Passing Through Darkness- The Complete Cycle

by Malcolm McKenzie

  “If you can’t be up front, at least you can make sure nothing’s sneaking up behind us,” he explained.

  Two roads led north from the huge field where the army was marshaled. We took the western-most of the two. The theory was that we would converge on Riverside in a pincer movement. I had little confidence this force could coordinate or communicate well enough to pull that off, but I wasn’t in charge.

  Within a mile of the camp, the woods had closed in around us, reducing the road to a narrow track. It was so little used that leaves and other debris had composted down into soil over the centuries, creating a weed-clogged surface. The forest had encroached far beyond where the original margins of the asphalt must have been. We marched two abreast - there would have barely been room for more. The supply wagons behind us would have tough going.

  Cat ghosted into the trees, pacing us. I tracked her with a thin tendril of the Darkness; she was silent and invisible to normal senses. I stretched more threads into the woods in front of me. From the back of the column, I could only extend myself some fifty yards beyond Pious.

  A bear - the regular kind, not a drelb - followed us curiously for a time, thirty yards to our left. Cat noticed it too, but it approached no closer, and then abruptly took fright and loped off into the deep woods. Nothing more eventful happened that day. Compared to trekking through the Sorrows with the Darkness Radiant, this was almost literally a walk in the park.

  Pious originally ordered us to make camp among the trees as the sun sank in the west. He changed his mind when we realized the ground was pierced everywhere with outcroppings of limestone, as if the bones of the world were protruding from its flesh. There wasn’t a flat surface to be found. I was amazed Cat had navigated it without stumbling. We camped on the road instead.

  Groff jogged back to inform the next unit in line that we were stopping. He was gone for over an hour. The second platoon was several miles behind. I had less faith than ever in our ability to converge on a target three more days away.

  I found myself missing the stew. The supply train was far behind us, and we were living out of our packs. It was hard bread and pemmican again.

  “Stay close,” I said to Luco and Cat as we spread our bedrolls. I picked a spot well back from the others, though not so far it would appear that I was deliberately separating us. I wanted my warding circle wide enough to give me some warning. Not that I thought we were likely to be ambushed, or set upon by wolves… or that Pious would smash my head in while I slept. But it didn’t pay to be careless.

  The second day was an almost perfect copy of the first. Except that when Groff trotted back to the platoon behind us, he didn’t return for three hours.

  “They must be at least six miles back,” he panted as he trudged past me to report to Pious.

  I exchanged glances with Luco.

  “Don’t do it,” he said.

  “Somebody has to.”

  “Yeah, but not you. Especially not you.”

  I got up anyway. Cat grinned. I passed Groff coming back as I made my way forward. “Don’t do it,” he said.

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that. Did he listen to you?”

  Groff barked out a scoffing laugh. “Me? I don’t tell him what to do. I aim to survive my enlistment.”

  “When a commander’s subordinates are afraid to give him advice, he becomes a bad commander.”

  “You’re gonna die, you know.”

  “Yeah, that happens to people.”

  Pious, Railes, and a handful of soldiers were sitting around a small fire. I braced to attention and saluted.

  “Something you want, blackeye?” A couple of the men chuckled. The tattooed sergeant grinned broadly. It twisted the skull’s expression into a grimace.

  “Sir. We’re getting too far ahead of the following elements to provide an adequate screen. And they can’t support us if we’re ambushed. I recommend tomorrow we hold position until they catch up.”

  He pushed himself slowly to his feet.

  “You recommend, do you? Still a little unclear on the chain of command, blackeye?” He took a step closer.

  Railes met my eye. He mouthed the words, “Take it.”

  I knew what was coming this time. As Pious’ arm whipped around in an open-handed slap, the Darkness flooded my veins, and I pivoted away, my left hand coming up and the Darkness lancing into his wrist and searing the bones as my fist closed and crushed - in my mind.

  Back in the real world, his palm slammed into the side of my face and sent me spinning to the ground.

  “Recommendation noted,” he said. “If you’re too much of a coward to move forward unsupported, you have my permission to fall back to where it’s safer.”

  I picked myself up. “Not necessary, sir. Thank you.”

  He grinned at me as he sat. “Dismissed.”

  Railes nodded to me, just a little, as the others chortled.

  Luco stared at the livid mark on my cheek. “Thought you were going to take his hand off the next time he hit you.”

  “Changed my mind.” I willed the swollen tissues under my skin to heal, the pooled blood to reabsorb.

  Luco goggled at me. “How did you do that?”

  “The same way I take somebody’s hand off.”

  Cat laughed. I smiled, lay down in my bedroll, and closed my eyes to begin the meditation that would control the murderous rage still flowing in me, so it wouldn’t manifest in a killing cloud in my sleep. The Darkness showed Luco staring at me wide-eyed.

  It was close to noon on the third day when I sensed the first ambusher ahead of our column in the forest to our left. The next was only two paces away, then another. Each was armed with a bow and a sword.

  I stabbed the single word, Come! into Cat’s consciousness. We had never communicated that way before, but she was at my side in seconds.

  “Enemies ahead,” I hissed. “Get behind them. Don’t attack until we do.”

  “Kill, now.” She grinned and vanished into the trees.

  I had to hope she understood “now” meant “soon,” not “immediately.” Trying to act nonchalant, I quickened my pace toward the head of our column. As I advanced, I sensed more and more attackers ahead of us. There were dozens, thickly lining the road. Where the path curved ahead, a blocking force waited with pikes and shields. The archers would feather us when we bottled up against the pikemen.

  By the time I reached Pious, he and a dozen others were already in the killing zone. I leaned in and whispered, “Sir, we’re in an ambush. There’s bowmen in the woods and a blocking force around that bend.”

  He shrugged his arm at me like a horse twitching a fly off its hide. “Your dog tell you that? She’s got a hell of a nose if she can smell all that from the ass end of the line.” And he laughed.

  “Dammit, Lieutenant!”

  He turned on me with fury in his eyes, and then there were no options left.

  I leapt into the trees. They were not tightly spaced, but leafy branches grew between them, screening the ambushers. I flung Darkness into the eyes of the nearest and rammed my spear through his chest as he screamed. He wore a cloth jerkin of striped green and brown that helped him blend into the foliage but provided no protection at all.

  I left the spear where it was and pulled my katana clear. The Darkness swirled around me and I turned on the man to my right, slashing with my blade and the black cloud both. The bowman shrieked, fell over backwards, and loosed his arrow into the air. My sword missed him entirely but the Darkness scored bloody furrows across his face. I sensed the man behind me turning to shoot, and spun to fling the katana at him. The blade fouled his shot and struck him a glancing blow to the shoulder. I leapt at him and punched him in the face, raining blow after blow with the inhuman strength of hell coursing through my blood. I stopped when he went limp.

  Half our group had already entered the trap. When I sprang it, the archers began to loose. The cry of “Ambush!” erupted from a dozen throats.

  I reclaimed my katana and cont
inued down the enemy line as Pious blundered into the underbrush, swinging his hammer in a wild arc. An enemy stumbled away from him and I cut the man down from behind. Railes was following me, and I shouted “North!” over my shoulder. To the south, our men were moving into the woods to engage the attackers.

  I spun back the way I had come. The bowman whose face I had slashed with the Darkness was crashing away through the woods. I let him go. Past him, Pious had taken an arrow in the thigh but had smashed his assailant’s face to a bloody ruin. Another fired wildly at the lieutenant, hitting nothing. Pious roared and charged, but the vicious swing of his pick caught on a sapling. He roared louder still in frustrated rage.

  “Retreat!” his attacker screamed as he threw down his bow and ran. I reached past Pious and wrapped the Darkness around the next man’s throat, squeezing and tearing. The lieutenant hammered him as he fell, crushing his chest.

  “Retreat! Demons! Retreat!” Panic spread like a fever among the ambushers. They blundered away into the woods in a clumsy, desperate rush utterly at odds with the carefully laid trap.

  Pious turned and glowered at me. “I’m having you brought up on charges, blackeye.”

  Pious and I were still sitting across from each other, glaring like angry dogs, when Captain Almet came up three hours later. Four of our men were laid out dead in the road, killed in the initial hail of arrows. Three more besides Pious were wounded - two shot, one slashed with a sword, I suspected possibly his own as he charged into the woods.

  Sergeant Erlston, the leader of second squad, was a passable field medic. He had pulled the arrow from the lieutenant’s thigh and bandaged the wound. The shaft had penetrated into the meat but not struck any major blood vessels. The man who had taken the sword cut had a shallow, clean gash in his leg which had been easily bandaged. Our other wounded weren’t so lucky. One was pierced through the shoulder, the other in the upper thigh near the groin. The latter was white-faced and breathing in rapid, shallow gasps. Erlston had tied off the leg, and he would lose it. Even so I didn’t think he’d live. I had tried to insinuate the Darkness into the wound to stop the bleeding, but beyond that I didn’t know how to help.

  Nine enemies lay dead. Cat had stabbed three from behind, killing more than anyone else. And the man I had beaten with my fists was still unconscious, our only prisoner.

  Almet was a trim man of middle height. He stamped angrily up to us, trailed by a coterie of aides and Sergeant Groff, who had once again been sent back to report.

  “What the hell happened here?” he demanded.

  Pious was on his feet with amazing agility for a wounded man. I was a second slower. We both braced and saluted.

  “Sir, the enemy set a trap,” Pious declared. “The blackeye here sprung it, and four of my men were killed and three more injured. His loyalty and judgment are both wanting. With your permission I’ll have him whipped, stripped of his weapons, and dishonorably discharged.”

  I breathed very slowly, struggling to settle what was boiling behind my eyes.

  The captain turned to Railes. “Sergeant, your assessment?”

  “Sir, Minos, that’s the Select, detected the ambush. He charged into it and took them by surprise, disrupting it. Half our platoon was already inside their kill zone. As the lieutenant said, we took casualties accordingly.”

  “Captain -” Pious interjected.

  “Pious, you’re an idiot,” Almost snapped. “Shut your stupid mouth. You’re already reduced in rank to sergeant. If I hear another word from you, you’re a line trooper. You took your platoon too far forward to screen the main body of our force or be supported by it. Then you blundered into an ambush. By a miracle, there’s twice as many of them dead as there are of ours, which I’m guessing is due entirely to the Select here.”

  Pious’ mouth opened like a carp’s. The captain looked at me. “Minos, is it? Report.”

  “Sir. The enemy deployed a variant of an L-shaped ambush, with bowmen lining the road and a blocking force around the bend ahead. As Sergeant Railes said, I judged the only option was attack… as Lieutenant Pious did not believe my report of the threat.”

  Pious glared daggers at me. If looks could kill, that one would have taken my head off.

  Almet looked thoughtfully at the terrain. “And how exactly did you determine the shape of the ambush, trooper?”

  This was the moment of truth. “Like this, sir.” A sphere of Darkness formed over my upturned palm.

  “God!” Almet exclaimed, and stepped back. So did most of the men around me, including Pious, Groff, and Luco. Cat just grinned. To my surprise, so did Sergeant Railes.

  “Sergeant Groff mentioned you had been with the Darkness Radiant,” Almet said carefully. “He didn’t, ah…”

  “No one asked,” I replied. “I was very close to Yoshana, though not for long. She trained me personally for a particular set of missions.”

  “Those being?”

  “Crossing the Sorrows, killing a demon, and assassinating Prophetess at Our Lady.”

  The captain’s eyes were wide as saucers. He considered silently for a time, then said, “And did you?”

  “In order, sir? Yes, no, and no. I had escorted Prophetess north from Rockwall to Our Lady. She’s a friend of mine. Yoshana is very persuasive - and infinitely terrifying - but I wasn’t going to kill my friend.”

  “And so how do you come to be here?”

  “I returned to Our Lady and offered them my services and my abilities. As you might imagine -” though I hadn’t at the time - “they weren’t interested in using what they believe to be the powers of hell.”

  Almet nodded tightly. “Then their loss is our gain. I don’t intend to give up the advantage of having a master of the Darkness on this campaign. Lieutenant Minos, it’s obvious we need a recon platoon. You can choose whatever elements you want from Sergeant Pious’ former unit. The rest will be reassigned. We’ll find other recruits for you as you see the need.”

  “Thank you, sir. I’d like Troopers Cat and Luco, as well as Sergeants Railes and Groff. Also Troopers Ascon, Taba…” I considered and named another half-dozen soldiers I thought showed promise and would work with me.

  It was petty, but the Darkness was still thick in my veins. I turned to Pious and said, “Sergeant? It should go without saying that if you ever touch me again, I’ll kill you.”

  Almet’s eyebrows went up, but he didn’t say a word. Cat threw back her head and laughed. And I felt a fierce surge of joy as a veil of fear drew across the naked hatred in Pious’ eyes.

  “What are we up against?” Almet asked. We were sitting under a tarp stretched across poles. Each of us had a mug of cider. It was lukewarm, but better than the mildly questionable water I’d been drinking. It was good to be an officer.

  “Sir, there were at least three dozen of them. The ambush was well-sited. They had appropriate weapons and camouflage. They knew what they were doing.”

  “That many? And you still drove them off?”

  “Sir, they panicked. Say what you want about Pious,” and I didn’t have much good to say about him, “but he’s scary in a fight. If they’d held, I don’t think it would have gone our way.”

  “Pious is a moron. Or maybe to be a little fairer, he only knows how to do one thing. I promoted him past where he was useful.” The captain sighed. “Speaking of leadership, did they have a Paladin in charge?”

  “Sir, I don’t know. Almost all of them were out of my line of sight, and at that kind of range the Darkness doesn’t give me a lot of details.”

  He rubbed his hand across his eyes. “I don’t suppose it matters. What I’m not quite sure of is why they did it. If the ambush had worked, it would have taken out one platoon in an entire battalion. It’s annoying and demoralizing, but they’ve forfeited the element of surprise. Now we know they’ve scouted us.”

  “To delay us, sir. Don’t you think? It was going to be hard enough coordinating the pincers. If they harass and delay our column, and let the other w
alk into a trap unsupported…”

  “Damn! That feels right. I’ll send a courier back to Colonel Royce and another through the woods to warn First Battalion.”

  “If I’m right, they’ll have pickets in the woods to prevent that. I’ll take my unit. That’s what you created us for.”

  “And if you’re right, you’ll be walking into a trap.”

  I grinned. “Yessir. Looking forward to it, sir.”

  5. The Shadowed Hand

  Logistics were easy enough. We rubbed dirt on our linen clothes to darken them. Armor, shields, and spears were left behind - we were a reconnaissance force, not a heavy combat force. We drew extra water skins from the quartermaster. They weighed us down, but would save time stopping to boil water for refills. Cat and I could probably drink anything without purifying it, but a bout of dysentery for the rest of the platoon would be somewhere between embarrassing and fatal.

  The larger issue was that, for all my bravado, we weren’t well suited to the task at hand. Cat was as stealthy as her namesake and just as lethal if she could strike by surprise, but her recent training in weapons couldn’t make up for the fact that she weighed half as much as most soldiers. The rest of the platoon had the opposite problem - they were all competent fighters but I had no reason to believe any of them could move quietly through the woods.

  But we would make do. If the Monolith forces were truly stringing pickets to intercept couriers, I assumed they would have to be spread fairly far apart - otherwise the manpower commitment would be unmanageable. I had to hope our force of a baker’s dozen would be enough to overcome whatever we encountered.

  We deployed in an arrowhead formation. I was in front, Cat and Railes behind on my left and right flanks. The others spread behind them. I extended a screen of the Darkness in a semicircle sixty yards in front of me, sacrificing range for width of coverage.

  “Kill, now,” Cat said smugly. “Not ant, not dog, not vulture, now. Shadow warriors.”