Page 131 of Twist of Fate

Too late.

The server-room frame had already begun to buckle. A narrow blade of light appeared around the damaged lock with every strike of the ram. The bond no longer needed to pull him forward. Luke’s living presence filled the place beyond that door.

Close.

Still.

Waiting while the enemy tore through the last barrier between them.

Asterius stepped to Connal’s right, his face stripped of its usual humor. Keir lifted his blade. Zer’s knives turned once in his hands. Tyson remained safely behind them.

Connal raised his sword. “Keep them away from the door.”

Then he charged.

The men at the server room door turned too late. Connal’s grin turned feral. Good.

The passage was too narrow for an open charge. Connal shortened his stride and brought his sword close to his body as the sentry raised his weapon.

Connal reached him first. His blade cut through the man’s wrist. The weapon struck the concrete with the severed hand still wrapped around it, but Connal was already moving past him.

Asterius drove shoulder-first into the next attacker and slammed him against the wall. Keir used the opening to reach the man wielding the ram, cutting low and dropping him before he could strike the server-room door again.

Zer went up.

Connal caught only a flash of movement at the edge of his vision—a boot against the wall, Zer’s body twisting over a fallen attacker, and twin knives catching the harsh corridor light. He landed behind the men guarding the breach, trapping them between himself and his brothers.

“Left!” Tyson shouted.

Connal trusted the warning and twisted aside as a burst of spellfire passed his shoulder and struck the wall where his head had been. Concrete splintered across his cheek.

He drove into the shooter before the man could attack again, slamming him backward against the device clamped over the access panel.

Blue sparks erupted around them. The man convulsed and dropped, but the device continued pulsing against the lock.

Connal kicked it free.

The attached cable tore loose with a violent crack, and the server-room door shuddered in its frame.

Connal drove his blade through the man nearest the door and shoved him aside with his boot. Blood slicked the concrete. The narrow corridor left no room for the old rhythms of an open battlefield or court dueling ring. Here, they fought with elbows, shoulders, knees, and blades held close to the body. Every movement had to be contained or steel would strike the wall instead of an enemy.

Asterius caught an attacker by the front of his jacket and dragged him into the path of a burst of spellfire.

Tyson swore behind them. “Keep them away from the access panel!”

Keir changed direction instantly, driving his opponent away from the damaged controls rather than into them.

Zer ducked beneath a blade and came up inside the attacker’s reach. One knife drove beneath the man’s ribs while the other turned aside his weapon.

“They don’t care how many of them fall,” Zer said.

Keir’s gaze shifted toward the server-room entrance. “They only care about reaching the system.”

Boots thundered through the adjoining passage as the first reinforcements reached the junction. Even with Connal and his brothers cutting through them from behind, the remaining attackers kept forcing their way toward the door. One fell and another took his place beside the warped frame.

The ram lay abandoned, but two men braced their shoulders against the damaged seam. Magic crawled over their hands as they forced the steel inward.

The gap widened.