The Everburning City

Act 1, Part 4, Chapter 13

Decklan

Another hundred yards.

Decklan's muscles ached. His forearm screamed in protest when it had to grip his sword. He wasn't sure his finger had enough strength to pull the trigger on his Salamander. His legs were in such a variety of pain he could tell his muscles apart just by the sensations. His right shoulder, and both of his calves, had gone through spasms in protest.

And they had managed another hundred yards of burning brush.

The last creature lay in the dirt at his feet, his sword sticking from it with the handle pointing towards the sun. Not straight up, the way it's depicted in the Tapestries. It had been, but the thing kept flailing until Decklan pulled on the sword and widened the wound.

"There's word from down the line," Ivan said. Decklan looked up, to see the man slide down the irrigation trench, and collapse beside him. "From Varnell."

"Emily?" Decklan asked, but even the curiosity, and even hope, from hearing her name wasn't enough to pull himself up from the dirt. "What news?"

"She called it 'phase two'," Ivan said. "Basically, everyone grabs all the brush we can carry, and run for Barleybarrel, setting the rest of the fields on fire as we go."

"Yeah," Decklan agreed.

"She has a rearguard picked out. Said the cannon crew hasn't been doing as much running, so she's in the best condition to do it. You're to choose people you can trust, and light the fields towards the east, screening for the bulk of the folks here, then make for Barleybarrel."

"Okay," Decklan said, in part to get himself up off the dirt. It helped that he was lying on the side of the trench, he wasn't sure he could pick himself up if he laid down. "It's a plan. We can manage it. That firewall was stretched thin by now, anyway."

It was. Their recent action to plug a gap was proof enough. The blood still trickling down the sides of Decklan's face was proof enough.

"Gloamtaken!" someone called.

Decklan had been punched in the face before. It had hurt less than hearing that word.

"Burn me," Cassidy cursed, and impressively, a knife was already in her hand.

Decklan grimaced, and out of habit, patted his ammo pouch, even though he knew it was empty. "Right then," he said as he turned and faced north, where the creatures would be coming from. "Once more?"

"I think I have one more round in me," Beatrice said.

Decklan knew, as he looked from face to face, that this would be their last fight. Bethany had gone rather pale, and the blood dribbling down her arm had slowed. Cassidy had done little more than swear in the last few minutes, one hand over her damaged eye whenever she could. Even Ivan had his arms hanging at his sides, his head tilted forward, looking little more alive than the creatures they fought.

"One more round," Decklan said, and he could hear the pleading in his own voice, said as much to his own failing body as to the others. "Once more."

"Yeah," Ivan said, and he pulled himself up the trench.

Decklan climbed up after him, stumbling as his left leg refused to haul him all the way up, and used his Salamander as a crutch to keep his body upright. "Well, that was ash-bitten dramatic."

A hand clapped him on the back as he stood up.

And in the distant shouting, Decklan managed to pick out a word. Just a word, without any context, nearly devoid of meaning.