The harpoon flew.

  Leelinor saw it cutting through the smoke, a dark shape against gray, trailing a thin whistle that rose and fell with distance. He pulled Arcanjo left, giving it space. The harpoon passed twenty feet to his right and vanished into the haze above. The shot had missed.

  The yellow dragon didn’t flinch. It circled higher, wings spread wide, patient as death.

  One shot wasted. How many did they have? Two? Three? Leelinor didn’t know.

  Above him, through a gap in the smoke, he saw the pegasus. Black wings beating hard against toxic air. A rider pressed flat against its neck, holding something in his hand that glowed faintly even through the haze. Kooel was tracking the dragon with some kind of device, feeding its position to whoever was firing those harpoons from gods knew where. But the smoke was too thick. The dragon kept moving. The shot had been blind, wasted.

  The dragon dove.

  Arcanjo banked hard right. Leelinor leaned into the turn, feeling the pegasus’s muscles bunch and release beneath him, ribs expanding with each labored breath. Blue light gathered in the dragon’s throat, pulsing brighter. Leelinor pulled up, climbing fast. The fire came anyway, a column of heat that scorched the air and seared his lungs even from thirty feet away.

  He leveled out, breathing hard. His throat was raw. Each breath tasted like ash and copper. Kooel was still there, circling, the device raised to his eye.

  The dragon was behind Leelinor now, climbing, closing the distance with each beat of its massive wings.

  Leelinor made a decision. He twisted in the saddle, cupped his hands around his mouth, and screamed into the wind. “KOOEL! ON ME! AIM ON ME!”

  The words were torn away by the roar of wind and distant fire, but Kooel’s head turned. Their eyes met across five hundred feet of smoke and ash and burning sky.

  Leelinor pointed at himself, then at the air behind him where the dragon climbed. “THE DRAGON IS BEHIND ME! AIM HERE!”

  Kooel understood. He raised the device, centered it on Leelinor rather than the dragon. His hand moved, pressing runes. The device flared and the signal went out.

  Leelinor didn’t wait. He leaned forward, pressing his mouth against Arcanjo’s ear. “When I say, you drop. Fast as you can. Understand?”

  Arcanjo’s wings beat once, hard, in acknowledgment.

  Leelinor counted. The harpoon would need five seconds to fly. Maybe six. He didn’t know the distance or the angle. He was guessing, and if he guessed wrong they’d both die.

  The dragon’s shadow fell over him. He could hear its breathing now, a wet, rattling sound like stones grinding in a bag. Could smell the sulfur thick enough to choke on.

  Three seconds.

  The dragon’s jaws opened. Blue light pulsed in its throat, gathering, building.

  Two seconds.

  Leelinor’s fingers tightened on the reins until his knuckles went white. His heart hammered against his ribs.

  One.

  “NOW!”

  Arcanjo’s wings folded and they dropped like a stone. The world blurred. Leelinor’s stomach lurched into his throat. Wind screamed past his ears, tearing at his armor, his hair, his eyes. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see. The ground was somewhere below, rushing up to meet them.

  Above them, the harpoon cut through the smoke and caught the dragon in the top of its right wing, punching through membrane and bone with a wet crunch Leelinor heard even over the wind. The beast roared, a sound that vibrated in Leelinor’s chest and made his teeth ache. Its wing buckled, bone snapping, membrane tearing. It tried to correct, tried to pull up with its left wing alone, but there was too much damage.

  The dragon began to fall, tumbling, wings flailing uselessly. But even falling it twisted in the air with impossible speed, jaws opening wide. Fire poured from its throat, a wild, desperate torrent aimed at where Leelinor had been a heartbeat before.

  Arcanjo pulled out of the dive thirty feet below the flames. The heat washed over them anyway, so close Leelinor felt his hair singe, smelled it burning. The dragon was dropping fast, spiraling, blood trailing from its ruined wing in a dark spray. It hit the rooftops below with a crash that shook the air and sent a shockwave through Leelinor’s bones. Tiles exploded. Beams splintered. Dust and smoke billowed outward in a choking cloud, but the roar didn’t stop.

  Leelinor urged Arcanjo down. They descended in tight spirals, cutting through smoke that burned Leelinor’s eyes and throat. The dragon came into view, sprawled across the ruins of three collapsed buildings. Its right wing was shredded, bone jutting through torn membrane, blood pooling beneath it in a spreading black lake that steamed in the heat. But it was alive. Its head lifted, jaws snapping at empty air. Its tail lashed out and smashed through a wall. Stone and wood exploded. The tail swung again, carving a trench through rubble, scattering bodies that had been lying there.

  Fire gathered in its throat.

  Leelinor drew his blade. The Sunstone edge caught the light filtering through the smoke, glowing faint and warm against his palm. He leaned forward, guiding Arcanjo in a low pass over the dragon’s back, looking for an opening, a weakness, anything.

  The dragon’s head whipped around faster than Leelinor expected, faster than anything that size should move. Its tail came up in a horizontal arc, moving too fast for him to react. The tail caught Arcanjo mid-flank. Leelinor felt the strike through the saddle, through his thighs, a shockwave that rattled his teeth and jarred his spine. Arcanjo’s ribs caved under the blow. The pegasus screamed, a sound Leelinor had never heard before, high and breaking and wrong, and then they were tumbling.

  Leelinor’s hands scrabbled for the reins but found nothing. Wind tore at him, ripping his breath away. The world spun. Sky, smoke, stone, sky again. The ground rushed up.

  His right shoulder took the impact. Armor crumpled, metal bending inward, biting into skin. Something in his shoulder separated, tearing, bone grinding where it wasn’t supposed to. Pain detonated down his arm, white-hot, erasing thought.

  He rolled and couldn’t stop. Cobblestones tore at his armor, at the exposed skin of his neck. He slammed into a pile of broken stone and air left his lungs. His head cracked against something solid. Stars burst across his vision, then white light, then red.

  He lay there gasping, each breath a saw blade dragging through his chest. Blood filled his mouth, copper-thick and warm. His right arm hung at his side, dead and useless, fingers twitching with phantom commands his body couldn’t obey.

  Arcanjo struggled to stand twenty feet away. One wing dragged, broken, feathers matted with blood. A gash ran across his flank, deep enough that Leelinor could see muscle and bone beneath. The pegasus’s legs shook. He made it upright, barely, and stood there swaying.

  Leelinor pushed himself up with his left hand. His vision swam, doubled, then slowly resolved. In the other direction, the dragon was pulling itself upright, claws gouging grooves in the stone. Its eyes found him through the smoke and blood and locked on.

  Leelinor’s hand found his sword where it had fallen. He gripped the hilt and stood, legs shaking so hard his knees nearly gave out. His breath came in short, sharp gasps. Every part of him hurt: ribs, shoulder, head, lungs burning with each inhalation of toxic air.

  The dragon opened its jaws.

  A shape descended from above, moving fast. Black wings cutting through smoke. Kooel on Hercules, dropping in a steep dive that made the pegasus’s wings scream with the strain. In Kooel’s hand he held a spear carved from Sunstone, pale and gleaming even through the haze, the tip honed to a wicked edge.

  Kooel pulled up ten feet above the dragon’s head and hurled the spear with both hands. It flew true and punched through the roof of the dragon’s mouth into the soft tissue beyond with a wet crunch. The dragon’s roar cut off mid-breath, became a wet, choking gurgle. Its head thrashed, trying to dislodge the spear. Blood poured from its mouth, thick and black, spattering the stones.

  Kooel pulled Hercules into a climb, banking hard away from the thrashing head.

  The dragon’s attention was on the sky, on Kooel, on the agony of the spear lodged through its palate. Leelinor’s body shifted into something older than thought, something that bypassed pain and exhaustion. His breathing changed, deep and controlled despite his shattered ribs. His vision narrowed until the world was nothing but angles and distance and the space between heartbeats. His muscles coiled.

  The dragon’s head turned back, searching for Kooel in the smoke above, jaws still working around the spear.

  Leelinor ran. Three strides on legs that screamed with each impact, low and fast. He dropped into a slide beneath the dragon’s belly, sword held out horizontal. The blade bit into the soft scales there, dragging a line from chest to tail. Blood sprayed, hot against his face, filling his mouth with copper. He rolled out the other side, came up on his feet despite the agony in his ribs, spun, and drove the sword into the dragon’s flank with both hands.

  The blade sank deep and hit something vital. The dragon roared and twisted, faster than anything that size should move, body whipping around with the speed of a striking snake. Leelinor tried to pull the sword free but it was stuck, wedged between ribs.

  The dragon’s flank slammed into him. He flew ten feet, fifteen, hit the ground and rolled, bones jarring, armor scraping across stone. He stopped against the base of a ruined wall, breath gone, vision graying at the edges.

  Kooel circled once and brought Hercules down in a controlled descent. The pegasus landed, hooves clattering on broken stone. Kooel dismounted, bow already in hand.

  Leelinor forced himself to his knees. His sword was still buried in the dragon’s side, the hilt jutting out at an angle. The beast was thrashing, trying to reach it with claws and teeth, but the spear in its mouth made every movement agony. Blood poured from half a dozen wounds, pooling beneath it, running in dark rivers between the cobblestones. The dragon was weakening but it wasn’t dead yet.

  Leelinor’s lungs burned. His right arm hung useless. He didn’t know how he was going to kill this thing, didn’t know if he could.

  Then he heard them.

  A roar from above. Human voices, raw and furious and edged with something that sounded like madness.

  Two shapes descended through the smoke. Joel’s raven, black wings spread wide, feathers trailing wisps of smoke. On its back, two riders: Joel with his bow drawn, arrow already nocked, and Luucner beside him, quiver bristling with arrows, face set in hard lines.

  They didn’t land. Joel pulled the raven into a tight circle above the dragon’s head, wings beating hard to hold position. Both he and Luucner loosed arrows in rapid succession, the shafts whistling as they flew. They struck home. One in the dragon’s remaining good eye, two in its throat where arteries pulsed beneath scales, three more in the torn membrane of its ruined wing.

  The dragon bellowed, twisting its head up, jaws snapping at empty air. Blood ran from its eye socket.

  Then from the east came footsteps, heavy and fast, boots pounding stone.

  Thalion burst through the smoke, energy blades lit and blazing blue-white, throwing long shadows across the rubble. Behind him came warriors. Their armor was scorched black, faces so covered in soot and blood that Leelinor couldn’t tell elf from human. But they were moving, weapons raised, voices lifted in a war cry that had no words, just rage and grief compressed into sound.

  And at their center moved a figure in shattered Sunstone armor that caught the firelight and threw it back in fractured rays. Naramel, his sword gleaming white and crimson, the JaS blade humming its low death song. Blood ran from his side, from his shoulder, soaking into his belt, but his stride didn’t falter.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  They hit the dragon from three sides at once.

  Thalion’s blades carved into the dragon’s front leg, severing muscle, cracking bone. The leg buckled. The dragon’s weight shifted forward, head dropping. An ogre warrior drove a spear into its throat, ripped it free in a spray of arterial blood that painted his chest red. A human guard hacked at the ruined wing, tearing through membrane, exposing bone.

  Naramel moved like a storm given form. His blade sang as it cut, a low hum that vibrated in the air and made Leelinor’s teeth ache. He drove it into the dragon’s shoulder, twisted with both hands, ripped it free. Blood fountained, hot and black. The dragon’s tail lashed out. Naramel ducked, the tail passing inches over his head with a whoosh of displaced air. He surged up, blade coming horizontal, and took a chunk out of the dragon’s flank the size of a man’s chest. Meat and scales fell to the ground with a wet slap.

  Above, Joel and Luucner kept firing. Arrows rained down in a constant barrage, thudding into scales, punching through membrane. The dragon tried to breathe fire but the spear in its mouth made it choke. Blood and flame mixed, spilling from its jaws in a burning red mess that hissed where it hit stone.

  The dragon’s back was exposed, thrashing but undefended. Everyone was focused on its head, its legs, its flanks. No one was watching its spine.

  Leelinor ran. His legs screamed with each step. His ribs ground together, bone scraping bone. He ignored it all. There was a pile of rubble to his left, stone and broken beams heaped against a collapsed wall. He hit it at full speed, boots finding purchase on loose stone, and climbed. Three strides up. His broken ribs protested with white-hot agony but he didn’t care.

  He launched himself from the top of the rubble and landed on the dragon’s back, boots slamming into scales. The dragon bucked beneath him, trying to throw him off, but he held on. He drove his left hand down, gauntlet claws finding purchase between scales, and pulled himself forward. His right arm hung limp, useless. He used his teeth to pull a dagger from his belt, tasting leather and old blood.

  He pulled himself higher, hand over hand, boots scrabbling for purchase on blood-slick scales, until he reached the base of the neck where the skull met the spine.

  He raised the dagger and drove it down. Once, the blade punching through scale into muscle. Twice, deeper, hitting something that made the dragon scream. Three times, each strike sending vibrations up his arm, hot blood spraying across his face.

  Naramel saw Leelinor on the dragon’s back and roared to the others, voice raw. “THE NECK! GO FOR THE NECK!”

  Thalion’s blades flashed in the smoke-filtered light. He drove them both into the side of the dragon’s throat, pulling them across in a savage slash that opened arteries. Blood poured in a constant dark stream.

  A warrior fell when the dragon’s tail caught him across the chest. Leelinor heard ribs cave in even from his position on the beast’s back. The man flew, hit a wall, and crumpled. He didn’t move again.

  Another warrior screamed as fire caught her armor. She dropped her weapon, hands going to her face, clawing at flames that wouldn’t die. Naramel grabbed her, pulled her down, smothered the fire with his cloak. But when he pulled the cloak away her face was gone, just charred meat and exposed bone. She was still screaming.

  Joel’s raven banked hard, wings beating frantically. Luucner loosed three arrows in rapid succession, all three sinking into the dragon’s remaining eye. The beast bellowed, head thrashing blindly now, spraying blood in wide arcs.

  Leelinor held on and drove the dagger down again and again. The dragon’s movements were slowing, each thrash weaker than the last. Its roar became a wet, choking rattle.

  Naramel stepped in close, inside the reach of the thrashing limbs. He drove his sword up beneath the dragon’s jaw, angling it toward where the brain should be. The blade sank to the hilt. He twisted with both hands, using his whole body weight, then pulled.

  The dragon’s legs gave out and it fell. The ground shook. Dust and blood sprayed outward in a wave. Leelinor was thrown clear, hit the ground hard, rolled across broken stone. He lay there gasping, staring at smoke-filled sky.

  The dragon’s body twitched once, twice. Its tail scraped against stone with a sound like grinding metal. Then it stopped.

  For a long moment, no one moved. The only sound was breathing, ragged and desperate.

  Then from the north, a building collapsed. The crash echoed across the ruins. A woman’s scream followed, high and sharp, then silence returned. The silence of the dead.

  Thalion’s voice, hoarse and broken, cut through it. “Is it dead?”

  Naramel stood over the corpse, chest heaving, sword dripping black blood that hissed where it hit hot stone. He studied the dragon’s eyes, dull and empty and glazed over, then nodded once. “It’s dead.”

  Around them, eight warriors remained standing. Ten had entered the fight. Two lay broken in the rubble. A third sat against a wall, holding what remained of her face, no longer screaming but making small, animal sounds.

  Leelinor pushed himself to his knees. His right arm hung useless, the shoulder wrong, bone where it shouldn’t be. His ribs were broken, maybe three or four of them. Blood ran from cuts across his face, his neck, his hands.

  He studied the dragon, at the ruin of its body, at the blood pooling beneath it and spreading across stone. Then he turned toward the center of the square, toward the bodies.

  ?

  Leelinor pushed himself to his feet. His right arm hung at his side, the shoulder dislocated or broken, he couldn’t tell and didn’t care. His ribs ground together with each breath, making small sounds he could feel more than hear. Blood ran from cuts across his face, his neck, his hands, dripping from his fingertips to patter on stone.

  He studied the dragon’s corpse, at the warriors standing around it with chests heaving and weapons dripping, at the two bodies that weren’t standing, at the third warrior who was standing but wouldn’t be for long, her face a ruin.

  Then he turned and saw that the square was a graveyard.

  Bodies everywhere. Mosiah’s militia in their leather and iron, cut down mid-stride, weapons still clutched in dead hands. Eldoria’s cavalry, some still in their saddles, horses dead beneath them, both rider and mount burned together. Civilians caught in the fire: children, elders, families huddled together as if they’d thought they could protect each other from dragonfire, burned so badly Leelinor couldn’t tell where one body ended and another began.

  The stench was overwhelming. Burnt flesh, sweet and sickening. Voided bowels. Blood baking on hot stone, the smell like hot copper. Smoke rose in black columns from every street, every building, turning the sky dark even though the sun was still up there somewhere.

  The screams had faded. Not because the dying had been saved, but because there was no one left to scream.

  Footsteps behind him. Luucner approached, bow still in hand, face so blackened with soot only his eyes showed through. Behind him came Naramel, limping, one hand pressed against the wound in his side. Blood seeped through his fingers, darkening the white Sunstone armor to rust.

  Luucner stopped. “Leelinor—”

  “How many?” Leelinor’s voice was raw, barely recognizable. “How many did we lose?”

  Luucner’s jaw tightened, muscles working beneath soot-stained skin. “Thalion’s cavalry? Thirty-five out of fifty. Mosiah’s militia…” He stopped and gestured at the bodies. “Most of them. The civilians…” He shook his head slowly. “Tens of thousands. Maybe more. We won’t know until—” He stopped again. There was no point in finishing.

  Tens of thousands. The number sat in his chest like a stone, cold and heavy and immovable.

  Naramel stepped forward, blood dripping from his fingers. “This was a distraction.”

  “What?”

  “Two dragons. Modified troops. All of it.” Naramel gestured at the ruins around them with his free hand. “It’s enough to burn Mosiah to ash. But if the goal was to destroy Eldoria? To actually take the capital?” He shook his head. “This is nothing. They wanted our eyes here. Our forces here. Fighting and dying in the wrong place.”

  Luucner nodded. “We saw it in the South. The ogre warbands would hit a village hard, draw every defender we had, then vanish through portals before we could finish them. This is the same strategy, just bigger.”

  The words settled over Leelinor, cold and heavy. Mosiah had burned. Thousands had died screaming. And it was all a distraction.

  His hands clenched into fists. The pain in his right arm flared, white-hot, bone grinding, but he ignored it. “Then where’s the real attack?”

  Naramel’s eyes moved north, toward Eldoria. “I don’t know. But it’s coming.”

  Leelinor studied the ruins, at the bodies, at the survivors stumbling through the smoke, hollow-eyed and broken, covered in ash and blood. His mind raced, trying to process, trying to plan, trying to think like the commander he was supposed to be. But all he could see was the carnage. All he could smell was the dead.

  He forced his voice to steady. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Naramel’s eyes snapped back to him. “What?”

  “Right now, it doesn’t matter where the real attack is.” Leelinor turned to face them both. “What matters is what we can still save. What’s still alive in this city. We get them out. All of them. Now.”

  He raised his voice, projecting it across the square despite the agony it sent through his ribs. “EVERYONE! Listen to me! We’re evacuating Mosiah! Anyone who can walk, help those who can’t! Anyone with a mount, start ferrying the wounded to Eldoria! We move NOW!”

  The warriors stirred. Thalion straightened despite the exhaustion carved into his face. Naramel pushed himself upright despite the blood running down his side. Around the square, survivors began to move with the slow, stumbling gait of the shell-shocked.

  Leelinor didn’t wait for them to organize. He started walking, heading toward the nearest cluster of injured. His legs shook with each step. His vision swam, doubled, slowly cleared. He ignored it.

  A woman was pinned beneath a fallen beam, only her head and one arm visible. She wasn’t screaming anymore, just staring at nothing. Leelinor knelt, gripped the wood with his left hand, and pulled. It didn’t move. He pulled harder, teeth clenched, broken ribs screaming. The beam shifted an inch, then two.

  Another set of hands appeared. Thalion knelt beside him, face set in grim lines. Together they lifted. The beam came up and the woman crawled free, sobbing, then collapsed.

  Leelinor moved to the next casualty. An old man with burns across half his body, skin black and cracked and weeping clear fluid. Unconscious but still breathing, each breath a wet rattle. Leelinor hooked his good arm under the man’s shoulders and dragged him toward the center of the square where others were gathering the wounded.

  He kept moving. A child trapped in rubble, no more than seven, screaming for her mother who lay dead nearby. A soldier with a spear through his leg, pinning him to the ground, too weak to pull it free. A mother clutching her dead daughter, refusing to let go, whispering the girl’s name over and over.

  Leelinor knelt beside the mother and spoke quietly, words he didn’t remember later. Gently, he pried the small body from her arms. The woman collapsed, keening, a sound that wasn’t quite human.

  Footsteps behind him. Joel appeared, breathing hard. “Leelinor. I can carry six, maybe eight on Sarutobe. The badly wounded. Get them to Eldoria faster than walking.”

  Leelinor nodded. “Do it. Start with—” He stopped as his mind caught up to what he’d been avoiding thinking about. “Leeonir. Where’s Leeonir?”

  Joel’s expression shifted and something careful entered his eyes. “Upper square. With Saahag.”

  Leelinor’s heart stopped, just for a moment, then started again, beating too fast. “Show me.”

  They ran. Joel led the way through the smoke, boots crunching over broken glass and fragments of bone. The upper square opened before them. More bodies. More blood. And in the center, kneeling over a figure wrapped in blood-soaked cloth, was Saahag.

  Leelinor saw his son.

  Leeonir lay on his back, unconscious. His chest rose and fell in short, shallow breaths that barely moved his ribs. His face was caked with blood and ash so thick Leelinor almost didn’t recognize him. His armor was dented inward, scorched, pieces missing entirely. His arms were burned, skin hanging in blackened strips that showed muscle and bone beneath. And his left hand bore scales, black as obsidian, climbing from his fingers to his elbow, nearly to his shoulder, pulsing faintly with each heartbeat as if something alive moved beneath them.

  Leelinor’s legs gave out and he dropped to his knees beside Leeonir. His good hand reached out, hovering over his son’s face. He didn’t touch, didn’t trust himself to touch without breaking whatever fragile thing was keeping Leeonir breathing.

  “Leeonir.” His voice broke on the name, shattered into pieces.

  Saahag studied him. Her face was tight, eyes red-rimmed and wet. “He’s alive. Barely. But alive.”

  Leelinor stared at his son, at the burns, the blood, the scales. Eighteen years old. The boy who’d left Eldoria this morning, eager to prove himself, eyes bright with the anticipation of his first real battle.

  Now this. Broken. Burned. Transformed into something Leelinor didn’t understand, something neither elf nor dragon.

  His throat closed. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. The image burned itself into his mind and he knew it would never leave: his son, dying, while Mosiah screamed around them. While Leelinor had been too slow, too late.

  Again.

  He didn’t cry but something inside him shattered, a sound like glass breaking in an empty room, and he knew he’d carry this for the rest of his life, however long or short that might be.

  Saahag’s voice cut through the haze. “Leelinor. He’s strong. Stronger than anyone I’ve ever seen. He’ll survive this.”

  Her eyes were certain, fierce. Leelinor wanted to believe her more than he’d ever wanted anything.

  “I know.” His voice was barely a whisper, less than breath. He swallowed, forced it louder. “I know he will. But he needs to go. Now.” He turned to Joel. “Get him to Eldoria. Take Saahag. Take the worst of the wounded. Get them to Tetus. He’ll know what to do.”

  Joel nodded once. “Sarutobe can carry them.”

  “Then go.” Leelinor’s hand finally moved, resting gently on Leeonir’s shoulder, feeling the heat of the scales even through cloth. Just for a heartbeat. “Go now.”

  Saahag started wrapping Leeonir in blankets, moving with practiced efficiency despite her shaking hands. Joel moved to help, lifting Leeonir carefully, cradling him like something made of glass. Other warriors brought the wounded: an elf with half her face burned away, still making small sounds; a human with a spear lodged in his gut, too weak to pull it free; a child no more than six, unconscious and pale as death.

  They loaded them onto Sarutobe. The raven shifted under the weight but held steady, talons scraping stone. Joel climbed up first, then Saahag followed, settling behind him and holding Leeonir against her chest. She met Leelinor’s eyes one last time.

  “I’ll keep him alive.”

  “I know you will.”

  Sarutobe’s wings spread wide, twelve feet of black feathers catching the smoky light and turning it amber. Joel whistled once, low and sharp. The raven launched, talons scraping grooves in stone, wings beating hard. They climbed fast, disappearing into the smoke.

  Leelinor watched until he couldn’t see them anymore, until the sound of wings faded completely. Then he turned back to the ruins and kept moving.

  He pulled survivors from rubble. Carried the wounded when they couldn’t walk. Held the hands of the dying when there was nothing else he could do, when all they wanted was not to die alone. Around him, others did the same. Naramel, bleeding from a dozen wounds, hauling beams off trapped civilians with his bare hands. Thalion, dragging unconscious soldiers toward the evacuation point, face set in grim lines. Luucner, firing arrows into buildings on the verge of collapse, bringing them down before they could fall on survivors below.

  Hours passed, or maybe minutes. Leelinor lost track. His body moved on instinct, one foot in front of the other. His mind was numb, mercifully blank.

  The sun began to set. The smoke turned red, then orange, then black. Torches were lit and the work continued.

  Finally, Thalion appeared at his side. “Leelinor. We’ve searched every building still standing. Everyone we can save is out.”

  Leelinor studied the square. Maybe two hundred survivors huddled together in the center, surrounded by a ring of warriors. Out of tens of thousands who’d been here this morning, only two hundred remained.

  “Get them moving. Eldoria. Now.”

  Thalion nodded and started organizing the evacuation, his voice hoarse but steady. Leelinor stood in the center of the square, alone despite the crowd, surrounded by the dead who outnumbered the living ten thousand to one.

  He turned north, toward Eldoria, toward whatever was coming that had cost this many lives just to distract them.

  The evil that had done this couldn’t win. Eldoria couldn’t fall. He wouldn’t allow it.

  But standing there, covered in blood and ash, staring at the ruin of Mosiah, the words rang hollow in his head like an empty promise made to a corpse.

  He was lying to himself and he knew it.????????????????