Wolf's Pawn (Sajani Tails Book 1)

by Chaaya Chandra

  No one came. Chass guessed that they were relying mostly on the behemoths for security. The guards had to be fairly spaced out for no one to have heard the outcry. After a couple of minutes standing completely still, Sajani motioned for them to move forward yet again. She kept her bow out and the rest held their rifles at the ready.

  The five vehicles were placed just like Ginger had said they would be. Chass had seen a behemoth before (much closer than he had wanted to at the time) and the four were positioned so that their cannons faced outwards. At first it took a moment to figure out what the lumps just under the cannon were, but as they got a little closer, he realized that they were actually sleeping soldiers. The night was warm and Chass supposed it had been too much trouble to set up tents. From what he’d seen before, there wasn’t enough room inside to sleep them all. It was just a little too far for him to tell for sure how many were on each vehicle, but the more up there, the fewer there’d be inside. If they were lucky, they’d all be there.

  In the center of the camp was the super transport. It looked like a large brick running on the same type of belts that the behemoths used but larger and with only one on each side. If there were weapons mounted on it, Chass couldn’t see them. His target happened to be the closest. He approached his assigned behemoth carefully, but kept a far enough distance to observe for a while. There was no hurry. If an opportunity presented itself, he was to take it, but it was fine if he had to wait until after the rest of the platoon arrived.

  The rear hatch of his vehicle was open just a crack and light was spilling out from inside, but he could not see beyond it. He made himself comfortable sitting on the ground, which kept his head at the same level as some humans and kept his gaze on that hatch. He also kept listening for any approaching guards. The one they’d seen hadn’t been walking about, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t supposed to or that one might not be moving out on shift.

  It couldn’t have been a very long wait—by Chass’s best guess, it’d been about five minutes. The hatch opened all the way and an elf soldier stepped out, but didn’t completely close the door. He then started walking down the right side of the vehicle, towards the center of the camp where the super transport was sitting.

  The wolf didn’t wait. He jumped up and made his way quickly to the rear hatch and opened it only just enough to get in. It was exactly as Sajani had described. He opened the cannon breech and placed the charge inside of it. It barely fit and he had to push hard to get it in there. Apparently Ginger had misestimated the size. He snapped the breach closed and had just turned to leave when the elf entered.

  He started to let out a war howl, but the bullet slammed into his stomach and took the wind from him. The world went blurry very fast and he had just enough time to think two quick thoughts. He hoped that the others had heard his howl. The door had been open, but the howl had been cut very short. He also wondered if ‘fang would make a good replacement for him. After that, the world went dark.

  Sajani had not heard any howl, but she did hear the shot go off. It was too soon. The rest of the platoon had not arrived yet. She let out a howl anyway that was immediately answered by the three others. She didn’t hear Chass respond at all, but hoped that it meant that he was inside a behemoth. She nocked an arrow and fired at a form that was struggling to waken. She let loose a few more arrows hoping that she could at least add to the confusion and possibly disable or kill some of the enemy. There was no answering small arms fire as of yet, but she supposed that might mean the other three were taking advantage of the distraction.

  Her way somewhat clear to Chass’s behemoth, she cast a quick spell and stepped out of the underbrush. Immediately she was confronted by a soldier. She fired two shots off at him, hitting him in the chest both times before his weapon was able to even be raised to fire. That’s when the sound of a fire fight started up.

  Sajani cast a quick spell that made it possible to get to where Chass had been in only a few steps. There was no way to know if anyone else was in the behemoth, but judging by the strong smell of blood and gunpowder here, she was at the right place. She charged in quickly just as the first large weapon fire from the other behemoths started up. Running past the hatch, she quickly changed from bow to rifle and took in what was inside. Chass lay motionless in a pool of blood on the floor, but his charge was nowhere to be seen.

  “Remisi, please don’t let him be dead,” she prayed. There wasn’t much hope behind her invocation though. Not daring to take the time to cast a spell, she grabbed the still body and with an effort powered more by adrenaline than muscle, hefted the large wolf over her shoulders and made for the rear hatch. Two soldiers were just making their way inside, but they were surprised enough and she was close enough that she got off two shots before they could respond. She pushed out past them, not bothering to see if they were moving out of her way or not. As soon as she was far enough out, she dropped Chass on the ground more unceremoniously than would normally be proper and pulled out the detonation button. She heard the shots of the heavy weapons on her transports start to go off and quickly pressed the button and ducked for cover behind Chass. She didn’t know how or why Tess had arrived so early, but she wasn’t complaining as the sky itself burst into flame over her head and bits of metal and burning material fell like deadly rain from above.

  It was, Tess had to admit, a very non-glamourous job—come in after the party and clean up the mess. Fenther was sitting just a little below her in the transport complaining about it while she kept her head up through one of the two top hatches—the driver’s was the other one. The consolation however, was that Sajani trusted her enough to leave her completely in charge of the rest of the crew. Well, it would have been a compliment, if it wasn’t what happened on about half of the missions they performed.

  They were moving quickly with the transports until they got into position—wherever that happened to be. Ginger was busy watching a screen right across from Fenther and preparing to tell them where it was they needed to stop. Then the transports would follow behind the ground troops until they were just outside the camp.

  The idea—and one that she had opposed, she added mentally to herself—was to allow the forward group to get in position and do their jobs before the heavy equipment and larger numbers arrived to interrupt them. This was crazy.

  “Ok,” Ginger said just loud enough to be heard over the engine and the wind that was blowing through her ears. She’d asked him several times before they left to stow his cat, but he insisted it would be ok.

  The driver began to slow down and she could see the other five transports follow suit.

  “How far are we from them?” she asked.

  “A little less than half a kilometer,” the spark answered.

  “Well, howl upwind to that,” she said with gusto. Then she changed into Sajani’s voice and added. “Pull out the chocks and let loose the dogs of war!” When the driver continued to slow down, she poked her head back inside and shouted in her own voice. “Full steam ahead! I’ve got a party to crash.”

  The driver dutifully obeyed, but Ginger tried to stand up while the vehicle was bouncing along and shouted back at her, “You’ll give them away!”

  “We’ll stop before we get there,” she said calmly as Ginger was lurched onto the lap of a nearby soldier.

  “Are you crazy?” he said. Picking himself back up with a very embarrassed look on his face.

  “No,” she answered. “You’re the spark, not me.” Some of the soldiers there laughed a little at that.

  “Sajani said…” he began.

  “Sajani said to do something that I don’t think is going to work, so I’m going to just go ahead and do it the right way.”

  “They’ll hear us!”

  “Only if you keep shouting like that.”

  The engine picked that particular time to roar more loudly than usual, making a point for the spark. Oh well, Tess thought to herself. We’ll stop soon enough.

  Just as she was about
to have the driver stop, the sound of a single shot could be heard. Tess tensed and noticed that most of the people in the transport did as well. They had to be much closer than she thought. She poked her head back down and shouted at the driver, “Can you go any faster?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said and the vehicle sped up slightly. Tess was still getting used to the change in the way they addressed her, but there wasn’t time to dwell on that.

  A half moment after that more shots rang out. There were a lot of them.

  “Faster!” Tess shouted.

  The driver didn’t bother saying anything and the vehicle stayed the same speed.

  “How far out?” she shouted to Ginger.

  The spark took a moment to measure something on the screen with his finger. “Not far at all. You should see them any moment. How do we know it’s our people?”

  “Because that’s only elf weapons firing. Nothing else.” She pulled the large gun in front of her into position and slapped its ammo into place. She was looking ahead as best she could, but all she could see was more trees. The firing was getting very loud. “Stop!” she shouted as a single behemoth came into view. She assumed the rest were nearby. She didn’t even wait for the transport to stop completely before she shouted “Dismount!” and started firing into the night.

  She could hear the rear hatch clang open followed by the shuffle of feet as the soldiers moved out. They also didn’t wait for the vehicle to stop completely. She opened fire. After only a moment Tess could hear the sound of her soldiers firing their weapons as well. It was right after the point where she had thought she could not experience any more of a battle high, that the sky caught fire and the night burst away like dawn had come in a single blink of the eye. The first mate covered her eyes with her arm for only a moment and then looked back out again. Flaming debris and large pieces of metal were falling from the sky and the night was now illuminated by four huge sets of aqua flame surrounding what she could only assume was the super transport. Shots were still being fired, but somehow, almost miraculously, her ears picked up the sound of Sajani, still a little way away from her.

  “Tess!” the Lady of Rust was shouting. “Get Doc here. It’s Chass.” Doc wasn’t in her vehicle. It was just her, the driver, and Fenther. She didn’t want to leave her weapon, so she shouted down to Fenther. “Go get Doc! Sajani needs him.” She saw the man get up and turn to leave, but didn’t bother watching any further, she turned back to her weapon and scanned around to see if there were any of the enemy nearby. Shots were still ringing out on both sides of her along with an occasional war howl.

  Sajani didn’t hear a response to her cry, so she let out a war howl and cast a quick spell on Chass. She wasn’t sure if he was alive for it to make any difference. In the dark, it didn’t seem to, but she felt like she had to try. It was as she tried to kneel up to cast yet another spell that she noticed that her left leg was badly hurt and, now that she wasn’t running for her life, unable to move. These soldiers didn’t just surrender like the others had. There was still scattered small arms fire with the occasional loud thup, thup, thup, thup, of the large guns on the transports.

  It was when she tried a second time to move that she felt the sharp pain in her right leg. It had taken a hit in her back thigh. Rolling to her right side, she started to try and prop herself up using her right arm. It had apparently been hit as well, but she was able to use it still. It just hurt a lot. Once she was sitting upright, she managed to channel a small amount of healing. It slowed, but didn’t stop her bleeding. She couldn’t see Chass well enough to know what it did for him. Her vision was blurring and she didn’t know if it was from loss of blood or if possibly blood was running into her eyes from a wound somewhere above them. Using her right leg as much as she dared, she managed to inch her way over so that she sat in front of Chass’s shoulders. She laid her hands on them and said a small prayer. Light shone briefly from her, but not enough to draw enemy attention with the flames still rising from the behemoths. Chass turned over onto his side and vomited blood and bile violently.

  Relief washed over her, but at the same time, she felt the world start to spin around her. She battled to stay conscious and tried to cast another healing spell, but couldn’t concentrate on it long enough. She laid back down, hoping that she managed to miss the mess that Chass had just made and that by lowering her head, she’d be able to stay alert for at least a little while longer. She closed her eyes and said another small prayer—not a spell, just a deep hope.

  Fenther’s voice drifted across the air around her. It seemed to be coming from all around her. “She’s here!” She felt him take her hand in his. “Hang on, my beauty,” he said sweetly. “Help is coming.”

  Through the staccato of occasional weapon fire, she could hear Doc saying something, but couldn’t make out the words. For some reason that brought a very old and somewhat juvenile joke to mind, “Maybe if you hum a few bars…” she said faintly, but no one seemed to hear her.

  And then the world seemed to right itself and the pain seemed to lessen. Her mind responded more quickly than her body and she tried to rise to her knees to fight some more, but her wounds, though lessened substantially, were still grave and she instead contented herself with sitting up quickly and looking over at Chass.

  Doc had apparently cast a spell on Chass before he had cast one on her. His breathing had stabilized and he was no longer coughing. Doc was speaking to her, but she was still having some trouble concentrating. She could hear the words, but her mind just couldn’t seem to recognize what they meant.

  “I’ll check back on you in a bit,” he said. “There are others that need me as well.”

  Fenther raised a rifle that he was carrying and turned to leave with Doc. Them leaving brought Sajani a little more back to the moment. “Karnes, Herg, ‘fang…” she started.

  Doc Cutter turned back to face and said plainly. “Rest my lady. Tess will be here shortly with help to get you and Chass back to the transports.”

  “But I detonated the charges. I don’t know…” she began.

  “They’re fine, Sajani. That’s probably what saved them from facing the full wrath of this convoy.”

  She allowed herself to relax a little and the two turned again to leave. She let them this time.

  It didn’t take Tess long to reach them. She had four other soldiers in tow. All of them showed some wounds, but they were still very much mobile. They set a stretcher down next to her and helped her onto it and then tried to do the same with Chass. The large wolf was too heavy for them, so they contented themselves with rolling him onto it. Two tried to lift him, but failed, so Tess joined in. He was still too heavy, so all four of the extra soldiers took off with him, while Tess stayed back.

  The younger wolf was staring into her eyes with a look of sympathy that worried her. Was she in worse shape than she thought? Was she going to die? The shots were dying down now and Sajani was hoping it was because they’d taken out the enemy resistance and not the other way around. It was the single tear in Tess’s eye that made Sajani realize that it wasn’t sympathy in the first mate’s glance—it was fear and regret.

  “I told you not to leave us so far back.” She said in a voice that was near a sob.

  Sajani couldn’t answer. She wanted to, but her voice seemed to have stopped working after she managed to check on the other soldiers. Biting back the pain, she did manage to place her hand on Tess’s arm. That seemed to pacify her and the coconspirator smiled slightly. “My lady, we’ve won.” There was a long pause as she added. “Doc’s managed to keep everyone alive so far although just about everyone has been hurt in some way. I can’t say the same for the enemy.”

  Her voice came back for just a moment and she said, “Good. It worked just the way I said it would.”

  Tess laughed. “Sure it did, lady.” She wiped the errant tear from her cheek just as the four soldiers returned to take her back. “Sure it did.”

  Sajani was walking on crutches (a tempor
ary measure, Doc assured her, until he had enough spells to finish the job he’d started—hers weren’t nearly enough) as they guided her over to the rear door of the super transport. She needed help mounting the stairs and once she got to the top, she nearly fell back down in surprise.

  The interior lights of the large vehicle reflected off walls that appeared to be made of solid gold. Unless the transport had outer armor that was five feet thick, they were stacked very deep on the shelves that held them. Sajani had no idea how the thing had been able to move at all with that much weight on it—or how the shelves supported it. Tess handed her a bar. It was small—only about four centimeters high, five centimeters wide and eight centimeters long. There were symbols stamped across the top of it that she couldn’t read. She ran her finger across them.

  Ginger piped up as she was looking at it. “They’re numbers of some kind, but not all of them are unique. They’re stacked in some kind of order though, I think. My guess is that this is their pay and some get more than others.”

  That made sense. Tenner helped guide her over to where the spark was sitting at the vehicle’s communications console. Ginger got up for her to be able to sit down, which she gratefully did.

  “It’s all ready for you. He should be able to see you and the gold behind you.”

  “Everyone is ready to move out?” she asked.

  Tess nodded.

  “And there’s no units in our immediate vicinity?”

  Ginger nodded once, but added, “There’s a bunch heading this way. I was worried, they’d move their flying machines here, but I haven’t seen them yet. Barring that, we have about two hours before anything else gets here.”

  “Turn it on,” Sajani said.

  The spark dutifully did so.

  “Elf Command, this is the Copper Wolf.” She was a little surprised to see General Sestus already in front of the screen. His eyes narrowed as he looked at her and what was behind her. He said nothing.