Kire looked sidelong at him, weighing her options. She ran her left hand through her hair; it fell almost past her shoulders now. Despite not intending to bring him here, and despite everything that was happening, she found herself feeling comforted—glad, if she was being honest—by Ruli’s presence. Immediately, she felt guilty for even thinking so. 
“Alright and—my sword. Did I bring it with me?”
Elva shook her head. “Didn’t see it.”
“Okay.” She sighed, turning to Ruli. “Alright. Just—be careful. Elva, do you have armor to spare for him?” 
Elva nodded. “Is it fair to assume that’s what you said you needed? Armor, or weapons?” she asked him, already leading him out the infirmary, Kire watching them go as she stayed on the bed. 
The armory was located at the basement of the manor and contained a wide array of weaponry. Battle axes and longswords, spears and staves, shields and bows. Mail and plated armor, too, along with helmets lined the shelves, proudly displaying the crest of the previous lord of the manor as well as the Wyvern sigil. “Anything you think you’ll need or can carry, you’re welcome to it,” she said.

Once he was ready, they returned to the infirmary, Kire still sitting up, looking tense. “If the place where I brought you back had been overrun by Gemini, you might need a better entry point,” she said. “We were near the front, where we had reappeared. It might be safer to enter where the supporting units are. I know where.” She held out her hand so he could get the location from her. “Be careful,” she repeated, worry in her eyes. 

It was chaos immediately after Kire had disappeared. Narda and the men she had rescued were, in fact, sent back to safety, several units away from the front. The explosions weren’t large, but it looked to be coming from the monsters themselves. Ed had ridden up on horseback as soon as he saw where Narda had reappeared, having seen the succession of bright flashes. “Where is she?” he shouted. 
“I don’t know!” Narda growled. “I need to get back there!”
“No!” 
His tone brooked no argument. 

They had retreated, enough to put distance between them and the abominations. Ed noticed, however, that the unholy unit of doll soldiers was smaller than the others. They had been deployed to confuse, not to wholly defeat the army. They still threatened to cut a swathe through their own forces, the strategy effective, and he suspected they were stalling for time, or covering a retreat, themselves. They held the line behind rocky terrain, the berserker Gemini forces hemmed in. They may be monstrosities, but when the battlefield grew too complicated, they were vulnerable. And after the soldiers had seen Kire and Narda hack through the abominations, they were heartened, and steeled themselves from fearing the dolls. Nobody has seen the Empress, however. [i]Where are you?[/i] Ed seethed, even as they cornered one of the larger monsters. They reminded him of the wolves in the twisted wood of the gate, but worse: there was something roughly human about them, still, but their flesh sprouted muscles where there shouldn’t be, their forms bulging and stretched out at the same time. 

Baiting them, Ed and his soldiers wove through the boulders and rocks, knowing that their archers were on standby nearby. As soon as they reached the safety of an outcropping, the archers appeared, raining arrows down on the brutes. Not far from them, Narda and her soldiers were cutting through the rest of the dolls. “Watch out!” Narda warned, seeing what were now the telltale signs of a pending explosion: the monster’s body shuddered, convulsed, mouth frothing as the Gemini gem on its chest began to glow. The body exploded just as Narda leaped back several paces. She still got knocked off her feet, but she didn’t take the brunt of the damage. “[i]Bastards! Disgusting blood mages,[/i]” she growled, along with a string of more unpleasant curses.