Chapter One Hundred Four
Rise of the Ruakite
The Ruakite roared into the storm. Ashakar answered.
The blade had shorn him.
The helm crowned him.
The armor claimed him.
Viktor mounted Vorathen with fire already licking his scars, his hands, his breath.
He would not wait for horns.
He would be the horn.
The beacon.
The blaze that woke them to war.
Samson saw him first.
“Commander.”
Gabriel turned at the word, laughter dying in his throat.
The flames caught the spikes along Viktor’s vambraces, the black serpent-hide plates gleaming wet, the twin swords burning in his fists. Blue fire smoldered in his eyes, colder than the storm behind him.
“Dask.” Gabriel’s voice cracked. “He looks like legend.”
One by one the others turned. Soldiers roused from their pallets, captains breaking from their councils, men who had bled in his ranks—all stilled, struck silent by the sight.
Viktor raised both blades. Fire licked the steel, caught the air, roared into the desert. Twin walls of flame tore across the flats toward Oustinon, carving sand to glass.
The camp awoke as one.
Horns cried. Shields clashed.
Armored mounts. Strung bows. Sharpened swords.
And before it all—a torch astride night itself.
Thunder chased every hoof strike.
Lightning woke the dark.
The Ruakite had risen.
Storne saw him next—a black helm on a black horse—and felt his own spine answer.
“Mount up!” he barked, voice like a gauntlet thrown.
“Line forward—keep the gap for the Ruakite. We don’t run at fire. We chase it.”
Steel hissed from sheaths. His riders swung into saddles.
Farther along the flats, Ivan turned at the blaze ripping the desert in two. The High-Captain’s mouth went hard.
“Cavalry hold,” he said, low and even.
He lifted two fingers—circling signal. Captains relayed, banners dipped, the southern front bowed like a drawn bowstring waiting for release.
Gabriel wheeled Faerin to the ridge-stand and lifted his arm.
“On my sign,” Viktor sent, mind to mind.
“Aye, Commander.”
Gabriel set the first rocket, crowned the fuse.
He loosed.
A spear of fire tore the sky. Screaming. Piercing. Gold light raining over Oustinon.
Carys’ voice cut through the echo:
“Volley—loose!”
The first rain of arrows crossed the dark like black hail tipped in iron.
Viktor drove.
Vorathen hit his full stride.
Azrikel commanded:
“Flame.”
On Viktor’s breath, the storm answered—lightning braided the edges of the twin firewalls, the desert’s glassy skin flashing blue, then white.
He struck the first rank like a wave breaks stone. Left blade low. Right high. A crossing cut that took shield and throat. Heat rolled off him. Sparks kissed sand. The air around his body burned cold.
He drove on—then saw it: a face in the sand, ears catching firelight.
Elf. Not bound. Not pressed. Fighting for Oustinon.
Viktor’s fire sharpened.
The next cut was merciless.
Up on the ridge, a tremor ran the Sagittarii line.
“Storms…” Carys breathed. “Our own.”
Blood boiled.
Jaw set.
“Draw.”
A dozen bowstrings answered like teeth.
“We loose for Casqadia.”
The ridge exhaled—bowstrings thrummed, a black rain arced.
Wind shifted. Ash and hot glass in Viktor’s mouth.
“Seraphim.”
The word slid through his head like a knife—silk and poison.
Zeporah.
“I knew you would come to me.”
He didn’t answer.
He turned a blade, split a spear, and let her voice be fuel.
“Tell me how she slept,” the sorceress purred. “The little queen in her borrowed robes. Did she learn your name on her knees? Or does she save that for—”
“Again!” Viktor’s thought rode the net, clean and hard. Gabriel’s second rocket climbed, burst white.
Carys adjusted: “Wind veers north—shift two!”
The Sagittarii moved as one—sight, breath, release. Another iron storm fell, biting deeper. Finding joints, eyes, oiled leather.
On the ridge, Storne’s riders slid forward at a canter, shields up, lances angled. Pressure—the kind that makes a line look down right before it breaks. Ivan’s cavalry mirrored, facing south, a dark tide held just off the reef, waiting for the tip.
“You burn so beautifully when you’re angry,” Zeporah whispered, sweet as rot. “Shall I tell you what the prince sees when he looks at her. How he plans to—”
“Tell me, witch. Make it obscene,” Viktor sent, voice like flint striking.
He cut through three men in a breath, turned, and called the thunder closer.
“Every word you spit becomes my fire.”
The storm obliged.
Lightning struck the glass he’d made, ran it like a fuse.
The twin walls roared higher.
Men. Arrows. Swords.
Dawn.
Sunlight split sky.
Wings tore through the light.
The demons no longer dreamed.
They screamed.
The dark that stalks the blackest night.
The eyes that sever dreams.
Out of Ashakar—wings vast enough to drown the sun. Another followed, then three more. Their scales drank firelight, their eyes burning with the madness of souls bound too long.
“Mirrors!” Viktor’s command thundered through the net.
On the ridge, Sagittarii heaved the polished shields upright. Sunlight struck, caught the fire, blazed it back into the sky. The first dragon shrieked as light seared its sight, the second banking hard into the desert wall.
“Volley four—staggered!” Carys’ voice ran, tight as bowstring.
“Cut the wings!”
A rain of iron hissed upward.
Shafts found eyes, throats, the thin places beneath scales.
One beast faltered, screaming, blind.
“Ballista—now!” Viktor thundered.
The first bolt shrieked from the ridge, iron singing from the storm. It struck true—ripping through socket, through spine. The dragon collapsed, a broken star crushing its own elven warriors beneath.
A roar surged the line. The first demon devoured.
“Reload!” Storne shouted, his soldiers’ hands tore raw on the wench. The ropes groaned, wood quaked, the cradle braced for one more throw. Around him, captains whispered the truth already: few bolts, few chances left.
Zeporah slid deeper into Viktor’s mind, silk dragged over spikes.
“You cannot kill them all. They are legion. They are mine.”
Viktor cut down a betrayer elf at his left, fire dripping from his blades.
The thought swung back like a curse:
“Then burn with them.”
Blood spray hissed over fireglass.
The storm writhed, the air thick with ash and light.
One dragon broke low, arrow-blind, wings faltering. It crashed hard into the flats, sand geysering around its bulk.
“Grounded!” Carys’ voice cut, sharp with triumph.
“Clear the line!” Viktor sent, already turning Vorathen’s charge.
The beast thrashed, scales scraping sparks against the earth, fire bleeding from its maw.
Viktor rose in the saddle. The twin swords burned white.
“Hold the ridge,” he threw into the net. “This one is mine.”
Vorathen thundered down the slope, hooves cracking glass. The dragon snapped, jaws unhinging, a roar of furnace-heat that seared the air. Viktor leaned low, one hand tangled in the black mane, the other slashing. His blade tore through spine and sinew, spraying dark blood across molten sand.
He vaulted.
Steel met scale.
His boots struck the beast’s shoulder, flame licking his legs, scales alive with fire. The second blade plunged deep into the gap beneath its jaw. It screamed, wings stabbing smoke and light and blade.
Viktor held fast. His arms locked. His Endowment surged.
Lightning answered.
It raced down his blades, through bone and brain, bursting from the dragon’s mouth in a torrent of white fire. The beast convulsed. Shuddered. Collapsed.
Silence—then a roar from the Casqadian line.
But Zeporah’s voice slithered through his skull:
“You wear the prince’s armor. Velascarin on your back—his skin on your woman. Tell me, Seraphim… does it burn, knowing he clings to her as tightly as you do that borrowed crown?”
Viktor split a helm with one blade, gutted a rider with another.
“Every word you spit, witch—
Another strike. Sparks leapt.
“—fuels the cut that finds your throat.”
His head snapped up.
A dragon shrieked, wings folding as arrows hammered its gut.
The Sagittarii had brought one low.
Viktor wheeled Vorathen to the ridge.
He didn’t wait.
He rose in the saddle—and leapt.
Steel and storm fell with him.
He struck the beast’s skull like judgment, both blades plunging deep into its eye.
Black blood geysered, hot as tar.
The beast collapsed: thrashing, dying, falling—
Viktor with it.
Sand.
Blood.
Searing pain.
His arm—cracked sharp.
His ribs—splintered.
Breath knifed his chest.
The carcass rolled half-over him before it stilled.
Azrikel was there, shadow at his shoulder.
“Set it,” he commanded.
Viktor growled, braced his arm against the ruin of the beast’s jaw, and rammed the bone back into socket with a cry that tasted like blood.
Next he bound his ribs with his belt, breath ragged, eyes burning blue fire.
Azrikel’s voice cut sharp.
“You bleed. You breathe. You swing.”
Viktor staggered upright on the carcass. Both blades lifted, dripping black blood, seared with lightning.
The men saw him. Samson’s mouth broke open. Gabriel’s fist lifted, shaking with defiance.
The Ruakite was still standing.
“More!” Viktor roared into the storm.
Thunder shook the teeth of Ashakar.
The second wave came screaming from the volcano’s throat—five beasts. Shadows a wall against the sun.
“Shields high!” Viktor sent.
On the ridge, the Sagittarii braced, mirrors flaring. Sunlight lanced, blinding one. Arrows hissed, rattling scales.
A second blast from the ballista.
Lock. Aim. Strike.
A dragon reeled, wings sheared, spiraling down.
Viktor’s pulse leapt. Hungry for the kill.
He raised his swords—
and stilled.
The ground trembled beneath his boots.
A low groan rose through the flats—deep, ancient, alive.
Viktor staggered, braced on Vorathen’s flank.
His ribs screamed, blood slick down his back, blades still burning in his fists.
Then it came.
The mountain split.
Ashakar roared awake—its throat spewing molten stone. Fire-rocks hurtled skyward, shrieking arcs that turned night to flame.
The desert shuddered.
Lines broke.
Men scattered.
Horses screamed.
Viktor dragged air into his chest, every breath knife-sharp.
He felt it.
Deep in the heart of the storm.
The soul that had split from him. The eyes that had died. The heartbeat that mirrored his own.
His twin.
“Adamar.”
“He’s there,” Azrikel sent, voice cold.
The volcano screamed again, a sound like lightning tearing glass.
Viktor raised his swords into the fire, voice carrying through the net, through every mind still standing:
“Stand! Even if the mountain falls—stand!”
His next words, straight to Azrikel.
“Into Oustinon. Together.”