Chapter 101: Holding (Part 2 of 4)

  What Gets Out, What Doesn’t

  The pressure on Laurent narrowed until there was nowhere left to give.

  Three Vanguards pressed him now—tight, overlapping, relentless. No testing. No spacing. Each step back scraped stone. Each exchange cost more than the last. Speed kept him upright. Power kept his blade moving. Nothing else did.

  The window was closing.

  “Ignore Phase Three,” one of them snapped, breath rough but controlled.

  “We take him down first.”

  They surged together.

  Laurent took a blow across the shoulder that numbed his arm, another that drove him back half a step. He corrected late, forced the exchange shut with brute speed, and paid for it immediately.

  This wasn’t holding anymore.

  It was survival.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  Lightning split the air.

  Lirien saw them and felt it hit her a heartbeat late.

  Those three… Vanguards?

  Oh no.

  Cold slid down her spine. Sweat broke across her back beneath the armor.

  Laurent was still standing—but only just.

  She moved.

  Lightning lashed—not to kill, but to tear space open. Timing shattered. Overlap broke.

  The third Vanguard lost momentum for half a beat.

  Laurent took it.

  Steel cut low. Clean. Tendon parted.

  Laurent flicked a glance toward Lirien—just a breath of time.

  Not relief.

  Gratitude.

  The Vanguard went down hard, one leg folding beneath her. Breath tore out of her through clenched teeth.

  “…urgh.”

  Laurent didn’t finish it.

  He turned.

  With Lirien there, the exchange shifted. Lightning snapped across the ground and up the Vanguard’s leg, not enough to kill—enough to ruin balance and tear muscle response.

  Laurent was already moving.

  He drove into the opening before the Vanguard could recover, power overwhelming technique, speed erasing retreat that no longer existed.

  The Vanguard hit the stone hard, leg refusing to answer, movement locked, escape gone.

  The last Vanguard saw it.

  “Withdraw!” he shouted.

  He pulled back, then hesitated—just long enough to look.

  At the first Vanguard, down and unable to rise.

  At the third, jaw locked, breath rough, one leg refusing to answer.

  His jaw tightened. He exhaled once.

  Then he turned and ran.

  And made it.

  The Moravin line peeled away in sections, discipline holding just long enough to matter.

  Not everyone escaped.

  Laurent leveled his blade at the disabled Vanguard.

  “Surrender,” he said. “Or I take you down.”

  The Moravin soldiers nearest her hadn’t retreated with the rest—caught too deep, still locked with Rimewatch infantry when the line peeled away, escape already gone.

  She looked at Laurent for a long moment. Measured him.

  “…ugh.”

  “Fine,” she said. “Weapons down.”

  A pause.

  “…unless you’re trying to kill yourselves.”

  Steel hit stone.

  Not all at once.

  Enough.