Chapter 139 - Battle of Desham (1)

<---Chapter 138 - Pincer | Table of Contents | Chapter 140 - Battle of Desham (2)--->

The sudden warning struck the residents of Desham like a thunderclap out of the blue, the former refugees dumbfounded. Many couldn't believe their own ears when the first sirens began to ring out, some still thinking that it was a new practice drill performed by Ghosts. It was only when the garrison began to show up at the factories, streets, and houses to evacuate people that people began to panic.

Confusion and chaos were tempered by the orderly enforcement of the Ghosts. Even then, people were still horrified by what was about to come. "I-I left Ocra to avoid the war! Wasn't the frontline there, who are we getting attacked by?" One of the frantic refugees asked around as they moved to a designated evacuation shelter underneath an apartment complex, previously a secret tunnel.

None of the refugees knew the true answer, but the Ghosts who were helping the citizens to evacuate knew very well. Already the information of the approaching Versian Field Army was being disseminated through the ranks as they dispersed through the city, focusing on the outer ring where the newer section of the walls were far more vulnerable.

The outer ring was filled with the new pre-fabricated wooden houses, and were prone to artillery shelling. Alarm klaxons blurted out through arctech radio while wagons ferried families back into the safety of the inner fortified walls. "Get to the inner city! Get in!" Jaden motioned with his hand, waving frantically and directing the crowd onto the various wagons parked along the street. He slung his rifle on his back, his Aspis MK1 Armor clinking as he scoured the remaining houses, making sure everyone had been evacuated.

"Jaden, there's a family still in here!" One of his squad mates called out, prompting him to jog over to the front door of the two-story house, the door tightly bolted from behind as the squad mate continued to rasp on it.

"Go away, go away! I worked hard for this damn house, and I'll be damned if I let you steal my house again!" A frightened male voice shouted from beyond the bolted door.

"We're the Ghosts, we're not the Versian Army! We're the ones who even gave you the house in the first place!" Jaden leaned close to the door and shouted.

"I don't give a shit - this is my house now!"

"You're already on the listed registry as a houseowner, if the house is destroyed we will build you a new one!"

"No, no, no, no! No one can lie to me again! I know the frontline is at Ocra!"

Jaden gritted his teeth in frustration, pulling out an arctech pocketwatch to check the time. He turned to his squadmate and grabbed a checklist off him, scanning through the names written down, before motioning to the squadmate to ready his weapon. Jaden too pulled his rifle up into both hands, prepared to raise it at the drop of a hat. "Can I speak to the owner of the house?"

"I am the owner of the house!" The male voice shouted from within.

"Says here the owner of the house is Madam Grois, where is she?"

"Uhh... uhh my mum isn't here, she was in the inner city working!"

Jaden squinted his eyes in suspicion while his squadmate prepared to attack the door. "And where exactly was she working?"

"In the food factory, where they package all the rations!"

"Go!" Jaden roared, and the squadmate immediately kicked the door hinges down, utilizing the weight of his armor to push through. The door blew wide open, revealing a bloodied hallway with a dead lady lying at the base of the stairwell. Before Jaden could fully enter, a hailstorm of pellets shot forward with blistering speed, nicking his squadmate in the chest and cracking the composite armor. The force sent the squad mate reeling back as he bore the brunt of the pellets, allowing Jaden to peek around the corner.

At the very end of the hallway was a man crouching behind a flipped table, a rifle aimed at them and firing wildly. Before the man could retreat back behind cover, Jaden popped out from beyond the doorway and fired back, overcharging the repeater he wielded. The accelerated pellets bit into the wooden table with a rasping cacophony, tearing holes through while eliciting a scream of pain from the man behind.

Jaden hurriedly paced down the hallway, his Ghost training still fresh as he held his rifle at the ready, checking every corner and every ajar door that he passed on the way. The moment he reached the kitchen at the end of the hallway, two arms suddenly lunged out from a hiding spot behind the kitchen's entrance, grappling Jaden tightly and dragging him into a scuffle. The arms slung around his neck, choking his neck firmly in a lock. "Die, Ghost!" The second assailant muttered angrily.

Jaden flailed, dropping his rifle as he instinctively tried to tug the arm lock away. He could feel his throat constricted tightly, barely able to breathe in as his lungs began to burn with each second. His legs stumbled while he attempted to shake his assailant off, staggering through the messy kitchen before Jaden purposefully slammed him into the wall in a desperate backwards charge.

The assailant gagged from the force of the impact plus the crushing blow from Jaden's Aspis MK1 armor, loosening his grip a little. Jaden finally overcame his instinct, using his right arm instead to elbow the assailant right into the guts, the edge of his metallic vambrace drawing blood from the sudden jab.

Both of them dropped to the floor the moment the arm lock was released, gasping and trying to catch their breath. Jaden recovered quicker, scrambling towards where his rifle had fallen before on the ground, crawling on all fours. Before he could reach for the rifle, his assailant lunged out again with his hand, clasping onto Jaden's sabatons and yanking him back.

Jaden slammed onto the ground as he lost his balance again, his chin hitting the ground and sending a wave of concussion through his head. As he struggled to stabilize his vision, his assailant staggered back up to his feet, drawing out an arctech pistol and aiming it right at Jaden's head.

Instead of pulling the trigger, the assailant could only feel the cold yet hot, sharp tingle of a pellet drilling into his own cranium, a jolting pain erupting from his skull. The pellet tore into the grey matter within before his world went black, his central nervous system ripped to shreds as he collapsed to the ground in a heap. Jaden was still barely conscious when his squadmate grabbed him under the shoulder, helping him up.

"For...forget about me, catch the other man..." Jaden mumbled slowly.

"Okay, I will. Now, you just sit down here." The squadmate reached past his dented composite armor breastplate to his belt, pulling out a tiny health potion vial and feeding it to Jaden slowly. While Jaden gulped greedily on the potion, the squadmate spoke rapidly into his arctech radio. "Enemy contact on Street 552, House 19. Suspected enemy infiltration. Unknown affiliation."

[Understood. Dispatching other squads to your location.] A smooth, suave handler's voice replied over the radio.

"Ch-check their chest, check for the self-immolation engraving." Jaden struggled to get up, his head still dizzy from the impact. The squadmate nodded in agreement, moving over to the second assailant which he had killed and tearing apart their shirt, revealing nothing. He continued to search the body, but instead, he found a metallic stamped tag in the assailant's breast pocket.

"Damn, he's Versian Army." The squadmate muttered with a grim expression. "Looks like they already had their claws in us from a long time ago."

Jaden closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, the healing potion finally kicking in. Within five minutes, the house was swarming with other Ghosts, a few sergeants inspecting the bodies and checking them thoroughly. Feldon had come to see the scene personally, pondering on the next move as Jaden joined up with him. "They fucking killed the owner of the house. How are they even getting into the city?" Jaden asked.

"Must be part of all the refugees we've been taking in, or they were already here all along and had been hiding. Most likely, these two were planning to sabotage the defenses from within." Feldon squatted next to the body.

"Doesn't this mean we're compromised?"

"Only the refugees themselves. We have them all concentrated on the evacuation shelters anyway, we'll weed them out there. As long as we make sure only the garrison and the Ghosts get near any of our emplacements and defenses, we're fine." Feldon assured Jaden. "Good work here, you should take a break before the battle actually begins."

"Right...." Jaden could feel the exhaustion of the last few hours catching up to him. They had been evacuating people for a while now, and this was far from the only issue he had to tackle and solve. Many refugees were equally jaded and accused the Ghosts of using the same ruse to steal back houses. As Jaden walked back outside the house with his squad mate, he suddenly heard a beep on his arctech radio, Hayden's voice coming through.

[Jaden, have you seen Drake?] Hayden's voice was laced with worry and anxiety.

"Drake...? Wasn't he supposed to be back in the village?"

[They evacuated the village yesterday, he should be back in the city now. I can't find him now. Did you see him?]

"No, not at all... where did you last see him?"

[I saw him at the potion factory, but last I heard he was at Street 593, helping someone.]

"I'm near, I'm near, I can go check real quick." Jaden motioned to his squadmate to follow him, both of them hitching a ride on a wagon that was going past the street. The wagon rolled past other Ghosts who were working tirelessly to build defensive covers at junctions, while some specific houses had been turned into temporary defensive outposts. Barbed wire and sandbags were laid intermittently along the suburbs of the outer ring, creating a defense grid.

As soon as they reached the street they hopped off, quickly scanning through the abandoned houses for any signs of habitation. The evacuation squads haven't cleared this area yet, he could be here-

A sudden loud smash and the shattering of glass alerted Jaden as he heard screams of fighting coming from a house further down the street. He and his squad mate rushed over, seeing a group of young looters using rusted metal pipes and attempting to break into the house with force. Before Jaden could make it over, one of the looters managed to crawl over into the window, scraping through the glass fragments and tumbling inside, from which a familiar voice was shouting. Drake!

Jaden immediately brandished his rifle without a single ounce of hesitation, shouting to the looters from afar. "Step away from the fucking house! NOW!"

"Shit, it's the Ghosts!" The flustered looters still outside the house began to scramble, hardly having any bravery to stand their ground when faced with the dominating sight of the Aspis armor and rifle. Jaden rushed to the house as quickly as he could, climbing over inside through the same window in a desperate leap, leaving his squad mate outside.

As Jaden tumbled into the living room, he looked up to see a looter and Drake stuck in a tug of war over a rusted metal pipe, the two trying to yank it away from each other. The looter roared as he pushed as hard as he could, overpowering the older Drake quickly and sending him sprawling onto the floor. In a fit of rage, the looter raised the freed pipe up high, charging towards the collapsed Drake with the intent to swing down hard.

A whizz of a pellet shot the looter right in the chest, stopping him dead in his tracks as he gasped from the sudden shock spreading through his heart, his eyes wide with fear as his brain tried to process what was happening. Blood gushed out in rhythm with his heartbeat while he keeled over onto his knees, dropping the rusted metal pipe and clutching his wound with both grimy hands.

Jaden now got a better look at the looter who he had just shot - a thirteen-year-old teenager who barely had any stubbles on his face, unable to speak without blood filling up his lungs. Jaden, however, felt no pity for the looter, instead focused on helping Drake up, checking Drake for any bleeding wounds or injuries. "Chief! Chief, are you okay?"

The violently shaking from Jaden slowly roused Drake back to consciousness, Drake nursing the back of his head which had been hit badly. "J...Jaden? What are you doing here? Why are you dressed like that?"

"I should be asking you that, you were supposed to evacuate back to the inner city! Were you waiting for the evacuation squads? Come on!" Jaden urged, trying to hoist Drake back up to his feet.

As Drake slowly recovered to his full height, he finally noticed the dead looter on the ground, his face aghast. "You killed him?"

"Of course I did." Jaden didn't deny it. "If I didn't kill him, he would have killed you outright."

Drake opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out, his eyes still locked in shock at the dead looter. Jaden tried to get Drake to budge, but he didn't move a single inch. "What the hell are you doing? We have to leave now! Before the Versian Army comes!"

"You just killed a kid! Do you even have the slightest understanding of what you have just done!?" Drake yelled at Jaden, shrugging off Jaden's hand.

"I stopped someone who was trying to kill you, plain and simple!"

"And couldn't you have stopped him in another way? Like shoot him in the legs?"

"You can't be fucking serious, you're starting a moral argument with me here? In this situation?"

"He is a kid!" Drake jabbed towards the dead looter. "A kid! Do you recall the last time you attacked the other villagers and almost killed one of them?"

"They were bullying me back then!"

"Yes, but you were about to kill them! Imagine if I killed you dead on the spot right there, then what?"

"It's different, it's fucking different back then!" Jaden fumed. "This kid was killing you so he could loot the house!"

"He's just a kid!" Drake let out an exasperated sigh. "When I let you join the Ghosts, I didn't expect you to kill children! You're barely much older than he is!"

"FINE! Stay here for all I care, I'll tell Hayden you decided to ignore the evacuation." Jaden stormed off, but Drake grabbed him back on the shoulder, tugging him backward.

"Jaden, before your parents died, I promised I would take good care of you, and make sure you grow up right. This is not right! Killing an enemy is fine, but killing a kid is too much. If I was your father, I would have-"

"THEN STOP ACTING LIKE MY FATHER!" Jaden roared, his face contorted in fury.

A tense silence reigned in the living room as Jaden and Drake both stared at each other, Drake struggling to find the words to say. "R...right. I guess you're right." Drake muttered softly to himself.

Jaden's heart clenched a little, but he didn't apologize, instead turning around and storming out of the house after unlocking the door. His squad mate that was guarding the front looked confusedly through the doorway to see Drake standing there alone, while Jaden was already five steps away.

As Jaden stomped through the street back to the inner city, Hayden's voice came over the radio again. [Jaden, did you find Drak-]

"I did, he's alive, now stop fucking asking me!" Jaden snapped back, shutting off the radio while his squad mate ran up from behind to catch up. They didn't exchange a single word with each other as they returned back to the inner city walls, where a queue of refugees was still being herded in past the newly refurbished gates.

Jaden and his squad mate joined back up with the rest of the squad near the gate, forming a full roster of six Ghosts led by a single squad leader. "Hey, where the fuck did you two go? I thought Jaden was supposed to be back here for medical rest?"

"I had things to do," Jaden replied cryptically as he brushed past the squad leader, heading for a medical tent set up right outside the inner city wall, previously a refugee camp tent.

"Right..." His squad leader could read the signs between the lines, backing off slowly. "Anyway, get ready, we'll be posted to the outer ring wall in fifteen minutes, got it?"

"Yeah, yeah." Jaden waved his hand dismissively as he left them behind, entering the medical tent only to find an isolated spot to sit down, thinking quietly to himself. Fuck me... I shouldn't have said that... His mind replayed the scene multiple times, his heart clenching every time he recalled what he had said to Drake. He was the one helping me all this time... I... I should go back and apologize.

"Squad C, move out! Move out!" A call echoed from beyond the tent's fluttering fabric, prompting Jaden to rejoin and form up with the rest of the squad. They loaded up in wagons through the evacuated streets, moving to the outer ring wall where a buzz of activity was already underway.

As Jaden and his squad scaled up to the battlements, the other defenders couldn't help but sneak a glance at the arctech armor even while they carried crates of ammunition next to large arctech cannons and mounted repeaters. The garrison was now a thousand defenders strong, with another thousand more serving as reserves in the inner city. The Ghosts didn't produce enough weapons and armor to equip all of them just yet, so many of the defenders only wore loose metal plates beneath their uniforms.

Jaden peered out beyond the wall, looking towards the horizon from which the army was supposed to approach. "They aren't here yet." He remarked as they took up their positions, helping with the loading and stacking of ammunition into intermittent towers that shielded rows upon rows of arcite fuel. Point defense engraving turrets stolen from the previous garrison were mounted as well at critical locations, providing a layer of protection against incoming artillery barrages.

Still, the outer wall was not as strong as the inner city wall, only having been constructed just a few weeks ago, much of its interior supported by wooden frames cut from the trees of the Keru Forest. "What do we do when this wall goes down?" Jaden asked his squad leader as they continued to haul crate after crate, sweating buckets in their armor.

"Then we fight in the streets. What do you think we were evacuating the people for?" His squad leader sighed.

Jaden's heart faltered a little. "What if there are still civilians there?"

"Then they chose their fate. Can't say we didn't try to evacuate them. Besides, you already got all of them out, didn't you."

Jaden nodded uncommittingly, his eyes wandering over to the street where Drake had still been left behind. He wasn't sure if the street had been evacuated fully yet, but he couldn't get the thought off his mind.

Yet there was no time to think, as a loud warning bell rang throughout the city again. Jaden didn't need the bell to see the surging plumes of dust clouds appearing over the horizon of rolling fields and farms, objects moving rapidly down the gravel path toward the city.

[Eleven o'clock, incoming, incoming!]

"GET TO YOUR STATIONS!" A garrison sergeant roared, the defenders scrambling to wield their guns and prepare the cannons for artillery fire. Ghost snipers armed with railguns perched themselves at the top of the towers, giving them a bird's eye view of the surroundings. Jaden rushed to the edge of the wall, crouching and placing his rifle roughly against the stone cover, peering at the approaching dust cloud, unable to clearly see exactly what it was that was causing so much dust. Neither he nor anyone on the walls could accurately see what was leading the dust cloud.

As the dust cloud loomed over the horizon, a strange gust began to blow towards the wall, buffeting against the fortified stone framework while the supporting wooden beams creaked under the weight. "Say, isn't that dust cloud getting bigger and bigger?" A garrison defender remarked.

Sure enough, the dust cloud was suddenly amassing more and more mass, until it completely blocked out that part of the horizon, as if the land had fallen under darkness. The swirling dust cloud began to pick up speed, twisting and ripping out the loose grass and weeds that it swept across on the fields, slowly forming into a towering tornado wall that got ever closer to Desham.

Tornados were basically non-existent in Versia, so the garrsion defenders were awestruck by the sight, some of them enthralled by the sheer scale. The radio instead was going wild with Feldon's voice frantically ordering the people. [BOLT EVERYTHING DOWN, NOW!]

It took another moment for the defenders to finally register what was happening, scrambling to tighten everything down. "Use a weight to hold down that point defense engraving! Ready the guns!" The defenders rushed to find anything they could to use as a temporary weight. Loose stones, wooden planks, and even crates of arcite fuel were used to hold the lighter guns down. They clutched onto their rifles, repeaters, and cannons, ready to fire at a moment's notice, facing what seemed like an apocalyptic tornado wall that reached up to the clouds.

The tornado wall swelled in strength as it approached the outer walls, some of the defenders beginning to feel the tugging strength from the winds blowing rapidly around, their hair and uniform messy from the turbulence. Still, no one left their position and panicked, holding onto their rifles tightly.

Jaden waited with patience, waiting for the command to fire. Yet instead of the command to fire coming through, the tornado wall suddenly erupted forward, blasting forward towards the battlement in an explosive burst that enveloped everyone. Defenders and Ghosts alike were flung away from their positions by the unexpected force, many toppling and tumbling over from their crouching positions. Others cowered behind the stone and felt the outer ring wall tremble violently beneath their feet, the stone floor shaking.

The wooden beams in the outer wall creaked loudly, but did not give way just yet. Jaden himself bowled over, tumbling backward into a sprawl before trying to recover. As the sudden wind dissipated, a series of loud bangs and resulting shudders sent tremors through the outer ring wall.

"We're under attack!" A defender shouted, his voice barely audible through the ensuing chaos and gunfire that erupted. Jaden clambered back to the edge of the wall, looking down to see four divisions of the Versian army right at their walls, the cannons lugged along by arctech wagons and already firing at the walls almost point blank. They were hiding in the eye of the tornado! He quickly brandished his rifle again, aiming down the sights to trace the charging Versian soldiers that were rushing up to the wall.

A withering barrage of pellets shot forth from the outer ring wall, but it was far too late to dislodge the four divisions - great giant metal defensive plates hauled by wagons and mobile point defense arctech engravings mounted on the top of them nullified nearly all of the attacks the Ghosts tried to lay onto the Versian Army. The four divisions began to split up rapidly, running along the length of the wall while the defensive wagons provided cover to their troops.

The Versian artillery fired with a thunderous roar that could be heard from the walls, large cannonballs shot up high into the sky. Before the point defense turrets on the battlements could even lock onto them, the cannonballs burst outwards in a shower of fragments, sharp sizzling fragments falling at deadly speeds. The fragments seared through uniform and cut through flesh, the defenders screaming from the blanket barrage while the point defense turrets were overwhelmed by the sheer amount of projectiles to be tracked. Jaden cowered from the fragments threatening to pelter him, his armor protecting him from the worst of it. However, he could only watch on as an unarmored defender next to him had his entire arm sliced by the fragments, whimpers of suffering enveloping him.

His naive fantasy of war was slowly wiped out by the carnage he saw around him and on the ground as well. Despite the surprise attack of the Versian Army, the garrison and the defending Ghosts were no slouches either. Aspis MK2 repeaters tore through the weak defenses of any exposed Versian soldier, while artillery crews were blown to bits when their cannons were hit straight on by a railgun projectile.

Screams and yells of pain and battle became the norm for the next twenty minutes, as the two forces clashed in a brutal struggle. Jaden recalled his training, trying to suppress his growing unease, focusing on trying to take out as many targets as possible until he saw a explosive cannonball headed straight for his part of the wall.

Green point defense arcia bolts shot forward, two missing the cannonball while one hit right on, detonating it in midair. However, it was filled with flammable liquid, the hot flames spurting forward and coating the wall. The shower of flames hit a cannon directly, leaving three defenders shrieking as they staggered blindly while they were coated in flames, one stumbling off the wall and falling to his death.

"You three, put out that damn fire!" His squad leader urged from afar, motioning to Jaden and his squad mates. They hurriedly rushed to grab pre-prepared buckets of water, tossing it onto the burning liquid, the hissing steam smothering the flames slightly. Unfortunately, there were not enough buckets of water, forcing Jaden to run to a nearby tower to get more.

He sprinted along the length of the battlements, avoiding other defenders and stepping over wounded ones with quick leaps. Just as he made it to the tower's entrance, a trio of explosive cannonballs slammed into the base of the tower. Jaden suddenly felt the ground falling beneath, as did every other defender around him, while the battlements and wooden beams gave way, broken by the attack. He fell down nearly five meters, his armor crashing hard onto the pile of rubble while other far more unfortunate defenders were dashed against the sharp rocks, their bodies mangled and scattered over the collapsing tower.

"Here they come! Here they come!" Jaden could hear the frantic voice, and struggled to his feet. He ignored the burning sensation in his arms and legs, trying to get up as he noticed the gaping hole in the wall defences with the collapsed tower, a breach along with the Versian soldiers now charging directly at the hole. The defenders still atop on the ledge of the battlement took potshots at the soldiers, trying to thin the charge but with little effect.

Jaden hurriedly raised his rifle and aimed at the incoming soldiers, but he soon realized his Aspis MK2 rifle was not working properly, the canisters and barrel crushed by the fall. Shit! He glanced around as other Ghosts and surviving defenders began to concentrate on the chokepoint. He spotted an Aspis MK1 rifle on the ground, frantically picking it up and wielding it right before the first Versian soldier breached the wall.

"FIRE AT WILL!" Someone roared, Jaden squeezing the trigger with all his might as the crystals on his armor flared, feeding the rifle. A torrent of pellets slammed against the first Versian soldier, tearing through his flimsy armor multiple times as he keeled over, tumbling back into his own allies. With the fierce suppressive fire, none of the Versian soldiers dared to push anymore, instead calling for their own armored wagons to push up.

Jaden's expression faltered as he watched the armored wagon crest over the pile of rubble, the pellets fired at it bouncing off helplessly while the mounted repeaters on the top swiveled about, firing indiscriminately and killing a dozen defenders and Ghosts. Jaden ducked and covered his head behind loose rubble, the deadly pellets whizzing and cracking loudly across the battlefield.

Before Jaden could even do anything, he watched a railgun projectile slam into the front of the armored wagon, the resulting explosion melting off the armor and incinerating its occupants in a deadly firestorm that left them screaming. Still, it was far from the only arctech wagon, multiple pushing forwards in a row in an effort to break through.

"Pull back! Pull back!" A general retreat order was sounded, the Ghosts retreating and fighting in the streets, desperately trying to use the defensive outposts and makeshift sandbag cover to stall the Versian soldiers.

Jaden huffed and panted as he sprinted to the streets, having lost contact with his squad. However, instead of trying to find them, he headed back to where he had left Drake behind in the house. I got to save him! He ran with all his might, his thighs burning while each breath seared his lungs with air.

However, the moment he reached the house, he was greeted with a strange sight. "Hayden? What the hell are you doing here?" Jaden asked.

"Getting this dumb fool out of the damn house." Hayden huffed as she hoisted an unconscious Drake out from the doorway. Jaden quickly rushed forward to help her, leveraging his shoulder under Drake's armpit and lifting him.

"Is he okay? What happened to his face? Did he get hit by a shell-"

"I'm the one who hit him. Now shut up and move! We need to run before the plan starts!"

"The plan?!" Jaden was utterly confused, but moved along anyway. They retreated as quickly as they could while the sounds of fighting got closer and closer. The Versian soldiers were now pouring through the breach in droves, their entire division moving the cannons into the outer ring as well in a bid to damage the inner city walls. Brutal fighting erupted between the once idyllic refugee homes, rooms now used as sniper spots and ambush points.

Jaden watched as a barrage of Versian cannonballs sailed through the air, some neutralized by lancing green point defense arcia points that filled the skies. A lucky cannonball slammed into the wall, cracking the ancient stone slightly as pieces chipped off, falling right next to the medical tent near the gate. They soon reached the medical tent, both of them out of breath and exhausted. "How is this even a good plan?! We've let the enemy into the city!" Jaden wailed as he flinched again from the loud barrage.

Hayden only had a knowing smile as she looked back at the traces of the dispersing Versian soldiers who were trying to encircle the inner city from all angles, filtering out into the streets. "Oh, we got them right where we want them."

<---Chapter 138 - Pincer | Table of Contents | Chapter 140 - Battle of Desham (2)--->