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.
Not for the first time today, Emily wondered wondered what else, besides a stonemason, Douglas Raeth had been.
"So, here's the plan," Emily said, loud enough that even Raeth could still hear her. "We get as many more shots off as we can. Once they get close, we make a run for it. We're still the rear-guard, so if I see any of you getting ahead of the others, I will shoot you."
"How close?" Sarina asked.
"When I burning tell you. Gun loaded?"
"Gun's primed, read to fire," Jerome shouted.
Emily just pointed. The gun fired, and cut down Gloamtaken by the dozens. While the others reloaded, she started moving charges, stretching them in one-yard intervals towards where the wall of fire started. She pushed each charge into the dirt, tilting it so that each one faced towards the oncoming mob. It didn't take her as long as Raeth; she had a third of the distance.
The gun howled, spitting fire and steel through the air, and the sight gave Emily an idea. "Raeth," she shouted. "Put a canister on top of each charge. Might as well spit it all in their faces when we have to start running for our lives."
"Pity the poor fool stuck detonating it," Raeth said.
"I'm glad someone will," Emily muttered to herself, as she set another charge.
Six more charges, and she reached the closest edge of the wall of burning brush. She couldn't see the other end of it, and all the hint she had that there were hundreds of other people out there was the occasional figure carrying more brush into a part of the wall.
But no one had come doubling back, which they would have if this plan wasn't working.
The Valkyrie cried out again. And the enemy drew closer.
"One more shot," Emily shouted, as she rejoined the others at the cannon. Raeth was the last one back, rejoining them just as Sarah took the pull-chord in her hands and tugged on it.
The Valkyrie howled one last time, and more Gloamtaken fell. Emily patted the old gun about halfway down the barrel, needing to express the sentiment despite the barrel being hot enough to cook on. "Time to go," she said, and pointed down the field. "Stick together, and don't you dare let anyone stay behind you."
"What are you doing?" Raeth asked.
"Someone needs to detonate our trap," Emily said. "I'll catch up once I set it off."
"But," Jerome began to say.
"Gob shut, unless you're running hard," Emily ordered. "This isn't some stupid last stand on my part. I'll catch up. The sooner everyone down the line starts running for Barleybarrel, the better their chances."
"Aye," Raeth said, and he patted Jerome on the shoulder hard enough to make the boy stagger. "You heard her. Time to go."
Sarina didn't take much more prodding, and Jerome was jogging alongside her a moment later. Sarah looked back, hesitantly, but ran to catch up.
Raeth waited a moment longer. "You can delegate this one."
Emily hefted her Salamander, surprised to find herself hesitate. The offer tore at her resolve, and part of her rather desperately wanted to let him stay behind. "But I'm not going to," she said, in part to keep her mind from changing.
"Catch up soon."
Raeth turned and left, running hard to catch up to the others. Emily followed, at a walk, just past the beginning of their firewall.
She stopped about sixty yards down the firewall, near the limit of what a Salamander could fire at accurately.
Something akin to relief washed over her, as she watched the others run. She felt light, her steps carried her as if her equipment and body was made of the same stuff as her padded coat. She didn't even notice the Salamander's heft as she pointed it at the line of charges.
And she didn't cringe as she saw the mob draw closer. The fear was gone. The anxious panic of the night, and the morning, had finally stopped. Like no longer feeling an old pain, she wanted to cry in relief over just feeling normal again.
She was smiling when she looked through the Salamander's sights. Seeing them in their hundreds charge over the position, over the Valkyrie, only gave her a small twinge of regret.
She closed her eyes, and fired.
White light erupted from the ground, nearly blinding her through her shut eyelids. She began to raise her arm, to shield her eyes, but something hit her in the chest, lifted her from her feet, and threw her away.
She hit the dirt, and tumbled. Once, twice, she honestly didn't know how many times, until she stopped and dared to open her eyes again.
She looked up to see a pair of arms sneak under her back, and push her up into a sitting position. "Check her over, quick. See if she broke anything."
It was hard to hear whoever it was. Like her head was stuck inside of a mattress. Confused, she shook her head and tried to stand up, but a hand pushed her back down.
"She's whole, Raeth. Nothing's broken."
"Good," a man replied. Raeth, she recognized the voice, even if it was so faint it might as well be coming from Barleybarrel. "Let's get her up, she can come back to her senses while we march."
Hands gripped her under her shoulders, and Emily was hauled up. She stood, wobbled, and shook her head to try and clear it, even as she was turned around and pushed into a walk. "Is anyone running ahead, to warn everyone down the line?"
"Jerome is," Raeth confirmed. "Took a bit to talk him into it. If he has a broken nose, it wasn't my fault."
"He hit your fist with his face? Damn shame when that happens," Emily said.
"You with us again?" Raeth asked.
Emily nodded. "Aye. Feel like I was hit by a train. Come to think of it, would've preferred to be hit by one, it'd mean we had a train."
A Salamander shot interrupted whatever she might have said next. Sarina, just ahead, was pointing at an oncoming group, nearly twenty, a small splinter of the mob surging around the fading fires of the ammo explosion.
"Is that my gun?" Emily asked.
"You weren't using it," Raeth said. His land left her underarm as he pulled his own Salamader off his shoulder. "Sarah, on my left. We'll stay this side of the trench, take them as they climb up."
It was a good plan. Good enough to overlook being told what to do by someone under her command. Emily drew her sword, and stepped to Raeth's other side. "Sarina, skirmish until you cross the trench."
Raeth clambered across, and the two of them began to fire. Gloamtaken fell, even as they drew close, but the fight was hard to watch. Raeth had a certain weariness to his motions, his arms hung limp whenever he could, a certain miserliness of motion that left him taking risks. Sarina's hands shook as she reloaded, and the barrel trembled in her hands.
"With us, double time," Emily bellowed, forcing herself to present a vigorousness she didn't feel. "We'll take the rest of the ash-stained shits as they climb up the trench."
Neither of them replied. Not with words. Breath was precious, not to be wasted on the banal luxury of an answer. They turned and ran, clearing the trench before the Gloamtaken reached it, and barely ready to meet the creatures as they clawed their way up the other side.
Emily stabbed down at the closest, her hand bashing hard against the guard as the ribs cracked beneath the tip. It was all she could do to squeeze the grip and pull, her thumb throbbing in protest even as the creature fell. She slid her hand up the handle, making room for her left, and stabbed at the next one coming up.
Knives out, Salamanders forgotten in the dirt. Like Emily, Sarina had two hands on her sword, stabbing and hacking at anything she could reach. Sarah, long knife, stabbed and sliced as if the creatures could feel pain, would flinch and keep their distance, and the wounds she scored might as well be chips taken from a stone block. And Raeth, predictably, took to killing as if it were just one more bit of labour, measured as he pulled an arm up to stab at the ribs beneath.
They kept killing, even as the creatures gained ground and began to climb up the trench on the sides, and even as Emily realized there were more creatures than the band of twenty they had stopped to fight.
They kept fighting until Sarah went down. Grabbed by the ankle, a hard tug pulled her feet out and she crashed hard into the dirt. The breath knocked out of her lungs when she hit the ground was her last, a creature climbed overtop her, and before Emily could cut her way to help, put its thumb through her eye and its teeth into her throat.
Emily didn't scream. Breath had to be rationed. But she put her rage into her next swing, hacking through an arm and cutting deep enough into the ribs the creature collapsed with her blade still in its chest. She looked to Sarah one last time, hoping to see something, anything other than a body beneath the creature that killed her, then stumbled backwards to disengage. "Raeth, Sarina, back to the next trench!"
Raeth managed it. Rolling backwards, he was on his feet with gun in hand, and already methodically reloading. Sarina, though, had cut her way into the mob, practically halfway into the trench, and the only thing keeping the creatures from grabbing her was the woman's own panicked fury as she swung her sword.
And that wouldn't last. "Run, damn you!" Emily yelled as she ran towards her, knowing she wouldn't make it.
A salamander shot cut through the air, and cut through two of the creatures on Sarina's other side, close to the wall of burning brush. Emily blinked, and looking at the light trail that seared her eyes, saw the shot had come from the other side of the burning brush. And then something landed in the dirt by her feet. Stealing a glance, she saw it looked like a full ammo pouch.
And when Emily glanced up again, despite the mob swarming over the trench, she knew they were saved.
A woman dove through the wall of flames, dove in the way those silly sods who bothered to learn how to swim would sometimes show off and leap into the water. She hit the ground in a somersault that changed into a roll without slowing, tumbling through the dirt twice until she sprang to her feet just behind Sarina.
Gloamtaken leapt at her, the first closing even before the woman regained her feet. That one was met with the butt of her salamander striking it in the chest hard enough that ribs cracked, pulled off its feet and tossed to the ground. The woman's salamader followed it, and she drew her sword. One swing and the creature grabbing Sarina toppled. A second strike, another one fell. And then a thrust through the one at her feet.
Emily saw the pommel just as the woman reversed the grip and pulled the sword loose. A hoop, with a single bar. And a white scarf around her neck, waving in her wake.
A Cadavalan Ranger. A burning lieutenant of the Cadavalan Rangers.
"Run for the next trench," the woman shouted as she yanked Sarina behind her, her sword cleaving through an outstretched arm, and then thrusting through a Gloamtaken's chest. "We'll rally there, help is coming!"
"Aye, ma'am," Emily said. And saying those words had never felt so good. "Raeth, run for the next trench!"
Emily stumbled back, picked up the ammo pouch by her feet, gave one last glance to make sure Raeth was moving, and started running. But a half-dozen steps in, she glanced over her shoulder and slowed when she saw the ranger wasn't following. Sword raised, swift as a scythe, poised like a hammer, she somehow put herself between them and the entire mob. Gloamtaken turned to her, breaking off from even Raeth. But as they moved, they pressed into each other, and could only close with the ranger two or three at a time.
And only able close a few at a time, they had no chance. A step back, and the creature grasping towards the ranger took a thrust to the chest, barely a few inches, but enough. A step to the left, and the withdrawing sword became a sweeping cut that scored across the chest, cutting between ribs. The falling bodies blocked others, and even as the ranger gave ground, the brought the mob to a near halt, and left a trail of corpses.
Emily turned, and ran back, sword in one hand, and the ranger's ammo pouch in the other. "You don't look like you need help, but..."
"Back to the next trench, soldier. We rally there," the ranger interrupted, and pointed to the south.
Emily nodded, and ran.