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Rhone sulks besidethe soldiers A party one-half celebration, one-half slaughter rages through the city as it seeks catharsis on the invaders after the long weeks of siege I iside the blood for many days yet

“Soate?” I ask

“You should be the one to take the Slave King”

The soldiers flood into the Mound

“We have had our glory today, Praetorian Let us not drown ourselves in gluttony The legions knoho opened the gates,” I say loud enough for the other Praetorians to hear They tip their cups of wine and pass burners through the ranks One thousand Gray shock troopers came to me in the desert Barely three hundred remain Not one is unwounded

There is a sudden flurry of firing in the Mound I had no doubt Darroould make a last stand But with the introduction of advanced weapons to the battle, it is a certain affair One knight kitted by our age is worth a thousand on horse Perhaps more

I runthe hilt of his broken blade and feel confused by what it elicits He threw me down in the desert I broke hiainst the other The fate of each battle was decided before we met Mine by the broken chaos of the Rain His by a series of calamities which put him in a corner I did not beat the Reaper I simply hit him when he was down I hold no illusions of ainst a broken host and a bedraggled e die one by one, like autuone, e be lesser for their absence?

It seems cheap

With his death imminent, the worlds feel emptier Almost as cavernous as they did when Cassius fell One by one, the titans of my youth disappear, and freed from their shadow, I do not feel liberated I feel bereft

Nothing is permanent No one escapes

“The bill comes at the end,” I whisper

Rhone asks what I said, but I grow distracted when gunfire crackles on the Mound So ranks in the courtyard point upward as ripWings dive from the sky

B

We take cover The light is treod Helios, who towers over the Mound With a groan, he teeters over and crashes down into the sea By Jove…How does Darrow have electronics? Anything within the city was fried Unless eren’t the only ones to have reinforcements

Sure enough, Gold knights tear froes from the debris It rockets low over the ranks of soldiers filling the courtyard