Barkh was looking down from the battlements. Mau stood beside him.
The two Dawi rested their arms on the merlons and gazed at the scene below.
What their eyes found was a battlefield that no single word—least of all "chaos"—could begin to describe.
Orcs and Dawi soldiers were tangled together in a mass. Shields crashed, spears thrust, helms spun through the air. The orcs' battle cries, the ring of iron, the sharp metallic ping of arrows glancing off plate—and now and then, the brief, blood-soaked scream of an orc felled by a shaft.
In the shadow of the wall, orcs were trying to hook ladders over the parapet. On one side below, Dawi soldiers were holding the line against orcs who had just crossed the moat, pressing them back step by grinding step.
And moving through it all—the Kina.
Orcs were falling at the Kina's feet. One came charging with a spear leveled. The Kina didn't break its stride. A foot lifted and came down, and the orc disappeared beneath it.
When the foot rose again, all that remained was a smear of twisted armor, mud, and flesh. Another Kina swept its right arm in a wide arc. The limb carved a broad stroke through the air, and five or six orcs caught in its path were launched bodily away.
A pack of Minotaurs came charging across the moat.
Creatures several times the size of an orc, axes raised, bearing straight for the Kina. The sound of their hooves hammering into the earth came in heavy, rhythmic thuds.
The Kina watched them come—then raised an arm. The moment a Minotaur brought its axe down, the Kina's hand closed around its head. That single act of closing the grip produced a sound—the crumpling of the helm—loud enough to carry all the way to the top of the wall. The Kina drove its arm straight down into the earth.
CRUNCH!
A beat of stillness in the wake of the burst mud.
The Minotaur squirmed, its hands clawing weakly outward, trying to grasp the Kina's arm with both fists. After a moment, crushed beneath the Kina's hand, the Minotaur stopped moving. The Kina shook the stickily matted mess of flesh and blood from its hand and walked on.
Yakra winged soldiers circled the Kina. Salma's Kina—lord of Mosrow—moved at their center as they swept low and fast through the orc ranks.
Metal feather-blades sheared open as they passed, slicing through orc arms and throats. Wherever the blades swept, orcs fell. The black smoke rising from the moat burned red in the light of the flames.
"That's the Kina of Mosrow."
Barkh said.
"Whoa... It looks different from the Kina at the Temple of Na-Woul."
"I want to ride that thing."
"...We can't ride a Kina."
Mau replied.
"Why not."
"Well... the size is probably enough, but..."
"Give me a reason."
Mau glanced down for a moment. A Kina scooped up a charging Minotaur with one hand and hurled it toward the moat. The Minotaur traced a long arc through the air and hit the water with a distant splash that faded almost as soon as it came.
"I don't think you could handle it, Barkh."
"Why!? That thing's big enough—I could definitely ride it!"
"You have to be able to work mana properly to move a Kina. Dallen said once that you have to link the manifested hand to the Kina."
"I can work mana."
"Not well enough to produce a manifested hand like the Muwa do."
"Isn't it the same idea as wrapping your axe in mana?"
"I don't know... it doesn't look the same to me."
Barkh thought for a moment.
"Same principle, though, isn't it?"
"Maybe... but even if the principle is the same, that doesn't mean you can ride one."
"Hmmmmmm... really?"
Mau turned to look at his brother.
Barkh was staring down at the battlefield with a thoroughly serious expression.
"...Go to the Temple of Na-Woul sometime and ask them yourself."
Mau muttered.
Barkh didn't answer. He was already leaning into the parapet, scanning the field below—his gaze moving in slow, deliberate passes across the scene beneath the wall. Eyes searching for something.
And then he found it.
Barkh straightened up. He reached for the longbow propped beside him. Drew an arrow from the quiver. Ran a finger once along the fletching, then nocked it.
"There's an orc crawling up behind one of the Kina."
"Where?"
"There."
Barkh tilted his head to indicate the direction.
Mau shifted his gaze. Below the wall—through the chaos of Kina and soldiers locked together—a single orc working its way through the gaps, pressing toward the wall. Low to the ground. A short spear in its grip. Moving lower, lower still, doing everything it could to stay out of sight.
"I see it."
"I've got it."
Barkh drew the string back to his ear.
Mau spoke beside him.
"...Hard to aim through all that smoke."
"I know."
"Distance doesn't help either."
"I know."
"And the Kina keep stepping into the line of sight, so it's going to be difficult to—"
Fwwt!
The arrow was gone. Below the wall, the orc dropped in the exact posture it had been crawling in—arrow buried in its throat, unable to raise its head. The short spear slipped from its grip and rolled to the side.
Mau stared down for a moment.
"...Hit."
"Hmph. Obviously."
Barkh said, pulling another arrow.
"Don't talk in my ear. You break my concentration."
Mau went quiet. Barkh already had the next arrow nocked. His eyes swept the ground below.
Fwwt!
An orc went down.
Fwick!
An orc scrambling up the wall threw both arms wide and tumbled backward off it.
Mau stood beside him, watching the battlefield below. Each time an arrow left Barkh's hand, he quietly counted the orcs that fell.
Then Mau raised his head.
Barkh had straightened, eyes narrowed—and he was looking in a different direction. Not down. Across the moat. Toward the trees.
At the forest's edge, the orcs' catapults stood silhouetted against the dark. Far enough out that only their shapes were barely visible in the light from the burning moat. The orcs working them were just barely distinguishable.
Then—
CRACK!!
The sound came not from below the wall. It came from the forest beyond—from the direction of the orc catapults. Far out past the moat, two or three trees were torn sideways in a burst of blue light. Cold and sharp, nothing like the amber glow from the moat. The flash lasted only a heartbeat before the concussive boom rolled in behind it.
Barkh narrowed his eyes toward the source.
"Mau. You saw that. What was that."
Mau looked.
"Yeah. I just saw it."
"That didn't come from the wall, did it?"
"No. It came from the forest—the other side."
Another tearing shriek, then CRACK!! Louder this time. Sharper. A burst of blue and one of the orc catapults split apart where it stood. Ice fragments scattered in every direction, raining down over the orcs around it.
"Ice!"
"Ice magic, right? It was blue."
Mau said.
Barkh squinted, pressing his brow together.
"There's... someone over there."
At the forest's edge—blurred shapes. Too far for anything clear. Two figures. One tall and broad-shouldered. Armored. A long weapon. A halberd.
The other was smaller. Not armor—a cape. Both arms extended forward. From the outstretched hands, blue light bloomed.
And between the two of them, something hung suspended in the air.
A sword wreathed in blue light. No hand holding it. Floating. Moving on its own.
Barkh said.
"That smaller one... not a Dawi, is it?"
Mau answered slowly.
"The build's different. Narrower shoulders. Shorter, too. Even at this distance, something's off about it."
"Sarun-Ke? Or an elf."
"If we could see the ears we'd know, but at this distance..."
"The fog... too blurred to make anything out."
"Yeah."
Mau kept his eyes on that distant point before continuing.
"It must be elven magic... that blue light, the ice. It's nothing like the Muwa's manifested hands."
"Then it's an elf."
Barkh said, brief and certain. Then he moved his gaze to the taller shape beside the smaller figure.
Then—
The floating sword began to move.
At first it turned slowly. Blue light ran along the blade, and then its direction shifted—wheeling toward the cluster of orcs at the catapult. But it didn't fly straight.
It swayed.
It lurched wide to the left and swung back. Right, left again—like a pendulum, but far more alive than any pendulum, shifting speed at will, fast then slow, the blade restless and unpredictable.
An orc stepped forward and leveled a spear at the approaching sword.
The blue blade slipped left. The spear thrust through empty air. The sword came back. From the right, another orc brought an axe down. The blade stepped right and let it pass. The axe bit into the dirt.
Then the sword returned to its line.
Without slowing, it pressed toward the orcs. Swaying side to side, splitting the air with each pass—a heavy, rhythmic rushing sound, the sound of a blade moving with real weight and intent behind it—pushing deeper and deeper into the mass.
Orcs reached out to grab at the blue sword. The blade slipped free. They raised shields to cut it off. It went under them. The orcs circled it—closing in from every side, tightening the ring.
And as that ring drew tight—
The sword stopped. One held breath. A single, complete stillness.
Then—
WHUUUM!!
The sword swept in a great arc. An enormous circle drawn through the air—like a scythe through a ripe field of grain, like a hand skimming the surface of still water. The blade completed its rotation. The orcs caught inside that circle never felt their own heads come away.
The orcs who watched it happen—who saw their comrades' heads fall—turned and ran. Those charging from behind froze dead in the face of the killing intent radiating off the blade spinning in the open air.
SHHHHHK—
Where the sword had passed, orc after orc—as if only now realizing what had been done to them—toppled in slow succession, their necks and upper torsos sliding apart at a diagonal cut, one after another, beats apart.
From around the sword, a sound rose. Not loud enough to carry cleanly all the way to the top of the wall.
"OoooOooooOOoo. (AHahaha!! NOW that is the feeling!! Severed so cleanly—all in a single sweep!! Could the orcs not stand just a little closer together!! It becomes rather difficult to properly demonstrate what Hiyalkho is capable of!!)"
A deep, resonant hum. Barely audible. But the presence behind it was unmistakable.
Barkh said.
"Look at that, Mau—you see it? That blue sword is moving on its own."
"I saw it."
"It's cutting down orcs."
"It is."
"Doesn't that sword look like it's having fun?"
Mau thought for a moment, then answered.
"...It does look like it's having fun."
"See? That's what I thought."
"Yeah."
Barkh looked back toward it. The blue sword was already pushing into the next cluster of orcs—still swaying side to side, pressing forward toward the next group.
"That thing... I think it's actually enjoying this."
Mau considered.
"...I think it actually is."
Barkh nodded slowly.
"Sounds like me. Kha-hahaha!"
Mau said nothing.
The small elven figure raised both arms. Light rose from both hands—cold-colored, pale. Ice crystals began drawing together in the air before the outstretched palms. As the crystals massed and took shape, the figure thrust them forward.
A long ice lance. Its tip tapered to a needle point, and along its shaft, sharp ridges ran like the scales of a blade. That lance—pale blue and faintly glowing—spun as it flew.
CRACK!!
One of the orc catapults exploded into fragments. Ice shards burst in every direction, showering the orcs clustered around it. They went down in a heap.
"Is that what elven magic looks like?"
"Yeah... or it could be a Sarun-Ke. Wow—that's incredible. One hit and the whole catapult just... gone."
Mau said.
"What's so incredible about it! There's nothing like the feel of an arrow punching through hide and sinking into bone. All that is is lobbing a chunk of ice at something and smashing it. No sense of the hunt in that."
"Barkh, this isn't a hunt. We're defending the wall..."
Then the halberd-wielding figure drove into the remaining orcs. The halberd was pulled level at waist height, and the blade raked clean across the midsections of two orcs at once.
As the two orcs fell in opposite directions, the butt of the shaft had already cracked hard into the knee of the orc behind them. The sound of the joint folding the wrong way—and the orc pitched forward.
The halberd blade rose and came down, catching the falling orc across the throat.
Barkh raised both hands flat above his eyes and spoke. Where the mist had thinned, darkness had moved in to replace it. The land beyond the wall refused to come into focus no matter how long he stared.
"...That one with the halberd. That's Daroon's form."
Mau slowly turned toward the direction Barkh was watching and spoke carefully.
"Barkh, really? Daroon? At that distance—you can tell from here?"
"That's what it looks like to me. I've seen it more than once or twice."
Mau spoke, keeping his gaze fixed on that point for a moment.
"Daroon was at the Moonlit Citadel, right?"
"Right. Surrounded by Minotaurs, they said."
"He said he'd broken clear and was making his way back, but..."
Barkh's eyes didn't move from that point.
"...Then it really is him."
Mau said nothing after that for a moment. His hand on the merlon closed into a fist.
"He made it back."
That was all.
Barkh looked out toward that distant figure a moment longer, then spoke.
"Of course he did. It's Daroon."