Page a Day: One Hundred Ninety Seven

            In all this time, the bombardment had not ceased. The first tower slumped, at last being visibly affected by the nearly constant impacts. There came again the high keening sound, and then the whoosh and ring of light passed over the slope and among the artillery and over the tops of the entrenchments everyone had dived into.  

            After, a squad of Neverborn rushed out to dig again a trench that had been filled in by the debris from a blown crater. Those would not suffice for cover. The Light had swept right through the ones in range.

            I counted the towers. Fifty six along the span of Kasora’s long southern wall, sixty four in all. How long? I wondered. How long to take all of them? Would the Light weaken as they collapsed, or did it not work that way at all? Jerem Cozak had not spoken of them in that fashion. I turned to ask him.

            But he was already in conference with someone, a messenger who panted in the darkness, his form bending over at the waist. He looked to have run all the way from the encampment.

            “Valkyries?” the warlord asked. “What do you mean? Kasora has none.”

            “The entrenchment filled and they overrode. We couldn’t stop them.”

            Jerem Cozak frowned. “Couldn’t stop them? You were chameleoned. Where did they go?”

            The man only shook his head, and looked around in confusion. “Aren’t they? What happened?”

            Jerem Cozak spun, and called down the line. “Marcus, you have the field!” He turned and faced me for a moment. “Come,” he said. And then he turned his mount to the west and I followed, and we left the messenger standing alone amidst the lines of mastodons. Just as I rode away I looked back and saw him sit down, legs stretched out in front of him as though he did not quite realize they were there. The bombardment of the city continued unabated.