The chagari’s upper lip curled around his fangs. “Or he was killed.”
Swallowing heavily, Selvhara closed her eyes and stretched out through the Aether. She could sense…something. Not Jason, exactly, but more like a lingering echo of where he’d been…
“I don’t think he’s dead, but he might be severely wounded,” she whispered.
“What about Tam?”
“He’s definitely still there, but I can’t seem to reach him, either. It’s like trying to shout across a great distance.”
“Mm,” Gor growled under his breath. “Perhaps this is the Sovereign’s doing. Ascendants are uniquely powerful telepaths.”
“Maybe,” Selvhara said, opening her eyes and glancing back to Ethan. “We should—”
She cut herself off when she saw him slumped over on a knee clutching the sides of his head. He didn’t appear wounded—they were still holding back with the officers several hundred yards from the fighting near the breach—but she could sense his pain through the Aether nonetheless.
“Ethan, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” he rasped through clenched teeth. “Something has happened. I can no longer speak with my minions.”
A knot twisted in the pit of Selvhara’s stomach. “If you can’t speak with them, then…?”
“I can’t control them,” Ethan finished, glancing up to face her. “Their leash has been severed. I have no idea how.”
“Then your pets are about to rampage across the city,” Gor growled. He unsheathed his claws and took a menacing step forward. “Which means your usefulness has come to an end.”
“Wait,” Selvhara said, placing a hand on the chagari’s arm. “Where was Warmaster Jorgir before you lost control?”
Ethan grimaced. “He and Halfren were up on the front lines leading their soldiers. If he turns on the clan lord now…”
“The Asgardians will turn upon one another,” Gor said. “Chaos will spread through their lines, and the Crell will likely drive them out of the city.”
“Goddess have mercy,” Selvhara breathed as she glanced back to the breach in the wall. The bulk of the Asgardian forces—and the Alliance priests—had already poured into the city. At this point, there was no turning back.
“As long as we kill Verrator, we can still win this,” Ethan said through clenched teeth. “We need to move into the city.”
“Forget the Sovereign,” Selvhara hissed. “We have to find Jason. We may still be able to help him.”
“In all likelihood, they’re in the same place. Come on, we need to move while there’s still time.”
Drawing his sword, Ethan sprang forward with the speed of a man half his age. Selvhara started to follow, but Gor’s paw flashed out and grabbed her arm.
“This is folly,” he said, his voice grave. “His pets are loose—we should kill him now before he has another chance to betray us.”
“We still need his help to save Jason and the others,” Selvhara replied. “The castle will be well-defended.”
Gor’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “The purpose of sending them ahead was to ensure that Ethan did not claim the spark for his own. If we confront Verrator together—”
“I will not allow Ethan to claim the spark,” she promised. “I will not allow him to betray us, either. You have my word.”
The chagari growled deep in his throat. “We will regret not pouncing on this opportunity.”
“Maybe,” Selvhara said, conjuring a spark of electricity into her palm. “But right now our friends need us.”
She turned and sprinted after Ethan. While the streets surrounding the breach were mostly clear at this point, they didn’t have to travel much deeper before they encountered trouble. The Crell had erected makeshift barricades across most of the larger streets, and their archers and marksmen were making it virtually impossible for the melee-focused Asgardian units to advance without being cut down en masse. The Solarian channelers were helping wherever they could, but they were too inexperienced and too few in number to properly support a concerted push.
At this rate, the battle for Ashenfel was going to be a very long, very bloody affair. Selvhara wondered if and when the Asgardian commanders would lose patience and order the Solarian dragons to start annihilating whole neighborhoods to ease their advance…
“We won’t be able to use the same entrance as Jason,” Ethan told them as they took cover in a narrow alleyway. “The path is cut off, and it will take too long to fight through the Crell lines.”
Gor hissed between his fangs. “Then perhaps we should simply charge the castle’s front gates. You go first—I promise we’ll be right behind you.”
“There’s a second entrance on the western side of the castle,” Ethan said, ignoring the jibe. “We just need to reach the cemetery.”
Selvhara winced as another deluge of unpleasant memories washed over her. The last time she had stood within that cemetery was for Elissa’s funeral. Two months later, Ashenfel had fallen to the Crell.
“If memory serves,” she said, “we should be able to avoid using any of the main streets.”
“At least until we reach the Silver Street Bridge,” Ethan confirmed. “This way.”
They followed closely behind him, and for the next several minutes they successfully eluded the Crell defenders. Encounters with the terrified Galvian citizenry, unfortunately, were much more difficult to avoid. The streets weren’t nearly as empty as Selvhara had hoped. While some of the people had boarded themselves up inside their homes, others weren’t so lucky. They huddled together in the alleyways, clearly as terrified of the attacking Asgardians as the defending Crell. Street violence and thuggery had been a problem ever since King Whitestone’s death, but with the city under siege, anarchy had now completely taken hold.
“We can’t help them,” Ethan said over his shoulder as they whipped around another corner. “Not yet. Not while the Crell remain in control.”
“I know,” Selvhara whispered. The truth was that they would probably never be able to help these people. It was a harsh reality of war so often ignored by conquerors and liberators alike. Regardless of intentions, the weak always suffered the most.
A few minutes later, they finally crossed the narrow and surprisingly unguarded Silver Street Bridge. At this point, Selvhara actually started to believe they might reach the castle without Crell entanglements.
And then Gor thrust out his arms and stopped them both in their tracks. “Wait,” he warned, his nostrils flaring as his head flicked back and forth. “Something is wrong.”
Ethan turned and glared at him. “We don’t have time to—”
Before he could finish, two of the boarded-up houses down the street in front of them burst open. A quartet of armored, white-maned chagari slaves leapt out through the newly-ruptured holes in the wall, and their feral eyes instantly fixated upon the intruders. Evidently, the Crell defenders had one last card to play after all…
“Goddess protect us,” Selvhara breathed, reaching out to the Aether and strengthening her protective barrier. They were standing right in the middle of the widest side-street they had passed so far, and retreating would be difficult if not impossible.
“Stay back,” Ethan said. Lifting his arms, he channeled a scintillating beam of energy towards the chagari pack leader. The tormented creature disintegrated before he could take a single step, but his starving companions didn’t seem to notice—or care. They charged forward unfettered, and Ethan quickly blasted a second one into a pile of dust. The third and fourth closed in quickly, however, and Selvhara conjured an arc of lightning just as they pounced—
Gor was faster. He lunged forward and smashed into the other chagari head-on, and soon the three of them were tumbling across the street in a frantic blur of claws and fur. Selvhara summoned a spark of electricity to her fingertips and waited until she had a clear shot…
“Behind us!” Ethan cried out.
She barely had time to whip her head around before an
other house shattered open behind them. Three more chagari leapt out from the windows and rushed forward. They were now officially trapped.
But not for long.
“Hold onto something,” Selvhara warned. Reaching out to the Aether, she conjured an intense, localized vortex and then flung it down the street as if she were tossing a miniature tornado. The frenzied chagari were swept up into the funnel and hurled away like leaves caught in a storm, and they crashed right back into the building from which they’d emerged.
Spinning on a heel, she checked to see if Gor needed her help. But judging from the trail of blood and fur on the street, he had apparently dealt with the other chagari himself. She knelt down and touched his shoulder, but when he turned around he was clutching at his leg and chest.
“You’re injured,” she gasped, her fingertips glimmering with healing energy.
“I noticed, thank you,” he grumbled. “I will be fine.”
It took her all of ten seconds to realize he was lying. While she was able to stop most of the bleeding with relative ease, the gashes in his side were deep…and worse, the slash on his hind leg had severed a tendon.
“I can’t mend this here,” Selvhara told him, grimacing. “We need to get you back to the camp. The Solarians will have set up a triage where we can—.”
“There’s no time,” Ethan said, glancing back and forth down the streets. “Verrator could be escaping as we speak!”
“How tragic,” Gor muttered. He brought himself to his feet, but the pain was clearly crippling. There was no way he would be able to run, let alone fight.
“Let me help you back to camp,” Selvhara said. “Once you’re safe, we’ll return to the castle.”
Gor growled softly. “Jason and the others will be dead by then, if they aren’t already. You need to keep moving.”
She shook her head. “I’m not going to leave you.”
“The streets were clear, and I can make it back on my own—slowly. Just go.”
Selvhara squeezed his shoulder. She almost expected him to lash out and kill Ethan right there, but apparently he’d finally realized they couldn’t save Jason alone. Not now. “This should numb the worst of the pain,” she said, channeling another spell into his wound. “Just try to avoid putting any extra pressure on the leg, and don’t get into any fights you can avoid.”
“I am not a fool Asgardian,” Gor reminded her. “I will survive. Now go…and keep your eyes open.”
“I will,” Selvhara promised, squeezing again. “We’ll see you again soon.”
Ethan pointed down the street. “The cemetery gate isn’t much farther. With luck, the Crell won’t have bothered guarding it.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it,” she said softly, nodding one last time to Gor. He seemed to be walking all right, but there was no way he would be able to defend himself properly. Her heart twisted at the prospect of abandoning him…just like it twisted at the prospect of abandoning Jason and the others.”
“Come on,” Ethan beckoned. “This way.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“The only glory in war is when the killing draws to an end.”
—Shau Losa, Solipean Philosopher
In the two months since she had become Tenel’s unofficial liaison to High Sovereign Ishthare, Lieutenant Mirrel had never smiled. The young woman had rarely shown any emotion whatsoever, in fact, not even when their forces had captured Blackburn or Amberwood. But shortly after Tenel had ordered the use of the Dawn relic inside Castle Whitestone, a wide, almost giddy smile stretched across her lips.
“We have him, sir,” she reported. “We have Jason Moore and his divine spark.”
Colonel Horsch grunted and shook his head in amazement. “So, Her Eminence was right after all,” he breathed. “That chunk of rock actually weakened Moore, too.”
“Of course the High Sovereign was right,” Tenel said, shooting his friend a warning glare. He was a little surprised too, of course—he had no idea why a relic designed to weaken demons would affect a True Ascendant. But he wasn’t about to admit his doubts in front of one of Ishthare’s Imperators. “Make certain we get him out of the city before the Asgardians converge on the castle gates.”
“Assuming the savages even get that far,” Horsch commented. “The groll seem to have them completely locked down.”
“Our soldiers will remove Moore from the castle while the Shadow deals with his companions,” Mirrel said, her smile fading and her eyes rolling back into her head. “They have retreated to the old passages and defeated our squad waiting inside.”
“Mm,” Tenel murmured, tapping his lips in thought. “We underestimated them. Are you certain the Shadow can handle them alone?”
“At the very least, he will delay them long enough for our men to escape with Moore. Our manticore riders at Kiersale are already on the way to retrieve him for delivery to Drakendaar.”
Tenel nodded. “Excellent. Carry on.”
Horsch leaned down over the Aetheric projection flickering atop the table, his brow furrowed. “Still no reports of any demons rampaging through the streets?” he asked.
“Nothing yet, Colonel,” Mirrel told him. “It would appear that Moore wasn’t controlling nearly as many minions as we expected.”
“Or he has them summoned elsewhere,” Tenel reasoned, studying the city map for himself. Unfortunately, they were nearly as blind in Ashenfel as they’d been at Amberwood; the High Sovereign had only assigned a handful of Imperators to the defense of the city, and all her Breakers were deployed elsewhere. “Still…I admit I’m surprised. Perhaps he was worried that the Solarians would detect them somehow.”
Horsch shrugged. “In the end, it doesn’t make a difference. We have his son, and soon we’ll crush his army.” He clapped his friend on the back. “And it’s all thanks to your leadership, Onar. How does it feel to be so thoroughly vindicated?”
Tenel forced a thin smile. Yes, he definitely should have felt vindicated. After almost two decades seeking retribution for his dead son, vengeance was finally his. He would steal Moore’s son in exchange, and handing him to Ishthare was probably a fate worse than death. Events couldn’t possibly have unfolded any better.
And yet…
“Sir, our squad commander near the Silver Street Bridge had spotted something you might be interested in,” Mirrel announced. Her forehead creased in concentration, and the projection on the table shifted. “There, maneuvering through the alleyways behind the Asgardian lines.”
Tenel leaned in closer to the table. The image was blurry and indistinct, given that it had been reconstructed from the memory of an Imperator on the ground, but he could still discern three individuals in the alleyway: a chagari, a slender female, and a hooded old man.
“Is that…?” Horsch managed.
“It’s Moore,” Tenel said. “And his Elf Witch, from the looks of it.”
“According to our men on the ground, they killed several of our hidden chagari,” Mirrel said. “They appear to be moving towards the castle.”
Tenel nodded. “Of course they are. They know that we’ve captured his son.”
Horsch grunted. “You really believe they’ll attempt a rescue? Based on his reputation, General Moore isn’t the sentimental type.”
“It’s his son,” Tenel whispered. “Who also happens to be carrying a divine spark. Frankly I’m still surprised they were stupid enough to risk sending him in the first place.”
Horsch pointed down to the map. “We still have two concealed squads of groll here on Timber Street. We could release them and—”
“No.”
Tenel could feel the bewildered stares of everyone in the room even without lifting his head. Everyone here in this war room, even the middling adjutants, knew that Tenel had a personal stake in this battle. Emotional entanglements were typically a hindrance for commanders, especially ones in charge of so many soldiers, but no one here would have batted an eyelash if he ordered half their forces to hunt down and k
ill Moore once and for all.
Yet he had no desire to do so. He wasn’t certain if it was a latent tactical instinct or his lingering disgust at how Ishthare had used the Galvian civilians as shields, but for whatever reason right now Tenel just wanted this battle to be over.
“The castle is well-defended,” he said into the silence. “I would rather save those groll in case the Asgardians actually manage to advance. Let Moore and his Witch throw away their lives if they wish.”
“You’re sure about this?” Horsch asked.
“We don’t need to change our plans to crush them. I also don’t want our forces out of position in case some of Moore’s demons eventually show themselves. Just make certain we get his son out of there as soon as possible.”
“Of course, sir,” Mirrel said, still clearly confused. “Our men expect to pin down his remaining companions shortly.”
“Good,” Tenel said, sinking back into his chair and ignoring Horsch’s confused stare. “Now give me the latest updates on our progress at Lyebel and Garos. I have a feeling that Ashenfel will take care of itself.”
***
After their last skirmish, Sarina had assumed that she and Tam would have to fight their way through an entire battalion of soldiers to reach Jason. But there were no more Crell guarding the old tunnels, nor was there anyone guarding the actual throne room itself. For all intents and purposes, Castle Whitestone had already been abandoned.
“Where the hell is everyone?” Tam asked as he crouched down behind the enormous iron throne. “This place should be crawling with Crell.”
“They must have sent everyone to try and hold the breach,” Sarina reasoned, slinking up behind him and examining the area. But even when no one popped out from behind any of the massive support columns, the knot in her stomach refused to stop twisting. “Or they were never here to begin with. I just can’t imagine any Ascendant not surrounding himself with guards. Do you sense anything?”
Tam’s lip twitched. “No, but I’m not much of a telepath.”
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