by R. M Garino
“So be it,” Cormac said. “This is who we are. Elc’atar are sent in when no one else can accomplish the task.”
“We’re not Elc’atar yet,” Senet said.
“We became part of the Guard the moment we stepped across the threshold of the Sur,” McAlister said.
A barking call drifted through the crumbled buildings as if to challenge his statement. Every set of eyes left the display and searched the ruined city. A trio of similar barks sounded in response, but from a different direction.
“Shrulks!” McAlister nocked an arrow and stepped away to clear his field of fire.
“To arms.” Vadin unslung his shield and drew his sword.
“Boots in the blood!”
CHAPTER FIVE
Silver Skies
Logan clicked the rings together, shutting off the display. He unsheathed his sword and spun it to reacquaint himself with its familiar weight.
“Bryan and Cormac,” Logan ordered, “you have the rear guard. We’re moving out.”
“You don’t run from shrulks,” Vadin said. A hint of derision coated his words. “They’re too fast. They’re bred to chase us down. Our only hope is to stand our ground and fight them.”
“Correct assessment,” Logan said, “but I for one would prefer to choose the ground we face them on. We’re too exposed here.”
Vadin looked about him, examining their surroundings anew.
“Fair point,” he conceded. “We can’t control any of the approaches here. What do you have in mind?”
“The structures at the edge of the grasslands form a natural funnel.” Logan pointed to the east with his sword. “We can hold them there.”
“Lead on, Fel’Mekrin,” Vadin said, waving him on. “Might I suggest Senet and McAlister take the center to guard our flanks with their bows?”
“Make it so.” Logan loped off, setting a double time pace. “Sionid and Alis take point.”
The Blades fell into formation and charged down the overgrown streets. The barking calls came again, closer now, joined by numerous others. Logan chanced a glance over his shoulder. Several shrulks ran in the road behind them, their forms tight and close to the ground. They ate up the distance between them and their prey. The din rose about them, growing into a cacophony of howls. Shrulks leapt over the low walls in an attempt to bite at their flanks. Bows snapped on either side and yelps followed close behind indicating solid strikes. The struck beasts tumbled to the ground and did not rise again.
The street bent in a meandering curve heading north. Taller, more complete structures closed the cohort in. A trio of creatures came around a building and cut off their approach.
“Keep going,” Logan called. “We cut our way through!”
Sionid and Alis raised their shields before them and charged on. The shrulks slammed into them and were batted aside. Logan swung his sword with an easy backhand sweep and cleaved the head off one before it rose again. Vadin impaled another on his side. The third lay broken from the impact with the shields. The cohort moved onward and did not pause in their race.
The snap of bows came more frequently and the two archers fell into a steady rhythm. They’ll run out of ammunition before too long, Logan thought. He counted over a dozen flights so far. A shrulk burst out of an alleyway, and Logan chopped it in two without missing a step. Even with the additional quivers they all carried, there were only so many arrows at their disposal.
“There’s an arch ahead,” Alis called. “With a courtyard just beyond.”
“That’s our target,” Logan called back. “We hold them at the threshold.”
Sionid and Alis arrived first and took defensive positions beside the opening. Logan and Vadin slid to a stop and took positions beside them, while McAlister and Senet raced past into the courtyard. Bryan and Cormac were further down the road, having hung back to guard the rear. Arrows flew out from the gateway and dropped the shrulks in pursuit. The road behind them was full of beasts that barreled headlong toward them. Logan stepped forward, willing his companions to run faster.
“Form a phalanx across the opening,” Logan commanded those behind him. He carried no shield, so his presence created an unprotected cavity.
He worked better in the open anyway.
“There’s too many,” Cormac yelled. He waved Logan back. An arrow dropped one that pressed too close to the pair. The rest of the murder was closing fast.
Logan watched them come and continued to walk forward. He stopped a full twenty feet from the archway and settled into the waiting stance. He held the record in the Menace, holding against twelve waves on his own. His record for kills during the Yearling hunt in Golan’s pass was unsurpassed. He proved time and again that shrulks were no match for his sword, for his skill.
He intended to prove it yet again.
Bryan and Cormac raced passed him, and he did not move. Several steps behind them came the vanguard.
“Welcome, Death,” Logan said. “Walk with me awhile.”
His blade lashed out, took the first beast in the chin and cleaved its head. Logan spun, bashed his elbow into the next target and felt its skull fracture. His foot caught the next in the throat and snapped its neck. His sword came down again and eviscerated another. He moved from target to target and slipped just beyond the reach of their talons and fangs. He struck with the pommel, the edge, his hands and feet. Beasts fell dead and broken. Arrows filled the air around him, a few at first, and then others joined them. The cohort abandoned their shields and worked their bows while the shrulks focused on Logan.
The world fell away. Every concern, every care, every poignant ache and wound to his soul disappeared. He was affixed to the ground beneath him. He was connected to his sword. It moved as an extension of his being. His every movement was precise and efficient. He was one with the massing horde that crashed about him.
Broken bodies littered the ground before the archway and blood coated the ancient stones. Logan danced through it, slashing and hacking into his foe. The muscles in his arms burned with the effort, his joints protested the repeated impacts, and his legs quivered from the exertion. But still, he pressed on. The enemy was relentless, and he was implacable.
A talon ripped across his back, and sudden blast of pain sent the world crashing back around him. He stumbled and fought to regain his footing. He lashed out with his elbow to strike his attacker, but a set of teeth bit into his flesh. He spun, plunged his sword deep into the beasts belly and ripped it upward. The jaws opened, but the damage was done and his blood soaked his sleeve.
He was grabbed by the shoulder and tossed backward.
“Bathe the Blades!” McAlister cried and rushed passed, followed by Vadin and Alis. Sionid and Bryan dragged Logan beneath the arch, while Senet and Cormac continued to work their bows.
“Hold still,” Sionid said. She forced him down with her forearm while attempting to grab ahold of his damaged arm. Bryan focused his weight against Logan’s chest, pinning him down.
Sionid’s sin’del swelled, and her energies interacted with Logan’s. He felt the magic tingle across his sin'del moments before it touched him. His ears twitched in response. The punctured tissue pull together, and although the pain was terrific, he ground his teeth and accepted it. Bryan helped him to his feet once the worst of the wound was sealed.
“That will hold,” Sionid said, “for now.”
“Glad it wasn’t your sword arm,” Bryan said. He hefted his shield and drew his sword. “Shall we lend our aid?”
Bryan ran off toward the melee. Sionid pressed Logan’s sword into his hand, and he muttered his thanks to her.
“We need to get out of here,” she said. “Can we lose them in the grasses?”
Logan looked behind him. In any other city, he would say they stood in a shipyard, as the buildings terminated with stone slipways jutting out into the plains. But there was no sea here, only grasses stretching to the horizon. The open fields offered no cover, and unless they found a way to barricade the arch
way, their current position was indefensible against the horde.
They had no choice.
He took a step forward, noting that the fighting was closer to the threshold than it was before. His former course of action was folly. He saw that now. They needed to get back to the path. “Call the retreat,” Logan said. “We will head back east through the plains.”
“I’ll take the rear guard,” Sionid said. “You lead the others through the grasses.”
He opened his mouth to disregard her offer when a flash of silver light streaked across the sky, brighter even than the stationary sun. Logan was struck by the intensity of it and paused to gaze upon the heavens.
The shrulks took note of the event as well, and ceased their mindless charge. They raised their snouts to the sky, sending up a great chorus of sniffing.
One by one, they broke away, racing away to the south.
After a moment, the entire horde turned and ran off, leaving the cohort alone and bloody in the courtyard.
“Now!” Logan shouted. “Into the grasses! Yearlings move it! Double time!”
The cohort did not hesitate. They broke from the line they held, each of them bloodied and torn, and fled down the slope into the unknown.
CHAPTER SIX
The Greensward
Logan held the rearguard while the cohort raced past him. They disappeared one by one into the tall grasses and maintained formation in their retreat. Logan counted to thirty to preserve the perimeter security, before he followed them.
Even before he entered the greensward, he lost visual contact with his cohort.
He rushed through the stalks, his body bending them out of his way. They stood taller than he did, and together with his own breath, made a dry crinkling sound that filled his ears.
“Sound off,” he called out, eager to keep his team together.
“Sionid,” she called off in the distance, just to his right.
“McAlister.” His voice was even further aside.
“Vadin,” Sounded to the left, a faint call. Others yelled further still afield, but it was too distant to make out the names.
“Seven Hells,” Logan muttered. With no way to orient themselves, even moving in what they perceived to be a straight line led them astray. Every person had a dominant side, and over distance tended to veer in the direction of the stronger limb. Vadin was left handed, so his progress took him more along a leftward route.
This was a bad idea, he thought, but he did not stop. He heard their shouts, and their calls, but was unable to find them in the grass. His only choice was to keep moving forward.
Just a little further, he thought. We’ll stop and regroup.
Not for the first time, he cursed his inability to share his thoughts telepathically. He ran for another dozen yards and stopped.
“Sound off!” he called.
There was no response.
He strained to hear them above his own panting.
A rustle of the grasses off to his left caught his attention, and he bent his senses toward the noise. It was rhythmic, steady, moving through the stalks.
“The damned fool,” Logan said. He marched toward the sound. The sound ahead of him stopped.
“Vadin,” Logan said. “Call out so I know where you are.”
No response, but the grasses rustled with movement again, this time coming toward him.
“Answer me, Le’Manon, or so help me I’ll beat you until you know how to follow a command.”
The stalks fell away before him, and a tremendous creature reared ahead of him. It resembled a centipede, with hundreds of claw tipped feet protruding from beneath it. The head was held underneath what appeared to be an armored shell, and vicious pincers clicked open and shut before its mouth.
Logan did not hesitate longer than it took for him to register the threat. He swung his sword, severing several legs and opening its soft underbelly. The monster screamed a hideous high pitched squeal that made him recoil in pain. Its blood spurted out, a viscous jelly that clung to the vegetation and turned it black.
Logan swung again, severing the pincers and smashing into its head. His blade was lodged in the armored exoskeleton above its head. The beast tumbled to the side, and took his weapon with it. Logan yanked it free, and stepped back to study the creature. Two horns adorned its brow, and its segmented back still twitched with the last vestiges of life.
Rustling drew his attention from the horror. He raised himself up on the tips of his toes to get a view above the grasses. Turning, he took in the full panorama. Several shapes bent the stalks in the various directions and each of them headed for him. To the south, he saw a humped, armored back crest above the vegetation.
Without another thought, he took off running again.
****
Logan crouched on an outcropping of rock amid an undulating sea of grain. His gaze roamed over the landscape, mindful of the slightest ripple, the smallest movement. He held himself ready, even while giving his body the moment of rest it needed.
He resisted the urge to check the display again. Instead, he kept still and watched, lest his movement betray him.
There.
To his right.
A sign of passage in the greensward. The movement of the grasses was contrary to the wind. A heartbeat later, a segmented hump crested against the horizon.
They hunted him.
There was no place to hide, save these small hills. For some reason, the beasts did not leave the safety of the grasses.
He held no illusions on this account. He was a stranger here, while these… things were familiar with the lay of the land. That granted them the advantage. That, and their numbers. It was only a matter of time until they were upon him.
Time he did not possess.
When last he checked, the display showed a day and a half remaining before apogee. That meant he spent the better part of a full day separated from his companions. A day spent alone, wading through nightmares the enemy threw at him. He would have to consult the display again to be more precise. The sun did not move, so he was unable to be more exact.
So far, he prevailed against them all.
His self-image was fixed with a stubborn firmness in his mind, bolstered by the reflections of himself he received from his sister and from Arielle. He held their truth tight to his heart and ignored his own.
The emergency rations stored in his pack were all he had to eat. Although he was parsimonious, almost a quarter of his stores were depleted, and his stomach protested the privation. He had not slept. Being alone meant he was unable to post a guard, and he was not about to trust his fate to luck. He was to be the architect of his own death.
Sleep was a crutch, he told himself, a necessity for the weak.
Water was the real concern. He did not have enough to last. He pushed away the thought of searching for a water source. There was no telling what consuming anything of this place would do to him.
That he had not found his companions yet bothered him. With half the allotted time to reach the exit gone, surely he should have encountered some trace of them. Unless, of course, none of the others made it this far. They were a well-trained group. He himself set the bar for them to meet. But then again, even he was hard pressed to survive here.
Logan tapped the rings on his thumb and index finger together, and activated the tactical display. The creatures already knew where he was, so there was no point in remaining blind to his position. It blossomed in the space between his digits with a wash of color and light. The multi-faceted, interactive map of the Sur appeared, showing a cluttered overlay of shapes and terrain features. He manipulated the image to narrow its scope, showing his location and immediate environs. There was not much to help him find his way, but he referenced it often regardless, hoping to notice a pattern.
In his previous location, overlays of more recent expeditions showed where fallen buildings choked broad avenues, or collapsed into the subterranean depths. A red line twisted through the warrens of stone, le
ading the way to the extraction point. Here were the outlines of an ancient city, the streets laid out in a bizarre, haphazard pattern that he was unable to make sense of.
His eyes, however, told of yet another world.
There were no buildings here, and the landscape was not dead. It was alive and vibrant, reminding him of the great plains that bordered the city of Reven Marthal back home. Tall grasses rippled far into the distance, with islands of jutting vegetation and stone breaching their mass. He was unable to see any structures. If the map was correct, that meant the city was buried far beneath his feet. He turned his attention to the outcropping upon which he rested. Grabbing a handful of dirt, he dug at the thick loam. Inches below the surface he struck stone. Following the shape, he cleared away more debris until he found an edge. Another few minutes of work revealed a square stone block three spans across.
He hoisted himself up and reexamined his surroundings, looking at them with fresh eyes. The mounds pierced the plains at regular intervals. He held up the display as a reference. The outcroppings aligned with the structures on the map. He stood atop an ancient building.
"Seven hells," he muttered. He cupped his hands over his eyes for some shade.
The sun shone bright and true, almost painful to his eyes. It had not set since his arrival, nor moved from its current angle across the sky.
The Sur was not what he expected. He heard the stories, the half whispered tales told by Elc’atar so deep into their cups that they dredged up the horrors from this place.
The lighting, the sense of daylight must be perceived in different ways by different individuals, he reasoned. Most of his cohort saw a dark and ominous landscape like what the Elc'atar described. He did not. For that matter, neither did Alis. He considered what he knew of her. Early on, just after the selection process, Logan argued against her acceptance. She was fearless, but to a fault. If anything, the girl carried a desire to disperse her si'ru and join her family.