Chapter 784: Hope Measured in Practical Units (4)
Iron Justiciars—two hundred strong—filed from the rows of standing stones that framed the plateau’s northern edge. Their polished helms already wore masks of drying salt, proof they had marched the seabed, too. Each held a flame-quencher shield: wide, ridged disks of obsidian-dark alloy treated to smother fire on contact. Their pike-points glimmered blue.
A captain at their front—crest dyed in black ink—raised his fist. "Rebels!" he bellowed across the fifty-pace gap. "Your plague has poisoned the capital! Lay down arms or face pure judgment."
Wind whisked his words into tatters, but their meaning—blame and iron—carried. Just behind Draven, a line of archers shifted uneasily, leather bowgrips creaking.
Vaelira did not parley. She lifted one gloved hand, palm outward. The signal was neither rushed nor delayed; it arrived at the exact moment when every soldier’s lungs had half-filled and their muscles not yet fired.
"Now," she said, soft as snowfall.
From her satchel she drew three salvaged automata eyes, metal orbs threaded with hairline cracks. She let them fall. Halfway to the ground a charge inside each sphere flashed brilliant white. The resulting explosion produced no shrapnel, only a corona of light so intense it arrested motion. Ten of the charging Justiciars froze, mid-step, encased by shimmering cages of albino fire. Their momentum robbed, they toppled like statues, faces locked in rictus fury.
A roar shattered across the ranks; first fear, then retaliatory anger. Pike lines dropped and advanced. Vaelira’s skirmishers met them, slashing at the shielded bodies, darting back before the quencher surfaces could nullify torch embers hurled like sling bullets from farther behind.
In the melee haze, Edrik—the former Justiciar captain—sighted his old mentor Vrask. Vrask carried the same crescent-topped spear he’d trained Edrik with, but the man’s beard held more gray now, and his eyes blazed with wounded conviction.
Neither offered greeting. Vrask lunged, spear whistling a tight arc. Edrik parried with a broadsword he gripped two-handed, sparks splintering from the meeting. They traded blows without breath for politeness—an old choreography turned lethal. Vrask’s style remained textbook, perfect lines; Edrik’s had grown feral, bent by necessity. Each impact resounded like a smith striking anvils in rapid fire.