Chapter 35 Rupture #2
The fortress buzzed like a taut wire, men running drills they’d already run thrice over, checking quivers that were already full, pacing halls worn thin with boots.
Every shout rang sharper, every clang of steel echoed too loud.
Sparring partners turned on each other. Reskala hit too hard and shouted too loudly.
More than once, Thessia had to step in to break up conflict.
Strain wound tight through Stonewake; the whole place felt ready to snap.
Kailorien and Zarrek turned down a narrow corridor that opened toward the second courtyardwhen raised voices cut through the air.
“Say that again, I dare you,” a Reskala snarled, shoving a smaller man hard in the chest. He stumbled backwards, and the Polis light illuminated Riftwarden’s marks on his face. White chalk dusted the sleeves of his robes. His eyes glittered with fear and fury.
“Aye, I’ll say it again!” the Warden spat. “It’s her fault this is happening. Why else would the Gliders strike now? We’ve had accords, trade routes, balance! They’ve come for her—so give them the velodyn’ra!”
The word again.
One so cursed it was never spoken aloud.
Only whispered behind backs in closed rooms.
The word Resh swore he’d never hear hurled at her again.
The Warden had already said it to Auryn once in the Moores.
Now he was shouting it. Screaming it. This was the same man that had grabbed her wrist, leaving a deep bruise.
The one that had surrounded her with his fellow Wardens and threatened her.
Now, he was sowing discord in a fortress already unraveling at the seams.
Around them, more Reskala bristled, hands on hilts, snarls rising. “Say it again,” one growled, shoulders bunching, runes lighting up on his collarbone, “and I’ll spill your guts on the stones.”
The Warden shoved back, desperation twisting his face. “You’d spill your own brothers’ blood for her? For that thing? Better we cast her out than all of us die for—”
Zarrek moved first.
He slammed into the Warden with a speed that belied his bulk, one gauntleted fist catching the man by the collar and driving him into the wall. The crack of stone echoed sharply, silencing the courtyard.
“You’ll watch your tongue,” Zarrek growled, voice low and lethal. His axe remained at his back, but the intent in his eyes was worse than steel. “You dare spit that filth here again, and I’ll cut it from your mouth myself.”
Kailorien’s glare seared through the silence. His runes itched hot, but he held them leashed. One step closer, his shadow spilling long across the stones, and the Warden finally dropped his eyes.
“Back to your post,” Zarrek snapped, releasing him with a shove that left the man gasping. “Or I’ll see if your glyphs shine as bright when they’re painted with your own blood.”
The Riftwarden scrambled away, shame and fear choking his retreat.
Around them, the Reskala hovered. One dared to speak.
“Commander, how is the Sokar? Is she recovered?”
Zarrek folded his arms. “That’s none of your—“
“She is,” Kailorien cut in.
The Reskala’s faces lit up. “Commander, please tell Her Radiance she is welcome. Please tell her she is our light.”
Kailorien nodded.
Zarrek grimaced. “Get back to your stations. Move it.”
The warriors fell back into formation, eyes darting between Zarrek and their Resh’Agar. No one spoke, but the message was clear: the fortress wasn’t only at war with wings in the dark. Fear had already rotted some from within.
Kailorien’s jaw flexed as he turned back toward the courtyard gates. “When the horns sound,” he muttered, “men like that Warden will be the first to break.”
Zarrek smirked darkly. “The quicker he dies, the quicker his voice is silenced.”
Kailorien raised a brow. “He could run.”
“Let him,” Zarrek said. “My Reskala will flay the skin from his back the moment he turns it their way.”
They found Thessia in the courtyard, helm under her arm, the head of her war hammer planted against the stones as she oversaw the infantry’s drills. Her sharp gaze flicked to them as they approached.
“Another day of waiting,” she said. “I almost believe the bastards have lost their nerve.”
Zarrek snorted, shifting his axe on his back. “Or they’re fattening us on nerves before they strike.”
“It doesn’t matter. If they don’t come tonight, they’ll come tomorrow. The Cycle won’t spare us twice.”
Thessia looked up at the sky—black, smothering, endless. “Then maybe we should thank the dark for one more night.”
She hadn’t finished the words when the horns blared.
The sound was a blade through the marrow—low, bellowing, echoing from every direction at once. The fortress froze, breath caught in a thousand throats.
Then chaos.
The sky webs lit up like lightning in the pitch.
Shadows burst from the black above the fortress.
Wings. Dozens—hundreds. A Glider army, all female, one hundred strong at least. The Vanguard hadn’t seen them.
Not a single scout had called alarm. And now, the Gliders were already there, right on top of them, so close the first talons scraped the outer Wards before the horns even finished their echo.
The shriek of gathering mana pierced the air.
“Brace!” Zarrek roared, voice carrying like thunder. “Shields up! Shields—”
The first bombs fell, striking the Wards like meteors, exploding against the runes with a shock that rattled teeth and bones.
The wards screamed like glass under pressure.
Stonewake lurched. Men were knocked to the ground.
Golden light flared, the dome lighting up in retaliation as the shields held. Heat and ash rained down.
More horns. More wings.
The Cycle of Dark had hidden them. Now it revealed them all at once.
More bombs came, wailing as they careened through the air. More explosions cracked against the shields. Most burst harmlessly overhead, but one or two fell wide. Stone shuddered. Smoke hissed.
“We’re holding!” Thessia called beside him, her glaive in her hands. She stood tall, her violet eyes burning, her golden braids flying in the wind. A smile lit her face, a smirk in the face of death.
Another wave of bombs fell, but the shields did not yield.
When the blast and smoke cleared, the men cheered. More horns wailed in mourning. Reskala crossed arms and threw curses at the winged invaders high above. Daring them to persist, to fight against the might of Stonewake.
But the Resh’Agar stood apart, focused on the dome. With his Manasight and the insight from his rune, Perthro, he knew…
It was only a matter of time.
The wards could not withstand this bulk of force.
Not for long. They’d bought time, but time mattered little when they were surrounded.
Archers fired endless arrows, but few hit their mark in the surrounding darkness.
The mages came next, casting mana into balls of flame.
This was more effective. Some collided with the less agile Gliders, swatting them from the skies.
Bodies fell like rain, feathers torn, gray blood spraying wide.
As they landed, some Gliders recovered. Others crashed into the stone, pulverized into steaming piles of broken bone and flesh.
Zarrek stepped beside him.
“Pull the tether on the sky webs. Now,” Kailorien commanded.
Zarrek nodded, raising his arm for the signal.
Above the dome, more magic burst to life.
Green mixing with red and blue, coalescing into visible netting then snapping shut like a colossal trap.
Gliders screamed as their wings were crushed.
More bodies fell. More shattered. Those that survived the fall surged to their feet, glaives flying, teeth white in snarls and howls of battle.
The Reskala met them head-on, charging them.
Judging from the shape of the Gliders’ bodies, lack of tails, and smaller wings, these were not Apex, but Talonstride—a bloodline bred for sieges like this one.
He should have been relieved. A single Apex like the Riven could have taken the entire fortress alone.
But relief was the farthest thing from his mind, especially as the dome above finally cracked.
One splinter at first.
Then another.
Then fate itself took up its sword and slashed a spiderweb of fractures all across the dome.
The runes on his body roared, burrowing deep into his spine.
Krathar, Eihwaz, Hjarta, Raidō—all sang in unison as they sank their teeth into his flesh, into his mana, into his core. He bore the pain without flinching, allowing even Vargrún’s whispers to stretch out from its prison. The scar on the back of his neck burned, but he did not reach for it.
In a shockwave, the wards burst.
Men shouted in panic as wings, talons, and glaives descended.
He dodged when a Glider nearly fell on top of him. Then several more.
Beside him, Thessia gave a mighty battle cry and launched into the fray.
Kailorien cut them down, one by one. Crushing skulls, rib cages, hearts.
With Gliders, one could not risk it. Leaving one alive could mean certain death if they were armed with the right runes for survival.
He swung his blade in an arc, each motion sending rows of blue magefire outwards.
The air thinned around him, blazing, screeching as his runes woke more and more.
He glanced at the farther tower where he’d left Auryn sleeping hours before.
It was warded. Shielded.
Forgive me, my starlight. I promised to call for you, yet here I fight alone.
His thoughts shattered when the ground beneath his feet suddenly growled and shook. Not from the explosions above, but from something else entirely.
“Rift!” someone screamed. “Rift in the mess hall!”
Everyone’s heads snapped to the shout, but the Gliders didn’t stop. They kept fighting, their eyes focused only on slaughter and annihilation. Kailorien didn’t dare to pause now. Didn’t dare to stop the motion of his blade or the storm of his magic.
Around him was a swath of bodies—burned, crushed, ripped open, melted. Yet more came. The courtyard drowned in smoke, wings, blades, and raking talons.
He caught one Glider by the throat, bones crunching under his grip.
With a single twist, the neck snapped like dry wood.
He flung the corpse into a line of attackers surrounding Zarrek.
The body cracked with building magic as he hurled it, bursting mid-air into a concussive blast. Warriors howled as they were thrown like stones across the ground; their wings and bodies shredded.
The shockwave slammed into Zarrek, who braced behind his axe. He grinned through the smoke, even as more attackers swarmed. “There’s my Resh’Agar!” he called.
The Reskala cheered like zealots, drunk on the blood he spilled, chanting—Resh! Resh! Resh! Resh!—until the battle swallowed them again. Even beyond. They screamed it through blood, through broken teeth, even as wings cut them down. Worship that did not falter, even in death.
It built and built and built, the men drawing courage from his legend, from his name in Doctrine. A final prayer to the Arm of the Void. A eulogy bathed in screams and frenzy.
“Resh! Resh! Resh! Resh!”
The same chant they’d roared in gilded processions back home now mirrored here—their final cry as they sank into the Void.
And still…your thoughts are only for the star locked in the tower…bathe in their blood, Iridias…drown in their chants…this is what you…what we were made for…
Kailorien gritted his teeth, pushing the voice back, fighting the searing pain at the nape of his neck. The madness wanted out. The scene of death and carnage tempted. Cloying. Beckoning.
The next wave of attackers melted as they stepped too close.
No time to scream. No time to raise their weapons.
Only a sudden silence as the Vargrún howled and sent a tidal wave of crimson light outwards past the courtyard walls.
Bodies sloughed apart where they stood, armor sagging over powdered bone.
For a moment, the other Gliders balked, their fierce eyes wide. Their wings flaring at the violence, at the Reskala’s worship of it.
“It’s him! Resh’Agar!” they shouted.
“Skycleaver!” they screamed—the name they had spat in warning, in curses, in stories of wings torn from the sky. Here, at last, they saw the truth of it. And even warriors bred for war faltered.
“Bring down the Skycleaver!”
His Second turned, a smile on his face, just as Thessia barreled into another Glider diving down on him from above. She sliced off his entire wing mid-jump, then whirled and landed on his chest. He spewed blood, hissing a curse at her as she collapsed his throat with her armored heel.
“RIFT!” the scream came again.
“It’s inside the damn walls!” Zarrek shouted. “Get in there, Resh! The men can’t hold the hounds!”
“We’ll take the courtyard!” Thessia cried.
The ground quaked. The air clapped with a deafening sound. The winds shifted, pausing as though the world was taking a breath.
And then everything spiraled into death as the shrieks of varkhounds echoed. Kailorien pivoted, slapping his hand to his thigh and drawing deep from Raidō. The air around him condensed. He drew back, then with a thunderclap, he surged forward, flying like an azure blur.
Toward the hounds.
Toward the screams.
Toward the rift.