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Chapter Fifteen

The storm crashed down on Hammerwall. Driving rain lashed the market square, and thunder echoed between the buildings. An unnatural wind scoured the crowd. The downpour burned like fire. Rae threw his coat over La’s head, ducking close to his sister as the squall line slammed into them. The mob, already driven to panic, went mad.

“We have to get out of here!” Rae yelled. The rain, viscous and foul, was already eating through his coat. He could feel his fingers blistering in the wind.

“Where do we go? Where?” La shouted. “The Bastion has fallen! Where do we go?”

“Away from this mess,” Mahk said. He shifted, trying to put himself between the winds and the siblings, but the swirling eddies of the storm made it a hopeless task. He blinked into the searing rain. “More are going to die from this press than that storm!”

“Right enough,” Rae agreed. “Follow me. We have to get past the squall line and into the wastelands. We can make our way south from there, to Anvilheim, or Oesterling.”

“That’ll take days!” La shouted.

“Weeks,” Rae said. “Come on!”

The mob pressed its way to the gates, the very entrance they had just poured through. The windship, clipped by the destruction of the spire, twisted in the wind like a torn pennant. Flames guttered through its hull, and its crew was either jumping off or being thrown free of its decks. Bodies fell all around them, joining their bloody weight to the grim deluge. Rather than risk the crush, Rae ran in the other direction. There had to be another way out of the slaughterhouse the Bastion had become. They just had to find it.

At the edge of the square, Rae paused and looked back. Indrit’s headless corpse lay almost peacefully at the center of the madness, slumped against the cobblestone remnants of his elemental, as though he were asleep. There was more to the big bondwright than Rae had known. More to all of this. He wished he had had time to learn more about the man. He might have been able to help, Rae thought. No longer.

A few feet away, the lawbinder stood his ground. A small globe of burning light surrounded the justicar, rippling with each corrupted raindrop. The very citizens who had, moments ago, been ducking for cover as he slaughtered Indrit, now clung to his feet for shelter. The ground bubbled and hissed at the perimeter of this last true bastion of Order in the steading. Minor spirits of Chaos boiled out of the earth to throw their misshapen forms against the justicar, trying to drag him down. He fought hard, his face set with grim determination as the flaming blade of his manifest angel cut through the lesser spirits, splattering the ground with their ichor. The dome of light around him was waning. The darkness pressed in.

He looked up and locked eyes with Rae. Hatred burned in their depths. And then the storm crashed down on him, and the justicar disappeared beneath a wave of roiling filth and burning light.

“Stop gawking and move,” Mahk snapped. He grabbed Rae’s shoulder and pulled him out of the square. “That one’s made his choice.”

La was already down the street, cowering in the shelter of an abandoned shop. She turned and pinned Rae with her eyes.

I can’t leave her, not yet, Rae thought. This is my fault. I have to fix it.

He nodded to Mahk and tore himself away from the spectacle of the justicar. Just as they were about to slip out of sight, the windship finally surrendered to gravity and fell, spiraling, into the center of the square. The justicar, his doomed followers, and Indrit’s peaceful body disappeared in a crash of shattered wood and torquing metal. The anti-ballast shook free of the ’ship’s broken shell and flew into the air, to be tossed on the storm’s winds like a leaf. Rae turned and ran.

Detritus littered the street. Furniture lay toppled on the ground, drawers spilling fine clothes, now turning to ash in the burning rain. Lalette led them through the impromptu junkyard, vaulting cases of books. The buildings were starting to smudge, like drawings blotted out of existence by an impatient artist. In front of them, the walls of the Bastion rose above the rooftops. At least the walls are still standing, Rae thought.

Then again, if we can’t get through the walls, we’ll just be trapped in here to die.

An explosion behind them shook the ground. Rae twisted around just in time to see what must have been the guard armory’s supply of gunpowder erupt. A column of sparks shot into the air, splintering into a canopy of arcing light, as individual bundles of ammunition corkscrewed in a dozen different directions. The Chaos in the air latched onto this sudden influx of flame, corrupting it, twisting the fire into something living, something vile. Rae caught a glimpse of a screaming face in the flames, and a hand reaching through, dragging sulfurous fingers through the air.

And against the fire, he saw a figure, small and black, hovering over the ruined Bastion. The high mage, light from the explosion glinting off his isolation suit. His attention was turned toward the gates. He held up one hand, flicking it from side to side, as though he were sorting through the wreckage.

“He’s still here! He’s looking for us!” Rae shouted. Mahk paused long enough to spot the figure before grabbing Rae and pulling him into cover.

“Quiet, boy,” Mahk hissed. “No need to draw attention.”

Rae was about to protest being called a boy, especially by Mahk, who was probably a few years his junior. Before he could form his words, though, La grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged them both down the street.

“Stop screwing around, you two,” she said. “High mage or chaosstorm, either will kill us!”

The wind beat terribly against their heads. Rae had experienced storms laced with the elemental planes, and while a lightning storm drawn from Inferno, or a hailstorm powered by elemental earth was plenty terrifying, they were nothing compared to a chaosstorm. It was so much worse than he imagined.

The hurricane of Chaos churned against Hammerwall. Winds whipped from the depths of Hell etched blasphemous runes into the walls of the city. Smaller buildings collapsed like wet parchment, spilling their meager contents into the street. The cobblestones underfoot went soft, splintering like clay with each step.

The farther they got from the center of the Bastion, the worse the storm became. Wild winds whipped down the street, carrying a cloud of torn shingles through the air. A wooden silo tumbled into the street ahead of them, rapidly disassembling into splinters that pinwheeled through the air, caught in a mad eddy of chaos-driven wind. La threw herself to the ground, only to skid on the cracked scree of broken cobbles. Rae leapt forward to grab her before she was chewed alive.

Mahk loomed over them both, yelling incomprehensibly, his words stolen by the howling storm. Rae curled around his sister, trying to protect her from the flying debris, but she pushed him off like a blanket and stood up. Mahk resumed yelling. La slapped him and dragged them both through a broken window of a house. They huddled in the lee of a fallen wall, sheltered by the remnants of a small library. Rae curled against the spines of sodden books and stared at the madness outside.

“What were you saying, Raelle?” La asked when the wind died down. “The most dangerous thing about an incursion of Chaos is the demons?”

“I don’t understand,” Rae whispered. “This is worse . . . worse than I could have imagined.”

“It is Hell,” Mahk said. The big man was shell-shocked. His face was slack, staring at nothing at all. “We have died, and earned the damnation we deserve.”

“Not yet,” La said. “It’s just a chaosstorm, though worse than any I’ve ever heard about. If we can survive the squall line, things should calm down.” A bolt of lightning flashed outside their tiny shelter, turning the storm into magnesium brilliance. The afterimage of falling rain and screaming wind lingered in Rae’s eyes. La flinched away. “That’s a big if,” she said quietly.

“Did you see the lawbinder?” Rae asked. “Fighting to the end. For all the good it did him.”

“He killed enough innocent people. I have trouble working up the sympathy,” La said. The thunder finally followed, a booming roar that held echoes of maddening laughter in its crash. La lowered her voice and continued. “It was as if the storm was drawn to him.”

“Like grit in an oyster’s palate,” Rae said. “The irritation of a lawbinder this deep in Chaos is sure to draw the wrong attention.”

“How long until the high mage finds us here?” La asked. “Cowering in the wreckage?”

“There are a lot of bodies to sort through,” Rae said. “Assuming he’s still looking for us.”

“He’s still looking,” Mahk said. The big man was shivering uncontrollably. “I can feel him. His eyes, burning like damnation, straight through me. He’s closer . . . getting closer.”

“Mahk? Snap out of it, man,” Rae said. “This is weird enough without you going—”

A footstep sounded in the street outside. Not a footstep, really, but the complete absence of sound in the shape of a foot hitting the ground. A drumbeat of absolute silence, punctuated by the storm’s fury.

“That sounds . . . worrying,” La whispered.

Rae crawled to the entrance of their little shelter and peered out. A shadow fell across the entrance of the street, and a second later, a demon loomed into view. It was as tall as houses, and each of its shoulders was the size of a horse, bristling with muscle and chitin. Luminescent runes scored the surface of its mossy green skin, and its arms ended in squirming three-pronged tentacles rather than hands. Its face was smooth and translucent, exposing the pulsing work of blood vessels and muscles, and the ridged peaks of its skull. The foul downpour of the chaosstorm sheeted off its body like oil, collecting in wriggling pools at its feet. The creature paused at the end of the street, casting its attention from building to building.

Rae held his breath. He had known there would be demons, eventually, but his mind was still reeling from the collapse of the Bastion and the fury of the chaosstorm. To see one of the denizens of Hell at the end of the street was almost more than his brain could handle. He squatted there, gaping at the monster, hoping his heartbeat wouldn’t give him away. Hoping his sister would stay quiet. Hoping Mahk would stop babbling.

The demon ran a tentacle down the corner of one of the buildings, then leaned his shoulder into it and pushed. The wall came down in a scurry of bricks and rising dust. Someone screamed, a woman, tumbling out of the ruined building to collapse in the midst of the debris. The demon raised one foot and laid it, almost gently, on the pile of bricks, then pressed down, grinding until the screams stopped. It stood absolutely still for a dozen heartbeats (rapid heartbeats, in Rae’s hammering chest) then loped out of sight.

When it was gone, Rae expelled his breath in a massive cough, almost choking on the dust in the air and his own fear. He scrambled back into the shelter.

“We have to get out of here,” he gulped. “Like, right now.”

“Obviously, brother. But what did you see?”

“Demons. Or demon. One. But he was demon enough.” Rae gathered up the spiritblade and his dignity, swallowing hard against his fear. “If things have progressed so far that demons are walking the streets of the Bastion, they’re much worse than I thought.”

“They’re already pretty bad,” Mahk said. “How much worse can they get?”

“So much worse,” Rae said.

“That’s enough for me,” Mahk said. He stirred from the back of the shelter, stooping over as he made his way to the exit. “Enough sulking. I’m going to punch something.”

They emerged into the storm. There was no sign of the demon, but the thunder of collapsing buildings and the desperate screams of the trapped punctuated the tempest.

“Which way was the big boy?” Mahk asked. When Rae pointed, he started jogging in that direction. Rae grabbed his collar, only to get dragged along by Mahk’s lumbering stride. “Rae, I get what you’re doing, but there’s a time for running and a time for fighting, and I think this is a time for fighting—”

Another building collapsed, a two-story complex that folded in on itself like a wet paper bag. Silhouetted in the cloud of rising dust stood the demon, facing away from them, its tentacles lashing wildly in the air. Mahk skidded to a halt.

“Or running. It could be a time for running,” he said quietly.

The streets along the periphery of the Bastion were closer together and narrowly built. As with everything in the Bastion, the money was at the center of town, and the outskirts were abandoned to the poor and desperate. Makeshift platforms stretched over alleyways, and haphazardly constructed additions choked off roads that had once been broad and smooth. All of this was made worse by the chaosstorm fraying already tenuous supports and demolishing structures that had been dangerously unstable on their best days. Rae, Mahk, and La ran through debris-strewn walkways too narrow for carriage traffic, sometimes even too narrow for Mahk’s massive shoulders. He had to edge his way sideways more than once, while Rae kept looking up at claptrap bridges that swayed precariously in the howling winds, raining bits of wood and other critical parts onto their heads.

They reached the wall and came to a stop. The steel petals of the Bastion’s outer wall were fully intact, rising high into the air. The storm seemed less severe here, as well. By Fulcrum’s edict, there was a gap between the Bastion’s outer wall and the buildings inside, to prevent cabals of diabolists from secretly burrowing their way through. Rae stood in the center of the ring road, looking desperately in both directions. There was no breach in these walls.

Which meant they were trapped inside.

“What do we do now?” La asked. “How do we get out?”

“Don’t think I can punch through that,” Mahk said. “Maybe the big boy back there could? Should I fetch him?”

“We’re not going to try to trick a demon into helping us escape,” Rae said. “Not when there’s another way.”

“I was joking about the demon,” Mahk sulked. “Obviously I was joking about the demon.”

“And is there another way?” La asked. “Not that I’m advocating Mahk’s terrible demon plan, just—”

“I was joking!”

“There’s another way,” Rae confirmed. Then he drew the broken sword and held the blade to his forehead.

The storm mote rose tentatively in his soul. Rae could feel the chaosstorm swirling all around him, a tapestry of Hell and the elemental plane of Air woven together, breaking through into the Ordered World. Half of that tapestry called to him, to the storm mote in his soul, while the strand of Hell whispered promises of power and destruction. Rae reached for the natural storm, the one that Chaos had corrupted, and tried to bend it to his will. He could see strands of Air coursing above him, a clear channel of power like a river. If he could latch on to that maybe he could ride it out of the Bastion. Maybe he could—

The mote snagged in his soul like a hook, dissolving into the storm and jerking him skyward. Rae screamed as he flew upward, slamming against the inside of the Bastion wall. La’s shocked voice reached him through the storm’s tumult. He could control his flight, but only barely; the storm threw him around like a rag. Mahk’s strong hands closed around his leg, but it was like holding a kite in a tornado. Pain shot through his ankle. He dropped the sword.

Dark fog filled Rae’s head. At first he thought he was blacking out, but the pain in his leg and the roaring of the storm denied that. His breath turned to cold frost, and a chill went through his blood. Immediately, the storm stilled, the rivers of power aligning with Rae’s will. He blinked, and he could see the storm’s tapestry. Perfect.

Mahk released him, stumbling back until he bumped into La. Rae simply hovered. He gestured, and retrieved the sword with a gust of wind that curled out of his hand. Another motion, and La and Mahk rose off the ground on a column of turbulent Air. Mahk yelped in shock, but La merely crossed her arms and glared at her brother.

“Have faith, sis,” Rae said. “I know what I’m doing.”

“That’s what worries me,” she said. Rae smirked, then lifted them above the buildings, skating along the edge of the Bastion wall until they were over. The river of Air bent away from the sky. They proceeded in a gentle glide toward the ground beyond the wall. Which was when Rae realized he had no idea how to land. None at all.

“Rae! Rae!” La shouted, windmilling her arms as they approached the earth at an uncompromising speed. “Do something!”

Rae did nothing, because he didn’t really know how to do what he was already doing, and figuring out anything additional was simply beyond him. The ground came to them. Fast. They slammed into the rolling fields that surrounded Hammerwall, knees buckling and grass furrowing, rolling in an awkward tumble that seemed like it would last forever. The wind dragged them forward, pulling them through small copses of trees and across a cartway, despite Rae’s best efforts and La’s and Mahk’s vigorous protestations. Finally Rae reeled the storm mote back into his soul, breaking off its connection to the wind and releasing them in a pile of arms and legs and bruised egos.

Rae popped to his feet. He thrust his fists onto his hips and beamed up at the sky.

“See, nothing to worry about! Just a little stormbinding, and then—”

A sharp pain stabbed his eye. It felt like a spike going into his skull, cold and sharp, burying itself all the way to his brain. He collapsed and lay, mewling, on the ground.

Mahk slowly rose and stood over Rae. He sniffed derisively, then dragged Rae to his feet. La was busy rearranging her rumpled clothes and glaring at her brother.

“Seems like it was less than planned, and more like a disaster we managed to survive,” she said.

“Yes, well. Perhaps,” Rae conceded. He pressed a hand to his eye. The pain was receding, but he could still feel the tip of some ghostly spike lingering in his brain. “But at least we survived.”

Mahk snorted again, then turned and marched away from the Bastion. La followed closely behind.

Once they reached the trees, Rae paused and looked back. Hammerwall was a shattered ruin. The black clouds of the chaosstorm hung on the horizon, its churning form centered on the Bastion. Rae thought he could make out the figure of the high mage, suspended against the squall line, arms spread wide. Black bolts of lightning flashed out from him, dancing in the rubble of the Bastion for brief seconds before disappearing. There was no thunder. Other shapes moved in the clouds, barbed and repulsive. Away from the storm, the skies were clearing, even as the last light of day faded into night.

Above them, the stars started to come out.


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