They had come this far. Weeks of marching. Days of fighting.

War had shown the true faces of those Thael traveled with. Krystos appeased and always tried for diplomacy. Several assassination attempts had been subdued. Several towns and cities had opened their doors without resistance. Those that did not knelt not too long after. Krystos had seen what humanity was capable of. Thael and his cadre were well too familiar with such acts.

The legions loyal to the arch queen had fought with the full support of the mage and Wraith Orders. They had not fought as a whole army, however. Their smaller hosts had harried their weakest flanks, retreating back in their lesser-numbered mobility.

Still they had marched and pressed forward; northward.

Thael and his cadre trudged over muddy ground alongside Krystos and the columns of soldiers in front dressed in the violet heraldry of Vinnith and the strange scaled armor of the Haolans; the few otherworldly cadres of Umbrans with their black liquid armor bearing tower-shields and their mysterious magic. Krystos and the Demon King beside had been given masses of black by the Umbrans that were akin to Wraiths of the Order’s ritual, instead encasing them in suits of darkened metal like their givers.

Metal giants wrought of the same material over thirty feet tall plodded before them between the formations, smooth in the faceless form of a man. Thael had seen it used merely to break through walls and gates. There would be many walls to tear down as he witnessed the sprawling capital of Delphi appear down the sloping dirt road.

The black towers at the city center cast their shadows over the surrounding districts. Wrynn gathered over the kingdom, looking like giant carrion, great dark forms that flocked at the arch queen’s call.

“Looks like the entire fucking order is out there,” Cyrus said.

“This is it then,” Loric stated. “This is where it all ends.”

“This is where it shall begin,” Krystos said.

“Above!” Someone yelled.

The Umbrans unleashed their hail of fire magic and metalcraft. The wrynn dove down and crashed into the formations. Horns called out, deep and prolonged in signal to march ever faster, ever closer.

The metal Umbran giants strode over them all, a dark gleaming sheen to their titanic forms.

The shadows of the towers fell heavy upon them as they approached. The dark titans stopped before the high walls. Flatbows shot their bolts to bounce off their flanks. Pitch was hurled over with flaming bolts, patches of fire licking their metal bodies.

The five Umbran giants stood in an unyielding line, until they raised their arms in unison, closing their hands into fists. The stone walls crashed and crumbled under the sheer force of their blows.

The mass of wrynn screeched as they swarmed them. Metal squealed on metal with their brightsteel tipped talons, sparks flying out to spread smoldering fires over the surrounding grassland. The metal constructs were blotted out by the sheer number of wrynn. A giant held the wings of one smaller wrynn and snapped them apart, only to be covered by the scything talons of the rest.

The Umbran cadres knelt at the forefront. The sound of their sorcery rang in Thael’s ears. The giant birds withered and twitched upon the ground, darkness covering the still battling giants and wrynn.

Shadow faded into the many bodies of Wraiths that had ridden the wrynn. Three of the metal titans had been fractured and ripped apart. One giant stood with its arm torn off, jagged metal sprouting with hidden workings that sparked out its life essence. The other was whole save for its blackened metal skin scratched with long deep gashes.

The constructs waded through the rubble, clearing a path for them to follow.

The Umbrans withdrew to the backlines as the Vinnish, and Haolans poured into the city. The loyalist soldiers were waiting in crammed formations on every street, every corner, every alleyway. The Umbran giants were at the forefront, pummeling at the crowds of soldiers. They barged their way through and reached a wall twenty feet high, curving and smooth. The giants made short work of demolishing the barrier and they pressed onwards.

Thael saw a boulder-sized orb of crimson, near black in the dark, forming over several Wraiths’ raised arms. Thael realized that it was the blood that had puddled over the cobblestones from the countless corpses.

The great orb fractured into spear-like missiles that flew towards them.

“Get down!” Rao, the Demon King, roared.

The missiles shattered like glass against the Umbran metal barrier. Others were speared through with the solidified blood of their comrades, leaving gaping wounds that flowed out fresh blood.

“Press forward!” Commander Ziad yelled. “Do not let them reform another volley!”

His soldiers charged forward. The greenish-blue light of their weapons banished the Wraiths’ Shrouds, the moon revealing the dark cloaked men and women that Thael had fought beside; killed alongside.

They had somehow destroyed one of the metal giants, now armless and headless, slumped against a wall. The last remaining construct stepped back to kneel and scythe a hand through the Wraiths’ ranks and they fell like insects. Those few that survived retreated and slipped into the night.

They continued into the inner Circle, the many towers casting their heavy shadows over the loyalist formations that awaited them. They were the soldiers the Faith, and none were left alive, the Umbrans granting them no mercy.

The dark colossus that had led the way had been wrought of the same material as the black bleak tower that stood at the center of it all – the Citadel. Its arched gates, looming over even the Umbran giant, were made from the great trees of the Elder Forest, felled, hewed, and moved all the way to the city during the era of King Celdan.

The metal titan reared back from the great gate to kick out, its foot puncturing a ragged hole into the wood thick as the stone walls. It pummeled the door, splinters large enough to impale men falling with each crashing blow.

The seas of men ground at each other until their heraldry was torn and stained – bloody crimson, sickly green, and fecal brown. Still the Umbran construct struck down the gate before it, ear-splitting rasping cracks of wood tearing and fracturing apart. The gate shattered in a shower of fragments and slivers that crushed or speared through some of the men still caught in battle. The Umbrans formed a squared formation and held up their tower-shields to protect them from the falling debris.

“What’s happening?!” Krystos yelled over the screeching clangor of pounding metal echoing throughout the city.

When the shields covering them were lowered they all witnessed the twin titan that had emerged from the tower's tattered gates. It had struck the Umbran construct with a massive hiltless greatsword, shining silver in the moonlight. It scraped out the sword with screeching sparks, kicking the Umbran giant toppling down to the mass of retreating soldiers.

“We must fly into the tower!” the Umbran commander Ziad shouted. “If we do not kill whoever controls the goliath, we will lose everything!”

The Wraiths each wrapped their limbs round a metal suited Umbran, Krystos with his own suit of their otherworldly armor. Thael held tight despite his lagging strength. They flew low to the ground, over the men still fighting, past the clashing thunderclaps of force and sound between the two dueling titans, their forms dark against the white moon.

They passed the shattered remains of the once great gates. Within was a vast hall carpeted in scarlet, equally stark red banners bearing the arch queen’s eagle sigil hanging over each wall.

They landed and gathered in formation, the Umbrans in their metal armor standing at their forefront. Krystos, Rao, and Ziad stood between another backline of black-armored men and women. Thael and his cadre formed the flanks of the rectangle formation.

The Umbrans drew their turquoise crystal swords, their faint bluish light their only solace from the suffocating darkness. The clatter and sparks of thrown daggers grazed past the armored Umbrans. Still they moved forward without pause, without hesitation. It had taken everything to reach this place. It would take much more to survive what was to come.

Hundreds of feet above were curved roofings which were suspended like wilted petals, each held by mechanical gears. From the opened ceiling, pale moonlight fell all the way down to the many circled-stepped throne, wrought from what must have been a singular massive white marble piece, looming overhead. Dark suited mages lined the steps, standing still, cloaked in crimson. Upon the throne sat the arch queen.

She smiled, her raven-haired sterile beauty bringing focus to her green eyes that glimmered like hard, cold emeralds. Her tall slender body was covered in the same pitch black liquid armor as her Circle of Magi.

“Hello, brother,” she called out. “Have you come to take my throne?”

“Do not answer,” Ziad murmured.

“You shall face justice for all the atrocities you’ve committed, Lyssa!” Krystos shouted. “There is no return from what you’ve done!”

The ground quaked and the air boomed from the distant metal giants still locked in their titanic struggle just outside the tower, alongside the roar of the soldiers.

The Arch Queen sighed, rising, taking a step down the throne, then another. “Brother, brother, little brother. You were always so weak and conniving, and now you dare face me with all your little friends?” She took a double-bladed staff from a bowing mage. “I’m going to kill all your little friends. Then I’ll let my soldiers enjoy your feeble body before I will enjoy cutting you apart and mending you back together, until that rat-like mind of yours begs to die. If you surrender now, perhaps I will let you – after everything has been done.” She shrugged, her armor creeping up to encase her head before her last words. “That wouldn’t be fun though, would it?”

“Thael,” Ziad said. “Take your cadre and do not engage in direct combat. Kill the Wraiths.”

Thael and the others were already shadowed as the Umbran formation sheathed their swords and moved into a singular line of metal suited magi. They charged and flew overhead, or careened into clanking metal pounding upon metal. Thael saw that their armor was not just for protection, as their hands shaped into hammers, binding whips, and sprouting swords.

Thael and his cadre prowled around the remaining Wraiths, ambushing them, stifling their mouths before moving to the next cadre of Wraiths. The last cadre caught on to their missing allies and Thael leaped back from a man’s sweeping broadsword. He spun below the man’s swing and stuck his sword through his thigh, stabbing his neck as he tottered down to kneel. Somewhere in their skirmish Loric had been wounded, grievously, Cyrus holding him as he shuddered for breath, blood dripping from his gaping mouth.

“Hold on, man, hold on,” Cyrus comforted the dying Wraith.

Loric smiled. “Seems I died… before you were… ready…” his eyes glassed over.

They stood around him as Cyrus closed Loric’s eyes.

“So will he be forgotten,” they intoned together. “So will he be free.”

Cyrus laid his body down on the cold, hard, black floor and stood with them.

“Let’s kill those mage cunts,” he growled.

"Don't engage them in close quarters," Thael ordered. "Look for an opening."

They circled round the mages, waiting to strike. Verena buffeted them with her winds, scattering them all before more of the Umbrans could be slaughtered. The Umbrans recovered rushed the prone mages, prying off their black armor with their bladed and fingers.

Ziad and Rao were both dueling the queen, who was whirling her double-bladed staff with blinding speed, her scarlet cape flowing behind her. Ziad dual wielded his turquoise crystal swords and Rao lashed out with his blackened curved-broadsword. The queen easily parried their blows and sent Ziad staggering back, leaving Rao to face her alone.

Krystos flew towards her, Rao raising his hand and yelling, “No!”

The queen knocked Krystos down mid-flight with a strike to his armored head, stomping over his raised arms and spearing him with her brightsteel weapon. Rao brought his broadsword down and she nimbly dodged the blow before and smacking her bladed staff behind into his head. The Demon King sagged down, supporting himself only by his sword. She kicked it out from underneath him, the strength of her force sending it across the chamber to bury into the back of an Umbran.

Ziad charged at her with a flurry of his swords, the queen parrying and slashing back with each strike, tearing away at his metal skin before it could reform to protect him. She brought the bladed head of her staff over his shoulder, carving into the armor until he cried out and fell back.

She knelt to drop her weapon with a ringing of its dense weight, placing her hands over Ziad’s face. The Demon King wrapped his arms in a bear hug from behind, wrestling her to the floor.

The entire tower shook with reverberating force, no doubt from the two titans still battling outside. The queen used the deafening confusion to viciously her elbow back into the Demon King’s head. She straddled him then and gripped his head, ripping away his armored shell, revealing Rao’s panicked face. She crushed his skull immediately after with her metal hands, blood bursting outward.

With a cry, Krystos launched himself at her. He pummeled her head without mercy, without hesitation. The marble cracked and crumbled beneath the force of his wrath. She caught one fist and rose as he screamed and knelt in turn. The Queen slapped Krystos’ armored head, again and again, metal pounded away until it exposed his bruised and bloodied face. The metal melded back but she tore it away. Her helm withdrew to reveal her head. She gripped Krystos' wheezing face with her bloodied hands. “I’m going to enjoy watching you squirm as my men fuck you in every orifice you have,” she whispered. “You simply had to—”

She paused, releasing Krystos. Thael knew engaging her in close quarters was certain death. That was why he had hurled the throwing knife into the back of her head. Blood seeped out from her eyes. She convulsed and collapsed.

The mages ceased their combat, watching their queen in horror. Somewhere outside was a great thoom and a crash of metal. There was an instant of stunned silence. Suddenly, the magi flew skyward to the open roof, their blood-red cloaks trailing them.

Ziad stood, supported by his comrades. “Stand down. We’ve won.”

Krystos rose, coughing. “All thanks to one man.” He turned to Thael. “You will be known for what you’ve done. A mortalborn toppling the monarchy. Now we can rebuild. Now…” He sat down to rest on the broken marble steps beside his now dead sister. “…we can live.”