“What was that! It was like getting punched in the soul!”

Ammeris shrugged and began to put her pots away, Erika noticed for the first time that she’d been moved inside, they were in what looked like a lords office which had been turned into a makeshift infirmary, from the floor above them came the regular retort of thunderarms firing and outside Erika heard the sounds of two battles, the normal grunts and yells of mortals fighting and in the distance, the echoing crackle and pulsing of odium that showed the Meridian was still fighting Sigurn and Alvis.

“What… what’s happening!” Erika snapped.

“They were hiding in the sky!” Screamed Katlin, the alf looked even more deranged that usual and her gemstone teeth didn’t help the image. “I told you! They hide in the sky and used their evil evilness to sky at us!”

Erika grabbed the Alf’s face and shoved her away. “That doesn’t make sense!”

“That’s what they want you to think!” She howled back scrabbling desperately against Erika’s robe. “Now magick them! Get rid of them!”

“I drowned my well waking you idiots up!” Snapped Erika back, luckily that seemed to get through to Katlin who shivered and scrambled away across the room still babbling. Kara watched her go then shook her head. “She’s crazy but she’s right.”

“She is?” Asked Erika, she tried to sit up then hissed and collapsed back as her shoulder pulsed with agonising cold fire.

“Yup, the insect things are falling out of the sky, they’ve got like shiny thin beetle wings so we think they were hovering inside the clouds above the city, that’s why we couldn’t see them.”

Erika stared at Kara for a long moment. “Damn that’s clever.” Grabbing hold of the wall Erika pulled herself upwards using only her left side, it didn’t work. Erika felt Kara grab her around the waist as she nearly fell back, explosions of agony blinding her for a moment.

“Whoa don’t move Erika, Ammeris says…”

“I’ll be fine.” Erika muttered trying to feel for her Well, it was throbbing in her chest, she’d never felt this before… last time it had sucked at her like it was dry and thirsty but now it was like it was overflowing, the energy within was burning like a fire behind her ribs.

“I’ll be fine!” Erika snapped again, even she wasn't sure who she was trying to persuade.

“They’re breaking through!”

Karas head snapped up as behind them Ammeris cursed and reached into her tunic, outside the sound of battle had intensified and a handful of delvers stagger backwards through the door, barely holding back a tide of insect-people.

“Move move!” Kara grabbed Erika’s shoulder, the good one luckily, and pulled her away up the hall, the walking wounded followed them. Erika could just about hear Ammeris throwing vials and bombs as she shouted instructions to the delvers to help move the critically injured but the roar of thunderarms, the pulsing of magick and the hissing of their insectile foes drowned out anything else.

“We need to fall back!” Kara said to Gunhilda and Reidar. Erika had wondered where they were but apparently, they had been waiting outside, Reidar’s green tinted hair had intensified maybe a stress response? Erika wondered, and he clutched a full size thunderer with both hands sighting down its barrel. Behind him Gunhilda looked war mad, her slender androgenous physique was barely visible under all the blood, none of which looked like hers.

“Fold up! The enemy comes from all sides, meet them with fury!”

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“For the Aesir!”

“Over here! There breaking th…”

Across the road Erika could see Helga and Bjorn as well, each leading their own detachments which were trailed by a handful of Silvermane agents scampered to-and-fro carrying supplies or messages. Bjorn noticed them and ran past with a nod, presumably heading back to reinforce Ammeris as, across the road Helga fought back another surge of monsters.

“Keep going… you two shields up! You and you get spears to the front!”

Erika didn’t know what to do, without her magick she was worse than useless… and that was before her injury, now she could barely stand and her dominant arm was unusable. What did she have that could help?

“We’re running out of powder, what happened to runners?”

“The defences around the bank have fallen.”

“Was it the vitki?”

“No… we couldn’t see wh…”

“Come on, this way!” Erika followed behind Kara in silence as they joined up behind Helga. White blood filled the air as foes fell buying time for Bjorn and his squad of rough rangers and other outdoorsman types to pull the last few wounded from their importune infirmary.

As the bug things began to claw through the wall, Erika found herself cursing nomad building standards, sure you have a city beast but why build your houses out of bones and leather?! The undulating mass of delvers began a fighting retreat, Silvermane agents firing from rooftops as veteran warriors howled battle cry’s and swung swords and axes and…

“Where are we going?” Someone asked in a plaintive voice.

“Fall back to the square.” Kara yelled.

“They’ve been overrun!” Bjorn shouted back.

“What? Damn… then back to the lobby.”

“They were killed an hour ago!”

“WHAT?!”

Erika let herself be swept away in the movement of people, half hidden behind Karas shield she thought desperately, was there anything she could do? She should have noticed the key before, she should have warned them…

…The groups couldn’t rally… why? These were veterans, all the delvers were, even with this ambush Erika could hear dozens of names being bandied around that indicated attempts to fortify or hold an area down… why wasn't it working?

Erika felt it, she didn’t see it, she didn’t hear it or smell it or anything like that, she just knew, she understood.

Throwing herself out from under Kara’s shield and kicked the girl in the knee. Despite her weakness and weediness Erika was a life smith, she knew how a skeleton worked. As her toes rammed home Kara’s leg buckled uncontrollably and she rolled onto the floor, behind her a delver whose name Erika didn’t know, and would never learn, lurched backwards. He staggered three full steps before collapsing, blood running down his chainmail as something glinted in his chest.

Erika could hear clapping sarcastic clapping in fact, she shuddered, nothing good ever followed mocking clapping.

“Damn good show that, nobody’s seen me yet.”

The voice seemed to echo but Erika knew what it was, a life shaper could make [Bairn] when they reached the 4th tier but at the 6th? They were able to make [Greater Bairn], intelligent, powerful, deadly.

“You haven’t, have you? You aren’t even looking at me… how did you know?”

Erika still couldn’t narrow down the damn voice, keep it talking she thought as behind her Kara stood upright gratitude plain in her eyes. Usually this would have gotten a blush out of Erika but at the moment a mixture of pain and adrenaline had left her feeling oddly detached from the world, like a spectator watching a play rather than the player herself.

“Gold.”

“…What?”

“We found some of your handiwork on our way here, a bodyguard’s corpse with a gold dagger in his chest and ogres tracks but no damage, something scared the ogres enough they didn’t dare even eat him. Couple all that with the way our groups had been collapsing, these are all veterans, only way they keep getting overrun is if someone’s killing the leaders.”

Silence for a moment then a chuckle. “I am genuinely impressed, pity you’re the expeditions vitki really.”

Erika bristled. “And why is that?”

Something rustled in the distance. “Because you’re a priority target.”

Erika had just enough time to understand what had been said, but not enough time to dodge. Before a flicker o gold shot across the road towards her.

It’s not a dagger Erika thought somewhat deliriously as she threw herself to the side and the world seemed to slow down, it’s a natural projectile.

*Clang!*

With a contemptuous backhand Kara’s shield shot between Erika and her approaching doom, sweeping the smoothed spine out of the air and crushing it against the stone tiled floor. Kara didn’t pause, she drew Erika towards her and raised her shield ahead of them as a pair of golden lines threaded through the air and slammed into the metal again.

“Protect the vitki!” Kara shouted, her boots screaming and sparking as she was forced backwards. Erika could feel a divine art in use and could tell it was the only reason the impacts hadn't broken Kara’s arm. Just how powerful was this thing?