CHAPTER 119
The River Holds
When the day of the run to the lower districts finally arrived, District 99 felt split between dread and exhilaration. The Via Appia turned into a living artery, crowded with movement as if the whole district had decided to come and watch our departure.
The sound was too much: orders being shouted, names being called, straps being tightened, and every step measured, knowing they had to preserve stamina for what would come.
Most of the final work fell to the people staying behind, the ones who could afford to spend energy now because they would not be the ones carrying it into the fog.
To one side, the chainrunners from District 99 who would join us were saying their goodbyes to loved ones. Some were quick, others lingered, foreheads touching, hands gripping sleeves.
Across from them, crates were dragged into a neat pile, and Gustav stood at the center of it, making everything vanish into the storage ring.
People stared at the ring with open fascination. Years of hauling weight through the fog, of choosing what to leave behind, were reduced to a single motion of Gustav’s hand.
“Marvelous artifact,” Cairen said beside me, eyes following the motion of Gustav’s hand and the quiet vanishing of each supply bundle.
Cairen looked exactly as he always did: neat, composed, and ready to smile at the right moment. The rapier sat at his side without a mark on the hilt. He was here to observe the preparations and be seen doing it.
“It is. A very useful one,” I replied.
“Useful?” Cairen repeated. “It holds two tons, and you can carry it on a finger.” He let that sit for a breath. “That is not Lucious’s work, is it?” His eyes stayed on me when he asked, not on the ring.
“No. It was made long ago, before the fog, by the Obsidian Order,” I replied, thinking of the notes I had found in District 2.
“Oh,” Cairen said, and his smile paused. “The Obsidian Order.”
“You’ve heard of them?” I asked, curious. It made me wonder whether District 99 held archives I should have investigated.
“Of course,” Cairen said. He paused, eyes unfocused. “They dealt with… Leynn, Lemm… lime crystals.” He gave a small shrug. “Something like that.” It sounded casual, but he watched me while he said it.
“Leyline crystals,” I corrected.
“Yes, that,” Cairen said, and clapped once as if pleased with himself. “Just like the bracers you gave Artemis. Right?”
He was… right. I hadn’t thought Cairen would notice, or that anyone would notice the similarity between the storage ring and the shardbound bracers I had given Artemis a few weeks ago.
Perhaps Tarin was right to be wary around Cairen. He gave the air of a pompous noble, but maybe it was a façade. He noticed more than he admitted.
“Yes,” I said. “Both rely on leyline crystals in the base materials. That was common in Obsidian Order work.”
“I’ve heard you’ve been studying the Obelisk,” Cairen said, still speaking softly enough that only I would hear. “If you haven’t solved the refueling problem, you should watch for Obsidian Order traces out there.”
I had considered for a long time that the Obsidian Order might have created the wards long ago, though nothing I had found suggested it as clearly as Cairen did now.
“Why tell me? Why now?” I asked.
That made it clear Cairen knew more about the wards than he had shared so far, and revealing it now made me wonder what he hoped to gain, if secrecy had served him this long.
Among New Araksiun, District 99 had always been the largest, with fewer border reductions over its history. I had never considered that this might be tied to a deeper understanding of the ward, or worse, that they had kept such knowledge to themselves.
Cairen saw the change in my expression and cut in before I could speak. “It seemed appropriate,” he said. “And don’t look at me like that. I know what you’re thinking.” His tone stayed polite, but his eyes were steady. “Yes, we had an artifact. If the other districts knew, someone would have tried to take it. Tell me, what would you have done in my place?”
I hesitated. The anger came fast, then softened when I tried to picture myself holding something that valuable, knowing every other district would want it.
What would I have done? Shared that we held an artifact worth being invaded for?
“You could have found a way to share details. Let other districts study it. Maybe we could have found a solution,” I said.
“Maybe,” Cairen said. “But I wouldn’t take that risk, and neither did the ones before me.” His voice dropped slightly. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
He handed me a small sphere, not much larger than my palm. It was intricately made and clearly infused with leyline crystals. As I took it, I understood why within moments.
“It doesn’t work,” Cairen said. “It hasn’t worked for decades. Soon we’ll have to reduce our borders.” He said it plainly, without drama, which made it worse.
I didn’t need to ask by how much to understand that only a fraction of District 99 would remain. They had relied on this artifact for too long, and now the cost was coming due.
“That’s nothing more than a useless trinket to me now. You’re free to have it if you want,” Cairen said. Then he straightened and walked away.
The artifact in my hands was intricate, complex, and tied to the Great Ward in ways I couldn’t decipher without proper access to the Great Ward itself.
Cairen claimed it had failed decades ago. The timing narrowed my thoughts to one event: Thelora destroying one of the Obelisks connected to the Great Ward. If the ward system were a network, then something had been cut.
I touched my aspect of creation to understand the artifact, to find what mechanisms had been damaged, and found… none. By all measures, it was working as intended, but what once was enough no longer was.
In my study of the Obelisk, I found the wards were deeply tied to the Great Ward. Yet the Obelisks I had seen didn’t rely on an external power source. They were sustained by mana itself.
Stolen story; please report.
So I had assumed the one weakness of such a network of Obelisks was the Great Ward itself, that it lacked whatever source of power it required and instead drew from the wards that kept the districts safe. Yet the artifact in my hand made me reconsider. Perhaps it didn’t lack fuel at all.
Maybe the Obelisks still worked as intended, even now, after all this time.
Behind me, while I pondered the artifact, both Gustav and Cairen were making a speech to motivate the chainrunners about to face the fog. I hadn’t been ignoring them, but one line from Cairen pulled my attention sharply back to the present.
“I will also join this brave run. May the future be worthy of our sacrifices today.”
People gasped. He was the Overseer of District 99. But Cairen didn’t look surprised by their reaction, which told me this had been arranged in advance. He already had someone ready to hold his seat until he returned.
Cairen didn’t allow the announcement to delay us. Once the speech ended, two hundred and one riders formed up, Cairen included.
The cannon wagons were placed in the middle of the column, where the formation could protect them. There were three of them, heavy but not slow.
Each was pulled by two horses, with one chainrunner at the reins. The cannons were worked by four more, two assigned to each one. For a total of fifteen more chainrunners.
I mounted and settled into formation like the rest, falling in behind Gustav and Cairen. Including me, the riders and the people in the wagons, two hundred and seventeen chainrunners moved together, not as individuals but as a single, disciplined body pressing forward into the fog.
***
As the fog’s warmth brushed against us, another sensation crept alongside it, one only Rogara and I could feel. Corruption spread outward from our presence like a slow pulse, a silent call that tugged at every beast for many miles.
The riders surged forward, fast and disciplined, but the fog answered almost immediately. Shrill cries tore through the air as the nearest beasts rushed toward us. “Don’t fear them, they’re not dangerous anymore!” Cairen shouted, already driving his horse into the oncoming pack.
Our formation revolved around the cannon wagons, the slowest and most valuable pieces of the march. Five lines of chainrunners guarded each flank, while twelve lines held the front and rear, creating a moving fortress of steel, frost, and muscle.
Every rider knew their place. Every deviation had been drilled out of them long before the fog ever touched their skin.
Via Appia was broad, but even it struggled to contain our numbers. The formation solved that problem. Only those on the outermost edge fought, breaking off in turns while the rest flowed forward behind them like a living current.
After each clash, riders folded back into the formation’s heart, slipping into the innermost lines where they could breathe, rest, and steady themselves. From there, they rotated forward again until it was their turn to face the fog once more.
Throughout it all, the cannons remained silent. Their barrels stayed level, their crews waiting patiently. The precious ammunition was saved for when it would be needed the most.
Gustav, Cairen, Artemis, and a handful of others claimed the frontline first. Their artifacts flared to life as Cairen launched himself from his saddle, moving faster than any non-enhanced human could follow. He impaled one beast as he landed, pivoted, and drove his weapon through two more hearts before his horse even reached him.
Gustav thundered in behind him, his axe already in motion. The horse’s momentum carried the blade clean through one beast, then another. A clawed creature leapt across his path, but Gustav twisted in the saddle and struck. Bloodreaver drank deeply, the weapon’s runes flaring as strength surged back into him.
With Bloodreaver, Gustav would not tire easily during the run, as long as he kept her satiated with killing, the axe would push him forward, so even though he wasn’t enhanced as Cairen, it was only a matter of time till he was leaping across the battlefield by his side.
Meanwhile, the rest of the frontline chainrunners focused on driving the beasts back and away from our path. The goal was simple: keep the road clear so the wagons and riders never had to slow, never had to break their rhythm.
As the beasts were forced toward the flanks, the battle migrated with them. Riders on the left and right met the pressure while the inner lines kept running, eyes forward, discipline intact. No one broke ranks to help a struggling comrade, not out of cruelty, but because one break could unravel the formation and turn the whole march into a slaughter.
I watched closely as the first rotation began. The first line still had strength to spare, but stamina was a resource to ration. A bell rang out—clear, hard, impossible to ignore—cutting through the chaos and announcing the change.
The riders disengaged without hesitation, leaving beasts bleeding in the dust as they used their speed to flow back into the formation. The next line surged out immediately, striking at the same points as if the fight had never paused.
Wounded beasts were abandoned; there was no need to finish them as long as they were crippled enough not to reach the unit again.
Still, three remained at the front, exactly as planned—Cairen, Gustav, and Artemis. The best. Artemis carried two artifacts now, neither meant to sustain her, and yet she moved with a stubborn endurance that rivaled the enhanced humans.
“Should I help them, Master?” Rogara asked, her voice controlled but eager. We stood near one of the cannon wagons, close enough that I could feel its weight in the ground. My duty was not the flanks. It was the sky and the earth beneath us, anything that could dive from above or erupt from below.
Beyond the immediate chaos, my awareness stretched farther, hunting for more dangerous presences. Crimson, auric, anything powerful enough to threaten us.
“Not yet. We’ve only begun.” I told her. Her responsibility was to replace those three at the frontline when they tired.
She nodded, but her eyes burned with the need to move, to prove herself in the open. Patience did not come naturally to her. In the Abyss, hesitation meant death. Here, discipline was what kept others alive.
I watched the first flank lines fall back, and the unit rearranged itself like water finding its course. The innermost line became the second last. The returning riders slid into the center, breathing hard, hands steadying on reins, resting only as long as it took for the river to carry them outward again.
Among them, I saw Cedric, Gorin, and several of the new generation of chainrunners, such as Harold and Simon.
The formation held without wavering. The second line met the beasts as fiercely as the first, spearpoints and blades flashing in disciplined bursts. The riders weren’t just fast. They were coordinated.
Then I saw it: a shoggoth, the first real sign of a higher threat, even if it was only ebony. For a breath, I considered intervening. Then five riders from the second line charged, runic spears leveled, committing themselves before doubt could catch them.
The shoggoth’s tongue lashed out like a whip, aiming to seize the lead horse. It nearly found purchase before an arrow from deep within the inner lines punched straight through the tongue and snapped it rigid in midair with a wet crack.
The shoggoth froze, stunned by the sudden pain, but only for a heartbeat. The five riders hit it in a clean sequence, spearpoints biting deep. Its scream ripped across the battlefield, a sound that carried pain and fury in equal measure. It bucked as if to stand, then failed, collapsing under its own weight.
By the time it hauled itself upright again, the riders were already gone, swallowed back into the river of the formation. It bled and swayed, too slow to threaten anyone who knew how to keep moving.
It had been Cedric who fired the arrow, even though he’d only just rotated into the inner lines. He hadn’t even had time to fully settle, and still his shot was perfect.
“Incredible aim, for a human,” Rogara said, almost grudgingly. Then she turned her head toward me, eyes bright. “And I’m still not allowed to help?”
“We talked about this, Rogara,” I said. “You’ll take the frontline soon enough. Conserve your mana. Let them spend theirs. When the time comes, I want you ready.”
She wasn’t used to being held back, and neither was I. But caution mattered in the fog, and we had only just begun.
Before we reached District 100, the first flying beasts revealed themselves, shadows shifting above the fog like torn cloth catching wind.
I followed my own advice, conserving mana as I simply summoned ten ice spears in the air before me.
They hovered in perfect alignment around me, silent and waiting, each one ready to pierce cleanly, then bloom inside the target, ice branching through flesh and rupturing it from the inside out.
Rogara lifted her gaze. So did the riders around us, scanning the blankness above the fog. “Where are they?” she asked, unsettled by the emptiness.
“Far,” I said. Then I released the spears. They launched with such speed the air broke around them, thunder cracking across the fog. A heartbeat later, screams echoed from the deeper fog—distant, sudden, and unmistakably dying—as the spears found what none of them could see.