"Inquisitor Dalphin?" Rill said. "How did you get here?"
The royal inquisitor's voice emanated from his throat as though under protest as he walked toward the two of them. "I followed you, of course," he said, "from the moment we both saw our enemy's actions."
The boy squirmed again. Rill grabbed him by the back of the shirt and pulled him to his feet. He eyed the Inquisitor, suspiciously. "You must be faster than you look."
"I am," was all Dalphin said on the matter. He lowered his gaze to look at the boy's face. "Name?"
The boy said nothing. Instead, he spit on the inquisitor's fine, black clothing.
Rill sighed. "Roland," he said. "His name is Roland Teldaar."
The wrinkled face, unperturbed by the mucus on his clothing, raised its eyes to Rill. "You know the boy?"
"I only met him the once," Rill replied, looking down at his captive. A mixture of sorrow and anger was building within him. "His brother is a friend of mine."
"I see," said Dalphin. He extended a hand. "I will take him now," he said. "I believe you have duties to see to?"
Rill hesitated a moment, wondering how this withered stick of a man intended to keep an angry adolescent under control. Then, he remembered that the stick had somehow kept up with him on a mad dash through the streets of Kepren. He was right, too. Rill needed to get back.
Another explosion, off to the North, underlined the thought, and so Rill pushed Roland toward the inquisitor. The old man only laid one hand on the boy, placing a pair of long fingers around the back of his neck.
Roland's hatred evaporated, suddenly replaced by something between apprehension and terror.
"Thank you, Engineer Rill," Dalphin said. "We—another inquisitor and myself—had suspected this one for the last two days, though we didn't know his identity and couldn't discover his motivations, and so we were unable to act. Now that he has revealed himself, leaving no room for doubt, to be our saboteur, we can get our information through inquisition, rather than investigation." He gave Rill a look that seemed genuinely apologetic. "I am sorry we did not identify him sooner, Rill," he said.
Rill wasn't sure what to say to the man, but before he could even open his mouth, Dalphin turned and walked out of the alley. He held the young saboteur—a traitor, Rill had to remind himself—just ahead of him, never more than the two fingers on his neck. When the pair reached the end of the alley, they turned right onto the street. Just before they disappeared from sight, he caught a brief glimpse of Roland's face, which was white as lamb's wool.
In that moment, Rill felt a sudden certainty that he would never see Sannet's little brother again.
As Rill made his way back to the marshaling yard, he tried not to think about what had just happened. He couldn't stop wondering, though, why a boy like that could have turned on his people, on his family. Youthful rebellion was one thing, but to actually kill people? He didn't understand it, and wasn't sure he wanted to.
Flames, someone was going to have to tell Sannet, tell his parents. The inquisitor likely wouldn't say anything to them unless he specifically needed to question them about the boy's actions. Rill was certain about that much. As he jogged back into the marshaling yard, he decided that he would be the one to shoulder the responsibility of delivering that news. Better they hear it from a friend, and from someone who had actually been there.
Of course, that would mean living through today.
He looked up and found himself in the marshaling yard. He hadn't realized he'd been running.
"Rill!" Draya yelled, the moment he spotted his return. The captain seemed about to yell at him, but then changed his mind. "He got away?" he finally said.
Rill shook his head. "No," he said. "The inquisitor has him."
Draya paled visibly, then nodded. "Back to your post," he said.
Rill returned to catapult number two, the only catapult they had left. Daniel, still working as a loader, seemed very relieved when he saw his friend re-take his place at his side, behind the engine. Rill gave him a reassuring smiled. He was, however, surprised to discover that their weapon had been turned nearly ninety degrees to the left.
"What happened?" Rill said, leaning in.
Daniel gave him a triumphant grin. He pointed up, toward the Keep itself. "We have eyes, now."
Rill followed Daniel's finger and saw a boy—he couldn't have been more than thirteen—standing atop one of the Keep's high towers, holding a pair of red flags out to either side of his body.
"Aim and brace!" said Draya, and Rill turned to stand next to Daniel, the fuse held between them. This time, Rill noticed, the engine of war moved a little bit, pivoting a couple of inches left, then a smaller degree right. The massive arm was even cranked further down by another three teeth. Rill had never seen the flags used before, didn't know how to read them, but there had been none of this precision in the aiming of the device before, so it seemed they must be effective.
He braced himself, anticipating the final command to fire, but before it came, he heard a distant voice crying out a single word. The voice seemed, all at once, to be coming from the other side of the Keep and from just other side of the nearby wall. The volume of it hurt his hearing, and he, Daniel, and the fuse-lighter all put their hands to their ears.
"KNIGHT!"
***
"They're all converging on that one spot." Garrin frowned as he lowered the spyglass. "It's as though they've lost interest in the city itself. I could swear they're going for Caymus."
"Dog spit!" Be'Var cursed, snatching the spyglass from the prince's—no, the king's—hand, and bringing it to his eye. Burn it, but Garrin was right. For the last hour, he'd watched as the battle had spread from the North Gate, past the edges of the Guard District, and into the Grass. Most of Black Moon's forces had been held at the Guard-Grass Gate for the last half-hour or so, but there had been smaller skirmishes all over both districts. Only the Reed District and the Keep itself had been spared the onslaught.
Then, the explosion had come at the Guard-Grass. The concussion had been so massive that it had shaken the White Spire back and forth a good few feet. When the cry had come up—"KNIGHT!"—every single one of the bastards had started moving toward the rubble of that gate. He wasn't sure just how many of Kepren's soldiers were still alive in what was left of that little market area, but with the glass up to his eye, he could just make out the flaming sword as it spun and whirled about.
There was no doubt in his mind: Black Moon was coming for Caymus.
"Flaming dog spit!" Be'Var concluded, putting the glass down.
"I'm not losing this city," Garrin said. Be'Var noted how pale the king's face was. Since the morning, the fool had torn open his injuries three more times and had lost a lot of blood. The fact that he was still conscious was, quite frankly, remarkable. He decided to let that go for the moment, though.
"If we lose Caymus," Be'Var said, handing the spyglass back to the king, "we lose Kepren. I think they've figured that out."
The concern on Garrin's face showed that he understood. "Do you think he can hold them back?"
"What, all of them?" Be'Var wondered if the question had been an inappropriate attempt at humor. "You can bring a bull down with kittens if you have enough of them to throw at the problem," he said. He looked down at the dark growth of battle, far below. "Caymus has got to be tired by now." He turned and looked at King Garrin. "And he's not fighting kittens."
Garrin nodded, then stared down at the battlefield that had consumed his city for a few moments. His face, drained of color, was covered in lines of worry and stress as he tried to see a way to help from here, miles away from where the fighting was taking place. "I am not losing this city," he repeated, though not as loudly, this time.
Then, the king's eyes widened. His face showed obvious excitement, but also concern, as he turned to Be'Var. "You said earlier that Caymus is fireproof now, yes?"
Be'Var frowned. He didn't know where this was going, but he already didn't like it. "I s
aid that, yes. He learned it from the Falaar."
Garrin nodded once. "How fireproof?"
Be'Var made a face. "How fireproof?"
Garrin nodded again, quickly, impatiently. "Yes," he said. "Is there a limit to how much he can handle?"
Be'Var eyed Garrin suspiciously. "I don't know this 'Unburning' Aspect, myself," he said, cautiously, "but immune to fire is immune to fire," he continued, "however much of it there is or however hot it gets. As far as I know he could even stand walking through that slud—"
Be'Var froze in mid-sentence, his eyes widening. "You're not really going to try it, are you?"
"I am not losing this city," the king replied.
Before Be'Var could argue, or even think of an argument to make, Garrin was turning to Charles, who was now standing behind them, a signal flag in each hand. "Charles," he said, "I have another order for our engineers."
***
"KNIGHT!"
Caymus turned in the direction of the sound, not knowing what to make of it, not quite knowing where it had come from, only that it had seemed to emanate from what remained of the gate. All around him, skirmishes between man and krealite paused as others did the same.
He'd never heard that voice before, and yet he knew it well. The impressions from his sword told him the voice was that of an emissary of the Sograve, an agent of the realm of kreal. It was the voice of the commander of the Black Moon Army, their Chieftain. It was that voice which had directed this same army up the wall of a ravine, toward him, just a few days ago. That voice had ended the lives of men who had become Caymus's friends.
Now, it was calling out for him.
As though united in a single purpose, like the ripples of a stone in a pond, the warriors of Black Moon pulled away from their opponents, moving backward, toward the remnants of the gate. Even the krealite insect Caymus had just been engaged with took a few steps back, keeping a wary eye on him as it retreated. The broken wall that had been the Grass-Guard Gate seemed to fill with the black shapes, as though a wave of darkness had permeated it.
Caymus took a deep breath, steadied himself, prepared for what was coming. He and his fellows had done a great deal of damage to Black Moon this day. Now, everything that remained of it was coming for him, and for him only.
"Get back!" he yelled over his shoulder at the soldiers. "Everybody get back!" The press of bodies that was about to come at him was going to be intense; he might be able to withstand the force, but it would certainly crush anybody that got caught in its way.
He turned around, making sure everyone had heard him, making sure that his friends were, at least for the moment, out of harm's way. Milo and Aiella were standing on the roof of a nearby building. Caymus took a moment to wonder how the building was still there. The last time he'd noticed the structure, it, and several others, had been on fire, set to burn to the ground.
Aiella looked tired, though she seemed worried and angry too, her gaze centered on him. Caymus couldn't remember having ever seen such a raw display of emotion on the young woman's face. She must be worried for his safety, so much so that only Milo's bracing arm was keeping her from charging off the roof to try and save him. He'd have to thank Milo, should he ever get the chance, for that. At least the two of them were safe up there.
He realized just how important that was to him, there, in that moment. He'd been so worried about saving the world yesterday, but in the last few hours, the world had become a trivial, abstract thing, something he couldn't protect, nor even care much about. All Caymus really wanted to save, he was beginning to understand, were the people he cared about. Rill, Milo, Be'Var, Garrin...Aiella.
Caymus wasn't afforded much time to think about his friends, though. The mass of darkness had spread out from the wall now, had formed a circle about him, and was now moving in, closing on him from every direction at once. He took his last few moments of peace to try to form some manner of defense. As he concentrated on shaping the flames of his sword, he placed the tip of the blade on the ground next to him and spun himself in a circle. As the metal scraped across stone, he narrowed the conduit, increasing the intensity of the fire as much as he could, and lent as much heat as possible to the cobblestones around him. Those bits of rock that couldn't actually catch fire began to melt into slag in a wide circle at his feet.
He spun a couple more times, imparting more fire to the ground, causing the circle of burning, boiling earth to grow about a foot in width. When he stopped spinning, he found he was pleased with the result. If they were all going to attack at once, he was, at the very least, going to cause them some difficulty in getting to him.
He didn't watch for movement. Rather, a slight twitch in the flesh of his neck heralded the first opponent to reach him: the insectoid krealite he'd been fighting before was approaching from behind. Without even turning to look, he turned and dragged his sword, with both hands, through the air. He shaped the flame so that it preceded the blade by about an inch, poured as much of the Conflagration into it as possible. The creature had made a point of stepping over the small moat of lava that surrounded him, and so its thorax was exposed.
"Fire burns," Be'Var had said. Caymus let the fire burn. The chitin sizzled as the leading edge of the flame passed through. The blade itself had little more than ash and char to cut through by the time it reached the creature's center.
He realized what the sword was now. It was a remarkable weapon, yes, with properties of hardness and sharpness that he didn't yet understand. But it was also a conduit, an enduring one, much the same as the one on the roof of the Temple. The sword was a link between himself and the Conflagration, a way for him to call on the raw power of his benefactor without having to open a conduit of his own. Even the memories of the previous knight were somehow cataloged within the Conflagration, and the sword gave him windows into those, too.
The weapon was much more than just burning steel. When Caymus fought with the sword of the Conflagration's champion, he fought with the combined might and experience of the entire realm of fire at his side.
Caymus moved hardly at all as another of the monsters came, and also two of the soldiers. These soldiers were blacker of flesh, more taken by the Sograve, than most of the others, but he realized it hardly mattered anymore. The Conflagration itself was working through him now; before its might, everything burned. A sword, raised to parry his blade, melted under the searing heat and dripped down the arm of its wielder even as that wielder's head was cleaved in half. Armor burned away under his strokes. Blood and sweat vaporized.
Again, they pressed, more and more of them. Caymus slashed out, remembering not only the things the sword had to tell him about battle, but also a short lesson in outside of Otvia. Strike hard, he thought. They can't defend if you strike hard enough. Their shields will not save them.
He had expected the bodies of his slain foes to begin piling up around him, yet the forces of Black Moon remained unimpeded, save for the circle of boiling street. A few of the bodies of the krealites he'd struck down still burned about him, of course, but many more had already turned to ash, their remnants drifting on a hot wind. A number of the krealite insects had done their burrowing trick, too; having been injured, they simply vanished into the earth. Caymus felt like the tide of battle was turning. One by one, he was cutting down his enemy's forces. He didn't have time to think about it though, to celebrate his success. He had to focus on keeping himself alive. He was doing well, so far, but there were a lot of soldiers left.
And there was the Chieftain, too. Caymus knew he was out there, somewhere close by. The sensation of the kreal that emanated from him was stronger than it was in any of the others. The insects, the soldiers, were ashen, gray. Their commander was pure darkness, and he was getting closer.
Caymus supposed a good ten minutes must have passed before the first krealite blade touched him. Two swords and a battle-axe had come at him at once. He managed to cut through the first of the swords and the axe, killing their owners, but he had been unab
le to escape the reach of the second sword.
The weapon's edge was sharp. It punched through the leather at Caymus lower back and sunk into his flesh a good three inches. Caymus winced, but even as he turned to decapitate the soldier that had stabbed him, he was reaching inward to burn any kreal from his body—there was none; once again, he found that the weapon was coated with paint, rather than poison—and to sear the wound so as to stop any bleeding.
In that moment, there was pain and surprise but, more than that, there was relief. He'd been concerned, earlier in the day, when he'd realized that his mastery of the Unburning might interfere with his ability to cauterize his own flesh. In fact, the act had turned out to be easy, as though some manner of intuition had taken over, allowing just that tiny part of his body to be vulnerable to the flames for just that instant. He wondered how much of that was the sword teaching him what to do, and how much was true instinct.
He had a problem now, though. The wound hurt. He was fairly certain the blade had reached a kidney. The pain was something he could fight through, but he knew it was going to cause a slight hindrance to his movements. Of course, the wound wasn't going to hobble him or anything, but he could already feel the slight hitch it was causing to his steps. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't be an issue, but being attacked on all sides by hundreds or thousands of soldiers, not to mention huge, otherworldly insects, was a long way from "normal circumstances."
Grimacing, he spun, shaping a burst of fire all around him, trying to open up some space so to maneuver. The motion helped, gave him a moment's room to breathe, but only a moment's. Within the space of a second, he was being attacked again.
Three of the attacking blades caused him no trouble, but the fourth came dangerously close to his achilles tendon.
Caymus could feel himself beginning to worry. There were still so many of them to deal with, and the Chieftain was getting closer. The fact that he was so self-aware, so conscious of his worry, only frustrated him further, distracted him from the task at hand. Worry was not something he had time for right now.
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