Chapter 757: Broke it

The passage beneath the city had been clear when Vesa brought the army through. Here, Lolth’s web already stretched across the streets. Knowing Edonia was still there didn’t make this distorted entrance safe.

"We need to get them clear of these strands first," Vesa said.

Alex looked toward the next street. A group of Imperial soldiers had just reached its corner, withdrawing from a light body descending beside their ship.

They saw the vampires and raised their weapons.

Dorian’s fighters did the same.

For a moment, Mingyue expected another attack to close the only space left between them.

Then a thread hooked the loose backplate of the last Imperial soldier. It had not yet touched the body beneath it.

He fell forward. Two men turned to help, but the others kept moving toward the corner.

The officer at their front shoved his nearest subordinate aside and raised a barrier behind the trapped man. It stopped the red-eyed bodies following him while one companion cut the straps of his armor. The empty backplate rose along the thread, and they dragged him clear of it.

The Imperial officer pointed his sword down the street, away from Dorian.

His soldiers withdrew in that direction.

Mingyue kept her swords raised until the last Imperial soldier passed. None of them offered to carry the wounded.

Dorian let them go and turned his fighters toward the red-eyed attackers they had left behind.

Mingyue could use that opening.

"The road east of the broken tower," she told Alex. "It hasn’t closed yet."

He looked along it.

Low buildings lined the near side. Farther away, the avenue joined a wider service road that continued toward the eastern districts. Threads hung over the roofs, but the central stretch of stone was still clear.

There was enough room to carry the wounded through together.

Alex was already turning toward Vesa when she spoke again.

"There are patients outside the administrative hall. One of Dorian’s soldiers saw them at the rear wall. They’re moving beds."

Mingyue looked beyond the junction.

Through the smoke, she could see a small group near the hall. One woman leaned on a staff while helping guide a bed around fallen debris. People behind her were doing the same.

They had left the shelter and found another battle outside.

"Tell them to come toward that junction," Mingyue said. "We’ll keep it open."

Vesa relayed the order, then glanced toward Dorian as his answer came back.

"He wants his men kept with our wounded. Those are human patients."

"Both groups need that junction. If the beds jam it, neither gets through. Tell him to cover their turn."

Vesa looked along the road before replying.

"That brings them closer to us."

"Yes. Where we can stop the threads reaching them."

Mingyue pointed farther east with one blade.

"Then they turn there and continue together. If they scatter between the buildings, we’ll lose sight of half of them."

Alex watched the patients for a moment.

Mingyue could feel his urgency through their bond. He wanted to reach them himself. There were also soldiers behind him, and the red-eyed force was still pushing against Dorian’s line.

"I’ll hold the entrance from the battlefield," he said. "Keep the road clear ahead of them."

She nodded.

Neither of them had enough strength to stop everything Lolth was doing. They could spend it trying to break a light body beside a ship, or use it to keep this group moving.

Mingyue flew ahead along the avenue.

A thread reached across the junction before she arrived. She froze the narrow space around it and brought both swords down, forcing the line away from the road.

The strand pulled against her blades hard enough to make her arms shake. The pressure came from farther away than the section she could see, and she refused to follow it upward into the thicker web.

Instead, she cut the stone holding its lower end.

The strand lifted the broken block toward the roof, opening a gap underneath. Mingyue used her blade to push the block clear of the roadway, then froze it to the wall above a shuttered shop. It would not fall onto the patients if the strand released it.

"Below it," she told Vesa. "Keep them close to the ground."

Alex reached the near end of the road and planted a line of runes across the street. White fire rose where the next strands touched it, forcing them back long enough for Dorian’s first fighters to cross.

Behind them, Selene began moving the wounded.

Mingyue watched the Imperial officer’s group reach the far side of the junction. One soldier raised his weapon when he saw her.

The officer struck the blade down and kept moving.

Mingyue let them pass. She couldn’t afford to start another fight on a road they were already leaving.

A crash shook the roofs behind her.

The damaged warship had dropped lower. Its broken rear section struck a building, and the surrounding web brightened as cultivators tried to leap clear.

More light gathered above the road.

Mingyue moved back along the avenue toward Alex, following a strand that was descending across the patients’ approach. Her breath shortened as she forced her spatial power along it. Holding the affected space still was costing more than each cut, and she could feel the strain building in her arms.

Alex was maintaining his rune line a few paces away. She drew the trapped section of thread within his reach.

"Alex."

His white flame reached the section beside her swords.

Together, they broke it.

She glanced at him. Blood ran down the hand he held above the runes, and his face had tightened with the effort of keeping the rune line burning at the same time.

He saw her looking.

"Keep going," he said through their bond. "I’ve got this side."

Mingyue turned back toward the patients.

The woman with the staff had reached the edge of the service road. An injured man pushed the bed beside her, his shoulder stained red. A soldier stood with them, pointing toward the gap Mingyue held open.

The woman looked from the web overhead to the patients following her, then began guiding them forward.

Mingyue kept her blades raised.

Through the gap between the roofs, she saw Thepes raise his restored hand.

He was reaching toward another strand.