Lys, the Governor's Palace.
The Main Building was where the final resistance took place.
The walls bore the scars of blades and axes, smoke and fire. The bodies of soldiers from both sides lay strewn across the floor.
The smell of blood hung thick in the air.
Carl leaned against a broken stone pillar, gasping for breath. Every breath brought a burning pain in her lungs and the taste of blood.
Her left arm hung limp, clearly broken. Her remaining right hand gripped a broken sword with a battered edge.
Henry knelt beside her, a terrible wound in his abdomen. The strips of cloth hastily wrapped around it were soaked through with blood. He leaned against the wall, his face ashen, but his eyes remained fierce, fixed on the only stairway as he gripped his great hammer.
Luke was covered in blood, some his own, but far more belonging to his enemies. Sword and shield in hand, he guarded the stairway, several enemy corpses piled at his feet. Yet he, too, was barely standing, his shield shattered and his blade chipped.
Luciana stood behind them, her magnificent skirts long since stained with mud and blood, torn in several places.
She held a slender sword, its tip stained red. Soot and flecks of blood marked her beautiful face. Her violet eyes held none of their usual allure or shrewdness, only the resolve to perish with her enemies.
Beside her remained fewer than two hundred battered warriors of the Blood Oath Band and the Skull Band. Every one of them was wounded, their eyes full of exhaustion and despair, yet they still gripped their weapons.
Below the stairs, the shouts of Tyroshi soldiers and the crashes of their blows against the barricade rang out without pause, sending wood splinters flying.
This last