Dream of a Vast Blue Cavern

Chapter 16: A Slow Death: Glace

 “Ancestors shelter you, friend. May you find peace in the Ice.” Glace stared into Glint’s glassy blue eyes for so long that the messenger behind him cleared his throat. Glace startled, then reached out and gently pressed his former comrade’s eyelids closed before rising from his crouch by the body and turning to face the small, dim cave that served as his headquarters.

“Not soon, likely,” the messenger said matter-of-factly. A fat neithild rode on his shoulder, her legs clutching the tears in his tunic. Glace wondered why the Weavers allowed him to keep it. “Burial ice is rare as zirc in the Tog, these days. I imagine this one’ll rest in stone.”

Glace suppressed an urge to strike the man, aware that his anger came from Glint’s death and the messenger’s news, not his lack of tact. Tog was what the guildless called their former home, and this former guildless man had never considered burial ice an option himself; why should he care if Glint were deprived of the privilege?

 “How long did she say?” Glace knew every single word of the message, could hear it echoing in his ears in both Larc’s sweet, strong voice and the messenger’s greasy tone. He just wanted to change the subject.

 “Five days to tunnel. If they don’t find anything by then, she’ll call you back in a retreat and mix up Icers and Warriors again. But you’re to hold out five days without Icers.”

 Five days. Glace would send the Icers back with the messenger, leaving his own defenses slashed. He had never fought Flames without Icers by his side. Traditionally, the Flames fought the Icers while the human Warriors took on the Semija Warriors. Without Icers, his men would face an inferno with nothing more to protect them than leather and steel.

 “Cataya’s tits,” he muttered, glancing at Glint’s silent form again. Musche nuzzled the dead Warrior’s hand, sniffing it as though trying to understand.  How many men would he lose to this decision? He knew the answer, though he did not want to think it.

 “Captain . . .” The messenger trailed off, and Glace returned his gaze sharply to him.

 “Yes? Was that all? You can tell her I will obey. It is our purpose, after all, protecting the people of Iskalon.” Larc would not have given that order without knowing that it would mean.

 The man cleared his throat, and his next words were smoother. “I’m an able hand, Captain. I wasn’t born guildless, and in my youth I served conscription. I know how to hold a weapon. Put me with your men, Sir. I’ll fight for Iskalon, flawed though she may be.”

 Glace considered the man’s request, looking him over like he would eyeball a recruit. He was missing teeth, smelly, and his clothes looked even worse than those of the rest of the refugees, but there was a broadness of shoulder, a muscle tone that most guildless, half-starving all their lives, never gained. If the man could swing a sword . . .

 “No,” Glace heard himself say. “I’m sorry. I can’t put a weapon in guildless hands. And count yourself lucky for that. One more body won’t stop what’s to come.”

 He turned away from the disappointment in the man’s eyes, turned away from Glint’s still form, and went down the tunnel to relay Larc’s orders and get the Icers moving away from the front. By the time he’d reached the third battalion, he’d already planned his tactics.

 He was forced to wait two days to use them. In the span of two days, not one single Flame was seen in the Outer Tunnels. The second day, Glace sent scouts to the Mines, looking for sign of them. There was none to be seen.

 The third day, the scouts he’d sent to check the Lake came back, reporting Flames hot on their heels at the first battalion. After that brief respite, Chraun was redoubling its efforts, and Glace began to count time in bodies. Five, ten, fifty corpses interred quickly in stone with little ritual.

 The only way for humans to fight Flames was to take them by surprise. Glace used his knowledge of the Outer Tunnels to his advantage, setting up pitfalls and ambushes in the maze that must have been maddening for the Flames to navigate. He had his men build dead ends from stone, funneling the enemy force toward trap fungi and howler territory.

 All of this took bodies, and on the fourth day the balance tipped. A recruit rushed into the cave where Glace sat futile, giving orders and waiting for reports, unable as commander to engage in fighting on the front. “They are coming, Captain! They are coming!”

 “Slow down, Warrior. Report.”

 The Warrior was young. He had been in the Gem Guild, learning to be a miner, before the war had demanded that all able Guildsmen join the military. He brushed blonde bangs out of his eyes and said, “The Flames are coming this way, Captain Sir. They overran the first battalion. I don't know about the second—they sent me to report.”

 Worry and guilt shone in his eyes, and Glace understood. Whoever had sent him was dead, now. Well. Perhaps Glace could at least spare his life. “Report to Icer Larc. Tell her we are overrun. Tell her—” Glace choked. He had failed. Stasia had given him a task. Protect the people of Iskalon so they can escape. One more day, and the Icers would have returned. He had failed.

 “Tell her I'm sorry. We couldn't stop them. Go swiftly, boy.”

 After the Warrior had left, Glace stood and began removing his weapons and armor. He sent Musche after the boy, giving him a sniff at a gold plate with Larc’s scent on it. He knew the second battalion, and the third, had not been able to hold the Flames back. They would have fought bravely, their resistance buying a little more time for the Icers, time for the boy to carry the message to Larc. Glace could charge the tunnels and buy a few more seconds with his own death. But just like one more body, a few more seconds would not make enough difference. He pulled off his long-swords, hefting them before setting them on the stone table where his maps of the tunnels were engraved. He stood in his tunic with his arms crossed, waiting.

 When the Flames came, he was stoic as they bound him in firerope. He did not struggle as their Semija looted his weapons and dragged him down the tunnels. His time to fight was over. Alive, living as a slave in Chraun, he might at least learn of Stasia’s fate, if not join her in it.