by T. A. White
They nodded—the difference in experience obvious. The Trateri’s nod was sharp, professional while the pathfinder’s was a little frantic, his eyes wide as they turned back to the scene as if it was a magnet that he couldn’t resist.
Fallon saw that and gave a few words of encouragement. “Remember your training. Take it one thing at a time. Every moment you’re alive is a victory. Make it count.”
Fallon didn’t wait to see if his words resonated, jerking his chin at Shea and Reece, telling them to follow him. They backtracked down the steps.
“We’re under attack,” Fallon said, not pausing. “Report to your stations and prepare for battle.”
Those assembled obeyed without question as Shea nearly ran to keep up with Fallon.
“Do your people have any other weapons in the Keep that might help us?” he asked.
Shea and Reece glanced at each other. Shea didn’t know of anything else, but Reece might. He’d had more recent access.
He tilted his head. “Nothing that would be of immediate help. Everything would take time to bring up and set up.”
“How long?” Fallon asked.
Reece shrugged helplessly. “I have no idea. It’s been centuries since anything was used. I’m not even sure if it would still work.”
“Do what you can,” Fallon said. “I’ll buy you the time I can.”
Reece nodded and jogged off.
Fallon turned to Shea. “Stay by me.”
She gave him a jerk of her chin in agreement. She didn’t plan on going anywhere.
He turned and raced away, Shea dogging his footsteps. He was heading to the battlements. It would be a good place to observe and see the minute changes of the situation. With the help of the Koa, they wouldn’t have to worry as much about an aerial assault at least.
Braden was already there when they arrived, shouting orders. Relief crossed his face at the sight of Fallon.
“I was afraid you got caught in that mess,” Braden yelled as Fallon approached.
“Don’t worry, old friend. I wouldn’t miss this battle,” Fallon said, giving the other man a feral grin, one that was answered with an equally fierce smile.
Shea realized with a start that the two men were enjoying this. For Fallon, battle was a necessary ingredient for life. There was something about it that made him seem more vibrant, more alive. She didn’t know if it was a good thing or not. A problem for another day.
Perhaps enjoy was the wrong word, but the two never seemed more at home in their own skins than when they were preparing for a fight, be it with beast or man.
She saw why the two men got along so well.
“What’s our status?” Fallon asked, joining Braden at the edge of the battlements.
“They’re holding on the other side of the bridge,” Braden told him.
Shea looked out over the Keep and onto the plateau that the bridge led to. It would limit the number of beasts that could attack at once. Not for the first time, she admired her ancestors’ foresight in picking this place as their home.
Its defensive capabilities were probably unmatched anywhere in the Broken Lands. Though, it would probably help if they had a full army waiting inside its walls instead of a few hundred pathfinders, some of whom were children, and a handful of Trateri.
“Here,” a pathfinder told her, handing her an eyeglass.
Shea took it with a murmured thanks and put it up to her eye. The view was suddenly magnified. She ran the eyeglass over the army assembled, noting the various types of beasts out there.
Red backs, revenants, sixers, grindles, and numerous other beasts milled about—many of which didn’t get along. She was surprised they could stand side by side for any length of time. In the wild, the red backs and sixers were sworn enemies and attempted to eliminate the other whenever their paths crossed.
As she watched, a revenant ventured too close to a large red back that easily dwarfed anything near it. The red back rose to its back legs and roared, swiping at the revenant. This action seemed to incite a brief spat as other creatures near it set about attacking anything in reach.
“They might be here together, but it looks like our enemy doesn’t get along,” Shea said, lifting the glass from her face.
Fallon had appropriated one of his own use. “I see it.”
Shea looked back through and frowned as she noticed a creature, its skin blue with a tail nearly as long as its body. It waded into the fight and ripped creature after creature apart. The others cringed away from it, as if afraid.
“Isn’t that interesting,” Shea murmured. A mythological was keeping the peace. It made sense in an odd sort of way. She doubted Griffin could control this many, even with a beast call. Overwhelming a beast’s instincts would be amazingly difficult. But, if you had someone there, someone crazier and scarier than anything else on the field, you might be able to establish order for a short amount of time.
She just didn’t know the best way to take advantage of that observation.
“Can we take out the bridge?” her mother asked when Shea tuned back into the conversation.
“That would leave us cut off,” Braden explained. “Without the bridge, you have no way to cross the chasm short of going into the lower parts of the Keep.”
Which no one wanted to do because of the ballyhoo.
“It would be a short-term solution and would do little to solve the problem,” Fallon said, his voice thoughtful. “They could just sit out there with us stuck in here. Eventually, we’ll run out of food and water.”
“Not for a long while,” her mother said. “An underground river keeps us supplied with water.”
“But not food,” Braden said.
“We have enough stores to survive a protracted siege,” her mother said. “It’s part of the tithe the Highlands pay us for services rendered.”
“How long?” Fallon asked.
Lainey’s gaze turned inward as she ran calculations. “Eight months, maybe a year.”
They turned to stare at the beasts outside. Each thinking similar thoughts. How easy was it for whoever was holding their strings to maintain this level of cooperation? Was it something that could be used for an extended period of time?
“Destroying the bridge means we give up all hope of retrieving the Lux from Griffin,” Shea said into the quiet.
“We may not have a choice if we want to survive,” her mother argued.
“We can live today or die tomorrow,” Braden said, his face reflecting the disgust at the decisions in front of them. “Some choice.”
They all looked at Fallon. Ultimately, the decision rested with him. As warlord, it was his leadership they followed. Shea didn’t envy him the responsibility, knowing just how heavy a weight it was.
“Griffin was always the sort who liked to gloat over his victories,” her father drawled. “There’s a good chance he’s still out there, which gives us options. We could catch him if the opportunity presents.”
Fallon studied the scene below them.
“We leave the bridge intact for now,” Fallon said, his words slow as if he was still sifting through his thoughts. “We can destroy it later. For now, we do what we can with the assumption that we’ll win this battle.”
“Is that wise?” her mother asked. It was a sentiment Shea knew would be echoed by the rest of the pathfinder’s counsel. “If we’re overwhelmed, we might not get another chance.”
“Maybe not, but I didn’t become warlord by always taking the safest option.” Fallon turned and speared those behind him with a look. “We leave it be for now.”
Shea looked back at the horde threatening to swallow them whole. She saw her mother’s point, but she also saw Fallon’s. Braden was right. Destroying the bridge was a short-term solution that limited their options in the future. With the bridge still in place, they could draw their enemy in, slowly pick them off in the limited quarters.
Destroy it, and this turned into a war o
f attrition. Who could last the longest—those in the Keep or those outside? If Griffin was so inclined, he could leave small pockets of beasts in the area to alert him when the pathfinders stirred from their self-imposed exile. To say nothing of what would happen to the rest of the Highlands while they were cowering behind these stone walls.
“They’ve started to move,” Braden said in a terse voice.
Together, they watched as the beasts advanced, a stream pouring onto the bridge. Trateri and pathfinder alike worked together to stem the tide.
Pitch and tar were poured over the side of the walls onto the bridge. An arrow was lit and shot into it to set it on fire. There were high screeches and ear-splitting sounds of pain that reached even their heights.
Behind the Keep’s gate waited several phalanxes of armed Trateri, shields held on one arm as they packed in, shoulder to shoulder in the small space. They were a precaution in case the door broke or beasts spilled over the top of the walls as they had the previous night.
Pathfinders lined the walls in addition to the Trateri archers. As the beasts fought onwards after the boiling pitch had been poured onto them, the archers sent arrow after arrow into their hides with little effect.
These weren’t humans. These were beasts, creatures of myth and legend, the reason humans feared the dark, wild places outside their walls. They weren’t easy foes even at the best of times. Massed together like this they were nearly impossible to repel. They fed on each other’s pain and death, using it as fuel as they bunched at the Keep’s gates.
It was only a matter of time before they broke through.
From above, the distinctive sound of the Koa came, roaring to life as bright blue and green lights flew over their heads to crash into the waiting ranks of beasts. It punched through, killing many instantly.
But not enough. The way things stood now, it would take more shots than the Koa were capable of before they needed to be recharged.
The beasts seemed to know that as they surged forward, their lust for human flesh such that several were pushed over the edge of the gorge as those behind them were sent into a frothing fury.
Fallon shouted below. “Hold that line. Gawain, your left flank is about to collapse.”
Gawain turned and barked several orders, taking up a bow and sending several arrows flying, one right after the other, each one perfectly placed. The whole time he advanced on the beast who’d managed to make the top of the wall.
Gawain’s arrow took out the beast’s eye as he closed the distance. He used the bow to repel one attack while drawing his sword with the other hand. It came down in a clean arc, sinking deep in the beast’s neck.
“Woah,” Shea said, impressed in spite of herself. If Gawain wasn’t such a pain in the ass at times, she might find it in herself to like him.
“There’s a reason he’s the leader of his clan,” Fallon said next to her. “He’s a fierce warrior. If not for his issues with his father, he would be even better.”
Shea looked up. Henri, the leader of the horse clan, was his father, if she remembered correctly.
“Is that why he sometimes seems to hate you?” she asked. Gawain seemed to respect Fallon and dislike him by equal measure. There was a relationship she didn’t really understand.
He nodded. “I was very young when we went to Henri, but Gawain was younger. Henri devoted much of his time and attention to preparing me to take control of the clans. Some part of Gawain feels that I stole his father’s love, even as the rest of him knows that’s not quite true.”
The battle drew Shea’s attention back down. Something was happening at the gate.
A pathfinder above it was wrenching the gate up, inch by inch as the people around him were consumed with protecting the walls from encroaching beasts.
“Fallon,” Shea warned.
He looked where she pointed. Unexpectedly, a grin crossed his face.
“Good, they’re doing as instructed,” he said.
She gaped at him. “You told them to let beasts into the Keep.”
His face was amused at her disbelief. “It’s a common tactic. This’ll allow us to thin the herd with the least amount of risks to ourselves.”
Shea’s mouth clicked shut and she turned her attention to those below. The Trateri had locked shields and were now baiting the beasts, forcing them to concentrate on the ones with long spears poking at them, while other Trateri shot from above or took them from the side.
True to Fallon’s word, the gate began descending shortly after the courtyard filled up with beasts.
Before long, every beast who’d made it past the gate was dead. There were a few Trateri who didn’t survive, but the overwhelming loss was on the beast’s side.
“Tell Ember to switch out with Lion,” Fallon told a Trateri waiting behind him. “I don’t want them to tire out this soon in the battle.”
The Trateri left to do Fallon’s bidding.
The afternoon wore on, the men doing their best to hold the line. For the most part they stood fast. Sometimes a beast got through, but the pathfinders and Trateri worked together to bring it down before it could do too much damage.
“I’m going below,” Fallon said after a while. To Braden, he ordered, “Alert me if there are any problems.”
Shea’s head spun toward him, but she kept her mouth shut against any protest. She didn’t like him down there in danger, but how could she argue given the very real threat of annihilation? They all had to do their part to protect the Keep, even if she’d prefer those she love stay safe and far from the beasts currently trying to knock down their gates.
He gave her one last lingering look before disappearing into the Keep.
“Don’t even think about following him,” Braden said without looking away from the battle taking place beneath them.
“I wasn’t,” Shea denied. Though she had been thinking of ways she could contribute to their defenses in her own small way.
The problem was she wasn’t part of any of the teams. While she was decent with a sword now—courtesy of Braden and Trenton—she hadn’t taken the time to integrate with any of the units. Cohesion and teamwork were skills built up slowly. It took trust and time. Fallon had both. There was rarely a day that went by when he wasn’t training with some of his warriors. By now he would know every position and fit seamlessly into their fighting force.
For Shea, she’d just be one more body. More likely to hinder than help.
It left her with the unenviable task of observation. She disliked being on the sidelines, even when she knew in her head it was for the best.
She sighed and leaned over the edge, trying to spot Fallon’s distinctive figure.
There he was. He’d joined one of the ground crews, helping to demolish the beasts as they were let into the courtyard.
For hours they fought, until they were weary and their orderly lines were fragmented and barely recognizable. Still, they kept at it, knowing the only other option was death. Any rancor or enmity for others was forgotten in the very real challenge of surviving the day.
Braden continued to pass messages, shoring up their defenses where he spotted cracks.
“Shit, we need to get someone on that wall or we’ll lose it,” Braden ground out, looking down on the west wall as if it personally offended him.
Shea saw the problem as well. Until now, the west wall hadn’t seen a lot of action. It was far from the bridge and the gorge meant it was mostly protected. It had led to some of the warriors migrating to the areas with heavier action.
The beasts had taken advantage of this momentary weakness and scaled the walls. Now, the west wall was in very real danger of being overrun. Worse, all the messengers had already been tasked out and none had returned so far.
“I’ve got it,” Shea said, already turning to the stairs.
“Shea,” Braden shouted, his voice aggravated.
She turned and gave him an expectant look.
He sigh
ed, knowing he didn’t really have a choice. Not if they wanted to keep the wall. He rubbed his head and then held out a small token. “You’ll need this to get them to listen. Get a small group from Lion or Ember to help you. Don’t try to do it alone.”
“Got it,” she said, grabbing the token and jogging away.
For once she wished Trenton was here to help, but she’d sent him to assist with the fighting, knowing that they needed him more than her. Now, she kind of regretted it.
Her stomach was tight as she sprinted through the corridors. There wasn’t much time to get reinforcements for the wall. Every second counted.
She burst into the courtyard and looked around. It had turned into a melee since she’d left the battlements, and Shea doubted she’d be able to get anyone’s attention long enough to state what she needed.
The beasts had timed their twin assaults well, waiting until those in the Keep were occupied with the threat in the courtyard to stage their attempt on the wall.
Shea glanced around frantically, urgency beating away at her. She didn’t see any of the clan leaders. Everyone was occupied. They were locked in a fight for their lives—a single distraction could cost them everything.
A pathfinder sailed off the wall near her, landing on the ground with a thump. She rushed over to the woman, already knowing there was nothing to do to help. The woman was dead—the boomer she’d fought with clasped in her hands in a death grip.
Shea crouched next to her, turning her so she was face up. It was Lilah, the pathfinder who had led Fallon and her through the mist. Regret and sorrow pushed through Shea. The woman had been young, too young to die. She wasn’t a warrior and probably hadn’t received any but the most cursory of training with the boomer.
Everyone who could hold a weapon had been tapped for this fight. There had been no other option. Still, Shea couldn’t help the pull of regret at a life cut way too short.
She reached up and closed the woman’s open, staring eyes, “I hope the next world brings you more peace than this one did.”
She let the woman slip from her arms, grabbing the boomer as she did so. It was clear she wasn’t going to get the help she needed. The people here couldn’t spare it. That left things in her hands.