"Set the latch!" Amelian said to Mia Vascel, as she and Valen Redgrave ran through the door and shoved it behind them.
They had run the quarter-mile at near sprint, after detonating the Salamander pits and driving back the Gloamtaken. They had been eager to get back up and enjoy the relative safety that high walls and thick metal doors offered.
Valen bolted the door shut, turned, and set his back to it, breathing hard. Mia stepped over to one of the taps and started refilling her canteen, drinking greedily as soon as it filled.
Amelian smiled as she watched, proud of them and what they accomplished. Skirmishing with the Gloamtaken was risky; the creatures moved at very irregular speeds, and a shuffling gait could become a sprint in little more than a heartbeat. To have delayed them as long as they did probably saved her life.
The old Sergeant had put on a performance that deserved to have stories made of it. Launching a sortie against the Gloamtaken, and improvised a series of Salamander pits to delay the horde, was something that no one else in the Army would have had the audacity to attempt.
But it was Mia that surprised and impressed her most. Even as a recruit, Amelian had an impression of the old soldier's fearsome skill, but had not expected to see the young corporal keep pace. Mia was focused, followed orders quickly, and her nearly supernatural sense for how firearms behaved was a stunning sight to see on the field.
It wasn't the first time tonight she wondered what the old sergeant had been. Or why he had been assigned to her.
"The locks will hold," Valen said, as he stooped to pick up a Salamander Mia had dropped. "There are ways around, of course, but it will take them hours. We should have some breathing room until we reach the cable-car."
"Good. Thank you, Sergeant," Amelian said as she glanced out the window. She set her gaze on the advancing mob of creatures and fingered the latch of her Salamander. "It's past time we torched the fields. Mia, light it up."
"Aye, ma'am," she replied, and opened the last set of valves, throwing herself into winding the wheel. Valen joined her, and slowly, the valves opened with a sharp hiss.
Below, geysers of flame began to pour out of segments in the causeway beneath them, hurtling fire in wide arcs across the fields. Rows of tall crops caught fire in the wake of the flailing tendrils of flame and began candling in rows, illuminating the once dark fields below.
Amelian smiled as the advancing horde was caught in the flames, and burst into brief flashes of fire before crumpling to the ground. "If they make it to the next wall, it won't be from here."
"And let the abyss take 'em!" Mia exclaimed, watching from another window.
As they turned to leave, Valen stepped ahead and put himself between them and the doorway. Amelian stopped a few feet away, curious. "What is it, Sergeant?"
"Ma'am. What you've done today defies comprehension," Valen said, quiet and solemn. Instinctively, she stood up straight and set her Salamander to rest on her shoulder, as if she were on parade.
"It was the dream of every veteran of the Fifth Invasion to stop a Golem at the last wall. It was a miracle when Crafter Olivia Polden singlehandedly stopped one in front of the Foundries," he explained. "This, ma'am, is difficult to find words for. Should the City survive, it will be on the tapestry."
Amelian whistled softly as the old Sergeant spoke, and recalled the day she took her oath as an officer. It was held in the Agora, the largest auditorium in the city, and the place where the five tapestries hung. Each was immense; a square nearly a hundred feet a side in a city where every fabric is carefully recycled. Each of them depicted the most desperate heroism of the defenders of the City. The centrepiece of the Fifth, the invasion before this one, had a Crafter atop a broken wall, wielding flame as a Golem raised its immense arm at her.
Valen's gaze hardened as he spoke, and he turned to Mia. "Her success must be repeated. We have to get the Lieutenant back to safety. No matter the cost. Understood, corporal?"
"Aye, sir," Mia said firmly, nodding once for emphasis.
"Enough of that," Amelian insisted, with a harsh hiss in her voice. "The Cable car should be on its way back, if it hasn't arrived already. As unlikely as those creatures are to catch us, I still want to be at the next wall within the hour."
They both saluted, and she returned it, smiling. "Let's go."
They passed through the door and stepped onto the Causeway. Thinner, and slightly shorter than the Walls, the causeways were built to distribute fire to the walls, and water to the farmlands surrounding the City. They were still almost twenty feet wide, with battlements arrayed on both sides. Half a mile in from the wall would be the hub for the cable cars.
They started out at a jog, eager to put distance between themselves and the advancing hordes of creatures stymied by the burning fields.
Long lines of small bushes illumined the grounds below, as a marching wall of fire advanced into the distant night. Smoke rose up and began billowing in black clouds towards the City, and even the Spire was difficult to see past the thick clouds.
"Olgen won't miss that, at least," Valen reflected, standingbeside her.
"How long will that hold back the Gloam?" Amelian asked.
"A few hours," Valen replied. "Longer, if the roots hold their heat. The Gloam doesn't advance through fire."
"And those creatures?" Mia asked.
"An hour or two. They'll wait until the fires cool," Valen explained.
Instinctively, Amelian turned back to look at the breach in the wall, and nearly knocked over Mia, who had stopped, staring.
"Mia, what is-" Amelian began to ask, but forgot to finish her thought as she followed Mia's gaze.
Whirling flames seemed to emanate from something standing in the breach in the wall; a figure illumined in a swirling vortex of churning fire. The figure appeared to be riding a horse, if a mass of flame could be called a creature.
And judging by the broken stones it rode by, both rider and beast were considerably larger than the living creatures they mimicked.
It rode forward at a slow trot, and the rider stopped in front of the advancing waves of burning crops, surveying the scene.
"By the abyss and its fires..." Valen whispered, fingering the sword on his belt.
"Definitely not in the manual," Mia hissed.
Amelian swallowed hard and glanced over to Valen, who was rubbing his hand over the pommel of his sword. "Privilege of the field. Has anything like that ever been recorded before?" she asked, firmly.
"No, ma'am. Not even a rumour," Valen admitted immediately.
"Which means this is either new..." Amelian began, unable to finish as she gripped the now reassuring cold of the handle of her officer's sword.
"Or no one survived to report it before," Valen finished.
"Not reassuring," Mia said, snapping Amelian out of her thoughts. She glanced to her corporal, noticing the young woman's death grip on the handle of her Salamander.
Amelian forced herself to smile, and shrugged. "It doesn't change our objective. Let's go."
But as they started to run, the rider charged into the field and raised its flame-wreathed arm. In its hand, the flames congealed, crushing into themselves with a thunderous crackling that seemed to sear the air around it. It grew louder, as it grew in intensity, until a brand of bright white flame took form in its hand.
Despite the senselessness of it, they stopped and turned to look back as the rider raised the brand of fire, swinging it in a vicious arc towards the burning brush in its path.
Almost like a breaking dam, thick waves of fire swept over the fields, the advancing maelstrom immolating the slow-burning coffee and sugar-cane, leaving little more than warm ash in its wake as the fire swept on.
"Burn me!" Mia hissed, and unconsciously, Amelian let her hand rest on the grip of her sword. The unnatural coolness of its core was a comforting contrast to the onslaught of flames in front of the rider.
"It's clearing the fields," Valen said. His gaze rested for a moment on her hand, and he nodded once, softly. "It's clearing a way for the Gloamtaken. We might not have a lot of time."
"Agreed. At a run," Amelian ordered, launching the trio into a brisk run towards the cable-car.
As they fled, Gloamtaken swarmed into the grounds through the breach. Hundreds, enough to fill even the breach in the wall, gathering just behind the burning crops in the field. They passed the Rider, which seemed content to stand in place, and watch them as they fled.
Even as the bulk of the horde filled the grounds, the very first of the creatures were advancing up the stairwell to the Causeway, and would begin to look for ways around the sealed doors.
Despite the danger, the next few minutes passed almost idly as the trio focused on their run to safety. Amelian's only struggle was between herself and her Sergeant, as both of them were in the habit of keeping the entire squad in their sight whenever possible. She fixed Valen with a glare and gestured ahead, with the old Sergeant apologising wordlessly, shrugging as if to say, 'old habits.'
As they approached, three more figures stood out in the firelight, their long shadows cast in several directions from the torchlight. They waved as Amelian approached, one of them turning to check on the cable-car. She recognised Reeves almost instantly, even at this distance, and was sure the other two were part of her platoon.
"Sergeant, is the car ready?" she asked as she drew close enough to shout despite her fatigue. She saw and recognised the others. Samuel Barnes and Rodriguez Steepleton. She smirked a little when she saw them. Reeves was probably restricted to two others and picked the two men in her platoon best suited to carrying wounded soldiers. Her squads had nicknamed Samuel and Rodriguez as Barn and Steeple; the duo were as large as five grown men.
"Aye!" Reeve hollered back. "Still warm, and ready to go!"
"Good!" Amelian replied as they drew closer. She smiled, despite herself, seeing the potential safety of the distance she could put between herself and the advancing horde. A twelve-minute trip could have her at the next wall, and the comfort of more of the City's strength at her back.
"Down!" she heard Valen holler, from beside her, and old instincts took over.
The old soldier had instructed not only Amelian but every soldier in her platoon since they first enlisted. The voice of Valen Redgrave, even as she now outranked him, was the voice of the authority itself. Months of drills, years of training, and the nearly absurd amount of respect she had for the old warrior could not be erased by the sword at her belt.
Because of that, when Valen Redgrave said down, she did it like her life depended on it.
The flash of light that hit the causeway hit her like a freight train and knocked the air out of her as it pushed her across the stone. She blinked hard, glancing about, and wondered idly what that damned ringing noise was. She struggled up to her knees, and glanced ahead.
The oddest thing sat in the distance; a twisted piece of mangled steel warped into the kinds of shapes she normally associated with cake decorations. Scorch marks lay everywhere near it, scarring the stone black, and a chunk of the Causeway ahead of them was missing; as if someone had taken a huge knife and carved it out.
It took her a moment to realise the smouldering heap of metal was the cable-car.
"Embers of the abyss. What the hell was that?" Reeves asked as he dragged Rodriguez away from a shattered battlement. To Amelian's relief, Rodriguez waved off Reeves a few moments later, and pushed himself to his feet.
Mia and Valen had both taken positions along the far side of the Causeway, keeping watch. She caught Valen's gaze, who shook his head. No trouble yet, then.
Samuel had managed to get to his feet and was giving the wreckage a quick look. He shook his head and spat. "Nothing to salvage, ma'am. Cable's cut, and the engine's confetti," he said and finished with a wide wave of his arms.
"Then we're walking. Check your ammo and supplies. Keep to the north side of the Causeway. Valen, Reeves, to me," she ordered, and everyone moved to the battlements, unbuckling pouches of Salamander shot and checking their equipment.
Both of her Sergeants stepped close, and Reeves didn't wait to ask the obvious. "What was that?"
"The Rider," Valen said, and Amelian understood instantly. "It can Craft, or something similar."
"The what?" Reeves asked.
Amelian sighed. "Go take a peek, down the side."
As he left, she turned back to Valen. "It moves faster than we do, and I'm not putting good odds on a fight, even if we ambush it. We have at least eleven miles to the next wall. Plenty of time for it to either hop up and run us down, or cut us off by blowing chunks out of the Causeway."
Valen nodded. "We can't outrun it, and if we fight it, we're probably going to die. But with Reeves, Steeple and Barn here, it doesn't know our full strength. We can get one or two out, and they might be able to get far enough away that they won't be pursued."
"I'm not leaving any of us behind, Valen." She warned him, firmly.
"I'm past that hope, ma'am. Frankly, it can't be either of us or Mia. That thing has seen us, and we're too tired to make a good run of it. Which leaves Reeves, Barn, or Steeple."
"Reeves, then. And Rodriguez. Samuel is limping a little."
Valen nodded. "Aye, ma'am," he said. He then reached into his pocket and handed her a pad of paper, and a short charcoal stick. "You should write everything you can think of. The Golem, every thought you had about how you destroyed it, and the Rider. Take two minutes. I'll get us assembled, and give them what they need for a fighting chance."
He saluted, and she returned it. "To live is to burn," he said.
"May the City burn forever," she answered, as she took the charcoal stick and started writing.