Chapter 759: Clash

The street beneath him shook as blood answered his call below the broken paving.

It came through the breach from the blood and remains he had left below. He had destroyed Soren’s formation himself. The narrow routes still feeding him were held open by his own blood, and he forced more through them now.

The distance slowed it. He dragged what he could toward himself, unwilling to let go of a single drop.

For a moment, the fresh supply let him resist the pull from his arm. The pale line stopped advancing toward his chest.

He breathed through his teeth. There wasn’t enough blood.

His eyes moved toward the bodies fighting below.

They had carried pieces of him since he raised them. He had sent them at Alex’s army, at the humans blocking their path, at anything that tried to hold ground against him.

They could reach places he could not move toward now.

Thepes called them back. Several red-eyed faces turned upward at once.

"Here."

The nearest bodies broke away from their fights. One took a sword through its side as it turned. It pulled free without stopping, leaving part of its damaged body on the blade.

Thepes directed them toward the streets beneath the web.

He needed them close enough to strike the connections holding him. Their blood and bodies could force a path through the threads, and the survivors could keep attacking while he recovered his hands.

Another pull went through his arm.

His shoulder split open. Pale light showed beneath the blood, and the pain reached deep into his chest.

Across the battlefield, his followers changed direction. Some came straight toward him. Others had to cross the avenue where Alex’s soldiers were withdrawing.

Thepes saw the wounded among them.

The old survivors were still being carried and protected. One of them stood unsteadily beside a younger vampire, helping keep him upright while the two successors spent their power holding a road open.

They had failed to save themselves below, and they still needed someone else to stand between them and danger.

Thepes pushed his followers toward the opening anyway.

If the old vampires moved aside, the bodies would pass. If they tried to stop them, he would break through their line.

He refused to believe that the only way out of this grip was to wait for those two to save him too.

***

Alex saw the nearest red-eyed vampire turn away from Dorian’s blade.

It ran toward the service yard, then stopped at the edge of the white fire crossing the avenue. More bodies gathered behind it.

The change spread farther than one group.

"Vesa, Thepes."

"I see it."

Alex looked through the gap above the roofs.

Thepes hung close to the light woman, his arms spread at awkward angles. Pale lines ran along one side of his body. Blood rose toward him from the broken street, while more red streams stretched from the approaching corpses.

Two different flows met near his chest.

Alex followed them with his Cognitive Matrix, trying to distinguish what was feeding him from what was pulling him toward Lolth.

The lines crossed too closely for him to separate them at a glance.

He had seen Thepes draw blood from the underground remains after breaking Soren’s formation. The same thin routes still fed him through the breach. The other flow crossed into the Spider Progenitor’s web, tightening whenever Thepes tried to move away.

It looked as though Thepes had tried to feed from something that could pull back. Whatever had started the struggle, he was now dragging his army into it.

"Don’t let them enter the road," Alex told Vesa.

"Dorian is turning his people."

The nearest red-eyed body threw itself into the rune fire.

Its skin blackened. Blood burst along one arm, but it continued forward until Alex struck it back with a newly formed hammer.

The impact broke its chest and sent it into the bodies behind it.

Two more rushed around the fallen creature.

Alex raised a second line of fire along the open side. He could hold the mouth of the avenue, but the next group was already moving between the ruined buildings farther down.

They were taking a more direct route toward Thepes, straight across Selene’s path with the wounded.

"Mingyue, the side street behind Selene."

She turned before he finished.

Purple ice rose between the buildings, closing the gap as the first attacker reached it. Its hands struck the surface. More red-eyed bodies arrived behind it and began tearing at the same place.

The ice shook.

Selene moved the wounded away from it. The recovering Sovereign supporting the younger soldier tried to turn with them, but his leg folded beneath him.

Both fell. Alex stepped toward them, but the rune fire in front of him thinned. A red-eyed body forced a hand through.

He stopped and fed more power into the line.

One of Selene’s soldiers caught the fallen Sovereign under the arms. Another lifted the younger vampire, carrying him clear while the old man struggled to make his legs move again.

Alex held his position until they were behind the next wall.

They’d been so close. He could have reached them, but the instant he left the line, more attackers would have followed. He’d had to stand there and let someone else get them up.

Selene put a fighter at the old man’s side and sent the others ahead, keeping them from crowding around him and blocking the retreat.

"Thepes is pulling them across us," Mingyue said through their bond.

"I know."

"He’ll bring the web with them."

Alex looked at the nearest approaching group.

Pale strands had caught on their bodies as they crossed the streets. Some hung from broken armor. Others entered exposed flesh, brightening each time the corpses forced themselves farther toward their creator.

If those bodies reached the avenue, the new threads would cross the route with them.

Alex couldn’t simply burn everything in that space. Selene’s wounded and the patients approaching from the hall were too close. A wide attack would reach them before he could clear the bodies out of its path.

He brought his hammer down on the leading attacker.

Dorian’s soldiers moved past him to meet the next group.

As the bodies turned toward them, the strands hanging from their wounds stretched across the mouth of the avenue. One pale line reached over the rune fire toward the first bed approaching the junction.