Emily
This time, the ranger followed, catching up in barely a dozen steps. "Take one shot out. Close it, and drop the pouch there," the woman said, and pointed just ahead.
Emily did as she was told, pulling a shot out, and dropping the rest as she ran. The ranger took the last shot, sheathed her sword, and a dozen steps further, stopped. She waved over at the wall of brush, pointing away. "Keep screening on that side," she shouted. Emily had to blink to see that there was someone on the other side of the fire. "Third squad and the captain are almost here."
Help. More help was just across the fire, and this lieutenant had waved it off. A mob of Gloamtaken, a hundred or more, and she was waving help off.
The ranger's salamander snapped shut, and as the Gloamtaken drew close, she trained the weapon on them. But the tilt was wrong, too low.
But then she fired, the ground erupted beneath the creatures' feet and an explosion hit Emily so hard it nearly knocked her over. Gloamtaken were blown into the air, torn into pieces. Others thrown to the sides, knocking others over.
"It has its places, but it's an inefficient use of ammo," the lieutenant said. She tapped Emily on the shoulder, pointed ahead, and lead them both into a run. "It fits into this hour, since we're not planning on picking our rations while we're here."
Discussing tactics. Emily gaped, the woman was talking shop in the middle of a fight.
"So, across the trench, take a quick breather. We should be able to cut this crowd down in a few minutes, so we can make our way back without them breathing down our necks," the ranger said. She paused, frowned, and asked, "do they breathe?"
Emily shook her head, her mouth moving without making a sound, as she tried and failed to come up with something to express the numbing torrent of confusing emotions. They slid down, crossed, and climbed up the next irrigation trench, where Sarina was already waiting with a bottle of water.
Emily drank greedily, between heaving breaths, but the ranger only looked a little flushed, like she was just warming up to spar. "By the way, are you Corporal Emily Varnell?"
Despite herself, Emily snapped to attention, saluting. The ranger frowned, laughed, and quickly tapped her chest twice. "As you were. I'm asking because I've been told by at least a dozen different people that you're in charge of this operation. And all things considered, what you've accomplished is a burning miracle."
"I..."
"I'm Lieutenant Nineveah Volenski, commander of first platoon of the Cadavalan Rangers. And Corporal, I am in awe of your success."
There was nothing Emily could have said, if she had been given a century to come up with an answer. This soldier, ranger, leader among the City's best, who had just saved them from a mob already clinging to her heels...
The ranger glanced back one, and rubbed her chin with her left hand. "You and I will keep near the fire wall. Keep to my left, close to the fire."
Raeth and Sarina were about ten yards away, further down the trench, already firing into the ranks of the Gloamtaken.
"Good," the lieutenant murmured, as she watched the mob approach. "Your soldiers will encourage the mob to funnel between us, to wrap around and either drive us into the Gloam or surround us. Which means they'll be climbing up that trench and bogged down just as the others hit them."
"The others?" Emily asked, as she glanced back.
Emily could see more rangers running towards them. Five of them, in a single line. "Just nine of us?" she asked. "I mean, your skill with a sword, that can't be common, even for you rangers."
"It isn't common. I rank second among the rangers. Well, third now. But between your forces and mine, we should be able to cut this crowd into pieces," the lieutenant said. And there was no bravado in her tone, no effort to stifle fear. She talked in simple facts, and looked at the oncoming horde as if the outcome of their fight had already been written.
Then the first one started scrambling up the trench, and there was no more time to worry.
Emily crouched low and stabbed at the first, her sword catching as the creature kept rising with the tip of her blade in its chest. She kicked it in the chest, which managed to both pull the blade out and knock it back into the creatures following. She might have gloated a little, but she nearly slipped as she stepped on a body, one of two that now lay at the ranger's feet. A third was sliding back down the trench.
She stabbed again, managing to catch one as it began the climb, and pulled her sword out before hands managed to grasp the pommel. And kept at keeping them down, even as creatures climbed the trench on her right. The lieutenant struck one down on her right even as she held her position, but more of them were coming. They climbed over the trench in dozens, and were moments away from enveloping the lieutenant.
And then, they started dying.
Salamander fire cut through them, withering fire that seemed to hit two or even three with each blast. Ten collapsed in a heartbeat of flashing fire, another dozen in the time it took for Emily to draw a steadying breath.
A woman, nearly as young as Emily, was running towards them, reloading and firing as she ran. Beside her another young man, younger still, unlikely to be shaving more than the skin around his lips, was advancing on the mob, firing as he walked. Ahead of him, a weathered looking old man, with old burns on the side of his face and head, danced between firing his gun and knives that just seemed to appear out of his coat.
The young woman reached them first, taking up a position just behind Lieutenant Volenski. "Captain says we encircle the ash-stained shits, trap them in the trench. Wants you across the trench, driving them into the middle. Redgrave will take the other side, captain has the centre."
"Good. Thank you, Mildred," the lieutenant said. "Corporal Varnell, do you have any salamander ammo left?"
Emily's hand was tapping her pouch before her brain could tell her to. "Aye."
The lieutenant took her salamander off her shoulder, and handed it to Emily with a smile. "Then it's better off in your hands."
The lieutenant then turned back to the mob, cut the two Gloamtaken down in front of her, then ran forward.
And leapt across the trench.
"Spit and burning ash," Emily muttered as the lieutenant landed on the other side, and pulled herself forward by grabbing one of the creatures and pulling it, half over her shoulder, and into the trench.
"Thin them out, and watch where you're aiming," the older solider said. "Salamanders cut deep, and if you're not careful you could do what a mob of Gloamtaken can't seem to manage, and hit the lieutenant."
Emily returned to the comforting familiarity of working a Salamander. Open chamber, eject the spent cartridge, load, rub your thumb over the shot to check the fit, close the breach, and shoot the poor burning fool that decided to try and kill you. She joined the next volley, as the rangers around her cut the creatures down.
But with so many rangers now covering her, suddenly found herself worrying for the lone solider left at the centre. A big man, his steps were strangely light as he walked, and he carried a second Salamander along with his regular kit. "Doesn't he need help?" Emily asked.
The question was met by amused smiles, even as they kept on with their deadly work. And Emily understood why a moment later, when the man got to work.
He fired, and two Gloamtaken fell. And just as she expected to see him eject the cartridge of his spent shot, he fired again. And then again. His hands barely seemed to move as he reloaded and fired, his eyes never left the mob he was walking towards, the knife in his left hand doing nothing to impede his motions. A half-dozen shots in the time it took her to reload, not even a second between blasts of blue Salamander fire, and scores of bodies lay in the dirt in front of him.
"Burn me," Emily murmured. "That's impossible."
And in the distance, Emily could see Sarina and Raeth were both safe, firing their weapons in surprising comfort despite having only a single ranger assisting them. But she could see the glint of a sword in the distance, and whoever this soldier was, they were clearly enough.
And somehow, she found herself stepping forward. This mob of Gloamtaken, over a hundred strong, were now caught in a trench, being butchered by Salamander fire and sword. The creatures that turned to try and meet the lieutenant were pressed against the ones advancing, now caught and corralled, and being slaughtered.
Emily could see now, why the lieutenant looked so unconcerned by their enemy's numbers. Caught like this, against killers like these rangers, their numbers worked against them.
Lieutenant Volenski was joined on the north side of the trench by another soldier, sword out, and the two of them had practically paved the field in Gloamtaken. The soldier who somehow managed to fire enough to match an entire squad had already reached the trench. And the other rangers with her were already at the edges of the trench, the young woman inside of it, and they cut the enemies into pieces.
Emily might have kept firing, even after there were nothing but bodies in front of her, but the man in the middle held up his left hand into a fist. "Cease fire!"
The bellow was startlingly clear. Like a trumpet in a quiet night, it startled Emily out of her fighting haze. The anger faded, and left her feeling cold.
"Midred, Mack, grab some of that excess brush and throw it onto the Gloamtaken in the trench. There might be a few of those damn things trapped underneath the dead, letting them burn should solve our problem without having to dig them out," the man with two salamanders said, as he tested the barrel of his salamander with his fingers. He flinched, waved his left hand in the air, and continued to hold the gun in hand, rather than set it over his shoulder. The then pointed to the soldier that had been covering Raeth and Sarina. "Redgrave, head to the next trench and keep watch. Let me know if more of them are coming, and do it before you engage them. I'm not letting you solo the next mob, your count is obscene enough as it is."
"Aye sir," the soldier said. Emily saw his shoulder as he saluted, a master sergeant. He looked surprisingly young to be in such a commanding role in the Cadavalan Rangers.
"Oh, Redgrave, speaking of your count, tell me you haven't broken a hundred yet," the man said.
"One hundred and seven, sir," Sergeant Redgrave said.
"Spit and burning ash," the big man said. Now that he was close enough, Emily could see the two bars on the pommel of his sword. Captain.
Relief washed over Emily, cold and comforting. Their enemy was dead, and she was surrounded by rangers. Part of her rejoiced, feeling like her part in this war was over. She had the rangers around her, and the City did not have harder walls. She was safe. They were all safe.
And with that relief, a colder realization. "Sarah," Emily said, and she scrambled up the wall, folllowing the sergeant. "Sarah!" she shouted.
She sprinted to the edge of the trench, uncaring of the bodies she stepped over, until she found a woman. Nearly as cold as the fallen Gloamtaken around her, her throat a mess of torn flesh, eyes closed, she had a strange little smile on her face.
"Burn me," Emily said, as she knelt down beside Sarah. "It wasn't supposed to be her."
"Should it have been any of them?" someone asked beside her.
It was the master sergeant. He rested a hand on her shoulder, and knelt down beside her. "Suspect your answer is 'it was supposed to be me'. It was mine, when I lost someone in my battle group. I'd like you to do something, while you grieve."
Emily looked over. The sergeant was smiling, a thin bend of her lips that seemed to defy both her death, and the gruesomeness of it. "What is it, sir?"
"Remember to thank her. We can't ask any more of anyone, than all they have to give."
Someone else stepped beside her. Another ranger, the boy, the one barely old enough to shave. He knelt down beside Sarah, and with one hand, felt her chest with two fingers. Beneath her breast, along her sides, pushing deep enough to show the indentation between the ribs. He had a knife in his other hand, which he set beside the fingers.
Emily groaned, and lurched forward to stop him. But the hand on her shoulder held her fast, the grip somehow gentle despite being as hard as iron, like she was trying to push against a wall.
"I won't see her rise to fight us," the boy said, and when Emily looked to meet his gaze, his eyes were as nearly as cold and hard as Raeth's. It hurt to look at, from one so young, and there was a promise in his stance that he would fight her, if she tried to stop him. The sight had her wondering what the boy had been through that had earned him the white scarf.
And it took her a long, brutal moment to realize that this was a kindness. Sarah was one of hers, and if anyone should be ensuring that the woman who fought for them didn't rise to fight against them, it was her. Not this boy, no matter how hard his eyes.
But by the time she could will herself to take a knife and do the deed, the boy, the ranger, had finished. One quick stab, in to the hilt, and out again. The sergeant reached down, closed Sarah's eyes, and stood up.
"Corporal Varnell," the captain said, stepping beside her. "If you would, tell me about her last hours. Tell me how she died, and more importantly, how she fought with you. Start from when the fires went out."
"It's a long story," Emily said.
"It's six miles to Barleybarrel. Lieutenant Volenski will take over the rearguard action. You can tell me on the march."
"Yes sir," Emily said, relieved and exhausted and heartbroken. "I'll try to do it justice."