It was time to use the lore of the revenants against them.
“Why are we here?” one of the men who’d been buried in his armorsilk spoke. His voice was soft, more of a whisper. The others fixed him with their eerie stares and then looked back at Ella.
“Altura needs you,” Ella said. “The high enchanter and I have brought you back to help in our greatest hour of need. You, who fell in battle to defend us, we are asking you to fight again. We need your help . . .” Ella choked.
High Enchanter Merlon called out a single activation rune: every sword in every hand was a replica of the others, even down to the inflection of the activation sequence.
“Alitas!” the high enchanter cried.
As the warriors’ swords lit up with fire, Ella heard shouts and crashes. She rushed to the riverbank and looked across the water to the city’s western quarter. She’d intended to run for the battlefield, but she saw she was too late. Making a swift decision, Ella dashed back to the high enchanter and snatched the flask out of his hands.
His eyes widened in surprise. It was the last essence in Altura.
Ella returned to the riverbank and cast her mind back to another river, at another time. She’d drawn from knowledge buried deep within her consciousness to build the runebridge. Her mind whirled as she thought about her falling city. Ella summoned power from deep within to calm her thoughts, and once more the lore came to her.
Ella dipped her scrill into the essence and began to draw. She drew the first rune on a flat stone, activating it to give the symbol form, and the second so swiftly the liquid hung in the air. She created the third rune, connecting it before the whole thing could fall. With each stroke Ella chanted, each symbol activated and floating in the air as she built the next. She worked in a flurry, furiously, and then she took a step forward onto the growing bridge.
Working faster now, Ella built step after step, ignoring the tumbling river splashing below. She climbed higher and could now see the enemy crowding the bank of the western quarter, barely held back by the defenders at the nine bridges.
Then Ella was descending back down to the opposite bank. As she stepped off her creation she looked back and waved her arm into the air.
With the swiftness of an arrow the dead heroes sped across the runebridge without pausing, glowing swords held in front of them. Fifty swordsmen—men who’d fought against the primate and served their house in the Rebellion—sped through Sarostar’s western quarter with weapons held high.
As the last warrior stepped off the glowing bridge, it faded, as if it had never been.
Miro cut down two more enemies, and then suddenly he had no more to face. Down on the wide banks of the western quarter, a new force smashed into the enemy, a wedge of glowing light fighting with savage intensity. The revenants . . . dissolved . . . as the blur of whirling blades tore flesh into bloody components. There was no stopping this new arrival. Miro had been in many battles, and he knew it when he saw it. Nothing could impede a force like this.
As he watched from high on Victory Bridge, the wedge of warriors barely lost momentum as they sped through the revenants, leaving carnage behind them, tearing through enemy after enemy, leaving nothing but smears of red. Miro almost wiped his eyes as their efficient killing brought them closer. He had never seen anything like it, not even when his brother bladesingers had been at the height of their power.
Miro and the bladesinger with him exchanged glances. Miro raised his sword above his head. This was the moment that came once in every battle; the time to throw the dice and fight on even in the face of terror.
“Attack!” Miro cried.
He ran back the way he’d come, down Victory Bridge, and leapt into the fray. He fought to emulate the surging warriors, and poured his heart and soul into his song, feeling the zenblade come alive in his hands and seeing the armorsilk on his forearms shine with brilliance.
He tore through his opponents, and he heard another song join his own. Then he was fighting among them, and for the first time he realized who they were.
With wonder Miro recognized Bladesinger Porlen and Bladesinger Huron Gower, men he’d seen fall in the war against the primate. Runes glowed on their skin as their fiery blades tore through the revenants. They were indomitable, agile, as fast as a bird in flight; Miro’s movements were slow and clumsy in comparison. The skills of these warriors, their lifetime of training and fighting, had combined with the lore of the Akari to create warriors beyond compare.
The revenants still fought on; this enemy wouldn’t break—they would only stop when every last one was fallen. Yet Altura’s dead heroes broke them the way a scythe cuts through wheat, dispatching them in numbers; even the horde couldn’t touch this foe.