“Shields!” the lieutenant shouted. More than two hundred shields swung down off backs and into hands.
“Swords!”
Kate drew her blade, as did everyone else on the line.
“Archers, nock!”
The bow support behind the shield wall put arrows on their strings.
The vibrations coming through the ground grew stronger, the air thicker. Kate sensed the tension in those around her, felt it throughout her body.
A groan like a great metal tree being torn apart split the air. Some of the soldiers put their hands to their ears but did not let go of their weapons and shields.
The center of the great gate moved. After seeing it immobile for so long, Kate didn’t believe what she was seeing. She blinked and refocused her eyes. A fine red line appeared, splitting what seemed like a solid mass right down the middle.
It widened.
When the space between the gates reached about three feet, a great howl rose up and flooded the plateau. Breaking the red light that seemed to come from somewhere far away, dark shapes moved.
A lot of dark shapes.
“Archers draw!” the lieutenant shouted, barely audible over the groaning of the gate and the shrieking of the creatures coming out of it.
A wave of hot air, smelling of rotten things and horrible poisons, blasted Kate in the face. Her nose burned, and water began pouring from her eyes. She recognized parts of it, components that had the scent of the demons she had fed, cleaned up after, and killed. She gripped her sword more firmly.
And there were the verbal attacks. As if a tap was suddenly turned on, the horrid demon voices washed over her mind. They were indistinct, since there were so many, but they befuddled her for a moment, making her forget where she was and what she was doing.
With a massive push from her will, she shoved them aside and concentrated on what she was doing.
“I am of the Order of the Fire,” she said aloud. It seemed to help. “I am the wall that shields the world from Hell. I am of the Order of the Fire.”
A few of the other soldiers nearby tore their gazes from their enemies to look at her. She could see the conflict in their eyes. Some of them began to chant along with her, their eyes focusing, becoming more lucid.
“Archers, loose.”
A flight of arrows soared overhead and plunged into the mass of bodies coming toward the shield wall. Some of them fell, but most continued with arrows protruding from them.
The gate was fully open now, dozens—hundreds—of demons howling and charging toward the humans. There were too many of them. There was no way they would be able to withstand the force of them.
“Shield wall!” the lieutenant shouted. “Brace and defend.”
Kate’s training took over. She snugged her shield arm against her shoulder and turned her body sideways, tucking her sword, hilt up, inside the shield to help brace it. She dragged her back foot across the dirt and settled it into a strong stance. With her left knee bent, she prepared for a hard hit.
Most of those around Kate got into position correctly as well. A few of the rookies who had not faced demons before looked around in confusion, but those to either side of them either chivvied them to the correct position, or shouldered them out of the way to plug up the hole in the wall where they should have been.
The twisted black bodies struck like a rock slide trying to cover them. Kate’s feet slid back, and her shoulder ached. But they held.
The shield wall held.
“Strike!” the lieutenant called.
The force against Kate’s shield suddenly lessened, the momentum of the charge dissipated. Kate shifted her shield slightly only to find a mouth full of teeth a foot away from her face. She flipped her sword in her hand and stabbed it through the demon’s too-big black eye. It dropped lifelessly to the ground.
Kate continued to batter aside claws that were searching for her flesh as she stabbed at the demons. She got into a rhythm like a beating heart. Block, thrust, prepare to defend again. She kept at it for what seemed like hours.
Kate wasn’t sure what the others in her platoon were doing. She caught glimpses of red cloaks falling to the ground, more red on their armor and exposed skin than the cloaks could account for. Flashes of blue danced in her vision as the support group dragged bodies from the field as the battle raged on.
They had trained to rotate others into the shield wall, and Kate was glad they did. Even in her physical condition, being at the front of the wall all day long was not possible. New platoons rotated in on command, and hers backed out slowly, never letting a break in the wall open up.
In the times she was not actually fighting, the mental attacks of the demons mixed with their verbal shrieks and screeches and buzzed in Kate’s mind. She realized that when she was in the midst of battle, she hadn’t noticed them with everything else fighting for her attention. She preferred not hearing the voices.
One time, when she had rotated out and was drinking some water and eating dried meat and fruit handed to her by one of the Blues, some particularly large demons broke through a section of the shield wall. They tore apart four Reds so savagely that Kate knew she would relive that memory for a long time afterward.
She got to her feet to rush in to help, but a blue-cloaked arm pushed down on her shoulder. She looked up to see Wilfred’s smiling face. Smiling! In the middle of a battle.
He jerked his head toward the hole in the wall. One look and Kate understood what he wanted her to see. A black cloak swirled in the midst of the Red, somehow flowing between the combatants. The death’s face mask the man wore scowled permanently at the monsters in front of him.
In just a few seconds, the Black was at the hole. He was a large man, but moved as quickly as a striking snake. His black shield threw aside the attacks aimed at him, and his sword flashed out. Three swings and two of the big demons were down, one of them with no head. He met an attack of razor-sharp claws from above with a slash using the edge of his shield that nearly severed the arm, followed up by an upward sword thrust under the demon’s chin. The point of the black sword punctured the skull and exited the top of the creature’s head.
The Black kicked the body off his sword and flowed back, allowing the shield wall to close again.
Kate sat with her mouth open. She had never seen the Black in action before. As the man passed her to take his station where the other Black waited, he dipped his head to her. The death mask he wore looked vaguely like the demons he had killed. Kate guessed that was the point. She noticed also that his shield and sword glowed slightly red in the dim light of the overcast day. Was there some special magic attached to it?
She nodded back to him, finishing her food and taking one last swig of water. She stood and waited for her platoon to be called back to the action.
The battle lasted all day. Kate lost track of how many times she rotated in and out of the shield wall. And how many demons she killed.
Just as the sun touched the horizon, the demon hordes broke off the attack. There was no sign, no signal that Kate could detect, but one moment teeth and claws and dark bodies were striving to tear the Order soldiers apart, and the next all she saw was the backs of the creatures as they sprinted for the gates.
Some of the Red stepped forward to pursue, but a “Stand the line,” from the lieutenant stopped them from going farther.
When the last able-bodied demon crossed the threshold, the gate doors swung shut. The clang when they met in the middle sounded much too loud without the battle noise they had gotten used to for hours that day.
The demon injured were finished off, and the wounded humans were taken off the battlefield.
Kate was surprised to see another detail of the Blue retrieving the bodies of the demons and dragging them over to a blackened area to the side and behind the gate. When there was a mound of them, they were lit on fire.
“And I thought they smelled bad when they were alive,” Kate said to herself, not really realizing she had said it aloud.
&nb
sp; A man next to her, covered in green muck like she was, chuckled. On her other side, another Red laughed out loud. Soon, much of her squad was laughing, relieving the tension of the day. Kate laughed herself.
They had survived their first real battle with the demons, but would they survive the next?
18
After finishing off the last few hours of her watch, Kate and her platoon were relieved so they could go and clean up. The demon blood was thick and seemed to want to stay on them, despite how much they scrubbed. It took a long time to wash it all off. She wasn’t sure if she could ever get it out of her clothes. She recognized the foresight in giving them several sets of clothes and cloaks.
“You are being given tomorrow off,” her sergeant said to her squad later that evening. “One of the alternate platoons will take up your duty. You will have four days off until your next rotation.” He looked over them, five soldiers short of what they had started with that morning. “We wouldn’t want you to be unfit for duty after the celebration tonight.” His smile almost reached his eyes this time. The smiles of those in the squad crinkled everything up to the hairline.
As directed, Kate went to the main hall that evening. There, the Blue served the companies who took part in the battle all the food and drink they desired. The mood was relaxed, people joyous at being alive, and she had to face hardly any scowls or dirty looks at all.
Kate was sitting with a mug of ale, listening to a minstrel who was wandering about the grand hall singing songs of past Order battles. A shadow fell over her, and she looked up to find one of her squad mates standing there.
He was taller than her, with dark hair and a smirk on his face. She had seen him around, observed his interactions with the rest of the squad. The others looked up to him, almost so much that if he said something contrary to what Sergeant Cholan said, most of the squad would probably do what this man said. He reminded her of Arronax.
His arrogance—as well as thoughts of her former squad mate—made her fingers twitch to punch the man in the face, but she tightened her grip on her mug to keep it from happening.
“You are Kate, yes?” he said, with the hint of an accent from Salornum. “I am being Bachios Batille.”
He looked at her as if his name should mean something to him. She looked back politely but did not say anything.
Bachios cleared his throat. “I am within the squad of yours. The Kestrel Squad.”
“Yes, I know,” she said, trying to force her face to be friendly. It was like being back home, having to interact with those she cared not to. “I have seen you around. It was a good battle today.”
“Ah, the battle. Yes, it was. I myself killed fourteen demons during the day.”
Kate kept her mouth closed. She wasn’t sure of the exact number, but she had killed at least four times that many.
“I wanted only to say to you welcome to the squad. You are a new soldier, yes?”
Kate sighed inwardly. “Yes, I am. Thank you for the welcome, Bachios. I hope you enjoy the celebration.”
The man looked at his cup of wine and then back to her. “And to you as well, Kate.”
He walked away, others in the squad following in his wake.
“Making friends everywhere you go,” Wilfred said, bouncing up to her with a pitcher. “More ale?”
Kate laughed. “No, I think I am fine as it stands. With ale and with friends. I can appreciate the effort, but his heart was not in it. My squad mates haven’t said one word to me the entire time I’ve been here, and now they want to talk?”
“Maybe they’re just intimidated,” Wilfred said.
“Intimidated?”
“You are pretty scary when you swing that sword. Or any other weapon. Or when you do that thing where you look right through someone like your eyes are arrows.”
“Really?” she said. “I don’t do it on purpose. I just want to do my job and survive, the same as any Order soldier.”
“I know that,” the Blue said, “though it took me a while to figure it out. Maybe they haven’t yet. Give them a chance.”
As Wilfred finished speaking, one of the Reds from another platoon walked by him and threw his shoulder into the Blue’s back. The tray Wilfred was holding spun off one way and the pitcher another.
Kate glared at the man and began to get up.
“No,” Wilfred said. “It’s okay. Some of the Reds treat me like that. It’s just the way it is.”
“I can make sure that’s not the way it is with him again,” she said, marking where the offending Red was going.
“It’s fine, really. It builds character.” He laughed. “Anyway, I better get another pitcher and tray. Thirsty Reds to serve.”
“You should be celebrating, too,” Kate pointed out. “If it wasn’t for your squad, some of us wouldn’t have made it.”
“Thank you, but it’s fine. The Order is all about fighting. I’m just happy I don’t have to swing a sword at those monsters. I’ll see you around, Kate. Enjoy the party.”
He left and she felt even worse than she had before. It was one thing for them to treat her badly because she was a noble, but to look down on Wilfred, that was just wrong. She wasn’t so sure she belonged in the Order at all if that was what its people were like.
The night went on, and she met two other members of her squad. She had seen them, of course, observed their interactions with the others in the squad, but she’d never talked with them.
Clytus Forsen was an older man, having served in the Order for eighteen years. His blond hair was tied in a tail at the back of his head, and his blue eyes scanned the room lazily as he introduced himself.
“Been in this man’s army for nigh on eighteen years. Just a few more—if’n I survive it—and I can get the hell out. Day after day, swinging steel at those damn abominations. I just want to go home and never have to kill anything again. Y’know what I mean?”
Kate didn’t, but she nodded companionably. She had found that if she let other people talk, things went much better. Her way of speaking, the words she used and the way she put them together, often caused others to do a double-take and then the sly looks would start. Her speech gave her away as a noble, and when she conversed, suspicion grew in their eyes. Better to listen.
“Anyhow, I seen you fighting today. You slipped right into it. That’s good. Too many of the God-forsaken newbies cause the wall to collapse and good men to die. So, it’s good you held your own. Keep it up.”
He tilted his cup toward her and walked away, leaving her wondering what the purpose of the conversation was.
The third squad mate she met was a timid young man who could have been a cousin. His red hair and light blue eyes reminded her of some of the relatives on her mother’s side.
She met him literally by accident. She had had enough of the festivities and was heading out toward her bunk. They collided in the hall, her reflexes allowing her to twist out of the way and grab his cloak to keep him from falling on the stone floor.
He ducked his head to her and turned his thick body to leave, but she spoke to him, uncharacteristically. She wasn’t even sure why. Maybe because the way he acted reminded her of Wilfred, in the way he seemed to duck his head to everyone and keep mostly to himself.
“You’re in Kestrel Squad, right?” she asked.
“Uh, y-y-yes. I am,” he stuttered. “M-m-mainet Wolter is my n-n-name.”
“Glad to meet you, Mainet. I’m Kate Courtenay.”
“Yes, I kn-kn-know.”
“Have you been in the Order long?”
“For just t-t-two y-y-years.”
“Oh, a veteran, then. I just arrived. It was my first battle.”
The man’s blue eyes stared out at her from under the shock of his red hair. It seemed as if he was waiting for something.
“Well, it was nice meeting you, Mainet. I’ll see you around. Congratulations on a good day of battle.”
“Y-y-yes,” he said. “You, too.”
He ducked his head again
and skittered off toward the grand hall. Kate shook her head and headed to her room.
During the off days immediately after the battle, Kate often found herself climbing the stairs to the north tower to look out over the gate. It was quiet again after the attack, but she imagined she could feel the tension from the Reds making up the shield wall duty. Maybe it was her own anxiety making itself known.
It was a strange thing. Most of the time, she was like a fish among rabbits, impotently flopping around, needing water but not getting it. But when she was put into battle, it was like someone had thrown her into a crystal clear lake. She moved through it smoothly with perfect efficiency. It felt as if she was right where she belonged.
She didn’t understand it all. When not fighting, she was miserable and alone. The only interaction she really had was with Wilfred, and that was fairly rare. It was not the best of situations. The Blue was himself sort of an outcast, though at least he had the other Blues to rely on. She wasn’t sure what her future held. What was wrong with her? She actually looked forward to battle, the only time she seemed to be where she belonged.
She and her squad went on duty again and started their three-day rotations. The demons attacked more frequently, but not on the scale they had in Kate’s first battle. These were not all-day battles, but skirmishes that lasted an hour or a few. She was on duty for many of them, but others she watched from the wall or heard about when taking her meals.
Day, night, it didn’t really seem to matter to the demons. That seemed strange to Kate, figuring they would prefer the darkness, but maybe that was just an old legend that held no truth.
When her squad manned the shield wall, some of them occasionally nodded to her or even gave her a wave. She responded in kind, but there was never much conversation. She was content that at least they were trying to make her feel like she fit in. Some of them, anyway. Others were as aloof as always.
It made her wonder if it was normal or completely because she was a noble. Maybe it was because she was a woman. There wasn’t really anyone she could ask.
All the while, Sergeant Cholan watched over them, being a part of them, but not really—smiling, but not really. He didn’t speak to her much, but he didn’t speak to the others much, either, unless he was barking commands. It was strange all the way around.
Call of Fire Page 14
