Valen
"Don't draw your sword," Gwendolyn had said, just a moment earlier.
It was the only thing keeping the seething rage he felt in check. Lieutenant Rodstrom, his lieutenant, who looked like she had just stepped away from a dinner party and threw on an army coat to keep warm, was standing next to Sergeant Ewanmourn, and demanding his arrest.
"Irons, ma'ma?" Sergeant Blavin asked, clearly confused. The man made no move to comply with the order, instead looking from the crowd of kids, and back to his lieutenant. And strangely, the sergeant was looking to Valen as if he were hoping for guidance.
"Irons. Manicles. Chains, you gaping fool! Redgrave and his group fled their post, and the Gloam has flooded the field!" Lieutenant Rodstrom exclaimed. "He's under arrest for disobeying orders and deserting his post. Now do your burning duty, you flame-baked fool, so we can get back to prepping to evacuate."
"Ma'am, those are serious charges. And by the looks of things, you might be acting on incomplete information," Sergeant Blavin said. "Valen and his group just arrived from the cable car, with a second group of youngsters from that work camp in the field. By the looks of things, he was escorting them out."
"His job was to set the fields alight, and he left his post," Rodstrom barked, and snapped her fingers. "You have your orders, sergeant."
"What the burning hell? You're arresting Redgrave?" someone shouted from the group of kids nearby. Valen saw some jostling out of the corner of his eye, and turned to see a few people trying to push their way through the soldiers.
"Lieutenant, we need to get Valen away from those kids. This won't go easily otherwise," Ewanmourn said. "I'll arrest the ash-stained shit myself if that's what's needed."
"Ewanmourn? How do you live with yourself, you gutless coward!" Gwendolyn bellowed from behind Valen. The rage in her voice was nearly a match for the anger that tried to pull Valen's hand towards his sword. "You left children and your fellow soldiers to die!"
"There's only one deserter here. The others might have just been following orders," Ewanmourn insisted. And in a move that partially mollified Valen's anger, his sergeant scanned through the crowd quickly, and his eyes widened. "Where is Darius?"
"Killed fighting Gloamtaken, about eight miles down the causeway," Valen answered. He forced his hands into fists, to keep them away from his weapons. "He fell doing his duty. Don't rewrite that, sergeant."
"Darius? Burn me," Ewanmourn muttered. He looked shaken, his bulky frame drooping like he lacked the strength to hold it all in place. "Poor kid."
"He died on the wall, between us and Gloamtaken!" Roderick shouted, pushing his way forward. "I ain't a soldier, but I was raised by one. And you can call him a deserter, a coward, over my dead body!"
"Roderick!" Valen snapped. "At attention, mouth shut!"
To Valen's relief, Roderick stood up straight and fell silent. Valen very deliberately took a step forward, turned around, and turned his back to his lieutenant. Facing Roderick, he grinned and gave the boy a nod. "But that was well said."
"Very sad for Darius, but that doesn't excuse Redgrave, it makes it worse! You got that boy killed playing hero," Lieutenant Rodstrom said. She stepped forward, her hand on her sword. "Valen Redgrave, you are under arrest for desertion, disobeying orders, and abandoning your post during an invasion. Your resistance to arrest will also be noted in the records."
"What resistance?" Hendricks asked. "Valen could carve through you like a cleaver through pudding."
Looking back at Hendricks, Valen saw Gwendolyn was looking at something, just in the distance. It wasn't at anyone in the conversation, and she seemed to be keenly interested in whatever it was.
"What fancy soirée did you just get back from, Lieutenant?" Gwendolyn called out, but she still wasn't looking at the lieutenant. Her eyes were fixed somewhere down the wall. Valen couldn't spare the attention to try and look around the soldiers in front of him. Nor could he spare the attention he needed to keep this situation from getting worse.
"Valen, turn around and put your hands behind your back," Lieutenant Rodstrom said.
At those words, Gwendolyn drew Darius' sword, and pointed it at the lieutenant. "Like I'm going to let you arrest him to cover-up your crimes! You weren't at your post!" Gwendolyn turned her sword to point at Sergeant Ewanmourn. "And you ran away like a filthy burning coward!"
"I didn't run!" Ewanmourn bellowed, his hand on his sword.
"Darius wouldn't have died if you had stayed to light the fields!" Gwendolyn jabbed Darius' sword like a finger. Ewanmourn drew his own sword in response, as did the soldiers around him. Even the lieutenant.
"Hendricks, Mildred, do not draw," Valen said quickly. Even Sergeant Blavin and the soldiers around him had their hands on their swords, some with their weapons drawn, "Gwen, lower that weapon. Point to the stone."
"He wouldn't have died if he had his brothers and sisters beside him! Like you were supposed to be!" Gwendolyn screamed, louder than Valen had ever heard her shout. But the point of her sword fell until it nearly kissed the stone. "You're a coward hiding behind an officer who wasn't at her post!"
And it didn't occur to Valen, until that moment, that Gwendolyn might be trying to make herself heard to a different audience.
Valen saw the small troop of soldiers a moment later, and recognized his captain, Lucinda Orelli, by the hard scowl on her tired and weathered face. She hand her left hand wrapped around the handle of her sword.
"The officer of the wall approaches! All of you miserable flaming piles of shit, stay right where you are!" someone bellowed. Not the Captain herself, Valen would have recognized her voice. Likely the sergeant leading the soldiers who acted at the captain's aides.
The crowd parted, even Ewanmourn and Lieutenant Rodstrom stepping to the side to let the captain through. The nearest soldiers moved to sheathe their swords, but the captain stopped them with a warning snap of her fingers. "If your sword is out, leave it there. Learn to live with the shame of turning on each other while our enemy is in burning sight," Captain Orelli said.
"Captain, we were just about to-" Lieutenant Rodstrom began to say, but the captain cut her off with a bland look and a raised eyebrow.
"Not sure those heels are regulation, Rodstrom," Captain Orelli said. She turned, to survey the crowd in front of her.
"Ma'am, we have a deserter detainer, and-"
"Rodstrom, take a burning hint, and shut up. There's only one soldier I want to hear from, and that's the man with sense enough to not draw his ash-bitten sword on his comrades!" Captain Orelli shouted the last as she rounded on the others. "Corporal Resgrave. For the next few moments, you have my undivided attention. Tell me what the burning hell is happening here."
"Captain, the lieutenant is attempting to have myself and my battle group arrested. Charges are desertion, disobeying lawful orders on sight of the enemy, and abandoning my post," Valen reported. "Sergeant Blavin has had trouble following these orders, since they conflict with the evidence he can see."
"I see. Those are serious charges, Corporal. Can you defend yourself against them?" Captain Orelli asked.
"Captian, I-" the lieutenant began to say.
"You are speaking without leave. Again," Captain Orelli warned. "Now Valen, answer those charges levelled against you."
"I," Valen hesitated, and stared down at his feet for a moment. "For desertion, I would cite the evacuation of the youth in the remedial work camp."
"Not necessarily a defence against disobeying orders, or abandoning your post. But I'll accept it as proof you did not desert," Captain Orillia agreed.
"For the second, my orders were to abandon the kids in the work camp. I cannot disagree with the charge on that count, ma'am. On the third count, my group was the one to set the fields alight."
Captain Orelli frowned. "You were told to abandon those living behind the wall?"
"I didn't give an order like that!" Lieutenant Rodstrom exclaimed.
"You weren't at your post to give orders, the dress under your coat is proof enough of that," Captain Orelli scathed. "Sergeant Ewanmourn, your squad has two mechanics specialists. One of them returned to the wall with you, the other is with Corporal Redgrave. You first claimed the fields were lit, then when we couldn't see smoke you insisted Redgrave's group had deserted. And yet, he returns to us with the fields set alight and the kids evacuated. I will only ask once, did you give the order to abandon the work camp, and seeing that Redgrave disobeyed your orders to effect a rescue, abandoned your duty?"
"I, no, of course not," Sergeant Ewanmourn insisted. "Captain."
"Then explain how I received a message from Redgrave after your squad arrived. And explain how I have soldiers insist the Gloam had reached this wall, before the fires were diverted and the fields started burning."
Captain Orelli waited. And between Lieutenant Rodstrom being cowed into silence, and Ewanmourn's struggle to mount a defence, the silence stretched on. Past a comfortable silence and into a nervous absence, like a fuse had finished burning but the expected explosion hadn't happened.
It wasn't until Ewanmourn's hand drifted to his sword, that the silence was broken. "Corproal Redgrave, if Ewanmourn attempts to draw his ash-bitten sword, you are to kill him."
"Captain," Valen nodded, and for the first time since he had arrived at the wall, put his hand on his sword.
Ewanmourn spread his hands, and hung his head. He looked up through his eyebrows at a Valen, and sighed. "Might be better to have you kill me. Least you'll do it cleanly. Darius, burn me. He deserved better."
"He did," Valen agreed. There was no bite in his voice as he spoke to Ewanmourn. No vitriol. Against the regret and loss, there was no room for such petty things.
"Sergeant Blavin, arrest Rodstrom and Ewanmourn. Have them in manacles and under guard, at the back of the train," Captain Orelli said. Blavin and a few soldiers around him moved forward, stepping around Valen to surround his sergeant and his lieutenant.
Like a vice being tightened around a delicate piece of glass, Lieutenant Rodstrom's composure crumbled as her fate surrounded her, hands on swords. "Come with us, ma'am," Sergeant Blavin said softly. Valen could hear the discomfort in the man's slow, hesitant speech, could see it in the way he gripped his sword, more a way to relieve stress than being ready for violence.
"Ewanmourn's squad, apart from Valen's battle group, disciplinary action will be taken at the next wall. This will happen, unless you join Valen's battle group for his special assignment. Everyone else, pack your supplies and get on the train."
"Special assignment, ma'am?" Valen asked.
"With me," Captain Orelli said, and she pointed down the wall. Valen followed beside her in silence, as they pulled away from the others. For nearly a minute, they walked in silence, until Valen would have to shout for anyone else to hear him,
"Special orders, direct from the Lord Captain," Orelli said. Valen's eyes widened. "Strike teams are being assembled as we speak. One will arrive here, to bring down that Golem."
Valen didn't want to turn his head. He didn't want to look out in the distance, where the next and final wall looked like a tiny line of grey stone and orange light, standing starkly against the fields. He didn't want to look where smoke rose at the edge of the horizon, and thankfully obscured the Golem that likely still stood behind the massive breach in the wall.
But he did look. Towards where the Gloam churned, waiting to reclaim the fields.
"Sorry, ma'am, a strike team?"
"Of Crafters," Captian Orelli added, and the words left Valen cold and afraid. "Your battle group will remain, to guide them to the place the Golem will likely strike next."
"Captain," Valen began to say, his lips beginning a protest he didn't know he wanted to make. But a quick glance about, at the soldiers still standing in place as Rodstrom and Ewanmourn were lead away, he found what had brought that complaint out. "Why my group? Surely someone fresh would be better."
"Why you?" Captain Orelli scoffed, and gestured down the wall. Valen looked, and it took a moment to see what the captain was trying to show him. At first, he saw soldiers, mostly idle, milling about in surprising calm. They were dressed, they were armed, and some of them were engaged in quiet conversations.
But a little more scrutiny revealed something else. The hands on their swords shook, the glances at the smoke on the horizon were accompanied by pained flinches, the unsettled fidgeting was always towards the nearby causeway leading towards the City.
These soldiers were deeply afraid.
"They're broken," Captian Orelli said. It sounded very close to a curse. When Valen met her gaze, the rage in her eyes nearly had him reach for his sword. "I can only hope I can stitch together their courage before they have to fight. And you are partly responsible for breaking them, Corporal Redgrave."