The Last Goddess
Page 32
Chapter Thirteen
General Bremen crouched over the scorched scraps of metal and picked up what looked like it had once been a piece of shoulder armor. No normal soldier could bear the weight of such thick plating, and few conventional weapons could reliably pierce it. But the Faceless were not normal soldiers, and the force that had destroyed them was anything but conventional.
“Unfathomable.”
“I don’t understand,” Thorne growled, kicking aside a piece of slag in frustration. “How could smugglers have possibly done this?”
“They didn’t,” he whispered. “She did.”
“But I thought…” Thorne trailed off before sweeping her eyes around the patch of scorched ground encircling them. “I thought she was asleep.”
Bremen tossed the armor plate aside and rubbed a hand across his scalp. “Obviously not anymore.”
“This must be what happened to our men in Haven. But you said her slumber could only be broken by a specific ritual.”
“So it is written,” he said. “Something must be wrong.”
Thorne let out a long sigh. She walked over to the charred corpse of the mage who had been leading the Faceless. “This was no green squad.”
Behind them, the other members of their unit shuffled awkwardly in place. They didn’t speak, but they didn’t have to. Bremen knew exactly what they were thinking: how could they possibly stop someone with this kind of power? It was an excellent question, and the answer was unsettling.
They couldn’t.
“Saddle up,” Bremen ordered. “We’re leaving.”
Thorne frowned. “Sir?”
“We can’t win this battle,” he said bluntly, bringing himself to his feet. “Not without reinforcements.”
She knew better than to question him in front of the others, but her face conveyed the concern her voice did not. Bremen gestured to the troops behind her.
“Head to the edge of the wood. We’ll join you in a few moments.”
“Yes, sir,” they responded simultaneously. Failure typically wounded men’s morale, but in this case they were undoubtedly ecstatic not to be pressing forward.
Thorne waited until they were out of earshot before turning back to him. “We still have them outnumbered, sir. Certainly she can’t stop all of us by herself.”
“We don’t have the resources to waste, and I don’t spend the lives of my soldiers recklessly.”
“I know that better than anyone, but you said yourself she was the key to our victory. Is that not still true?”
For a woman who had spent many hours trying to convince him to give up on this so-called legend, Thorne was quite adamant about finishing the job. But Bremen knew that had more to do with raw tenacity than anything else. Like any good soldier, she didn’t want to leave a job half-finished—or in this case, not finished at all.
“It is as true now as ever,” Bremen said.
She stared at him, the unspoken question burning in her eyes. He nodded and closed his hand as he reached out to touch the Fane. Just as before, the Kirshal was like a beacon shining in the distance. She wasn’t far—a mile, at most—and his own obstinance nearly convinced him to press on despite the risks.
But no, they still had time. No one had expected her to be awake, and he had never been afraid to change tactics in the face of the unexpected. Only fools refused to adapt.
“I can still track her,” he said softly. “Where she goes, we will follow. But right now, we need more soldiers.”
“And where are we going to get them? The prince’s resources are tapped.”
“Veltar has many allies, even in Ebara. We can rendezvous with his people across the border and follow the Kirshal directly to the Kirshane.”
She grimaced. “You know my opinion on working with anyone associated with Veltar.”
“I’m not fond of the prospect either, but his people will at least be loyal to Abalor. As long as they are willing to follow my orders, we can use them to secure the Kirshal and then return to Haven.”
“Hopefully before Unity Day,” she said gravely. “We won’t have much time to spare.”
“No,” he agreed, glancing out to the forest and the prize he knew was hiding within, “but it will be enough.”