They brandished tall white shields made of Rodom crystal, a material that was resistant to magic. A recent improvement to the Reskala’s armor.
Auryn’s idea.
As Thrassus worked, Kailorien followed at a distance, searching for signs of the Solutus and any magical threat.
The smoke was too thick for mortal eyes to see, and he activated Kenaz to help him navigate through the murk.
He bellowed one command after another, guiding his men to gather survivors as they ran in panic from collapsing buildings, disintegrating walls, and shattering glass.
His men grabbed some of the runners, wrestling them to the ground and putting out their burning hair and clothes.
Fragments of crystal and stone had sprayed in all directions, eviscerating some on contact and leaving hundreds of others bleeding out on the streets.
If it wasn’t for his defensive preparations, the majority of his men would have been nothing but crimson smears on stone.
Zarrek would have challenged me, he thought, watching Thrassus. Two rows of shields, one blade and spear to scour the corners. He was always more aggressive. Thrassus is loyal, but he obeys too readily. Too blindly.
The rebels did not wait long. While the Han district was still reeling from the blast, they rose like specters from the ground, pouring out of every crevice in rivulets of seeping ink.
They wore ivory masks and long grey robes striped through the shoulders and hems in crimson.
On their chest was a symbol — a crimson bird with broken wings.
The Ashborne, a creature of legend, fallen from grace.
A tremor rippled through the stone beneath his boots as another cluster of ivory masked figures vaulted over ruins of a collapsed Crafter home ahead. They gathered as a unit — twenty or more — and pushed ahead. His Reskala raised their shields.
Thrassus signed for them to hold.
Horns rang out. Not the Onyx ones of the city, but the wailing stone horns of the rebellion.
The sound split the air, high pitched, loud.
The sound spread out, melding with the smoke.
More horns joined in from all sides, a tactic created to intimidate and disorient.
The first of the Solutus crashed against the Reskala line moments later, bursting from the thick smog in a synchronized assault.
Steel shrieked against Rodom crystal as curved blades struck the shields in a storm of ringing blows.
The rebels moved with fluid coordination, their grey robes whipping through the smoke as they lunged and twisted for openings.
Most were young — temple children stolen in the night and turned to the rebellion through secrecy and lies.
Kailorien stepped into the gap between the two shield rows.
His blade flashed once.
The nearest row of attackers fell before their war cry could form, ivory masks splitting and shattering beneath the force of the strike.
A spray of blood arced into the air. Incantations shouted from deep within the dark.
The crackling of failing magic. A second row jumped over the corpses with unnatural speed, knives and curved daggers arcing toward Kailorien’s throat.
He held up a hand, and for a moment, the light from his azure magic illuminated a face warped with fury and hatred. Steel met ward, but the attackers did not stand a chance.
He curled his fingers into his palm and whispered, “Shera’eth thor.”
Morvane pulled at the runes between his shoulderblades as his Runesgram summoned the Resh’Agar’s magefire. When he released it, it roared outward, enveloping several rows of Solutus. They screamed. Shrieked. But still they attacked. If they could move, they charged.
Undaunted. Zealots beyond redemption.
The Reskala shield wall absorbed the next round of blows, the Rodom crystal flaring faintly as rune-forged daggers struck the surface. Thrassus gave another signal. Several Reskala thrust spears through the openings between the shields and drove the rebels back with more cries of agony.
Has anyone asked them why they rebel? Auryn’s voice caught Kailorien off-guard. She’d asked this question in Council several times, but no one had an answer. He’d thought it a moot point, but with the rising attacks and the way these men did not flinch from fear or pain…
He shook his head. Not now.
Raidō blazed to life as he took off at blinding speed, circling the formation, culling attackers trying to surround his men and reach the survivors they were moving to shelter.
The rows he’d assigned to guard them held, larger Reskala meeting the Solutus with brute force, knocking bodies backwards with their bulwarks — kicking, casting targeted blasts of mana to keep the Crafters and their apprentices safe within the ring of shields.
“Advance!” Kailorien ordered.
Thrassus relayed the command in a swift series of signs.
The Reskala moved as a single wall. Gleaming white shields surged forward, forcing the Solutus back through the rubble-choked street.
Heavy boots stepped over charred corpses.
Wave and after wave. Bodies piled on shattered stone as the rebels pressed harder, their ivory masks weaving through the haze like pale skulls rising from the nether.
Kailorien shifted his stance, angling himself to the left flank. Preparing another series of webs and magefire.
Behind him, the motion should have been mirrored.
Instead, the space remained open for a breath too long.
Several attackers slipped through the gap.
Kailorien twisted, letting one knife glance off the rune-etched plates of Morvane before driving his sword through the attacker’s chest. He turned, slicing through his torso and freeing his blade. It swung in an arc, beheading another man.
Thrassus stepped into position at once, his axe cleaving another attacker from shoulder to spine.
Too slow.
Zarrek would have been faster.
Thrassus fought well. Few could rise to the rank of Second without skill and sacrifice. His strikes were strong, his commands precise, his devotion to the Doctrine absolute. Yet something in his rhythm faltered.
War had two mothers — discipline and scars born of survival. Thrassus had known one all his life, but this latest Campaign was his first true taste of battle.
Another wave of Solutus poured through the smoke.
More than before.