Chapter 992

Across the wall, Maurien watched his own target burn and collapse beneath the rain. The old wind mage’s expression remained hard, but his thoughts were far less simple.

A specialist in hunting bandits. That was what he had been for much of his life.

A hunter of thieves, murderers, smugglers, and raiders who thought distance, terrain, or lawless borders could hide them. He had stalked mountain passes, frozen roads, ruined keeps, and forest dens. He had spent decades cutting out filth before it grew bold enough to swallow villages.

And now here he was. Fighting imperial forces. It should have felt absurd. It did, in a way. But not enough. That was the part that bothered him.

Maurien raised one hand, gathering wind between his fingers until rain bent around him in a spiraling shell.

All his life, he had thought he was defending the Empire. Not its nobles. Not its officials. The Empire itself.

The roads, the towns, the farmers who needed caravans to arrive before winter. The small people who suffered first when monsters with human faces decided law no longer reached a certain stretch of land.

He had killed bandits because bandits preyed on the weak. He had broken smuggling rings because poison and weapons always found their way to those least able to refuse them. He had served order because without order, the cruel grew brave. But now imperial banners marched beside mercenaries and underworld scum. Now imperial siege weapons aimed at a town full of civilians. Now men who called themselves loyal servants of the throne had come to erase Lionfang because it had grown strong without asking permission from the wrong people.

Maurien’s mouth tightened.

Had his life’s work meant anything?

Had he spent decades trimming branches while the roots rotted deeper beneath the capital? Had every bandit den he burned merely cleared space for better-dressed predators to move through untouched?

The thought was bitter. Dangerous. Useless, if held too long. He exhaled through his nose and extended his hand. A blade of wind formed.

Not large. Not flashy. Thin. Focused. He released it.

The attack crossed the battlefield with a whisper that vanished beneath rain and war. The enemy guards around the next catapult saw nothing until the wind blade sliced through the machine’s left support column and cut cleanly into the rune housing behind it.

The catapult lurched. Its arm misaligned. The forming projectile destabilized. The crew screamed. Then the whole siege frame detonated sideways, throwing men and wood and metal across the mud.

Maurien lowered his hand. Maybe his life’s work had meant less than he thought. Maybe the Empire he believed he had protected had never been as clean as he wanted. But the people behind him were real. Lionfang was real. The children hiding behind those walls were real. So were the men and women standing in the rain, fighting for a home the Empire had decided should not exist.

That was enough meaning for now. Maurien looked toward the next catapult being dragged into range and let wind gather around him again.

“I suppose,” he muttered, “I’ve hunted better-dressed bandits before.”

His cloak snapped behind him as the storm answered. Below, enemy officers shouted for their siege crews to spread out. On the walls, Gaius lifted another boulder. Maurien raised another blade of wind. The magic catapults kept coming. And Lionfang’s answer fell on them from both sides.

The fight kept going. That was the worst part. Not the blood. Not the screaming. Not the constant thunder of spells, arrows, steel, and bodies hitting mud.

The fact that it simply kept going.

Lionfang’s front line had held far longer than most armies would have expected from a border guild reinforced by northerners, recruits, and half-trained civilians. The walls still stood. The field before them had become a mess of churned earth, broken weapons, dead men, and shattered shields. Imperial formations had pushed three times and been thrown back three times.

But holding wasn’t winning. Not yet. And the front line was starting to show signs of exhaustion.

Tali saw it first.

She stood near the left-center formation, where many of the newcomers had been concentrated. Not the greenest civilians, thankfully, but still recruits. New guild members. Men and women who had trained hard, listened well, and thought they understood what battle meant because they had sparred, drilled, and survived smaller fights.

Now they were learning what a real battle did to a person. Not just to the body. To the head.

One recruit’s sword trembled so badly that his knuckles looked white around the grip. Another kept blinking too much, eyes wide and unfocused as if his mind had fallen three seconds behind the rest of the world. A third flinched every time an arrow struck a shield near him, even when the arrow didn’t come close.

They were tired. But worse, they knew they were tired. That kind of knowledge killed people.

Brann shoved a wounded spearman back behind the line and stepped into the gap himself, shield raised just in time to catch a mace blow from an imperial soldier. The impact rang across the field. He grunted, drove forward with his shoulder, and let Jori’s sword take the attacker in the thigh.

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The imperial went down screaming. Jori finished him with a short chop to the neck. No flourish. No wasted movement. Just another body in a field that already had too many.

“Left side!” Tali shouted.

Two recruits pivoted late. Too late. An enemy adventurer slipped through the muddy gap with a curved blade and opened one of them across the stomach before Brann could reach him. The recruit fell backward, eyes huge, hands instantly going to the wound as blood poured between his fingers.

“Down!” Brann roared.

Jori moved first, his axe slamming into the adventurer’s shoulder and biting deep enough to drag the man off balance. Tali followed with a spear thrust through the throat, then kicked the corpse away before it could tangle the line.

The wounded recruit hit the ground hard. He made a small, shocked sound. Not a scream. Something worse. A sound like his body had understood what happened before his mind did.

“Healer!” Tali called.

One came immediately, sliding into the mud beside the boy. She was young too, face pale, lips pressed tight. Her hands glowed with Healing Touch as she shoved the recruit’s hands aside and pressed both palms over the wound.

The magic flared. Flesh knitted. Blood slowed. The recruit gasped, back arching as the wound closed enough to keep his insides where they belonged.

Enough to live. For now. But everyone nearby had seen it. That was the problem. Every wound healed was proof that wounds could be survived. But it was also proof that the next one might not be.

For every cut, every puncture, every broken rib and half-sealed gash, the newcomers understood a little more clearly that they were not in training anymore. There were no instructors calling a halt. No sparring bells. No safe mistakes.

Only death getting closer one lesson at a time.

Brann looked over the line, jaw tight beneath the mud and blood streaking his face.

“They’re fading.”

Tali didn’t answer at first.

She was watching the enemy regroup beyond the field, imperial officers dragging their men back into order while mercenaries prowled around the edges looking for another weak point. Farther behind them, more troops waited.

Always more. That was the part that made her stomach sink. The Empire had not come right now with enough men to test Lionfang. It had come with enough to grind it down.

Brann stepped closer, keeping his shield angled toward the field. “Tali.”

“I see it.”

“Then say it.”

Jori glanced between them, breathing hard. “Say what?”

Brann’s eyes stayed on the front line. “We need to convince the guildmaster to pull us back for a bit.” Several nearby recruits stiffened at the words.

Tali shot him a sharp look. “Careful.”

“I am being careful,” Brann snapped, though he kept his voice low enough not to carry too far. “That’s why I’m saying it now instead of after half of them collapse standing.”

Tali’s expression hardened. Brann gestured with his shield toward the recruits.

“Look at them. Really look. They’re not just tired. They’re breaking inside their own heads. If we give them ten minutes behind the second line, water, healing, anything, they’ll hold better when they return.”

“And if we pull back?” Tali asked.

Brann’s mouth tightened. She pointed toward the enemy.

“The moment they see us retreat, they advance. Not slowly. Not cautiously. They’ll smell weakness and throw everything at the gap.”

“Then we rotate cleanly.”

“With what reserves?” Tali demanded. “Every reserve is already assigned. Every wall section is under pressure. The northerners are holding the right because if they weren’t, the Empire would already be climbing over the bodies. If we ask Arslan to shift men here, something else weakens.”

Brann looked away for half a second. Not because she was wrong. Because she wasn’t. Jori cursed under his breath.

“Shit.”

That summed it up nicely. Brann wanted to save the line before it broke. Tali wanted to prevent the enemy from realizing it was close to breaking. Both were right. Which was, Jori thought, deeply inconvenient of them.

Another horn sounded from the imperial side. Not a full charge. A signal. Tali’s grip tightened on her spear.

“They’re coming again.”

The recruits heard it too. Fear moved through them like wind through tall grass.

Brann turned toward the nearest cluster. “Shields up. Breathe. You already survived worse-looking bastards today.”

Tali stepped in front of the line, halberd angled low.

“Listen to me,” she said, voice sharp enough to cut through the rain and distant shouting. “Do not look at the whole army. Do not look at the dead. Do not think about the next hour.”

A few eyes shifted toward her.

Good.

“Think about the man in front of you. That is all. One enemy. One breath. One step. You hold that, then you hold the next.”

Brann glanced at her. Jori saw it. There was no argument in his face now. Just grim agreement. The wounded recruit, newly healed and shaking like a leaf, tried to sit up.

The healer pushed him back down. “Stay.”

“I can fight.”

“You can bleed quietly for a while first.”

Brann almost laughed. Almost. The imperial line began moving again. Mud sucked at their boots. Shields rose. Spears leveled. Behind them, archers nocked arrows and mages gathered fire in their palms. Jori rolled his shoulders and adjusted his grip on the axe.

“I hate both of your plans,” he said.

Brann lifted his shield. “When this wave breaks, I’m asking again.”

“If this wave breaks,” Tali said.

“It will.”

Jori spat into the mud. “Wonderful. Confidence. My favorite lie.”

The first arrows came. They struck shields with dull, heavy thuds. Then the imperial soldiers charged. The newcomers flinched. But they did not run. Tali shouted the order. Brann braced the shield line. Jori stepped into the first gap with his axe already swinging.

And the front line held again. For one more breath. One more enemy. One more step closer to death. The amount of blood on the battlefield was shocking. Not in the way songs described it.

Not in the way old soldiers spoke about it over cups of ale, turning horror into something shaped enough to laugh about later. This was raw. Ugly. Too much.

Blood soaked the mud until the ground no longer looked brown in places, but dark red and black, churned under boots until it became a thick paste that clung to soles, greaves, knees, and hands. Every step made a wet sound. Every fall splashed something that might have been rainwater, or blood, or something worse.