“What happened to your eyes?”
Chapel didn’t turn towards him.
“They were no longer mine,” he said. “I removed them.” He spread his fingers on his lap, showing the dark and cracked nails. “These too I reclaimed.”
“But you can still see?”
“In a way. I have other senses, some which I did not have before. But as I could not expel them, I learned to harness them, and so again became master of myself.”
“I wish you could’ve gone back to the village,” Wren said. “I think it might still be there today if you had.”
“My sins are many,” Chapel said. “I doubt hell has room enough to hold them all. But I could not return there.”
“Why not?”
“It was a mistake. Selfish. I withdrew there. Hid myself away. And darkness grew.” He turned his face towards Wren then. “There is much evil in our world. No longer will I let it rest.”
He turned back towards the sunset, and for a time Wren pondered his words. As the sky deepened from blue to purple above, and the orange disc disappeared at last behind the horizon, Cass called to Wren from below and waved him down.
“I guess it’s time.”
Chapel dipped his head.
“Do you have a new name for today?” Wren asked.
“Today?” Chapel said as he stood. He thought for a moment. “Today, I am War.”
He motioned for Wren to lead the way, and together they descended the steps.
Cass and her small army took their positions. Some of the citizens had chosen to gather at the gate already, knowing from all the plans and preparations that something was about to happen. Others were still setting up in their reclaimed shelters around the area. But all of them seemed to be keeping their heads up, ever watchful for any hint of danger. Cass expected them to panic when the time came. She just hoped they would remember to run towards the city and not away from it.
In the very picture of irony, Wren was now under the care of Aron. Aron was stationed in the rear-most portion of the fighters, on a slight rise in the terrain, which afforded him a view from which to command as well as a perch from which to shoot. Chapel, too, was with Wren, and Cass felt certain that those two would do everything in their power to protect her son.
Her natural instinct had been to keep him near her, of course, but she realized that she could protect him best by leading these people. And she understood something of his heart, now, in his earlier desire to separate himself from her for her own safety.
Cass drew the massive pistol from the holster on her thigh and checked its cylinder. Three rounds, ready to go. She’d only fired the weapon once, long ago, in a moment of utter despair. Well, she’d fired it three times, wasting ammunition far more precious than she had realized at the time. She wondered what Three would have thought of their predicament now, and she smiled in spite of herself. Probably wouldn’t have surprised him much. She snapped the cylinder shut with a flick of her wrist and replaced the pistol. Shooting had never been her greatest strength. But it was nice to have the option, just in case.
The attack didn’t begin the way she had expected. Rather than the sudden eruption of electric howls, it started with a pronouncement.
“People of Morningside,” a loud voice called, impossibly loud, as if it was coming from all around her, or from the heavens themselves. “Your time has ended!”
There was a figure standing atop a building not far from the gate, silhouetted black against the night-blue sky. His glowing eyes radiated their starlight-blue as he looked down upon them. Painter.
“The one you once knew as Master has returned that you should now know his wrath and ruin.”
His booming voice echoed through the streets and alleys, off the surrounding buildings and the wall.
“He is Asher, Mind of the Weir, and I am his Voice. Thus he says to you: I will slake the thirst of Death with your blood, the mouth of hell I will glut with your flesh, until all that remains is the echoing horror of what once you were!
“No more shall you be called Morningside. Instead, I name you the Grief of Dawn!”
As soon as those words were spoken, shadows sprang forth from the ruined city beyond, shadows with electric eyes, sweeping like a black tide towards them. A cascade of Weir poured forth, and their shrieks rent the air. Cass felt those nearby shrink back in the face of the onslaught, but she leapt forward with a shout.
Thunder exploded behind her, and the Weir at the front of the charge disintegrated in a shower of gore, and several behind it fell to the ground. Aron was already at work with his mighty weapon.
But those deaths did nothing to slow the surge, and seconds later, the lines crashed together. Cass met them head-on and was forced backwards by the impact. But Swoop was there. And then Kit, and then another of her Awakened brethren, and another. And together they fought, side by side, shoulder-to-shoulder.
And then others joined in with a cry, and all became chaos. Citizens who hadn’t made it to the gate fell before the storm, but Cass had no time to mourn them, or even process their deaths. All around her, the Weir writhed and strove against her, and she beat them back with fist and claw.
Aron’s rifle continued to thunder, though Cass couldn’t see its effects. And while always fear threatened to overwhelm her, she fought to focus on destroying the enemy closest at hand, and again and again succeeded in doing so. Swoop was never far from her side, his tomahawk smoking black in the melee.
But no matter how many they slew, it never seemed to stem or even to slow the assault. She grabbed one Weir by the side of the head and spun, slamming it to the ground, and as she rose, she realized how much closer they’d already been pushed towards the wall. They were practically at the gate, maybe twenty yards away.
She risked a glance up, and saw a number of guards were firing down from the wall, and that gave her hope, until she turned back and saw how many still remained. Claws stung her. But Cass refused to let them take her. She smashed her palm into the face of a Weir and drove it backwards into its advancing kin, fighting to gain space for the people trapped between the Weir and the gate.
Someone fell to her left, claimed by the Weir, but she didn’t have time to see who it was. Already her arms and legs grew heavy, her strikes inaccurate, and still so many remained.
But then on her right, the Weir peeled back and wheeled, and there a radiance fell among them. And above the roar of combat and the shrieks of the Weir, a voice arose. Singing. And Cass knew that somehow, beyond all hope or imagining, Lil had come, and her warriors with her.
Where those avenging angels went, the Weir fell before them, or scattered, and Cass heard now as well the sounds of gunfire. Gamble was there too, with her team. And together Lil and Gamble and all those with them drove back the Weir from the flank.
Still the bulk of the Weir fought on, pressing their way towards the gate, and Cass was helpless to prevent them. She strained against the Weir, but their numbers were still too great. She could only hope to survive long enough for Gamble to cut a path to her, but with each second that passed, it seemed a more and more distant hope.
And then.
The crush stopped. And the Weir before her turned their eyes from her to something behind her, and they halted their advance. Cass dared not turn, and she crushed her fist into the throat of the Weir before her. But as it fell, she became aware of a pressure growing, and a light, and there were screams of dismay from some of her own.
And when she turned she saw now, there, walking among them, a being of lightning and flame. And terror entered her heart.
But also hope. For she had seen this being before. It was Wren, revealing himself in power, and he was coming to save her.