[u]Imperial Kalesian command post, near Amaryth's Eastern gate[/u]
[i]“The Outer City is all but ours.”[/i] Commander Sykora said out loud, very proud of his own achievement, as if he alone was responsible. [i]“Not quite, commander. There is still the issue of the docks. Members of the heathen church and a few of the Untrained stand in the way. This reinforcement will fix that.”[/i] The person speaking handed the commander a set of orders indicating a full regiment of Maulers and three Kalbeasts be deployed to aid the forces sent to the docks. [i]“Thank you, Processus Kovac. While I am loath to lose access to those outside, taking the outer city is essential.”[/i] The Processus nodded. [i]“Deploy them inside. You do not need them outside right now.”[/i] After this, the Processus turned around and went back to her work, harvesting information from her underlings, who in turn acquired it from theirs. It wasn’t the simplest system, but it worked. 

[u]Near the docks, not much later[/u]
The barricades blocking the streets leading to the docks were surprisingly strong to have been built so quickly. The soldiers there, most bearing the colors of the knights of Idris, were ready for anything. Nothing the Empire had thrown at them had even moderately phased them, let alone broken through. For the most part, it had been small units of infantry, easily crushed. Then suddenly, it was not just odd units of infantry moving down on the barrier. Suddenly, the crowd had stopped coming, only to be replaced by ranks of infantry, with Mauler Cavalry moving on all sides, including across the rooftops. Not to mention the Kalbeasts at their head.

The soldiers at the barriers, foolishly tried to fight. Possibly holding to the idea of a “last stand”. Commander Sykora did not really care much about that concept. He simply had the Kalbeasts punch straight through barrier after barrier, just after the Maulers had flanked them. Oh he could remember the days when he personally had ridden one of those. Those were the days. Nonetheless, not a single barrier held out against their strike and the conquest once more moved towards the docks. Soon only the Inner city would remain. He did not yet know how to conquer that, but do it he would. For the Empress, might she live forever.

[u]Elsewhere in the outer city[/u]
Thora was beginning to dislike this place. There were soldiers everywhere. And where there weren’t soldiers, there were crowds. She disliked both of those. Almost all her concentration was focused on keeping the thirst in check. Since that strange foreigner, she had fed twice. She did not know whether anyone had seen, but she was afraid that was the case. It was proving more and more difficult to control, or at least it felt like it was. She didn’t know for sure. She was starting to want to get out of the city more and more, but had no idea where to go to do so. 

[u]Unknown location in the City[/u]
For a few moments after the signal was sent Slavómir had struggled to get the darkness to recover. He thought it would have been easier if they had simply used one of those Evokers who could wield fire to create the signal, but it did make sense that they did not want a simple one. A random fireball could happen. Fire evokers weren’t that rare as evokers go. Nightweavers, however were. It would not be good if any signals were sent when they should not be. All he had to wait for now, was the instructions to lower the darkness. While it was not hard to maintain it, it would still be relaxing to not maintain it. And he would feel safer. So long as he wove a darkness this large, he could not use the darkness for self-defense around himself. No matter how powerful a relic, it would always have limits.