“We will see.”
He gave the two civilians the same instructions he’d given Novak: The Malcontents would fight; the others needed to reach the train no matter what. Horner understood completely and put on a very brave face. Sayre said the right things, but Cleasby didn’t know him at all and trusted him even less.
Cleasby proceeded to check on each of his men’s well being. The ever-silent and scowling Bevy merely gave him a solemn nod. The normally jovial Allsop remarked that at least it was nice weather for a battle. He did it with forced cheer, but it would have to do. Younger, despite being their least experienced, was a remarkably determined, no-nonsense type, and when asked if he was ready, he responded with remarkable profanity and intensity in the affirmative, which meant that he would probably turn out to be a fine Malcontent. Pangborn and Headhunter were always eager for a fight—didn’t matter what, just point them at it and turn them loose. Thornbury was, as usual, a bundle of nerves, but their nobleman had the tenacity and survivability of a cockroach.
“What do you think, sergeant?” Cleasby asked Rains when he reached his friend last. “Are we ready?”
“They’re brothers, and nobody fights harder for anything harder than they fight for family. They’d make Sir Madigan proud.”
“You know, Rains, I want to be like you when I grow up.”
Rains laughed. “Let’s go massacre some bloody skinwalkers.”
They entered the fog.
Caradoc and his warriors came upon the remains. He knew the smells. It was the man-stink of the ones he’d first come upon in the battle and the gun mage who had shot him. He’d swatted that little man down and left the others for the pups to hunt.
Now another of his warriors had been shot and the gun mage was missing. His people were running out of time. Caradoc pushed his nose to the stone and drank in the story. Metal, oil, leather, sweat. The blue soldiers had come through here. The one called Cleasby had stood in this very spot; their warjack had left its coal and oil stink. Beneath those scents, he could tell the sacred stone had been with them.
Blood Drinker picked up one of the skinned human bodies, casually shoved it between his jaws, and began chewing. After a moment, the giant warpwolf gagged and spit it out. Caradoc sniffed the corpse. The meat had turned. Caradoc found it strange the meat had gone bad so quickly. It wasn’t enough for Cygnar to trespass, but it seemed they polluted everything they touched. Blood Drinker growled.
A warrior appeared, loping from the ravine. He was a scout from one of the other villages scattered through the Wyrmwalls, summoned when Caradoc had sounded the horn of war. The skinwalker stopped before Caradoc, communicating with the rough tongue of words and gestures.
They were driving the prey before them right into a trap. Within minutes the fight would begin. If they did not hurry, the blue soldiers would all be dead before Caradoc could even reach them, and the glory would belong to another.
Caradoc looked to the warriors who’d followed him from the village. Ivor’s muzzle was twisted and several fangs were missing, but he snarled back at his chief. They would not be deprived their vengeance. Caradoc and a dozen warriors ran after the scout.
“Weapons up!” Cleasby shouted.
He could hear them coming through the swirling mist. The skinwalkers were all around them, maneuvering through the ferns, rubbing against mossy rocks and rotten trees. But they’d not shown themselves yet. The valley was wet. Fat droplets of cold water collected on branches until they could bear no more, falling to splatter against his armor.
“Ranks tight. Keep moving,” Rains said. “Cover your area.”
They stayed in formation, each Storm Knight responsible for watching one section. Cleasby moved between them, feeling that nervous blend of excitement and fear that came in the moments before a battle. They’d trained together, fought together, and bled together. The Malcontents had learned from the best and had gotten even better since. They had come a long way since Sul and were as solid a bunch of Storm Knights as the kingdom had ever seen. These were his men, and he was damned proud of them. They’d do as they were told and fight as one.
Still, their single best fighter was an outsider. “Is this as good a place as any to fight these beasts?” Acosta asked, impatient to call them out.
“Not yet,” Cleasby muttered. They reached a shallow streambed. It was mostly dry, with fast moving rivulets of water dancing between the stones. It was about as open as any approach they’d seen in the valley. Cleasby glanced around, taking in the terrain. He was a tactician, and if the skinwalkers were foolish enough to let him pick the ground, Cleasby would pick the most advantageous spot possible. “A little farther.”
“Choose wisely, my friend. And perhaps quickly.”
Ignoring the mercenary, Cleasby moved on but looked down when his boot made a significant splash. He held up one fist. “Halt.”
The streambed had widened around several fallen trees, and there was far more standing water here. It was an ice-cold runoff crossing a gravel bed, so the water would probably be rich with conductive minerals. He could use this to their advantage. “Remember that fight in the Marchfells a few months ago?”
“Sure do,” Pangborn said. He began making hand signals to their warjack.
Cleasby nodded. “Divert everything to that generator, fully boosted. Novak, Horner, Sayre, you’re not insulated. Get on dry ground and stay there.” He looked to Acosta. The mercenary hadn’t been with them for that fight, and Cleasby didn’t have time to explain the tactics they’d used. “This will do. Call them in, Acosta.”
“Very well, Cleasby. I have faith in your leadership decisions.”
“Well, then this day is just full of surprises.”
“Let us begin then.” Acosta lifted the stone tablet from his pack and held it high above his head. He bellowed from the chest, as loudly as possible, his words meant to taunt the entire valley. “Behold, you mongrel forest dogs! I, Savio Montero Acosta, have your stupid rock. What manner of ignorant savage worships a rock?” He moved the tablet in front of his face, loudly cleared his throat, and spit on it. “That is what I think of pathetic ancestors. Come and take it from me if you dare, cowards!”
The valley was suddenly filled with snarling.
“Yes! I have stolen it from you.” Acosta dropped the tablet back into his pack, moved it around behind him, and came back with a glaive. “I think I will use this rock for something important. Like a cobblestone for my stable! So my horses may defecate upon it!”
There was more growling as well as some angry howls. They were getting closer.
“The Ordsman certainly got a talent for pissing people off,” Thornbury said, shaking his head.
It was exactly what Cleasby had been hoping for. Better to provoke them early than let the skinwalkers set the terms. “He certainly does. And it’s good for us.”
Acosta was only getting warmed up. “Where is your Caradoc? Too scared to show his hideous dog face? Come out so I can beat you like the mangy cur you are! You call yourself a chief? You are a pathetic worm. Will you dare and fight a real warrior or will you cower in fear?”
“To the right!” Younger shouted. An electrical blast ripped between two trees. A skinwalker screeched and fell back. Thorny turned and fired at it also, blowing a massive chunk out of the side of an evergreen.
“Cover your own area!” Rains barked. “Trust your brothers.”
Cleasby could hear the click and scrape of claw against rocks, the tightening of hardened palms on leather-wrapped shafts, the hiss of angry breath, the licking of fangs. Perhaps he only imagined the last one, but his senses always seemed extra-heightened in the moments before battle was joined.
“You feel that, my friends?” Acosta whispered. “The anticipation? This is what it feels like to be truly alive.”
“Not for long if they’ve got anything to say about it,” Allsop answered.
Cleasby checked: the three of them who weren’t wearing storm armor were standing on to
p of dry rocks in the middle of their position. They were his responsibility, but once the battle began, he wouldn’t be able to watch out for them. “Don’t dare move until Headhunter has fired,” he ordered.
There were flashes of movement all around them. Branches were left shaking as something unseen passed under or through them. Novak fired her rifle into the mist. A skinwalker yelped. As she reloaded, Sayre climbed up a taller rock and drew his pistol. The gun mage slowly turned and searched for targets. Even though he didn’t know what the Malcontents were planning, he was smart enough to listen and stay on dry ground.
“Pangborn, wait for my signal,” Cleasby commanded. Their ’jack marshal put one hand on Headhunter’s leg. Even as big a man as Pangborn was, his hand looked tiny on the mighty machine. There was a mechanical whine as Headhunter lifted its giant glowing blade and held it aloft, perfectly still, waiting.
A new sound filled the air. The monsters were striking their weapons against the trees like the beating of drums. The noise grew louder and louder, faster and faster, until suddenly, it simply stopped.
The forest was deathly quiet. Several agonizing seconds passed.
And then all the skinwalkers rushed them.
They came from every direction, great roaring beasts, black, grey, and brown, their fur painted with streaks of red and blue, their simplistic armor decorated with feathers and bones. They were armed with spears, axes, and pole arms, though some were content to attack with nothing but their claws and teeth. All of their eyes were filled with fury.
“Now this,” Acosta said, “will be a proper battle.”
“Fire glaives!” Cleasby bellowed.
Lightning bolts struck across the forest, arcs leaping from body to body. Skinwalkers raged and howled as they were struck. Everyone but Headhunter attacked. Cleasby blasted a grey skinwalker through the chest. Acosta swept past him, extended an arm, firing one glaive through a creature’s ribs, then turned and burned the legs out from beneath another. A circle of glowing magical runes formed around Sayre’s pistol as he fired, and a monster’s grotesque head burst into licking green flames. Several skinwalkers fell to the initial volley, but far more remained.
Waiting to give the order was difficult, but the timing had to be perfect. Cleasby had to let them close in. They had to stare death in the face and not flinch.
Splashing through the shallow stream, the skinwalkers hit their formation. Spear tips crashed against bucklers or armor, sending the much smaller Storm Knights reeling back. But even then, Cleasby waited for more of the enemy to enter the stream. He waited until it felt like they were all going to be drowned beneath a crush of the feral enemy.
“Now, Pangborn! Now!”
The ’jack marshal banged his gauntlet against Headhunter’s leg. The warjack reacted instantly, plunging its giant blade straight down, driving it directly into the streambed. On impact, all of the magical energy stored in its huge storm chamber discharged.
Crackling energy blasted through the stream. The Storm Knights were ankle-deep in it, but the lightning danced over them harmlessly; by contrast, the skinwalkers twitched and jerked as electrical current tore through their muscles. Both water and blood boiled.
The initial rush should have overwhelmed the Malcontents, but now the skinwalkers had been left burned and temporarily reeling. “For Cygnar!” Cleasby shouted as he threw himself at one of the staggered creatures. He cleaved its bicep clear to the bone, spun, and chopped through its knees. The rest of the Malcontents roared the same battle cry as they descended on the stunned beasts, hacking and slashing.
“Go get ’em, boy,” Pangborn murmured as his murderous warjack wrenched the gigantic generator blade out of the ground in a great cloud of steam. Headhunter took one lumbering step forward and backhanded a burned skinwalker with its buckler. The creature went flying off into the woods. Headhunter brought the generator blade down on another enemy, shattering half the bones in its body. The pressure caused the skinwalker’s guts to blow out its sides like a fountain.
For a few seconds, the battle was a lopsided slaughter against twitching enemies, but the skinwalkers were extremely resilient and were already recovering. While the Malcontents had caught many in the generator blast, they hadn’t caught all of them. Cleasby realized most of the enraged enemy still charging from the woods were focused on Acosta. His ploy had worked, and he was the center of their attention. Thankfully, Acosta liked being the center of attention—the lunatic swordsman was actually grinning as they closed on him.
Acosta smashed the spears thrust at him aside and moved between the shafts, each of his glaives dispensing death. He struck, moved, and struck again, whirling and ducking between attacks. As the glaives accumulated more power, he fired a galvanic blast, taking turns firing one while the other charged. An enemy axe descended with unbelievable speed, but Acosta simply stepped aside, let it chop down into the stream, and then ran a glaive over the beast’s hands, removing half its fingers at the knuckle. He moved between two more, letting them collide with each other in their frenzy, only to turn back and slice through one’s ribs and the other’s thigh.
Acosta appeared on the other side of a hairy pile of furious beasts, standing in a stream quickly turned red, and laughed. “Brilliant! I am learning so much!” But then he had to leap out of the way as Headhunter barreled right through the mass of beasts, scattering them every which way and trampling more underfoot.
Cleasby wished he could be that flippant in the middle of a blood-soaked melee, but he was doing everything he could to keep himself and his men alive. “Bevy, go left!” It was as if his brain were working on two different planes simultaneously: one trying to direct the battle, the other trying not to get killed by it. Even surrounded by a pitched fight, it was a commander’s job to lead. “Younger, back up Thorny!”
Once he realized everyone was engaged and he had no useful orders left to give, he picked a fearsome grey beast from the mob and attacked it himself. He knocked aside its axe but had his own thrust blocked by the skinwalker’s armor. The axe came back around and hit Cleasby’s buckler so hard he thought it might have broken his arm, but before the savage beast could take him down, Acosta suddenly appeared. His glaive split open the monster’s abdomen, yet the skinwalker was so furious, it didn’t seem to notice.
“Anger makes them immune to pain,” Acosta cautioned.
But pain was just another indicator, Cleasby knew, and like the gauges on Headhunter’s boiler, you ignored warning indicators at your own peril. The skinwalker came at them but stumbled, its blood pouring out, and the two of them hacked it mercilessly to the ground.
The Storm Knights were now having a terrible time of it. Individually, the monsters outmatched them, so the simple savagery was finally overwhelming them. Without Headhunter’s might, they would already have been defeated. Cleasby watched helplessly as Corporal Allsop was clubbed across the stream. Cleasby would not reach them in time, but Acosta could. “Help him!”
The Ordsman intercepted the skinwalker, blasted it in the face with one blade and disemboweled it with the other.
“You may not kill this man, for he has amused me!” He shouted. As the beast toppled into the stream and Allsop struggled back to his feet, Acosta turned to the Storm Knight. “You should pick up your storm glaive. I do not have hands enough to use three.”
The formation was broken, and chaos spilled forth. Rains’ shield slammed a skinwalker back into a tree, where it was impaled through the ribs by a broken branch. It peeled itself free only to have Horner blow its brains out with a contact shot from her scattergun. A spear knocked Bevy down, but Pangborn drove the bayonet of his storm thrower into that skinwalker’s chest before firing it and blasting the creature free from the end of it.
Cleasby ducked beneath a skinwalker’s wild swing, somehow dodged a spear, cut the monster across the snout, electrocuted one about to kill Thornbury, and ended up face-to-face with a blood soaked Acosta yet again. The man was so fast he seemed to be everywh
ere all at once.
“Your fight is not going well,” the mercenary reported.
The delirious Cleasby looked around. His exhausted Storm Knights were taking a beating. He couldn’t tell who wasn’t wounded. They had superior weapons, but these things, which were infuriatingly hard to kill, had them hopelessly outnumbered.
“Novak!” Cleasby signaled the ranger. “Catch that train!”
The ranger heard him. It was obvious she was torn, but she did as ordered. With one last sad look, she turned and ran. A skinwalker saw her dashing through the undergrowth and went after her, but Cleasby blasted it with his glaive. By the time its muscles quit twitching, Headhunter had picked up the unfortunate creature and thrown it across the valley.
The Storm Knights fought on, desperate, as the skinwalkers kept coming.
A terrible roar of thunder filled the entire valley, far louder than even Headhunter’s generator blast. Man and beast alike stopped fighting long enough to look toward the sky. A rolling black storm cloud had inexplicably appeared, blotting out the sun.
A sudden, blinding flash of true lightning, so brilliant and powerful it made their galvanic weapons look like toys, shook the sky. The bolt struck the mountaintop hard enough to fling boulders down its side and carve a white line inside their closed eyelids. The sound that followed a few seconds later was possibly the loudest thunderclap Cleasby had ever heard.
The battle stopped.
“Krueger,” growled one of the skinwalkers fearfully.
Krueger. The trembling monsters fell back. The skinwalkers seemed to shrink, huddling in fear. Krueger. Their wounded slinked away, pushing their entrails back into their wounded bellies. They had been so incredibly heedless of danger a moment before, but now they were terrified. Krueger. They kept repeating the name as they fell back into the trees and fled.
Into the Wild Page 24
