The margin of chaos and disintegration kept sweeping across the countryside toward Tenby and then pulling back.

  The curtain sizzled and crackled with magic sparking and jetting over the landscape. The veil rippled with Layers swelling and exploding behind it, but it still didn’t break through.

  “How much longer before it gets here?” Yvan asked one of Atian’s men.

  “There’s no way to say. It’s been coming and going all night.”

  The minute the Watch got up on the scaffold, Neils broke away from the group. He jerked sideways and sprang away from something on his other side. “Get away!” he shrieked. “Get your hands off me! Don’t touch me!”

  Niyazi gasped. “Neils—!”

  Niyazi took a step forward to intervene, but Anríq shot out an arm and blocked Niyazi from going anywhere near Neils.

  Neils’s voice spiked to the danger zone. “You bastards! Get your hands off me! Leave me alone!”

  He whirled farther away down the catwalk, tripped, and pitched off it. He slammed down on the pavement below, sprang up, and immediately went back to spinning here and there, jolting away from invisible attackers, and gasping, whimpering, and even screaming every time he saw something coming after him.

  The Watch wheeled backward to head for the stairs to get down there and deal with the situation.

  The instant everyone turned their back on him, Vidal broke out of line, let out another feral bellow in some other language, and dove behind the group.

  No one got to him fast enough before he plunged over the wall, fell down on his knees in the dirt outside Tenby, staggered upright, and took off running for the margin a few miles away.

  “VIDAL!!” everyone bellowed, but he was already too far away.

  Eliska grabbed Yvan’s arm. “I can go after him! I can find him in the storm and bring him back!”

  She shoved him aside, hefted her staff, and took a few steps toward the wall.

  Yvan yanked her back too hard. “No, Eliska! You aren’t going out there!”

  “I have to! I’ll get my magic back as soon as I cross the curtain. He’ll die out there if I don’t go!”

  She tried to fight him off, but Yvan lunged for her just as she made it to the wall, strapped his arms around her torso, and wrestled her back by force.

  “I SAID NO, ELISKA!!” he roared. “We need you here too much! DO YOU HEAR ME?! WE NEED YOU!!”

  She kicked and struggled, but in a few minutes, Vidal vanished behind the curtain. No one could see him anymore.

  Yvan fought Eliska back from the edge, yanked her around, and jammed her feet down on the scaffold.

  He bent low and yelled right in her face. “No one cares if you have magic or not, young one! We need you here! You are NOT going to throw your life away out there! Do you understand?! We need you here!”

  Something he said must have gotten through to her, but she didn’t like it. She glared at him and whirled away to turn her back on him, but she only wound up looking out over the countryside. Vidal was long gone.

  “What happened?” Niyazi choked. “Why did he go out there? The children aren’t even there anymore.”

  “GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME!!” Neils shrieked. “DON’T TOUCH ME, YOU FIENDS!!”

  Everyone turned around to stare at Neils in the street below.

  He held his blades in his hands now and hacked at the air. He kept whirling in mindless circles to fight off invisible Darklings.

  Yvan sighed again. “Now we have to deal with him. Let’s go.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Everyone descended to the ground. Yvan glared at Eliska and made her go first so she didn’t run off into the mayhem, too.

  The curtain of magic kept fizzing and crackling across the landscape. It made a hissing, sparking sound like rain every time it came close to overrunning Tenby or moving away.

  Yann glanced over his shoulder to make sure it was still far enough away.

  He turned back to follow the other Watchmen down to the ground. Yann didn’t look forward to this any more than he looked forward to subduing Vidal.

  “Get behind him, son,” Yvan ordered. “You and Eliska get ready to tie him up as soon as…..”

  A brutal, animal roar interrupted him. Neils lunged for the Watch before they got into position.

  He hacked his sword at Niyazi, but Anríq got there in time and thrust his axe between them.

  He caught Neils’s sword on the axe blade and the two weapons clanged together.

  All the other Watchmen charged in to surround Neils, but he went ballistic and spun away too fast.

  Before Yann realized what was happening, Neils charged him and raised his blade to chop Yann in half.

  Yann raised his glaive to protect himself, but not fast enough. The blade came down heading straight for Yann’s skull.

  Eliska struck out with her staff and slammed the end into Neils’s jaw. Bone cracked and his head whipped aside from the impact, but that didn’t slow him down one bit.

  The other Watchmen closed from all sides to restrain him, but just as they moved in, he whirled the other way and swung again.

  His sword blade connected full force with the side of Niyazi’s head and the blade stuck there. Neils couldn’t get it out no matter how hard he tugged it.

  Niyazi buckled on the spot and all the Watchmen smashed Neils between them. Anríq grabbed him the way Yvan grabbed Eliska just a few minutes ago.

  Anríq clamped his thick arms around Neils from behind, squashed his arms against his sides, and hauled him spitting, kicking, and cursing back to the house.

  Neils’s enraged bellows fell silent when the door slammed with him and Anríq inside. That left Yvan, Rien, Yann, and Eliska standing there staring down at Niyazi’s body. Neils’s sword still stuck out of the side of Niyazi’s head.

  Yvan yanked the sword out, let it fall onto the pavement, and he sank down on his ankles next to the body. He buried his head in his hands fighting to breathe.

  Yann gulped down a lump in his throat. He told himself a hundred times to look away, but some unstoppable power kept his eyes glued to Niyazi’s ruined face.

  The Watch couldn’t stand to lose anyone right now, especially not a good, strong, steady man who always did his duty to his brother Watchmen and his oath. Niyazi was one of the very few still keeping his sanity right now.

  His loss would have been a cruel blow even if he had been losing his mind. Niyazi always held the line—always. He got along with everyone. He always fought his hardest and gave his best to everyone no matter what.

  Yann couldn’t remember a single time, since his earliest memories, when Yvan or any of the other Watchmen ever doubted Niyazi. Yann couldn’t remember his father ever reprimanding Niyazi or even saying anything to correct Niyazi’s behavior.

  Niyazi always conducted himself with the utmost tact. He always did the right thing. He and Omer were the two Watchmen Yann most admired after his father.

  Yann held them up as models of what every Watchman should be—and now they were both gone.

  His stomach turned when he thought about how Neils would react when he finally came out of this insanity and realized that he was the one who killed Niyazi.

  How could Neils come back from that? How could anyone?

  Yann didn’t want to look around him. Four people. The Watch had four people left plus Anríq. Yann couldn’t even count on his father or even Rien anymore.

  At least Yann still had Eliska—and Anríq. Was that it? Is that what Yann had to look forward to—the last of the Watchmen losing their minds and either killing themselves, killing each other, or getting killed by Darklings?

  Did he have to look forward to the day when he only had Eliska and Anríq left of the whole party—and maybe not even them?

  He would become Commander of a one-man Watch. What a joke.

  Just then, just when things couldn’t get any worse, Atian climbed down the stairs from the scaffold. His footsteps rang extra loudly in the silence.

  Those clanging footsteps announced to the whole world that the Tenby men had been watching from the wall when Neils killed Niyazi. They all saw. The Watch couldn’t deny anymore just how bad the situation had gotten.

  Atian halted there next to Yvan—right next to Niyazi’s body.

  For some reason Yann couldn’t figure out, Atian wound up addressing Yann instead of Rien or Yvan.

  “Um…..I’m really sorry about this….” Atian stammered, “but I think it’s best for everyone if you take your people and go your own way. I didn’t want to say anything before, but it’s obvious now that you men are too unstable to stay here. You can’t help us defend this place any better than we can defend it on our own. You can bury your friend in our cemetery and then I’d be really grateful if you just leave. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it has to be.”

  Yvan stayed there squatting next to Niyazi’s body. Rien didn’t say anything, so Yann just said, “Of course we understand and we’ll respect your wishes. I’m very sorry if our presence disturbed your town or put your people in danger. We’ll leave as soon as possible like you say. We’re all deeply grateful for the hospitality you’ve shown us. We’re forever in your debt.”

  Atian nodded once and walked away. The ominous silence didn’t lift. No one spoke up on the scaffold. The peaceful hum of Tenby didn’t revive to fill the air.

  Yann considered how to tell his father to stand up and help decide what to do with Niyazi’s body. Yann didn’t even know where the Tenby town cemetery was.

  Fortunately, Anríq came back just then. He didn’t ask Yvan to move. Anríq took hold of Niyazi’s wrist and hoisted the body onto his shoulder. Anríq looked around.

  “The cemetery is over there,” Eliska murmured and pointed behind her. “I’ll show you where it is.”

  End of Chapter 37.

  ? 2024 by Theo Mann

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