Chapter 1089: 1088: The Western Gate

Silence fell between the four of them.

Torvek stopped straining against Rasken’s arms. Rasken’s mouth hung slightly open. Seraya’s hand stayed pressed against Simon’s chest, but her eyes had turned toward the sea.

Simon looked at Haldis.

The Leviathan had stopped breathing fire. Now it was fighting her with its body.

One of its fin-wings swept toward her like a burning scythe. Haldis met it with her hexagonal shield, angling it so the wing’s edge skidded off the shell instead of striking it head-on.

SKRRRRRK!

Sparks of molten scale sprayed across the sky. The force still pushed her back a dozen meters through the air.

The Leviathan’s tail came at her next. She parried that too, then twisted away from its snapping jaws as the beast tamer calmly guided its head from between its horns.

She was holding it off.

But Simon noticed what the others hadn’t.

Sweat ran down the side of Haldis’s face. Her breathing was faintly rough, her shoulders rising and falling a little too quickly. The armor on her left side was still scorched black from the exploding scales.

She was getting tired.

Simon frowned.

"She killed Veyra, Haldis!" Torvek shouted across the water. "I saw him-"

"You fool."

Haldis didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t need to.

"That wasn’t Veyra," she said, blocking another swipe of the fin-wing. "It was an impostor. I felt it the moment she approached him. It didn’t feel like her."

She deflected the Leviathan’s tail and slid back again.

"I couldn’t leave this beast to deal with her myself. I was worried he wouldn’t be able to defeat her." Her jade eyes flicked toward Simon for half a heartbeat. "He figured it out on his own and killed her. Her body turned into water. He helped us, Torvek."

Torvek went completely still.

"You’re… certain?" His voice had lost all its fury. "Haldis, are you certain?"

Haldis’s shield flared as the Leviathan’s jaws slammed against it.

BOOOM!

"Do you want me to repeat myself," she said coldly, "in the situation I’m in?"

High above her, the beast tamer laughed.

"Oh, how sad," he called out, his voice carrying across the sea as easily as before. "She went to so much trouble to look pretty for you all. And you’ve already ruined her face."

He patted the Leviathan’s horn.

"No matter. She was only the first."

Torvek’s face drained of colour.

Slowly, he lowered his greatsword. The iron plates on his arms crumbled into grey dust and scattered on the wind.

Rasken loosened his grip, and Torvek turned toward Simon.

For a long moment, the big Daemon said nothing. His jaw worked. Then he bowed his head.

"I was wrong," he said roughly. "I’m sorry, Blackmoon."

Simon looked at him with cold eyes.

He was still angry. Torvek had nearly killed him over something he could have confirmed with a single question.

But there was no time to dwell on it.

"Forget it," Simon said.

Rasken let out a long breath and rubbed the back of his shaved head. He drifted closer to Simon and lowered his voice.

"Don’t take it to heart," he muttered. "He and Veyra have been fucking each other for the past year. That’s why he lost his mind."

Simon’s brows rose slightly.

That explained a lot.

Without quite meaning to, he glanced at Seraya.

She wasn’t looking at Torvek or Rasken. Her eyes were on the walls, where her soldiers were still fighting and dying. Then she glanced back at Simon, and he saw the concern in her face.

She stepped back, lowering her hand from his chest.

"If everything’s been settled," she said, "then I have to go. My people need me."

Simon nodded.

Then he turned to Rasken and Torvek.

"You two should go back as well," he said. "You’ve left the beasts you were supposed to be fighting."

Both of them looked toward the sea.

The kraken was no longer being held back. Its arms had reached The Wall and were dragging themselves along it, hooks screeching across the golden surface. A flying squad tried to cut one of the arms away and was swept into the water instead.

Near the black rock, the siren’s song had grown stronger now that Torvek was gone. Beasts were climbing over each other to reach the walls. On the eastern battlements, a line of soldiers fell back screaming as something with too many teeth hauled itself over the edge.

"Damn it," Rasken snapped. "Torvek, come on."

Torvek nodded. But before he followed, he turned his head toward the west.

Toward Veyra’s section of The Wall.

His hands tightened around the greatsword. He didn’t say anything, but the worry on his face was impossible to miss.

Simon saw it.

"I’ll go to the west," he said. "I’ll check its current state and look for Veyra. If she’s-"

He never finished.

Far to the west, The Wall suddenly opened.

A section of the golden barrier split down the middle and parted like a pair of doors, the same way it had opened for Seraya’s squad on the day Simon arrived.

But this time, nobody had ordered it.

The battlefield seemed to go silent.

The bronze towers stopped firing. The soldiers on the walls stopped shouting. Even the beasts seemed to pause.

Simon looked at the open gap in The Wall.

His expression didn’t change because he had expected such.

"Just as I feared," he murmured.

"Veyra…" Torvek whispered.

"Fuck!" Rasken spat.

Seraya made a small sound.

Simon turned to her. She was staring at the west, her face white. Her lips parted, but nothing came out. The silver crescents orbiting her slowed and drifted apart. Her hand rose halfway toward her mouth, then stopped.

"That’s… that’s the western district," she said. Her voice was shaking. "The western shelters are there. The children’s shelters are-"

She didn’t finish.

Above the harbor, Zarven had frozen on his jade disc. The coins swarming around him hung motionless. He stared at the open Wall as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. In over two years, The Wall had never once been opened by an enemy.

Out over the sea, Haldis deflected another strike from the Leviathan and spoke quietly.

"Damn it."

Then the beast tamer began to laugh.

It wasn’t a mocking chuckle this time. It was a long, delighted laugh that rolled over the sea and the city alike.

"Did you really think we would come unprepared again?" he called out. "After failing so many times?"

He rose to his feet on the Leviathan’s head, spreading his arms wide.

"The Dominion didn’t send beasts this time." His voice turned cold. "We sent monsters. And they are going to tear Vhal-Sar apart and take everything it’s hiding."

He slammed his heel down on the Leviathan’s skull.

The Leviathan threw back its head and roared.

ROOOOOAAAARRR!

"KILL!" the beast tamer screamed. "ALL OF YOU! TO THE WEST!"

The sea moved.

Thousands of beasts turned at once. They stopped clawing at the eastern walls and surged along the outside of The Wall, a dark river of fins and scales flooding toward the west. The siren’s song rose into a high, piercing note, driving them faster.

And beyond the open gap, something was already moving in the western waters. A second tide, one that had been waiting there all along.

On the walls, the Daegrin army broke.

Not all at once. But Simon saw it happen.

A soldier dropped his spear and stared toward the west. Another turned and started running along the battlements toward the city. An officer grabbed him by the collar and shouted in his face, but two more were already running past them.

A beast with an armored back hauled itself over the eastern wall in the confusion. Three soldiers went down beneath it before anyone turned to fight.

Then Zarven’s voice thundered over the city.

"HOLD YOUR POSITIONS!"

His coins snapped back into motion around him. He pointed toward the west.

"All western batteries, open fire on the breach! Reserve squads to the western district! Get the shelters sealed! Anyone who abandons their post answers to me!"

The panic slowed. Officers began shouting the orders down the line. Somewhere in the west, the first bronze tower fired.

But Simon could see it in their faces.

The fear had already taken hold.

He turned back to Seraya.

She was still staring at the west. Her hands were trembling, and her silver crescents had stopped moving entirely.

"Seraya."

She didn’t react.

Simon grabbed her shoulders and turned her to face him.

"Seraya. Look at me."

Her eyes finally focused on him. They were wide and wet at the edges.

"The Wall has never…" Her voice cracked. "Not once. In this last two years, not once. The western shelters… Blackmoon, there are thousands of people in those shelters."

"I know," Simon said calmly.

"Then how-"

"Breathe."

She took a shaky breath.

"Your father is already giving orders," Simon said. "The protectors are moving. Haldis is holding the Leviathan. Your soldiers need their commander, and they can’t see you like this."

Seraya stared at him.

"It’s going to be fine," he said.

She shook her head slightly.

"How can you possibly know that?"

Simon held her gaze.

"Because I’m going to make sure of it."

Something in her face eased. Not completely, but enough. Her shoulders loosened beneath his hands, and her crescents slowly began to orbit her again.

She opened her mouth to answer him.

Unfortunatey…

BOOOOOOOM!

The sound that filled the air next was not her response but the sound of an explosion that came from the city behind them.

Simon turned his head.

A column of fire and black smoke was rising from one of the middle terraces.

BOOOOM!

Another, further north.

BOOOOOOM! BOOOOOM! BOOOOOOOM!

One after another, explosions tore through Vhal-Sar. In the trading district. Near the harbor. Along the upper terraces. Pillars of flame burst out of streets and courtyards, throwing shattered stone and burning wood high into the air.

The crystal pillars that fed The Wall flickered.

Above them, the golden barrier dimmed.

And Simon’s last hope that this attack had come only from the sea crumbled away.