“Prosecute? Major, I have my pride.” Yimt said, huffing as he bounded over a jumble of rocks. “I’d be representing the wrongfully accused.”
A couple of rocks bounced off boulders nearby. Konowa turned to look over his shoulder, but the rakkes were still far enough back to make their aim wild. “Okay, barrister, convince me.”
“Another time, Major. Shadows up ahead on the path,” Yimt whispered, pointing forward. Konowa saw them.
“Is it our group?”
“I don’t think so, because they are coming down.”
Konowa took a hurried look around and didn’t like what he saw. They were hemmed in by boulders on all sides. There was nowhere to run, and they were out of copper-covered rakkes. Growling and scraping noises echoed from all sides. They were completely surrounded. He looked up and could see the fort’s wall a little over thirty yards away. So close.
“Our best bet is to scream bloody murder and charge,” Yimt said, shifting his drukar from hand to hand.
“I thought that was a bad trait.”
“There’s a time and a place for everything, and in this particular time and place, a good old-fashioned berserker charge is just the ticket.”
Konowa flexed his fingers around the pommel of his saber and rolled his shoulders. They still had the frost fire to call on, and they were close enough to the fort that maybe help would arrive in time. It would have to do.
“Ready?” Konowa asked, moving up to stand beside Yimt.
“Time for these rakkes to hear my closing argument,” Yimt said.
Konowa groaned, but smiled. “You might want the Viceroy to write up your briefs. On three. One. . two. .”
A volley of musket fire lit the night, its sharp cracks cutting through the snow-deadened air. Rakkes screamed. Konowa stuck his head over the rock in front of him. Corporal Feylan stood fifteen yards away with Yimt’s squad.
“Hurry, Major, there’s a lot more coming up behind you.”
The pair climbed over the rocks and the fallen rakkes before running as fast as they could up to the squad. Yimt’s soldiers were already reloading their muskets in preparation for another volley. Konowa looked behind him and saw they were in no immediate danger.
“That’s enough. Let’s get back inside,” he said. “The regiment is still out there on the plain.”
A touch on his arm made him look down.
“Probably good for them to blow off a little steam,” Yimt said in a low voice. “With everything they’ve been through, I imagine it feels good to give a little back.”
Konowa thought about that. They hadn’t just seen hell, they’d been battling their way through it from the very beginning. So many good men had fallen. There were wives who would never see their husbands again, small children would grow up without ever knowing their father, and mothers who would grieve for their son for the rest of their lives.
He studied the faces of the soldiers. They were gaunt, their skin chalky white with cold, and their eyes red- rimmed. These were men who had to look over their shoulders to see where they had passed their breaking point, and still they were ready to stand and fight.
Konowa knew time wasn’t in their favor, but to hell with that. “Good shooting, men. A few more volleys should keep them out of our hair for a while. On your own time, tear those bastards a new one.”
There were smiles and grunts of approval as the soldiers continued reloading their muskets. The sound of ramrods rattling down barrels as his soldiers tamped down lead ball and black powder was music to his ears. This was the release they’d been longing for. Finally, and at least for the time being, they had the upper hand.
More rakkes appeared and clambered up the rocks to be met with a withering rain of lead shot. The soldiers began cheering and calling out to each other as they picked apart the charging rakkes.
The sharp vibration in his chest as the muskets spit out their lead balls put a grin on Konowa’s face. The rotten-egg smell of the smoke filled his nostrils. He tasted the bitter powder on his tongue and the constant ringing in his ears kicked up an octave.
The rakkes fell by the dozen, but there seemed to be two more ready to take the place of every one that died. The cheering fell away, and soon the joy of exacting an ounce of revenge became a grim task as wave after wave of screaming, roaring predators climbed over the rocks to get them.
“Major,” Yimt said, “they aren’t going to stop.”
Konowa shook his head in disbelief. The beasts just kept coming. He’d once thought the walls of the fort would be easily defended, but with an enemy like this nothing was safe.
“RSM, get these men inside, now.”
Yimt began barking orders and the soldiers started backing up, taking turns covering each other as they retreated to the safety of the fort. Konowa was the last to step inside, realizing that the fort wouldn’t be a safe haven at all. If they didn’t get out of it soon, it would be their tomb.
TWENTY-SIX
I want everyone ready to move in ten minutes!” Konowa shouted as he emerged from the steps leading up to the fort’s main square. Passing through the torture chamber again had made his mood very grim. “Grab whatever you can carry and get by the front gate.”
Musket fire sounded along the top of the wall’s forts as soldiers shot down at the massing rakkes. Konowa knew it wouldn’t delay the beasts for long, but hopefully just long enough.
“Major, you had better see this,” Pimmer said from the gate.
Konowa trotted over. “How’s the battle going?”
For an answer, the Viceroy pointed down to the plain below. A single soldier was marching into the open and straight for the whirling madness that had once been Faltinald Gwyn. Frost fire blazed all around the soldier, creating a barrier that no rakke dared approach.
“That’s got to be Renwar,” Konowa said.
Yimt appeared at Konowa’s elbow. “I’d recognize that gimpy walk a mile away. What in the hell does he think he’s doing?”
“He’s challenging Gywn again,” Konowa said, admiring the soldier’s courage. “I told you, Renwar already ripped him apart once before.”
“But did that monster look like that the last time?” Yimt asked.
Konowa didn’t answer. The creature moving toward Renwar looked like nothing so much as a whirling, black storm. Konowa could feel the malevolence of it from here.
“Surely the shades of the dead will aid young Renwar,” Pimmer said. No sooner were the words out of his mouth than several shadows flickered into being near the creature on the desert floor.
But something about them was wrong.
“Those aren’t the Darkly Departed,” Yimt said, starting forward. “Bloody hell. They’re shades of dead rakkes!”
Hundreds of them appeared, emerging from the storm-whipped vortex and flying outward like shrapnel. They were met at once by the shades of the Iron Elves in massive explosions of black frost and ear-splitting cracks. The desert floor gleamed as it iced over. Shadows merged and fragmented in close-quarter combat. The air vibrated with screams and howls as huge chunks of darkness ripped open and then closed as the fighting between the dead escalated from this plane to the next.
The living rakkes took the opportunity to descend on the Iron Elves, charging across the ice with wild abandon. Volley after volley of well-aimed musket fire scythed through their ranks. Limbs and heads flew through the air as the beasts were chopped apart by the lead shot. Blood droplets froze in the air and fell like red glass beads to roll around on the icy ground. Rakkes died by the dozens, but the beasts refused to retreat and launched fresh assaults over the bodies of their fallen.
