The supersonic crack of an enhanced voltech rifle echoed from west main street and through the window. Dimitry did not look outside. Although heathens soared between buildings, he excised contaminated flesh from the liquefactive puncture wound in his patient’s calf—the first casualty since the stone monsters resumed their assault.

“Lili, check on Angelika and Leona!”

“Yes, Mr. Dimitry!” The freckled nurse lowered the jug from which she poured distilled water onto the scout’s partial-thickness burns and glanced outside.

“Protectia!” Leona shouted.

Iron clanged as if ricocheting against nothing.

A bolt darted over Dimitry’s head and shattered a ceramic pot on a shelf.

“Lili,” he shouted. "You alright?!"

"I'm fine, Mr. Dimitry!" She inhaled a tense breath. "The sorceresses are fighting some people outside! They have crossbows and—"

Basketball-sized barrels flew in through the window. They burst, splattering tar onto furniture and all over a woolen carpet.

Using his back to shield the patient, tar drenched his red and gold uniform.

"Ignia, ignia, ignia, ig—" a man’s voice chanted frantically before sudden silence.

Flames flared across the room, drawing nearer.

Dimitry’s fears manifesting into reality drained all sensation from his hands. Hoping whoever tried to kill him would give up, he threw his uniform aside and hastily entombed the scout’s bleeding leg with gauze. “Lili, find the homeowners and guide them to the cathedral. When you get there, tell the porters to bring as much distilled water as they can carry. I’ll handle the patient.”

“Yes, Mr. Dimitry!” Her boots stomped up carpeted stairs.

Angelika kicked down the door and rushed closer. “I’m so, so sorry. I fucked up. I didn’t think there’d—”

“We’ll talk about it later.” Dimitry lifted the scout from under his shoulders. “Grab his feet carefully.”

“Got ‘em.”

The scout screamed.

“I said carefully!”

“I’m being as careful as I can! Hop off my—”

The window shutters burst open. Leona’s alarmed face appeared beyond them. “The tents are on fire!”

Dimitry glanced past her, and his heart skipped a beat. He couldn’t care less about the field hospital. Goods were replaceable. What concerned him most was the crate of bombs that Clewin delivered that evening. Lukas never came by to collect them. They remained inside the supply tent, and, if detonated, the resulting shrapnel would kill hundreds. He had to clear the streets now!

“Should I bring water from the well?!” Leona asked.

“No!” Dimitry said. “Get the hell away from here and take everyone with you.”

“What if they don’t listen to me?”

“Make them listen! What’s inside that tent will kill hundreds if it goes off.”

Leona nodded hesitantly and rushed into a dark street illuminated by flames, moonlight, and ephemeral green sparks. “The apostle proclaims west main street to be unsafe. Everyone must leave!”

“Wait.” Angelika’s eyes locked onto Dimitry’s as they carried the scout outside and towards a roofed alley. “You mean the bombs are still inside?”

“I do.”

“Why the fuck does everything have to go to shit all the fucking time?!”

“My thoughts exactly.” Dimitry dropped the scout onto a carved brick floor. “We’ll come back for you once it’s safe.”

The scout waved him away.

Refugees stampeded from the alleys, a few civilians left their homes, and three flying devils soared overhead. They shot feathers as they passed.

“Protectia,” Angelika and Leona chanted with outstretched palms.

Every projectile dropped to the ground.

“Good job.” Dimitry glanced back at the field hospital.

Unfazed, the pious remained beside the aflame tents, muttering hasty prayers. Did they intend to just stand there? Dimitry turned to Angelika. “Leave with your sister.”

“Are you telling me to sit back while you heroically pull bombs out of a burning tent so those morons don’t get blown up?”

“Yes.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“No you’re not.” Dimitry pushed against the tides of people rushing past him. “If I’m too late, I don’t need you to die with me. You’re young and you have a family that loves you.”

“I’m young?” Angelika trailed behind him. “Stop talking like you’re some wise fucking hermit beyond your years.”

“I’m not joking.”

“As your guard, do you know how bad it’ll look if you die before me? While I’m on duty? The sorceresses at the guild’ll never let me live it down! And what if more idiots try to kill you? There are flying devils too!”

Leona’s warning rang true; Angelika was too loyal for her own good. However, as Dimitry lifted the entrance flap of a tent engulfed in flames and prepared to dive into the blistering heat, he had only gratitude for her accompaniment. “Stay low, cover your face, and grab the surgical tools. I’ll get the bombs.”

“Yup!” Angelika tossed her rifle and flammable red robe aside, revealing toned arms and glowing leather armor beneath.

Dimitry heard only deafening fiery roars while crouching past cindering woolen blankets, tent poles, and smoke. His goal lay below a bed with burning covers. A crate full of explosives. He knew not the autoignition temperature for black powder, but if he didn’t bring the bombs outside before the heat intensified, he would never find out.

The inhalation of scorching fumes accumulated mucus in his throat, coaxing from him several coughs. Dimitry grabbed the crate. Although the wood hadn’t caught fire, the heat seared his palms. He grit his teeth and ignored the pain as he dragged the bombs past shriveling leather and onto the streets.

“Angelika,” he yelled. “You alright in there?!”

As a burning tent pole collapsed and the rest of the structure followed, the girl emerged with the tool crate. She coughed.

Did she sustain a thermal injury to her upper airway? A chemical injury? Maybe superheated carbon monoxide and cyanide resulted in hypoxia. Dimitry leaned in to check for early signs of inhalation injury. A lack of facial burns and carbonaceous deposits in her nostrils provided some relief.

“Stop staring into my nose, you weirdo.” Angelika spat onto the ground. “I’m fine.”

He examined her saliva. Thankfully, it was clear and without soot. “If you develop a fever or have trouble breathing, I want to be the first to know.”

“I said I’m fine!”

“You don’t know if you’re fine. Most symptoms don’t start to appear until—”

Another horn rang from atop the western gatehouse.

Angelika’s head shot up.

Dimitry froze.

Was another raid coming?

Two in one night?

A robed woman’s dark silhouette raced across the northwestern battlements and rushed down the steps of the nearby gatehouse. It was Elze—a sorceress Dimitry treated earlier that night. She stopped in front of them, heaving for air. “The guildmistress… she says to clear the streets and retreat to the castle. We’ll stage an offensive there.”

“Wha—” Angelika stepped forward. “Is everyone okay?!”

“We can’t defend against two raids at once. We’re still dealing with the first!”

“Do you guys need me back? If you don’t have enough—”

“There isn’t time!” Elze’s voice cracked despite a mostly composed posture. “Mira sent me here to vacate the city before the carapaced devil comes. You two must help me.”

Dimitry cursed under his breath and kicked away a burning plank. If the first heathen raid was predictive of the next, another carapaced devil would siege the walls within minutes. He couldn’t empty main street in time, and civilians would remain behind to pray despite his authority as the apostle. An evacuation wouldn’t work. They hadn’t the time or manpower. Worse still, the heathens were behaving erratically tonight. What if they roamed the city and slaughtered every civilian before targeting the castle walls?

He glanced down at the crate of bombs by his feet, the two sorceresses in front of him, and then at the market square, from where Leona and Lili would eventually arrive with porters in tow. A plan brewed in his mind. “How big is this raid?”

“Class three.”

“That’s around forty heathens and a carapaced devil, right?”

Elze nodded. “We must hurry.”

“I understand the rush, but regrouping won’t work,” Dimitry said. “It’s too late. If we don’t hold the line here, I fear there won’t be much city left by morning.”

“Hold the line?! With all due respect, Jade Surgeon, Mira can’t spare anyone else!" Elze lifted her sleeve to display the bandaged stitches on her forearm. “The only reason she sent me as a messenger was because of my injury.”

“Can you still operate your rifle and cast magic?”

“Shall I cover your retreat?”

“No. I want you to fight with us.”

“Just us three?” Elze uttered. “My duty is to die for this kingdom, but we’ll perish for naught.”

“I understand your hesitation, but I’ve got an idea.”

Angelika’s eyes gleamed. “Is it more of your crazy magic?” She shook his shoulders. “Can you kill those bastards?!”

Dimitry peeled away the girl’s fingers. “Take a deep breath and relax.”

Angelika’s belly swiftly expanded and deflated.

“Good. Now listen carefully, both of you. Here’s what I need you to do.”

A market square full of cowering refugees grew further congested. The stench of sweat and unwashedness intensified as hundreds rushed in from west main street, escaping smoldering clouds rising from what was once the city’s third-most prosperous district.

“There’s gonna be a second heathen raid,” said a man coiled in matted rags to a similarly dressed woman.

She hesitated to speak. “It’ll… it’ll be fine, yeah? The apostle stayed behind. He’ll banish ‘em.”

“What are those sorceresses doing at a time like this?!” a senior shouted from a second-floor window to their neighbor.

“I hear they’re still fighting off the first wave.”

“Then why do we pay taxes if they can’t even protect us?!”

“Are we going to die like dad?” A boy asked, looking up at his mother as he sat on her lap.

The mother slowly rocked back and forth. Her terrified eyes absently stared at the opposite alley wall. “N-no. We’ll be fine. We have to be fine, but let’s recite Celeste’s prayer of parting just in case.”

Saphiria’s home was falling.

It was falling.

Dashing past endless subjects, her vision grew blurrier with every forward step, but what concerned her most was not the impending collapse of the western walls. She worried about the knights that fought on the front lines, charging in to kill a crawler before it could reach the walls. She worried about the sorceresses, who fought with unguarded flanks.

And she worried about Dimitry. Saphiria’s fists clenched tighter, and her nails dug deeper into her palms. Knowing him, he remained to treat the injured despite being unable to defend himself.

Leandra ran beside her. To keep Saphiria’s identity as royalty hidden, she wore red robes instead of the customary yellow garbs that announced a court sorceress’s authority. People would normally bow before her might. Now, however, the decorated war hero shoved aside refugees rushing in the opposite direction.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Leandra said, “but we absolutely cannot reinforce the front lines.”

The words sundered Saphiria’s heart, but she didn’t dispute them. “Having to defend the princess would only distract Malten’s protectors. I will not burden them further with my presence.”

“Glad to hear that Your Royal Highness has sense.”

Saphiria looked up at the white smoke rising from across the market square. “And we have our own duties to attend to.”

“I can only hope Her Royal Majesty agrees.” Leandra palmed away a face covered in grime. “When she learns that I permitted you to rush into danger after eight years of hearing her pray to reunite with you, she would have my head.”

“Mother prayed to reunite with me?”

“… Just mindless musings. Ignore me.”

Even as Saphiria’s limbs burned with urgency, a warmness within her chest battled against icy memories of Mother barking order after order. Did she merely wish for the return of the heiress she invested endless resources into raising or did more lay behind Mother’s distant glares?

The heartening thought dispersed when Dimitry’s chemistry lab came into view. Sparse smoke filtered through a gap in the granite wall, and outside the archway entrance lay a royal guard with a cavernous dent in his steel helmet. Scattered around him were many makeshift iron bludgeons and four corpses that bled from disemboweled torsos.

“Move!” Leandra bellowed, her voice carrying powerfully amidst harsh winds.

Refugees muttering prayers shoved into alleys and against each other to vacate space.

Saphiria lifted the helmet’s visor to discover a familiar face. It was that of a man who once carried her to the castle in his arms when Father fell drunk at a banquet, but now had brain and bone bashed from his skull.

Heaviness sank and festered within the depths of Saphiria’s belly. “Riquin is dead.”

“Lord Riquin?” Leandra uttered. Face awash in barely suppressed rage, she turned to face the refugees. “The first to tell me who killed the royal guardsman and where they fled will receive one gold mark!”

“That way, m’lady!” a masculine voice uttered.

“I saw them too, madam sorceress!”

“There were four of ‘em!”

While Leandra questioned witnesses, Saphiria explored the church for clues.

Atop granite tables rested cast iron fragments, glass shards, and partially intact vials and beakers. The base of a pillar upholding the roof broke as if from an overpowering force. Blood showered the walls and shattered stained glass windows. Limbs lay separate from a dozen corpses, some blown across the church.

On the clothes of the dead were crudely stitched insignias. Those that belonged to gangs. Like the ones that plagued Estoria’s slums.

Saphiria’s eyes widened. Did Tenebrae infest Malten as well? She had never looked, usually wandering nostalgic streets for glints of the past instead. However, with swathes of disenfranchised peasants populating the streets, she should have expected some to organize into criminality.

In all likelihood, someone hired them to ransack the Jade Surgeon’s facilities. Whether their goal was to strike fear into the apostle or steal his chemistry equipment was unclear.

And their deaths were even more mysterious.

Saphiria’s gaze fell to the remnants of an obscure contraption on the floor. It resembled a shattered cast iron pot interlaced with flint and steel fragments. Was that the source of the white smoke and the explosion? Did Dimitry leave it here?

Another horn sounded from the western wall.

She froze.

The second heathen raid drew near.

“I have tracked the culprits!” Leandra shouted through the entrance. “If you wish to quench this flame, we must move swiftly!”

Quelling extraneous thoughts once more, Saphiria rushed forward. She wouldn't allow the survivors to escape.

Behind Dimitry stood Malten’s western gatehouse. In front of him, green-tinted dust rose as over forty heathens encroached. There were no walls between him and them.

On this open field was Dimitry, a flock of stone birds, more than a dozen oversized daddy-long-legs, and in the center of the heathen swarm, a tortoise beast half as tall as Malten’s castle. Whenever each of its massive feet stomped forward, shock waves shook the ground, each tremor louder and heavier than the last.

Feeling the vibrations traverse the sole of his boot and rattle his legs, Dimitry froze. He stared unblinkingly despite icy winds slamming into his eyes. The nightmarish horrors amazed and paralyzed him, and the speed with which they approached exceeded his most hopeful expectations.

Countless questions whizzed through his head. Why did moonlight empower heathens? How did they organize into raids? Could they communicate amongst each other, or were unseen entities controlling them like pieces on a chessboard? Perhaps the lull earlier in the night was them halting their attack to organize into larger waves. Angelika mentioned there weren’t more heathens than usual. What if—

A crunch in the night.

Dimitry’s head shot back.

He saw nothing. Nothing except the frantic commotion around Malten’s northwestern walls several kilometers away. Crawlers clawed up at the battlements and swiped at the knights circling them, who charged in upon their steeds to bash their massive rock hammers into a spherical core. White smoke rose from a carapaced devil, who continued to ram into the wall despite countless explosions and blue blood pooling from its decapitated neck. Fliers attacked in formation, one occasionally dying midair only to crash into a crowd of shrieking sorceresses.

For fuck’s sake.

They had enough shit to deal with. Dimitry couldn’t burden them with another raid. He briefly paid his respects to every heroic warrior before swinging the last set of bombs onto a tree as if they were bolas.

In groups of five, cast iron orbs hung from the boughs of withered oaks, swaying with every gale like upside-down cluster balloons at a hectic midnight carnival. Intertwined suturing thread tethered sets of bombs together and around a thick branch. Four such clusters surrounded Dimitry, forming the corners of a lopsided quadrilateral half the size of a basketball court.

The idea came to Dimitry upon realizing his only armaments were surgical tools and a chest of bombs. Without the manpower to cover them with sticky lomnent and toss them onto heathens before they reached the walls, Dimitry considered deploying them like land mines.

But that wouldn’t work.

Ground-level blasts from low explosives like black powder would do little more than chip away at dense stone like that of a carapaced devil’s leg. Most bombs would probably be crushed underfoot instead. Even if the payload detonated successfully, the shrapnel couldn’t pierce thick stone, let alone strike a flying devil with enough momentum to deal damage. The only way bombs could harm heathens was with a direct hit to their thinly shielded cores.

Unfortunately, heathen cores hovered at least three meters off the ground. That was why Dimitry suspended explosives off of trees directly in the path of the approaching heathen raid. The bombs dangled at the same level as a crawling or carapaced’ devil’s core. Once the enemy passed through, Angelika, Elze, and Leona would cast ignia on each cluster, setting off every detonation from the relative safety of Malten’s walls. The distance would eliminate any chance of friendly fire while dealing maximum damage.

But Dimitry’s trap wasn’t ready.

Not yet.

Until the heathens marched close enough, Dimitry couldn’t ice the cake. The last addition, the one that would obliterate his enemies with frightening force, had a duration too short to use in advance.

So he waited.

He waited while the horde stomped closer; the ground shaking with adrenaline-spiking ferocity. If Precious were with him and not sleeping in the cathedral, she’d probably be shrieking for him to flee.

“Hey!” A silhouette much like Angelika’s frantically waved from atop Malten’s western gatehouse fifty meters away. “You shitting yourself out there?!”

“Not yet!” Dimitry lied, waving back. “Just watch for my signal and be ready!”

“Don’t die!”

“I’ll try not to!”

“Good!”

Angelika wasn’t the best motivational speaker. Whether their brief interaction left Dimitry alert or anxious was unclear. His teeth chattered, his arms shook, and his eyes tracked the heathens stampeding closer only to discover something severely wrong.

The flying devils flew ahead of the raid, swerving to the sides, rapidly enclosing from all sides.

They would reach Dimitry in moments! That wasn’t what Angelika told him to expect! She said fliers stayed with the group until the raid had reached Malten’s walls.

“Get the fuck out of there!” Angelika’s distant scream echoed in the night.

Leona and Elze yelled equally foreboding warnings.

Dimitry couldn’t abide. If he fled now, Malten would fall. Stalling the fliers until the entire heathen raid entered the blast zone was his best bet. With a trembling hand, he grabbed ten pure vol pellets from beneath his red and gold uniform.

When the kneecap of the tortoise slammed into a collapsed cottage fifty paces away, and a dozen fliers soared close enough to launch projectiles, Dimitry consumed a pellet.

“Accelall.”

The heathens’ advance slowed to a crawl. Many stone feathers neared with the velocities of toddlers’ baseball pitches. The tremors of twenty land-based heathens’ stomping rumbled deep and protracted.

Dimitry dashed around the blast zone, sidestepping feathers pummeling into dirt in front and beside him, corrosive blue puddles forming wherever they landed. He hopped around the blood while monitoring the carapaced devil.

It too did not behave as he had hoped.

A massive tortoise leg, movement protracted and powerful, decimated a tree upholding a bomb cluster. All five cast iron orbs shattered beneath monstrous stone flippers.

Shit!

If Dimitry waited much longer, he wouldn’t have a single bomb left! He tightened his grip around the pure vol pellets, sliding beneath a swiping crawler’s leg to reach a bomb cluster hanging from a thick branch. “Accelall.”

Three pellets surged through his arm as feverish heat flushed across his body.

Dimitry ignored the discomfort and darted under the carapaced devil, which pummeled its torso into the ground a moment too late to crush him, to reach the second bomb cluster. “Accelall.”

Feedback seared through his limbs like electrocautery pens when he touched the last. “Accelall.”

Leaving time-accelerated explosives behind him, Dimitry limped away from the crawling devils chasing him. He forced his drained body into a jog, then a sprint, regaining his balance as he rushed to the safety of Malten’s western gatehouse.

The wobbling terrain, an escalating migraine, and his overindulgence in vol made him lean over to retch. This evening’s salmon roast poured from his mouth. Dimitry spat out the sour remnants and continued running.

Right before he entered Malten’s gatehouse, Dimitry grabbed another pellet. He imagined double-bonded oxygen atoms accepting vol’s energy and releasing it in a burst of light. “Illumina!”

Dispersed specks of fluorescent blue light, the signal flare, shot from his palm and merged with the green sparks of the night of repentance as they rose into the sky.

Something terrifying erupted behind him. Slow and deep vibrations rocked the ground like a magnitude eight earthquake. A bellowing blast crashed into Dimitry’s ears as if to rupture his tympanic membranes and murder every hair cell on his cochlea.

The explosion Angelika, Elze, and Leona had set off with ignia.

A glance back revealed a blurry image of a flier with shrapnel-shattered wings plummeting to the ground. A crawler lacking limbs. And a carapaced devil oozing blood through countless chinks in its shell.

Overwhelming relief coursed through Dimitry.

Muffled hoots cheered from the battlements above.

The carapaced devil raised its head to the sky.