Piltover Ablaze (2)

"Crownguard!"

An urgent call came from behind her, and Luxanna, her blond hair filthy and tangled, snapped her head around and shouted back, "Here! Over here!"

Cannon fire raged all around them. They were not that far apart, but the scattered smoke and dust made it impossible to see each other at all. After several twists and turns, the person calling her finally emerged from the haze.

It was a burly soldier in pitch-black armor, clearly a member of the Silent Wolf Legion. He should have obeyed the legion's rules and maintained absolute silence until victory had been secured, but the current situation did not allow him to do that.

His face was covered in blood. A long, narrow wound split his forehead, and the blood was pouring from there. Yet the soldier paid it no attention, focusing instead on protecting the civilian in his arms.

She looked to be around forty, unconscious, blood pouring from her abdomen and staining her clothes red.

"Did you hurt civilians by mistake again?!"

"Don't give me that, Crownguard!" the soldier roared back. "This woman ran out of her own house saying she was going to look for her child. If we hadn't protected her, she would've run straight into the combat zone and been blown to pieces!"

Luxanna had been about to say something else, but a piercing whistle reached her ears. A kind of intuition unique to mages welled up inside her, sharp and painful, making her scream uncontrollably—as if by instinct.

"Get down!"

That shrill cry did not match her identity as a Crownguard at all, and what she did next had even less to do with the noble young Lady Crownguard she had once been.

She raised her right hand, and violent light burst from between her fingers, forming a