*COMPLETE* Allayria promised to do what it takes to stop the Jarles, to make the ugly decision. She thinks, at last, she understands what the dynast meant. The lesson earned from the top of that lonely cliff and given the dark murky water below.
It...
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In the dark nighttime the waves thunder on the seawall of Thalassa City. They crest high, splintering and fracturing against the shuddering rocks, melting in the tumult of pouring rain. The pound drums deep in bones as they scale the walls, insects clinging to sand and grime, resisting the riptide of salt.
They are up, moving across the saltstone, up and over, feet thudding on the ramparts, hands moving, arms flinging, metal flashing in a clash of lightning and thunder that weaves spidery fingers in the nighttime sky. The patrol dies quickly as the rest of the hostage city comes alive.
It's hard for the Jarles to see them in this fractured light, but these invaders know now that sight is not the only sense those soldiers will use. They have another, another that prods before they swing, another that mutters across bonds of metal, murmuring to the beat...
Power is Might.
The besiegers have no silent language that speaks—theirs only swings.
When the next wave of bodies vaults up over the seawall her patrol sets out. They see the beacon in the horizon; the plume of cinder and light, green against all this dark. The rain pelts into a downpour and the Nature-callers heed nature's gift, ceding rock and root for ubiquitous, elusive water.
The sea breaches the seawall.
They have but minutes, minutes to run across the slip-slick narrow ledge, to leap past the hurtle of clamoring bodies, to hit the roof, to scale across it, toes catching and sliding, before the water rushes in.
It's a grapple of slippery limbs and fists as bodies emerge out of the darkness and clash, gripping and grasping, clutching and then pounding as they are pushed under the water, into the shallow depths where bubbles ripple up and shake, panicked, on the coursing surface.
A crumpling wall catches the next attacker, and the one after topples over the ledge, caught unawares by the pelting swoop of wings and talons, glinting in that electric light.
Water runs in rivulets down the invaders' masks, slinking through their vision and the rain taps persistently across their backs.
They have to get to the beacon.
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