Aranae supremacy reestablished over the left half of the wall. I watched as the two most heavily armored of the [Brood Guard] crawled over the crenelations. With each step the women stabbed their legs down, the tips flashed metallic before they landed and embedded into the stone. Once secure, the women brought out small pickaxes from holsters on the back of their lower halves. In rhythm, they chipped away at the bottom of the stone bridge, just back from where the bridge met the wall.

  Every slam of the pick caused a small flash of mana as runes failed, and within three blows from each, the tip of the bridge was severed. The goblin who’d rushed across to stop the [Brood Guard] dropped to their deaths as the bridge fell, no longer connected to the wall, to slam back into the tower.

  While brave to the point of suicidal, it didn’t take long for the goblins to signal the retreat, and by now, the note was becoming familiar to me. The protective roofs which followed the edges of the wall pulled back. Freed from defending their own bridge, the casters and [Archers] atop the left tower streamed fire and steel down on the aranae who defended the right foothold.

  Bolstered by the collapse and retreat, the aranae who still fought attacked with the frenzy reserved for cornered animals. They threw themselves at the goblins. Warriors from the back lines stabbed with stinger and spear above the heads of the women in front of them. Even the occasional ally fell victim to the passion with which they attacked.

  The remaining goblins matched the aranae frenzy on equal terms. They rushed from the remaining tower as fast as they had when the bridges first dropped. The rapid stream of fresh combatants saw those felled by the frenzied aranae replaced in seconds.

  A thin mist came into being in the center of the bridge after about three minutes of this. Whenever I’d seen this spell before, it was on solid ground where the mist could spread and form a wide radius. Here there wasn’t enough space for Nora’s spell to perform that way and rather than float in the air; waterfalls of mist cascaded off either side of the bridge, their flows only broken by the odd body as it fell.

  Packed together as they were, the goblins already made easy targets for the casters. Watching Nora work, I found a new appreciation for how insidious her constructs were. With the typically floating mana shield skills the goblin [Clerics] used. The constructs were almost impossible to block. Even if you stopped her from landing a blow on one person, she had enough control over the spell to shift the target an inch to the right and land the blow on their neighbor.

  Her attacks rarely killed anyone directly. More often, they knocked goblins off balance or tore small chunks of steel and flesh from their legs. As more and more fell, I noticed often it wasn’t actually Nora’s constructs who sent the goblins over the edge. Often it was their peers.

  It wasn’t the press of the crowd that caused such casualties, either. When a construct injured a goblin and they fell flat, rather than drag them back and disrupt the assault, their peers simply kicked the other goblin from the tower. The Black Hand’s Touch prominent in my awareness, I noted how, rather than turn on a flat plane, Nora’s constructs always followed the mist. They dove down the waterfalls before they reversed at the bottom and climbed back up, never losing speed.

  With a casual interest only possible because of Iona’s grace, I looked down at the growing paste of goblin bodies beneath the bridge. Despite myself, I couldn’t stop the small pang of envy at the thought of how much experience this battle would net Nora.

  Even with all their casualties, the sheer weight of numbers allowed the goblin [Archers] and casters to expand their foothold by several feet in each direction. The tops of the ladders now secure on the wall. Goblins slowly left the stone roofs to climb the fifty feet and join their peers, who still streamed from the siege tower.

  The spiress watched the goblin foothold expand with serenity and idly waved the three of us forward, a muttered ‘halt them’ our only orders. No path to the front opened for us this time and forced us to mill three lines back from the fighting. In the press Mika’s golems held onto our pants legs like children in order not to be lost in the crowd.

  The front, while chaotic, was still under enough control that those on the front lines rotated out. The aranae warriors silently swapped places at a higher rate than the Black Hands considered acceptable. It took us fifteen minutes to reach the front, where a shoulder-to-shoulder wall of goblins greeted us. Their uniform black and gold trimmed armor was alight with the mana of numerous skills.

  Encased within frigid awareness, I already hummed the war hymn when we got to the front. My shield placed just far enough away from me to provide Ellen with some extra protection. The crush limited not only our options but the goblins’ as well. Unable to do little more than thrust with their spears or swords, the goblins relied on the collective weight of the people behind them to push forward.

  Mika’s golems shined here. While Ellen and I lacked the mobility needed to use our weapons effectively. The tight space created a playground for him where he could rush into the enemy lines, rend and tear at goblin legs before he retreated to safety.

  Almost on instinct, the three of us fell into a pattern. Hammer and shield lashed out in time with the beats of the war hymn. The pulsing grip Iona had on the back of my neck sapped all my anxiety and dread of its heat. Casually, I noticed just how similar this was to a [Butcher’s] work.

  Mika’s golems crippled the goblin in front of us. The crush of the crowd moved them forward to where Ellen and I could crush their skulls with hammers.

  Like butchering, war was fatiguing work. We held the line for ten minutes, the three of us working in almost perfect sync, but no aranae came to relive us. Heavy and humid in my armor, the slow poison of fatigue crept up my limbs. Each gasp of stale air was a breath of sandpaper that rattled inside my veil. Yet the fight continued.

  Like clockwork, I forced my limbs to move. Arm up, arm down. Front leg forward, back leg follows. I was so tired I lost track of the war song’s melody. My humming interrupted when a goblin spear head smashed into my veil where it tangled in the chain links after Ellen’s maul head slammed it away from her. The slip was a mistake, one punishable for by ten lashes per casualty caused by my lapse. But we were far away from the Emerald Ocean. And Ylena, who I could still faintly feel watching over me, sent me no feeling of anger or disappointment.

  I was so lost to the mechanics of death I barely noticed when the ten [Brood Guard] slammed into the goblins beside Ellen and I like a runaway wagon.

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  Like fresh snow before the boot, the goblins fell. The woman who’d been in front of me, and someone I thought faced death with admirable calm, exploded into a frenzy when the [Brood Guard] crashed into the ranks next to her. Desperate to carve a path away from them.

  Before, even through the haze of exhaustion, I could tell the woman followed a set of forms. That was gone. Thrown away for an animal violence. She came at me with no grace or artistry, just pure, simple, need.

  She was a woman possessed, and I was in no way capable of matching the ferocity in her movements with how tired I was. My armor saved my life more times than I can count in the brief seconds that followed. Her spear hissed and skated across the scales and chains. Ellen, Mika, and I conceded ground as the goblins rushed forward in desperation, like a tornado appeared in the center of their ranks.

  Pure muscle memory and instinct killed the woman in front of me. She lunged, spear aimed at my heart while she bashed forward with the rim of her small shield. Confident in my armor and too tired to dodge, I took the spear thrust to the side. Weak tendrils of mana invaded my body. A curse skill tried to take hold, but even exhausted, my mana managed to fend off the attempt without conscious effort from me.

  Before she could recover, I hooked the head of my hammer against the rim of her shield and yanked forwards. She stumbled after her shield, the bindings too tight to release quickly. I released her shield and punched the head of my hammer into her throat.

  When she fell, wet gurgles echoed from her helmet and I glanced up to see who forced the goblins to rush us. The [Brood Guard] having slaughtered their way into the depths of the goblin ranks, now used us as their anvil.

  Like waves upon the lakeshore, desperate goblins pushed at Ellen and I. She took a hit from a sword hilt that dropped to her a knee but Mika’s golems converged on the goblin to tear his throat out within seconds and I stepped forward to cover her.

  I took injuries everywhere. None fatal or severe enough to put me out of the fighting. The pain burned like a collection of small fires, never united and too weak to overcome Iona’s grasp on my soul. Each time a blade only scored my ribs or got caught on the lip of my eye mask, I prayed for reminders to thank Darla, Twin Oak’s [Master Armorer], when I got home.

  Like all things, my grim work eventually came to an end. The [Brood Guard] did as they had with the left tower and severed the bridge from the wall. The goblins sounded the final retreat and left ten goblins to stay behind on the wall.

  Once the last was dead, I dropped into a crouch and gasped for air, finally letting go of the tightly controlled breathing the war hymn demanded. Every instinct screamed to take off my helmet. I was suffocating. It was too hot, I couldn’t get enough air. Like ice water over my head, the Touch of the Black Hand erased that instinct, and I forced myself to take long, deep breaths through my nose.

  I didn’t look up from the blood-soaked stones of the walkway, my eyes darting between flecks of white amidst the red, until I heard the cries and barked commands of the aranae. Five stones larger than wagons hurtled through the air at us.

  Without thinking, I grabbed Ellen’s hand and pushed through the crowd towards the spiress’ command center. The press of bodies was too tight, rock hard plates of chitin and pike-like legs stopped us from moving with any speed. It took me only a couple of seconds and the sight of Mika already with the spiress but so far away to realize we wouldn’t make it in time.

  “On the ground!” I shouted over the screams of the warriors and scholars around us.

  Ellen dropped her maul and crouched; her hands came up protectively around the back of her neck. It wouldn’t do anything if a stone landed on us, but it was better than nothing for the shrapnel. Adding onto that ‘better than nothing’ I knelt down in front of Ellen, who was facing the spires, and hugged her, putting my round shield behind her back hoping if shrapnel came from that direction, it would hit the shield and not her spine.

  Four impacts rocked the wall, a shockwave that almost knocked us on our asses rippled through the wall and we had to tighten our hold on each other to stay stable. The last stone landed on the rampart before it ricocheted into the courtyard below.

  I was lucky enough to miss the sight of the impact, but I still saw the aftermath. Five red smears and a dozen wailing injured. The cost of not reaching the spires was a sufficient motivator to make me rise and try to move again. I couldn’t afford to just try and push my way ahead, however.

  With the spike of my hammer, I swept the legs out from any aranae who wasn’t fast enough to get out of the way. And punched with the rim of my shield to force people from our path. My actions weren’t without response and several times I had to stop and block a retaliatory strike from a tail or weapon

  I didn’t begrudge the attacks. My actions here were Ungraceful. But the safety of my party members trumped my need for Grace. I would repent and atone for it later, but for now, I could not leave someone under my protection to the mercy of goblin [Engineers].

  “Bran down!” Ellen yelled and yanked the back of my collar. I went with her and spun to layer my shield over her back again.

  At first there was only a trio of booms as three stones impacted against the face of the wall, but those were quickly followed by two that landed on top. I couldn’t see the stones, but it was close enough that I heard the screams of terror, aguish, and dread before thousands of pounds of stone detonating against more stone quelled them. A hail of fragments and shards pelted against my shield and rocked Ellen and I until we almost toppled backwards.

  When I looked up, prepared to see more of the red mush I was too familiar with. What greeted me was a small lake of gore and Maggie’s small form stood protectively overtop us.

  She helped the two of us stand without a word and wrapped us in a quick embrace, her hands a comfort even through the fatigue and the Black Hand’s effect. A hand on both of our shoulders, she led us back to the central spire. Maggie didn’t have to fight to advance like we had. Faintly I could feel her doing something with her aura, like the sensation of a finger trailed along my skin. The aranae around us simply moved at the small caress, like a school of salmon around an ironback.

  When we reached the spiress’ command post, she was in the middle of taking reports from the leader of the [Brood Guard]. Whatever the woman said, it wasn’t what the spiress wanted to hear. Her face had a rictus quality and even without pupils I could feel her gaze scan the crowd, as if looking for someone to execute.

  What caught my attention more was that all the [Brood Guard] were present. They’d been farther from the spire than us and in a section more densely packed with people. How in Renewal’s name did the ten of them get here before we did?

  Ultimately, what the woman reported was of no concern to me. The spiress would tell us only what she felt was relevant to us, anyway. So instead, I scanned the crowd for signs of Mika and Nora. Mika was easy to spot, only a couple feet away from us amidst a crowd of scholars. He pushed his way through them with a relieved smile on his face. It took him a couple minutes to reach us despite the short distance, but when he did, the pair wrapped each other in hugs tight enough I heard his back crack.

  I let the pair have their reassurances and continued to look for Nora. I couldn’t find her until I looked at where the injured were being tended. Laid out next to a bunch of warriors and scholars. She had her left arm up to the bottom of her neck, wrapped in the same red bandages Ellen had worn for her leg. Stood above her was an older looking aranae scholar, who if she was human I would’ve said was in her mid-thirties. Visible mana streams the color of liquid bronze floated in geometric patterns down from her hands and into Nora’s shoulder.

  “She’ll be fine.” Maggie said, before I asked. “Got hit with a fire spell, some kind of pulsing dart. Her arm got burnt pretty bad but the [Healers] here do good work. Doubt she’ll even have the scar the prove the story.”

  I was going to ask how she’d performed, given that all I’d seen of her was the brief casting on the bridge, but before I could, the counterweights on the trebuchets dropped and another volley of stones took to the air. As they flew, I shuffled closer to the central spire and the spiress; my logic being that the spires were probably the most structurally sound thing here and that I doubted Saga or Gunilla would allow one of the boulders anywhere close to hitting Sylvie.

  They proved me right on the next volley. A stone that looked destined to smash against the central spire suddenly veered to the left to bounce harmlessly into the courtyard. My worries about being crushed slightly abated. I looked to the siege towers and mobile roofs to see them back behind the forward wall.

  It was over, finally over. No longer in immediate danger, I gave a silent prayer to Ylena and Iona for their support, and dedicated all the deaths at my hands to feeding the Howling Winds. I would give no goblin safe passage to the next life.

  Gently I felt the Touch of the Black Hand recede, as if reluctant. Pain and exhaustion screamed to life inside me, like a suffocated house fire suddenly given air my body erupted in molten agony. I sagged against the red stone of the spire, using the jagged brick as support.

  The worst of the pain radiated from just above my right hip. With my shield to keep me steady, I slid down the wall to sit, the scales of my armor occasionally catching and snapping back into place as I did so.

  The wound was small, only about the size of my palm. But it’d torn through my armor and the chain mail beneath. Its jagged edges told me that whatever caused it wasn’t a blade and I went to prod the edges of it, but a hand caught my own before I could.

  Maggie stood over me, concern etched across her face. With both hands, she lifted me to my feet, using intense care to set me gently down. Once I was standing, she had me wrap an arm around her shoulder so she could take most of my weight while she led me to the injured.

  “You’re a lodestone for pain, aren’t ya?”