A Py’riel just outside the eastern portcullis smmed its whole body against the steel ttice gate, making the frame rattle like thunder with each blow. Questions filled my mind as the wooden monsters probed the entrance. Did Galen fail? Did every Passguard perish in a fight, and these terrible creatures came to finish the job? That couldn’t be possible, the Passguards would have reached the temple just today, these creatures couldn’t have made it here that fast. Plus, the Py’riel first approached from the wrong side of town, like...
Like they took a roundabout path to avoid encountering the advancing force. Like they had been waiting for an opportunity such as Galen’s ambush to unch an attack of their own.
Janine stood before the gate, staring at the nightmare on the other side. Evelyn stayed up in the watchtower at Janine’s request, ringing the heavy bell by moving it with her wand. A crowd of onlookers gathered in the road, mumbling and shrieking each time the twisted trees struck the portcullis.
Warren sprinted to Janine’s side as he came up the road, eyes wide in disbelief. “My word... this can’t be possible.” He turned to the crowd, shouting over their chatter. “Everyone! Get your families and neighbors, head to the citadel!”
Crash! Another Py’riel joined in with the first, smming and pounding against the portcullis. Janine took a step back, the noise enough to convince all but a few stragglers to heed Warren’s words and leave as soon as possible. “Will it hold?”
“It should,” Warren said. “They won’t get far as battering rams against that steel, but who knows what else they might try. If they’re smart, they might make a dder out of themselves and a couple might climb over, we can handle the few that make it over. Or maybe we’ll get lucky and they give up.”
Janine fell silent, drawing her sword. I could feel her heart pounding as we waited to see the Py’riels’ next move. When I imagined the two of us facing off against these monsters, it had been with an army of our own. Against a whole forest lining up outside our gate, I felt so small. We stood no chance against these creatures with only a battered sword from the stock the other Passguards left behind, no matter how I influenced Janine.
An eternity passed between every collision with the gate, every ring of the bell. The bodies of the tree creatures began to split, purple cracks forming along the trunk every time their branchlike legs unched them forward. The gates groaned and creaked, but it held together. At first, it seemed like the Py’riel were going to simply smash themselves open in failure.
We had no idea that opening up and exposing their hearts had been their intent all along.
More Py’riel gathered behind the first two, pressing—and then crushing—them against the bars, until their trunks split completely open and purple fmes burst forth, fring up like a forge.
“What are they doing? They can’t burn steel,” Warren said, rubbing his chin in confusion. It wasn’t until the bars started to glow a cherry red that realization dawned on him. “...But they can melt it. Janine, quickly! Aim for the center, if we kill the creature we kill their fmes!”
Warren and Janine charged forward, bdes pointed toward the monsters at the gate. In the time it took for them to reach the portcullis, its bars began to glow bright orange, bending slightly inward from the force the other Py’riel applied. The Passguards winced at the heat as they approached, thrusting their swords deep into each half-broken Py’riel at the gate. The monsters shrieked and sputtered, their fmes dying as the swords pierced deep into their hearts, but it was too te. The bars had become so hot that the ttice split apart after another push from the horde of creatures, creating a gap rge nearly enough for a Py’riel to squeeze through unhindered.
The force of the impact knocked the Passguards off their feet, sending them tumbling along the ground. Janine coughed from getting the wind knocked out of her, kneeling as she caught her breath. Other than some scorch marks on her thick gloves, she seemed mostly unharmed. Warren fared far worse, suffering burns all over his face and upper body, as his tabard continued to burn. “Warren!” Janine hurried to her feet and pat out the fmes, dragging the unconscious but breathing Passguard inside the base of the watchtower. “Evelyn! Warren needs your help!”
The bell stopped ringing as Evelyn hurried down the stairs, but she froze once she reached the bottom of the staircase, gasping at the sight of a Py’riel struggling through the broken portcullis. “Janine...”
“Just help Warren!” In desperation, Janine looked around for anything she could use as a weapon, but with her sword entangled in the warped steel of the broken portcullis, she had nothing to hold that might keep a Py’riel at bay. Despite the ck of a weapon, she knew she still had a duty to perform. Janine turned to the sparse group of spectators that had stayed behind to watch everything unfold, tears running down her face as she knew she faced a grim fate in order to give the others a chance to survive.
“Everyone, please,” Janine said, trying her best to steady her words. “You have to leave right now if you value your life. I can buy some time, that’s all.”
As Janine once again approached the portcullis, she gripped me in her hands, squeezing me tightly as she hoped for a miracle from me. “Viridian, I need anything you can give me right now. We’ve come so far together. I’m fighting to the end, but please, at least don’t let me fight alone.”
