by J. McSpadden
The man sitting on the ground nodded his head once, the stark pores of his face like polka dots in the smear of dirt across his cheeks. Reaching up with a shackled hand, he placed a calloused palm against her arm and smiled. "I've lived a full life dear child," the elderly man said, his voice a raspy, grating noise. Camille shook her head, but his hand remained firm. "You've done what you can, now get them out of here."
Theo pried the chain connecting the man to the others apart, and the shackled Rogues took off at a clipped run.
"I can save you," Camille begged. Tears flowed down her cheeks in a rush as she tugged against the shackle connecting the man to the wall. "I can keep trying." Smoke caught in her throat and made her choke, but she ignored the stinging pain and the flow of salty wetness streaming down her face.
"No; you must go," the elderly man said. His voice was a harsh whisper in the density of smoke, but she heard the tremor of panic beneath his determined layer of courage. "I'm not your responsibility, and this isn't your fault."
"I'm sorry," Camille said in despair, the blunt resignation of his life hollowing out all remaining words in her throat.
"We all have our time, my dear. And now isn't yours!"
Her eyes met his through a cloud of debris and sediment, the shaky cobblestone ground rumbling underfoot.
"Camille!" Theo bellowed from over her shoulder.
She felt a hand on her arm yanking her backward and onto her feet before another hand pressed her head to the warming heat of Theo's chest.
A loud, bursting wave exploded just behind them, sending flames and debris rocketing upwards. Camille was flung into the opposite building with a cloud of heat pressing into her exposed flesh. Her head slammed into the stone wall as she landed, sending a hot white light blasting through her vision before a thundering mass of crumbling stone, metal, and wood rained down from the skies.
Chapter Eighteen
Farewell
"Captain! Did you hear me?" A soldier screamed at Vesyon over the blast of the explosion emitting from the compound. He stood like a glazed statue, his face growing hot from a cloud of fire and ash as he stared at the damage.
In Vesyon's haste to get to Camille, he hadn't heard Charlie scream at him to stop, hadn't felt her hands on his arm yanking him backward. He hadn't noticed when she jumped on his back and wrestled him to the ground. Vesyon was positive she'd acted on orders from Phillip—if not, she would have been more upset about the broken nose Vesyon had given her while trying to wrestle free of her grasp. The village grounds had catapulted into the air, the force of the explosion blasting his cheeks with bitter warmth as his face rose from the mud-slicked grass he'd landed in.
He had kicked Charlie unceremoniously off him, meaning to continue into the village, uncaring that the town square would be nothing but smoldering rock and crumbling buildings. There was no thought behind his actions; he just knew he needed to find Camille. Phillip's blood-soaked hand on his shoulder stopped him.
"She's gone Vesyon; we need to keep moving. Please," the General pleaded.
The cannon fire that had momentarily ceased picked up its cadence and Vesyon snapped back into his surroundings with a roar of frustration. His heart crumbled beneath his chest plate, a fierce stab of desolation crashing into him with a force he hadn't felt since losing Jesabelle.
Phillip placed a slick, blood-soaked hand on the back of Vesyon's neck and leaned into him, his legs barely able to hold him upright. "She's gone," Phillip repeated. "And I will be too, Captain. Please, I need you to stay with me here."
Vesyon nodded, uncertain of what else to do. He had to continue, he had to fight back—Vesyon would slowly and methodically kill LeMarc. The satisfaction of watching him perish would be the only salve to the heartache and anger surging through his body.
"Captain?" one of the Rogues screamed into his ear.
Vesyon looked at the brown-haired soldier, his chocolate eyes wide with sharp attention. The young man didn't seem afraid or worried, only determined to continue with the orders he'd been given.
"Yes?" Vesyon replied, his stare returning to the bursting explosions within the village.
"The General has given me orders to take the remaining men and head out. We are to relocate to White Wall, sir."
Vesyon nodded his entire body numb.
"Are you coming with us, Captain?" The Rogue screamed impatiently.
Vesyon turned to see Charlie administering another injection of antidote into Phillip's chest. Phillip had a single pack left, and once the venom finished its course through Phillip's veins there would be no stopping the outcome. Staying behind would do nothing to help the rebel cause; Romeo was gone and so was Camille.
"Head out with the remaining Rogues," Vesyon said to the young man eager to move, "I will catch up with you as soon as I can." The young man wavered for a mere moment, his eyes flitting to the General before nodding agreement to Vesyon's orders.
Vesyon should leave—he knew he should—but following through with the logical plan felt impossible. His boots remained glued to the spot, staring at the village square and begging to see her face just one last time.
***
She felt the soft tufts of Neeko's fur against her forearm, his body limp and unmoving. Theo had landed a few yards away, his hunched form groaning in pain. Another blast rang out on the opposite side of Romeo Village, causing her to duck her head, pressing her body over Neeko's. Constant, ringing deafness clouded her head like wads of cotton had been shoved into her ear cavity.
Fire and stone catapulted through the sky, raining debris and chunks of rock throughout the village square around them. She felt the blazing heat of fire close to her skin, almost as though her skin were melting like beeswax off her bones.
Hunching over the lifeless cat’s body, Camille cradled his tiny head in her hands. "Neeko?" Camille asked, her voice a stuttering quiver. She felt the lax give of flesh beneath his blood-soaked fur, and her heart almost stopped. Her hand came away red and sticky; his head was bleeding profusely. "Neeko, please stay with me. Please don't go!"
Theo twitched upright, and Camille’s head swam viciously as she turned to assess his wounds. He swore loudly, a grunting objection to the apparent pains in his head. Theo clutched the backside of his skull, wincing as he touched the swell of his hairline. He crawled on his hands and knees across the desecrated ground, his eyes never leaving hers. Shrapnel had split his cheek with a jagged line, and he had gashes along his neck and the back of his scalp, but he was breathing. He was alive.
"You all right?" he said brokenly, his voice box raspy and tight.
"Yeah," Camille replied, her words surprisingly strong despite the bitter smoke filling her lungs. "Neeko's not."
She bent to gather the small animal to her chest before Theo pulled himself up and leaned down to help her to her feet. With an arm around her waist, he led them through the rubble to the outskirts of the village.
"We need to move faster!" Theo said as they jogged, dodging smoking ruins and fallen Chimera. "This way!"
Another blast shot into the sky as they crossed into the dense grass surrounding the village. Camille glanced back to where the final soldier in chains had been, a man unwaveringly calm in the face of death. His body, still shackled to the wall, was now smoldering ash.
Anger flooded into her bloodstream, and her resulting cry was so savage it sounded more bestial than Asperian. She didn't care what it took to defeat the High King; she wouldn't let him do this again. Even if she died in the process, she was going to fight for Aspera—to fight for their freedom as much as her own.
Cannon fire zoomed loudly in the distance, but the clinking sounds of swords had died off almost entirely. The battle was over, yet neither side had won.
Glancing down at the tiny, fluffy ball in her arms, Camille began to understand why Vesyon had been so focused on keeping her away from the frontlines of battle. She loved Neeko; he'd been her only companion through many lonely days living in Sierra Village, and
seeing him so lifeless in her arms made her insides squirm with molten frustration.
"Do you think they evacuated?" She asked as a cannonball zipped over their heads into the village grounds at their back.
"Yes, we need to get out of here."
Camille crunched through the tufts of dead grass, hand on her sword as she watched the shapes of Chimera move toward them in the distance. "We can't go that way!"
"No, we need to—" Theo stopped suddenly at the sound of Neeko mewling in her arms. His furry head swayed upward as though waking from a drug-induced sleep. Bright, yellowed eyes, glassy from the haze of confusion, blinked up at her face but didn't appear to see her at all.
"Hi little guy," she murmured in a rush of relief, looking down into his blood-slicked features. Neeko mewled again, louder this time as he shook his head as though to dislodge a bug, and his mouth stretched wide in a sleepy yawn. Camille set him in the grass, wary of the advancing Chimera.
Neeko took a few woozy steps, and, then, without warning, flexed and grew, his muscles bulging beneath the slick black fur still covered in a mess of blood and dirt. He coughed, grunted, and then growled before shaking his body in a flurry of flying blood and dirt.
"Not-So-Little-Guy," Camille said, smiling and hunching to embrace the jaguar. His body was warm, and covered in splotches of blood and thick globs of mud, but he was alive.
Neeko licked her face, nuzzling her cheek with affection before turning toward the north end of Romeo Village and loping away toward the surge of beasts.
"Follow him!" Theo bellowed, taking up his sword and dagger before lunging after Neeko.
She didn't advance more than a few sprinted steps before two Chimera dove at her, their fangs dripping with venom and paws churning the ground. She downed them in less than three minutes, but their brethren surged around the trio. One would go down, and two more would take its place.
"We need to move toward the east!" Theo hollered over the mass of growls and yips of pain. "Our horses are tethered along the eastern outskirts."
It was slow-going, but Camille held nothing back. She slashed throats and tore out chunks of hair as they charged in close. She kicked and stabbed everything in her proximity, knowing nothing but the never-ending slew of attack. Theo ducked and twisted behind her, narrowly avoiding the onslaught, throwing what weapons he could at the ravenous creatures.
There was a handful of Rogues in the distance faring no better. Camille watched as they too fought viciously, pushing toward the east side of the battlefield. Fending off the slash of teeth and swipe of a claw, she tripped and stepped over many bodies pock-marked in oozing puncture wounds. The ground glistened with the fresh fall of rain, but the liquid that shone was red. It covered the slick tendrils of grass poking through the piles of bodies like fragile flags in a sea of death.
Camille ducked in time to miss the lunge of an unusually large beast, catching the monster along the back of his hind legs with her sword. She whirled to face the Chimera rearing back toward her, but her eye caught sight of Vesyon charging toward her, Phillip and Charlie flanking him.
"Vesyon!" she screamed, though she wasn't sure if it was in welcoming relief or in a flood of panic at seeing the stampede of thundering Chimera behind him. Theo turned in time to see Vesyon and froze in bewildered shock—as did Camille. The Chimera had ceased their attacks on the others and raced toward Camille. Perhaps Vesyon had been wrong: maybe the High King had come for her, after all.
Power thrummed wildly through Camille’s system, making her feel invincible as she realized she could lead the Chimera away, giving the remaining fighters a chance to escape.
Camille scanned the commotion, finding Neeko battling two Chimera nearby. "Neeko!" she yelled, and with a sharp swipe of his four-inch claws, both beasts were killed, and the jaguar was at her side. "Keep them safe," Camille said, pointing to Vesyon, Theo, Phillip, and Charlie.
His head turned sharply toward her, uncertainty flitting across his features.
"Thank you for protecting me, my friend," she said with a soft pat to the top of Neeko's head. He seemed wary of her words, but only for a moment as she ducked the attacks of Chimera, putting several feet of distance between them.
She turned without another word, not glancing back at Theo or Vesyon, unwilling to risk them stopping her or allowing her mind to keep her from doing what she knew she must.
Ducking under an advancing black beast, Camille ran up the hillside she and Theo had fled. The plateau just outside the cave opening would give her ample height advantage. If she could gain a foot or two over the Chimera, it'd be easier to knock off more at once. As she slapped back every advance of the beast, she began to notice their extreme hesitancy to go in for the kill. They attacked Theo with deadly intent, but with Camille, the Chimera held back. It was making it easier for her to kill them. Even if they'd been ordered not to kill her, she knew they'd pluck her up in an instant and take her straight to the High King if she faltered.
The ground gave way several times under her feet, but Camille dashed through the muddied plains as fast as her legs could carry her. She heard a strangled call from over her shoulder, but she wasn't positive if it was Theo or Vesyon. The air was biting and dense with the chilling mist seeping through the layers of her clothes. She bit down on her lower lip as she acknowledged that this was the end—she'd never see Theo, Vesyon, or Neeko again. She would fight and perhaps lose, but they would make it out alive—they would live. Gripping her sword with intense determination, she crawled up the last towering slope to the cave, and faced the droves of Chimera, screaming as loudly as possible, "Come and get me!"
Hundreds of heads twisted up to Camille's location. The beasts moved like a black wave of fur and fangs to pursue her and no one else.
She stared down at the pockmarked battlefield below, a cold trickle of terror snaking down her spine as the Chimera advanced. Reaching for her bow and holstering her sword, Camille took down several Chimera in succession with the snap of her bowline. She picked them off quickly, snagging two with a single shot, but she only had a small handful of arrows left.
"I'm coming, Camille!" someone cried from below, a man's voice, but one she couldn't place.
Another explosion vibrated through the ground, and Camille glanced over to see the high treetops near Romeo Village ablaze with fire. Two of the warships had begun their retreat, but one remained to lay waste to whatever structures were still standing. The entirety of Romeo's topside had crumbled into the depths of the compound, which belched heavy clouds of acrid smoke into the blackened sky.
"Camille!" the man called out again, much closer this time, and Camille spun to find Phillip fighting his way toward her.
He reached her in a matter of minutes, and she immediately saw that something wasn't right—his skin was pale and yellowed, and sweat poured down his face. His left arm and chest were a bloodied mess, and Camille immediately understood why he'd come to her rescue: Phillip had already been bitten.
"Take cover, Camille—get out of here!" Phillip coughed, slicing a Chimera straight up through the gut as it tried to attack Camille from behind.
"No!" Camille said, choking on the words fighting to escape. She'd unknowingly killed Phillip's wife in Charlie Town and now he was fighting for her life? "I never got to say how sorry I am. To make it up to you and Charlie!"
"You just did," Phillip said through labored breaths, slaying two more Chimera with a determined slice of his sword.
The Chimera numbers had dwindled, and the two of them were cornered against a ledge as the pile of dead bodies grew. She charged one advancing Chimera, her sword moving with such speed she was barely aware of her motions. The metal slashed through it's neck, spraying the ground in a waterfall of blood before the body slumped heavily at her feet.
Surrounded by a wall of bleeding and dead Chimera, silence enveloped them. Sweat dripped down Camille's face in rivers, but she paid it no mind. Her eyes flew to Phillip's, and she trembled with the emotion bubbl
ing up to the surface.
"I remember her face," Camille said softly.
Phillip leaned heavily on his broad sword peering at her trembling expression, his face also dripping in sweat.
One final Chimera lunged over the tower of carcasses toward her, but she notched her final arrow and took aim. It rolled down the heaping pile of dead bodies to land at her feet, purging the last remnants of its life onto her boots.
"She was a beautiful woman. Charlie looks so much like her," Camille continued as Phillip slipped to his knees, unable to stand any longer.
Tears mixed with sweat on her face, dribbling down her cheeks in hot, wet rivers as she darted toward him to keep Phillip from pitching forward on his face. Her words were pointless; she knew it, but she still felt they had to be said. "I didn't know what I was doing. I never meant to hurt them."
"What happened to my wife, to my friends in Charlie Town—it wasn't your fault," Phillip said, hacking up thick chunks of blood and mucus. "I know that. Vesyon knows that. You need to accept it as well."
He lurched forward, scrambling for something in one of his many pockets. He unearthed a flattened, palm-sized bag tipped with a nasty, thorn-like cylinder. He jabbed it into his thigh and emitted a heavy sigh of relief.
Phillip peered up at Camille, his color almost returning to normal. His skin remained clammy, however, and turned red with fever. "It won't last long," he grunted. "I'd get that look of hope off your face, soldier. The antidote only works when you're able to remove the virus."
"Let's go, then! I can carry you," Camille said, reaching to help Phillip up.
He waved her off and shook his head as he swayed backward toward the ground. "He warned me about you," Phillip said, removing his chest protector with a grunt of satisfaction. "I promised myself I'd hate you after everything that's happened, but Vesyon told me I wouldn't be able to resist your charm. By Ma'Nada, he was right for once," he said dryly. "Even after all these years, I look at you and see her blazing through your eyes—the same genuine smile and spark of hope."
