The streets were chaos, with pockets of firelight where burning vehicles illuminated the smoke, shadows darting in between crumbled walls. Toric moved quickly, weaving in and out of the carcass of a market square where two of their soldiers were taking cover behind a turned over cart. Shots rang out somewhere ahead, sharp and unsteady.

He had no weapon — Vox had taken it from him. The rifle was left forgotten, back in the rubble somewhere. All he could do was keep moving forward. Every step required extreme care. He had a hunting knife in his boot if push came to shove.

He hadn’t been gone more than thirty minutes—not since Vox had pulled him off the front lines. The battle went on, everything still contested — every road a gamble, every door a risk. They didn’t control a single block outright yet.

He spotted Kael at the intersection where their forces were dug in, crouched low behind a tipped transport truck. The road ahead was a jumble of rubble and debris, with muzzle flashes sparking from the higher stories of the buildings ahead.

“Commander!” Kael called, voice ragged over the noise. “We’ve got the main avenue locked down. But they’ve still got the high ground on both sides.” 

Without waiting for an order, she shoved a rifle into his hands. Her expression flickered, something uncertain and searching—but she didn’t ask. She hadn’t seen Vox take him.

“How many?” Toric shouted back, pulling off the safety, dropping into the shadow of the transport as a burst of gunfire shredded the wall behind them.

“They’ve got two IFVs, and infantry squads on the rooftops. We’ve got one RPG left, but it won’t clear both.”

Michael, farther down the line waved him over, ducking low to avoid a sniper’s shot. “We thought you were headed to the east flank. We lost visual on you after the last push!”

“I’m here now,” Toric barked, forcing his focus onto the fight. “What’s holding us?”

"Our trucks can't push past them. If we don't break the line, the supplies will never make it out the capital gates."

Toric checked the battered street in front, making note of the choke points. The air sang with voices, gunfire, and the metallic burn of cordite. Toric set his jaw. "Withdraw two of our trucks from the west alley. We'll hit them from behind and draw out the tanks. When the tanks turn, our flank pushes through and clears the crossroads. Then we converge and head straight for the depot.”

Kael nodded and began to give the order to brigades. Toric stayed low and checked the street again—if only for a second. His mind had slipped back unbidden, to the cursed bones of the cathedral. Metallic sage eyes, and a voice that spoke as if it had already made up his mind about what he was to become. Toric shoved it down hard and moved back into the fight.

The alley was a choke of smashed masonry and charred storefronts, barely wide enough for two men to stand shoulder to shoulder. Toric cut up the two separated ground squads of brigades, and got them moving through crouched and ducked. Feet crunching on broken glass. A machine gun opened fire from the rooftops ahead of them, ripping up the street, bullets clanging against the stone, throwing sparks into their eyes.

Toric raised a fist to stop the team and scouted the mouth of the alley. An armored vehicle was thirty meters down the street, its nose angled towards the main avenue. Infantry in matte black uniforms were dug in around it, using overturned barricades as cover. Above them, figures shifted behind the skeletal remains of an old bank facade, still smoking, with rifles braced in the jagged windows.

Toric’s pulse settled into the irregular heartbeat rhythms it always did before a push. He waved the RPG team forward. “You get one shot,” he said, voice curt. “Make it count. On my mark.”

The gunner nodded, bracing the launcher against his shoulder.

“Three… two… one—”

The rocket erupted from the alley in a bloom of flame, crashing into the first tank’s turret. The blast turned the crossroads orange, sending debris and men alike ragdolling into the street. Even before the dust had fully settled, Toric was out of cover, rifle at the ready, firing blistering bursts to hold the rooftop shooters while the front line moved.

Grit filled the air as blood mixed with the tang, and the shouts and gunfire melded into a jagged roar. Toric vaulted over the wreckage of a barricade and landed hard next to a fallen soldier, his mind counting targets, angles, distance—and in the smallest gap between movements, that husky voice returned.

“You’ve built a cell of your own mind and locked the door from the inside.”

A shot from the rooftop cracked the street an inch from his boot, snapping him out of it. He quickly dropped behind a chunk of wall, firing another long burst toward the bank’s upper floor.

“Push! Don’t let them regroup!” he shouted, voice slicing through the chaos.

The second tank tried to pivot towards them, treads grinding over the rubble, but a well-placed grenade from the south squad took out one of its tracks. Smoke poured out from the busted vehicle, and the soldiers around it began to fall back in scattered groups.

“Clear the crossroads!” Toric shouted, moving with his men towards the heart of the intersection. Every step forward represented another block pried from the regime's grasp.

But even as they were advancing, the other fight, the one Vox triggered hours ago, was still swirling at the edges of Toric's mind, too heavy to ignore.

The remaining pockets of resistance were fleeing in bursts, with regime troops hopping off the main streets and into side streets and alleys, leaving dead and wounded in their wake. The smell of burnt hydrocarbons wafted over the intersection, plumes of smoke fading into the starry night sky.

“Crossroads secure!” Someone shouted from the barricade line.

Toric didn’t slow. “Push to depot! Move before they regroup!”

Boots advanced down the main avenue, past hollow-eyed civilians peering from broken windows, their faces pale in the firelight. Some people stepped forward, murmuring thanks. But most of them shrank back, unsure whether the red insignia on Toric’s shoulder brought them salvation or was yet another one of the regime’s armies passing through under a new logo.

The depot gates loomed ahead of them, rusted steel behind a quickly welded chain of barricades. Regime’s soldiers were pulling back in already, closing the heavy metal doors behind them.

“Kael, get that gate open.” Toric barked.

The breaching unit was moving fast, and their charges were set with precision. The blast pushed the gates inward with a deafening boom and peeled the metal off of its hinges. Rust and shrapnel filled the air. Toric didn’t wait for it to settle before he surged forward, rifle up, boots hitting the fractured concrete before the echo had fully faded.

Inside, chaos reigned, but not for long. A handful of stragglers that were young, scared and mostly sloppy, tried to fire back, but they were all executed quickly. Toric had no time for sympathisers. 

The squad moved methodically, locking down the entries. Making short work of dragging the fallen bodies back outside. No one wanted the smell of rot contaminating their supply line.

Toric took in the stores that had been locked inside the depot, packed to the gills. Crates piled against the walls unevenly, all but a few still freshly sealed. Solen’s seal stamped every lid. There was food, ammunition, and even medical stock. It was enough supplies to refit an entire battalion. At least enough supplies to keep the Bloodsparrows going through the month. Maybe longer.

Kael’s grin broke through the smoke. “We’ve got it, Commander.” She slung her rifle to her back.

Toric gave a curt nod, but didn’t return the smile. His eyes moved over the space automatically, cataloging exits, and scanning the high windows for movement. Every instinct said to brace for the counterattack that would come with the dawn.

Underneath the adrenaline, there was that other awareness. The one that had followed him back from the ruins. A gnawing, quiet certainty that somewhere out there, silver eyes were watching, already calculating their next meeting.

Toric pushed the thought down, barking commands for another perimeter sweep. But the shadow of Vox followed him as smoke would. He hated that somewhere, deep inside himself, he was already thinking about when he would see him again.

A makeshift barricade was set just inside the depot doors—sacks of flour, cracked crates, broken shelving—whatever they could find. It wouldn’t be strong enough to hold back an army, but it was enough to slow one down. Toric finished assigning the guard rotation, boots heavy on the metal grating as he crossed the catwalk. Their rifles pointed outward, scopes scanning the street through smeared glass. 

Toric walked the lanes of supplies with Kael, tagging crates for immediate redistribution: ammunition to the west flank, water and medkits to the south, food stored in the inner chambers where stray fire couldn’t destroy it. They’d get the excess to Sector Thirty-Six as soon as possible. 

The air was still heavy with the tense quiet that came after a battle, hard-fought. 

“Keep it tight,” Toric barked. Signalling the newly appointed guards that had been stationed on the upper catwalk. “If they’re going to try to go for a night raid, it’ll be in the next few hours. I want every entry point covered.”

As the sun set, the depot's floor was a landscape of organized chaos; teams poured over supply counts, weapons were being cleaned on upturned crates turned into work stations, and the low voices of runners relaying positions over hand-crank radios.

After midnight, something rapped loud against the metal doors. Three sharp knocks clanging on the barricaded steel doors. The height guards slapped rifles into a ready position until a voice rang out through the dark:

“Commander Taylor! Sector Three!”

The bolts drew back, and the door cracked open just far enough to let the man in. He stepped through the opening quickly looking dust-streaked with the shoulder of his coat torn, his red scarf frayed and faded with time. It was the mark that all Bloodsparrow commanders wore. It mirrored Torics, gone thin by use, not ceremony.

“Good to see you breathing,” Toric said, clasping forearms with him. “Didn’t think your unit was this close.”

“We weren’t,” the other commander said, pulling off his gloves with crooked teeth. “We got word you’d broken through, ‘n figured you could use the numbers. We’ve been cutting south from the rail yards all week. Lost half the squad at the bridge, but the rest are right behind me.”

“Bring them in,” Toric told Kael, already shifting his focus. “We’ll need them fresh for tomorrow. We’ve still got the east districts to take, and Unified will be dug in now that we’ve cut their supply line.”

The new arrivals began filling into the building. All tired, armed, and still charged from their own fight. Toric gave the orders, the depot coming alive again with the movement of bodies and the clatter of gear.

Outside, the city was quiet, but it was the wrong kind of quiet.

Toric knew it wouldn’t last.