Chapter 26 Choosers of the Fallen #3
Haven hefted her spear. “Then the Dreor Order goes extinct today.”
Verity turned to the Haelan. “You focus your tācn on the wightlings. Leave the Dreor to us. You cannot hurt them through that armour. And they can hurt you.” She pivoted back to the Dreor. “It will be an honour to send you to Hel.”
“Make me immortal,” said Haven to Cath with a wink, before slamming her helmet shut.
“Gods,” breathed Aurienne. The Wardens were severely outnumbered. And the Dreor were not brainless wightlings. They had serious offensive abilities within that grinning tācn. Not only the haemokinesis, but the withering touch, which mummified upon contact. And their scythes—
The fight turned instantly nasty. Wardens snared Dreor into their wards and whipped them apart ragefully. The Dreor scythes snaked out to pull Wardens within the reach of their foul tācn. Black seith hissed against blinding, electric blue.
Whenever one of the Wardens was injured, she fell back, and ten Haelan tācn were on her.
More wightlings crept over the fallen wall, but were dispatched by enraged Haelan before they could reach the Warden line. Always, more were behind.
Scythes crossed spears. One Dreor surged ahead too quickly for Solace to cast her next ward.
His scythe caught her under the chin. Her light shield faltered.
He pulled her in and knocked off her helmet.
He pressed his tācn to her face. She atrophied instantly and fell to the ground, grey-faced. Dead.
The Dreor who did it was ribboned by Haven’s wards and made into bloody paste. Haven fell back to Aurienne, who pressed her tācn to her and replenished her seith.
Black seith surged towards Ataraxia from three Dreor. They overpowered her light shield and caught her in haemokinesis.
“No,” breathed Aurienne.
Ataraxia was made into a puppet and forced to impale herself on her own spear. Four Dreor were pulverised in retribution by Tenet and Verity as Haelan dragged the gored Ataraxia away.
How many Wardens had fallen? Two? Three? It was too many. That deadly black seith—
Aurienne gasped as she realised that there was a solution at hand.
“Where are you going?” cried Nym as Aurienne sprinted away.
“To Felicette,” said Aurienne. “Keep the Wardens topped up. Don’t get killed.”
Felicette, the Ingenaut, was at the top of the ramparts. She had pulled out the massive seith capacitors that powered Swanstone’s equipment. She and the Haelan near her were launching them at wightlings as bombs. They were getting a twenty- or thirty-foot radius from each.
Aurienne found Felicette breathlessly updating someone’s deofol. Her Order’s Head, Birtwhistle, by the sound of it. The deofol disappeared.
“My Order is coming,” said Felicette to Aurienne. “They’re bringing real explosives.”
“Felicette—the serum,” said Aurienne, clutching the Ingenaut’s arm.
“The serum? What serum?”
“The occlusion serum. We’ve got to use it. Block the Dreor’s seith.”
“You—you want to weaponise it?” asked Felicette, looking at Aurienne as though an Agannor must have possessed her.
“Yes,” said Aurienne. “No choice. They’re decimating the Wardens, and we’ll be next, and then, those kids—”
Felicette stared at her.
“How do we get it into the Dreor without getting close?” asked Aurienne.
“Injections? What sort? Intravenous? Intramuscular? Rapid systemic action is what we want. But how do we launch them from a distance? They’ve got armour covering every inch of them.
” Aurienne squeezed Felicette’s shoulders. “Answer me.”
Felicette’s gaze had gone distant. She was calculating.
Then she said, “Let me try something,” and ran off.
Aurienne descended back into the courtyard to find the Warden called Echo down, being worked on by five Haelan. Ataraxia had been put back on her feet by Cath and her team and launched back into the fray.
The remaining Wardens fought the Dreor with the ferocity of the creature outnumbered.
By Aurienne’s count, they had taken down twenty Dreor, and lost three Wardens.
But the Wardens were tiring. Blood ran down platinum-blue armour.
Their spears were coming up slower to parry the scythes; their reactions were delayed.
Their light shields flickered. Every dodge of the black tācn happened at the last moment.
Tenet was caught in a scythe and subjected to the withering touch. When Aurienne next saw her, she stared at the sky with sightless eyes.
Verity fell to her knees and did not rise. Beorgan dragged her towards the waiting Haelan. Five white-glowing tācn flew to heal her wounds. Aurienne ripped off Verity’s gorget and pressed her tācn to her neck.
This was her fourth seith transfer into Verity. For the first time, there was fear in Verity’s eyes.
“How can we withstand so many?” asked Aurienne.
“There is no can. It’s must.” Her wounds healed and her seith replenished, Verity slid her helm closed and regained her feet. Her armour was usually effortlessly carried; now it looked heavy.
This fourth seith transfer into Verity awoke Aurienne’s Cost. “Damn it.”
None of the Haelan fared better. Corinne and Nym were also depleting their seith with all of these transfers; Corinne’s joints were visibly beginning to seize, and a trickle of blood ran from Nym’s mouth.
A whizzing sound came from atop the battlements. Here and there amid the advancing Dreor, a gleaming projectile thrust itself into an eye.
The Dreor clawed at their eyes and pulled out quarrels glistening strangely in the dark. They were elongated glass vials.
“Felicette,” breathed Aurienne.
The Ingenaut had made the seith occlusion serum into projectile injectables. She had loaded them into a crossbow. Brilliant.
When the hit Dreor raised their tācn towards the Wardens, no seith came.
The surviving Wardens did not wait to discover why this was.
They went for retribution. They slammed their tācn into the ground; wards blitzed out and mutilated the Dreor.
A dozen were thus dispatched. Aurienne knew the exact amount, because she and Felicette had only synthesized twelve doses of the serum.
Frīa, she wished she had made twenty more—fifty more—
Hraith and Beorgan fell back to Aurienne for seith transfers. She pushed her tācn to bloody, sweaty skin.
“How much more seith have you got, Haelan?” asked Hraith, eyeing Aurienne’s Cost-damaged hands and wrists with concern.
“I’ll give until I have no more to give,” said Aurienne.
The brothers rushed back towards the Warden line.
“Please be careful,” called Aurienne.
“Haven is down,” gasped Cath, whose own Cost was gravely triggered. Hers was hair loss. Now even her follicles bled—blood beaded at her scalp, her lash line, her arms. Aurienne had never seen it this bad.
Echo used a ward to push Haven towards Cath. Cath and three of her team from Trauma, their tācn illuminated, ran to her.
Aurienne couldn’t help with Haven’s healing; her Cost was already upon her, and she must preserve what seith she had left to feed the Wardens’ depleted systems. At one point, there would be no seith left to heal them, and none left to transfer into them—and then what?
One of the Dreor burst through the Warden line.
“Hello, little Haelan,” he said, looming over Aurienne.