Valen
The air — and the Gloam — were so still it was as if this moment sat frozen, ripped from time and held apart. Like a piece of a machine taken out and examined, not to be replaced until whatever watched had an answer.
"Spit and burning ash," Captain Dremora swore. "Two occasions where something from beyond the Gloam is reaching out and extinguishing fires. One could be overlooked, even forgotten. But two?"
"You need to get word of this?" Cadmus asked.
"I do. Valen?"
Valen understood what was about to be asked of him. Part of him even agreed. He didn't understand what he had seen in the last few minutes, but appreciated how important they were. Especially if their enemy was actively trying to prevent their return. But he found, at last, something he was unwilling to do, "No sir," Valen said. "You need my sword right now."
"The obvious choice is you, sir," Cadmus said. "Take a torch and run. You might meet up with the rest of the platoon."
"I dislike hearing you be the voice of reasons Cadmus. Poe?"
"I'm going to join in on this general insubordination, sir. I'm not willing to make your chances worse," Spitfire replied.
"I really shouldn't be as proud of your obstinate stupidity as I am," the captain grumbled, as he pulled out one of his spare torches.
And then, the Gloam moved. It surged close, rushing forward so quickly Valen stumbled back a step and pointed his sword at it, and was frightened when it stopped so close he could touch his sword point into it.
"That settles it," Captain Dremora said, and he used Spitfire's torch to light his own. "Poe, stick with Cadmus and Redgrave. You're their torch, keep the Gloam off them. I'll run ahead with Sandson and try to reach the others. I'll send a squad back your way if I catch up to them."
The lieutenant tried to say something, but Captain Dremora made a small hop and drove his shoulder into Sandson's chest. "Think I was going to hear something stupid come out of your mouth, like 'leave me behind'. That isn't how I fight a war, even this one. Cadmus, Valen, don't let them get around you. And remember, you're the rearguard. This isn't a last stand. Fight to win."
The captain turned, and ran towards the south. The Gloam devoured the space between them in seconds, and with it, closed over their heads and fully blotted out the sky. It wasn't darkness — Spitfire's torch burned bright enough to cast shadows, but those shadows were now midnight-dark.
"Burn me, that's scary," Spitfire said. Valen could see her staring up at the Gloam, and waving the torch towards it. "I didn't know it could blot out the sky like that, even with a torch."
"Watch your backs, the Gloamtaken could be on us at any moment," Cadmus ordered. "Frankly, it's strange they aren't already."
"The Golem stopped for well over a minute after something extinguished Vincent's Craft. Perhaps it's the same for the Gloamtaken?" Valen asked.
Something rumbled in the distance, like a hundred-thousand feet striking the ground at the same time. It was strangely, unnaturally loud, like hearing a whisper as if it was a shout.
Spitfire looked over her shoulder. "Is that..."
"The Gloamtaken," Valen said.
"Run for the next trench, we'll make a stand there!" Cadmus bellowed.
Valen ran behind Spitfire, keeping as close as he could manage. The Gloam lingered close now, still just beyond the reach of his sword. And it closed the space behind her passing torch hungrily, so much so that when Cadmus stumbled and had to catch himself, he nearly disappeared into the mist.
Spitfire reached the trench first, and didn't slow as she descended. Cadmus and Valen followed and up the other side, turned, and started hacking at the Gloamtaken following them up the trench.
Valen's first kill went tumbling back, knocking others down as it fell. He managed the same with the second and third, but the fourth landed with its chest over the trench. He had to lunge to reach the fifth, scraping the top of the ravine with his foot.
He could see them climbing up the bank further to the left and right, beyond where he and Cadmus could hold. Spitfire had already shifted to watch their backs, sword in her free hand.
Valen could feel the fear beginning to pull at his thoughts. His legs felt light, eager to run, and his thoughts narrowed as he pulled his years of discipline into the moments. Eyes sweeping from one side to another, picking the next creature to strike, planning how one sword strike would connect to the next, and keep his sword moving.
They kept falling, even as they climbed up the bank so thickly they pressed against each other. Every stroke brought one down, every fallen foe blocked the ones behind, and everywhere his sword could reach became a wall.
Cadmus was giving ground on his left, pressing towards Valen. So Valen shifted to the right, expanding where his sword would reach, and stepped back to let the Gloamtaken take the bank. But they only took the bank so they could die on it, making it harder for the ones behind to climb. The bodies in front began to pile up, most too desiccated to smell or leak; a limp and leathery bulwark to hold the front while Valen turned to cut down the ones at his right.
"Valen!" someone shouted, but Valen could barely hear it. He threw himself into the group at the edge of the trench, creatures so slow they might as well be stalks of wheat to his sword as he dropped them and sent them tumbling down. Their numbers didn't matter, not to him, not now. As long as he could keep them boxed in, keep them from getting behind, he could keep killing them.
Hopefully, for as long as they needed.
"Valen!"
He might have heard it, but it was like hearing a word he didn't know shouted from a mile away. The fear was gripping his arms now, helping him forget the dull ache beginning to burn through his hands and up to his elbows. A quick glance told him Cadmus had taken some shelter behind the pile of dead at the edge of the trench, and he didn't need to look back to know Spitfire was still close. He could focus on the next creature, the next corpse.
The bodies were piled knee-high at the edge of the trench. The creatures climbing from below pulled corpses off the top and sent them rolling into the mob behind, so slow that it was barely any effort for Valen to add those that surmounted his macabre wall to it. He found his sword in his left when he struck down the climbers; the habits of a lifetime of schooling warring now against the fear, trying to conserve his strength even as his blood pounded in his ears and the fear kept his sword in motion.
"Valen!"
The voice didn't belong to Cadmus, or Spitfire. But it was a mystery Valen couldn't address. There was hardly a heartbeat between one swing and the next, they seemed to pour out from the Gloam like a broken tap; far more than you would think it could hold, until it started seeming endless. Valen was already starting to tire; his thrusts weren't punching as deeply, his guard was lower, he wasn't even bothering with ready stances as he drew his sword back.
A hand gripped his shoulder and pulled him backwards. He turned, the panic looking to see how one of those monsters had slipped around him, and froze. A faded grey hat, eyes half-hidden by the brim, and the hand on his shoulder ingrained with dirt.
"Gwen?" Valen asked.
"We're not here to die, Redgrave," Gwendolyn said, and she pulled him forward a step. "Come on!"
Those words felt like falling into the river, a cold hard shock to the system that tore him from the feverish grip of his focused fear. A grip he hadn't realized he had been under, and being released from it left him cold and weak. Valen nodded, stepped forward to follow her...
And the world turned midnight dark, as the torch in Gwen's hand went out.
"Poe, light that torch!" Cadmus shouted. In front of Valen, Gwen fell to her knees, dropped the torches in her belt in front of her, and started striking her flint as quickly as she could. Valen dropped down beside her, finding his way only by the light of the flint's sparks. There was a rush of whirling air, like something was pushing it away, and then...
The world detonated around them, air turned into light and fire, and the ground several feet away was ripped apart. Gloamtaken were there for the blink of an eye, hurled into a maelstrom of orange flames and disappeared. Valen couldn't say if they passed from view, or turned into ash.
But strangely, the air around him wasn't hot. It was slightly cool, colder than it had been a minute ago. And there was a subtle smell in the air; paper and ink, like in libraries or classrooms. The smell was so dwarfed from the world around them Valen nearly forgot to stand, only moving when Gwen used his shoulder as support to rise to her feet.
He had smelled it once before. Last night, at the wall as he watched the Crafters fight the Golem, standing inside Vincent's heat haze.
As if to confirm his deduction, there was a small fire at his feet in the shape of a bird. Beside it, fire began to twist at the ground into letters.
The Captain is waiting for you. I will clear the field.
"Vincent? Is that you? Can you hear us?"
I hear better than I would through my ears.
"Vincent, there's something out there, behind the Gloam," Valen explained. As he spoke, he looked over to see if Spitfire and Cadmus had survived, and waved them over when he saw they were all right. "It's been putting out our torches, extinguished every fire that was burning in the field. You might be in danger."
I experienced this before. Hurry back to Barleybarrel.
Valen nodded, and turned to Anwen and Cadmus. "Vincent has intervened. He'll hold the Gloam back."
"Right," Spitfire said, quietly. The torch in her hand carried no flame, and she wasn't willing to meet Valen's gaze. Cadmus was frowning, even as he wiped at his sweat-matted face with his hand.
The Captain wasn't far from where they stood, barley two trenches down. He waited alone, the rest of the Rangers and the boy all already well on their way back to Barleybarrel. His head was turned, staring at the ground by his feet, and he talked as if someone was standing beside him.
"We have to assume that what happened to you earlier was the same intervention that tried to finish us off," Captain Dremora was saying as they approached. "And no, don't worry about the fires around Barleybarrel. It likely can't extinguish the fires drawn from the Spire."
The captain nodded. "I know that's quite an assumption. But if this power was capable of it, they wouldn't bother with Golems. Regardless, do not overextend yourself. Hold the Gloam back long enough for us to make it back to Barleybarrel, then finish making us that tunnel. The sooner we all have a wall between us and the Gloam, the better."
A flash of light and a puff of smoke, and the captain turned his head to greet them. "Redgrave," the captain turned to him as he spoke, and there was something foreboding in his voice. "What's your count?"
Redgrave blinked, shook his head, and worried he had misheard. "My count, sir? I don't know."
Captain Dremora nodded, and turned to Gwen. "You were right."
"Sir?" Valen asked.
"The reason we keep count in the Rangers is to prove that your head is doing more than just fighting. You need to be able to follow orders, and give orders. You can't do that if you've drowned yourself in a battle haze," Captain Dremora said. "Cadmus, what was his count?"
"Ninety-one in that last engagement, sir," Sergeant Cadmus said. "I've never seen the like. I was able to use his kills to slow the ones coming after. But we weren't able to withdraw, I'm not sure he would have been close enough to a torch to have survived when the fires were extinguished again."
Instinctively, Valen wanted to protest. But he remembered hearing his name, and remembered not being able to really hear it as he fought. He hung his head, and stood up straighter. "That's accurate, sir."
"Then take it to heart, Redgrave. And thank your corporal."