The Everburning City

Interlude 12, To Be Shelter

Anwen

They were dying. Not that it stopped them.

No mob of people could have sustained their rampaging, rampant assault through the kind of casualties they were taking. The bodies were high enough to reach Anwen's knees, and had begun to work as a barricade, slowing the creatures behind them as they climbed over fallen Gloamtaken. The Salamander barrels to her left and right glowed red, hot enough now to cook flatbread on, and the air was thick with the stink of burnt flesh. The last minutes had worn away the once thick callouses on her fingertips, and the pads of her thumb now bore the embossing on the back of a Salamander's casing.

And all they managed, despite the dead now forming a wall around them, was to slow the Gloamtaken.

The horde was beginning to envelop them. At first it was just a few, easily cut down by the rangers on the wings. But as the front of the mob pressed close to try and reach them, others flowed around their formation like water hitting a wall.

Cadmus had a sword out now, less an object and more a blur of flashing light as the steel caught the sun and the Spire and cast it into Anwen's eyes. She wouldn't know he was even holding a weapon, except Gloamtaken kept falling at his feet. The Rangers near her were a blur of swinging weapons and a staccato of blue fire. And at the centre, Captain Dremora had littered the ground at his feet with so many that the creatures had stopped trying to reach him, treating their own dead as a barrier to be shied away from.

"Rangers!" The Captain bellowed, as he took a step back and sheathed his knife. "Time to go."

The middle of their formation turned and ran. Eight people, including the captain, dashed behind Anwen and ran for the next trench, just a dozen feet away. Once they passed, Anwen turned and followed, sprinting as she reached the sudden drop in the dirt, and then leaping as hard as she could. She didn't quite make it over, and had to scramble to claw her way up the other side of the trench. Someone caught her hand and helped her up, and she was embarrassed to see it was her sergeant, who had managed the jump despite disengaging later than she had.

The Captain was standing at the edge of the trench, Salamander held loosely in one hand as he watched the mob. "Glad to see everyone made it," he said. "We might have to do that sort of thing again, once this mob makes it to Barleybarrel. We can hold, as long as they don't get around us."

Without the Rangers driving them back, the Gloamtaken seemed to collapse on themselves, their own tight ranks working against them as they tried to turn and advance. The confusion it caused almost brought the mob to a halt, and Anwen found herself with nothing to do but wait and check her equipment, despite having thousands of creatures so close she could hit their closest ranks with a rock.

Beside her, Sergeant Cadmus turned around, and smiled. "Looks like they're ready," he said.

Anwen glanced over her shoulder, and saw Lieutenant Issac Conger holding up a burning branch, leaving a trail of smoke in the air.

"Spitfire," the captain called, without looking back. "Give them the signal."

Anwen pointed her weapon straight up and fired. Lieutenant Conger then tossed his branch aside, into a nearby pile of brush. The fire spread quickly; the small brush and grasses were so dry from being beneath the Gloam it was almost glass-brittle, and at a march even the Rangers would have been proud of, stretched in both directions across the field.

"Rangers, form a line. Back to pilot-light distances, let's spread the Gloamtaken back out a bit," the captain ordered.

They moved, taking positions more than forty feet apart, keeping to the south side of the trench. Anwen took her post and began to fidget as she waited, until the captain gave the signal.