Sabeen sat down with a groan, reminding Shara that they were all banged up. Her quiet voice lowered as she crossed her legs, “My brother.”
Shara felt her lip quivering, “I thought we had a chance, still. What are we supposed to do? Go to Prin just to flee?”
Sabeen let out a long shuddering sigh, “How are we to flee from an army that doesn’t sleep—that barely stops to eat?”
“We can’t.” Shara stared at the LightTab, still clutched in her hand. She reached over and grabbed Sabeen’s hand beside her and squeezed it before pushing herself off the ground. She paced to the far side away from her small team, keeping her back to them as her thoughts spun around her. The thoughts were accompanied with shifting tides of anger, regret and fear.
What would the world look like without Prin? She breathed in, calming the chain of events unfolding in her mind. What was the point in changing anything now? Including herself.
I can’t fight that my nature is to fight everything. I’ll fight Hafi, mother and the Xenai. I can bring them peace. If I leave now — I can get to Divide Pass before the Xenai do.
She turned to face her team; she needed to tell them to run. They would have to scatter to the north and south and move through the mountains—going back to Prin would be a death sentence for them all. She could convince them to run.
Her jaw dropped when she saw Sabeen standing at the edge of the campfire, her rucksack on her back and her mechanical crossbow in hand. “Are we running or fighting?” Shara saw her hand grip the crossbow tighter when she said fighting—the determination was wafting out of her. The Terran girl was braver than she seemed. Shara beamed a smile at her, walking back to her and hugging her tightly.
She turned to the others, “My official orders are to run. Go north or south along the range; get as far from Prin as possible. If the army fails to turn the Xenai aside, it’s too late to return or to save anyone that isn’t already leaving.” She paused for a second and saw the conflict she felt in them all appear on their faces, “However, I am going to fight. I will not abandon my home and its people. We won’t make it back to them, but we can give some blood to give them time to survive this. For me, this place and people are my life; running is not an option. There is no wrong decision here, but you each must make this decision for yourselves. I will not order you to your deaths.”
She stepped forward to where she had collapsed onto the ground to read her message, picking up her own pack from the ground and slinging it onto her back. She didn’t respond to James. She would see him soon enough. She lifted her LightTab and opened a message to Hafi.
I don’t know what this bullshit is, but you know I have to be there for it. They are after me. The only chance we have that they won’t roll through Prin and slaughter everything is for me to meet up with you to fight—and likely die. You don’t get to do decide my fate without me.
She looked up to find Taeri, Melana and Benshi with their packs on, stepping toward her. The other two stayed at the fire. She nodded to them, “Good luck. I hope you both find some peace after this.”
They nodded back to her. She glanced at those standing with her. “Let’s go. We might make it by sundown.”
64
Hafi
The mountain passes were swarming. Although their current encampment was relatively protected on three sides, there would be no avoiding the coming battle. The Xenai would swarm them from the open side; they would have to break the camp down and move to a more defensible position.
A second wave of Xenai reinforcements had arrived. The scouts had retreated and reported “uncountable” as the numbers that faced them. They were still too far out from the tightest passes where they could control the onslaught from the Xenai, but there was a protected spot between two cliff walls not far from camp. Hafi had expected to fight a battle between those rocks, just not the last battle. It wouldn’t be enough of a bottleneck to prevent the army from being swarmed, but it might turn the battle from being a massacre to being a mild slaughter. They just needed to buy the rest of Prin time.
Hafi had gotten the news early in the morning and had spent the rest of it pacing in the command tent. Ayna was adamant that Shara continue on her way back to Prin. The guards had strict orders that absolutely no one was to be let into his tent as he paced, trying to remember all the details of the pass and come up with a plan. So far, they had done a good job, but the news had made it through the camp. Hafi walked out of his tent long enough to bark orders to pack up and be ready to head out to Stone Divide Pass. He returned to a LightTab pinging every twenty seconds as soldiers began to send their goodbyes and the word reached Prin.
There was also a message from Shara. He ignored the rest and opened her note and found himself smiling. Well, at least we’ll be too dead to have to deal with Ayna afterwards.
Eighty soldiers and Shara might not seem like much, but at this point, that was nearly a sixth of their troops. He needed them back, and not just because they might make a difference. They likely wouldn’t. But Shara was right: their job was to save Prin. If he had surmised correctly that this war had all been a distraction to get to her, then the army would go down, protecting her. Then, when the Xenai got Shara, Prin stood a chance to not be overrun. The Xenai might just go home after she was killed.
He hated that this was where they were: betting Prin on a chance. He chose to believe in that chance. The sorrow he felt was balanced against the thought that they might still win in their own way. He could bear that.
He didn’t bother to tell Ayna about the change in plans. He didn’t need to deal with her wrathful notes while trying to come up with the best strategy possible.
He pinged Melana, the highest ranking officer in the group, escorting Shara back to camp.
We need you at the pass by sundown.
The response was swift:
That’ll be cutting it close. We have already had to make several detours to avoid packs of Xenai.
Hafi stalked around the command tent some more.
He cobbled together a route that would guide them to the passes that, as of two hour old scout reports, was clear of Xenai. Attaching the coordinates to a blank message, he started gathering together his weapons to begin tearing down the command tent. But, if they were running into that many Xenai on the east side of the Pass, would the army even be able to protect the Divide pass?
How many Xenai are out there? Best guess.
A few thousand.
Damn it. They’ll hit us from both sides.
Alright. Keep her safe. Cut it as close as you can. I need her to help build fortifications at the passes to protect both sides.
Understood
.
He hated the idea of trapping the army in the passes, but it might be their only choice,. If the Xenai were after Shara, they would come anyway, not just go around them.
Another fucking bet.
What he really needed was some damn coffee and to get moving, not overthinking.
He charged out of the tent, where the two guards stood with the anxious group of runners.
“All of you,” he waved at the kids, “Split up, get the men loading up in the carts.” He turned to one of the guards, “You, find me some coffee, then you both can start breaking down the command tent.”
The next hour dragged on for what felt like a day, but the sun was still a few hours from its full height, and the camp was ready to move out. Hafi gave the order and the jerk of motion spread through all the troops behind him, both horses and men pulling their carts, as they moved toward the pass.
* * *
Night was falling, but they had made it. The downhill journey brought them to a small valley, the center of which had two thick red rock formations jutting a hundred feet into the air towards each other, their jagged peaks pointing upward at an angle that would have made a perfect triangle if they had not stopped two-thirds of the way up. Hafi had a bare minimum of tents set up directly in the center of the pass. Shara and the others had
not made it yet. He messaged Melana again.
Update?
Thirty minutes out, if we don’t run into anything.
That would work. He gathered up the mooncasters that were there and started explaining his plans, “I need the walls reformed, to provide a—let’s say—twenty-foot wall, closing each side of the pass. Leave a big enough gap so that a single Xenai can get through at a time on each side. Not one of those monstrosities either, a normal man sized Xenai gap. If you can be precise enough to make it small enough that they have to slip in sideways, then do it. It also needs to be thick enough those giant ones can’t just smash through it.”
They looked at him with a healthy dose of skepticism. He had never seen a group of casters do anything so big, other than Shara and Taeri.
“We will start with that. When that is done, we will work on inner fortifications. Hopefully Shara will be here by then to help. Start with the west wall.”
They nodded and moved west, murmuring to each other.
He watched them struggle as he directed some rearrangements of the camp. They needed the very center of the tents clear. At least a small enough circle for Shara to build herself a protected casting platform.
The Mooncasters on the west side had resorted to building the wall foot by foot. They copied Shara’s battlefield maneuver, ripping stone apart from the underside of the pass’s walls, transforming it into dust-sized particles, and moving it into position with the help of a few Stromcasters. They then reformed it, painfully, one foot at a time, leaving a gap barely a foot wide on the far end. In the forty minutes until Shara arrived, they had built five feet.
He ran over to Shara and hugged her, “I’m glad you’re back safely.”
Shara smiled up at him, “For now, anyway. Let’s get to these fortifications.”
She waved Taeri over. “I’m going to need you and a Stromcaster to help, I can’t do this efficiently without the help of amulets.”
Hafi eyed her, “Where is yours?”
“Lost. One night when I woke up for guard duty, it was gone. I couldn’t find it anywhere in our camp,” She leaned in, “I even was an asshole and searched everyone’s stuff.” She raised her voice back to a normal level, “I assume it must have fallen off at some point during that day.”
“Your mother paid good money for that amulet.”
“No, she didn’t. She made a good barter for that amulet.”
Hafi chuckled, “Are you going to be able to help us without an amulet? I can strip a few other Source-casters for theirs.”
Shara shook her head, “They make things easier, but its not like I really need it. Just ask my escort.” She looked behind her at Taeri, then flashed a mischievous smile onto Hafi, “So, whats the plan?”
Hafi filled her in. She had an odd excitement about being used for bait and said with no hint of sarcasm, “Sounds awesome! I’ll go help with the walls.”
Hafi watched her meet up with Taeri on the west side. She pulled all the Source-casters into a huddle. Each one touched a single amulet, squeezing their fingers into a spot on it, Mooncasters on one side and Stromcasters on the other. Shara reached out her arms to each side and touched both amulets, closing her eyes.
Hafi watched as a violent eruption of sand spewed up from the top of the walls. She was taking stone from up there, but the visible part of the wall didn’t shrink. It flew down to where the first five feet of wall stood, snapping into place. What had taken the others forty minutes she had done three times over in less than one.
I don’t blame the Xenai for wanting her dead.
Shara waved at the Source-caster group, leading them towards where the east wall would form. She repeated the process, the air above bursting with tiny stone fragments, and then came down to form a single wall with a small gap. She opened her eyes and cocked her head at it, said something to the Source-casters, then turned and walked towards Hafi. The others stayed behind.
“If there are as many as you say, we need to make them higher. They will use each other as ladders, piling up until they can spill over the top. We’ve seen them do it before, but they didn’t have the numbers then to get very high.”
“Do it.” Hafi responded, “Why did you take stone from the top?”
“Created a deep trench, in case they try to jump down from up there. I think I’ll make ditches outside the wall when I make the next batch.”
“Good idea.”
She walked back to the casters, and they reformed their clusters. She tripled the height of each side, then came back to Hafi, casters in tow. “Alright, we have about a thirty-foot drop in front of the wall. I made it thin, so if they try to stack up, they’ll smush a good number of Xenai under them. Now let’s make these center walls.”
She lead the caster group into the circle of tents, and repeated the process, grabbing rock from the upper ledges again. She formed a thick circle around the tents first, not something Hafi had in mind, but it would create a place to fall back. Again, she left a thin slit on the north side, which would be convenient to retreat to, but force the Xenai to group up. The wall was only twenty feet tall this time, so it wouldn’t slow them down for long once they got there.
She then turned and looked at the center. She ripped stone up from the ground around a small circle, up to the edge of the tents, then some from the top of the cliff walls. It came together and formed a tower about forty feet high. A few feet from the bottom, it had wide slits barely more than an inch tall, supported by small braces of stone.
“Um, how are you going to get on top of that?”
“I’ll just pull out handholds to climb it then replace them as I move up. I created a platform about six feet from the top, so I can see but should be relatively protected.”
Hafi nodded, “I’m glad you’re more creative than I am.”
“I really like this plan. It’s going to be fun! You know—in a last-stand-before-we-all-die kind of way.”
Hafi couldn’t quite laugh at that, but he offered her a smile. Oh, to be young and think you’ll never really die. He found himself almost angry that she seemed to accept their impending deaths while making jokes about it. Coming from a mercenary’s life in Ceafield, he had never expected to live to an old age, but it still seemed too soon. Perhaps he could benefit from adopting Shara’s attitude about the situation.
He turned his thoughts from that dark path and waved the runners over. “Round up the camp. Everyone that can find a tent bed grabs one, those that can’t will have to use the rolls outside the inner circle. Put Dragon on first watch. I need everyone else to get some sleep.”
If they can sleep.
65
Ayna
Ayna cursed at the ever dwindling supplies, already feeling grumpy about the tea that replaced her morning coffee. Shipments from Ceafield had been growing more and more infrequent, but Ayna couldn’t get a straight answer about it from Marie, the unofficial mayor of the town. Was it because of the Xenai or something else? She’d have to put in a follow up, but for now she brooded at the small table in the Lab kitchen, glaring at her tea so that it knew how insulting its existence in her mug really was.
She wished Jo was here to rub her shoulders and tell her how lucky they were for just running out of coffee, not food. She’d roll her eyes and say the food wasn’t far behind and he’d come up with some lighthearted response. Then she’d make a joke about becoming a cannibal.
God, I need to get out of this place.
The fresh pair of Source-casters, offered pardons, were eager to please. Hunt was hopeful again. Ayna was not. Pulling from the jails was like picking a surgeon because they had no scheduled surgeries. There is always a fucking reason. In this case, anyone gifted enough in source would either never turn to crime or they wouldn’t ever get caught. These two men were the worst of the worst.
She groaned and slid from the chair, taking one last sip with a wrinkled nose.
Might as well get this shit show over.
She strolled into the la
b to find Hunt jumping from foot to foot and bobbing his head up and down. His excitement looked more like a mentally deficient bird being offered food.
“What on Sunterra are you doing, Hunt?”
He stopped bouncing, but the bobbing continued, “Ayna! We’ve got something!”
She bounded up the steps to the platform to look at the screens. Their two experiments were still sleeping. “Okay, so the Blight Crystal doesn’t make people not need sleep, well, I guess we are done here. Let’s pack the lab up.”
Hunt grunted and huffed, “No, no—-It’s what this one,” He pointed at the left screen, “said in his sleep.”
“Alright, I’m listening.”
“He was tossing and turning and he was talking to someone. It’s hard to understand everything, but he was talking like he was on an aeroplane. He was asking how long it would take to get up in the air, how long it would take to get to France. France! He said he was very excited to see the House of Worth.“
“So, he was taking a vacation to a dead zone in his dream. Everyone knows about aeroplanes; it’s taught in the free schools. Same with old world Geography.”
Hunt rolled his eyes, “Sure, it’s taught, but it’s not like anyone remembers those lessons. Okay, maybe they remember the aeroplanes, because they’re awesome. But, why would he remember France? Roubaix barely remembers France, and they used to be part of it. Why would he talk about seeing the House of Worth? I didn’t know what it was. I had to look it up.”
“What is it?”
“Dressmakers. They were pretty famous ages before the Sundering, but do you know where I had to look to find that information?”
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