---
The crown glowed. The mist trailed. The pits kept coming. The line did not break with a snap. It peeled like cloth when a seam starts to go.
The first rank, the one with the strongest backs, tried to swing their shields to close the gap behind Kai. Two men misread each other's moves and hit boards edge to edge. The hits rang. Their elbows went numb. Their hands slipped. The gap widened.
For a heartbeat the moonlight shone straight on Kai's face through the open seam. The red in his eyes looked almost black. A soldier saw that and forgot to breathe. He fainted on his feet and slid down his own shield like melting wax.
"Back!" the captain shouted at last, voice raw. "Back one! Reset!"
They took one step back as a unit. It was a clean move, trained a thousand times. It almost worked.
