Keller did not let the relief touch his face.

  “Report.”

  “It was quiet,” Kesi said. “No gauntleted. Nor its pet.” The word carried venom. “No Starspawn at all.”

  “Marrough and Eighth are passable,” Dorian added. “Worst of the potholes are chalked. Nothing the trucks can’t handle.”

  Keller nodded once, already recalculating. ‘We still roll at dusk. We won’t take your route. We’ll shift two blocks west to Fulton, then cut back behind the high school.”

  He met their eyes in turn. “You know your positions. Keep us safe out there.”

  “Copy,” Kesi said.

  Keller keyed his radio. Orders rippled outward. Engines coughed, then settled into a low, patient idle.

  The convoy moved.

  Kesi took the left with two runners, both hard-edged Illuminated with more than ten Remnants apiece. Dorian held center-right, fifty yards ahead of the point truck, far enough to see trouble before it saw them.

  They rolled at dusk. Engines muted. Radios low.

  Fulton stayed clear for three blocks.

  On the fourth, a delivery truck lay on its side, jackknifed across both lanes. Dorian didn’t feel the need to signal. He walked up, bent down, and lifted it free. With eighty Remnants humming through him, the weight barely registered. Like lifting a couch. He set it down against the curb and waved the convoy through.

  No Will needed. Little effort exuded.

  Further ahead. They cut behind the high school.

  The yard looked like something had plowed straight through it. Bleachers twisted and folded. The turf was torn to bare dirt. One of the side buildings had been punched inward and left standing in an inverted U, classrooms exposed to the open air. Desks lay overturned inside. A whiteboard still clung to one wall, cracked but legible.

  Then with a loud clang the gymnasium doors blew outward.

  Three Starspawn sprinted into the open.

  They were thin. Wrongly so. Seven-foot frames pulled tight over ash-slick bone, limbs too long, scythes growing where hands should have been. They moved fast, skittering and sharp.

  Kesi’s hand went up. Halt.

  Dorian was already moving.

  He met the first at the base of the steps. One cut high, one low. The body split and collapsed into ash before it finished falling. An orange Remnant clinked against the concrete and spun to a stop.

  The second Starspawn slashed for his throat. Dorian stepped aside with bored ease and cut through the neck. Ash scattered. Another Remnant stuck to the ground.

  The third tried for the bleachers.

  Dorian chased it down in three strides, he hit it with his shoulder, and finished it against the railing. Ash poured down the seats like water. Remnant rang against metal.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  ‘so slow…’

  Anyone watching would have seen the efficiency. No wasted motion. No strain.

  What they would not have seen was where Dorian’s mind had gone.

  He was not here. Not really.

  The image that kept surfacing was not these brittle things. It was a taller shape. Gauntlets. A furnace that breathed like it understood patience. A Kindled presence that had learned, adapted, and waited.

  Not just any Kindled Fiend.

  The one that had let him live.

  People on the flatbeds saw it.

  One moment Dorian stood near the fence line. The next he was at the gym step. Then he was halfway up the bleachers. For some, the second kill hadn’t even registered. They only saw ash fall and a brief orange glint skitter across the concrete.

  A woman near the middle truck realized her hands hurt. She’d been clenching them so hard her nails left crescents in her palms.

  A rail gunner kept his finger tight on the trigger the whole time. When it was over, he eased off slowly, but he didn’t lower the barrel. He kept it trained on the gym doors.

  A kid leaned out from behind a stack of blankets. “Was that him?”

  His uncle nodded once. “Don’t lean out.”

  Near the water drums, a man muttered, “Three.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that.” He said the number again, quieter, like he needed to hear it to settle.

  A runner perched on a bumper blinked hard. He had fought Starspawn. He had felt claws glance off his Will. He replayed what he’d just seen and still couldn’t find when Dorian did the second cut, it was simply too fast.

  A man with a bandaged shoulder watched Dorian step back into the lane and imagined himself in that place. Strong. Untouchable. He hated that part of himself for wanting it.

  An older man, retired teacher by the look of him, stared at the bleachers. He had graded papers there once. Sat under those same lights. Now there was ash in the aisles and a faint blue shimmer under Dorian’s skin when he turned.

  Kesi waved the convoy forward.

  Engines rolled. The trucks crept past the gym. Heads followed Dorian until the movement of the line forced them forward again.

  Word moved the way it always did. Three Starspawn. Real ones. Dorian cut them down in a blink. Someone whispered about orange crystals. Someone else said that’s how they get like him.

  No one said hero.

  Not out loud.

  The convoy stretched and compressed as it moved. Too many people walking. Too few vehicles. Flatbeds sagged with those who couldn’t make the trek on foot. Every time the column slowed, tension crept back in.

  They pushed on.

  More Starspawn tested them along the route. Nothing organized. Nothing heavy. The Illuminated handled them quickly. Clean kills. Remnants gathered.

  They kept moving.

  Sunrise found them at the next checkpoint, a strip mall with intact outer walls and a wide loading yard.

  Keller set the perimeter without hesitation. Rail teams on the corners. Trucks boxed tight in the lot. Civilians down off the beds. Water out. Med tent up under an overhang.

  Dorian and Kesi did a quick count.

  Fifteen new Remnants.

  Ammo was low, but workable.

  Soldiers exhausted, but standing.

  Someone passed around a thermos of weak coffee. The smell drifted across the lot like something from another life.

  Keller stood at a tailgate and opened the Remnant bag. A rucksack with many pockets to keep Remnants ready for distribution.

  “Fifteen,” he said. “We power up our runners first. Five new personnel after.”

  Dorian gathered those about to be Illuminated. His voice steady.

  “It burns,” he told them. “It’s supposed to. Don’t fight the first wave. Breathe through it. Don’t grab for more. Not yet.”

  He had seen it close to a hundred times now. The first Remnant was always the worst. Hands shaking. Teeth clenched. Then the glow under the skin, faint orange threading through veins.

  Kesi handled the next part, a small exercise to test their newfound strength.

  “Small first,” he said. “Lift a crate. Hold it. Set it down. Don’t try to showoff.”

  Morning settled into a rhythm. Water distributed. Posts rotated. People slept in snatches against truck tires. Boots stayed on.

  A few Starspawn probed the perimeter and died before they touched it.

  Near noon, the sound changed.

  The air carried that familiar tension, like the sky tightening.

  “Wave starting,” Dorian said.

  Keller’s radio crackled.

  “All hands on deck!”

  Civilians moved without argument. Inside trucks. Behind walls. Through doorways.

  Illuminated stepped into the gaps.

  And waited.

  First came the streaks in the sky.

  Thin at first, then thicker. Bright cuts burning through smoke like someone was slicing the clouds open. Nobody had to ask what they were anymore.

  Starspawn.