She knelt to reload one of the magazines, slipping in the cartridges as fast as her fingers could move, shoved the loaded magazine into her pistol and sighted in on the last standing legionary in range of her weapon, her finger quivering on the trigger. But the legionary had paused in her retreat to reach down and help up a wounded comrade. The frenzy of battle subsiding inside her, Kira held her fire as the legionary half-carried her wounded friend to safety.
She slumped down, breathing heavily, her whole body shaking in reaction to the physical exertion and stress. After a moment, she quelled the shaking and took advantage of the pause to reload her second magazine, counting the remaining cartridges and feeling despair.
Some of the retreating legionaries had made it past where the major's body lay and were turning to fire their rifles. Kira had to keep her head down except for quick looks to see if another attack was forming.
In the quiet between Imperial gunshots, Kira heard the sounds of the wounded legionaries. Someone was crying in quick, gasping breaths. Someone else was moaning, low and continuous. Another was wheezing with wordless pain just on the other side of the rocks shielding her and Jason.
Kira waited for a gap in Imperial rifle fire, then raised herself up enough to be sure her voice would carry as she shouted, hoarse with weariness and strain. “Legionaries! Come get your wounded! I won’t shoot anyone without a weapon!”
After a long pause, a reply came. “Swear it!”
“I swear on the honor of the Queen’s Own Lancers of Tiae that I will not shoot anyone without a weapon who comes to retrieve your wounded!”
She used the back of one hand to wipe sweat from her brow as she waited, the perspiration mingling with the drying blood on her hand and face. “How are you doing, Jason?”
“Okay,” Jason said, his own breathing once again fast and shallow. Blood was running down his chin, and also seeping from a slash in one arm of his coat where an Imperial short sword had cut through.
Kira realized he had bitten his lip from pain while fighting off the legionaries on his side of the rocks protecting them. “How bad is the cut on your arm?”
“Just a scratch,” Jason said. “The coat took most of the damage. I'm okay,” he repeated.
“You’re amazing, my hero.”
The rifle fire had stopped. Kira took a cautious look and saw legionaries approaching at a walk, their arms spread wide, their hands empty. Not trusting the Imperials to honor the truce, Kira moved herself about so that each time she looked again her head rose from another spot, keeping an eye on the legionaries as they collected the wounded. A few of the Imperials wore the ancient sign of the snake coiled around a staff that indicated they were healers, but most were soldiers pressed into saving their comrades.
Kira watched as most of the Imperials retreated with their wounded. Two were still coming, open hands clearly displayed, to recover the wounded legionary just beyond the rocks protecting Kira. She watched them, her weapon at the ready, battling an urge to rise up enough to keep them in view as the two legionaries reached the wounded one and crouched down out of her line of sight.
Kira heard the crash of at least two rifle shots, followed almost immediately by the snap of some bullets passing close above her and the sounds of bullets impacting the cliff face. If she had stood up, those shots would have caught her. Fragments of rock sprayed near her, causing Kira to duck lower.
On her back, she had her pistol pointed upward when the two legionaries came over the rock, both holding short swords they must have had concealed at their backs.
She fired, hitting one squarely, then rolling to target the other. But Jason was there first, his knife swinging forward. The legionary twisted back, off-balance, having barely an instant to realize that Kira was sighting in. She fired again, knocking the legionary off the rock. In the momentary silence that followed, Kira heard the legionary just beyond her rocks whimper once more, the sound falling off into the final quiet that brought an end to all pain.
She closed her eyes briefly, wracked by regret that it had come to this. Jason had been right. All she was doing was trying to protect herself. They left her no choice. But she still didn't want to think about those who had died because they were following the orders of Prince Maxim.
If she miraculously survived this, she knew there were going to be nightmares.
When she opened her eyes she saw that Jason was laboriously checking over two dead legionaries inside the rocks. “They don’t have food or water on them,” he told Kira. “No pistols, but I got one rifle,” Jason said, patting the weapon beside him.
“Good work. The legionaries must have really strong orders to ensure that no rifles were left with us.” Kira checked the rifle quickly, scowling as she saw the magazine held only four cartridges. “Those two don't have any extra ammo on them?”
“No. Besides the rifle, all we have are their knives.”
“All right,” she muttered, looking away from the dead legionaries.
“Kira—”
“I'm fine. Let’s not talk about it,” she said, grasping her pistol tightly with both hands.
“Okay. What can I do?” Jason asked.
“Stay alive,” Kira said, hearing the steel coming into her voice. “And keep taking care of any who get past me. Keep the rifle. You've got four shots. Don't waste any of them.”
If she failed, Jason would die. She would not feel. She would not waver. Her mother had held the last wall and she would fight this fight to the death. “How’s the bleeding?”
Jason looked. “Okay. I guess.”
She tore her gaze from the outside long enough to kneel down and check. “You’ve been moving too much. Lie back.” Loosening his belt, she repositioned the soaking bandage and tightened the belt over it again.
Jason let out a gasp. “Do you have any suggestions on how to not move very much while fighting hand to hand?”
“Sorry, no.” She looked into his eyes, blinking back tears. “Bev would be really proud of you. You’re doing great.”
“Are you proud of me?” Jason asked, anxiousness as well as pain in his gaze.
“How can you wonder what the answer is?” she asked. “I'm so proud of you I can’t find the words. The entire world is going to know how proud I am of you when I announce our engagement. And even Urth will know. I’ll make the librarians tell Urth what an amazing man I have. Every world that Urth has colonized will know how proud Kira of Dematr is to be matched with Jason of Urth.”
“And you call me delusional!” Jason said, smiling through the pain.
She eased back against the tall rock securing the right side of their position. Gazing carefully outside their sheltering rocks, she saw the ground was now littered with fallen legionaries. Kira squinted, seeing a couple of more rifles left lying. She didn't remember seeing them before and wondered how she could have missed the rifles.
Rifles lying a good three lances from the rocks where she and Jason hid.
“They left bait,” she told Jason. “Rifles out there on the ground. What do you bet if I ran out to get them I’d find out they were empty of ammunition, and that every legionary left is aiming to nail me when I made the run?”
“How many legionaries are we still facing?” Jason asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Kira said. “More will be coming in, drawn by the sound of battle. What matters is I nailed the leaders here. If the officers and the centurion are dead, the legionaries out there won’t have much in the way of leadership until someone else arrives.” She looked up at the sky, knowing that more officers could show up at any time. “If we can hold out until dark, maybe we can figure out a way to sneak through their lines, get past them and keep going west.”
“Sure. We can do that.” Jason sounded confident even though his voice was weak.
Kira looked back at him, seeing the blood soaking his trousers and the way he breathed. Jason wouldn’t get a hundred lances on his own, and she was so exhausted that she wasn’t sure how far she cou
ld help him. Nor could they sneak very well while hobbling together. “All right. I know that’s a fantasy. Thanks for playing along.”
She heard the faint scrape of a boot on rock behind her and gestured to Jason to say something.
“Um, maybe we can do it,” Jason said.
Kira had positioned her pistol. When a legionary swung around the edge of the right-hand boulder ready to fire on her, Kira shot him before he could aim. Another legionary came right behind and also caught a bullet in the chest.
A flurry of rifle shots from the legionaries farther off drove Kira to crouch down for safety again. She faced forward, feeling rock fragments hit her back and head as bullets tore into the cliff face. “They snuck up along the cliff face to the right,” Kira called to Jason. “But they have to swing out in front of us to target us.”
“Can we get their rifles?” Jason asked, flinching against the hail of rock chips and dust.
“Not without rising up into that,” Kira said, gesturing to the storm of bullets flying overhead. The barrage faltered, so she stole a quick glance outward before crouching behind cover again. “I saw another bunch farther off headed this way.”
Jason closed his eyes, then opened them again to look at her. “Kira, I don’t know how long I have left. I’ve lost a lot of blood. I love you.”
“I love you,” Kira replied, trying to keep her voice steady.
“What I mean is, I might pass out, and I don’t want that to happen without being sure you know…how very happy I’ve been here. And with you.”
“Jason, hold on. It’s not over yet.”
“We’re trapped here, aren’t we? It’s just a matter of time.”
Kira tried to fight back tears. “Yeah.”
“How many shots do you have left?”
“Around fifty.”
“Listen, Kira, when it gets dark, if I’m still…awake…I can make noise here, make them think we’re both still here. And you can sneak out. Lie down out there with the dead legionaries,” Jason explained, speaking quickly. “And when they swarm in here, you can run, and you can get away, and—”
“No.”
“Kira, even if the Imperials leave us here and do nothing, I’m going to die before dawn, aren’t I?”
She stared at him. “We don’t know that.”
“Don’t lie to me, Kira,” Jason pleaded.
“I don’t know! I’m not a healer!”
“I can tell—”
Kira crouched near him and grasped Jason’s shoulder, glaring at him, anger suddenly filling her as she thought about how little time was left to them. “You’re not allowed to give up!” she told him, her voice as fierce as her expression. “I won't allow you to give up! Do you hear me? You promised me that you would live!”
“Kira—”
“Are you going to break your promise to me, Jason? Are you?”
“Not if I can help it! But if I die, there’s no reason for you to die here! If that happens, go!”
Kira sat back on her heels, shaking her head, her anger dwindling into a tight, hard core of resolve. “I won’t agree to that. Because if I do, it will be a reason for you to let go. To stop fighting. Thinking that once you’re gone I can maybe escape. I won’t give you that, Jason. I'm not leaving you, whether you're alive or dead. Hang on, as long as you can.”
He glared at her from where he once again lay propped against the cliff face. “So it’ll be my fault if you die.”
“As you keep reminding me, it’ll be their fault if that happens, Jason, but I won’t give up until the end, and neither will you if I can help it!”
She noticed the barrage of rifle fire letting up and got into position again, peering over the top of the flat rock. “Here they come. Just like last time. Thirty or forty of them. Some new leaders showed up. One officer, looks like a lieutenant, and a centurion.”
“World War One,” Jason muttered. “Keep charging the enemy. Over and over, the same way.”
“You know how to use the rifle. Have you got two daggers handy? Good. Get ready,” Kira told him. She made sure her remaining loose ammunition was close at hand, another Imperial dagger and her sailor knife also within reach, and rested her pistol on the rock, steadying it as she aimed, going for the centurion first this time. A bullet struck the rock close enough to her to spray more rock fragments against her neck and ear, but Kira ignored the stings. She had pushed her anger away, keeping only the strength it gave her. Worn out, very thirsty, her stomach empty, knowing that Jason was badly injured, she had entered a Magelike state where no emotions existed, where there was only the task, and that task was to stop the Imperial soldiers no matter what it required of her.
Her first shot took out the centurion.
Her second dropped the lieutenant.
The line of legionaries paused, giving Kira time to shoot the one in the middle.
Lesser troops would have halted the attack, perhaps, but these were legionaries. They broke into a run toward the rocks protecting Kira and Jason, firing as they ran. This time some paused to aim and fire, their shots coming dangerously close to her despite her protected position behind the rock.
Kira fired methodically, without feeling, targeting the leaders, targeting those who paused to aim, ignoring the bullets snapping past her and slamming into the rock, legionaries falling silently or with cries of pain as Kira loaded a new magazine in a flash, standing up to aim with both hands on the weapon in perfect stance and firing rapidly now with the legionaries so close that she couldn’t miss, the charging Imperials close enough that their frantic, barely aimed rifle shots were plucking at her jacket, the charge slowing as the bodies of the falling tripped and hindered those behind, her last shot from the second magazine knocking back a legionary trying to leap over the rock, hearing Jason's rifle fire once and then again and then rapidly two more times, hearing herself screaming again as she grabbed her dagger, feinted a stab, then slammed her empty pistol against the helmet of the next legionary.
Kira stumbled forward and fell to her knees behind the rock, breathing heavily, watching the survivors of the assault running away, once again pausing only to grab any dropped rifle.
She looked at Jason, seeing a dead legionary lying over his legs, and a second in the act of dying as Jason plunged his dagger into the legionary’s neck over and over. Another legionary, shot by Jason, had fallen tangled into the rocks to the left.
Kira reloaded her magazines, using up all of her remaining loose ammunition, which was only enough to half-fill the second magazine. She felt something wet trickling down the side of her neck, touching it to feel blood welling from a shallow gouge torn by a bullet just below her jaw. Her left shoulder stung. Looking, she saw a hole sliced in her coat by an Imperial blade. It didn't hurt too badly and she couldn't see blood, so Kira decided to ignore it. Once the pistol was loaded, she crouched near Jason and helped pull the dead legionaries off of him, piling them on the left-hand rocks to further hinder anyone coming from that side. “You’ve got more legionary blood on your clothing than your own blood,” Kira told Jason.
She stopped speaking as she saw blood from a long cut on the upper part of his lower arm running down Jason's hand, the arm of the coat split by the cut. Wordlessly, Kira yanked their other tourniquet out and using it like a length of line wrapped it around the arm of Jason's coat to close it and hold it tightly against the injury. “That's the best I can do for that,” she said when done. “I'm sorry.”
He stared at her, plainly near the end of his endurance. “My rifle is empty. They didn't leave any this time. I can’t keep going much longer, Kira.”
“It’s starting to get dark,” she told him. “Hang on.”
“Why?”
Jason’s simple question filled her and threatened to destroy the numbness that was keeping her going. “So I won’t be alone here,” Kira finally said.
He looked at her with eyes full of helpless regret before finally nodding slightly. “Okay.”
She settled i
nto position to watch the area outside their rocks, wondering how long it would be before the growing darkness turned to night.
What would she do if Jason died?
“Kira?”
“Do you need something, love?”
“I just wanted to say, your mom and dad would be so proud of you. They are proud of you. You know that, right?”
Kira’s smile held more sorrow than happiness. “I know that. Your mother and father will hear about this from the librarians, and they’ll realize how wrong they were about you. They’ll finally see what a brave, strong man you are.”
Jason’s short laugh was barely audible over the renewed sound of Imperial rifle fire and the impacts of bullets hitting the rocks and cliff. “No, they won’t. If they hear, they’ll think I was stupid. Throwing my life away instead of making a deal to save myself. I don’t care what they think. All I want is for your mom and dad to know I stood by you to the end and did my best.”
“Once we get married they’ll be your parents, too,” Kira said, pretending that there remained a chance they would survive long enough for that to happen.
“Good,” Jason said. “But I don’t deserve them. I don’t deserve you.”
“Yes, you do,” Kira said, stealing a glance at him and managing a brief smile. “And we’re the ones lucky to have you.”
Her eyes went back to the field beyond the rocks, where stealthy figures wriggled forward in the growing darkness. “It looks like they’re going to sneak close this time before rushing us,” Kira said, surprised that her voice could sound so steady. “I love you, Jason.”
She held her pistol, made sure she knew exactly where her knives and the spare magazine rested, and waited as the legionaries drew closer and the light faded.
Chapter Fifteen
Mari sat in the largest room in the big house in the great city of Dorcastle as the sun set outside. She stared at the map on one wall, where markers showed the march of armies and the movement of fleets. The one thing she most wanted to know—where her daughter was—remained unknown and unseen.
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