"Fall back!"Wolfe's voice cut through the chaos."To the portcullis!Now!"
The defenders retreated in as orderly a fashion as they could manage, helping the wounded and covering each other's withdrawals.Thalia found herself beside Kaine and Brynn, the three of them among the last to retreat as they covered the others' escape.
The golem reached the outer wall in three massive strides, towering over the portcullis like a mountain of malice.It raised one massive fist, electricity crackling between its fingers, and brought it down upon the gate with a force that made the very foundations of Frostforge shudder.
The ice-steel portcullis—forged by generations of smiths, reinforced by the academy's most powerful cryomancers—shattered inward like glass.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Chaos erupted as Wardens poured through the shattered portcullis, their dark forms a surging tide against Frostforge's defenders.Thalia felt herself swept backward by the retreating line, her boots sliding on stone made slick with blood and melting ice.The glacenite sword in her hand caught what little light remained, its silver-blue glow a beacon amid the darkness that engulfed the entrance hall.All around her, screams and the clash of metal on metal created a symphony of desperation, punctuated by the sizzling crack of lightning and the crystalline shatter of ice magic meeting storm.
"Hold the line!"Wolfe's voice cut through the din, somehow carrying above the battle's roar."Fall back to the foyer!Defensive formation!"
Thalia parried a strike she sensed rather than saw, the vibration of black metal against glacenite sending tremors up her arm.The Warden before her snarled, eyes visible through the slits of her helm—feral, hungry, triumphant.Thalia pivoted, using the woman's momentum against her, and thrust her blade into the narrow gap between breastplate and pauldron.Hot blood spilled over her hands as she wrenched the sword free.
No time to think.No time to breathe.
Another Warden materialized from the press of bodies, his black blade whistling toward her throat.Thalia ducked, feeling the air part above her head, and countered with a slash that connected with his thigh.He staggered but didn't fall.
The crush of bodies forced her deeper into the academy, away from the shattered entrance and into the vaulted foyer where Frostforge's defenders struggled to form new lines.Students, soldiers, and refugees pressed shoulder to shoulder, creating a wall of flesh and steel.Glacenite weapons glowed like fallen stars in the hands of those who could bear them, while others wielded whatever they could find—kitchen knives, broken chair legs, tools from the forge.
Behind them loomed the massive black golem, its metal frame absorbing what little light filtered through the storm-darkened windows.It advanced with mechanical precision, each step shaking the very foundations of the academy.Where its fist connected with the stone, the walls cracked and crumbled.Where defenders tried to stand against it, they were brushed aside like insects, their bodies broken and limp.
"It's heading for the mess hall!"someone shouted—Luna, her voice strained with effort as she hurled shards of ice at a Warden who pressed too close.
The mess hall.Right next to the kitchens, where Thalia knew many non-combatants were huddled, trying to hide from the fray.
Determination surged in Thalia's chest, temporarily eclipsing the insidious whispers of the glacenite.She had to reach the golem, had to stop it before it reached those defenseless people.But the tide of battle held her fast, Wardens pressing from all sides, their black blades flashing in the storm light.
Thalia fought with mechanical precision, her body moving through forms drilled into muscle memory during endless hours of training.Parry, thrust, dodge, counter.Each movement earned her another inch, another foot toward the golem's inexorable path.But the hallucinations were beginning to creep in at the edges of her vision—shadows that moved independently of their casters, whispers that didn't belong to the fighters around her.
Mari's voice, high and terrified, cut through the battle din."Thalia, help me!"
Thalia's head snapped toward the sound before she could stop herself.There was nothing there—just more Wardens, more defenders, more blood on stone.Not real, she reminded herself fiercely.Mari isn't here.The glacenite's curse intensified with each passing minute, each swing of her sword.
A flash of movement to her right—a Warden's black blade descending toward her unprotected side.She twisted away, too slow, bracing for the bite of metal in flesh.Instead came the ring of steel on steel as another blade intercepted the strike.
Kaine stood beside her, his ice-glacenite hammer glowing with the same silver-blue light as her sword.His face was a mask of cold determination, spattered with blood that wasn't his own.Without a word, he engaged the Warden, hammer connecting with helm in a blow that dropped the attacker instantly.
"The golem," Thalia gasped, gesturing toward the behemoth that had nearly reached the corridor leading to the mess hall.Its massive frame barely fit through the arched passageway, shoulders scraping stone with each step, leaving gouges in the ancient walls.
Kaine nodded once, grim understanding in his eyes.Together they fought their way toward the construct, moving as a unit through the chaotic melee.Thalia's blade became an extension of her arm, cutting a path through the press of bodies.Kaine's hammer dealt devastating blows to any who came too close, the sound of breaking bone a terrible counterpoint to the clash of metal.
Lightning crackled overhead, drawn through the shattered dome of the foyer's ceiling to dance along the golem's frame.Each bolt seemed to strengthen the construct, its movements becoming more fluid, more purposeful as the electricity coursed through its black metal body.
"It's feeding on the storm," Thalia realized aloud, watching as another arc of lightning connected with the golem's shoulder.
"Then we need to cut it off from its power source," Kaine replied, his voice tight with exertion as he knocked a Warden back with the haft of his hammer.
They reached the entrance to the corridor just as the golem disappeared into it, its heavy footsteps receding like thunder.The passage was littered with debris and bodies—defenders who had tried to halt the construct's advance and paid with their lives.
Senna materialized from the chaos, her face streaked with soot and blood, both hands curled around the hilt of her glacenite longsword."What's the plan?"she demanded, falling into step beside them.Brynn appeared at Senna's side, her own glacenite blades glinting in the storm light that filtered through the high windows.Despite the grime that covered her, she moved with a predator's grace, each step measured and deliberate.
"We need to find its weakness," Thalia said, fighting to keep her voice steady as the corridor seemed to warp around her—another effect of the cursed alloy."Every construct has a core, a heart.Find that, and we can bring it down."
They rounded the corner into the grand hall that connected the foyer to the mess hall—a vast, open space with columns reaching toward a vaulted ceiling.The golem stood at its center, momentarily halted by a barrier of ice that had been hastily erected across the far exit.Lightning arced between the metal plates of its body, illuminating runes etched into the black surface—symbols of storm and destruction that pulsed with malevolent light.
"Now!"Kaine shouted, and they split apart, circling the construct from different angles.
