Despite his anguish, Hardt saw to his brother's wounds. We had only one small pot of balm and he used it all, binding Isen's leg with the few bandages we had with us. There was no wood to use as a splint and no time to stitch it closed. We needed to escape, find a way above ground, and quickly.
Hardt's own wounds looked superficial and he refused to let anyone look at them. His arms and torso were covered in little scratches, but I could tell he was no stranger to scars. How had I slept next to him for weeks, often curled up in those arms, and not known about the old wounds? I think, perhaps, I was too busy staring at the younger brother to truly notice the older.
When we set off up the stairs it was with Tamura in the lead and Yorin protecting our backs. The two wounded brothers helped support each other up the stairs and I followed them. I don't know if the others could see it, but we were watched all the way.
Chapter 32
By the time the war came to Lanfall it was already lost. The Orran army was all but crushed while the Terrelans were busy supplementing their ranks with mercenaries from Polasia. Fort Vernan was the last real bastion of defence. The city of Lanfall didn't even have a wall to protect it. In strategic terms, they call it being fucked.
Most telling of all was the number of Sourcerers we had left. Prince Loran had fallen just a few days earlier. There were no reports, at least not any accurate ones, but they weren't needed. The Iron Legion marched to meet the Terrelans head on, a sizeable force of soldiers and even a few Sourcerers to back him up. Not one person returned, and the Terrelans marched on. That scared me far more than seeing the army surrounding Lanfall. The idea that the Terrelans had the power to defeat the Iron Legion was unthinkable.
The bitch-whore was gone too. Lesray Alderson didn't die though, she never gave the Terrelans the chance to kill her. I think perhaps she was the smart one. Lesray knew to cut herself free from a dying empire and run. She was assigned to another unit, harassing the enemy approach to Lanfall. Two members of her unit made it back to tell us the bitch-whore had burned most of her soldiers alive, before fleeing through a portal. It was many years before anyone heard of Lesray Alderson again. Many years before she crowned herself the Queen of Fire and Ice.
Of my other classmates, Tammy, was dead, and Barrow never made it out of the academy. He was not the first, nor the last Sourcerer to be driven insane by a combination of Photomancy and Vibromancy. I'm told it's all about the strain both schools put on the senses. As for the academy itself… well, it was gone, looted and burned to the ground as the Terrelans advanced. The history books cover it up as well as they can, but I've heard first-hand accounts of that sacking. The tutors I had grown up learning from were slaughtered, every one of them. But they put up a fight and no mistake. The battlefield they created turned the city of Picarr into a ruin, forever haunted by the ghosts of all those who died there. Thousands of innocent Orran citizens who wanted nothing of the war. That is, perhaps, the greatest tragedy of war; the innocent always pay the highest price.
All in all, the Orrans had lost far too many Sourcerers in far too short a time. There were some left, of course, but only two attuned to more than three Sources. Only Josef and I. We carried the weight of an empire on our shoulders and we were both so young. It's probably no wonder we lost that battle and the war. Josef never wanted to fight it in the first place.
It was the only time I ever met Emperor Serazan Orran. While the Terrelans arranged their army outside the city and made their plans of assault, the emperor visited Josef and I on the top of the tallest tower of Fort Vernan. He told us we were the last hope. The last hope of the entire empire, and he assured us we could win. It was a rousing speech, and it certainly lit a fire underneath me, but it was nothing but damned lies. There was no hope and we had no chance of winning. They were pretty words though.
I remember watching the Terrelans approach. Fort Vernan was built with defending Sourcerers in mind, and we were placed on top of its highest tower. The wind whipped at my clothes, tugging at my hair. The bite of cold on my skin was refreshing and it went no deeper than that. I kept myself warm with magic from my Pyromancy. I sat on the edge of that large tower, dangling my legs over the side and feeling the nervous energy as I waited for the fight of my life to begin.
Josef paced behind me. I think he knew it was a lost cause. I think I knew it too, but I also knew I would fight even so. I believed in the Orran empire. And I believed I owed them for all they had given and done for me. I suppose it all boils down to one word; all they had done for or all they had done to. Josef would have quit the field there and then if not for me. The tutors were right to keep us together. I kept him loyal long past his tipping point.
The Terrelans weren't stupid; they would not have won the war if they were. Their spies knew Josef and I were the most powerful weapon the Orrans had left, and they knew where we would be. We were too valuable to risk down on the battlefield where a stray arrow could spell the end of the resistance. They knew we'd be up on the tower, the most commanding view of the battle for us to rain down death on our enemies. If only I knew how to use Sources then as I do now. That battle, and maybe even the war, might have turned out quite differently. But I only knew what I had been taught at the academy, and the tutors themselves were so ignorant of their true potential.
Before the first horns of battle even sounded, I heard a portal snap open behind us. There is a sound to a portal opening, like a whip cracking. Probably not surprising given that a portal is a tear in the fabric of the world.
We were not alone up on that tower top. The emperor had seen fit to give us twelve of his royal guard to protect us. They were trained in combat both against other soldiers and against Sourcerers. They wore enchanted armour to ward against Sourcery and wielded blades designed to dispel. I have seen one of those blades at work, it severs magical connections. Before the first of our guards could shut the portal, a Terrelan leapt through. Josef was always quite ruthless when his life, or mine, was at stake. That first soldier died screaming, hit with a psychokinetic blast that threw him off the tower to fall to his death. It's quite sickening what the ground can do to a person when gravity has its way.
I turned away from the battle on the tower top, trusting Josef to protect me, to be my shield while I did what I did best; attack. Reaching out to the Other World I brought hellions back with me. Five winged monsters travelled through me and burst out of my chest. Once they were through, I gripped at my tunic and gasped, breathing through the pain. But it was only pain. It felt like they had ripped their way free of my rib cage, but it was an illusion. No magic comes without a price, and the price for Impomancy is pain. I gave my hellions a target and ordered them to attack. With claws that can shred armour and spittle that hardens as strong as solid rock, hellions are quite well-suited to war.
When I turned back to the tower top, I saw two of our guard were down already. They were hard pressed to deal with the portals that kept snapping open and Josef was better suited to a true battle than to that sort of fight.
We didn't know it at the time, but it was all a distraction, really. The Terrelan forces were already inside the fort, making their way to the war room to kill the emperor.
I remember seeing a portal open above us and arrows flew through it. Josef, always faster than I, brushed them aside with a wave of his hand. The portal closed and then another opened behind us. This time I was ready. I snapped open a portal of my own and rained the enemy's own arrows down upon their heads. I'll wager they didn't see that coming.