by Trish Mercer
Shem glanced behind him, his heart racing faster than his horse.
Just twenty minutes ago he’d run from the forest—doing up his trousers to look as if he’d been detained with some other kind of business—and reached his mount just as Yordin signaled for the collective army to form up behind their assault commanders. Shem had barely scrambled on to his horse as his 150 soldiers positioned themselves behind it, and regarded Shem with not a great deal of confidence seeing as how he joined them at the last minute. Most of them weren’t from Edge, either, and perhaps were a bit put out that they’d be following the horse with the showy purple and yellow banner, hoisted high on a straight stick secured in the saddle pack and flapping in the breeze. Still, he was in place to lead them, and as Yordin waved his torch in the air, Shem kicked his mount and the race was on.
It was to be as silent a race as possible, though. Colonel Shin wanted the residents of Moorland to be surprised, to hear thunder or Deceit rumbling. He didn’t want them to realize the northern Army of Idumea was barreling down on them, swords swinging.
Shem frequently glanced over to Yordin, a man he knew was a natural ‘whooper.’ If the major could keep silent, so too would the rest of the soldiers.
But Yordin was grinning widely, probably catching a few bugs in his teeth in his excitement. The torch he had waved was now in a holder on the back of his saddle. Each of the commanders had a torch, something for his men to follow in the growing darkness, then to throw into the wooden structures to set Moorland on fire.
Shem’s men could also follow the banner that Perrin had shoved into Shem’s saddle pack.
“For me,” he’d said when he lashed it into place. “Since I can’t see the attack, at least the banner will.” Then, before the wretchedness of Perrin’s disappointment in missing it all, and the solemnity of the moment could sink into Shem’s heart, Perrin added, “And make sure that hideous thing doesn’t catch on fire, all right? Hycymum would kill me.”
Behind him the 150 horses and riders maintained a steady gallop, and Shem saw the low hill before Moorland beginning to take shape in the twilight shadows.
Again, conflicting emotions bombarded Shem. Taking lives always shook his resolve. He hoped anyone hiding in the building would escape it before he set it alight. He’d lead the soldiers to the slaughter, but he didn’t want to be the butcher. That wasn’t why he signed up.
The small hill loomed larger, and behind it would be the remains of Moorland sheltered peacefully against the hills nearly surrounding it, and oblivious.
Shem reached behind him, gingerly pulled out his torch to raise as a signal, and made sure it he didn’t hold it too high to catch Hycymum’s banner snapping in the wind. Rigoff and his division would be following Shem’s group going to the right, while Yordin and Thorne and two more divisions took the left. In the mass of darkness moving behind him, Shem made out two torches bringing up the rear: Fadh and his lieutenant, ready to redirect any lost soldiers.
Shem raised his torch and waved it four times to signal his group to follow him around the hill.
Impressively, Yordin held in his whoops as he waved his torch in another pattern and split off from Shem.
Faster than Shem expected, there were the structures—many of them lit by lamplights and with smoke rising from chimneys, indicating that yes, they were indeed inhabited—and immediately Shem spied his target: the only remaining two-story building faintly highlighted by the last of the twilight.
Perrin was an excellent mapmaker and route planner, regrettably.
Shem firmed his grip on the torch and swallowed.
---
The older man bustled about the room, lining up boxes, straightening up supplies, and barking out orders.
“Keep it organized. What did I say about organization?”
The scruffy men standing against the sides of the room looked daringly at each other. Someone had to put an end to his meddling, but no one was about to do it in here with such ingredients surrounding them.
“Precision. Organization. Neatness. Keep clean, keep cautious, or we’ll have a disaster! And while we want a disaster, we don’t want it happening to us. Once we get this to Edge, then—”
A noise outside the windows of the stone and mortared building caused the old man to pause in his efforts to cover a crate. He looked up as the sound increased—like a rumble of thunder—and the men he was lecturing frowned and glanced around.
“Must be a storm coming,” one of them decided.
The older man shook his head. “Clear sky before the sun went down. No wind, no storm. What is that?”
“Maybe Deceit rumbling?” offered another man. “Did that during the land tremor.”
The older man sighed loudly at their inanity. “Do you feel anything shaking?”
“Well I do now,” someone declared.
The older man was about to open his mouth when he realized that the ground was beginning to tremble—
Someone outside shouted, followed by dozens more yelling.
The older man squinted out the window into the vacant lot. Men were streaming toward his two-story structure—toward any structure—in a panicked run.
Irritated at the commotion, the older man made his way to the door and yanked it open. Before he could demand what was going on, he heard a distinct shout.
“Soldiers! Soldiers!”
Around the corner of a still-intact building rushed a swarm that made the old man gasp in dismay. Soldiers, hundreds of them, all on horseback causing the ground to tremble and the air to whoosh. Each soldier had his sword drawn, slicing man after running man, and trampling those who fell.
A horse and rider burst past him, slashing at him but narrowly missing. The old man dropped to the ground in shock, watching as dozens more of his men fled into buildings, only to be chased by streams of soldiers that never ended, and all of them with blades.
It was the flash of purple that caught his eye. A banner of some sort, raised high like a flag on a horse that whipped past him. And stitched on to the purple cloth was a word in bold, sickly yellow—
EDGE.
“SHIN!” the old man cried out. “Slagging son of sow!”
Soldiers and horses poured in from every corner, hitting buildings with shocking precision as if they knew exactly where to go.
The man looked wildly around, trying to discern if any of the soldiers were actually Perrin Shin himself in direct violation of the probation that they set on him—
Uh, that the Administrators had placed on him—
But there was too much chaos. Men screaming, running, torches, horses, blades, bodies falling in front of him with wounds he knew were too accurate to treat.
He scrambled to his feet and raced back into the building, slamming the door behind him.
His workers paced from window to window, staring out at the commotion and bumping into the crates—
“Be careful!” the old man shrieked, shifting a crate so that it wouldn’t bump or worse, crash into another. “The last thing we need right now is—”
“Fire!” cried a man, frantically gesturing to the window.
The old man rushed to it, along with the rest of his workers.
That was the very last thing they needed right now.
Even more soldiers poured into what used to be the small village green, now dead and brown, throwing torches through the windows of the remaining buildings—
“No, no, no, no . . .” the old man murmured frantically, spinning and turning and looking for some kind of solution—
“They’re coming!” someone shouted.
The old man rushed to the window as a soldier on horseback charged toward his building, the hideous purple banner behind him, flapping.
In the torchlight the old man recognized the soldier’s face in the fraction of the second he could focus on him.
“Quiet Man?!” Brisack exclaimed.
Zenos threw the torch.
The window imploded.
D
octor Brisack watched in horror as the black powder on the table next him begin to dance—
Chapter 14 ~ “You’re in a lot of trouble, Colonel Shin.”
Perrin had been pacing impatiently when the messenger finally returned with the news he’d been hoping for.
“Moorland’s infested, sirs! And completely surprised and overrun! We’re encountering no resistance at all.” The private slid off his horse to take the fresh one waiting for him, but first he had to endure the overly enthusiastic slap on his back from Colonel Shin.
“YES!” Perrin cried and ran for his mount.
“Colonel?” Brillen said from the opening of the tent, his arms folded in a fair impersonation of Mr. Hegek when he waited beyond the school grounds for escaping twelve-year-olds. “And just where do you think you’re going?”
Perrin stopped at his horse and held up his hands. “Just instinct, Karna. Sorry.” He rubbed his forehead, kicked a rock into the ditch, and squatted, facing west. It was fully dark now and he strained to hear anything of the battle that might be ensuing.
“Anything else, Private?” he asked the young soldier who had mounted and was now wincing slightly at what was likely a large red welt on his back in the shape of a hand.
“No, sir, sorry. Captain Thorne sent me as soon as he was sure our surprise was complete. I’m to return now. Do you have any messages?”
“No, no. None at all.” Perrin stood back up. “Wait. Private, what size is your jacket?”
“My jacket, sir?”
Brillen chuckled. “Nice try, Colonel, but no one would believe you are the messenger. Off with you, Private. Come back as soon as you can before the colonel tears apart the camp waiting for more news.”
The private nodded and kicked his horse into a full run back to the west.
Perrin didn’t go back into the tent. Staring at his map of Moorland only made him want to get there. Even the bowmen he and Brillen had sent, their newest recruits, could venture further than the commander of the offensive.
He paced back and forth along the border of the farm while Brillen, seated on a stump outside the command tent, watched him. Mischievously, Perrin jumped across a ditch, then back again. He jumped over to the other side and grinned. “Look, Brillen,” he taunted. “I’m out of the farm!”
Brillen sighed. “Perrin, get back here. How old are you, anyway? Now, I won’t tell the Administrators, but I will tell your wife.”
Perrin jumped back across. “Hm. Very good. You certainly know how to threaten a man.” He kicked at another rock. They were becoming scarce in the farm this evening, so at least he was doing some good for someone.
“I should have insisted on updates every five minutes,” he said as he headed to the command tent.
“Colonel, everything is probably going better than we imagined. Look around you—no wounded yet, no additional messengers in a panic. I hate to tell you, but maybe your plan was perfect.”
Perrin stopped right in front of Brillen. “Of course it was perfect,” he said, affronted. “Every one of my plans has been perfect. You should know that.”
Brillen chuckled. “Oh, all of them perfect, eh? Let’s talk about some of those perfect plans, shall we? I seem to remember something about a captain dressed in all white heading out into the snowy woods to hunt himself some Guarders.”
Perrin didn’t even twitch. “Worked perfectly, didn’t it.”
“Except when said captain’s wife came to the surgery to take home his ‘slashed’ overcoat and jacket, only to find them in perfect condition.”
“She forgave me. Eventually,” Perrin said, the corner of his mouth tugging ever so slightly.
“Yes, yes, she did,” said Brillen, looking out into the darkness. “But I’ve always wondered how it came to be, in this perfect plan of yours, that I was rumored to have been running in the freezing night to the feed barns and back naked.”
Perrin snorted. “I never said naked in my cover story, Brillen. I gave you the dignity of wearing your shorts.”
“That’s not the version I heard,” said Brillen, a bit coldly.
Perrin squinted. “Mahrree told you I said you were naked?”
“Never heard it from Mahrree.” There was a glint of antipathy in the lieutenant colonel’s eyes. “Heard it from my dear bride. Apparently your wife spoke to my wife when we came up for the Remembrance Ceremony, and my wife asked me for a demonstration.”
“So did you?” Perrin’s mouth twitched.
“Colonel!” Karna said in feigned fury. “I hardly think that’s an appropriate topic for us to be discussing at this time.”
“So you did!” Perrin burst out laughing.
Brillen couldn’t keep his face sober any longer, and he began to chuckle.
Until they both heard the roar which interrupted their laughter.
Perplexed, they stared at each other in an attempt to discern what exactly it was that they heard.
It came like a roar of thunder, but more concentrated, and oddly, seemed to originate from the ground. Perrin spun to the west and Brillen leaped to his feet.
The sound grew louder, rumbled over the camp, and dissipated beyond them just as an orange glow began to lighten the sky in the west.
“What the slag was that?” Brillen exclaimed.
Perrin shook his head. “I have no idea. It sounded like one of the mud volcanoes when it erupts, but much louder.”
The two men looked at each other.
“An eruption?” Brillen scowled.
Then they heard it again—another roar, but this time louder, bouncing off the mountains and echoing around them with frenetic force. The glowing orange grew rapidly into a massive smoking mushroom, propelled by a streak of fire rising bizarrely into the sky.
Perrin lunged for his horse, grabbed the reins, and mounted.
Brillen didn’t argue. He was right behind Colonel Shin, scrabbling onto his horse as well. Behind them a few dozen surgeons and aides came running for a clearer view of the oddity rising in the west, but Perrin and Brillen weren’t about to respond to their questions.
The two men dug in their heels, and the horses bounded eagerly over the ditch into the dark fields toward the streak of orange fire. While Perrin’s horse was the strongest one he could find for that venture, it wasn’t as fast as he wished. Still, it would carry him the distance at a full gallop.
Brillen kept pace next to him.
“I don’t think that was an eruption, Colonel,” he called from his horse. “I’ve never seen an eruption of fire before.”
“Me neither,” Perrin called back. “Watch for retreaters.”
“Are you planning to stop for them?”
“No. I’m not stopping until I reach the source of that flame, Brillen. Report me if you wish, but I don’t care. You can help the retreaters.”
“Don’t need to. The surgeons see what’s happening. They’ll get here. I’m supposed to stay by your side, Colonel, and that’s where I intend to stay!”
---
Shem could do nothing but stare in morbid fascination. All he did was throw the torch through the window.
It wasn’t even that big of a flame, either.
He’d even hesitated, riding by twice before guilt and duty convinced him to do it on his third pass.
He sat rooted on his horse which was growing hysterical, but nothing in Shem seemed capable of reacting. It didn’t matter that the ball of fire was growing above him, rising, billowing, expanding, so that the heat was now scorching his eyebrows—
“Zenos, MOVE!”
Someone grabbed the reins of his horse, and the animal whisked Shem away. He finally pulled his eyes from the fantastic eruption to see his rescuer, Captain Rigoff.
“What’s wrong with you? Got hit in the head?” Rigoff shouted as the men raced away from the fire.
“I just, I just was so surp—” That’s all he got out before another tremendous roar rose up behind them.
Both Rigoff and Zenos twisted in their saddl
es to see another ball of hot orange rise up behind them, far more massive than the first. Bits of rock, dirt, and burning splinters rained down upon them.
“What is that?!” Zenos shouted.
“Don’t know, don’t care,” Rigoff called back, gesturing frantically to soldiers to run away. “Don’t think any of them will survive to tell us about it either. MOVE!”
---
Finding the glowing orange village in the dark was easy for Perrin and Brillen. A few hundred paces away from Moorland they encountered the first soldiers heading to the staging area, helped by aides. There were only a handful of injured, but as they sped past them in the dark, Perrin caught the scent of burned flesh and hair.
He glanced over at Brillen, and the cringe on his face told him Brillen smelled it too.
“It’s got to be some kind of fire, then,” Perrin called to him.
“Strangest fire I’ve ever seen!”
They rounded the small hill that sheltered the village and were greeted by a view so chaotic that they stopped the horses abruptly, unsure of where to go.
Flames were everywhere, burning buildings from the tops down. Men in black and blue ran in all directions. Some were on fire, but all were racing away from the black billowing smoke. The plume was so baffling that Perrin knew he had to get closer.
“Come on!” he yelled to Brillen and kicked his horse. The men dodged and weaved their mounts through the shouts and yells and debris. Perrin was sure he heard Yordin calling after him, but he ignored him and continued on to the bulging smoke.
He and Brillen dismounted about a hundred paces away and tied their skittish horses to a large green tree.
“Colonel, no!” came Shem’s voice from the chaos, and he appeared amidst the smoke and noise to pull them back. “It’s not stable!”
“What’s with that crater?” Perrin called over the commotion.
Shem shook his head. “It wasn’t a crater when we got here,” he yelled over the shouts of men and the crackles of fire. “It was a building. The two-level store. Stone, timber—I threw in the torch and . . . it just erupted!” He sounded apologetic. “Exploded!”