They made their way through the underground tunnels beneath the city, passing the occasional pocket of O’gúleesh citizens meeting privately where others were least likely to look for them. Some groups cheered and launched spells through the tunnels in celebration, making everyone duck and call out jests about fighting each other after the Crown came crashing down. Some of the wayward groups even joined the procession, squeezing in on the sides and filling the passages even tighter with bodies crammed against magical bodies.
Everywhere, the whispers traveled through the halls, both toward the boisterous procession and away from it.
“It’s Maleshi.”
“General Hi’et. She’s back.”
“Endaru smiles on the Blade of the Unseen Eye.”
Cheyenne’s drow hearing picked up the fading echoes of surprise and awe the other magicals thought they were keeping hidden from the unwieldy parade. They love their bloodthirsty nightstalker warlord, don’t they? Good to keep in mind.
Whether L’zar opened the blocked tunnels to them or someone else at the front of the line guided their procession, she couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter by the time the swelling river of sweaty, shouting, enlivened magicals burst through the final opening into the open air of one of Hangivol’s outer circular levels.
Cheyenne paused beneath the pale gray glow of light muted by the dome around the city. Howling, roaring, cackling magicals streamed around her out of the tunnel, shouting and pumping their fists and sending magical bursts into the air as they followed the procession.
The lower levels of the capital were filled with chaos.
L’zar wasn’t kidding about O’gúl riots.
Hangivol’s citizens streamed through the open, crowded, dirty square, drinking and fighting each other, dancing and racing through the streets and in and out of buildings. From the rooftops of high-rise metal buildings around them came the clanging of at least a dozen magicals pounding on some kind of metal drums. Spells flew through the air like fireworks, most of them without aim or purpose.
A crackling ball of blue flames soared over the crowd from an upper level of one of the tall buildings and headed straight for Cheyenne. She stepped quickly aside and spun to watch the flames bash into a storefront on the street level right next to where they’d emerged from the tunnels. A second blue fireball careened into a metallic window two levels above, and the halfling whirled again to face the attacker. “Hey!”
“Relax, kid.” Lumil’s green hand came down on Cheyenne’s shoulder and the goblin woman laughed, tossing her hair out of her yellow eyes. “Take a little time to check things out. I promise no one’s getting hurt in all this. Not unless they want to. Ha!” With an exaggerated wink, Lumil removed her hand and went marching after the rest of the procession. She took off at a run when she saw two other magicals starting to fight each other, wanting to get in on the action.
“Check things out?” Cheyenne walked hesitantly after the procession and looked over her shoulder at the first storefront hit by the blue flames. Nothing was on fire, no windows or doorways destroyed, and the orange flash of protective wards reinforced by O’gúl technology faded into nothing. “Oh.”
Ember floated up behind her with a wide grin. “You look way too interested in a shop. Fine, I can’t read the symbols on that sign, but whatever it is, it can’t be nearly as awesome as whatever’s happening right now.”
“They warded all the shops,” Cheyenne muttered.
“Okay. Come on.”
The halfling picked up the pace beside Ember and got a better look at the other unintended targets of wayward spells as the procession grew with every block they passed. “Em, when you hear ‘riots,’ what do you think of?”
“I don’t know. Burning buildings and people breaking stuff and going insane. Maybe cops.”
“Yeah. That’s not happening here.”
“You didn’t expect the police to show up on this side when you challenged the Crown, did you?” Ember snorted and wiped the smile off her face when she caught her friend’s exasperated glance. “Come on, it’s funny.”
“L’zar said there would be riots. I think this is it.”
“Huh. Doesn’t look very riot-y to me.”
Cheyenne grinned. “I know. They’re not rioting against the city, just everything it stands for. You see any metal balls flying around?”
“Like the kind you fought at the binding ceremony?”
“Yep. That kind.”
Ember looked at the high-rises and laughed at a group of magicals dancing on the rooftops. “Not one.”
“The whole city shut down to keep itself running while the O’gúleesh flood the streets and party.”
“I feel like that would be forever ago.”
“Probably.”
They quickly caught up with the main body of the procession, where the rebels had taken up some other battle song and were shouting it at the tops of their lungs. Citizens of every race flooded the main avenue from within shops and homes and dark alleys between buildings, all to get a glance at Maleshi Hi’et.
“Look where they’re going!” An orc standing in the doorway of a darkened building grinned at his neighbor and pointed farther up the square.
“To Vedrosha!”
“Maleshi Hi’et’s heading for Vedrosha!”
The metallic drumbeats grew faster and louder as the procession picked up the pace. Cheyenne grunted when a wide-eyed, snarling troll knocked into her on his way up the parade. Ember floated sideways to avoid the halfling barreling into her too. “Persh’al didn’t happen to show you this Vedrosha by any chance, did he?”
“Didn’t even mention it.” Cheyenne tried to peer over the heads of the magicals in front of her but couldn’t see a thing. “We’re about to find out.”
It was impossible to tell from inside the lower-level ring that the buildings stopped as suddenly as they did about a mile inside the outer wall rising around the city. Cheyenne’s eyes widened when she stepped from beneath the looming shadows of the buildings into the only wide-open space she’d seen in Hangivol.
“So we found out.” Ember folded her arms and frowned at the celebrating magicals leaping and
