"Is that so?" Rhys asked, his deep voice carrying easily over the roar of the storm.

The beam of light was blinding him but it was obvious enough who he was talking to. The so-called winners, standing on the corpses of the people they would have gladly ruled over.

"I have never heard so many lies in such a short period of time," he stated.

The harbinger turned to Quinn.

"My love, you have to look after your sister now while I make sure none of the people standing there won't leave this broken hall alive," he said.

He saw Quinn grin and the smile on her face was the most beautiful and trusting he'd ever seen. His fated gathered up her sister from his arms and settled her on the ground, holding her tightly against herself to keep her warm.

The Gech was shielding the fortress from most of the harm, but the storm had killed people from smaller breaches. The wild, furious hail beat at the walls, trying to claw its way back in.

It needed reinforcing, and soon.

Then Rhys took a step toward where the voice had come from. The grin on his lips spread wider.

"Gods are good," he growled at the darkness behind the searing light. "I still live. And I plan to keep on living long after you all are dead as you deserve, you treacherous murderers! I can't wrap my mind around the insanity of killing your own people to prove yourselves! Then after that you have the nerve to sit here and yell lies at me!?

“This is fortress is mine and I know you hoped that the storm would take care of the one murder you couldn't handle yourself!

"Now I'm back. And I dare a single one of you to step forward and do as you promised!"

For a long moment, there was silence. Then the light moved. It no longer aimed straight at him and the two females by his side. It rose on some crane toward the cracked ceiling, illuminating the speaker – or better to say speakers.

They were surrounded. By hundreds and hundreds of Nayanor warriors, all with their swords drawn and their eyes full of hatred. Rhys could hear Quinn gasp, but the harbinger himself felt like laughing.

"It's nice to be proved right," he told them, unsheathing his own long sword and eying his enemies. "I recognize some of you. I remember telling you that you weren't good enough to serve under me aboard the Erados and this is my proof."

"Don't you always say that a man doesn't whine about the odds he's given, Harbinger?" a man asked from his left. "Now we will hear you cry out when we hack you to pieces."

"More words," Rhys said darkly, turning the speaker’s way, resting the gigantic sword on his shoulder guards with one hand, baiting them to come at him. "This is what you are. Just words and bitter envy for better men than you."

The tracker on his transmitter started beeping quietly. It didn't make any sound, didn't alert the warriors around him, just made itself known.

Kol-Eresh, Rhys thought with amusement. It figures he's too proud to die.

The other harbinger was on his way, coming from wherever he'd retreated to from the massive storm. But it said a lot that Rhys' enemies had feared him so much they'd set up a watch right next to the ruined remains of the gate.

On that note, he didn't see Jeroek.

"And where is your leader, then?" Rhys asked. "I don't see Jeroek standing among you. Is he so cowardly that even now he thinks he can elude me?"

Someone laughed, trying to poorly mimic his actions from before, but the others didn't join in.

"Leader," the man repeated nonetheless. "Captain Jeroek is nothing more than the face of this plan. The one who could get closest to you, find out how weak you really are. And he was proved right when you attacked a man just because your female wanted you to!

“We knew at that moment we could take you, because there had to be some trick to how you stayed in power."

The disgust was plain in the warrior's voice as he stepped forward and Rhys could see his hateful gaze.

"Doing a female's bidding, Harbinger! We are Nayanors! All our lives we've had to listen to you telling us that we were not as good as the others and we even came to believe you. Now we see you here with your female, after running to do her bidding again, during the storm no less!

"This was all going to happen, Harbinger. You were going to destroy the fortress on her whim at some point anyway. We are just doing your job for you and cleaning Jos Gharo of all men who were foolish enough to follow you while we're at it."

Rhys stared at the speaker, the fury soaring in his heart.

"So that is why," he said with finality. "The reason why you would do this to your own people. You know the men here would never suffer you to lead them. You're cleaning house, trying to get rid of all those who showed some loyalty."

He stopped, shaking his head, baring his teeth in a feral snarl.

"No, not loyalty. You are right about only one thing, little warrior. We are Nayanors. The only loyalty we feel is knowing where true power lies and it's not with you. It makes me think you weren't here looking for me. You are hiding from them in the last place they'd search."

Rhys laughed again, looking over the gathered warriors and their loathsome expressions.

"Time to teach you a lesson on strength and weakness that I should have taught you a long time ago," he said, bringing the sword on guard.

"You really think you can take us all?" a warrior asked, the disbelief plain in his voice. "You are going to die with that fucking pride stuffed down your throat, Harbinger."

"I think not," Rhys said, opening his comm link and speaking fast: "Leave these bastards to me, Kol. I need you to keep my fated safe."

His words triggered a panic.

There was a reason why the warriors surrounding him had to resort to such despicable means of rising to power. Fear had no place in the heart of a Nayanor, yet that was what Rhys saw clearly reflecting in the eyes of the men who suddenly felt the stinging bite of consequences.

Leaderless, he thought. This is what happens when men who have been denied by those who are powerful decide to follow someone as weak as they are.

Rhys raised his sword, bracing for the first enemies. The hall was in complete chaos. The Gech still sat before the gate, holding out the worst of the storm, but it didn't stop the long night from getting in.

Nothing helped against the darkness, not even the light suspended high above their heads. The cold was creeping into their bones and the harbinger could see Quinn shaking, trying to shield her sister from the warriors.

Luckily for her, they were too concerned with their own well-being to bother with her. Even so, Rhys stood over the two females, guarding them with his own body as he faced the lines of the traitors.

At once he saw that the only thing they had on their side was numbers. It was easy to believe that Jeroek had merely been the face of the operation when it was clear that no two men trusted each other. Cowardice and weakness ran in their veins, but not stupidity.

That was what turned the hall into such a mayhem.

Some of the warriors realized that the only way to take what they'd set out to rob him of was to kill Rhys. Others tried to flee deeper into the fortress, but quickly retreated into the hall, caught between two fires. Rhys guessed that Kol-Eresh and his men had reached the outskirts of the gate hall and were pushing the traitors back.

This is why you deal with the runts of the pack the second you recognize them, Rhys thought, gritting his teeth.

The harbinger was reminded of the story he'd told Quinn, of the year when Jos Gharo had suffered a breach. The female who had escaped had damaged one of the gates by ramming it with a ship in her desperate attempt to get away. It had been too late to fix it.

The gate had been one of the smaller ones with all the equipment needed to reinforce it being too far away. And the location of the gate had been terrible, opening the main living quarters right up to the horrors of the long night.

Rhys had blown up the passage later, to make sure such a thing could never repeat itself.

Now, seeing men who weren't fit to be called Nayanors doing the same to their own people, Rhys could barely contain his rage.

He'd understood the female, just like he'd told Quinn. She had been a Terran, a fragile being on an alien world. Escape had seemed like her only option. The fault with her escape laid with the warriors who'd let her take the ship and get away.

No such excuse was possible for the warriors who now filled the gate hall, fighting for their lives.

Rhys' sword cut through them, showering the ground with their blood. The warm lifeblood rained down on the two females he was protecting as well as the bodies the blood had spilled from. The harbinger kept guard inside a small circle, making sure none of the bastards got anywhere close to Quinn, who had already gone through enough suffering during her first week on Luminos.

By the door, there was more screaming, but it was hard to hear over the dying agony of the men who were slashed open by his massive sword.

There were still so many of them. Rhys wondered how many more lurked in the depths of Jos Gharo and what had happened to the warriors who'd refused to join the outright mutiny against him.

Looking at the amount of hatred, it was clear that it was no longer a simple disagreement. It was a pure, simple existential dispute that had driven his enemies to unite.

Rhys felt no remorse. Only righteous fury.

"Rhys!" Quinn cried out behind him.

The harbinger turned, the sword flying through the air, stopping a death blow that had been aimed at the females. It seemed one of enemies had finally figured out where his weaknesses lay and the others took up the lesson.

"Move, Quinn!" the harbinger roared, holding the pressing mass of bodies at bay, but it was difficult with them attacking from all directions.

Numbers, he thought with disdain. I will not let sheer numbers kill my fated.

"What about Cassie?" Quinn called back.

"You have to carry her!" Rhys said. "Run to the wall, I can't protect you without cover!"

It already hurt enough that he had to take some measures to avoid the enemies when they didn't deserve any of it, but Rhys wasn't prepared to risk Quinn's life over his pride.

Unable to leave because of Kol-Eresh, the enemies had finally figured out that the only way out was to keep together and try to bring him down. They came now, with all the blinding fury they'd obviously harbored toward him all those years.

There was no finesse to their actions, no purpose behind the rash strikes of their swords, but they were many. Rhys had learned a long time ago, in battles on worlds as cruel as Luminos, that even blades in unskilled hands cut deeply.

Sometimes all a man needed was a bit of luck to land the killing blow.

Quinn was moving. In the midst of all the insanity around them, Rhys took time to notice how cleverly she picked her way back to the wall, carrying Cassie on her back. The burden was clearly heavy for his fated, but Quinn kept going with a staunch pace that told Rhys she wasn't prepared to give up on any of them yet.

He wished he could help her but it wasn't possible to take his eyes off the wave upon wave of attackers.

The corpses were piling up on the cold ground, forming low walls the others had to climb over to get to him. Rhys hadn't stopped moving for a whole five minutes by the time Quinn finally reached the wall, crouching down and shielding Cassie with her own body to make them as small a target as she possibly could.

The harbinger stood in their way, his eyes flashing as he took in the force gathered against him. The last of the surviving warriors seemed to have lost all sense and judging by the mad looks, their minds as well. Years of being humiliated were culminating with a crushing defeat for them and even the lowliest Nayanor couldn't stand dying like that.

It meant only one thing and that was desperation. Rhys knew that well. It was the second most dangerous thing in a battle, next to an enemy who was simply more skilled.

Desperation was a tricky lover. It made the warrior stop caring about defense, putting all their efforts and strength into attacking, but it also made them reckless and unpredictable. Holding back the mass of men who had nothing to lose was growing more perilous by the second.

"Keep watch," Rhys warned Quinn, not looking back. "I don't want you to die now, not when we're back home."

The harbinger didn't know if that was the most comforting thing to say, to remind the female that she was doomed to live forever on the world where danger never ended. To his surprise, he heard Quinn answer as firmly as ever:

"I wouldn't," she called. "I want to see those fields again, with you. I want this terrible, gloomy fortress to be my home too."

Rhys grinned, baring his teeth to the enemies as they kept coming, row after row, only to find their end on his sword.

It seemed a whole eternity passed like that. From time to time, Rhys could hear Quinn's gasp when he killed someone particularly violently, slicing their head off so hard that it bounced off the wall she was crouching against. The stench of death was starting to overpower even the fiery smell of the storm and the still-simmering explosives under the Gech's dark shadow.

The only comfort that Rhys had in the midst of the carnage was that the crowded space filled with screams and blood was heating up the place just enough to keep Quinn alive. Hidden behind the bodies of the attackers, shielded from the storm by their corpses, his fated was still there.

She was alive and Rhys intended to keep it like that for as long as he had strength left in his arms.

There was a moment when it seemed to him that there would be no end to the attackers, but it arrived. His armor was chapped and torn by the accidental hits. Blood was running down his chest plate, his wide sword coated with red so thoroughly he couldn't even see the metallic shine underneath.

He was breathing heavily, looking over the dead without a shred of pity. They had wanted to con their way into power, but all they'd bought was a chance to be forgotten by the gods and the living both.

Quinn stood carefully, her eyes wide and horrified as she looked over the battlefield in the flickering light, stunned by the sight.

Rhys wanted to bring her into his arms, but he knew at that moment he looked like the avatar of death and it wasn't the image he wanted Quinn to see before her eyes when she thought of him.

"How is your sister?" he asked, seeing Kol-Eresh coming their way, picking his way between the dead.

"She's alive," Quinn said, unable to hide the smile from her face. "You said that if we get her this far, she'll make it. Did you mean that or were you trying to comfort me?"

"I meant it, but I wasn't making promises," Rhys replied, turning to the other harbinger. "Kol. I thought I said something about keeping my fortress in one piece when I left."

Kol-Eresh grinned a humorless, feral smile.

"This is the lowest of the low of our species," he replied, gesturing. "I never thought I'd see the day. The explosion caught me by surprise. I have hunted down the culprits ever since, but I never figured they'd be mad enough to hide out here."

He turned to look at the Gech, frowning, almost amused.

"How did you get that in here?" he asked.

"That is all my fated's work," Rhys replied, seeing Kol-Eresh give Quinn an appreciative look. "What of my people? And yours?"

Kol-Eresh growled, gripping his sword tightly.

"All over the fortress," he said grimly. "Fighting for their lives. You know what Jos Gharo is like. The storm gets in, creates twisters, rips the air ducts out and keeps coming. There are thousands dead. I ordered everyone to seek shelter, but I don't know how well they managed. Your captains are keeping order and hunting down the traitors. There are more, but less and less every hour."

"Good," Rhys said. "What about food? Water?"

Kol-Eresh eyed the Gech.

"It's tighter than ever, but with the dead, I think we can manage if this contraption of yours holds."

"It will hold," Rhys stated firmly. "We need to clean up Jos Gharo. I want none of those bastards to see another day. We will sweep every hall from one end to the other. In the meanwhile, I'm putting you in charge of reinforcing the gate.

"Tell every man who volunteers to come here with the temperature dropping by the minute that their fateds and children will be held safe in the deepest reaches of the fortress. First served with food and supplies. From your domain or mine, I don't care. Can you do that?"

"Yes," Kol-Eresh said simply, his dark eyes flashing. "I'll assemble teams for the sweep. What are you going to do?"

"I'll see to my fated," Rhys said, looking at Quinn. "And then I will hunt down the man who thinks he can deal out death such as this without punishment."