7:56 / 24:37, Rotation 589 / 687, 232 AE, 25.389042, 5.002331, Aryss

  East keep entrance secured. Vilithe relayed to Therys, who relayed to Amefrid.

  West keep entrance secured! Juulyn, the Amallarkean Assassin to Serun’s side, relayed to Therys as she peered around his great tower shield to see the bloody work that Corvin Amallark had done with a vindicator. And Therys relayed this to Amefrid.

  North gatehouse outer entrance is secured. Jhynie, the other Amallarkean Assassin, who was holding from the northwest watchtower with her customized railgun.

  Can’t break through the south keep entrance just yet. Therys had scryed the southern approach vassals. They had been pushed back by mind blasts and a flamethrower.

  Well?! What are you all waiting for?! Amefrid thought. Push!

  They all thought in unison, Yes, your highness!

  Kay-El and Second strided forward and cleared the barricade, and pushed deeper in, Tenth and the Reinforcement came down and formed up behind them. Vilithe lit up the path psionically with blue motes, leading the way to the panic room.

  An unseen rogue psion threw a mind blast at Kay-El but he let it pass into him, and through him, and out, and just like that the mind blast bounced off and strayed target, ending up blinding the Reinforcement, who tripped and fell flat on his helmet face.

  Tracing the line of psionic energy left in the wake of the mind blast, Kay-El first threw up his defense – blur(); – and leapt past another winding hallway corner aiming squarely at the psion, who did not expect to be revealed by her mind blast. She sent off a few rounds far wide with her hand cannon – the blur had severely misplaced her aim – and he replied with a squeeze of the trigger. The bullets roughly battered her body, tossed back onto a common room table which she fell upon, splattered with entry wounds and limbs splayed apart.

  PUSH!

  In the eastern assault, Second ran up in front of Kay-El, shield raised, and Kay-El continued firing down their designated path, rogue after rogue streaming at them from different branches of the labyrinthine hallway. Tenth and the Reinforcement followed close behind, unable to get an angle in around their vanguard, Second, and so they let Kay-El’s superior aim do the work. Crumpled bodies fell and fell, slumped to their left and right.

  PUSH!

  In the western assault, Serun charged forward, bashing another rogue so hard against the wall with his tower shield that he had to peel the shield off the sticky, smashed remains. Corvin swept room after room with his vindicator, the rogue corpses continued to pile up. One of the rogues tried to feign death by hiding in one of the piles of bodies, but when he leapt forward with a gryphantene dagger to try and stop Corvin, Juulyn cast a Hold Person on him, then put her necrotic touch – her hand dripping in caustic spirits and ectoplasm – to his face, denaturing the protean, corroding it with holes that stretched and opened up as dead flesh fell off in bits, the gray unpeeling flesh spreading all down his neck, dripping with liquefied black ectoplasm – and he died kneeling, his body still holding his original position stiff, as his motor nerves were still unreleased from the hold command, even though his head had rotted off and his knees had buckled.

  PUSH! PUSH!

  Finally, the pincer closed. The double envelopment complete, with the eastern and western assaults both having cut their own swath of destruction, Serun, Corvin, Juulyn, Kay-El, Second, Tenth, the Reinforcement, and several Amallarkean knights were all together now, having all reached the central foyer to the panic room.

  Some rogues entered the foyer through the south to try and intercept them but two Amallarkean knights with shotguns dashed up and simply blew them away, making quick work of them. They took position at the south entrance to the foyer and held it.

  The central foyer had a great steel vault hatch right in the middle, and closed shut. It was too late. Exasha had already sealed herself in. Amefrid had planned for this eventuality. Without another word, two other Amallarkean knights brought forth big nanoserrated gryphantene chainsaws and sank their spinning blades into the steel hatch, showering their dark armor in bright sparks.

  As they waited, Serun thought to Juulyn, puppeteer this vassal’s helmet off. I think I recognize him. Juulyn only turned her head to him, her face expressionless as she asked Therys, who asked Amefrid, for permission. Amefrid knew exactly where this was going, and she was curious herself, so she allowed it.

  Kay-El took his helmet off. His grey and grimy locks of hair fell to his wide eyes, crooked nose, and gaunt, haggard face.

  Serun took his off too. His pink irises were boring into Kay-El’s purple irises. He sneered.

  “Remember me, vassal?”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  K.L did not. The memory of the duel had been flayed right out of his mind.

  “No?”

  Serun spat on the floor. Although he treated clan workers with respect, even vassal psions – out of self-preservation, really, for no one enjoys their mind being flayed – he hated vassal soldiers. How could he not? His entire life’s purpose was to bash soldiers’ skulls in, rip them apart with gunfire, break their bones, slash open their chests and bellies, tear off their limbs. He did not trust his flanks to these traitors, doubly so. Traitors first to the Imperium. Traitors second to their own clan.

  The snide smile on his face quickly evaporated into a frightening scowl. He stepped forward and grabbed a fistful of K.L’s raggedy hair and hoisted him up. K.L had to stand on his tiptoes lest his hair – and probably skin from his scalp as Serun had grabbed the hair with his exoskeleton empowered gauntleted fist – tear off completely.

  “A shame then, vassal.” Flecks of Serun’s spit struck K.L’s face. “Because I owe you a debt.”

  Where does he hurt most?

  His chest and abdomen are heavily bruised. But as Juulyn was scrying K.L, her brow furrowed, and then her eyes shut tight. She held up a hand, her middle finger now laced with transceiving spirits, to better tune her connection, as she tilted her head- strange…

  What a coincidence, thought Serun, that’s where he got me too. And then he viciously struck Kay-El in his already badly battered obliques, letting go of his hair just as he doubled over. He coughed, but did not cry out, and his eyes shot back up to glare defiantly at Serun.

  “Consider that my first payment.”

  Therys. I'm detecting a lot of psionic irregularities, Juulyn thought.

  Vilithe had been laying on her cot this whole time, assuming that this assault would be just like all the other ones, but now she bolted upright.

  Shit. Shit. Shit shit shit.

  Vi, I thought you were cloaking! Thought Kay-El in a panic, having read Juulyn’s thoughts. Mal! Help!

  I was! Vilithe responded. She and Mal now furiously tried to reweave the psionic cloak, thicker and stronger, around the two of them, but it wasn’t just Juulyn prying and picking away at the edge of it, now both Therys and Amefrid were too.

  Kay-El’s mind was racing now, for if Vilithe and he were revealed here, it would be the end! They would be deemed too psionically unstable to be trusted. Their minds would be flayed to oblivion, or they would just be summarily executed. He had to think of something. Some sort of cover.

  He spoke as obsequiously as he could bear now, and the hatred in his glare melted away to a desperate, begging, wincing grimace.

  “Forgive me, Ser Knight-” – vassals were to address knights of the clan as ser, but Kay honestly had no idea what this fucker’s name was, until Vilithe snuck it into his consciousness, so he corrected himself-

  “-Ser Serun, for…” Vilithe continued to fill in details for him, hopefully it would appease Serun’s ego-

  “...forgetting our duel, when you honorably defeated me, and inducted me into the glory of Clan Amallark. This vassal had those unclean memories flayed away.”

  “Ah, you remember my name now, vassal!” Wicked delight danced in Serun’s voice. He backhanded K.L now, careful not to cause too much damage, but enough to leave Kay-El’s ears ringing. “But your memory still needs a little work!”

  Juulyn thought to herself, yes, we did flay those memories out of him, so how does he know Serun’s name? Therys, are you scrying this?

  Grabbing him once more by the hair and hoisting him up again, Serun snarled, “You were the one who won!” and then he roughly threw Kay-El at Juulyn’s feet. “Thank the elvan who spared your pitiful life!”

  Propped on his elbows and knees, Kay-El looked up at Juulyn and said, “Thank you, mistress assassin,” – soldiers had to call psions mistress, generally – “for- flaying my mind. And - inducting me into the glory- the glory of the great Clan Amallark.”

  It came haltingly, “-before I harmed the honorable, heroic Ser Serun anymore than I had…” he gritted his teeth as he spoke, for the words were unbearable for him to say.

  But Juulyn ignored his ingratiation. How did you cut through those rogues so quickly, vassal? Answer. She flayed the answer out from him.

  And then the ‘truth’ spilled out from his lips, unwillingly.

  “I have tapped into my inner psionic potential, I do not know how I possess it, possibly something done to me by my former” – he wanted to say former Queen, but he couldn’t, wasn’t allowed – “enslavers, traitors to the Empire, who used me and controlled me, before you so graciously granted me the honor of serving the Empress.”

  Do not think about killing her. Do not think about killing her.

  How?

  Vilithe, help! Mal! Please!

  But Vilithe was now having a severe myoclonic seizure, her muscles locked up in spasms, her mouth foaming, so hard was she trying to prevent the triple threat of Juulyn, Therys, and Amefrid, all probing with their mental tentacles into the sacred inner sanctum they had created for the two of them.

  He pulled off a Litany of Fear! Way to go Kay! I’ll admit, Vi, that was damn impressive.

  His name was Kelvon Phagebrin.

  A .45 caliber revolver, cold iron and spirit-forged.

  Oh Goddess, he’s on fire. Woah sounding a little bit orcan. Huh? I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mal. Nevermind.

  Her name was Rhalyf Adanbani

  Elluin Wilson.

  Pelleas Du Pont.

  Serun was too dumb to realize that because they hadn’t taken off their helmets at all, as sensible knights would, in their last encounter, that Kay-El could not recognize him by his face. But they could certainly recognize each other by their violence. Fighting. It was like a relationship. Moments where one could understand the other completely.

  Yes, Kay and Mal had been introduced at this point, and had developed solid camaraderie, although they were always a little jealous of each other, always competing for Vilithe’s attention. You could say it was a bit of a love triangle.

  You fucking DICK! Shush, Mal, SHUSH! Not now!

  Whose doesn't?! Except for us spirits of course. We don’t forget. But we do forgive.

  Vilithe’s heart broke when he had to say heroic.