The citadel gates opened for the third defense line. Levitating men and women in flowing robes hurried through before the heavy doors closed. Mechanisms slid into place, so loud Percival felt the thud in his chest. He wondered if it was the last time those slabs of wood and steel would welcome anyone in.

Here at the end of an empire Percival only remembered the parts that worked, the systems that made an entity a hundred million strong stand for a thousand years. He remembered joyous citizens, a treasury so filled with gold and talium they could afford annual festivals for the entire capital. They would often receive visits from the other provinces from Aldren elites just for those events. Immense banquets and balls. Extravagant performances, fine wines, and exotic foods. Some of which had come from many a campaign he had won for the Emperor. He also bedded many a starstruck woman who thought him a hero. The voice had been there as well. Percival’s heart sank as he recalled what he had been told years ago, “This is all a front, Percy. You’re all wallowing in deficit like fatted hogs.” But he had two supple thighs wrapped in a trembling grip around his head at the time, and wouldn’t hear of it. It all made sense of course; the voice only gave him advice if it knew he wouldn’t take heed. There was no limit to how much it enjoyed tormenting him.

But how could he hate it? The voice had been right about everything thus far. Except one thing. People do change, and for the better; he had seen it before. He would prove the voice wrong before he was through with life.

Now wasn’t the time. The undead had formed amalgamations, towering masses that could easily scale the walls if not shatter them. Hot wind ferried the smell of carrion and the telltale spice of unnatural energy. Percival gritted his teeth, resisting the building nausea welling up from his stomach. He left the top of the wall and rejoined his men on the courtyard.

People were yelling. Boots ground against wet dirt and upturned tufts of grass. The doctors and nurses were being escorted into the citadel. A few were resisting the guards’ corral with what little strength their ilk possessed. Their quiet complaints dwindled all the way to the main entrance. The white tents were left unattended. Aldren’s regal two-headed deer warped to the movements of fabric, dancing to the cloying scent of death. Injured men laid in their beds next to a shallow pile of previous patients the doctors had given up on. There hadn’t been time to bury them.

Percival nudged the flap aside and crossed from courtyard to purgatory. Men coughed in their sleep. Those awake could be surmised to be alive from the occasional blink their empty eyes did on occasion. By the corners of the tents, the metal of the beds shook from their occupants struggling against their restraints. Those patients had lost their ability to speak.

Barathon stepped through. He tapped Percival’s pauldron with the back of his knuckle.

“It’s time. Standard proce-”

“I know,” Percival said. His dominant hand gripped the hilt of his weapon until his knuckles were as white as winter.

He heard more sounds of boots. Soldiers were approaching the other tents. A pair of footsteps landed softly beside them, belonging to a thin man in the scarlet robe of Tireliam’s Third Cadre. Gold lettering marked the mage’s attire with his position and rank in the old tongues. Embroidered on his shoulder was the crest of the dragon’s head, the insignia of arcanery, and it was adjacent to the two-headed deer. Percival hid his disgust. The juxtaposition was everything anyone needed to know about casters.

“I’m Fulkurr Drei, here to oversee,” the mage introduced himself.

More soldiers arrived. Ten in total. There'd be ten for each tent.

“You have three minutes,” Fulkurr said.

“Welp, I want to be on the right side when the citadel locks,” Barathon said. He drew his sword.

Percival drew his as well and approached the side of the first bed. The occupant turned his eyes towards him. Two brown islands on bloodshot whites, half open. Cracked lips parted, and when the young man spoke it was with the strength of loosened ash from a spent chimney.

“Be swift, Lord Mason.”

Percival swung. The young man was two. A red-black sea seeped into the pillowcase. He looked away when the mage’s turn came. The tent was briefly lit by firelight. A plume of flame for each head, including the ones that were dead before. When it was all done and the air was thick with the smell of roast, Percival took a deep breath, forcing himself to acknowledge the sight, sound, and scent before him, and whispered, “May your memories live in your family and friends, and not in the hands of evil.”

Fulkurr patted his sleeves clean of ash and blew out the last tongue of flame on his fingertips.

“Now, we must go into the citadel,” He said.

A soldier questioned, “Why? How long can we hold if your kind has given up?”

“Trust in the Highcaster, comrade,” the mage replied. He smiled after, as an afterthought.

But you don’t trust him, Percival thought, resisting a scowl.

“Come on!” The guards were yelling by the citadel entrance. “Thirty seconds!”

The soldiers and mages hurried into the citadel. Behind him, yet another set of gates cranked shut. Percival lingered on the antecessor hallway, where wall height windows once showed the splendor of the city. The others rushed past him. Greaves progressed the spidery cracks that had developed in the marble floors, the rich amber-white now a muddy color with a rusted note.

He looked out at the city now. The districts bathed in the penumbra of the mages’ pale stars. The Spell was waning; the light that had enabled their meager defense lines was nearly spent. But not before Percival was allowed to witness Aldren architecture crushed under the weight of the enormous monsters that were moments away from the citadel walls. Hundreds of rotted faces leered at him from the pits in their bodies, like the fleshy bulbs from the pox. And just as the monsters began battering the walls, the last star winked. It had become wholly dark. Silent.

Then it was dawn. The soldiers that remained in the halls nearly fell over each other from the sudden sunrise outside the windows. Percival turned away. A pulsating pain settled in the back of his eyeballs. He blinked away tears. The world became a veiny orange for a few moments.

The definition in the clouds had become visible. A swathing wave of the purest fire so perfect in form as to resemble the sun itself had fallen from the sky and drenched the area just outside their walls. The flame branched off into blankets, tenderly embracing the undead monsters. The waves must have been kilometers wide. Even where he stood he had never felt a summer hotter. Percival broke into a run before his skin began to blister.

When he entered the main halls, the soldiers had already regained some of their spirit. Some had begun chanting, “Hail the Highcaster! Hail Tireliam!”

It was too much. Percival removed himself from the halls as quickly as he could. Along the way, had men try to stop him with mutterings of recognition. He ignored them all. Finally he was alone on a balcony near the citadel’s bedrooms. The stench of the battlefield was favorable to anywhere back there.

“Has survival ever tasted so bitter?”

“Have you seen this happen before? These events?” He was shouting, and he didn’t care if he was heard.

“Like I said, Percy, humans repeat their mistakes. Your age did not invent the idea of stagnancy and fall.”

“Why do you watch us do this again and again? What entertainment can you derive from this repetition?”

“I’m waiting to be surprised. I just might stand to wait forever.”

“I’ll show you the unexpected.” Percival stormed off. From corridor to staircase. Higher and higher. He traversed the citadel all the way to the casters’ towers. Up familiar stairs he marched, his legs crying for a moment’s respite, until he was faced with the back of Tireliam’s cloak.

The Highcaster had just lowered his hand as he finished his cast, and he was radiant. His armored cloak looked molten, yet it held its congruency. One degree at a time Tireliam wound his power back as he turned to meet Percival. The Highcaster’s expression was a single confused curl in his brow above brilliant eyes.

“Percival? The appointment has not yet come.”

“I’ve never seen that Spell before,” Percival said, holding back a scowl.

“Yes? It takes time to prepare.”

“Not once in the years we’ve been fighting the Faleri.”

Tireliam frowned. “I don’t follow.”

“How many are dead because you waited so long to unleash such a tool? Did there ever need to be defense lines?”

“My boy-”

“Answer me, old man!”

Tireliam opened his mouth in a theatric search for words.

“I don’t know what to say,” the Highcaster said. “We can’t tip our hand until our play is perfect. This is the way wars are fought.”

“We’ve. Lost! We are but a dim ember choked into a corner!”

“There are… always other wars.”

“You treacherous-!” Percival wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his sword. It wouldn’t unsheathe. He tried again, harder this time. Nothing. Not an inch.

Tireliam watched him with a mused look.

“What have you done?” Percival said through grit teeth. He continued trying to draw his weapon.

“The cold in your blade is a tribal goddess of some snowed-in hill,” Tireliam said. His bemusement began to turn to boredom. “It refuses to be drawn because it wants to keep the memory of its people alive, Percy.”

Percival’s anger was giving way to sense. He let go of his weapon, slowly, one finger at a time and relaxed his posture. Tireliam nodded approvingly, then walked leisurely to a series of cupboards on the other side of the room.

“Shall we have an early breakfast while we wait to see what our necromancer concocts next?”