The Everburning City

Act 1, Part 4, Chapter 14

Emily

"It's been about two minutes," Raeth said.

It was the first thing any of them had said in that time. Even Jerome wasn't willing to slip any words into the silence. The Valkyrie was loaded and primed, Sarah had to hold her hand away from the pull-cord; a shake had developed in her hands from the wait.

It had been about two minutes since they last saw any Gloamtaken appear through the mist.

"You think they ran out?" Sarah asked. She rather deliberately stepped away from the gun, and rubbed her hands together. "There can only be so many dead bodies out there. From before the Gloam."

"As if we'd ever be that fortunate," Emily said. "In fact, let's just assume this is about as bad we can imagine it is. Jerome, raise the gun by two degrees."

Jerome took the lever in two hands, and started winding. Raeth stepped close, and using the noise of the cannon being tilted as cover, voiced her worry. "You think they're gathering?"

"The worst scenario I can come up with; the Gloamtaken are gathering into a mob, and are about to rush us," Emily said, just before the squeak stopped and Jerome stepped away from the gun. Emily covered her ears with her hands. "Time to test my theory. Sarah, fire."

Bright white fire, air punching her in the chest, and a roar unlike anything else in the City. Emily grinned, but it was anger that pulled at the corners of her mouth. A happy sort of anger, strange as she found it.

If she had to die, she'd rather it was right here, screaming her defiance through the barrel of a cannon.

Emily held her breath and pulled her hands away from her ears, just after the cannon fired. One breath, and the distant patter of the ball bearing hitting began. Much of it was the familiar dull thud of striking earth, and a single clang of a ricochet, probably a rock. But there was also a slightly higher-pitched sound, a sound that she hadn't heard before today.

The sound of ball bearings striking flesh.

"Reload!" Emily bellowed. And as if answering her, a response to her challenge, the Gloamtaken came.

It reminded her of a riot she saw, nearly ten years ago. Where an entire street was devoured by a mob so large it seemed to make the buildings bulge, like rising dough pushing out of a container. Where the cobbles disappeared, and all someone could see is people; thick, saturated, an expanding mass of seething rage trying to fill all the space it could.

That mob had set the mill she worked at on fire, hung the foreman and several other people, and looted the buildings surrounding it. Mostly apartments.

Seeing a mob pour out of the Gloam didn't make for a pleasant simile. A mob of figures, at that distance indistinguishable from the crowds that had come with rage and torches, to burn and kill. It was entirely too similar. Emily blinked, and rubbed at her eyes, which had become too wet to see clearly. "One more shot, then we drop the gun back down to the angle we were firing at before. Jerome, stand clear and let's give them hell," she said.

Another shot. Another scream of fire and far-flung metal. And even as they fell in droves, knocking each other over and sending entire groups toppling over, the swelling mass of creatures did not slow.

"Oh, abyss take us," Jerome cursed.

"Gob shut, reload that gun!" Emily snapped, too close to agreeing with him to let any of them hear that sentiment. "Raeth, I want you to make a line with charges. One yard apart, from here to the wall."

"Aye," he said, in the middle of sliding down the bank in front of the Valkyrie. He moved quickly, but there was no frantic edge to his motions; no jerking motions, no shaking hands, no frightened glances over his shoulder. His hands were steady, his eyes focused, and the stack of charges he was making could have been the beginning of a garden wall.