Prologue
The temple entryway was bustling with mages as the Wild Order’s emergency session ended, its participants flooding into the wide expanse of the courtyard. As one of the elders and founding members, Ritnoan held the door and bid his comrades farewell as they exited. Many of the mages clamored excitedly, especially the young apprentices whose faces shone like bright stars at the joyous news. They also shook hands, nodded and babbled noisily at Ritnoan’s counterpart who held the opposite door.
Ardi stood with his back to the door so he could use his remaining arm to shake hands and clap his order-mates on the back as they passed. His eyes sparkled with joy as he met Ritnoan’s across the doorway. The grin he always wore grew fierce with pride. He didn’t say anything directly to Ritnoan over the noise, but the man could tell his friend was fit to burst and ready to talk over a half-dozen pints.
The last of the mages crossed the threshold and the two elders let the doors close behind them. They fell into a quick step beside one another and made a beeline to the Order’s tavern of choice. Their gaggle of apprentices fell in behind them, voices bleeding over each other as they traded laughter. Ritnoan could wait no longer, he slammed his hand on his slighter friend’s back.
Ritnoan was not exactly a giant man by northerner standards but he was tall, broad and densely muscled. Ardi, by contrast, was a shorter man forged of pure and compact sunlight. Any other man of his size would have been bucked forward by the log of a forearm but Ardi had a lifetime of experience with his brawny friend. He looked up to Ritnoan and the grin broadened twofold.
“Ardi, think of it!” Ritnoan put on his best orator voice as he draped an arm over his friend’s shoulder. “A free order, a free Eria!”
He felt Ardi’s good arm return the gesture, though he couldn’t quite reach Ritnoan’s opposite shoulder. “No more waitin’ for commands, no more gettin’ permission to live as we like!”
They locked eyes and fell into harmony by instinct.
“No kings! No masters!”
They hooted and hollered and their voices drifted back to them from the far wall. Behind them one of their apprentices, Thelus, began the first few notes of “Wildemage”, one of the order’s most beloved anthems. The young man’s voice was crisp and clear as the night air around them. Ritnoan was sucking in a breath to join in when they all stopped together at once.
Ritnoan’s hair suddenly stood on end. His hackles raised and he felt the familiar unearthly sense of danger. He froze in place like a statue and began to listen. Before he could register any specifics, a deafening roar of sound and light buffeted his entire body like a kick from a mule. There was a deafening series of WHOOMP sounds accompanied by a flurry of lights as forms began to appear on the wall.
The instant the people appeared, amber blades of razor sharp light flashed through the air like searing scythes. Screams sounded and suddenly the battle-weary mage felt the familiar rush of battle-blood in his veins. Unsuspecting mages and their yet under trained apprentices fell like chaffed wheat in the ambush. The blood falling in steaming sprays looked black as ink in the moonlight.
“No!” Ritnoan screamed in righteous fury. Hot opalescent fumes shot from the ground near his feet immediately as he sparked his connection and sprang into action. Ardi fell into stance on his right as they formed a defensive half-ring on the steps of the temple. Their apprentices fell in with them instinctively after dozens of battles together. They began their warding spells and worked to dissipate the surges of ordus that flicked at them like the fangs of a berserk viper.
Ritnoan called on the corpus-fused stones that were worked into the cobbles of the courtyard. They flashed in deep violet light and rose at his call. With a whisper of will, he shot three paving stones like ballista bolts through enemies on the walls before they took notice of him. Ardi took a few of his own the same way. It was easy to remember these tools; they had installed and armed those mage stones themselves.
Ritnoan realized that he knew these tactics, the amber hues of their attacks. This was the Order of Accord! He had fought alongside these warriors for near-on a decade! Why were they here, what were they doing? A gut instinct took him. If this was the Accord, then he knew what was coming. They would try to take him first.
As if beckoned by his thoughts, mages of the Order of Accord suddenly sprang from the earth in swirling clouds of amber energies. From the heart of the glowing mists, senior mages that he had fought alongside for years during the Wars flew like arrows. Mists parted at the points of their spears and quickly scattered into the air in panicked vortexes.
Ritnoan managed to blast one by pushing them mid-flight with a burst of spiritus-charged air. Their trajectory skewed and they passed him, slamming into the granite steps with a horrific crunch of plate and bone. The second one had more luck. He felt the once-reassuring fire of an ordus blade driving deep between his ribs from his right side. The fiery point nearly went clean through him, its point stopped only by a rib on his left.
Arcane essence kept him upright but he wavered as he saw Ardi go down in a heap beneath the tip of another glowing amber spear. His friend’s apprentice Thelus screamed in fury and managed to rip the spear from the grip of another Accord mage. The sturdy young lad slammed the point under the visor of the mage who had struck his mentor down but took two spears to the chest and went down himself.
Ritnoan could hear it as Ardi choked out his last breath and faded. As he stilled, the battlefield grew silent as death with him. Ritnoan’s opponent withdrew his spear from his ribs with a jerk. The assailant’s hood fell back with the effort and revealed his face, perhaps purposefully. It was a face that he knew. One that he cherished as kin.
“Tusrun.” Ritnoan’s voice was soft, hurt. He would have screamed but he suddenly didn’t have the breath for it. He clutched at the welling blood from his rib wound as he gasped in ragged, rattling breaths. His eyes blurred with tears. He could feel his dreams spurting away into the dirt with the blood between his fingers. His knees buckled and he tumbled onto the ground next to Ardi’s husk. The dying man reached a hand out to his friend and gripped the collar of his robes, seeking the simple knowledge of his presence there. The dead man was still hot from effort, skin slicked with blood or sweat.
Tusrun did not respond with words at first. He only shook his head. His face was contorted with grief as he watched Ritnoan go still and heavy. Tears streamed down his cheeks, leaving trails of clean dark skin through splatters of blood. His voice was ragged and weepy when he finally choked out the words.
“Brother... forgive me. The king-- I--. It was yours or- or- mine. I... thought it should be me who took you.”
Tusrun withered when Ritnoan’s painful gaze locked with his. They stayed that way for a quick eternity. What more was there to do, to say? Ritnoan could not rasp more words out with both lungs pierced. Tusrun must have meant to hit his heart from the side but missed. He probably wasn’t expecting to have to talk to Ritnoan, to face the death of an old friend at his own hands.
The honorable --or so Ritnoan had thought-- man flinched when his comrades called to him from afar. It seemed as though he realized that he had been standing there with his hands limp at his sides while the battle raged on. He bolted out of sight.
Ritnoan’s limbs were heavy, his body unable to respond to his commands to get up, to fight. He managed to pull himself a touch closer to Ardi and Thelus. The apprentice’s lifeless form was draped across Ardi’s legs, just in front of where he had stood stalwart over his friend and died for it. He cast an eye back to the small crew of apprentices that had fallen around them. Yasren was still alive, though breathing heavy and pale with blood loss. They locked eyes for a moment and with a heavy hand Ritnoan reached to pull her close to him. He didn’t have the strength. They clutched their hands together and he could feel them both soften a bit. Death came kinder to them now with a friend’s hand to cling to.
As his vision grew pallid and flat, Ritnoan saw in his mind’s eye his wife Hesta’s face in some wordless playful scorn. He saw his six children spinning wild in the wheatgrass, singing the mirthful songs of youth. He hoped they would remember him well and not see him like this. Ritnoan knew Hesta would remember the plan. She would see to his burial and get the kids away to their safe place. Tears fell freely onto the bloody stones beneath him. He did not have the air or energy to weep aloud.
Beyond the edge of the courtyard a new wave of terrified screams began to fill the air. Smoke and fire began to burst forth in rhythm with the flashes of hot streamers of amber light. He watched his beloved city begin to die through blurred vision until the darkness took him like a weighted blanket of peace.
