"Okay, lads, listen up," Ashley called when the hour's rest was done.

The men drifted toward him in a loose ring that tightened as he spoke, the shuffle of boots and the creak of borrowed straps settling into a quiet that felt almost disciplined. The rest had done them well. They had started to look more like a fighting line than the ragged collection we had started with. Once again the gear we had stripped from the dead hadn't been hoarded. Ashley had distributed it where it would matter most, a pauldron to shore up a brawler's shoulder, a bracer to save a knife hand, a single good helm for the man most likely to take the first hit. It left them mismatched and ugly, but stronger. With the latest 'donations' some were looking a lot more capable than others though.

"I think they'll be suspicious by now," Ashley said, his voice carrying with the calm of someone who expected to be obeyed. "Do not count on surprise in the next engagement. To make up for that, we hit fast and we hit hard. Armoured up front, make a wall. Your job is to smother their swings, take the first shock, and stop them using their weapons the way they want. Crowd them. Jam wrists. Step on feet. If they try to draw a clean breath, make sure it hurts to do it. Second row, that's our damage. Swords and anything with an edge. Work through the gaps. Short cuts, short stabs, no big wind-ups. If the front rank gives you an opening, you put something sharp in it."

He drew a rectangle in the dust with the toe of his boot, then another tucked behind it, and the shape helped the plan settle in our heads. "Think of it like a rough phalanx. No spears, so we improvise. Those without weapons, you are the push. Hands on backs and hips, keep the line tight, keep it moving. If someone stumbles you carry them forward, not back. Third row watches the flanks and plugs holes. If they try to peel us apart, you're the ones who stitch us up again. We are going to overwhelm them with pressure, not finesse. If we keep moving, they drown."

A ripple of nods moved around the circle and I noticed the magic in the air. The men stood a little straighter, their faces smoothing into the same hard readiness. It was inspiration, and it was something more. I did not like how easily it slid in on Ashley's words, how quickly it braided their nerves into one rope. He was manipulating them with some sort of magic. I was sure of it.

I fixed my attention on the plan and filed the rest where it wouldn't slow my hands. The more I watched the way their shoulders squared when he spoke, the more certain I became that I needed to leave at the first clean opening and before whatever power he had could pull my thoughts into his current.

We formed up, steel and leather settling with small, practical noises. I drifted toward the rear, and the pointed looks followed. I was the only one fully armoured, sword on the hip, dagger snug at the belt, and for a heartbeat I felt their attention as surely as the weight on my shoulders. Stares slid off me until Ashley stepped over.

"We could really use you in the front line," he said, face open and encouraging.

I let the silence carry my answer, narrowed my eyes, then tipped my chin toward the five thickset men already kitted with plates and scraps enough to stop a bull. Their bulk would be difficult enough in the wall without adding mine into it.

His mouth tightened, but he clearly understood my meaning. "Second row, then? You can rotate forward if anyone needs it."

The weight of nearby gazes pressed in. The second row would still have me in the action with Ashley at my back but it also left me a path to slip free if fortune finally did me a favour. I gave him a short nod and shouldered into place on the left, nudging a man along the line to make space. He shot me a glare at the rough way I went about it but did nothing else.

"Let's go," Ashley called, and the line rolled forward.

The corridor wasn't built for five across, which was exactly why he wanted it. Our shoulders kissed stone and arms overlapped, the press forcing us into the close, ugly shape he'd drawn in dust. It wasn't graceful. Corners made the formation stutter and accordion, and for a few steps at every turn we were a crowd instead of a line. But between the bends, once we settled, the movement found a rhythm. Boots thudded in time. The scrape of scabbards against walls left faint, chalky lines. Torches breathed smoke into damp air and the whole place smelled of old straw, oil, and iron.

Something about being part of that weight made a small spark of excitement start in my chest. It felt like belonging and strength and reminded me of how I felt when I first looked out at the Fracture. Being a part of a fighting force gave me such a thrill.

We reached a barred door, heavy lattice of iron that ate the light and threw it back in a grid across the floor. The front rank paused as one, helmets tipping, ears open.

"No enemies spotted," one of them called, voice low.

"Open up and storm through," Ashley answered. "Remember—don't give them anything. No ground, no space, no mercy."

Our reply rose together, not quite a shout, not quite a growl, just one sound from many throats. The gate swung. We compressed, threaded the bottleneck, and spilled into the next corridor with our wall intact and the push already gathering behind it.

We were loud as we marched, not in the grand sense of armies on parade, but loud enough for underground stone to make a spectacle of us. The stomping of boots found a loose rhythm that turned the corridor into a drum and my anticipation beat to it. There were no cells here to crack open and no side doors to slip through, only a straight run of damp walls and guttering sconces that threw our shadows in jagged pieces across the floor. If anyone was waiting ahead—and of course they were—the only questions left were how many and how we would fare when we met them.

Voices drifted toward us, thin at first, then clearer as we advanced. We kept a brisk pace, helped along by the steady pressure from the bodies behind us.

"Men ahead," one of the front rank muttered, and I felt my fingers tighten on the sword hilt, nerves and eagerness sparking in my wrist.

"They're hiding just past the corner," Ashley called from the rear, his voice carrying cleanly. "Rush through and keep the formation."

We rounded the bend and light exploded over us; the next chamber bristled with torches, the flames throwing heat and brightness that snatched at our eyes. Shouts burst like struck flint—our war cries meeting the guards' alarms—and from the barred rooms along the walls came a rising undertow of voices, prisoners we hadn't reached yet urging us on. I could see very little through the shoulders and helmets in front of me, only the suggestion of movement and steel, and then the line hit.

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

The first impact knocked us ragged for a heartbeat: a jolt of bodies, the clatter and grind of metal, a shoulder slammed into stone. Ashley's commands pulled the shape back together almost as quickly as it had frayed.

"Second row, attack! Back rows, push!" The order cut through the noise and we answered with motion.

I drew my sword from its scabbard awkwardly between the shoving from behind and the man pushing back from the front, annoyed at myself for not having it ready. I did what I could to thread it between the pauldrons of the two men in front of me, feeling for a gap in the armour beyond. It was clumsy work. The angle was wrong, my reach short, my view a shifting slot between neck plates and the back of a helmet. I jabbed, withdrew, jabbed again, the point skittering along something hard one moment and meeting meat the next, though I couldn't tell if it was a forearm, a thigh, or nothing but padded cloth.

Cries changed timbre as the front rank did what they were meant to do, smothering swings and tangling limbs. Their plates took the worst of it, blades screeching and sliding as the guards tried to cut down over our wall. Behind me the press increased, boots digging for purchase on slick stone as the third row leaned forward and made us heavier. The air smelled of hot iron and old straw; sweat ran down my back beneath borrowed metal. The guards' line gave an inch, then another, not a rout but a forced shuffle, the sort of unwilling yielding that happens when breath is stolen and feet have nowhere better to go. I kept the point working in that narrow lattice of space, short stabs and quick withdrawals, adding small, mean hurts wherever the front rank's jostling opened a seam. We moved as a single, grinding thing, and the corridor filled with the ugly music of close quarters fighting. Steel kissing steel, leather creaking, men trying not to die.

"That's it!" Ashley called, his voice cutting clean through the clash. "Keep pushing! We almost have them. They can't stand against this. They are nothing! You are everything!"

The words landed like fresh air in starved lungs, and our line surged. A stumble rippled through the formation and someone cried out; for a heartbeat we hesitated, then the front rank stamped forward, boots thudding over a fallen shape. We'd dropped one. His comrades shouted his name, raw with panic, while ours fell on him like a tide, blades and boots and fists making certain he stayed down. Hands worked quick and clever even as we kept pressure on the line: buckles popped, straps slid, a sword vanished backward into our ranks, and a dented pauldron found a new shoulder. One fewer for them, one more edge for us. The air tasted of blood and hot iron. We felt the shift, and so did they.

A plea for help went up from the guards' end and their front began to give ground faster, step by grudging step. We refused them the space to breathe. Ashley called the tempo higher, urging us forward at speed.

As we passed the first barred doors our rear ranks peeled keys from belts and swung cells wide. Prisoners shouted blessings, curses, anything to feed the sound. The guards saw it—saw what would happen if they let us roll through them—and rallied with their own rough cries, bracing and shoving back hard. The corridor turned into a grinding press, shoulders and shields biting for inches. We kept cutting. We worried at the seams.

Another guard dropped under the weight, but not cleanly; his blade flashed as he fell and opened the thigh of the man directly in front of me. The cut was too deep for him to stand on. He folded with a wet gasp, dragging the shape of the wall with him.

I stepped into the space without thinking about the risk or my plan. The formation needed a body and I was perfect for it. The world narrowed to three helmets and the thin slits of their eyes. I set my feet, felt the weight of the breastplate settle along my ribs, and went to work.

My sword skill was nonexistent but the blade still spoke a language the guards had to respect. I hacked and jabbed, short strokes that bounced from edges and slid along plates, the point snaking for armpits and thighs whenever a jostle opened a hand's-width of flesh. They tried to manage a retreat, feet angling, arms braced, blades chopping down to punish our front rank, but I was armoured and close and rude about it. Every time they sought rhythm I spoiled it. Every time one reached for a clean swing I crowded him, forcing him to check his motion or take a cut for it. Behind me the push stayed steady, our weight making us heavier than any one of us could be alone, and inch by stubborn inch we drove them back through their own light.

The shift began with the fear in the rightmost guard. His breath came harsh and uneven, his swings slowed, and his gaze kept flicking over his shoulder as if reinforcements might appear and rescue him from the predicament he had found himself in. I wasn't about to give him that chance though. The man was clearly too used to fighting beasts and unarmed prisoners and once his lungs started to burn, fatigue had him falling into a consistent pattern of attacks. Once I saw him reach the end of his predictable little sequence, I went for the throat.

My blade snapped toward his neck, and he panicked, chopping wildly to parry. I'd been worrying his mates in the middle and left, and that must have lulled him into thinking he didn't need to worry about me. The cut didn't land, but his blunder opened him up. The frontliners to my right surged, armoured hands clamping onto his arms and gorget, and he was dragged backward into our line to be finished out of the way.

The lunge exposed my ribs though and one of the remaining two tried to make me pay for it; the edge bit through leather and kissed skin, shallow enough that I knew I could mend it with a bit of mana once we had a moment to breathe.

They tried to crab sideways to shore up the gap and keep some order to their retreat, but with only two holding the mouth of the corridor their control lasted all of three heartbeats. I caught the next cut on my blade and rolled it off, and the guard who'd thrown it was swallowed by bodies. Hands closed, weight bore him down, and his sword vanished backward into grateful fingers. The last man flinched, made a choice, and turned to run. He didn't get a full step. One of our frontliners triggered a charge that cracked the air like a thunderclap and hit him square, armour on armour. The guard lifted off his feet and slammed into the flagstones hard enough to knock the wind out of me in sympathy. He lay there stunned for a blink, then didn't move again as a blade slid into his heart.

The cheer that followed rose from both our line and the cells, a rough, joyous sound that trembled in the torchlight. It felt good in the chest, hot and simple. Ashley cut it off before it could swell into something that wasted time.

"No time to celebrate," he called, already pacing the rear and counting heads. "Lines forward. Momentum buys our lives. Reinforcements will be coming. If you're too hurt to hold, rotate to the back. We've got more armour now, we can fill the gaps."

The command slid through us and the wall leaned on its own legs again. I pressed a hand to my side, felt the warm tack of blood used some mana to heal it as we marched on, the steady press of bodies urging me forward along with the cheers of the newly freed prisoners.

We swung around the bend and met what felt like the last gate between us and open air: an inclined passage that climbed toward a heavy, iron-bound door. The floor was worn smooth by years of boots, slick with damp, and the torches along the walls threw a wavering glow up the slope so that the doorway seemed to float in a pane of light.

A single guard held the landing. He had the look of a man posted to watch a door rather than to die for it: helm askew, his sword resting rather than leveled, one hand too close to a ring of keys. The moment our formation came into his view his eyes went wide and the sword came up in a flinch instead of a choice. He didn't try to bar the passage. He spun, snatched the latch, and heaved the door open, stumbling into brighter light as he shouted.

"The prisoners are here!"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.