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Booooooom!

Chapter Twenty Nine

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The sky turns red as fire burns across the top of the barrier in the blink of an eye. Many soldiers of the Empire are caught on the other side of the barrier and are incinerated in an instant. The ground leaps and ripples causing everyone to lose their balance and hit the ground.

Heat from the fire burning on the far side of the barrier passes through and is incredibly hot. Even with the protection the barrier affords, hair smokes and those caught at the edges suffer great burns.

A full minute does the ground move until finally settling down. Illan is the first to return to his feet. Staring up at the blaze which is covering the top of the dome, he asks under his breath, “James, what did you do?” In every direction, the fire burns. How are they even alive?

“What happened?” comes a voice behind him.

Illan turns to find Ceadric approaching, his head turning this way and that as he looks at the fire.

“I don’t know,” Illan replies. The smell of burnt hair comes to him and he looks to where the edge of the barrier touches ground and the dead men lying next to it have begun to smolder. “Get everyone away from the edges,” he says. “Everyone to the center.”

Ceadric nods and begins gathering men. “Up you dogs!” he yells to those still on the ground. “Pull the injured to the center. Away from the flame’s edge!”

Jiron and Scar help Potbelly to the center. During the fighting, he had suffered a severe wound to the leg. A tourniquet is tied securely around his upper thigh to stop the flow of blood. “Can’t take him anywhere,” Scar comments to Jiron.

“Shut up,” says Potbelly weakly. “Don’t need any help.”

Jiron sees Stig and shouts to him, “Get Miko! Potbelly needs him.”

“Right,” replies Stig and then hurries over to where Miko was last seen. He finds Delia there with the slingers helping Brother Willim and the rest of the Hand to organize the wounded. Miko lies there with the rest of them, unconscious.

“Is he alright?” he asks her. “Potbelly needs him.”

“I don’t know,” she replies and then nods to where the Star has been returned to his hand. “If that can’t help him nothing can.”

Stig turns back to Scar and Jiron. “Over here!” he yells and they begin making their way over to them.

“Is the entire world burning?” he asks to no one in particular.

“I don’t know,” replies a soldier bringing a wounded comrade to the brothers for healing, “maybe.”

The barrier had encompassed less than a hundred soldiers of the Empire. Hedry took it upon himself to round them up with the help of other Raiders and bring them to a central area where they could be kept under surveillance. The enemy soldiers who were too badly wounded were given a quick end.

Less than half their force remains. All the recently armed freed slaves perished in the fighting and most of the crossbowmen as well. Of the Raiders, only three hundred are left. Illan is amazed there are even that many left. Coming to where James is laid out, he asks Delia, “Is he alive?”

“Barely,” she tells him. “His skin is hot to the touch and he trembles every now and then.” She looks up at him and says, “I’m not sure if he’ll survive.”

“Can’t you do anything?” Illan asks, turning to Brother Willim.

“He was the first one we saw to,” he explains. “What’s happening to him is beyond what we can do.” Nodding to where Miko lies unconscious he adds, “Maybe with the Star Miko could do more, but until he awakens there’s nothing more that can be done.”

To Delia he says, “Let me know if his condition changes.”

“I will,” she replies.

As the fire rages across the barrier, the temperature within continues to rise. Men begin shedding their armor and soon all are wearing nothing more than their small clothes.

Half an hour later, blue sky filled with billowing black clouds begins to be seen through the top of the barrier as the fire starts subsiding. Shortly after that, Miko regains consciousness. Groaning, he opens