Kruje had served in the Rift War, though not as a combatant, nor did he possess the depth of knowledge required to be an engineer, one of those wizards of Veilcraft who helped the Voss earn their reputation as masters of the mechanical aspects of magic. Considering his title at the time as Prince of the Third Iron Crown, Kruje shouldn’t have served at all, but early in the seventy-four years he’d spent living beneath Malzaria he’d spoken out against royalty of the other Iron Crowns for their unwillingness to take the same risks or engage in the same duties as Meledrakkar’s general populace. Intent on following through with his statements, Kruje spent time as a laborer during the ten-year conflict, hauling crates of liquid ammunition for the cannons, stacking caltrops, shouldering piles of replacement metal for torn barricades or repairs to the Iron Eggs, Bloodnaughts and frost engines. He worked as a member of the ground crews who pushed the eighty-foot ebon battle rams used to topple city walls, sweating and straining along with a dozen others to move the stone and iron juggernauts across often unforgiving terrain. Though he wasn’t in combat, Kruje made a point to learn how to fight, and he spent many nights sparring with drill sergeants and foot soldiers. He ate with them, slept in their tents, learned how they survived. Many nobles of the other houses criticized him for his foolishness at putting himself at risk – his brother, Zan, was among them, the first of his many treasons, and easily the least significant – but Kruje remained staunch that the experiences would make him a better ruler.
Now he realized what he’d learned was what was keeping him alive.
It was just he and the two refugees, but Thaenn assured him that more of her Bloodspeaker companions were on the way. Kruje silently cursed their delay – Chairos’ forces had been decimated and were dug in around the
scarstones
and the now inert
cutgate
, and it would be best to strike at them before any reinforcements arrived, but just the three of them didn’t have the strength to stage such an attack. Kruje had no doubt Chairos, too, had reinforcements on the way.
For nearly a day – a dark day filled with bloated blood-red clouds and growling thunder, reminiscent in many ways of the subterranean storms of Meledrakkar – Kruje and his new allies skirted the ruins of Corinth, watching for signs of more enemies, keeping an eye on Chairos’ men and desperately attempting to gauge the Phage’s numbers.
While we wait for help,
Kruje thought bitterly,
there’s no telling what sort of harm the Dream Witch is doing in Chul Gaerog.
They hid a short distance from the central square where the Phage had staked their perimeter. Kruje saw the
scarstones
himself on one of their scouting patrols, and his blood froze. The Voss had constructed the damn things at Vlagoth’s request, permanent
cutgates
built to provide access and egress from Chul Gaerog so she could move large forces quickly between the Black Tower and a number of predetermined locations. It had taken precious time to construct them, the artifacts were difficult to move, and they were all but impossible to conceal – even those hidden in the ground still had to be positioned so the arcane runes were properly placed and remained visible.
Only a few
scarstones
structures had been completed – one had led to the Blood Queen’s death, a bit of irony not lost on the Arkan and Voss when they’d been forced out of the tower by Vlagoth’s angelic protector after they’d abandoned the war effort – and Kruje had heard rumor of derelict stones like these, built but never properly placed, free-standing artifacts just waiting to be activated. Back doors into the heart of evil...all one needed was the key.
Kruje watched the road to the clearing at the center of the city. He could see the edge of one of the stones from a distance, part of the circle around the
cutgate
pit. He could have made it to the hole relatively quickly, but without support and a proper plan he also knew he’d be cut to pieces before he ever got there. Now that Chairos’ men had taken up defensive position they’d had plenty of time to rest. They were concealed by old buildings and mounds of dust, ash and rubble that had accumulated over the course of what must have been an excruciatingly long dig, and they wouldn’t be easy to sneak up on.
“
How much longer
?” he asked Thaenn.
“
Another few hours, at least
,” she told him, a hint of impatience in her tone. “
We’ll meet with thirteen more Red Hand, plus enough to repopulate those we lost from our group
.”
“
How many is that
?”
“
Twenty-four, altogether.
”
He hoped it would be enough. Twenty-four Bloodspeakers armed with battle staves was quite a formidable force, but the Phage had proved to be highly skilled and capable opponents, and it was clear they understood how vital their position was. To make matters worse, Thaenn had explained that the staves themselves held only a finite number of uses and were difficult to replace or create, which meant not every Red Hand would be armed with one, and judging from what he saw their martial skills were nowhere near as formidable as those of Chairos’ well-trained warriors.
Methander was in the building across the street, a crumbling two-story structure with a collapsed roof. His lean face appeared through a broken window, barely visible in the half-light, and he signaled to Thaenn. She nodded, and motioned for Kruje to stay put while she went to the doorway. The building Kruje rested in was larger than the others on the block but in no better condition, with shattered support beams and piles of mortar and brick spread across the floor. Kruje gripped the longspear in one hand, while in the other he hefted a large rock.
They heard scratching on the streets outside. The air was bitterly cold and filled with a sound like the sharpening of knives.
“
Razorcats,
” Thaenn whispered, and Kruje almost laughed. He looked out the window and down the road and his heart froze in his chest – he saw a large pack, maybe a dozen of them, shifting feline forms hidden in a gritty carbon fog, their tails lashing back and forth in the dark, their edged fur and ebon fangs just shadows at that distance. They moved with slow and concentrated effort, filing into the alleys and narrow roads to come at the Phage from all sides.
Chairos’ men noted their approach, and within moments a furious melee erupted, steel and fangs, fire and blood. The Phage were dug into highly defensible positions, well concealed within the ruins of old structures, up on the broken rooftops, and hidden behind old statues. Arrows and blades ripped across the ruins, and Kruje smelled the stain of burning magic. The Razorcats hissed and roared, deep metallic sounds that seemed to come from underwater.
Kruje ground his teeth in frustration. It was a perfect opportunity to get to the
cutgate
, but such an effort would still be suicide. The Phage were on their guard, and with no cover between the edge of the clearing and the pit Kruje knew he’d be riddled with a hundred arrows or taken by Chairos’ devastating magic well before he reached the
cutgate
. If Kruje, Thaenn and Methander revealed their location then both the Phage and the Razorcats would come down on top of them.
Blood sprayed in the air. The Razorcasts were relentless, and though a few of their number had fallen the predators fearlessly pressed their assault. Kruje motioned Thaenn to follow him, and though she cursed at him in his own language as he lumbered out of the building and started down the road she and Methander both fell in behind him. They ducked in and out of building shells and kept to the shadows. Thunder peeled above, and the air crackled with the taste of ozone.
The cats tore one man down, then two. A pair of the felines launched themselves into the ruins of the buildings only to emerge moments later atop the half-shattered rooftops, where they pounced on sniper archers and ripped the flesh from men’s backs before their prey even knew they were in danger. A pair of cats moved around the clearing and bounded in behind a pile of dust and rubble, where they ripped a man apart from either end before they dragged another out into the open. More cats emerged from the shadows and landed on the screaming soldier with lustful hunger, tore his stomach open and licked his innards with barbed and dripping tongues.
The sky groaned. Silver fire danced in the heavens, a churning maelstrom of spiraling electric energies. The air took on the tang of copper and grew heavy, as if leaden. Kruje tasted the stain of dark sorcery.
“
Take cover!
” Thaenn shouted. More shouts came from ahead as the Phage men scrambled to get inside. Razorcats tore into them as they fled.
Fluid struck the ground, drops of raw and gooey matter like dark phlegm. Methander took the lead and found them cover in the remains of a tall structure made of mortared stone, and while its roof was still intact two of its three walls had buckled and nearly collapsed. It looked like it would topple at any moment, but it gave them shelter from the storm, at least for the moment.
Men outside screamed, and Kruje smelled the choking haze of acid. The liquid that pounded down wasn’t water. The Veilcrafted storm was a byproduct of the destruction of Gallador, a maelstrom of vile energies left behind by the forceful detonation of over a dozen Bloodnaughts, foul and explosive mechanical monsters the Voss had sacrificed in order to destroy the Drage and effectively end their involvement in the Rift War.
The purple-black liquid seared the ground and burned the Phage alive. Flesh slid from their bones beneath the septic fluid. Wind howled through the city and spattered gory remains on the shattered walls. The Razorcats ate on, unaffected by the deluge, their bodies accustomed to the foul magic, magic they themselves had been born of. The liquid didn’t seem to affect the structures as much as the humans, though Kruje still smelled the stone burning and felt the building over their heads shift and buckle as if ready to fall apart.
Thick pools of bloody water formed outside. Those Phage that hadn’t managed to retreat to sufficient cover were torn apart, rendered to little more than sloppy remains for the wastelands hunters.
Without warning a deafening clap of sound ripped through the atmosphere with a tang of metal. Kruje’s skull ached from pressure. The sky flared white, so sharp he feared it would burn his eyes out of his sockets. He blinked, and everything was distant, hazy. He stumbled towards pale shadows, saw the buildings go molten around him, dissolving like colors. Thaenn and Methander were indistinct, rippling silhouettes that fell away. Daggers of light forked in around his vision, pushed towards him as he stumbled into a wall.
Blood lightning struck down, harsh thaumaturgy whose signature he recognized as that of Mazrek Chairos. Forks of raw and jagged power sliced through the Razorcat’s shadowed flesh. Singed fur sizzled and blood exploded across the ground. A chain reaction, blades of razor light, leapt from one creature to the next like a storm of electric swords.
Within moments every Razorcat was dead. Their bodies smoked on the ground and sizzled in the deadly rain, which slowly started to fade as the evil clouds carried past the city and on towards the horizon. Phage soldiers slowly stepped out from hiding, and once they gathered themselves they stabbed through the Razorcat corpses to make sure they stayed down. Chairos had lost several men, and many more had been wounded by the hexed storm.
“
We should strike now,”
Kruje said. To his great surprise Thaenn nodded, and though Methander gave her a deadly look the three of them moved to the end of the alley.
Thaenn opened her mouth, and red smoke dripped from the end of her black tongue. Shadows folded around them, a billowing fog of dark and gritty vapor which smelled of carbon. Shadows appeared, large and small, alternating humanoid forms which moved through the nearby buildings and alleyways with precise motions, just out of sight even when Kruje tried to fix his gaze on them.
She’d crafted doppelgangers – illusions to draw the Phage’s fire. Kruje couldn’t imagine how taxing that effort must have been, or how great a sacrifice she’d just paid with her own life in order to conjure the mirror images. The phantom horde advanced towards the central square and moved into good firing positions with their false weapons and phantom staves, careful to stay just out of sight to avoid close scrutiny.
Thaenn and Methander broke off and headed to different buildings looking out on the square. Kruje kept low and moved forward along the widest lane. The cracked stone and shattered earth were full with sludge-like rain and viscous blood. Walls of steam concealed his approach as he stepped close, his makeshift weapons in hand.
Lances of ice and fire launched into the square, far too many than could be real, which meant Thaenn’s illusions were also capable of making it seem as though they attacked. The wounded Phage troops launched arrows at the buildings and fell back behind cover. Thaenn and Methander’s true blasts ripped the flesh from Phage bones in brilliant displays of bone-chilling cold and searing heat. Men fell to the ground, flailing.
Kruje waited until the Phage were scattered enough that he could advance and use his weapons to finish them off without overexposing himself. He was about to close in on a pair of Blood Knights when a shot of pain lanced through his skull, so hard and fast it was like a knife had been shoved between his eyes. Kruje fell to his knees.