by Alex Raizman
Eupheme reappeared them, stepping out of the shadow to shove a thin blade into the cracks now splintering the armor’s hip. The man inside screamed in pain.
From there, it took Tythel and Tellias only moments to finish the soldier off. Moments they didn’t have. “Fall back!” Someone shouted further down the line. “Fall back or be surrounded!”
Tythel snatched up the unlight axe and tossed it to Eupheme. Eupheme nodded and stepped back into shadows again. Tythel began to run to the first fallback point, Tellias joining her. “Don’t get between me and plate again,” Tythel hissed at him.
“Then don’t get so close to plate,” Tellias growled. “I don’t want to see you in hand to hand with one of those things.”
Tythel leapt over the next wall with Tellias, then turned to him to shout, “I was fighting them in hand to hand before you were-”
Eupheme stepped out from the shadow of the wall. “Enough!” she snapped, her voice firm. “This is a battlefield, not a bedroom. Bicker later.”
Tellias turned a deep shade of red, although Tythel could on blink in confusion. What do bedrooms have to do with arguments? Still, properly chastised, she peered through a gap between the stones.
Numbers should have been on their side, yet the Alohym’s forces were pushing them back. That damn warship in the sky was pelting them with unlight beams that could cleave through any barrier they could erect, and they were making good use of their imperiplate, clumping it together in groups of four or five to act like a fist at anywhere resistance was particularly strong. We need something to change the game or we’re done for.
There was no time for clever strategies, however. Soldiers of the Alohym were rushing forwards. Resistance fighters began popping over the walls to open fire, trying to slow their advance. This time, Tythel didn’t bother with an arcwand, instead waiting for them to get closer before leaping out of cover and letting loose a wide arc of dragonflame.
She only caught a few soldiers in her breath, but they fell, screaming in agony as they did. If only there was some way to burn the whole army…Tythel thought.
Then, slowly, a grin began to spread across her face. “Tellias! We need to fall back to the tunnels!”
Tellias gave her an open-mouthed stare. “Have you lost your mind? We’ll be trapped like rats down there.”
Tythel nodded. “I have a plan. Well, an idea. Flath it, Tellias, we’re getting picked off from the air anyway! Underground favors us right now.”
As if to punctuate her point, an ancient tower that contained arcwand snipers exploded nearby, shattered by a beam of unlight as thick as a man’s torso. The warship was beginning to slowly advance, its pilot realizing that nothing they had on the ground could oppose them. “Light burn me,” Tellias swore, looking around wildly. “We need to convince the rest of the army, or we’ll just be cowards running.”
Tythel stood up again to let loose another gout of dragonflame at the advancing soldiers. An unlight beam brushed her shoulder, and she dropped back down as she suppressed a hiss of pain. “Eupheme!” Tythel said. “Find de’Monchy. Tell him-”
Tythel didn’t need to finish the explanation. Eupheme gave Tythel a quick nod of her head and vanished again into shadows.
“Are you alright?” Tellias asked, standing up to return fire on the advancing soldiers. From the lack of screams, both from her flame and his shots, neither of them had struck home.
“Are you kidding?” Tythel let out a dark laugh. “I’ve been shot worse than this. I’ll be fine.” She did her best to seem confident, even though every twitch of the injured arm was agony.
Tellias only nodded. “Well, you highness, your Umbrist has gone to try and change the course of an entire army. What do we do until she returns?”
A soldier made it to the wall, leaping over in a swift motion. His eagerness put him directly in Tythel’s arm reach, and she swung her hammer one handed. The man’s chest cavity collapsed under the blow.
“We hold the line,” she said. And Light grant we can hold it long enough.
Chapter 7
When you work on a major project, you have to manage your duties. It’s like the triage physikers practice. Pick what’s most important and make that your highest priority. Secondary priorities can follow as you pursue the primary. Armin heard the words of his old teacher, Master Lukanis, as if the old Master was standing next to him. For the most part, it was good advice, although Armin wished they had spent more time on learning to identify primary and secondary priorities. Digging the tunnel, for example. Armin had set expansion of the tunnel and reinforcement so it wouldn’t collapse on anyone’s head as a primary priority, and focused all their efforts in those two fields. Those were good priorities.
However, it meant making sure that the alarms reached them down here was a secondary priority.
So it was that Armin and the other three Lumcasters they’d acquired after their last major confrontation with the Alohym were completely unaware, at first, of an entire battle being fought above. They were deep beneath the ground, checking charts and second guessing their math. If their math was right – and Armin hoped that four Lumcasters working in tandem could manage even complex trigonometry – the tunnel through the plateau had now reached the ground level after winding in a gentle spiral downwards.
Clarcia stood next to him. “The math looks good to me!” she said brightly, earning a chuckle from Armin and the others. Of the Lumcasters, she had the most raw power. She was also fifteen and had never set foot in the Collegium or any other school of formal study. She’d figured out how to manipulate light by accident. It made her into a potent force, but when the time came for math and careful planning, she sat at the side of Armin and the others, taking notes with a fervor. The math always looked good to her, and Armin wondered if the joke would ever wear old, or if she’d be making it when she was in her seventies and had finally mastered it.
Light, you’re a fool, Armin thought with no small amount of bitter mirth. You actually believe anyone here is going to make it to seventy? His sour reflection was interrupted by the oldest of the Lumcasters, Genevia. Genevia had been a Lumcaster before the Alohym arrived, one of the few to survive that initial assault. She only had middling talent, but could apply it with the surgical precision of a physikers blade. She was also showing some of the slight mutations that aged Lumcasters developed – in her case, a third eye in the center of the forehead that she swore was nonfunctional, and an extra thumb on each hand. Those did work, Armin knew, though they provided her little benefit. Genevia had joked about developing a new instrument only she could play properly, but admitted she had no ideas for how that would work. “I think Clarcia is right. However, Clarcia, can you tell us why it is ‘good’?”
Armin tuned out as Clarcia began to explain the formulae and how they proved it was safe to burst through the plateau. He knew he should be paying attention, but Genevia and Adenot – the last of their little quartet – were better at math than him. Adenot was, like Genevia, older than Armin, although he’d only been an apprentice when the Alohym invaded. He also wasn’t particularly strong, although he could hold a casting far longer than any of the others, which made it his job to shore up the tunnel until the builders could use some of the stones from the ruins above to keep it supported. Adenot had not begun to mutate at all, although he swore every day it was coming ‘soon.’
Light and shadow, listen to me, judging others for their strength as Lumcasters. I’m a glorified charging cell! That wasn’t entirely fair – since absorbing the Sunstone’s power, Armin had been able to do some minor casting that went beyond mere ‘charging cell charging,’ but since his talent had been so weak, he’d never learned how to manipulate light for anything other than powering Arc devices. In mathematics, logic, and the scholarly arts, he could help teach Clarcia. When it came to Lumcasting, Genevia and Adenot often taught Clarcia by giving her basic lessons to teach Armin. It rankled sometimes. At the collegium, being a glorified charging cell had mad
e him perfect in the eyes of his instructors, who were now of course serving the Alohym. It was only now Armin understood that was because being able to charge Arc devices was all they wanted Lumcasters to do.
Why did they even allow that? Armin wondered, not the first time. Ever since Tythel’s discovery that the Alohym’s vaunted immunity to harm was a function of every assault against them in the past using Unlight weapons against them, it had never made sense to Armin that the Alohym allowed the creation of arcwands. He hadn’t come up with an answer, not yet. His best theory was that the Alohym knew humans would figure out the trick and thought it would be best if they controlled the production of the arcwands.
He didn’t like that theory. It was too clean, too neat, and too easy. Armin didn’t trust anything that made the Alohym seem easy. In his experience, nothing about the Alohym seemed easy.
“Very good Clarcia. Master Armin,” Genevia asked, breaking into his reverie again. “Do you agree we’re ready to breach?”
Armin fought the urge to protest the title. He was nominally ‘leading’ the Lumcasters, but that was only by virtue of having been with the Resistance far longer and having earned the Duke’s trust. He had never earned the rank of Master, unlike Genevia and Adenot, and having them call him a title he was still years away from being worthy of rankled him. Armin liked people singing his praises, but only when it was deserved. “I do, so long as Master Adenot agrees.”
Adenot nodded in firm agreement. Armin would rarely do anything if the two true Masters didn’t agree, and when they did not, he deferred to Genevia. At least he didn’t need to do that this time. “Excellent,” Armin said. “Then I suppose we should start the breach. Anyone know what time it is up top?”
“Well,” Clarcia said brightly, “judging by the circles under all three of Master Genevia’s eyes, I’d say we were up all night. Again.”
Armin ignored the note of reproach in Clarcia’s voice. Bringing timepieces into the tunnel had also seemed a secondary priority. It was easy to lose track of time away from the sun and stars, especially with work to distract them. And especially because you don’t need to sleep anymore. Or, to be more accurate, he couldn’t sleep anymore. Not since the Sunstone.
It was starting to wear on him.
“Then we’ll call it for now, and break through after we’ve all rest-”
Armin was cut off by the sudden slap of boots on the tunnel, coming towards them rapidly. “Master Armin!” the runner shouted. She was young, no more than eleven or twelve. Children like her were used to run messages within the camp to free up the adults for other work. No one trusted the songstones, not for anything short of dire urgency.
“What is it?” Armin asked, masking his irritation. He was hoping to lay down and at least close his eyes for a few hours.
The girl was panting and had to rest her hands on her knees. Light. Did she run the entire length? “We…you don’t know. Alohym, sir. They’re attacking the upper level. The Duke sent me…oh flath. Sorry, shouldn’t swear.” The girl took a deep breath. “They’re falling back into the tunnels. The Duke says if you can get an opening, we’re going to need it.”
Armin scowled. “Sleep is postponed,” he announced. “We need to break through.”
There was no argument. Clarcia went to the front and began to glow as she sucked in light from the nearby Lumwell. It caused her skin to glow with a golden radiance, and her red and blue hair began to float of its own accord. “Steady now,” Genevia cautioned, her own skin starting to glow as she wove a focus from light.
They’d gotten very good at this. Clarcia would channel raw power from the lumwell, with Genevia focusing her beam. Adenot would shore up the tunnel, and Armin would pull additional light to funnel into whoever needed it.
“How long,” the girl asked. “Begging your pardon, sir, but the Duke will want to know.”
Now Armin wished he’d paid attention to the mathematical discussion earlier. “Genevia?” Armin asked, busying himself with some objects on the table to appear busy, hoping to hide his ignorance.
“Two hours safely. An hour if we rush and take risks.”
The girl nodded. “There’s a warship up there.”
Genevia looked at Armin, who nodded grimly. “We’ll rush, then.”
Light, please let us have enough time, Armin thought, already starting to funnel additional light into Clarcia. Don’t let us all die down here because we were too slow.
If the Light was willing to aid them, it gave no reply.
Chapter 8
The books had always described retreat like it was a neat, sterile thing. “The armies of Cesus were forced to retreat.” One army defeated another, and the other ran away. Nice, clean, and over. Clearly, that was where the killing ended. That was where the horror stopped. It was the end of the story.
Tythel was learning that it was anything but that.
She leapt over another wall, a soldier slung over her shoulder. Tythel hadn’t bothered to get his name, had just scooped him up and leapt. Unlight lanced through the air to strike at the spot they had just vacated, digging a furrow in the canyon floor. Too close. She landed, her feet shifting to talons as she slid across the ground. “It’s okay, I got you,” she said to the man, pulling him off her shoulder to set him on the ground.
He collapsed bonelessly, a neat hole carved into his head. Tythel fought back bile as it rose in her throat and turned away.
Before she could let the death sink in, before the fact that she had just carried a corpse to safety could really get its hooks into her, Tellias came slamming through the wall she had just leapt over, locked in a grapple with an Imperiplate trooper. Tythel ran towards the two struggling shapes, her hammer at the ready.
Before she could reach them, Tellias sunk his arcblade into a gap in the man’s neck armor. The imperiplate trooper fell, his head and helmet rolling away from his body. They separated as the roll, the man’s head coming to rest staring up at the sky with unseeing eyes.
Tythel couldn’t fight the bile this time. She turned and was messily sick against the wall. “Tythel, what’s wrong?” Tellias asked.
“What’s wrong? How can you- did you see what just happened?” Tythel snapped. “How can you ask what’s wrong?”
Tellias didn’t seem to know what to say to that. Tythel didn’t know what to say either, instead striding over to scoop up the vacant helm. “We’ve lost a quarter of our forces, your highness.”
“Then we need to keep fighting.” She turned and took a deep breath to steady herself, attaching the helm to her belt. It would hang there awkwardly, but it was worth it.
It would make what happened next slightly less suicidal.
Eupheme chose that moment to reappear in a rush of air, stepping out of the shadow of the wall. “Orders are going out. We’re falling back to the tunnels,” she said simply.
“Okay,” Tythel said, taking another deep breath. The taste in her mouth was terrible, and her enhanced senses were filled with the sounds and smells of the dying and the dead. “Tellias, take your men back to the tunnel. We’ll be right behind you.”
“Right behind me? Your highness, no. Absolutely not. You’re coming with us.”
“Damn it to shadow and sear it in light, Tellias, I have a plan. You and your men go into the tunnel first. Trust me.”
“Trust you?” Tellias’ voice was firm. “You just lost your stomach in the middle of the battle. I’m not letting you out of my flathing sight.”
Tythel looked at Eupheme, who shook her head. “If you did…” Eupheme said, trailing off without finishing the thought.
“Fine.” Tythel snapped the word more firmly than was needed. “You can stay, but get your men into the tunnel. Or do you want to keep arguing while they die?”
