Thael raised his head, shrugging off the weary need for further sleep. He leaned forward to Verena and held her hand, now cold. Her face was frozen with clenched brows, eyes pinched shut, mouth still grimacing. She had chosen to die in suffering, for she would have it no other way.

“You knew this life,” Thael whispered, “So will you be forgotten. So will you be free.” The words were hollow to Thael, but Verena would have wanted him to incant the order’s rite. Now she was gone, not known in life, forgotten in death. A Wraith first, a mother last, and her son would never know her. If he; Arrin, his son, would live perhaps past this day.

Thael donned his black brigandine and armed himself; leather harness strapped around his shoulders, chest, and belted to his waist, holding many weapons. He swept his ragged cloak over it all and turned to the windowsill.

He unhooked the window’s shutters and flung them open, the cries of pitched battle now in full strength, men’s cries muddled with other screams and howls between the invaders and defenders. Jao’s Jinnto huddled behind the palisade, spearing down ladder men or cranking and shooting down with their flatbows. The courtyard was now swollen with fallen men or battle weary Jinnto, attended by white robed women that could not aid them all. Burning buildings roared, black smoke rising to the gloom of the twilight sky. They were trapped with no escape.

There was a sharp knock on the door and Shen entered, garbed in leather armor, swords scabbarded at his hips, face streaked with blood.

“Get out,” Thael said.

Shen’s eyebrow arched above his remaining eye. “Your comrades await below. We have need of your allies. We are all that stand now.”

“Get out.”

“The Midden burns. Your commander is dead. I have no doubt you’re next—”

Thael aimed a fist at Shen, which he blocked with an elbow before chopping the blade of his open hand at Thael’s neck. Thael caught the strike, butting his head against air as Shen ducked and drove him back with the point of one shoulder.

“That was unwise,” Shen said, hands raised. “I have no doubt you were next in line of command, no? The Unsworn are the ones who killed your woman. Do you wish to avenge her?”

Thael stalked past Shen. They walked down the hall. Shen said behind him, “You are good, Kingmaker. It is a shame you are not immortal. I would call for an Ourai should we live past this day for your offense.”

Only Thael’s boots tapped over the floorboards in answer. The remaining cadre looked up at their approach.

“Verena is dead,” Thael answered their questioning gazes. “She has given me command of this cadre. You know of our—”

A Jinn wrested open the sliding door, eyes wild as he howled, “They’ve broken through the gate!”

Shen gripped the man’s shoulders, “Are they in the courtyard?”

The Jinn shook his head. “We are holding, but for each inch they take are a dozen lost.”

“Make sure all bowmen stay atop the walls. Hold them off,” Shen commanded. He turned to Thael, “Until the dawn, yes?”

Thael nodded. “Until the dawn.”

They strode out, each drawing their weapons. Thael and Shen both held a shortsword in each hand. Ircham wielded his truncheon and knuckled dagger. Nireih held a shortbow; a longbow and two quiverfulls of arrows secured to her back. Shercagh gripped his halberd of whole brightsteel.

The injured were still retreating into the surrounding buildings, men carrying the grievously wounded atop burlap stretchers. The oaken gate a hand’s breadth thick had been torn asunder, soldiers funneling into the opening as the Jinnto massed on the opposite side, prodding with spears or hacking the men with pikes. Bodies piled behind the half opened gate, forcing the defenders to fall back step by step, the attackers pressing forward, pushing the gate ever wider.

“Nireih, stay above the gate,” Thael ordered. “Ircham, can you spread the fires outside the walls to the men?”

“I would need to be outside the gate to get near enough,” the mage replied.

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Thael said.

Shen narrowed his eyes. “My men have fought from night to twilight. I will rally them in this, Kingmaker, but their strength wanes. Should your plan fail we may not see the dawn.”

“Tell them,” Thael said.

Shen shouldered past the line of men and roared, “Back! Stand back!” The men looked to him, mouths agape. “Hear me! We have killed for them, we have died and given up our homelands for these men who would sooner butcher us in our own homes, merely for being Haolan!” The gate creaked open inch by inch as the pile of bodies were shoved by the soldiers. “Look to your people, for we are all that is left standing! Stand back! Let them think to drive us from our world, let them think they can raze us to the ground, for if we drive them to the streets outside, I promise you this, that they will burn as they burned our people!” The fires crackled and there was the sound of falling timbers from outside the walls. “Let them come forward, so that they can die in the fires they created! We are Jinnto! We are the last defense of our people! Let them come, drive them out, and see their end!”

The Jinnto roared themselves hoarse at that, raising their spears and lowering them in grunting unison; He for step, Ru for halt, waiting for the men to surge through the gate.

A steel plated battering ram splintered past, glittering with the surrounding fires, the mound of bodies falling to clear a path as the soldiers ran in screaming, shields raised to clang and clatter against the strikes lined pikemen. Men fell as spearmen lanced exposed limbs or the pikemen behind them hacked those who came too close.

“Push forward!” Shen screamed. The Jinnto grunted, lancing their spears at the forefront, Thael losing sight of Shen in the melee. "He!" they bellowed. "Ru! He! Ru!" The phalanx was now marching outside the gate, bowmen shooting their bolts from above.

The formation advanced to a semicircle outside the gate. Shen was still at the frontline, arrows sprouting out his foes’ necks from Nireih's watchful bow as he turned to rush back to Thael.

“This is as far as we hold!” he shouted over the frenzied screaming and roaring fires.

Ircham nodded. “That is enough.”

Ircham’s hands clawed out to the sky, face grimacing with the effort as waves of flame from the nearby buildings cascaded down to spill onto the trapped men at either side. The street split in three, dark chasms opening up. The fire rained down upon the street ahead, scores of men wailing and burning, staggering bodies soon scorched husks in their blackened cuirasses. He guided the fires to the men crowded below, such was their number for there was no space left to flee. The flames leapt from one man to the next, heat bursting to singe even Thael’s face from the backlines. The soldiers kept their distance.

Ircham slumped to the cobblestones. “My power is spent,” the mage panted.

The Jinnto roared, raising their spears and pikes and cursing the men in Haolo. Stray flames still licked the charred corpses. The bravest soldiers began to wade through their fallen, eyes shadowed with murderous determination. The Unsworn prowled just beyond reach of their spear lines, neither side willing to strike first.

The first man yelled, cracked and primal.

“Stand!” Shen bellowed in Haolo. "Stand with me!"

The Unsworn charged, Jinnto spears chipping off the black spiked sun sigils on their white painted kite shields. The pikes struck overhead, but still their shields blocked most of their blows. Their phalanx was swiftly overwhelmed by their swarming numbers. Flailing bodies pushed and shoved, but the Jinnto did not wield shields for such close-quartered melee, and that disadvantage grew apparent as their formation began to collapse. Jinnto dropped their spears and pikes in favor of their hatchets and swords. It was a teeming mass of steel, leather, and finally blood.

“Retreat!” Shen roared. “Fall back to the gate!”

Thael supported Ircham back to the enclave, Shercagh hacking at any man not wearing the Jinnto’s drab green colors. With the turn of his hip, Thael kicked a man from behind and growled to Ircham, “Keep dragging your feet and we both die. Now move!”

They hurried past the battered gate, Ircham still wheezing as Thael left him to rest against the wall. Nireih stood waiting, slender leaf blades held within each hand.

“Fucking crux, stay atop the wall,]!” Thael swore. “You still have more arrows to shoot with.”

Nireih shook her head. “I would rather die fighting alongside you, Eilraz.”

Thael grimaced. “Fine then. Never thought I’d fight alongside a sylvan Wraith.”

“This may still be a kazlinath yet,” Shercagh blustered, blood covering his face, dark over his beard and halberd. "My kin will come at dawn. I fear they have done what they must."

They stood, man, dwarf, and sylvan. Shen himself slipped through the gate to join their line, his men following to rally behind them. Even the bowmen stepped down to bolster their ranks, swords at the ready.

“We hold until dawn,” Thael said.

They would hold onto the hope that the dwarves would come to their aid soon, even if it was not enough. The soldiers raised their shields and rushed towards them. Thael sidestepped and stomped on a man’s boot with his steeled heel. His comrades in arms fought side by side; Shercagh arcing his halberd in wide strokes, splitting men in two, Nireih whirling about her swords with blinding speed.

Snarling faces faltered to pained fear, forgotten in an instant. In battle Thael lost himself to the roaring chaos, facing their murderous wills with his own. Still more men howled to take the place of the next. A step back. Another. Thael’s arms burned and twitched. Now heavy swords held low to save what remaining strength he had left. Ircham had joined them, waiting to parry and counter. The defenders were driven back, for the white tabards kept pouring in, an unstoppable tide.

They had retreated to the center of the vast courtyard, Thael staggering back with Ircham to recover their strength. Even Nireih slowed. Shercagh still roared, cleaving one foe after another, the men keeping a wide berth from his sweeping halberd. Still more soldiers swept in to surround what pockets of resistance were left. Thael and those who remained huddled in a circle, their backs pressed to each other’s. The Unsworn grinned. Thael panted in ragged breaths, Ircham screaming, “Come on, you whores’ bastards!”

Thael looked up to see Jao with Matron Wu standing on a balcony, nodding to Shen, who nodded in answer. Jao turned to draw the crescent broadsword at his back, blocking off the approaching men that appeared from within.

Nireih held her swords above her head, head turning to the men that kept their weary distance. There was a silence then and the accepted finality of no quarter given. Thael’s eyes squinted in the sudden glare of the rising sun. Golden light gleamed and outlined armor and weapons.

A faint thudding reverberated throughout, shaking the ground ever so slightly.

Thoom.

Thoom.

Thoom.

The soldiers looked amongst themselves. The sounds were louder and echoed with increasing strength. Men screamed from outside the walls. Men crammed past the gate in a sudden rush. The remnants of the gate splintered in shattering crash. It seemed the dwarves had come.