There was no need for the guards to shout—the uproar had already alarmed the entire Tower of Heaven.
Just as Shane and the others were locked in a fierce fight with the guards at the exit, a rapid, uniform tramp of boots came from the far end of the passage.
"It's the mage-soldiers! They're here!" someone cried.
Several figures in matching robes, wands in hand, came into view. Unlike the regular guards, they didn't charge in blindly; they snapped into a simple formation, and the tips of their staves flared with a dangerous light all at once.
"Scatter! Find cover!" Shane's heart clenched as he barked the order.
The warning was quick, but people were slower.
One mage finished casting first. The magic bolt screamed out—not at Shane or Erza in the lead, but straight at a young man in the crowd who had just picked up a weapon.
Exhilaration from the uprising still flushed the youth's face—an instant later a violent impact hurled him into a stone wall. He crashed down hard.
For a heartbeat, only the crackle of embers sounded in the corridor.
The morale that had just caught fire was doused as if by ice water.
"Find cover! Move! Hug the walls—get out of their direct lines of fire!" Shane's roar smashed the silence.
His crimson greatbow never stopped. The string thrummed—three light-arrows flew in a chain.
"Thup! Thup! Thup!"
The mage who'd just cast took blossoms of blood in his throat and chest and went down without a sound.
"They bleed too! Don't be afraid—look them in the eye!" Shane shouted between breaths, loosing more arrows to pin the mages and buy his people time to breathe.
"Bastard!" Simon bellowed, smashing a flanking guard flat with a hammering blow.
That drew other eyes at once. One mage in the formation snorted, swept his wand, and a blazing fireball with a streaming tail screamed toward Simon's position!
Even before it hit, the heat slammed into them. Simon's pupils shrank; there was no time to react.
At the last split-second, a figure burst in from the side!
Shane dove, his right foot planting hard into Simon's waist to kick him clear.
Thud!
The two tumbled, rolling behind a nearby pillar. Almost at the same moment, the fireball detonated where they'd just been.
BOOM—
The blast was deafening. Splinters and stone chips flew as a wave of heat tore through, blowing half the low wall apart.
"Cough—cough—Shane, you—" Simon stared up at Shane on top of him, white-faced with shock.
"Don't freeze—move!" Shane scrambled up and yanked Simon to his feet.
The mage-soldiers didn't let up. Their coordination was tight; they seized on the confusion after the blast and wove their spells into a net that kept the rioters' heads down.
Suddenly a searing beam of magic slammed into the pillar shielding Erza.
Crack!
The pillar's edge exploded; shards of stone sprayed like rain. The shockwave, shot through with needle-edged chips, scythed toward several slaves who hadn't made it to cover.
Death rushed at them.
"Out of the way!"
A clear, cutting shout split the air.
No one saw when Erza had slipped from behind the pillar. Her longsword traced a silver arc in the gloom as she stepped straight into the rushing wave. Her eyes were iron—no hesitation at all.
The motion was one seamless flow.
She wasn't a mage; there was no trained mana circuit in her. But at that extremity, something latent stirred.
Following pure instinct, Erza poured everything into that one stroke.
Vmm—
Steel met spell, ringing with a strange vibration.
She didn't cleave the wave entirely—only opened a gap—but it was enough.
The backwash scored her cheek and forearm with red lines, but the slaves behind her—
kept their lives.
Everyone stared—mage-soldiers included. A mere slave girl had split a spell with a sword?
Shane's pupils tightened. Maybe it was his untrained magic sense playing tricks, but for an instant he felt mana move on the girl.
Could Erza be what Grandpa Rob called a "naturally awakened" genius?
Yet aside from frightening physical power, the girl had shown nothing unusual…
His thoughts raced, but this wasn't the time. "Nice work, Erza! You okay?" he shouted.
"I'm fine!"
Erza was breathing a little hard. Her sword hand trembled from the strain and that uncanny sensation, but a small, satisfied smile flickered there—the smile of someone who'd fought alone and protected others.
Shane held her gaze for a beat, tamped down the ripple in his chest, drew and loosed—while the mages were distracted, his arrow punched through a mage's throat.
…
…
Meanwhile, deeper in the cell block.
Jellal's rescue team was making startlingly smooth progress.
With keys and forced locks, they were throwing doors open one after another. More and more people poured into the line; shouts and pounding feet echoed through the passage.
"Move! Head for the exit—Shane's holding the front!" Jellal tossed the keys to Wally to keep opening doors and shouted directions to those being freed.
In the shadows, a pair of eyes watched him quietly.
The boy ran back and forth, dust smudging his fine features, a sense of mission to free others written all over him.
"A fire that burns beneath fear… unwilling to be ordinary… a hunger for strength…" the figure in the dark murmured, voice neither clearly male nor female. "Perfect traits."
An imperceptible, beguiling whisper rippled outward.
"Forget the others. Bring the blue-haired lead to the interrogation room."
Deep in the cell block, overseers who had been flailing in the chaos suddenly stiffened. Confusion flickered across their faces—then a feverish flush.
As he marshaled people, Jellal felt a sudden chill.
He spun to find the guards—who'd been resisting in bits and pieces—moving like hyenas on a single command. Ignoring other slaves rushing past, they converged on him from different directions, straight as arrows.
"Watch out! They're after Jellal!" Sawyer spotted it first, yelled, and hurled a scavenged knife to drive one guard back.
But the guards' resolve outstripped expectations. Gone was the earlier timidity; they moved with merciless decisiveness.
"Grab him!"
Four or five piled on at once, cutting off every escape line.
Jellal met them with his sword, composed. His fighting skill outclassed these pampered wardens.
Then, in the chaos, a sudden stab of pain ripped through his head. His vision went black—his body lurched off balance.
"Jellal!" Sawyer cried, lunging—only to be tied up by two guards.
That was the opening. The rest pounced like starving wolves and pinned Jellal in a blink.
"Take him," the lead guard ordered, face blank.
They hauled Jellal up and dragged him off, away from the main corridor, down a side passage—Sawyer shouting, Wally raging, helpless to stop it.
"Sawyer! What do we do?!" Millianna was close to tears, staring after Jellal. That way led to the interrogation room—no one had ever come back alive.
Gritting his teeth as he knocked a guard's strike aside, Sawyer yelled to her, "Go! Millianna—get to Shane! Tell him—Jellal's been taken! Go, now!"
Millianna looked at Sawyer and Wally straining to hold back the knot of guards—then nodded hard.
Her small body exploded into speed. Like a nimble cat, she darted against the flow, sprinting toward the clash and shouting ahead.