“How many do you figure?”
“I couldn't get a good count, but it was a lot. At least as many as us.”
“A Monolith brigade is five thousand men,” said Colonel Raji. Hake had gathered his commanders together.
I nodded. “That would be about right.”
“We’re screwed,” Raji declared. That seemed to be his favorite word. Not that he was necessarily wrong. He went on, “Monolith regulars are better trained than our troops. There’s five thousand of them to four thousand of us. We’d be lucky to take them one on one, much less more of them supported by cavalry.”
“All right,” Hake said. “So what are our options?”
“They must have been hoping we wouldn't realize what was behind us until we hit the Hawk’s Nest. Then they’d crush us from behind like a hammer on an anvil,” Almet said.
“Yeah, doing that obviously isn’t the right move,” Hake snapped. “Let’s try coming up with a good option, not just discarding the clearly stupid one.”
Almet visibly cringed.
“We can take up defensive positions,” Royce offered. “Take advantage of the terrain…”
“The terrain?” Raji shouted. “What terrain? We’re marching across the flattest plane on the face of God’s earth, you idiot.”
Hake held up a hand. “There are basically two options. We fight or we run. We could turn south and make for Rockwall. The problem is the cavalry. If they get around us, coordinate with another Monolith force, we could get caught in a pincer. Or they could catch us while we’re trying to ford a river.”
Raji looked at me. “What if our scout company laid a false trail? Kept on toward the Hawk’s Nest while the rest of the brigade went south?”
“Are you really that gutless?” Almet demanded. “You’d sacrifice our best unit - the unit responsible for every victory we’ve achieved - so you can get away?”
“So the rest of the brigade can get away. Captain.” Colonel Raji glared at him. “If you can’t understand the military necessity of sacrificing one company to preserve an entire brigade, you’ll never become more than the company commander you are.”
Hake said, “I doubt even Captain Minos can make a company look like a brigade, or cover the signs of a brigade’s passage. Can you?”
I shook my head. “I don’t see how. But Colonel Royce raised a valid point about making a defensive stand.”
“There’s no damned terrain, Captain,” Raji growled. “Look at the maps. Hell, just look around.”
“Exactly, sir,” I replied. “Look around. There’s no topography. But there’s what’s left of a city just north of us. We should be able to take up good enough defensive positions to gain an advantage.”
“You’re talking about a pitched battle.”
“Yes, sir.”
“One we can win?” Hake asked.
“I think so, sir. I hope so.”
The brigade spent the night digging into the dead town. Not all of it had been as abandoned as the tower. In some of the buildings I found signs of recent human occupation. Which meant waste, and animal bones, and scraps of clothing that still stank of their owners.
“People,” Cat confirmed. Meaning paleos. “Gone today.”
They’d fled the army. The paleos were many loathsome things, but they weren’t complete idiots.
This place must have fallen at the very beginning of the Age of Fear. There had been no attempt to build defenses. The ruins hadn’t been completely stripped, but they were crumbling, choked with weeds and vines. Any valuables were long gone, but more salvageable metal remained than I’d thought to find outside the Sorrows. If the land were ever cleansed of paleos and bandits, it might be a more fruitful mining site than the Flow.
There was no wall of any kind. The buildings were clustered on the north side of the road. If we held there, the enemy would have no cover but the sparse trees to the south. The problem was we had no way to keep them from flanking us. So instead of a line, we deployed in a square. Only a quarter of our strength could bear on them at a time, but there were no undefended gaps in our position.
Needless to say, the Shadowed Hand took the point where we expected the heaviest combat, at the southwest corner of the square. I’d considered whether we should find an ambush site away from the main body of the brigade, but every plan I came up with resulted in certain death. Even our position on the front line of the square didn’t look so good.
We’d heaped up furniture and the remains of vehicles to build barricades, and boarded up the windows of buildings leaving firing slits for gunmen and bowmen. I guessed it was around midnight by the time we finished. It wasn’t a bad thing for the troops to be tired. They’d find it hard to sleep. Even I was nervous. It was one thing to storm the enemy’s citadel; it was different to wait for them to come to us.
I spent an hour talking to my men. They all put on a brave face. Some I think really weren’t bothered. Railes was as calm as ever. Pious honestly seemed thrilled.
Others were visibly nervous. I sat with Luco for a while.
“Any regrets?” I asked.
“What, you mean like only having one life to give for my country?”
“I meant more like having enlisted in the first place. It’s been pretty exciting these last couple of months.”
“I think I said something about not wanting to dig through broken pots and old diapers the rest of my life. I haven’t been doing that. That’s got to count for something.”
I patted him on the shoulder. “You know the rest of our lives may not be very long.”
He grimaced. “I don’t think that’s how you’re supposed to reassure your troops.”
“You and I go too far back. You get stuck with the truth.”
“Lucky me. So what’s the truth?”
I considered. “It’s tough to say. We’ve got a good position. They may not even engage. If they were smart, they’d pin us down and wait for reinforcements.”
“That’s not encouraging.”
“I don’t think they’re going to be smart. Tarc’s angry. I think they’ll hit us tomorrow.”
“So that’s good?”
“If they hit us tomorrow, I think we’ll get the better of it. And it’s definitely going to be more exciting than digging for broken pots and dirty diapers.”
I moved on. Kafer was on the roof of a two story building, behind a parapet of overturned tables. He was one of our better archers.
“I wonder what your sister would think of all this.”
He let out a thin chuckle and made a face. “She’d say it’s a waste. She’d say we’re idiots fighting other men for land we won’t even hold while Yoshana schemes to enslave the world and claim our souls. She’d say we’re doing the devil’s work.”
His words hit me like a physical blow. I tried to come up with a retort, failed.
Kafer gave me a twisted smile. “That’s why I don’t write to her.”
10. Sacrifice
Tired as I’d been, I’d meditated for an hour before giving in to sleep. Part of me was tempted to let the Darkness build into the kind of murderous wave I’d experienced the night I’d killed Lalos. But I would have been a danger to my own troops. Even if there was no possibility of salvation left to me, I didn’t want the deaths of my friends and allies on my conscience when I fell.
When I finished falling. If there was any farther to go. I was still alive, but from Prophetess’ perspective - from Genia Carter’s perspective - I must already be far beyond redemption.
What had that irritating old man said? There will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents… He probably wasn’t thinking about a member of a cursed race who’d willingly taken on the powers of hell and used them to carve a trail of death across the continent. In any case, at the moment I needed the powers of hell. I could think about repentance later. If I lived.
The brigade’s square was about half a mile long on each side, with the quartermaster’s company, medics, the headq
uarters company, and a reserve in the center. Adapting Colonel Raji’s idea of a feint, one company was continuing to drive the wagons down the road toward the Hawk’s Nest, hopefully kicking up enough dust to make the Monolith believe the entire brigade was still in motion. They’d swing back around when the fighting started. The rest of us were hunkered down inside buildings and behind barricades.
The idea was to let as much of the enemy army as possible draw abreast of us before we opened fire in a massive broadside. If we’d had carbines for the entire brigade, a successful execution of that plan might have ended the matter right there. As it was, we didn’t even have enough bows to arm every soldier. It would come down to hand-to-hand combat unless they broke and ran.
Captain Almet’s company was just to the east of mine. He stopped by in the early morning.
“We’ve been lucky so far,” he said hopefully. “You’ve broken them three times with almost no losses. Think we can do it again?”
Part of me was flattered. A part of me very close to the Darkness thought his praise was no more than my due. But a different part said, “I think you’re giving me too much credit.”
I had almost added “sir.” It was hard to remember we now held the same rank. I might have one of the shortest-lived captaincies in history.
I continued, “We’ve had other big advantages each time. Those rangers in the woods were out there all by themselves between two battalions of our troops. It wouldn’t take much to panic even the bravest man in a situation like that. At Riverside we had them outnumbered, and they still didn’t really understand what they were dealing with. And at Steel City, Prince Jeral didn’t want the Monolith advisors in the first place. We just gave him an excuse to kick them out.”
“We’ve got position, cover, and surprise here,” Almet said hopefully.
“Yep. That’s why I think we can win. But they’re pissed off. This is the first time we’ve faced a unit that actually wants to engage us. We’ll bloody them, but I don’t think they’re going to run just because they take a hit.”
“You’ll still…” he waved his hand vaguely in the air.
“Summon the Darkness up from hell to scare them as much as I possibly can? Of course. I want to live too.”
The waiting really was the worst of it. The feeling reminded me of our mad venture with Prophetess to Stephensburg, not knowing exactly the form our confrontation with Yoshana would take, but dreading whatever it would be.
By comparison, the confrontation with the Monolith shouldn’t have seemed so terrible. Prophetess would surely have pointed out that at most the Monolith could destroy my body, whereas Yoshana could annihilate my soul.
Prophetess had never sat on a roof watching five thousand enemy troops march by.
The cavalry was first, of course. They came just after noon at an easy walk, no faster than the infantry behind them. I briefly spotted Tarc as I peered through the gap between tables, then he passed out of sight. The main body followed close on their heels, tightly packed on the wide road. The column was perhaps a mile long. We could take half of them under fire at once.
They say no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy. This one certainly didn’t.
At least it wasn’t any of my troops who opened fire early. Or Almet’s. But someone panicked before the Monolith troops were even halfway down the length of our front. A single arrow arced out. Then, uncertainly, a couple more followed.
Cries of “ambush!” went up from the enemy force.
“Dammit! Fire at will! Fire at will!” I bellowed.
Guns cracked. Arrows plunged. In the road, men fell.
But I had been right. Paladins screamed, “engage!” In the face of our fire, the Monolith troops charged rather than retreat. Just as I had bulled ahead into the ambush in the woods south of Riverside, seeing no other option, the enemy did the same.
We were at the corner of the square, so I had a clear view of the Monolith soldiers moving around to flank us. We had anticipated that with our formation, but my position was right at the focal point of the enemy attack. I’d picked it that way. As had been pointed out to me multiple times, sometimes Select don’t seem to have a lot of common sense.
There were archers somewhere in the mass of Monolith troops. Arrows began to answer ours. But where I was, the enemy’s weapons of choice were spear and shield. We got in two more ragged volleys before they reached us.
Pious kicked open a door and waded into them. He truly was a terror with that pick. Yoshana was more lethal with her sword, and I had no doubt the demon Seven would be far deadlier with his sharpened staff. But Pious was as close to the Grim Reaper as any ordinary mortal had a right to be.
His men followed behind, wading into the breach in the charging line of spearmen. The enemy advance halted, then collapsed on that section of the front.
Elsewhere things didn’t go as well. Isolated by the buildings and barricades, we had no coherent line. Some of our men attacked, like Pious. Others stayed under cover and took the shock of the Monolith charge. Those who stayed on the defensive generally did better. Archers and gunmen on upper stories and rooftops savaged the attackers. When our side tried to advance, we found the enemy shield wall almost impenetrable. Pious could break it open - others could not.
A hundred feet to my left, a group of attackers led by a Paladin breached our defenses and flooded into the building beyond. I sent the Darkness down in a stinging cloud to claw at their eyes. Blinded and disoriented, they fell back.
I sent a thread of Darkness to Cat, showing her where our line had failed. She raced to the reserves and called for reinforcements. I had agreed with Hake the night before that the paleo would act as our spotter and courier. If the soldiers disliked taking instructions from her - and I’m sure some of them did - they set it aside in the interest of survival.
Pious’ men were in the middle of a struggling knot of troops. We continued to rain death from above, but it was hard to target the enemies closest to our men without hitting our own. Railes had repelled the Monolith’s first assault on his position, and was leading his squad in a counterattack. As fierce as the tattooed lieutenant was, he couldn’t match Pious’ hurricane of violence. The enemy’s line hardened and shoved him back.
We had exhausted the ammunition for our carbines. We were reduced to arrows now. Railes was down. So were at least half a dozen of Pious’ men. The enemy dead lay heaped in front of us. I lashed the survivors with a wave of the Darkness.
The Monolith cavalry came thundering past in a frenzied retreat. “Pull back! Pull back!” someone was calling, maybe Tarc. The enemy withdrew, stumbling, their lines ragged, but with raised shields protecting them from our continued arrow rain.
Some took up positions across the road from us, in the shelter of the trees. Others moved into the ruins to the west. It was not an orderly maneuver, but within ten minutes, they had drawn up battle lines on two sides of our square.
I surveyed the carnage from my rooftop. Between the dead and crippled who still lay on the battlefield, the Monolith had lost four or five hundred men. Two dozen cavalry mounts lay still or thrashing feebly on the ground. Of perhaps a thousand men who had entered the ambush, nearly half hadn’t made it out. Our losses were far less - perhaps fifty dead or badly wounded. The advantage of surprise and position had told heavily in our favor. But the enemy still outnumbered us, and our best bolt was spent.
I went downstairs to the battlefield. The men were dragging our casualties inside. Railes was ashen under his tattoo.
“Dunno where that damn spear came from,” he gasped. Blood bubbled out of his mouth as he spoke. His left side was soaked red.
I probed with the Darkness. A blade had gone between his lower ribs and opened his lung. I put my hands on his bloody tunic and concentrated.
Yoshana was right. What the Darkness would do without thought for my own body was almost impossible to do for another’s. Cell by cell, I slowly stitched the wound shut, drained the fluid from the lung
. I was exhausted when I turned to Groff. “Get him to the medics. He should live if infection doesn’t get him.”
“Thanks, Captain,” the lieutenant murmured weakly.
“If you survive, you might reconsider charging an enemy force six times your size. I kinda look like an idiot for giving you a commission,” I growled.
He produced a strained smile. “Sorry, Captain. I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”
Pious had five dead in his squad, and another with deep wounds to shoulder and thigh who had already been sent back to the medics. Railes had three dead and another two wounded besides himself. One of our archers was out of action with an arrow to the shoulder. The Shadowed Hand had dealt a vicious blow to the Monolith, but suffered disproportionately ourselves.
I turned to Pious, now standing in the building with me, his pick dripping gore. “That goes for you too, Sergeant. We don’t have the men for a war of attrition.”
The hulking soldier scowled but dipped his head in a curt nod.
Cat appeared behind me. “General wants you.”
“Yeah. I figured.”
“Gentlemen,” Hake rumbled. “It went… decently. That’s about the best I can say.”
“Now sir,” Colonel Royce interjected. “My staff make the casualty count nearly ten to one in our favor. A bit better than ‘decent,’ I’d say.”
The general glared at him. “We ambushed them from cover in a heavily fortified position. Ten to one is the least we should have hoped for. And unfortunately, we hit only a fraction of their column.”
Royce blushed. “Er. Yes. Captain Tollert is investigating which of his men opened fire prematurely. He’ll be disciplined, General.”
Hake waved his hand like a man shooing a gnat. “No point, Colonel. Error is the one constant in war. It’s unfortunate. Now we are where we are. We won the first engagement, but we’re still outnumbered and outclassed.”
Passing Through Darkness- The Complete Cycle Page 52