Out in the darkness, Khal realized his frontal assault was bleeding him dry. The glowing blue demon in the woods was tearing his men off their saddles, and the unnatural precision of the thunder sticks was dropping anyone who tried to flank.
He was losing. But Khal was a warlord of the Kalkru, and he decided in that moment it would be do or die.
Shouting a harsh command in Trigedasleng, Khal ordered five of his riders to break off. They spurred their mounts, screaming at the top of their lungs and waving torches as they charged blindly toward the southern wall.
Up on the firing platforms, the localized sensory enhancement spell had turned the boys into apex predators, perfectly adapted to hunting in the dark. But Khal's brutal battlefield experience allowed him to inadvertently exploit that exact advantage. To the boys' magically hypersensitive eyes, the sudden, violent eruption of fire in the pitch-black forest was absolutely blinding. The harsh glare of the blazing torches washed out their enhanced vision, overwhelming their retinas and reducing the charging riders to massive, glaring silhouettes of immediate danger.
"Southern wall! They're flanking!" Bellamy roared, squinting against the blinding light as he pivoted his rifle.
"Watch your bursts!" Jasper yelled back, his voice cracking with panic as he checked his weapon. "We're almost out of ammo! I'm down to half a mag!"
"Just put them down!" Wells shouted, struggling to see past the brilliant flames.
The five boys instantly concentrated their fire, unleashing a desperate hail of their dwindling lead into the glaring light, tearing the decoy riders and their mounts to shreds.
But it was a fatal misdirection. Not only had they taken their eyes off the main force, but they had just wasted precious, irreplaceable ammunition on a suicide squad.
With the thunder sticks distracted, Khal and his remaining riders tightened into a wedge formation, using their heavily armored, mutated horses as living shields. They completely ignored Aleksander in the woods, charging straight for the main entrance of the camp.
As they closed the distance, the vanguard swung three massive, spiked grappling lassos over their heads. With terrifying precision, they hurled the heavy ropes high over the camp's scrap-metal and timber gates. The spikes dug violently into the reinforced wood.
Upon Khal's roar, the warhorses planted their hooves, turned sharply, and pulled with the massive, raw strength of their mutated musculature.
With a horrific, deafening screech of tearing metal and splintering wood, the front gates were violently ripped right off their hinges. They crashed down into the dirt outside the camp, pulling a section of the defensive wall down with them.
Inside the courtyard, Bellamy whipped his head around, his heart dropping into his stomach. The main entrance was completely wide open.
"Why didn't the barrier stop it?!" Bellamy yelled, panicking as he realized the kinetic dome had seemingly failed.
"The ward stones!" Jasper realized, his eyes wide with horror as he gripped his rifle. "When we were burying them, there was too much bedrock under the entrance! We had to place the gate's ward stone inside the perimeter! The physical gates were outside the magic!"
Bellamy was worried could the camp be breached.
Out in the dark, Khal, riding atop his massive, six-legged Hex-Strider, raised his heavy scimitar. He let out a blood-curdling war cry that echoed through the woods, leading his surviving cavalry directly toward the massive, gaping hole in the defenses.
Bellamy's gunline frantically fell back, bracing themselves for an absolute slaughter. They couldn't shoot fast enough to stop a full cavalry charge funneling straight into the courtyard.
But Aleksander didn't reach for a gun.
Abandoning his position in the tree line, he moved with terrifying speed, stepping directly into the center of the breached gateway. The glowing blue and purple energy of the Ten Rings faded into his skin as he stood completely alone, a single teenager standing in the path of a roaring, mutated cavalry charge.
Aleksander didn't brace for impact. He simply slammed his open palm directly into the dirt.
Instantly, the earth beneath his feet violently hummed. A blinding, shimmering dome of translucent blue light erupted from the soil, snapping into place across the entire breached perimeter of the camp. It didn't look like the invisible kinetic barrier from before; it looked like a localized aurora borealis, humming with raw, crackling Fey energy that illuminated the entire courtyard.
Outside, Khal and his rebels didn't even try to stop. Believing the blue light to be a trick of the eyes or some Sky People flare, they spurred their horses faster. They charged straight toward the blue veil at forty miles an hour, their hearts entirely consumed by bloodlust, malice, and the desperate desire to slaughter everyone inside.
They hit the barrier like it was made of solid, reinforced concrete.
This was not a standard kinetic shield. Aleksander had woven a deep, ancient ward into the earth—a spell that explicitly recognized and rejected ill intent. The magic reacted violently to the riders' desire to kill.
The exact moment the rebels made contact with the shimmering blue light, the kinetic energy of their own massive charge was instantly and brutally rebounded right back into them.
BOOM!
The impact sounded like a bomb going off. Khal and his vanguard were violently ejected from their saddles. They were launched backward through the air like ragdolls, crashing into the mud a dozen yards away with the sickening crunch of shattered ribs and broken armor. Their massive warhorses reared up and flipped backward, unable to penetrate the magical wall.
The blue shield flared brilliantly with every single impact, humming with an ancient, terrifying power. It stood absolute and completely impenetrable, separating the terrified delinquents from the broken warlord and his killers.
The deafening roar of the cavalry charge was replaced by the agonized groans of shattered men and panicked horses. The surviving Plains Riders lay scattered in the mud outside the breached gates, their armor dented and their bodies broken by the violent kinetic rebound of Aleksander's ward.
Inside the camp, the gunline stood frozen, entirely awestruck by the shimmering blue wall of light that had just saved their lives.
Aleksander didn't give them time to marvel at it. With a sharp flick of his wrist, he dropped the magical barrier, exposing the completely disoriented and injured Kalkru warriors.
"Shoot them down!" Aleksander ordered, his voice ringing with absolute, ruthless authority. "Do not give them a chance to recover! Fire!"
Bellamy snapped out of his shock instantly. This wasn't a game; these men had come to slaughter them all. He stepped up to the edge of the ruined gates, raising his rifle.
"You heard him!" Bellamy roared to his squad. "Fire!"
Jasper, Wells, Murphy, and Atom stepped up beside him, their enhanced vision perfectly highlighting the struggling targets in the mud. The heavy, rhythmic cracking of the assault rifles tore through the night once again.
The execution was brutal and efficient. The remaining Kalkru loyalists, who were desperately trying to lift their heavy curved blades or drag themselves back to their feet, were systematically gunned down where they lay. Within seconds, the movement in the mud ceased entirely. The deadliest cavalry force on the eastern plains had been completely eradicated by a handful of teenagers and a boy with magic.
When the gunfire finally ceased, a heavy, ringing silence fell over the woods, broken only by the ragged breathing of the delinquents and the sound of a single man shouting.
Out in the mud, amidst the bodies of his fifty loyalists, Khal was still alive.
The exiled prince was on his knees, his ornate armor cracked and covered in mud. His massive Hex-Strider had survived the blast but had fled into the tree line, leaving its master behind. Spitting a mouthful of blood into the dirt, Khal looked up at the Sky Children, his eyes burning with a rabid, uncompromising fury.
He didn't surrender. Instead, he began screaming violently in Trigedasleng, his voice echoing through the dark trees. He cursed the Sky People, cursed their glowing demon, and screamed about his birthright, his brother Varo, and the throne of the Kalkru that was rightfully his.
Aleksander watched him rave for a moment, his dark eyes completely devoid of sympathy. He had heard enough.
Aleksander stepped over the splintered remains of the wooden gates, his boots sinking into the mud as he walked directly up to the screaming warlord.
Khal glared up at him, baring his blood-stained teeth. He reached for a dagger strapped to his thigh, preparing to make one final, desperate strike against the Sorcerer who had ruined his coup.
Aleksander didn't bother using magic. He didn't even give the warlord the dignity of a magical duel.
With a smooth, terrifyingly fast motion, Aleksander stepped entirely inside the larger man's guard, drew his fist back, and delivered a brutal, bone-jarring punch directly to Khal's jaw.
The heavy crack echoed loudly in the quiet clearing.
Khal's eyes instantly rolled back into his head. The warlord's massive frame went completely limp, collapsing face-first into the mud at Aleksander's feet, knocked out cold.
Aleksander stood over the unconscious prince, shaking the sting from his knuckles. He looked back at Bellamy and the gunline, who were staring at him with a mixture of absolute awe and sheer terror.
"Bellamy," Aleksander said calmly, casually stepping over Khal's unconscious body. "We need more rope for the dropship. We have another guest."