Chapter Two

Previously: Maxwell and Ivan met at Dawn's Warding to discuss Ivan leaving the Third Company garrison. Their conversation was interrupted by Lieutenant Westbrooke who called all the company members back to the garrison on an emergency basis.

Chapter 2 - The Wards Will Fall

0:00

/1196.728937

1×

THE PERSONNEL truck rattled as it took a sharp curve, ascending the hill towards Grand Field Dam.

Maxwell leaned back against the side of the truck, bumping elbows with Ivan. The truck bed was cramped with over a dozen members of the Third Company pressed together like tinned sausages, the open sides giving a clear view of clearcut trees and burnt brush in the truck’s headlights.

If this had been a normal ride back to the garrison there would be heavy grumbling about the perennial problem of adequate transportation, but Westbrooke’s words still weighed on all their minds. Something was wrong.

The muffled roar of rushing water swelled, rising to a thundering crash when the curved concrete of the dam came into view, illuminated from the top and bottom by harsh floodlights. Four sluices were open. The spilling water glowed in the lighting as it arced into the air in wild sprays before crashing down into the churning pool below.

“Oh, shit.”

Maxwell leaned further out of the truck to get a better view, losing his balance when they hit a pothole. Ivan seized the back of Maxwell’s jacket in a firm grip and pulled him back. Others pressed to get a look at the dam, their voices raised in surprise. Someone whistled low and long.

The Third Company never opened all the sluices, except as a last ditch effort to provide rushing waters downstream as a barrier against hyssil if there was a breach. Hyssil avoided running water almost as much as they avoided theurgical wards. South Point would completely flood.

There’d never been a breach that required flooding the town. Opening the sluices was only ever a ridiculous hypothetical, a possibility Maxwell found mostly absurd to even think about. All those civilians would find their safe rooms were knee deep in water within an hour. Within two hours houses would be underwater. People would drown.

Maxwell sat back in the truck, slightly dizzy. From the stunned looks around him, he wasn’t the only one struggling with the enormity of the Third Company’s decision. The warder guards crowded to the side of the truck to watch the water.

More than one or two hyssil must have breached the wards then. How many would it take to consign the town to drowning? Two dozen? Three? The breach had to have been tremendous.

A breach that large could be a threat to inner Talmany. But even if the spirits got through to Eteln, the capital was defended by the seven warded rings. The walls hadn’t been tested in over a century, but they would hold. His family should—would be safe.

Westbrooke’s piercing whistle broke through the commotion. “Settle! Sit down you lot or you’re going to tip the truck.”

She stood from where she’d been perched on the munitions box, her lips tightening at the sight of the dam. She grabbed the cab for support when the truck hit another pothole.

“You didn’t say the dam was open,” someone yelled from near the tailgate. “Has there been a breach?”

“Morning preserve us, of course there’s been a breach.” Westbrooke redirected her glare to the offending company member. “Use your eyes and your brain. But the dam wasn’t open when I passed through earlier. Things are worse than I was told.”

The truck rattled onto the smooth road curving on top of the dam. They passed the first checkpoint tower, bristling with long-range weaponry and dam guards shoving ward-lined metal shutters over windows.

A woman dressed in officer’s light blue ran from the last tower at the end of the dam, waving her hands for them to stop. The truck slowed despite Westbrooke cursing at the driver to continue.

The officer vaulted up the truck’s wheel bed to speak over the heady roar of the open sluices.

“You’re cutting it close,” she yelled, sounding out of breath. “You’re better off holing up with us for the night. The road to the garrison isn’t safe, our seers are reporting hyssil all over.”

“If there’s been a breach, they’ll need us at the pass,” Westbrooke said. “And I have a theurgist here. We can defend ourselves long enough to make it back.”

The officer startled as Ivan raised a hand in greeting.

Maxwell deliberately looked away from the exchange towards the dark road leading into the South Peaks. The spillage pumps had already started to pull water from the lake, flooding the spillway. The road off the dam wouldn’t be passable for much longer.

“On your heads then,” the officer said. “Strength of wardings to you all.”

She stepped away and the truck crossed down into the spillway, water drifting up in a spray of mist from the wheel kick up.

Westbrooke opened the munition box with a grunt of effort. “Things might get a little wild on the way. I’ve got a limited number of rifles. Who is the least drunk out of you lot? Seer—for you. At least you’ll have true aim in the dark.”

Maxwell took the rifle and box of warded cartridges and gave the weapon a cursory check. Once Ivan had a grip on Maxwell’s Sight, he’d be as useful as any of the company members.

Ivan whispered a prayer to himself, clutching at the silver necklace around his neck, the curled horned mask of his Goddess-in-Three dangling from his fingers. Finished, he let the necklace drop back to his chest before gripping Maxwell’s shoulder.

“We should get ready.”

“Right,” Maxwell said as he loaded a clip, his hands steadying at the comforting weight of Ivan’s touch.

The dam lights faded behind them until the only illumination was from the high beams and the distant lights of the Third Company garrison set into the foothills of the Southern Peaks.

Maxwell breathed deep and then exhaled sharply, calling on his Sight. The darkness crashed around him with a roar to rival the rapids below the dam, tearing at his perception of reality. He staggered, trusting Ivan to keep him righted as he focused on maintaining his grip on the rifle and existence.

A heavy pop of pressure against his ears and the world righted itself again. The thick shadows cleared into flattened panes of color, the spirits of the people on the truck popping in rich yellow patterns.

Ivan released Maxwell’s shoulders when the Sight shakes receded. “Ready?”

Maxwell nodded, not trusting his tongue to work right yet. Calling the Sight always took a few minutes to adjust to no matter how many times he did it—but that was just another reason he would never promote past garrison work.

Ivan withdrew his theurgical pen from his breast pocket and grabbed Maxwell by the jaw, angling his head to better draw the theurgical symbol for shared sight upon Maxwell’s forehead. Maxwell briefly closed his eyes, wary of the sharp nib in the swaying truck bed, but Ivan had a delicate touch.

“Messy, but it’ll do,” Ivan said with a critical eye as he stuffed the pen back into his vest. “Here we go.”

Ivan placed his thumb against the still fresh ink, smudging it across Maxwell’s forehead with a practiced motion as he whispered the activation phrase. It poured from his mouth, visible with the Sight as golden sparks.

The sigil burned when the theurgy sunk into Maxwell’s skin, hooking a deep part of himself like a fish on a line and reeling it in for Ivan’s use. The discomfort was tolerable—Ivan squeezed Maxwell’s shoulder in sympathy. His eyes unfocused, a telltale sign he now shared in Maxwell’s Sight. Ivan could see hyssil as easily as Maxwell as long as the sigil was active.

Maxwell blinked against the customary itch of magic across his eyelids. Ivan scrambled to look out into the darkness with him and Maxwell couldn’t help the grin that tugged at his lips.

They’d get through this. Ivan was the best of the best in the Third Company and all they needed to do was make it to the garrison. The garrison could hold out until dawn and the clean up crews would be out banishing dormant hyssil to wherever they originated from.

The truck sped up, passing an abandoned watchtower on the tree-stripped hill. The only spirits were those of mice in the field and a single owl arrowing down for a kill.

A blip against the faded planes of muted shadows—an oily dance of color splashed, glimmering with a prismatic pattern like flowers blooming and fading. It was beautiful to look at, almost fragile in the way it drifted in the distance. The sight sent Maxwell’s stomach plunging towards his feet.

“Hyssil southwest thirty degrees,” he called out and pointed. “Whisperer based on the spiritual pattern. It hasn’t noticed us yet.”

Rifles bristled in the direction he pointed. Ivan stood to get a better view.

“I see it,” Ivan said.

Maxwell held his breath and tightened his grip on the rifle. The hyssil floated, light as a dandelion seed, its pattern shifting like feathers in the wind. The spirits were mindless except for their hunger to move north, but they were roused at the sight of humans and in the last year they’d been more active than usual. If they were lucky it would keep heading north towards Field Lake in its single-minded quest and avoid them all together. If they were unlucky a whisperer could shred one of their spirits into ribbons and drive them mad from spirit washout, a guarantee to suffer a slow and painful death.

He pulled his attention from the hyssil to scan their path—Ivan had that one in his borrowed Sight. If it changed direction towards them, the theurgist would know. Another smudge of color, to the southeast this time. No—three separate spiritual patterns.

“Three southeast sixty degrees,” Maxwell said. “Wait—five. Six. Shit.”

His Sight was playing tricks on him. That was the only explanation for what was happening in the mountains. Pinpricks of spiritual light like stars in the fading light of evening spread out over the hills and into the Southern Peaks, too numerous to count. That wasn’t possible. Hyssil weren’t coordinated, didn’t travel in groups or have any rhyme or reason to their northern drifting. Except tonight.

“They’re all around us,” Maxwell shouted. “Get ready.”

Westbrooke cursed and slammed the cab window open. “Shadows take you, speed it up.”

The closest hyssil darted towards the truck, the slow drifting spirits speeding with newfound purpose. Maxwell hissed and raised his rifle, shoulders tensing in preparation.

A creature of shadowy limbs and a head like writhing branches leapt for the truck cab. The truck swerved when the hyssil connected, front limbs turning into scythes that squealed against the driver-side window.

Maxwell fired a shot, a smile curling his lips when the warded bullet sizzled into gelatin-like ethereal flesh before lodging deep with a flash of released theurgical energy.

The hyssil shrieked. Its shape collapsed and it tumbled to the ground in a formless heap of shadow around the glowing bullet.

Gunfire barked across the truck, interspersed with the shouts of his fellow company members. Maxwell’s body moved on its own accord, sighting out the next hyssil and then the next. He popped a new cartridge into the rifle with a practiced motion, coming up for air long enough to assess their situation. The Sight swept through him like a current, funneled towards a single draining pinpoint that was his bond with his theurgist.

Ivan perched on top the munitions box, the golden flicker of theurgical symbols swirling from his mouth and splashing out in front of the truck, repelling spirits and keeping the road clear. Energy crackled around his body, weighting the air with the heaviness of a storm.

The garrison’s blocky construction squatted above them like a toad, lit with what looked like every floodlight in the place trained to the surrounding mountainside. One of the lights swept over them and returned, illuminating the truck in a harsh glare. The road steepened. They were close.

Five shots. Six. Eight and he was out of ammo.

A clawed hand with a half dozen too many fingers bit into the truck side, indenting the metal with a groan. More twisted appendages followed.

Maxwell reached for a cartridge but the box was empty. Shouts of alarm confirmed he wasn’t alone.

He stabbed the rifle down at the hyssil, nearly biting his tongue with the effort.

The truck screeched around a bend and Maxwell inhaled sharply as he was thrown back towards the iridescent spirit. It reached for him, scrabbling against the swaying truck and lost its grip as the truck righted and tipped the other direction.

They hit the old Balebian tunnel at full speed, a tight fit for the cargo truck. The stone walls knocked hyssil clear on both sides. The overhead lights flashed rhythmically as they passed underneath and in the shuddering light, Maxwell’s hyssil climbed back up into the truck with an angry hiss.

Maxwell grimaced and jammed the rifle at it again, but the hyssil was prepared this time. It snatched the weapon from his hands with inhuman strength and sent the rifle clattering away back into the tunnel.

A scream and someone went over the side, intertwined with a shadowy shape. It happened too quick to see who it was, but there was no time to think about it, not when the one in front of him was bent on his death.

They emerged from the tunnel mouth into the blazing light of multiple spotlights. Ivan shouted a word and wardings snapped out from him in a sphere. Maxwell’s hyssil rippled and lost its form, falling away at the strength of the repellent magic.

The truck rounded the last bend to the garrison, the heavily warded gates and walls rising up from the surrounding rock like an extension of the mountain. The road swarmed with hyssil in front of the brass wards laid into the asphalt. They turned and rushed the truck head on. Maxwell gripped the side of the truck and grit his teeth as the truck sped up, realization settling in. The driver was going to try to ram through.

“Fuck,” Maxwell spat and braced himself against the truck side, digging fingers into grooves left by the hyssil.

The cargo truck slammed into the creatures and spun out in a screech of rubber. Maxwell tumbled into the truck bed. Everything went still.

He rose, ignoring the promise of new bruises throughout his body. The truck had come to rest halfway inside the protections, the back half still exposed. Ivan was tangled with Westbrooke in the corner. His legs were in the air, coat crumpled around his face. He stirred slowly.

A scream like glass shattering stole Maxwell’s attention. He turned to find a hyssil with mantis-like scythes stab a warder guard in the chest.

Maxwell grabbed the man and stumbled backwards with him towards the cab. The hyssil hit the brass wards and recoiled in a flash of golden light. He laid the warder guard on the ground, but the man was already dead. Blood bubbled sluggishly from the cavity of his chest.

Maxwell breathed heavily through the adrenaline and ran a shaking hand over his own warding sigil tattooed on the side of his head. No matter how good he was with a rifle, once he was out of bullets he was nothing special.

He turned back to the find that Ivan had already staggered upright, golden theurgical sigils on his lips raised in a snarl. The hyssil screamed, prowling on the edge of the delicate verbal wardings.

A shot rang out behind him and he flinched down to the truck bed. Westbrooke was picking herself off the ground, her curly hair hanging in her eyes and a large revolver in her hand. The weapon rang out again. A second hyssil lost its form and fled in an oily drift of shadow.

“Everyone back towards the garrison now,” she yelled. “The wards can’t hold for much longer with this many.”

An ominous sharp crack punctuated her words. A buffer ring on the outer theurgical circles laid in the ground went dark. The brass sigil began to flicker unevenly. Maxwell grabbed Ivan by the back of the shirt and broke into a staggering run towards the garrison gates with the remaining surviving warder guards.

Chapter 2 down!!! WHEWHHWEHWHEWWW thank you everyone who has subscribed and read so far. I have been absolutely blown away by the outpouring of enthusiasm Maxwell's story has received. Love to see it, and love having all y'all here. I hope you're ready for many more Maxwell Mondays. Much love💖

If you like what you see so far, please consider subscribing for weekly chapters sent directly to your email for free. Subscribers also have access to the audio narrated version of all released chapters and the ability to leave comments. You'll also get my chapter comments at the end.

For now, only the first five chapters will be publicly available without needing to subscribe (but all weekly chapter releases are free with newsletter sign-up!). I spent a lot of time thinking how to approach this, because I wanted this novel to be easily accessible. Ultimately, I decided it was important to me to make sure The Wards Will Fall wasn't as easily accessible to LLM bots stealing writing.

I have a lot more exciting books in store, so if you're enjoying The Wards Will Fall, keep an eye out for more. If you sign up for the newsletter, you can expect weekly serial chapters, monthly update posts, sneak peeks and free stuff. (And if you do sign up please check your spam folder!! Gmail especially is noting the signup email is spam, but is not doing this to the newsletter itself.)

If you'd like to show your support, consider leaving a comment below, or finding me on social media (Tumblr, Bluesky, Instagram) or leaving a tip. Feel free to email as well. I'd love to hear from you!

Meander on y'all 🌽