Chapter 191: Sacrifice

Spine Splitter went through the crack and into Sandalphon’s shoulder, digging deep into it.

Before Malik could cut him in half, the Angel screamed and wings of white light exploded outward, flinging Malik backwards.

He hit the ground, rolled, and came up on one knee with blood in his mouth.

At the same time, Sandalphon staggered, clutching his arm.

The wound was smoking where the black fire had touched it, and the flesh around it was dissolving into nothing.

At least it was for a moment, as the fire stopped upon that shield’s return, showing just how unnatural it was.

Rather, it wasn’t a shield at all but a piece of space.

Space that could be stretched to a near infinity.

That was why Spine Splitter seemed to stop.

The distance to reach Sandalphon was simply made to be unfathomably large.

Bastard or not, he was an Angel.

“You truly are a disease, everything you touch rots.”

Malik wiped away the blood on his chin.

“You can tell the Order that.”

Sandalphon nodded.

“I will tell them. I will tell them you died screaming.”

“That seems unlikely.”

Malik straightened and felt the weight of the sky pressing down on him.

He did not have time for this.

With a flick of his fingers, a beam of fire erupted high in the sky.

A signal.

One which his father picked up on.

Hakim reached him in the next second, looking… worse for wear.

“The rear is breaking. I can hold the road for another hour, maybe two, but the beasts are far too numerous. They’ll catch the tail of the convoy by the evening.”

“How long is the column?”

“Eleven miles”

Hakim sjghed.

“More every minute, stragglers keep joining it.”

Malik jumped, reaching the sky, and looked towards the distance.

It was a river of bodies winding toward the hills.

Carts, wagons, the same old men leaning on staffs, mothers with infants, soldiers carrying the wounded on their backs.

The dust they raised hung above them in a long brown banner, and it was visible for miles.

It might as well have been a flare that told the enemy exactly where to strike.

On the other side, the Order’s army had begun to move.

They moved… slow.

Yes, not fast at all.

They did not need to be.

Millions of soldiers marched in ranks that never broke, and the horizon trembled with every step.

The war-beasts ran ahead of them, bellowing, chains of blue light trailing from their necks.

‘They will not stop.’

He could see it the way he could see a chess board.

The army would reach the convoy. The Guard would break. The Faraja would break. The people would scatter, and the Order would carve through them all.

Unless something stood in the way.

Sandalphon jumped, reaching Malik.

“Are you going to keep—”

He could not finish that sentence.

“Fall.”

Malik’s sword struck him down.

The attack was too fast.

Sandalphon fell.

The Sultan fell alongside him.

But he didn’t continue the attack.

Instead he looked back at his father.

“Hakim.”

“Yes?”

“Take the Angel.”

Hakim blinked.

“I… what?”

“He’s wounded. His left arm is gone from the shoulder. He can’t use the shield and attack at once.”

Malik’s eyes turned to the horizon.

“Hold him here and keep him off the convoy. I would do it but he seems like a cockroach, hard to kill.”

“Son, I am not…”

“You are an Al-Assad with hundreds of years of grudges. A recent Class Four. Yes, I noticed. I am sure you want the Order’s downfall way more than I do. You will manage.”

Hakim stared at him.

Then he straightened, and the red flame that rose around his hands was thicker than Malik had ever seen it, enormous and heavy with heat.

“I will not fail you.”

“Do not be dramatic.”

“I will…”

“Hakim.”

“Yes?”

“Do not die. Once done, escape with the rest.”

His father opened his mouth.

Closed it.

Nodded once.

Then he turned and walked towards Sandalphon with fire pouring from his shoulders.

Malik did not stay to watch.

The convoy ran through the day.

Nothing reached them.

They didn’t even come close.

But that wasn’t all.

The Sultan helped them directly.

Malik carried a child on his back till the corridor. He lifted a dying ox out of the road. He knelt beside a woman whose husband had stopped breathing in the cart and told her to keep walking.,

She walked, all of them walked, and he turned away before she or the others could see his face.

Every few miles he met the Guard.

They were smaller each time.

The Faraja held the flanks, wrapped faces grim, blades notched, and they fell one by one with no sound at all.

Malik passed an officer propped against a fence post, a spear through his chest, still holding the rope that marked the corridor.

The man’s eyes were open.

His hand did not let go.

By night, the sky had not changed.

The ceiling of ships still hung over everything.

The Twelve Moons were hidden like the Suns.

The only light came from the pale blue glow of the Order’s formations, a light that didn’t dim no matter how many he killed.

Yet… he wasn’t perfect.

Malik could not protect the entire region.

A tearing howl, followed by the crack of chains and the scream of ten thousand people turning to look.

He was two miles forward, standing on a hill with a dying soldier’s flask in his hand, and he watched the end of a distant convoy dissolve in a cloud of dust.

He closed his eyes.

His hands were shaking.

Old Cane felt heavier than it had ever been.

The fire he had burned for the Invaders had taken more from him than he wanted to admit.

His Soul Glyphs were nearly spent.

His soldiers were either dead or bleeding out.

And somewhere behind him, his father stood against an Angel with fire in his hands.

‘Not enough.’

Not for this.

Not for millions.

There was no clever plan.

There was no Rune, no Holy Relic, no trick that would turn this army away from the road.

There was only the oldest answer left.

Malik opened his eyes.

‘Sacrifice.’