by T. C. Edge
“I do believe that Director Cromwell is correct,” he says, semi-reluctantly. “It was a brief glimpse only, but the intent was very clear. They are coming to destroy the city entirely. I can’t really imagine what speaking to them will achieve. I’m…sorry Lady Orlando.”
She’s already shaking her head.
“No, child, no apologies. Your opinion matters to me above all. I trust you completely. If that’s truly what you saw, then I will concede. Yet it does pain me not to at least try.”
A few long seconds of silence fall, an opportunity for Zander to retreat a little and agree that attempting to negotiate is still possible. He doesn’t. He sticks to his convictions and beliefs, as he always seems to, even if it means siding with Cromwell ahead of her.
Eventually, the silence ends with Cromwell’s crackling old voice.
“There you have it, Cornelia. The boy speaks a great deal of sense. Now let us forget this negotiation nonsense and set our minds to one end alone – eradicating these invaders.”
He smiles, and this time, for the first time, has the last word, marching straight for the door with his sycophants by his side.
15
I spend that evening with those I care about, hidden behind the walls of Inner Haven and right at the heart of the city. It is the safest place to be, far from the outer walls and incoming fight. Tess, Brenda, Abby, and even Adryan, stationed in the City Guard HQ, should be perfectly safe here.
Right now, we have entered a period that could rightly be called the calm before the storm. It is a storm we know is coming, and though the city is quiet, inside the hearts and minds of all those within it, the storm has already arrived.
I can see that from the looks in their eyes and on their faces. While the likes of Brenda and Tess have grown skilled in hiding their fears for the sake of the kids, I can see through the lies their expressions tell, and know full well that they’re worried by what we face.
Sitting in the dim quiet of Compton’s Hall that night, I hear about the rumours that have continued to circulate. They know, of course, that the army is coming. And they know that the woods are burning. They know, too, that we’re facing a horde of ten thousand, the potency of their soldiers and warriors still unconfirmed and yet likely, by what we’ve seen, to present us with a major challenge.
I still hold personal faith in our defence, given what I’ve seen around the perimeter of Outer Haven, and the collaboration and teamwork shown by the various military strands operating in the city. But, regardless, here at the core it’s almost worse. They merely sit here, day by day, and wait, with no chance to influence events as I can, in small part at least.
And those rumours, the worst ones, tell of foes that few people have ever faced. They speak of these Elementals with the power to summon the wind or spread fire through the streets. They tell of great and terrible warriors, marching through distant lands, destroying everything they see, their eyes now set on us and us alone.
The rumours are mostly embellished, typical of such things. And with fear now spreading like wildfire, creeping through quiet conversations and internal thoughts, they’re only set to grow more ambitious and inaccurate.
“I heard the woods were burned down by a fire-manipulator,” asks Tess, eyes carved in worry now that the kids are sleeping. “That everyone had to flee, even the Stalkers. Can a man really do that? Can he burn down an entire forest on his own?”
“He had help, Tess. There was a wind-manipulator there too, fanning the flames…”
“That’s even worse!” she says. “How many of these people do you think they have?”
“Um…we have no idea I’m afraid.”
“It can’t be many,” asserts Mrs Carmichael with the sort of confidence that suggests she’s an expert on such matters. “We don’t have any people like that around here. They must be very rare.”
“Well, how many do you need,” says Tess. “If it only takes one to burn down a forest, it only takes one to burn down a city…”
“Stone and metal doesn’t burn like wood, Tess,” says my guardian shaking her head. “Anyway, I’m sure Brie and her friends have plans to take down any such people before they do any real damage?”
They both look to me expectantly. I nod and smile. We have certainly assigned such people as priority targets if and when we see them. The problem is, you’d never know who they were until they set loose their powers. Our plans for them are, therefore, somewhat basic.
I also fail to mention that the woods didn’t just burn, they melted. The fire wasn’t ordinary fire, but an inferno hot enough to wrap up the ruins of that old town and any poor soul caught within it, quickly melting both stone, metal, and flesh alike.
That detail, I keep to myself.
During our whispered conversation, Adryan appears from the main doorway. He comes here if he gets a chance, often when I’m not even around, just to check up on my friends for me. Tonight, though, he’s clearly been looking for me – usually, I’d be back in my room by now. Though, it’s become our room recently.
“Hi everyone,” he says softly, his voice carrying over to us in that vast hall. “You’re up late tonight.”
He takes a seat within our little circle, right up close to me. I find myself immediately shuffling a little sideways towards him and resting my head on his shoulder. His arm wraps. I could sleep right here.
“Hard to sleep now,” says Tess. “You never know how many hours you’ve got left. Don’t want to waste them.”
“We’ll be fine here,” says Adryan. “We’re perfectly safe.”
He always gives the party line. I imagine that, working alongside my grandmother, he’s learned that it’s best to stay as upbeat as possible about our chances when speaking to civilians. He is an optimist too, I guess. So he probably does believe it.
We speak for a little while, Adryan changing the atmosphere just a little. I see Brenda looking at us sitting together with a smile, Tess taking charge of the conversation as she rattles off a bevvy of other rumours about what we’re facing and the feats of those coming to kill us. Adryan fends them off skilfully, while I just stay quiet, my eyes starting to droop as my mind wanders off.
This, right here, is what I want. My guardian who raised me. My best friend. My…husband. All it would take is to add a few others – Zander, my grandmother, Drum, and my little gang would be complete. A troop of close friends and family whom I love and would do anything for. I imagine us all having dinner together, eating and laughing, a joyous affair away from war and death.
One day, maybe it will happen. But right now my imagination will have to do. Others could be invited. Rhoth and West, Sophie and Rycard, Commander Burns, Freya, Walter, Magnus and Titus. So many people from so many backgrounds have touched my life, touched this war in one way or another.
Now all wait in this city, their lives under threat. And hour by hour that threat grows near, marching across the once lush woodland turned barren and scorched, now dead and lifeless. They have killed it as they have so many other tribes and peoples across the distant lands, blackening the road ahead and coming here to do the same.
I wonder just how much of the world to the west has been similarly branded. How many people, like West’s family and village, have found themselves murdered and wiped out, or assimilated into their cause. Many will no doubt fight for them against their wishes. Many of their warriors and soldiers will no doubt have been innocent people once before, living their lives, living in peace.
But, just as in this city, out there are those who can manipulate minds and turn people against their own will. People who can actively recondition others, just like my grandfather does, force people into slavery, make them do their bidding.
This army of the Cure, I’m sure, will be filled to the brim with people forced to march so far from home. People who may have seen their friends and families die, their homes burnt to the ground. People who now live their lives in this storm of destruction, unable to break free of the constrain
ts within their minds, forcing them to murder and kill.
I do wonder, sometimes, how many people are really evil out there. Even my grandfather, with all he’s done, isn’t evil for the sake of it. Adryan once said that he and the Consortium weren’t evil, but were merely products of their biology and upbringing, products of the world they come from.
I wonder, then, what truly drives those who come to kill us? How many of this force of ten thousand are evil men and women? Are they merely products of a different world, forced to act by the doctrines of their own dictator? Is there a leader out there, or a group of them, who truly see Haven as a blight on this world that needs to be destroyed?
Out there, some warlords are hunting us down. And here in this city we’re giving refuge to another. And should you be so inclined, you could even look at my grandmother as the same, ordering for the High Tower to be destroyed, for thousands of innocent people within it to be killed.
I have learned over these weeks and months that there is so little black and white out there. That the shades of grey dominate. In the end, all we have are our motivations, the things that drive us individually and as a collective. Right now, for the entire city, that is survival. And for me personally, it’s seeing those I care about get out of this whole mess as unscathed as possible.
Some I fear for more than others, and certainly far more than I do myself. My own life and mortality has taken a back seat. I will happily use it to defend those I love, even sacrifice it if I have to.
Drum is high on that list. I have barely seen him since he returned from the mines, now assigned to some unit off in the southern quarter. I’m happy at least that he’s not in the west, considered to be the most likely point of major conflict, and hope that he’ll be able to watch this war pass by without being required to fight.
I’ve seen him once or twice on my rounds with Zander, our travels across the city bringing us into brief contact on occasion. Our greetings aren’t as they used to be, though – no affection beyond stolen smiles. Within his troop he can’t show weakness. We don’t hug or take time alone to speak.
I have seen Rhoth and West, and the rest of the Fangs several times as well. And with them, Sophie, doing a fine job in managing such a disorderly rabble, so out of their comfort zone here in the ‘big city with all the lights’, a place that has held merely fear and awe for them for so many years.
Rhoth and his hunters, however, will never shy from a fight. Even after their losses against the Bear-Skins, and the ten or so men they lost in the battle at the edge of the wood, they will brush themselves off and go again. They will defend this city as if it was their own, because with their families within its walls, and their village now burned to a cinder, it’s as close to a home as they’ll find.
They have not been spread among the other units and troops that patrol and defend the walls, however. Rhoth’s remit has been to stay within the inner districts of the southern quarter and offer protection to his people.
“If the fighting comes to you, so be it,” Zander told him only yesterday. “You’ll want to be here to defend your people if that happens.”
“We can help defend the front,” Rhoth asserted.
Zander’s growing authority denied him.
“No, Rhoth. You have done more than enough already. Defend your people. We will defend the walls.”
Rhoth didn’t argue much more after that. And he didn’t call my brother ‘boy’ either. The mutual respect between the two has now cast such things aside. For now, at least.
And so the land lies, all of us dispersed among the city at different points and with different orders to see through. I will follow my brother anywhere, and will no doubt see some action myself. We will fight together, hybrid twins, grandchildren of the leaders of both the Consortium and the Nameless.
And maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day, the fighting will begin.
But these stolen moments of calm are what fuel me. With the storm brewing in the west, I sit up late that night with Brenda, Tess, and Adryan, sometimes engaging in the conversation, sometimes merely dozing on Adryan’s shoulder and letting my mind wander as it’s prone to do.
In the dim light of the hall, with the ambient sounds of several hundred people sleeping, or whispering in groups just like ours, I let the minutes turn to hours and the hours fade away. I hold onto those moments as the clock ticks on, each second bringing the winds of war closer.
And when the morning comes, the flames that engulf the forest to the west begin to die away. They have eaten their fill, leaving behind the black earth that is nothing but a road for the incoming horde.
And those dying flames, and the black fumes that fill the sky, are a signal to anyone who can see them, from the far reaches of all corners of Outer Haven, to all those cowering at the core where the High Tower once stood.
It’s a signal that the enemy have come.
It’s a signal that the siege is set to begin.
16
The morning is late and the afternoon approaching when I stand at the edge of Outer Haven, on top of the wall, looking out through the battlements at the blackened shape of the earth.
What was once an endless wood, stretching for many miles to the west, south and north, is now a charred forest of burnt stumps and ash, peppered with points where the flames continue to flicker in the breeze and the embers glow red and wild.
The cloud of smoke that reaches to the air is all consuming and vast. It has now spread not only across the lands outside of the city, but to much of the city itself. The western quarter of Outer Haven, in particular, is doused in black and grey smog, the smoke only likely to drift further east as the winds distribute it far and wide.
Yet to the west it’s much darker, hard for our eyes to penetrate. It is a cloak, purposely designed to help hide the force that comes our way. Even our scouts, so skilful at remaining hidden and watching from afar, have been neutered by this clear device of war. And our drones too, hovering in the sky, their cameras blinded by the smog as they watch over the city.
Here, we have no one capable of shaping the winds to blow the smoke away. And even if we did, it would take a force of them to clear out the entire city and the lands beyond. Yet through the haze, as the natural winds sweep across and help to create gaps in the shroud, the framing of bodies becomes clear to my Hawk eyes.
Searching forward, I think I see them, still some distance away. A mass of shapes, of men and women, rippling like waves of heat on a sweltering day as they press forward. But the glimpses are rare, images quickly snatched away as more black smoke blows in and hides them once more.
Down beyond the wall at the gate, the cloud is being discussed. I quickly move from the top of the battlements and join the commanders. Zander turns to me.
“What did you see?” he asks.
“They’re coming,” I tell him, confirming what we already know and what other Hawks have said. “Miles out still, but I saw them.”
“The whole army?” asks Colonel Hatcher.
“Just a sea of bodies and shapes,” I say, shaking my head. “It’s impossible to tell.”
“This cloud,” says Ryard, right there along with us and setting his one good eye to the black sky. “It needs to go.”
“And what can we do?” questions Hatcher. “There’s nothing to be done about it but let it clear of its own accord.”
Unfortunately, that might not be so easy. The fumes remain thick enough to last for some time yet unless a ferocious set of strong winds should come and dismiss it. And even then, the wind-manipulators among the enemy horde might just seek to hold the cloud where it is, keep the city locked in perpetual darkness to hide their movements.
We’re all quite aware that that’s just what they’re doing. Burning the woods seemed to always be the plan, serving the two-fold purpose of clearing their path and hiding their step. Now, our defences are somewhat muted. If we can’t see them, how exactly can we fight them?
“How about your scouts to the sout
h and north?” asks Commander Burns, looking at Colonel Hatcher. “Have they spotted further enemy movements in the regions?”
Hatcher shakes his head.
“Nothing new to report, but we’ve been forced to withdraw some of them due to poor visibility. They can’t operate at their optimum levels in this smog, Commander.”
“And our drones?”
“The same. Any of them we send out get shot straight down. The smoke is too thick for them to operate in effectively now.”
“Then they have us sitting here blind,” says Burns. “We need to know where they’ll strike. Set further watches to the battlements in the north and south. We need as many eyes up high as we can get…”
“Sir, there are no more eyes to give,” says Zander. “All Hawks are set in position and watching the lands outside the walls. All avenues are covered. But this smoke makes anything else impossible. We can’t do much more.”
“All we can do is wait,” says Hatcher. “And pray for a storm.”
The anxiety among the commanders is obvious. Even those so calm and cool in all scenarios are now growing strained by this new development. And even as we speak, more fumes seem to pour in, and the visibility within the city seems to grow worse. In a few hours time, all of Haven might be buried by it, the flames now working their way towards the northern woods at the base of the mountains where the Bear-Skins dwell.
“OK, I’ll report to Lady Orlando,” says Burns. “Do the same with Director Cromwell.”
Colonel Hatcher nods and marches off to the control room outside the western gate. Commander Burns heads straight for his vehicle, to be quickly chauffeured through the empty streets towards Inner Haven. Only Rycard, Zander, Freya and me are left, the half-Hawk and half-Brute quick to set about relaying orders to their troops.
I feel somewhat impotent at times like this. I have no unit to command, and am little more than a sidekick to my brother, keeping to his flank as we sweep around, maintaining morale and informing the various commanders of the latest developments. Zander’s role seems to be as liaison and motivator-in-chief, working just beneath Commander Burns and Colonel Hatcher, and without a unit of his own to command. His role is more free-roaming, set to go where the action is thickest. And I’ll be right there beside him at all times.