“Alert—!” A guard lunged, his spear flashing like cold lightning, and skewered the disguised intruder.
“Hold the gate!” The shout rose like a dam against a flood.
“Where’re the captains?”
“Forget it! Shields up! Spearmen, on me! Archers, ready—!” The squad leader’s orders rang like iron on stone, and a wall of men took shape.
Within minutes they turned aside the enemy’s dark knives, a cliff face holding back a winter gale.
“Sharp reflexes—worthy gate gods.” Sinis slid his blade in like a needle through silk and felled a guard, then surged through the gate with dozens like a riptide.
Inside, the garrison had braced; steel met steel like flint striking fire, and they grappled with Sinis at lightning speed.
Sinis smiled with fox-fire wickedness, scored a sigil on his neck with his blade, and his body flickered like heat haze.
“Quick! Reinforce the gate!” Calm burned steady in the squad leader’s voice, a hearth in a storm, and the mood flipped from shock to rage as the guards hit back at the hundreds of bandits.
“Good evening, Commander.” A man with a graveyard face slipped through layered killing like a ghost and appeared before the squad leader.
“Protect the captain!”
The man’s smile was as cold as rain. “Regido.”
Dread struck first—then the order “Ret—” died. The captain flew off the high wall under a crushing impact, fell like broken clay, and died clean. Loyal to the end, his last breath worried for his men.
The blast from that man’s Regido swept in twenty more; armor cracked like eggshells, eardrums burst like drums, blood streamed from mouths and noses, lives nearly snuffed on the spot.
He wasn’t the first to wield Regido, nor the last. All along the wall, white pillars of light rose like spears of moonfire—each etched with different sigils: blades, elements, and the unknown.
Meanwhile, the border let out an earth-deep groan. In heartbeats, hundreds of iron cavalry raised ice-bright lances and charged the gate like a bamboo-splitting surge.
Behind them thundered Black-Gold Guards in war armor, militia like a dusty tide, and Mountain Bandits in hundred-beast masks.
“Iron Cavalry Legion?! And a regular Guard Corps?! What’s going on?”
“That flag— isn’t that the crest of the Northern Kingdom? How?”
“No way! Someone’s using them, trying to crack the friendship between us and the Northern Kingdom.”
“We can’t! They’ve got Impado warhorses and the Divine Lance—we can’t hold!”
“We hold anyway! Clear the thieves up top, keep the gate, and we win!”
“Raise the trip-ropes!”
“Archers, pour fire on the horses’ ankles—eyes, mouths, nostrils!”
The border defense unfurled like a woven mat. The Black-Gold cavalry looked like thunderheads, but moved slow; heavy barding traded wind for iron, giving time to rig traps.
“Draw—”
“Loose—”
The command cut like a hawk’s cry. Countless Wind-Cleaving Arrows whooshed out, death riding in the wind toward the iron riders.
Clang-clang-clang— The siege alarm bells shrieked from the wall, a needle-bright call that tore people from sleep. Some rubbed foggy eyes, not ready to believe, and peered at the ramparts.
The next heartbeat knocked their souls loose. Slaughter rolled like storm-tossed surf; city guards were hurled from the walls and shattered like dropped pottery; figures in strange gear ripped gaps in the defense like wolves through a fence.
White pillars spearing sky confirmed the enemy’s identity. In the Eastern Nation, Regido was a coveted luxury—its users had grown in recent years but never beyond ten thousand, and never in masses within Sia City.
“Ah—!”
“Traitors are storming the city—!”
“Run—!”
Panic spread like brushfire. Soon the city’s order troops moved, the stream of people guided toward set shelters like water channeled to a lake.
Cold hit first—Kasda’s heart felt cut by a blade. He hadn’t expected this to explode the moment their party arrived.
Suspicion flashed hot—Delaia’s mind spun like a wheel. The timing was too perfect.
The thought melted into battle heat. “Kasda! Top of the wall—support! I’ll gather rear strength and wrap the outside. Move fast—delay invites change.”
Her voice and body ran as one; Delaia broke for the West Gate like a streak. Kasda nodded and sprinted for the main gate, feet drumming like rain.
Nira wavered, a swallow between winds, then bit down and followed Delaia’s stride.
[Border Battlefield]
“Set the cheval de frise!”
“Archers—ready—loose—!”
In minutes the Eastern Nation’s city guards raised defenses and stacked horse-stopping barricades before them, spiked with spears and fangs. Arrows poured like sleet, but the effect was thin.
The warhorses didn’t fly, but they didn’t crawl; armor wrapped them like iron bark, and the tiny eyes, mouths, and nostrils were hard to hit. Arrows that found a seam were slapped away by heavy cavalry like gnats swatted from skin.
Their focus fixed on every shaft, eyes like hawks. They knew the counter—save the horses, and a single heavy charge would break this line like a rotted fence.
“Not in time—the trip-ropes won’t set! This level of charge, ordinary barricades won’t hold!” The border captain saw at a glance: a unit built for frontal shock, tuned for siege.
“Pour oil—!” he roared. Barrels rolled out like black tides, soaking the forward barricades. A hiss—fire arrows kissed oil, and the barricades became a torch wall.
Men behind leveled long lances, held like a field of winter reeds. But before the iron riders struck, a familiar, feared sound rasped from the rear—the gate groaned open.
“We’re done.” The captain’s heart went ash-gray. Their lifeline was cut. These people had planned this to the breath—actions flowed like a river, without mud or drag, a perfection that humbled all who watched.
“You… who are you? What do you want…?” He lifted his sword like a lonely banner. Dead riders charged through the torch maze like night’s hooves, and his eyes set with final resolve.
