Bring Him Home

Eridan’s cordon began moving before the eastern sky changed colour. The warning reached the western war chamber through three separate routes. An Oradani observer saw the prison wagon brought beneath the enemy platform. A Phoenix lock crew reported shields turning towards the freight gate. One of Veyra’s concealed watchers counted the signal clerk beneath Arcanis’s tower closing his first tablet and opening another.

No horn announced the transfer.

The enemy had finished asking whether Feenix would surrender Atyas. It was preparing to measure what happened when Eridan was taken away.

General Veyra gave no alarm.

The ordinary western lamps continued their sequence. Relief carts crossed the warehouse court in the same numbers recorded during the previous four nights. Mounted Phoenix patrols entered the northern yard beneath open torchlight and left through the same gate ten minutes later. The riders who returned wore different cloaks. Seraphina’s formations entered the western warehouse district beneath the gaps their movement created. The copied response table had not made them invisible. It had shown Feenix which movements the known watchers expected to count.

“Southern bridge,” Veyra said.

A black marker shifted behind Eridan’s platform.

“Two Keh’Dia assault companies moving north,” Captain Maelin reported. “Valanorian shields closing upon the prison wagon.”

“Freight mechanism?” Solara asked.

“Prepared. Gate remains closed.”

“Seraphina?”

“In position.”

Solara looked towards Atyas. The Crown had belonged to him for less than an hour. No crown marked the change. He wore a dark coat over light armour and carried the embersteel sword Alaria had given him upon his right side. A strip of plain cloth covered the silver seven-star clasp at his throat.

“You may still withdraw from the platform,” Solara said.

“Then they continue watching the gate.”

“Yes.”

“That is why I am going.”

Solara’s jaw tightened.

She crossed the space between them and adjusted the armour strap beneath his left shoulder. It did not require adjustment.

“You remain behind Maelin’s line.”

“Alaria already established that.”

“I am establishing it again.”

“Do royal orders become stronger through repetition?”

“Mine do.”

For one moment, she looked like the woman who had argued with Isolde beside his cradle rather than the queen whose capital burned around them. Solara placed both hands against his face.

“Come back down,” she said.

Atyas nodded. She released him before either could say what the request meant. Alaria waited at the protected stair in complete armour. Her embersteel blade remained dark within its sheath. Captain Maelin stood beside her with twelve Phoenix Guards assigned to the platform and another company controlling the levels below. None belonged to Seraphina’s rescue formation.

Atyas joined them.

The stair carried him upward.

The western platform had been built to let signal officers observe three canals without standing against the sky. At its highest level, stone shields protected every side except the narrow apertures through which field lenses and signal arms operated. A lower fighting gallery allowed Phoenix archers to cover the freight gate. The stair between them could be sealed by two iron doors. Atyas stepped into the highest gallery while the shutters remained closed.

Alaria inspected every opening herself.

“The southern aperture gives the widest view,” Maelin said.

“It also gives the western artillery a direct angle if they move two engines beyond the bridge,” Alaria replied.

“They cannot move engines across that ground before the cordon reaches the wagon.”

“Then they will use something already there.”

Maelin looked towards her. Alaria did not apologise for distrusting a defence she had not built.

“Central aperture,” she said. “Two steps behind the stone. No fire behind him.”

The Phoenix captain accepted the correction.

Atyas drew the cloth from the clasp at his throat. The seven stars caught the low signal light. A folded Asehrian standard waited within the signal arm above the central aperture.

“When I open this shutter, they will know,” Maelin said.

“That is the purpose,” Atyas answered.

Alaria moved against his left side.

“Visible,” she said. “Not reachable.”

“I remember.”

“Remember after they show you Eridan.”

The distinction entered him.

Atyas placed one hand upon the embersteel sword.

“Open it.”

Maelin pulled the shutter and released the signal arm. Cold air entered first. Above the aperture, the standard unfolded into it and seven silver stars opened against the dark blue cloth. Then the western front appeared. The prison wagon waited south of the platform. Two chains connected Eridan to a waist ring held by separate guards. The remaining cordon faced Feenix. Behind them, black formations gathered beyond the southern bridge while Valanorian shields filled the road towards the freight causeway.

Eridan stood under his own strength. His left leg shook when the guards forced him forward. Atyas stepped into sight beneath the seven-star standard. A short note from an enemy horn passed through the formations below. Heads turned towards the elevated defence. Mounted officers changed direction. One company behind Eridan’s wagon halted before completing its movement and began reforming towards Atyas. The copied table had asked whether the subject was present. The western army answered before its clerk could.

“They see you,” Maelin said.

Across the canal, Eridan lifted his head. Distance made it impossible for Atyas to know whether his father saw his face.

Then Eridan’s attention found the sword.

He stopped walking. One guard pulled the chain. Eridan did not move until the second guard struck him between the shoulders.

The current tightened inside Atyas.

Anger reached for the next movement. He gave it only his hand around the sword.

“Watch the cordon,” Alaria said.

Half its nearest shields had turned towards him.

Seraphina’s opening was forming.

The Valanorian speaking horn rose beneath the tower.

Arcanis did not begin with terms.

“There you are.”

His voice crossed the water with the ease of someone greeting a late guest.

“Still behind the woman who carried you away.”

Alaria’s breath changed beside Atyas.

Atyas remembered her arms locked around his body while Asehria burned behind them. He remembered screaming for Isolde and striking Alaria hard enough to leave blood upon her face. The guards began moving Eridan towards the wagon again.

“Cordon opening upon the north,” Maelin reported.

One Phoenix signal officer marked the change. The freight gate remained closed. Seraphina waited. Arcanis allowed the silence to continue until Atyas could hear the distant chains.

“Your mother died buying you a road west.”

Atyas’s hand tightened upon the embersteel sword. He saw Isolde upon the stone passage floor.

Not as she had died.

As she had been an hour earlier, touching his face inside the royal shelter and promising she was not leaving him. Arcanis removed everything from that memory except the price.

“Your father spent three years buying you time.”

Eridan stumbled beside the wagon.

The nearest guard caught him only because a living prisoner remained useful. Atyas felt every morning he had eaten inside Feenix while his father lived beneath Valanor. Every lesson with Solara. Every real sword Alaria placed in his hand. Every bed in which one of them slept while Eridan’s contained only chains.

“Do not answer him,” Maelin said.

Alaria looked past Atyas towards the platform rather than at his face.

“Watch what they are watching,” she said.

More black-armoured officers had turned towards him. Seraphina’s hidden formations remained unmeasured beneath the warehouse roofs.

The plan was working.

Arcanis continued.

“They placed his Crown upon you while he still breathed.”

The seven silver lamps remained above Feenix.

Atyas had not asked for them.

Across the canal, Eridan wore no crown at all.

“How many more people must pay before Atyas of Asehria spends anything of his own?”

The current entered Atyas’s arms.

The embersteel sword at his right side warmed inside its sheath. His body wanted movement. The platform, stone shields and Alaria’s presence became obstacles between anger and the person who had invited it.

Atyas took one step forward.

Alaria’s forearm crossed his chest.

“The line,” she said.

He stopped behind the stone. Eridan turned towards Feenix. One of his guards tried to force his head down. Eridan drove his shoulder into the man’s chest. The movement achieved nothing except one breath in which no hand controlled where he looked.

Arcanis extended the horn towards him.

Eridan ignored it.

The guard twisted the chain between his wrists.

Pain forced him lower.

Only then did he speak.

“Atyas. Look at the gates. Not at me.”

His voice carried the distance between them. Atyas looked. The freight gate remained closed.

Above it, the ordinary lamps continued their false sequence. Behind it, Seraphina waited for the cordon to cross the southern mark. For one movement, Atyas recovered the plan.

Arcanis saw him do it.

“Even now he must tell you where to look.”

Something broke.

Not the plan.

Atyas still saw the cordon. He saw the shields turning, the wagon entering the prepared ground and the signal clerk marking Feenix’s delay. He knew what needed to happen. But the part of him choosing the words no longer wanted merely to open the gate. It wanted to answer every year in which someone else had paid. Atyas drew the embersteel sword.

The blade made almost no sound.

He raised the steel above the stone shield, beneath the seven stars.

“Asehria!”

His voice broke across the western defence. The formations hidden below heard their Crown. The crowds beyond the military wards heard the surviving name of their home. Eridan looked up.

“Look at him!” Atyas shouted. “That is your king!”

The words contradicted the seven lamps burning above him. He did not feel the contradiction while speaking them.

“Bring him home!”

The western freight gate began to open. The enemy signal clerk lowered his head to the tablet. The first Asehrian shields moved beneath Seraphina. Atyas saw the black armour around his father.

Wrath took the final boundary.

“Kill them!” he screamed. “Kill every last one of them!”

The gate opened completely.

The Asehrian formations charged.

Seraphina heard the mistake before she heard the order.

That is your king.

Eridan had been her king for most of her adult life. The Law of the Unbound Crown had not removed loyalty, memory or the shape his authority left inside her body. It had transferred the right to command the soldiers waiting behind her.

Atyas carried that right now.

His next words released it without a limit.

Kill every last one of them.

Seraphina had enough time to understand what the command might become. She did not have enough time to stop a force already moving through an open gate. The first Silvercrest shield companies entered the freight causeway beneath a single silver line. Lunar Watch strike groups followed through the protected gaps. Archers upon Feenix’s lower gallery fired above them towards the Valanorian shields closing around Eridan’s wagon.

“Cordon only!” Seraphina shouted. “Third and Fourth hold the return! No pursuit beyond the wagon!”

Those were battlefield orders within the movement Atyas had begun. They did not erase the King’s voice from the soldiers who heard both. The first collision occurred halfway across the western causeway. Valanorian shields braced beneath a discipline built around locked spacing and controlled release. The Asehrian front settled the current inward, accepting the impact through legs, hips and overlapping shields rather than spending strength upon the first strike. The causeway shook.

Neither line broke.

Seraphina entered the second rank.

“Left opening!”

The forward company yielded half a pace. Valanorian soldiers followed the movement, expecting weakness. Silvercrest spears entered the space their advance opened. The first shield line turned rather than pushed. Six Valanorians fell. The rest corrected before the same answer could be used twice. Behind them, Keh’Dia assault troops struck the southern side of the causeway. One man came with enough speed to break the first Asehrian spear upon his breastplate. He continued after the point entered him, wrath carrying his current through pain and towards the person who had resisted him. A second soldier waited behind his aggression, preserving his own position until the breach became safe to claim.

Their officer recalled the first before pursuit isolated him and sent the second into the ground he had protected.

Seraphina met him there.

Her blade entered beneath his shield rim. The current held her stance against his weight for one necessary moment. She pulled her blade clear and stepped behind the next shield.

“Forward!”

The Asehrian line gained six paces.

Eridan’s wagon had not begun moving.

That was wrong.

Seraphina looked beyond the nearest shields. The cordon had divided around an empty carriage. Eridan remained beside the timber platform, chained to two guards moving him north along the canal bank. Arcanis had prepared more than one transfer.

“King north!” Seraphina shouted. “Watch with me! Silvercrest holds the wagon!”

The Lunar Watch changed direction. Not every formation did.

Two Asehrian companies had broken the Valanorian front beside the empty wagon. The soldiers before them turned south in organised withdrawal.

“No pursuit!” their captain ordered.

Someone farther forward shouted Atyas’s command back at him.

“Every last one!”

The company pursued.

Its formation lengthened along the canal bank, leaving the flank of Seraphina’s turn exposed.

Black shields struck the open flank.

Seraphina saw Asehrian silver disappear beneath them. She could not recover both the pursuing company and Eridan. For one breath, the decision contained every soldier she had already failed to bring out of Asehria. Then she pointed north.

“The King!”

The Lunar Watch followed her.

The western army found Atyas’s platform after the gate opened. The first bolt struck the outer stone below him. The second passed through the aperture where his head had been. Alaria pulled him down by the back of his armour as iron shattered against the opposite wall. Embersteel struck the floor beside him. Captain Maelin closed the central shutter. Phoenix Guards raised layered shields across the inner gallery.

“Southern opening,” Alaria said.

“They ranged it,” Maelin answered.

“Then north.”

They moved Atyas beneath cover while the observers across the canal tracked every change. The shutters reopened one at a time along the platform, never revealing which aperture would hold him next. His visibility continued dividing the enemy’s attention. So did the seven-star standard above him. Atyas reached the northern opening and looked down.

The rescue had split.

Seraphina drove towards Eridan along the canal. Silvercrest formations held the causeway behind her. Farther south, two Asehrian companies pursued retreating Valanorians into ground no part of the plan required. Black shields closed around their flank. Men died beneath an order Atyas could still hear in his own voice.

“Recall them,” he said.

Maelin looked towards the signal officer.

“They are beyond the western arms.”

“Use the horn.”

“The field horns are beneath Seraphina. The speaking horn will give the enemy your correction before the companies can hear it through combat.”

“Then I go down.”

Atyas turned towards the stair. Alaria stepped in front of him.

“No.”

“They followed my order.”

“And leaving this platform does not recall it.”

“They can see the standard.”

“So can the people trying to kill you.”

“Seraphina’s flank is open.”

“Because the enemy is looking between her and you. You wanted their attention divided. Keep it divided.”

He tried to pass her.

Alaria caught both sides of his armour and drove him back against the stone.

The impact hurt.

She was crying again.

Anger made her grip harder than it needed to be.

“Do not make me choose between holding you here and watching Eridan die out there.”

“I caused this.”

“Yes.”

The agreement stopped him more effectively than denial.

“You caused part of it,” Alaria said. “Now remain where the plan still needs you.”

Another bolt struck the shield line.

One Phoenix Guard fell without making a sound. Maelin dragged the body away from the opening while another soldier filled the place. Alaria released one side of Atyas’s armour and placed the embersteel sword back into his hand.

“Stand where they can see you.”

Atyas returned to the aperture. He raised the blade beneath the standard.

He did not shout again.

Seraphina reached Eridan beside a broken canal crane. Three Lunar Watch reached him with her. Eleven guards remained around the chains. Four wore Valanorian armour. Seven carried the mismatched black plate of the Keh’Dia. They had abandoned the wagon but not the ground: timber piles narrowed the approach, and archers upon the southern roof covered every open angle. Eridan saw Seraphina before his guards did.

He dropped.

The first arrow passed through the space his body had occupied and entered the throat of the guard behind him.

Seraphina did not waste the opening.

The Lunar Watch settled together through the first impact. Four blades turned the nearest black shields. Seraphina entered behind them and struck the chain rather than the person holding it. Her sword did not break the iron. It pulled the guard off balance.

Eridan used the movement.

He wrapped the chain around the man’s wrist and drove his forehead into the exposed face. The current braced one exhausted motion through his back and legs. The guard fell. Eridan nearly followed him. Seraphina caught his shoulder.

For a heartbeat, neither fought.

“You took your time,” Eridan said.

His voice was barely present.

Seraphina laughed once and discovered that she was crying.

“Your roads have become unreasonable.”

The next guard reached them.

They separated.

Eridan could not fight as the man he had been. Captivity had removed too much strength and left too many injuries untreated. He used the chain to spoil a sword arm, leaned his weight into a shield and trusted Seraphina to finish the movement. The Lunar Watch closed around him. One guard attempted to pull Eridan north by the second chain. A crescent blade severed the man’s hand at the wrist. Seraphina reached the lock beneath Eridan’s waist ring.

“Key?”

Eridan nodded towards the fallen Valanorian officer.

One of the Watch found it.

The waist ring opened. Seraphina caught the chain between his wrists.

“Can you run?”

“Badly.”

“Good enough.”

Eridan looked towards the timber platform. Five other prisoners had been chained beneath it beyond the first shield wall. Two wore Asehrian field coats. The others carried no uniform.

“Not without them.”

“We do not have—”

Seraphina saw his face.

Three years had changed it.

That expression had not changed at all.

“Second Watch!” she shouted. “Clear the platform! Bring every prisoner who can move!”

The return horn sounded behind them.

Too early.

Black formations had struck the freight causeway from the south. The pursuing Asehrian companies were falling back in pieces, carrying wounded soldiers and enemy pressure towards the same route Seraphina needed. Phoenix fire rose beyond them.

Not from the gate.

From the southern flank.

Solara committed Feenix when the rescue stopped being only Eridan’s. She watched the Asehrian pursuit expose Seraphina’s return. She watched Keh’Dia formations close upon the causeway and Valanorian engineers move portable shields towards the freight gate. If the sortie died outside, Arcanis gained more than a prisoner. He gained the western crossing, destroyed the largest verified Asehrian formation inside Feenix and placed his assault against a gate filled with retreating allies. Veyra saw it at the same moment.

“Southern reserve to the canal bank,” the general said. “Phoenix Guard holds the gate. First and Third strike the closing flank. No advance beyond Seraphina’s return line.”

Solara’s hand remained above the reserve seal. Veyra possessed territorial command and did not require the Queen to choose formations for her. Committing the reserve to a battle begun for an allied king was nevertheless a decision Solara could not pretend belonged only to a general. Eridan’s silver marker remained beyond the gate. Solara placed her seal upon the order.

“Send it.”

Phoenix formations entered the southern canal road. Embersteel kindled along the weapons of their highest ranks, not as a wall of magical fire but as brief red and orange edges carried through controlled release. The first line cut into the wooden shields protecting the Keh’Dia flank. Heat weakened bindings. The second line struck the places the first had opened.

Most Phoenix soldiers carried ordinary steel.

They followed the gaps rather than the flame. Keh’Dia officers turned two companies from Seraphina’s retreat to meet them. One formation came hard beneath anger, spending strength upon breaking the Phoenix line before it settled. Another conserved itself behind captured canal barriers, allowing the first to create the ground it intended to keep. Veyra did not answer either with the same soldiers. Archers and artillery crews broke the barriers from range. Shield companies received the furious advance without pursuing when it withdrew. Phoenix cavalry moved only after the canal bank could carry them without dividing the return route.

The flank did not collapse.

It stopped closing. Seraphina began bringing Asehria home.

Eridan crossed the causeway between two Lunar Watch. He refused to be carried until his left leg ceased answering halfway across. Then he accepted one shoulder beneath each arm without turning necessity into dignity or shame. The freed prisoners moved inside the formation behind him. Arrows struck the overlapping shields. One passed through a wounded Silvercrest soldier and entered the person he had been protecting. The line closed over both. Seraphina walked backwards towards Feenix with her sword raised.

“Third Company, inward! Fourth, leave the bank! Watch, close upon the King!”

The words reached Atyas above the gate.

The King.

Seraphina was not confused about the law. She was telling the battlefield which body the formation protected. Atyas understood the distinction now that wrath was no longer speaking for him. He wished understanding had arrived one command earlier. The two companies that had pursued beneath his words returned last. Less than half their first line remained in formation. Some carried enemy blood far beyond what had been required to escape. Others carried their own soldiers because revenge had ended the moment the flank closed and survival became visible again. One black-armoured fighter dropped his weapon upon the canal road. An Asehrian soldier raised a spear to kill him. His captain caught the shaft.

For a moment, Atyas saw his order struggle with another person’s judgement.

The captain won.

He dragged both soldiers towards the gate. The distance between the final formation and Feenix narrowed.

“Prepare closure!” Maelin shouted.

Phoenix engineers released the first retaining chain. Seraphina reached the threshold with Eridan. The Lunar Watch passed beneath the gate. Silvercrest companies followed in broken ranks. Phoenix units withdrew from the southern flank by measured stages. The enemy reached the outer causeway before every allied soldier had crossed. Veyra’s closure signal rose. The gate began descending. Three Asehrian soldiers threw themselves beneath it.

Two cleared the stone.

The third did not.

The gate struck the causeway and separated Feenix from the people still fighting beyond it.

Heavy locks entered place.

The western army crashed against the other side. Feenix held.

For the moment.

Atyas reached the inner freight court before Eridan reached the casualty station. Alaria ran beside him rather than attempting to slow him. Maelin’s guards opened a path through returning soldiers, wounded bodies and medical crews carrying more instruments than the court had room to receive. The battle remained loud beyond the closed gate.

Inside it, the world narrowed to one man supported between two Lunar Watch.

Eridan saw Atyas.

He stopped. The Watch released him carefully. For one instant, father and son stood several paces apart while three years attempted to decide what either should say first. Atyas had imagined this moment inside Feenix, upon roads and beside every report that proved Eridan remained alive. None of those imagined fathers had looked this tired.

None had needed help standing.

Eridan looked at the height Atyas had gained, the armour beneath his coat and the sword at his side. His attention rested upon the seven-star clasp at Atyas’s throat.

“It appears I missed some things,” he said.

Atyas tried to answer.

Only one word came.

“Father.”

Eridan crossed the distance first. His injured leg failed upon the second step. Atyas caught him, and then neither was holding the other for balance any more. Eridan’s arms closed around his son. Atyas buried his face against the prisoner’s coat. It smelled of rain, old stone, blood and the western road. Nothing about it resembled the father preserved inside his memories. The voice beside his ear did.

“You are alive.”

Eridan said it as though the knowledge had not become real until touch proved it. Atyas held him harder.

“I’m sorry.”

“Not first.”

“I called you their king.”

“I heard.”

“The Crown—”

“I saw the lights.”

“I told them to kill everyone.”

Eridan’s arms tightened around him.

“I heard that too.”

Atyas pulled back enough to see his face.

“I made them go.”

“And they brought me home.”

“People died because I—”

“Yes.”

Eridan placed one shaking hand against the side of Atyas’s face.

“We will answer for what you ordered,” he said. “But you will let me hold my son before you turn this moment into a court.”

Atyas closed his eyes. Eridan drew him back. Alaria stood a few steps away. Blood crossed one side of her armour where a stone fragment had entered beneath the plate. Tears remained upon her face. The blue flame had never left her sword because her battle had been to keep Atyas standing where the plan required him. Eridan looked over his son’s shoulder and saw her.

His expression broke.

“Alaria.”

She covered her mouth with one hand. Atyas released his father carefully. Eridan reached for her. Alaria entered the embrace with enough force to nearly unbalance both of them. Eridan laughed once against her shoulder and then made a sound that was not laughter at all.

“You kept him,” he whispered.

Alaria held the back of his head.

“He made that extremely difficult.”

“He always did.”

“You could have warned me.”

“You disliked children.”

Alaria cried harder.

Seraphina reached them with blood along her sword arm. Eridan extended one hand without releasing Alaria.

Seraphina took it.

No captain knelt. Solara arrived last because a queen could not leave the western command until someone else held every active order. She stopped when she saw Eridan. He looked towards her.

“You answered,” he said.

Solara reached for his face, then stopped at the bruise beneath his eye. Her hand settled against the uninjured cheek.

“I had so much to say to you.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t.”

Her thumb moved through the grey in his beard. Eridan tried to answer, but she shook her head.

She embraced him.

Her shoulders shook. Eridan closed his eyes and held her with the strength he had left. Around them, the casualty crews continued working. Soldiers carried the wounded through the court. The enemy struck the western gate again. Reports from the eastern locks waited for Veyra. Nothing about the city had become safe. But the gate behind Eridan was closed. His chains no longer connected him to anyone.

Atyas stood within reach of his father, Alaria, Seraphina and Solara and allowed himself one breath in which the rescue was not yet its cost. For that breath, they had brought him home.