Date: June 19, 541 years since the Fall of Zanra the Dishonored.
The assault on the Iron Gullet did not resemble the heroic ballads Dur had heard in the orphanage. It was chaos, mixed with blood, dust, and the unbearable pressure of gravity. When the first assault ladder of the Alvost legion struck the stones of the breach, Dur and Maël were just two names in a long list of defenders of the western sector. No one singled them out, no one gave them personal orders. Divilla, whose purple flashes of Castling illuminated the sky above the fortress, was as unreachable for them as the sun itself.
The first strike of the "Black Legion" was terrible. The soldiers of Alvost, whose momentum made their movements frighteningly powerful, burst into the breach, crushing the first line of shields. Dur felt his arms strain to the limit. He pushed his shoulder against the back of the veteran in front of him, trying to hold the line.
"Hold!" the sergeant rasped, and in the same second, his head disappeared under the blow of a heavy axe.
The line broke. Dur found himself face to face with a legionary whose armor was spattered with someone else's blood. The enemy possessed the strength of a Herald, and his movements were an order of magnitude faster than Dur's. The young man barely had time to raise his knife to block a thrust from a short sword. Steel clanged against steel, and Dur felt the vibration from the blow travel through his bones, echoing with pain in his elbow.
The legionary, seeing before him only a boy of the Initiate level, carelessly struck him in the chest with his shield. The blow was heavy. Dur flew back, knocking Maël off his feet, and hit his back against a sharp rock outcropping.
Darkness swam before his eyes. Dur felt two of his ribs crack, and blood gurgle in his lungs. An ordinary recruit after such a blow would have remained lying, unable to breathe, but Dur's body, developed by grueling training, reacted differently. His Energy Development instinctively directed all resources to the damaged bones and torn vessels. It wasn't instantaneous healing, but the pain that should have paralyzed him began to slowly recede, becoming a tolerable background.
Dur got to his feet after ten seconds. His breathing was heavy, and with each inhalation, a stitch stabbed his side, but he was clutching the knife again. His regeneration, characteristic of stronger warriors, had already begun to "stitch together" the internal damage. The blood stopped flowing from the abrasion on his forehead, and the edges of the wound began to dry right before his eyes. For Dur, who possessed only the initial level of development, such a rate of recovery was anomalously high, but in the chaos of battle, only Maël noticed it.
"How are you?" Maël surfaced from under the blow of an enemy spear, his face pale, his Energy shimmering with a quicksilver gleam. His Spirit worked overtime, helping him survive among stronger enemies.
"Alive," Dur answered curtly.
In front of them, a wall of enemy shields rose again. Dur rushed forward, using his physical density as a battering ram. He didn't try to fence—he simply crashed into the nearest legionary, putting all his weight into a knife thrust. The steel found a gap in the enemy's armor. Dur felt warm blood spurt onto his hand.
At that moment, a long spear from the second rank of attackers pierced his thigh. The pain was sharp, like a lightning flash. Dur clenched his teeth, not allowing himself to cry out. He grabbed the spear's shaft, holding it inside the wound, while Maël, with a precise sword strike, severed the head, freeing his friend.
Dur stepped back, feeling his leg go numb. But the Energy within him was already working. The blood gushing from the deep cut thickened within minutes, turning into a dark plug. The wound on his thigh, which should have put a fighter out of commission for weeks, began to pulse—his regeneration was actively restoring muscle fibers. Dur felt that in an hour he would be able to fully bear weight on that leg again, and in two or three days, only a scar would remain from the wound. But right now, he just needed to stand.
The assault turned into an endless meat grinder. Divilla and Valtorn continued their titanic duel in the heavens, Somn somewhere deep in the fortress kept his stillness under heavy blankets, and here, in the breach, people simply killed each other.
Dur and Maël fought shoulder to shoulder, lost among hundreds of other defenders. They were extras, the backdrop for this great war. No one saw how Dur, receiving wound after wound, kept returning to the fray. His regeneration made him unusually tenacious, but his level was still low. He was just a "tough recruit," one of those who plug the holes in the walls with their flesh.
When the first wave of the assault faltered and the Alvost legionaries began to slowly retreat to regroup, Dur sank to one knee, leaning heavily on his bloodied knife. His body hummed with pain, his strength was almost gone, spent on regeneration and holding off the weight. But he was alive.
"Your leg..." Maël looked at his friend's torn trousers. The blood had stopped flowing, and the edges of the deep gash looked as if the wound was hours old, not minutes.
"It's fine," Dur exhaled. "Just... give me a minute."
He understood that this respite would be short-lived. The sky over the Iron Gullet was still black with gravitational rifts. The war was just beginning, and his life was but a tiny candle in the wind. But this candle continued to burn, despite everything.