# Chapter 160: The Ambush
The skiff scraped along the transport's hull, a scream of tortured metal. "Boro, on my mark, punch us through!" Nyra yelled. The giant of a man roared, his fists glowing as he prepared to slam them into the exposed plating. Lyra's gauntlets were already charged, ready to provide cover fire. Faye's illusions flickered, holding the remaining turrets at bay. They had them. The transport was a wounded beast, and they were the sharks come to finish it. Nyra's finger hovered over the comm panel, ready to give the final order. But then, the main cargo bay doors of the transport began to grind open, not in a panicked, emergency fashion, but with a slow, deliberate confidence. No soldiers scrambled out. No chaos. Instead, a single figure walked out onto the ramp, her white Inquisitor's robes pristine against the grime of the transport. Isolde. She was not surprised. She was not afraid. She was smiling. And behind her, the crimson-armored forms of an elite Inquisitor squad fanned out, their weapons already trained on the skiff. The trap had not been sprung on them. They had just walked into it.
The world seemed to shrink to the space between the two vessels. The wind whipping through the gorge died in Nyra's ears, replaced by the frantic hammering of her own heart. Isolde's smile was a slash of triumph in the gloom, a predator's grin that promised a slow, painful death. Every tactical instinct screamed at Nyra to punch the throttle, to dive back into the relative safety of the canyon's twists. But she couldn't. Soren was on that ship. ruku was on that ship. Turning back was not an option.
"Hold!" Nyra commanded, her voice cutting through the sudden, suffocating tension. Boro froze, his glowing fists inches from the hull. Lyra's aim wavered. Faye's illusions flickered and died, the phantasmal skiffs vanishing like smoke, leaving them naked and exposed.
"A bold move, Nyra of the Sable League," Isolde's voice echoed across the gap, amplified by her comm unit. It was laced with a condescending amusement that grated on Nyra's nerves. "Or should I say, Nyra Sableki? Your family will be so disappointed to learn their prize operative has been captured. Or killed. It depends on your cooperation."
The use of her full name was a punch to the gut. They knew. They had known all along. This wasn't just a counter-ambush; it was a personal invitation to her own execution.
"Torvin, options," Nyra said, her voice low and steady, a mask of control over the churning fear. She kept her eyes locked on Isolde, on the squad of Inquisitors behind her. Their armor was a deep, blood-red, the color of the Vengeant Knights, but lighter, more streamlined. Elite guards. Not the common Wardens they'd trained to fight.
"They're not just waiting," Torvin's voice was a grim rasp from behind her. He'd seen this before. "It's a containment formation. See the two on the flanks? Their Gifts are suppression-based. The moment we make a move, they'll nullify our repulsors. We'll drop like a stone."
"So we're pinned," Lyra muttered, her knuckles tight on her gauntlets.
"Worse," Torvin replied. "We're bait. They wanted us to get this close. They wanted us to think we'd won."
Isolde raised a hand, a gesture of casual authority. "You have five seconds to power down your vessel and surrender. My squad is authorized to use lethal force. We don't need you alive, just the cargo you're so foolishly trying to steal."
"Five," she began, her voice ringing with finality.
Nyra's mind raced, a whirlwind of calculations and contingencies. Surrender was death. Fighting was suicide. There had to be a third option. Her eyes darted around the gorge walls, the transport's hull, the Inquisitors' positions. They were in a kill box. A perfect, inescapable kill box.
"Four."
"Nyra," Boro rumbled, his voice a low growl of desperation. "Let me hit them. I can take out the ramp. Maybe buy us time."
"You'll be cut down before you take two steps," Torvin countered, his tone flat. "Their reaction time is enhanced. It's what they're bred for."
"Three."
The air grew thick with the hum of charging energy weapons from the Inquisitors. The smell of ozone, sharp and electric, cut through the stench of the transport's damaged engine. Nyra could feel the fine hairs on her arms stand on end. This was it. The end of the line. All her planning, all her risks, had led her here, to this moment of utter failure. She thought of Soren, his stoic face, the weight he carried. She thought of her family, of the mission they had given her. She had failed them all.
"Two."
Then, a flicker of movement. Not from the transport, but from the gorge wall above them. A shadow detached itself from the rock, a small, dark shape that plummeted silently toward the Inquisitors' position. Piper. The street urchin Nyra had recruited for her impossible climbing skills. She must have followed them, hidden in the rocks.
"One."
As Isolde opened her mouth to speak the final word, a small glass sphere shattered on the crimson armor of the Inquisitor to her left. It wasn't an explosion of fire or shrapnel, but of blinding, iridescent light. A flash-bang, crafted by Grak the blacksmith, far more potent than any standard issue. The Inquisitor cried out, stumbling back, his hands flying to his helmet.
"NOW!" Nyra screamed, the word torn from her throat. She didn't wait for a response. She slammed the control yoke forward, ramming the skiff's reinforced prow directly into the transport's exposed power conduit.
The impact was cataclysmic. A shower of blue-white sparks erupted from the hull, the sound of a thousand thunderclaps compressed into a single, deafening instant. The transport's lights flickered and died, plunging the cargo bay into semi-darkness, illuminated only by the emergency strobes and the lingering glow of the flash-bang. The repulsor-lifts on the massive vessel groaned, stuttered, and failed. The transport listed heavily to one side, its bottom scraping against the gorge floor with a grinding shriek of metal on stone.
"Boro, the ramp! Lyra, cover fire! Faye, give us chaos!" Nyra yelled, her orders sharp and clear in the aftermath of the explosion.
Boro didn't need to be told twice. He leaped from the skiff, his powerful legs carrying him across the ten-foot gap in a single bound. He landed on the ramp like a meteor, his momentum carrying him forward into the dazed Inquisitors. He was a whirlwind of kinetic force, his glowing fists smashing into crimson armor, sending men flying like ragdolls.
Lyra was next, her gauntlets spitting bolts of concussive force. She targeted the Inquisitors on the flanks, the ones Torvin had identified as suppression specialists. Her shots were precise, striking their chest plates and knocking them off balance, disrupting their concentration before they could nullify Boro's Gift.
Faye's mind, once paralyzed by fear, was now a maelstrom of creative energy. She didn't create grand illusions this time; she crafted nightmares. The air around the Inquisitors shimmered, and their deepest fears took shape. One saw his squadmates as monstrous Bloom-wraiths, another saw the gorge walls closing in on him. Their disciplined formation broke, their training no match for the primal terror unleashed in their minds.
Nyra drew her blade, a slender, razor-sharp shortsword of Sable League steel, and vaulted from the skiff. Torvin was right behind her, a heavy-caliber pistol in his hand, his face a mask of cold fury. He had been waiting for this moment for years.
Isolde had recovered from the initial shock, her face a mask of fury rather than fear. She drew her own weapon, a long, elegant rapier whose blade hummed with a faint, malevolent energy. "Fools!" she hissed, parrying a wild swing from Boro. "You've only delayed the inevitable!"
The battle on the ramp was a brutal, chaotic melee. The narrow space favored neither side, turning it into a desperate brawl. Boro was a juggernaut, his Gift-fueled strength allowing him to trade blows with the heavily armored Inquisitors, but for every one he knocked down, two more seemed to take their place. Lyra's kinetic bolts kept them at bay, but their armor was thick, designed to withstand just such attacks.
Nyra engaged Isolde directly. Their blades clashed, a shower of sparks in the dim light. Isolde was a master duelist, her movements fluid and precise, a stark contrast to Nyra's more pragmatic, street-fighting style. Every parry was a lesson in economy of motion, every riposte a threat aimed at a vital point.
"You're good," Isolde conceded, a flicker of respect in her cold eyes as she disengaged from a lock. "But you're fighting for a lost cause. Your friend, Soren… his power will be a boon to the Synod. He will be purified, reforged into a weapon of righteousness."
"He'd rather die," Nyra spat, feinting low and then lunging high. Isolde's blade was there to meet hers, the impact jarring her arm to the shoulder.
"Death is a luxury we can no longer afford," Isolde said, pressing her attack. "The Bloom is stirring. The Withering King's influence grows. We need every Gifted soul, willing or not, to face the coming darkness."
The words gave Nyra pause. The Withering King. It was a name whispered in the darkest corners of the world, a boogeyman from the time of the Bloom. To hear it spoken so casually by an Inquisitor was chilling. Was it true? Or was it just another lie, another tool of control?
Her momentary hesitation was all Isolde needed. She twisted her wrist, her rapier's blade sliding along Nyra's and hooking her hilt. With a sharp jerk, she disarmed Nyra, sending her shortsword clattering onto the metal ramp. Isolde lunged, the point of her blade aimed directly at Nyra's heart.
Time seemed to slow. Nyra saw the gleam of the humming steel, felt the cold air shift as it cut toward her. She was too far away to dodge, too off-balance to block. This was it.
Then, a shot rang out, loud and sharp in the confines of the gorge. It wasn't the crack of Lyra's gauntlet or the hum of an Inquisitor's weapon. It was the solid, percussive report of Torvin's pistol. The bullet struck Isolde's sword arm, just above the elbow. The Inquisitor cried out, her aim thrown wide. The blade sliced a shallow gash along Nyra's ribs, a line of fire that stole her breath, but it was not a killing blow.
Isolde clutched her arm, her face contorted in pain and shock. She stared at Torvin, her eyes wide with disbelief. "You," she breathed. "The heretic. The traitor."
"Hello, Isolde," Torvin said, his voice devoid of emotion as he aimed his pistol at her head. "It's been a long time."
The standoff was absolute. Boro held two Inquisitors at bay, his massive form a shield. Lyra kept the others pinned down. Faye's illusions still sowed confusion. But the core of the conflict was now on the ramp: Nyra, disarmed and wounded, facing a furious Isolde, who was herself at the mercy of the man she had helped cast out of the Synod.
"You always were a fool, Torvin," Isolde snarled, ignoring the pistol aimed at her. "You clung to your pathetic ideals while the world burned around you. Valerius was right to excommunicate you."
"Valerius is a monster who twists faith into a weapon," Torvin retorted, his finger tightening on the trigger. "And you are his dog."
The transport groaned again, its weight settling. A deep, resonant hum began to build from within the ship's core. It was a sound Nyra recognized from her studies of Synod technology: the emergency power core coming online. They had minutes, maybe less, before the ship's systems rebooted, its defenses came back online, and they were truly trapped.
"We have to go! Now!" Nyra yelled, pressing a hand to her bleeding side.
"Not without Soren," Boro grunted, smashing his fists together and sending a shockwave that knocked the remaining Inquisitors off their feet.
Isolde saw her chance. While Torvin's attention was on Nyra, she lunged, not at him, but at a control panel on the wall of the cargo bay. She slammed her hand down on a large, red button.
"Alarms are useless, you stupid girl," Torvin started to say.
"I wasn't triggering the alarms," Isolde said, a triumphant, manic gleam in her eyes. "I was unlocking the cells."
A series of heavy clunks echoed from deep within the transport. The sound of magnetic locks disengaging. Nyra's blood ran cold. Cells. Not just Soren and ruku. The transport was a prison. And Isolde had just released every monster inside.