Page 135 of The Exquisite Torment of Loving Your Enemy
“Make cadavers for the anatomy lab,” came Cath’s voice.
There was laughter and a cheer.
“Well done,” said Saophal in Aurienne’s ear.
Hundreds of Haelan held up their tacn. Tonight, the white glow did not promise healing. It promised pain.
“Right,” said Verity. “Only those with tacn should remain outside. Everyone else, into the fortress. Barricade every door and window.”
Quincey, trembling yet hoisting a sword he had found somewhere,tried to take up a position near a door. Aurienne sent him inside. “You stay safe. Someone needs to tell me where to go for my next meeting after—after this.”
The portcullis was drawn down. The eight Wardens divided themselves into pairs along the top of each of Swanstone’s four walls. Aurienne, Cath, and three other Haelan took their place along the fortress’s east wall, behind Verity and Haven. Ataraxia and Solace took the west; Nym, Tenet, and Echo the north; while Corinne and two of the newest Warden arrivals, brothers named Hraith and Beorgan, took the south wall.
Swanstone was connected to the mainland by a long bridge, which was presumably where attackers would cross. From Aurienne’s vantage, she could see the rocky beach behind the fortress. It was so dark that the sea was indistinguishable from the sky. A cloud passed over the moon, blackening the rocky shore further.
The cloud passed.
What Aurienne thought had been shadow blackening the shore wasn’t shadow.
It was Dreor wightlings.
Haven spat, “Woden.”
Everyone on the ramparts took a shocked step back. “So many of them.”
The wightlings clambered across the beach with their peculiar shuffling gait.
The Wardens on the ramparts pulled their helmets closed.
Verity and Haven pressed their tacn to each other’s in what Aurienne thought was a gesture of encouragement—until they pulled their hands apart, and a thick glowing line of seith spread between them.
With a sharp gesture, they whipped the ward out and down the ramparts, past the moat, towards the wightlings. Blue-white cords of seith flattened themselves upon the ground and wound their way upankles and calves. A line of ten wightlings was caught in it. Verity and Haven tugged their tacn. The entire line of wightlings was yanked apart in an explosion of offal.
The watching Haelan gasped and cheered.
There was more movement. A hundred more wightlings were approaching the fortress from all sides.
Upon each wall, pairs of Wardens pushed their tacn together and whipped the dismembering ward into the wightlings. Again they exploded into piles of bone and entrails. The wightlings didn’t flinch as they died, and those behind them advanced carelessly upon the remains of their brethren. Feet churned black blood and mud. This time, the Haelan did not cheer.
The wightlings weren’t armed or armoured. There was something horrific in their advance, their brainlessness, their absolute lack of self-preservation. What was the purpose of this? Dashing themselves upon the wards they knew would be here? What was the strategy?
“Some of them are strapped with something,” came Ataraxia’s voice from the west wall. “Watch out.”
The bodies of the wightlings piled up. Upon some of their chests was a large white rectangle, chalky-looking. Neither the Haelan nor the Wardens on the wall recognised the substance.
“Where’s the Ingenaut?” asked Verity.
Felicette came running. She peered over the edge of the ramparts. “That looks like unrefined Slihtrock. Oh no—the moat—”
“What?” asked Verity. “What’s the matter with the moat?”
“When Slihtrock comes into contact with water, there’s a violent exothermic—”
A wightling tumbled into the moat. A detonation shook the ramparts.
“—reaction,” finished Felicette.
The next wave of wightlings pushed the corpses of their fallen into the moat. The Wardens did their utmost to stop them, but they hadpiled the wightling corpses along the moat, and all it took was one nudge, and three Slihtrock-bound bodies fell into the water, and there was another explosion directly at the foot of Swanstone’s mighty walls.
