by Ben Peek
As the moon entered the final quarter of the night, at times hidden by smoke, Ayae began to think that she herself would soon join those who had died. Her control was slipping, and when she closed her eyes she could imagine Bael’s large hand around her mouth. When she touched her face she rubbed at the invisible impression his fingers would never make, and could feel the warmth of his impressions on her skin. She had become so consumed by her own fear that, as the large mercenary began to explain to those around him what was required of them, she missed what he said. It was only when he began to pass out the long stemmed torches that she realized that they were to begin their attack.
Yet, when it came time to cross the road, to follow the others and light her torch from the dying flames of a building she had tensely passed through, Ayae did not hesitate.
When they began to climb the wall that surrounded the mill, her panic flared again. Yet, for the first time she was able to take it and place it apart from her. She was not in Sooia. The memories, the emotions she felt, were part of a different time, a time of terror, in part because of her own lack of authority over the situation. She had been a child. Her parents had been lost. She had been at the mercy of the goodwill of others in the camp, and that was not always forthcoming. Against the Innocent, they too were without authority. But the soldiers before her were not the unseen, almost mythical troops of a merciless man who had spent centuries destroying all life in the country of her birth.
They were just men and women.
And when the raiders emerged she was able to run through the smoldering buildings, charred wood crunching beneath her feet, without hesitation.
8.
Soon, she was separated from the others.
It had always been the plan. “After you’ve drawn them out of the mill yard, you will split up,” Queila Meina had instructed them earlier. “Don’t go alone: break into pairs, three at the most. Give the raiders a lot of targets to follow, enough that they will need to send two to three for every one of you that they see. This is a big area—an industrial area. The streets are wide, the buildings are big and empty, so run them around as much as you can as you make your way back to the gate. The rest of us will be there as quickly as we can, but you are responsible for yourself. Do not—I repeat, do not—hole up for the night. By the time the morning’s sun has begun to rise, we need to be out of this area.”
Ayae ran through the remains of two buildings, following the young man who had spoken earlier. She did not know his name, couldn’t remember it being spoken. He had joined when Bael found him in the second story of an empty house, holed up and waiting for other members of Steel to find him. He had elected to stay with them, to help them draw out those inside. “The easier of the two suicide options,” he had said, getting a laugh from those around him. He ran quickly now, skidding around a blackened wall, one of the few still standing, glancing behind him as he did. He grinned at her and made his way through another building—this one with flames licking at its frame.
Ayae did not hesitate. She moved quickly, clearing the gutter after the smoldering building, never pausing as he led her down to the lanes where the warehouses burned most strongly.
She heard hooves crunch through cinders behind her, a look behind confirming that there were two riders: but the second horse had shied and refused to run through the low flames. The first showed no such caution, and its rider rose in his saddle as he closed in on her. His short-bladed sword slid out, but he missed her as the stride of the horse took both beast and rider too far over the gutter, landing closer to the young man. He was barely able to spin out of the reach of the length of the blade.
Turning his horse, the raider began to move on Ayae and she drew her sword, stepping into the gutter; but he had moved only a handful of steps before a scream erupted from behind, stopping them both. The second horse had thrown its rider and reared on its hind legs, its front hooves crashing down with a sickening crunch. There was a curse from the living rider as his horse began to buck and rear, seemingly determined to throw him off and deal with him as its companion had its own rider.
A pair of claws settled on Ayae’s shoulder.
“I fear,” Jae’le said in his inhuman voice, “that you misunderstood my earlier words.”
Now quiet, the horse milled around its rider, directionless. Ayae slid her sword away. “You could have done that during the first attack.”
“No,” he replied. “I am greatly limited here. Most of my concentration is spent on keeping control of this bird. One horse is fatiguing enough—I had only the smallest influence over the jump that one made while I controlled the other. Also, I would not attempt to approach either: both are loyal to their riders and will not willingly leave their bodies. I would recommend you do, though.”
Slowly, she began to jog down the road, using the line of burning warehouses as her guide to the gate. “You wanted me to leave.”
“Yes, but you misunderstand: I want you to leave with Zaifyr.”
“He can take care of himself.”
“He cannot.” The raven’s claws were not as strong on her shoulder as before, the only sign of Jae’le’s weariness. “You do not understand what is going to happen. Soon, people will die. Many people. You will see their corpses and you will weep over those you know. But for you, just as for me, there will be nothing else. Not so my brother. Soon, the dead will begin to form a ring at his side, will seek him out, as they seek no one else, searching for answers. It does not matter what side of this conflict they were on, they will seek him and demand answers from him, and he will be unable to provide them.”
She heard a beam snap and fall, the start of a roof collapsing. “What will happen then?”
The raven let out a squawk, not in response to her question, but rather to the sudden appearance before her of three raiders on foot. For a moment, all three were as surprised to see her as she was them. Only Jae’le reacted: he leaped off her shoulder, flinging his black form at the face of the first man, beak and claws striking the tall man’s eyes; had Ayae followed his attack with one of her own, it would have been swiftly over. But she fumbled, her hands suddenly clumsy on the hilt of her sword, and the tall raider battered the raven aside, kicking it viciously as it hit the ground.
Then Ayae was upon them.
Her sword moved more quickly than she had ever seen it, and she thrust it into the man’s stomach. The momentum of her attack carried her forward and through the defenses of the two raiders—one bald, one not—behind him. Yet, for all her speed—a speed that was unnatural, that was the fire manifested inside her without her consent—one of the blades caught her shoulder and left a long, shallow gash along her back. The pain caused her to lash out with her foot and drive it into the bald man’s knee, to use that leverage to turn and confront the final raider.
He did not hesitate, thrusting and slashing even as she, unarmed, stepped to the left, then the right, then right again and forward, slamming the palm of her hand into his midriff. It did not result in the forceful hurl that had picked Illaan off the ground, but she heard a series of cracks as if the left side of his rib cage had suddenly caved in. As he fell, she grabbed the hilt of her buried sword and, wrenching it from the body of the first raider, brought it around to block the thrust from the bald man. He leaned heavily on his uninjured leg, the knee hurt. She dropped the block suddenly, putting him off balance and quickly battered his blade to the side. With a speed that was growing in her, a speed she felt impossible, she slashed the tip of her sword through the man’s neck.
Turning to the man with the broken ribs, she plunged her blade into his chest.
Catching her breath, Ayae searched for the raven and found it behind the three bodies. It was clear from the angle that it lay, from the outstretched wing across the stones, that it would not rise again.
“But you, Jae’le?” she murmured. “How did you fare?”
9.
Lieutenant Mills, a short, middle-aged woman with close-cropped, graying h
air, reported to Heast after he arrived on the roof of The Pale House: “Steel suffered light losses in the attack on the mill, sir,” she said. “They are now fighting in a retreat up the main street and taking more losses there. They’re not yet within range of our archers, but will be shortly.”
“Tell the Fifth Division to be ready.” He took the eyepiece off her, limped to the edge of the building, and placed it against his eye. “Then send up the first flare.”
10.
She had—thankfully, thankfully—left the street of burning warehouses behind when an orange line of light erupted in the sky.
Ayae picked up her pace. She would have asked Meina or Bael, had they been near her, what the flare was for, but the question would have been rhetorical. She knew. All of Steel knew, but as she made her way through a narrow lane—the main street a silent, broad lane a block away—she saw none of the mercenaries hurrying to the gate as she had expected.
She had not gotten lost. Ahead, she could see the rough wooden beams that for months had held builders and now held archers and torches. But yet, the gate had not risen and there was no sense of movement at it. The only sound she could hear that indicated any action was the clamor of fighting behind her—but she had heard that periodically since she had passed the burning streets, the noise struggling to raise itself over the roar of flames, the crash of roofs collapsing, and her pumping adrenaline.
Yet now she made her way to the main street, despite her better judgment, using the dark buildings to cover her as she edged her way to the corner.
Ahead was an empty road leading to the gate. At a slow jog, it was no more than two minutes away.
Behind her—
Behind her, Steel fought.
The mercenary group had been divided into two groups, each with large, round shields as tall as she was, and each part of a chained defensive position. She could see, even though the lines of fire that they were passing threatened to obscure her vision with smoke, that the free group moved up the road to form a defensive line that curled around the already existing defense when it passed, freeing those mercenaries to move up to a new position.
She tried to imagine what Meina’s attack on the mill yard had been like, to reconcile what she saw now with the mental image of desperation that she had believed the mercenary captain and her fifty mercenaries would have experienced when they first attacked. Lacking the shields they held now, they had been armed only with swords and crossbows, the latter without enough bolts to load all. But she could not match her thoughts with the smoothness of the movements before her, the way in which Steel held the larger force of the raiders in place and those without the shields struck through gaps, reinforced by those who did carry the large pieces of wood and steel and together withstood the men and women and horses that hurled themselves at the wall.
And watching them as they made their way through the final line of burning buildings, Ayae at last glimpsed the other mercenaries.
They left the shadows of the warehouses past the fire, making their way back to it to join the larger force, to take their place among the other members of their unit and lend their sword and axe. She saw Bael slap his equally large brother on the back, the brother who had been caught in the mill during the attack.
Before she could think otherwise, Ayae left the corner of her building and made her way down the street to follow suit. As she drew closer, she heard Meina crying out—“The left! The left!”—and saw three mercenaries, two with shields, one without, rush to the front line in that direction, while a cacophony of sound—swords on shields, horses’ hooves striking the cobbled ground, men and women shouting—enveloped her as she stepped into the back of the retreating mercenary unit.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at the gate?” Meina called to her. “Didn’t I give you all specific orders?”
“I’m almost there,” she replied. “Just look behind you!”
She laughed and, for a moment—despite the situation—Ayae did as well, but then Steel moved backward and she found herself bending down to help another pull a shield with a young woman on it. Then a large hand was on her shoulder, and she found herself pushing forward beside Bael and Maalen, reinforcing the new shield wall that had just erected itself, following their lead as they thrust above the rims of the shields, calling out attacks, doing what she could to help keep the raiders at bay. It was, she realized, much more about delaying by pushing back than stopping those who followed them, and she did not score a particularly well-timed hit at all. But stopping the raiders was going to be the job of the Mireean Guard when Steel brought the force within range of their archers.
A second flare, this one red, burst into the air.
“One line!” Queila Meina’s voice ricocheted among them. “One line and move, now!”
The urgency that consumed Steel was an answer to the question Ayae did not ask. She turned to face the gate that they were approaching, and saw that it had lifted—but only just, the gap being large enough only for the mercenaries to dive and crawl through. Around her, others saw the opening and the Mireean Guard rising around the gate, bows raised and arrows notched, but it was not until Meina’s voice shouted “Break!” that the shield wall that had been holding the raiders broke apart in twos and threes and they began a rapid retreat to the gate, using the fire of the archers as cover.
The raiders pushed their attack regardless.
At the gate, Ayae found herself urging those around her through the gap, standing beside a tall man with a shield. As a raider drew closer, she stepped out, her sword striking quickly, cutting through his face: a stroke that she had, she realized more than ample time to make, as if everything happening around her was suddenly in slow motion. She could see arrows moving through the sky, could see the raiders urging their horses and themselves on, could see mouths open, see them shape individual words—
—and she could see a faint light beneath the cobbled road, as if a lantern had been lit behind a curtain and the silhouette of a person was revealed. She heard a dim roar that grew and grew, as if a giant furnace had erupted and she thought this is how the gods felt before they died. She heard her name shouted, and then strong arms were around her and she was thrown to the ground, dragged through the gate, the last person beneath as it slammed shut and the roar formed an explosion and all of Mireea shook around her.
11.
The dead came to Zaifyr as he walked through the living, searching for her.
They did not come in a rush, for which he was thankful. Once—before Asila, before his home for thousands of years had even begun to take shape in his mind, but shortly after he and Jae’le had begun their wars—he had happened upon the ruins of a coastal village. A tsunami had risen from the ocean a week before. The water still remained, though it was only in the large pools that had formed from the broken clay roads and fallen buildings and trees. Lines of silt and mud marked the height of its passage across the shattered roofs and walls that lay all around him as he slowly negotiated a path through the ruins. He had picked his way through half the village before he came across a stone wall lined with bloated, rotting corpses and with haunts that lingered over their bodies. At the sight of him, the hundreds of dead echoed the wave that had lifted from the ocean and swept upon him.
He had done his best to help, but he had been young, young enough that the name Qian was not yet his, and he had only been able to leave when his brother, two days later, found him.
Older, a different man now to then, he ignored the dead that approached from the ruins of Mireea. He paid no heed to their questions and their confusion, and searched for Ayae in the makeshift hospital that had been erected beside the wooden gate to tend the mercenaries who had escaped.
“He’s gone.”
She sat alone on the edge of a brick wall, her sword beside her, its hilt warped. Her shirt was dirty, stained with ash and grime and blood.
“Your brother, that is,” she continued. “Jae’le. I tried to help, but…”
“How is your shoulder?” he asked.
“I couldn’t save the raven.”
“Jae’le is fine. He has lost his conduits before.” He sat on the wall next to her, the sword between them. “He’ll have a headache, nothing more. Now, your shoulder?”
“It hurts,” she admitted. “It will need stitches, Meina said, but I’m waiting for those. There are people who need attention more than me.”
And there were: across the street, the survivors of Steel—no more than a hundred and fifty, he suspected—were being attended by Reila’s staff. The worst had been taken to the hospital itself, but already haunts lingered in the area, standing over the bodies that had once been their own as their lips moved with questions only he could hear. Questions he ignored.
“It was strange.” Ayae picked up the warped hilt of her sword. “I wasn’t even aware that this had happened, but—but there was so much else I was aware of, right at the end. I could see things as they happened. It was as if everything was moving through a wall, a wall of water, and that the very passage of time was slowed by it. Afterward, though, I was told that the world I was watching had not changed, but rather, I had. Meina told me that I had become so fast that it was hard to see me.”
“Is that when your sword melted?”
She placed it on the ground, placed it clearly between them. “Yes.”
“It was said that Air was fastest of Ger’s wards,” he said. “But, truthfully, all the Elements had speed, one that defied an ordinary understanding of it. Even Earth, said to be the slowest and largest of the four, was swift.”
“Will it hurt me, do you think?”
“It hasn’t so far.”