Forest couldn’t make out what was said but could tell by Soren’s relaxed demeanor that he was letting the man say his peace. When he’d made his case, Soren gestured casually to his general, who advanced, sword in hand. The emissary froze with fear and began to plead for his life, but was quickly relieved of his head. The big man bent to collect it and threw it high in the air back toward the city gates.
There’s your answer, Forest thought bitterly. She looked behind her and scanned the defensive forces until she spied Kala standing exposed, staring defiantly at the swelling number of the enemy. The majority of the defenders, few though they were, stood near her. Forest felt time drag on as she waited in limbo – too far away to engage the enemy, but near enough to watch their every move while they organized.
Two enormous siege machines were assembled at the forest’s edge under the instruction of the woman that Forest had seen briefly at Soren’s side. She waved her hands and the towers took shape and eventually began to move forward toward the city gates, one in front of the other. They advanced quickly on the hard-packed ground. Suddenly, the first tower lurched sideways as it rolled into soil that had been dug up and replaced, but much more loosely. The tower canted further over and reaching some critical angle, toppled altogether. The woman in charge swore, and Forest could hear her colorful tirade from where she awaited the advancing forces.
The second tower was redirected around the first one and continued its advance until it arrived at the trench dug around the city and became stuck. The woman yelled for planking to be brought forward, but in the time that the tower was immobilized, Forest and her kin lit arrows and launched them at it. Several struck it, but the wood had been wetted and did not catch fire. However, the longer it stayed stuck, the more quickly it dried out, and eventually, it would succumb to the flame.
Forest watched as Soren made a gesture, and a wave of captive children rushed forward with buckets of water to douse the immobilized tower.
“Don’t hit the children,” Jarom yelled, and they did their best to keep peppering the tower with flaming arrows without hurting the children who were doing their best to put out the flames. Smoke eventually began to rise from it, but Forest, Jarom, and the others were forced back to the final ring of battlements where Kala and the others waited. Forest dove behind a barrier, but not before seeing Kala flash her a tight smile.
Forest could see the general arguing with the woman in charge of the siege machinery, while Soren looked on without intervening. The general eventually waved the woman away and commanded the soldiers to begin their advance. This is it, Forest thought, the endgame. Thousands of hardened warriors closed in on their paltry defense. She made her peace and readied her bow.
Kala drew her swords. A wind blew across the field, bringing with it the smell of steel, the taste of ash, and the promise of ruin. A solitary raven watched the proceedings. Kala could feel its anticipation as she drew deeply on the darkness inside herself. She strained against invisible restraints as the enemy closed. As soon as their front ranks occluded the view of their archers, she loosed a battle cry and ran forward, spurring those around her to rush forward with her. They met the enemy in a clash of steel. Kala slashed and rent, and men fell, but more always took their place. Hawke guarded her back, and anyone unlucky enough to make a move on her from behind was quickly dispatched.
Dhara and Kaia held the tide of attackers at bay at the end of their spears and capitalized on openings to puncture lungs and pierce guts. Jarom fought nearby, cutting broad swaths through the enemy with his enormous axe. Ravi, Nara, and Thorvyn fought near him and did their best to give him a safe flank as Soren’s forces inexorably surrounded them. The rest of Jarom’s kin and the remaining fighting men from the camp were arrayed in a ragged line, trying to hold back the advancing soldiers. Lily and Cera stayed back unless they saw a safe opening to rush in and tend to a wounded defender. Calix and Skye tried to protect them, but they were not skilled fighters and barely succeeded in keeping themselves alive. Archers from the city walls did their best to pepper the enemy, but they were terrible marksmen and easily thwarted by helmets and shields.
The battle wore on, and both attackers and defenders fell. Dhara found herself fending off two men, while her sister struggled against a colossus of a man. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the man bat Kaia’s spear aside and raise a killing stroke. Dhara leaped to parry it for her sister, exposing her back to the men she was battling. Calix saw all of this in slow motion and dove between them and her. He was facing her when the sword went through his right shoulder. He blinked, looked down at the blade protruding from his chest, and locked eyes with Dhara.
“No!” she screamed and ran her spear through Kaia’s assailant’s chin and out the top of his skull. Calix’s attacker pulled his sword from his back and Calix slumped to his knees.
“Tend to him,” Dhara ordered her sister. “These two are mine.” She dove at them in a berserk fury and slashed at them until their armor and flesh were ribbons.
Kaia pulled Calix back to Lily and Cera, left him with them, and returned to her sister’s side.
A deep pile of corpses surrounded Kala, but soldiers kept pressing her. She panted from exhaustion.
“Kala!” Hawke called to get her attention.
A distant part of her registered, and she spared him a glance.
“It’s no use,” he told her. “We have to retreat.”
Kala nodded grimly, and they moved slowly back toward the gate, collecting any surviving defenders as they went. They finally neared the gate, and Hawke turned to pound on it. “Open up!” he yelled to the men on the walls. “The field is lost.”
The guards manning the gate shook their heads and adamantly refused to open the gate. Hawke shook his fist at them, but they were more terrified of the army before them than Hawke’s anger. “I guess this is it, then,” he said to Kala as he returned to her side. They were slowly pushed back until there were only Lily and Cera huddling against the gate over Calix, Kala and Hawke holding the center, an exhausted Jarom holding the left with a small number of his kin, including Nara and Forest, now wielding daggers, and Dhara and Kaia holding the right. Altogether, they barely stayed on their feet.
A horn blast split the air, and Soren’s men paused and pulled back slightly out of the defenders’ sword range. Kala looked up to see a man on horseback riding forward toward her. She wiped blood and sweat out of her eyes and studied him. Soren stopped out of bow range of the city walls, and his men slowly moved back to form an open corridor with him at one end and Kala and her allies at the other.
He leaned back in his saddle and surveyed the field of dead. “Impressive,” he concluded. He looked Kala up and down. “So you must be my Scourge,” he said conversationally.
Kala judged the distance and decided it was worth a try. She dropped her swords and hurled a dagger with as much force as she had left.
Soren’s general Trax stepped forward and casually batted it out of the air.
Soren leaned forward. “You’re going to have to do better than that,” he declared and studied her. “I won’t insult you by offering you a chance to switch sides, but I do have a proposition for you.” He paused to let this register. “I will negotiate the terms of your survival – if you can best my champion.”
Trax looked up at Soren, angry at the interruption in the bloodshed.
“Humor me,” Soren told the man, and Trax clenched his fists in barely-contained restraint.
Kala highly doubted that Soren would honor any arrangement he made, but she judged that she had little choice and even fewer options. She looked around her at her loved ones and made the decision that any chance of their survival was worth more than her pride. “I accept.”
Soren looked pleased and turned to Trax. “Do you think you can handle this little girl?” he asked him.
Trax was infuriated by the insult but had to accept the challenge, framed as it was. He swallowed his curses and turned to face Kala. “Let’s
get this over with,” he said, drawing his enormous broadsword.
“This should be interesting,” Soren declared and leaned back in his saddle, amused at the thought that whatever the outcome, he would have rid himself of a problem.
Trax looked at the bodies on the ground with disgust. “Clear some space, damn it,” he growled, and men rushed forward to drag the dead out of his way. Quickly, a circle of open, but blood-stained ground lay around Trax and Kala.
Trax swung his sword around him to loosen his muscles. Kala, beyond exhaustion, simply watched him, her own swords recovered and hanging limply in her hands. He approached her slowly like a predator playing with its prey. Without warning, he swung, blindingly fast for a man his size, and Kala barely managed to fall to the ground to avoid being cleft in two. She looked up at him, uncertain whether she had the strength to rise. He swung down, and Kala rolled aside in the nick of time. She backed up while he turned to face her. “Get over here and die with some dignity,” he spat at her.
She watched him from the ground and studied his movements. He swung his sword from side to side and advanced again with a flurry of strokes. How she found the space to evade them was a miracle, but he again found himself facing her, unscathed but lying prone. She slowly rose to her feet, with apparent effort.
“That’s more like it,” he declared, smirking. He raised his sword and rushed at her.
Kala closed her eyes and counted two heartbeats. She opened them and stepped into his downstroke. In one swift motion, she ran a sword through his forefoot, making him stiffen in pain, and used the momentum of his swing to sweep herself upward and onto his back. She spun around his neck, using her second sword as leverage, and landed in a crouch. As Trax’s body wavered and fell, she lifted his severed head and tossed it toward Soren.
“Satisfied?” she asked.
“Bravo,” he replied. “You’ve prevailed, so you’ve earned some consideration; but, seeing how you’re also a viper…” he looked her party over, nodding to Forest with respect. His eyes settled on Cera, and he stared at her for a moment. “Her,” he said, pointing at Cera. “I’ll speak with her.”
“That wasn’t the deal,” Kala replied defiantly.
Soren looked around at the legions of men surrounding them. “You are not in a position to negotiate,” he observed flatly.
Cera walked up and placed a hand on Kala’s shoulder. “It’s okay,” she said and walked past her before she could object.
Kala stepped forward after her, and a hundred men pointed their swords at her. She paused, not wanting to imperil her friends more than they already were.
Cera strode up to Soren’s horse and inclined her head toward him. He bent down and spoke quietly to her. She nodded, lowered her head, and came back toward Kala.
“We have a deal,” she said resignedly. “You’re free to walk out of here,” she added, gesturing to their entire party.
“And?” Kala asked, understanding that there had to be a catch.
“And…,” Cera replied, “I don’t. I am the barter for your lives.”
“No,” Kala and Lily declared simultaneously.
Cera looked Kala square in the eye. “It’s my decision,” she said and strode past Kala to hug Lily. “I do this for you,” she whispered in her ear.
“You can’t,” Lily sobbed.
“You have to let me,” she replied and kissed her on the forehead. She released Lily, steeled herself, and walked back toward Soren.
Kala raised a hand to stop her but stopped short of grabbing her. “Please, Cera. A friend of mine once told me that when you sell your soul, it can still return to you – but it isn’t true. It fades with every compromise you make until it’s gone forever. Please don’t do this.”
“I already have,” she said and continued to Soren’s side.
“You have until sundown,” Soren announced to Kala’s party. “After that, I will hunt you, and when I find you, I will kill you.”
Lennox had stood quietly by, but he could stand it no longer. “What are you doing? Kill her now.”
Soren turned to him and said quietly, “I don’t have to kill her to destroy her,” then turned back to Kala. “Go. You have until sundown.” He waved, and his men cleared a path all the way to the southern edge of the woods.
Skye collected Kala. “This battle is lost,” he told her, “but not the war. Let’s go.” She hesitated, but he guided her through the corridor of soldiers and off the field of battle.
Kala hazarded a final look over her shoulder to catch a glimpse of Soren, smug on his horse, and Cera standing stoically at his side.
Her soul shriveled.
23
Kala
Kala and her party filed silently toward the woods through the corridor created for them by Soren’s soldiers. They limped along like a funeral procession, each of them consumed with their individual grief. The soldiers watched wordlessly as they passed, then closed ranks behind them. As they approached the trees, Soren’s forces turned their attention back to the sack of the city.
Kala was bone-weary. It was all she could do to put one foot in front of the other. Skye kept up a steady stream of reassurances, but Kala didn’t hear any of it. All she could think about was the waste of life and the futility of fighting so large an army. Kala spiraled downward into a dark and familiar place. Skye had to guide her as her feet trod a different world from the one she now inhabited deep within herself.
Lily followed in a daze, led by Forest, who had to keep pulling her forward when she would stop and try to return to Cera. Lily kept up an anguished mantra of, “No, no, no.”
Hawke and Jarom followed, carrying Calix between them. They were so exhausted that it was only through sheer willpower that they found the strength to transport his limp body. Calix drifted in and out of consciousness as they shifted their holds. His shirt was soaked with his blood, and his skin had a ghostly grey pallor. It was a mercy that he passed out so frequently.
Dhara and Kaia came next, Dhara in a foul mood. “Zara was inadequately avenged,” she complained.
Jarom shook his head. “You sent tens of men to their grave, girl.”
“My sister is worth hundreds,” she countered.
“Then content yourself that you live to fight another day. Few enough can say that.”
“Now I’ve got this mess to deal with,” she complained, gesturing at Calix.
Kaia shushed her, given that Calix looked like he’d probably not survive the day. It was bad manners to speak ill of the dead or dying.
Nara followed next, guiding Thorvyn, who was having trouble seeing through swollen eyes, the result of a mace blow to the head. He staggered, and one of her cousins took hold of his other side and helped prop him up. Nara looked through the small number of surviving relatives for her brother. “Ravi?” she asked her father, who shook his head sadly. Nara burst into tears.
The sad procession continued until they arrived at the first clearing that had space for them all and stopped to rest. Skye sat Kala down, and Hawke and Jarom propped Calix up against a tree. Dhara moved to examine his shoulder wound.
“It’s stopped bleeding,” she observed, but likely only because he had so little blood left in him. “Prepare a poultice, Kaia,” she instructed her sister, who got up and started examining the bases of nearby trees for mosses.
“We don’t have time for that,” one of Jarom’s cousins objected. “Soren said he’d start hunting us at sundown.”
Dhara reached for a dagger, but Jarom stepped in to pacify the man. “Soren has more pressing matters to attend to with the sack of the city, and I hardly think he’ll start to chase us at sundown, just as night descends. If he pursues us at all, he’ll do it at his leisure, more likely tomorrow. Besides, if we move Calix in the state he’s in, he’ll die for sure.”
The man looked at Jarom as if to say, “He’s dead anyway – surely we should accept that and press on.”
Jarom sighed wearily. “There’s been too much death alrea
dy. Let’s try to prevent any more if we can.” His word was final, and the man dropped his objection and began preparing a fire.
These men are unfailingly loyal, Hawke marveled, never having seen such bonds. He got up to help the man collect firewood.
Nara did her best to clean Thorvyn’s wounds, but could only do so much before the fire would allow her to boil water. Thorvyn reached out and took her free hand while she dabbed his face. “I’m sorry about your brother,” he said, and she leaned into him.
Lily stayed standing, staring back toward the city. Forest had to turn her around and guide her to where the fire was being prepared. “There’s nothing we can do for her now,” Forest told her, “but we will do something… we just need time to figure out what and when.” Lily was inconsolable, so Forest continued. “She’s safe. We’re safe. And we’re only safe because of the bargain she made.”
“I don’t accept it,” Lily objected, knowing full-well that what she did or did not accept was irrelevant, only that she was unable to carry on without Cera.
Forest sat beside her. “I know,” she said and held her older sister while she cried.
Skye hated feeling so powerless. He guided Kala to her feet and led her outside the clearing. He held her in a tight hug while she stared over his shoulder into the woods. He waited until he could feel their hearts beating in sync. “We need you,” he whispered in her ear. “We need you here. Wherever you’ve gone, come back to us.” She stirred slightly, so he continued. “I know it’s unfair to lay this on you, but these people look to you for guidance. You don’t have to have a plan. You don’t need to believe that any plan will work, but they need you to act as if you do.”
She slowly returned to herself and looked into his eyes. “It was awful,” she said, tearing up.
“I know,” he replied and squeezed her tighter.
“So much death, and for what?”
Skye had no answer and simply stroked her back.
Kala slowly collected her wits.
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