Chapter 502: The Siege Begins (4)
He attacked first, sweeping the glaive in a deceptive low arc that slammed into a kite shield’s rim, jerking it wide. With the same motion he reversed the haft, jabbing the butt spike through eye-slit and brain before the knight could adjust to the feint. Armor crashed to cobbles; the body inside it made no sound.
A second knight lunged, longsword aimed at Lyan’s midsection. Surena intercepted: she stepped in, letting the sword glance off her pauldron, then drove her own blade up beneath the attacker’s gorget. The thrust came from her shoulder, smooth as a loom shuttle sliding through warp threads. The knight froze, surprised, and she kicked him off her blade with enough force to send him sprawling over his fallen comrade.
An arrow whistled between them; Lyan’s head snapped toward the source. Emilia stood atop the rubble mound, greatsword in one hand, a short spear in the other—clearly stolen on the run. Her eyes shone volcanic under the blood spatter. She hurled the spear as casually as throwing a stick for a dog. It skewered two footmen, pinning them to a half-collapsed portico.
"Stay alive, idiot!" she shouted, then vaulted after the spear, landing on a broken balustrade like a cat and yanking it free again.
She leapt down, reached Lyan, and—without slowing—cupped his cheek in a gauntleted hand and kissed him full on the mouth. The copper of his own blood smeared between them.
"Emilia !" he managed.
"Later." She wiped her lips with the back of her hand. "There’s a staircase behind the next colonnade. Spire entrance."
A raw cheer thundered overhead. Lyan glanced up to see Raine balanced on the inner parapet, silver hair whipping around her face like winter lightning. She raised the phoenix banner high, fabric catching wind, silver thread igniting like frost in sunlight. When she slashed the serpent banner loose, it spiraled down through the smoky sky, flames licking at its tail before it even struck the courtyard flagstones. The cheer spread outward, echoing down alleys and up broken towers as though the city stones themselves rejoiced.
Belle’s voice crackled in his comm-bead—no illusion this time, just actual lungs strained to their limit. "Ridge – south flank—clear. I’m pivoting illusions to the high square. Ten more minutes of fog."
"Understood," Lyan replied, turning as he parried another strike. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Belle weaving her fingers in tight sigils, conjuring a line of phantom tower shields that advanced over the plaza toward a cluster of crossbowmen. Their bolts thunked uselessly through empty air. The moment they realized, Wilhelmina’s real archers stepped from a side street and loosed point-blank. Crossbowmen fell like wheat.
Josephine galloped past again, cloak ablaze at its hem—her doing, surely—laughing like she’d just cheated death at cards. "Docks aflame!" she yelled, voice bright with manic triumph. "No more fish, no more ropes!"