The gates did not close quietly.
That was the first thing anyone learned on the final day, and they learned it at the hundred and fortieth hour when the western breach, already half-shrunk, convulsed and vomited out everything it had left in a single unbroken surge.
"It's emptying," Marcus called. "All seven of them. Whatever's on the other side is coming through now or not at all."
"Then we hold for one more day," Rudra said. "Same as we held for five."
It was not the same, and everyone knew it.
The last day was the hardest fighting of the entire event, and it was hard in a way the first five days had not been.
There was no coordination now. Nothing directing the gates, nothing adapting, nothing watching. What came through came through blind and desperate and in numbers that had no strategy behind them at all, which meant the Gutwrack Span stopped being a defensive problem and became a volume problem.
