A Secret Man of Blood

The Battle of The Line

Standing before them, Elizabeth feels the ranked battery of eyes on her and is amazed by the great deeds that have been carved into history by these faces. Normal faces. The faces of people in the street.

"You've all seen magical artillery, how it lights up the darkness and illuminates all the obscure places. This war has lit up the Empire, illuminating situations we've never seen before and we aim to put these things right. Let's make it a land fit for heroes; let's make it a cause worthy of the sacrifice. If we lose this position, we lose Tyria. The Line must hold. If we can't stay here alive, then let's stay here dead. For Tyria! For Samaria! For the people and their cause!"

A cheer erupts from the defending soldiers as the Night Elf armies close in.

*

Colonel Talbot's now legendary Territorial Defence Legion, immortalised by the fighting retreat from the enemy which saved the Samarian Army, hold the centre of the raised road, about a mile or so from the fort occupied by Elizabeth Clay's forces. With them are Sima Chan's hastily assembled legion of Jiangese guerrilla fighters, accompanied by Lu and Mazer, who've just arrived.

"I don't believe they would refuse to fight," one of Talbot's officers tells him, looking at the Jiangese. "They can see it's a simple choice between right and wrong."

"They've just lost their homeland," Talbot tells him. "It's not about right or wrong. It's about having something to believe in." He looks down the empty and mounting road as if measuring something in himself, eyes focusing on the young girl approaching the Jiangese soldiers. "Let's hope they have faith in us and that we have faith in ourselves: that the days of muddling through are over and the time for confronting wrongs is here."

Mazer doesn't know what Lu is going to tell the Jiangese soldiers to convince them to fight, but he's seen her inspire children to give up drugs, when it's the only comfort and support they've ever known, so he's filled with a quiet belief in her abilities. As she approached the Jiangese contingent, she looks so small and vulnerable, Sima Chan stepping forward to meet her. Mazer doesn't hear what's said but Lu lifts up her hand, holding it out in front of her.

Sima Chan raises her own hand and, with a hesitant miner's lamp of touch, makes contact with Lu's palm; as she does so, a look of delicate and curious horror passes across her face while brief, flitting memories of her people transfer to her from the child, animating her thoughts with their suffering, their hopes and their deaths. Without instruction, many of the other fighters crowd around and lift their hands to join the touch, their armour rustling sadly like fallen leaves, all inspired by the sights and sounds and feelings of their ancestors, integrated into history like a good steel screw set in its proper place in a machine.

"What are they doing?" Talbot's officer asks him.

"Preparing to fight."

*

A low, brutal, shuddering blast rocks the fort, sending bodies tumbling down and punching several holes in the stone, which are quickly filled with a rich, oblique light. Squad moves with the quicksilver of violence, cutting down several Night Elves who scale the wall, some climbing and others dropped by dragons or other flying creatures. A wild, hot leaping flame, he sets upon the enemy and tears them apart with magic and blade.

A Night Elf kicks Squad down a flight of stairs and, with spear poised, prepares to follow, but Sig barges into the Elf and knocks him roughly from the battlements. With an enthusiastic thumbs up, the Dwarf bellows to Squad. "Glad to help, buddy."

"Thanks, buddy," Squad replies, looking at the Dwarf's crotch. I should probably tell him his fly's open...but it gives me a feeling of secret power not to.