The following days were a slow descent into exhaustion.
On the fifth day, the Empire attacked again.
This time, there was not a single offensive.
There were three.
One against the eastern wall.
Another against the central sector.
And a third designed solely to keep the defenders occupied while the imperial mages destroyed the artillery positions.
The Kingdom held.
But it lost ground.
Hundreds of soldiers died before noon.
The mages could barely remain standing.
And when night came, the defenders had to rebuild an entire section of the wall that had been reduced to rubble.
The sixth day was worse.
The Empire was no longer trying to break through a single point.
It attacked everywhere.
Day and night.
Without rest.
Every time a Kingdom unit managed to repel a charge, another appeared behind it.
The imperial soldiers seemed endless.
The defenders began fighting with whatever they had left.
Blunted swords.
Broken shields.
Armor repaired again and again.
The dead were removed from the positions to make room for the living.
And yet...
the line kept retreating.
By the afternoon of the sixth day, half of the outer towers had fallen.
The Kingdom's army could no longer cover them all.
The nobles began dividing their troops among increasingly smaller positions.
The Bourlances had lost much of their cavalry.
The Briggs could barely maintain the supply lines.
The Sneiders had stopped using their troops to protect the trade routes.
Now everyone was fighting on the walls.
And the Douglas...
were gone.
Laurence's absence could be felt across every part of the battlefield.
There was no one capable of taking a section of the wall and turning it into an impossible barrier to breach.
No one who could appear at the most dangerous point and change the course of a battle.
The Douglas veterans were dead.
The survivors were exhausted.
But the war continued.
Because Albaterra still stood.
The seventh day began before dawn.
The imperial drums did not stop for hours.
Siege engines advanced.
Mages raised their staffs.
Thousands of soldiers took up positions in front of the fortress.
From the walls, the defenders watched the army.
It was enormous.
Far too enormous.
The Kingdom had begun the war with tens of thousands of soldiers.
Now barely enough remained to cover the main defensive positions.
The faces had changed.
The men who had begun the campaign were no longer there.
Many had died.
Others were wounded.
And the young men who had arrived in Albaterra as recruits now held swords with hands covered in calluses and blood.
The exhaustion was gone.
Only the habit of fighting remained.
—Ready!
The soldiers raised their weapons.
Below...
the Empire began to advance.
The first wave crashed against the walls.
BOOM!
The defensive spells answered.
Hundreds of Imperials fell.
But more came behind them.
And more.
And even more.
The second wave.
The third.
The fourth.
The Kingdom fired everything it had.
Arrows.
Spells.
Stones.
Oil.
The defensive machines fired until their mechanisms began to break apart.
But the Empire kept advancing.
One tower fell.
Then another.
An entire section of the wall collapsed.
Kingdom soldiers rushed to occupy the position.
—Close the breach!
—Don't let them in!
—Hold the line!
The Imperials began climbing.
The defenders met them with swords.
Hand-to-hand combat erupted across the rubble.
A Kingdom soldier impaled an Imperial.
Another Imperial cut him down.
A second defender took his place.
Then a third.
But there were fewer and fewer of them.
The gap between the two armies continued to shrink.
The entire fortress trembled.
Inside, the royal mages had exhausted almost all of their mana.
Some could no longer raise their staffs.
Others cast spells with the last reserves they had left.
—Your Majesty!
Felipe turned.
An officer came running.
His armor was covered in blood.
—What happened?
—The northern wall is about to fall.
Felipe looked in that direction.
Another explosion shook the defenses.
Part of the structure collapsed.
—How many men are left?
The officer hesitated.
—We don't know exactly.
Felipe understood the answer.
Far too few.
—And the Empire?
—They keep coming.
The king closed his eyes for a moment.
Then opened them again.
—Hold the line.
—Your Majesty...
—Even if there are only ten men.
His voice was not loud.
It did not need to be.
—Even if only one remains.
The officer nodded.
And returned to the front.
On the other side of the battlefield, Naira watched the walls.
The fortress was covered in smoke.
The towers had disappeared behind the flames.
The Kingdom's banners hung in tatters.
—It's falling —she murmured.
The Emperor stood beside her.
He did not answer.
There was no need.
Everyone could see it.
Albaterra was exhausted.
The Kingdom's army could barely hold its positions.
The magical defenses were almost completely destroyed.
Imperial soldiers had already begun occupying sections of the wall.
Naira clenched her fists.
—We won.
The Emperor watched the fortress.
—Not yet.
Naira looked at him.
—What's left?
The Emperor pointed toward the wall.
—For the last defender to fall.
Then a tremendous roar shook Albaterra.
The central section of the wall collapsed.
A cloud of dust covered the battlefield.
The imperial soldiers roared.
Thousands surged toward the breach.
For the first time in a week...
no one in the imperial army hesitated.
Victory was within their grasp.
All that remained was to enter.
And then...
from somewhere beyond the walls...
a sound came.
It was not a horn.
It was not a drum.
It was not a human cry.
It was a deep vibration.
So low that it could barely be heard.
But the ground felt it.
The soldiers closest to the breach stopped.
Naira frowned.
—What was that?
The Emperor slowly raised his head.
For the first time in the entire week...
both their expressions changed.
Because the sound came again.
This time, louder.
THUM.
The earth trembled.
THUM.
The horses began to grow restless.
THUM.
And from the forest, far behind Albaterra...
something answered.
The imperial army stopped advancing.
The Kingdom stopped firing.
For several seconds, both sides remained motionless.
The war had reached the moment of its victory.
But neither side knew yet...
that it was about to stop being a war between humans.