Horde r-3

by Ann Aguirre

  Across the way, I heard Tully screaming at her men to regroup while rifle fire came slower and slower. The men were running low on ammo, I guessed, as I swiped sweat and blood from my brow, and fought on, focusing on my immediate danger. A Freak impaled the Uroch beside me, and I was too slow to save him. Blood bubbled from the young one’s mouth, then he fell, never having said a word, and I was alone in the middle of the horde.

  I need Fade.

  But my throat was parched and tired from the hours of fighting. Calling out was a waste of breath. Freaks surged as far as the eye could see, and they were exultant despite their weakness because they sensed how this fight ended. With a burst of renewed energy, I struggled on, powered by the memory of all the people I would never see again if I gave up. My shoulders burned, my arms twin columns of fire.

  Another wave of the monsters rushed me, and I was engulfed, unable to see, just the snarling mass of claws and fangs lashing at me. With sheer determination, I brought up my knives, but willpower wasn’t enough. My body had limits, and I’d reached them. More of their strikes got through; it was just a matter of time until one of them got lucky and struck the killing blow. Heart, throat, thigh. One of those places, and I’m gone.

  A Freak sank its teeth into my forearm, another scored my shoulder. With a move Stalker had taught me, I cut the first one’s throat, and spun low, slicing at their legs. If they can’t stand, they can’t fight as well. It also made me a smaller target. I sliced the veins in their legs and nearly puked at the rush of blood that caught me in the face.

  How many more? Too many.

  Three of them died at my feet, and I stared, unable to grasp what I was seeing. But Tegan had broken one of their skulls, Thornton accounted for the other, and the third, well, Gavin of Winterville stood with our banner in his hands, the flag flapping in the wind; he’d impaled the Freak with the pointy end. Before I could thank them, Thornton’s head snapped to the side and his neck gushed red. The veteran fell before I could react, and then there were eight more monsters on Tegan, the brat, and me. He jerked the banner from his victim and used it like a polearm, but the kid didn’t have the strength to do that for long. Tegan and I covered him as best we could, but I was so tired, and from her movements, her leg was paining her. A doctor shouldn’t fight on the battlefield, but there was no time for her to treat the wounded. One of our men screamed for mercy, and anguish flickered across her face because she couldn’t break from the battle and do her job.

  I’m sorry, I tried to say, but I had no breath. The stitch in my side came from a complex blend of exertion and pain, both emotional and physical. I’d never fought in a conflict that had no end, but this felt as if there were nowhere to go and no conclusion except the grave. Tegan stumbled and I grabbed her; somehow we held on as Freaks shoved toward us. Gavin was so gallant, flapping the pennant as if its power alone could drive the monsters away.

  Tegan knocked down a Freak and I stabbed it while Gavin impaled another. He was actually pretty good with that blasted banner. But there were too many.

  “I’m not dying!” Gavin shouted. “I promised my mum!”

  His defiance gave me the strength to kill one, then another. Tegan appeared to take heart as well, and we pushed past the pain, until we had a pile of bodies so tall before us that I could stand on them. And I did. I climbed the corpses and stumbled down the other side, through the smoky air. There was more fighting farther along the river.

  I spotted knots of Uroch battling their brethren and the Gulgur slinging stones with leather straps from the fringes of the battle. When a Freak turned to give chase, the small folk darted away and were gone, and in that time, the monsters took more damage from behind. Exhausted, I paused to catch my breath while my two comrades did the same.

  “Are we winning?” Tegan asked.

  I shook my head. “Don’t know.”

  Then hope appeared, incredibly, unbelievably. From the south and east, men came marching. I recognized Morgan at the head of one column, so I identified them as Soldier’s Pond men. I saw people I had met in Gaspard, Otterburn, and Lorraine; they had tired faces but they all wore identical expressions of determination. Most were poorly outfitted and equipped. They had no uniforms and some were armed with hoes and shovels, whatever they could grab quickly. Marlon Bean lifted a hand in greeting, as did Vince Howe.

  John Kelley rode at the front of the lines and when he saw me, he called, “You started without us, Huntress. Do you mind if we take some of these Muties off your hands?”

  “Don’t attack the Uroch or the Gulgur,” I yelled back. “They’re with us.”

  Quickly Tegan called out the description of our allies, and Kelley looked astonished, but he acknowledged with a nod, relaying the instructions to their men. Nobody argued. There was too much movement for me to get any idea how many had come to join the fight or how many Freaks were left, but hope flickered deep within me.

  Catching my second wind, I ran at the remaining Freaks with renewed fury. As I fought, I searched for Fade. Sometimes I thought I heard his voice calling out orders, but I couldn’t break off to search for him. I did see Spence, out of bullets and using his shooting iron to club the monsters in the head to stun them before he stabbed. He smiled at me, teeth white in his filthy face, and it heartened me to see that he’d made it this far. His men surrounded him, the twenty that were left … out of the fifty he had before, and their deaths hurt, but I couldn’t stop.

  Not when we were so close.

  In the melee I lost track of Tegan and Gavin. Then I saw the boy raise his banner high and jam it into a Freak Tegan had flattened for him. “That’s for Stalker.”

  I didn’t know how he could be so sure, but I sliced my way toward them. When I looked at the dead thing on the ground, I recognized the scar cutting through its left eye. Maybe it shouldn’t matter, as it didn’t bring my friend back, but I nodded at the brat.

  “Good work.”

  Within minutes, the tenor of the battle changed. These weren’t soldiers, but they were brave men, and the rest of us fought as hard. It could have been an hour or five, but eventually the horde broke. The Freaks tried to run, but riflemen from Soldier’s Pond had been practicing for years for this day, and they cut them down.

  On the enemy’s side, there were no survivors.

  Death

  Ravens and crows swept down on the dead, even as I tried to tend the living. Tegan was distraught; we had no plan in place for victory, no facilities for the wounded. She shouted at people to help her carry litters away from the killing field and men responded to her call. Tegan found a capable-looking woman to serve as her nurse, and they discussed the best way to save as many lives as possible.

  As for me, I was looking for Fade. I walked among the corpses, staring down into their bloody faces. Each time I saw a lean young man or a shock of black hair, I lost my breath and my courage. It took all my willpower to keep searching. I found Zach Bigwater cut down … and I hoped he’d found peace, redemption from his conviction that he was a coward. To me, it looked like he’d fought hard and I whispered, “Thank you.”

  A few minutes later, I rolled Harry Carter over. The older man was smiling, as if he’d seen something lovely before he died. Fear took deep root in my belly. Fade promised. He’s fine. You just have to find him.

  I stumbled across Spence by accident. He was half hidden by a rise above the river, bodies all around him. The beady-eyed black birds crept closer on forked feet and his scream sent them scattering in a flutter of wings. Too late, I saw Tully cradled in his arms. The container that held her bolts hung empty, and her knives were nowhere to be found. Her blood had clotted, going brown in the sun, but he didn’t let go of her. He just held her and rocked. His eyes opened when he saw me; and he seemed too young for such grief with his ginger hair and freckled face.

  “I couldn’t find her.” His voice was a song born of pain. “I was too late.”

  Dropping to my knees, I put my hand on his shoulder. “I’m sor
ry. I’m so sorry.”

  “She always said I’d get tired of her. She never—never—”

  Tears sprang to my eyes. “Maybe she didn’t say it out loud, but she knew you loved her. I could see it between the two of you.”

  “I can’t do this.” Without warning, he dropped her body and went for his gun.

  Terrified, I grabbed his arm and wrestled him for it, using all my strength to pull the barrel away from Spence’s body. He actually hit me, hard enough to make my vision sparkle, but I dug my fingers into his arm and didn’t let go. We rolled in the mud, end over end, and I came up on top, barely hanging on. I couldn’t let this man die.

  Fortunately, his burst of fury didn’t last long, and when he yielded, I hurled the weapon into the water.

  “I can get another,” he said dully.

  “Do you think she’d want this for you?”

  His blue eyes went hard as ice. “No. But she’s dead, and she doesn’t get a say.”

  “Pull yourself together. People among the living still need your help, and I haven’t given you permission to quit.”

  Spence offered a terse suggestion as to what I could do with my orders; and if I wasn’t so worried about Fade, I might’ve cracked a smile. Instead I shoved to my feet and pointed. “Pick her up. Move Tully to where the medical team can look after her. Once we take stock of who’s left, we’ll see to our dead.”

  He argued a little, but in the end, he swung his beloved into his arms and he was weeping unashamedly when he delivered her to Tegan. She registered at once who he carried and what she’d meant to Spence. Tegan waved frantically at Morgan, who had some carts. His men must’ve gone across the river to ask Rosemere for help.

  Tegan said, “I need you to take care of her for me.”

  “I will.” Morgan had proven he was steady as a rock, so his word was good.

  “How the devil did you get here just in time?” I asked.

  “Thank your traders. They’ve been haranguing all towns in the territories to send men for weeks. On their last trip, which they made without your protection, they swore there would be no more supplies unless we all manned up and did our share.”

  “We owe them our lives.” I pitched my voice low, casting a glance at Spence, who stood like a ghost beside Tegan. “He’s not all right. Keep an eye on him while I search the battlefield? I’m missing some men.”

  Fade, Morrow, and Rex. I couldn’t speak of the ones I’d lost.

  Morgan agreed with a ready nod. “You know, Colonel Park wants to speak with you, as soon as you get the chance.”

  It was funny to me how formally he referred to his own wife, but her position made their relationship a quiet, private matter, glimpsed primarily in a subtle look.

  “I have a lot to take care of first, but I’m heading to Soldier’s Pond when I’m done.”

  With no more conversation, I returned to my mission. I found Rex soon after, and my stomach lurched when I saw him lying there. Momma Oaks would never forgive me for taking another son from her. But when I put my fingers to his throat, I felt a pulse. I searched him from top to bottom and uncovered a flesh wound on his chest and a bruise on his jaw. He was bloody enough, however, that the poison-fogged Freaks had thought he was dead.

  Shaking him gently, I set a jug to his mouth and poured. At first the water just trickled down his neck, but apparently that was enough irritation to bring him around. He slapped my hands away and struggled upright, his eyes fuzzy at first. I knew the second he focused on me and realized he was still alive.

  “That’s a bit of a surprise,” he said.

  “A good one. On your feet. I need you to help me find Morrow and Fade.” Actually I was more interested in seeing if he could get up, which should help me gauge how badly he was hurt.

  With my help, Rex clambered up and he looked around, his face going green. “This is…”

  “Yes,” I said softly. “It is.”

  Though Rex was unsteady on his feet, he seemed sound enough, so he stayed with me as I sorted the living from the dead. Three times, we found men who looked as if they were done, but I found a heartbeat and called Tegan’s workers to treat them. It was terrifying and exhausting, there among the wounded. Somewhere past midday, Szarok found me. His sharp features were familiar in a way I found strange, considering we’d only spent one night talking. Rex stepped closer in reflex until he remembered that the monsters were dead.

  “Your soldiers fought well,” he said.

  “As did yours. One of them saved my life.”

  “I wish there was a way to take the memories from the dead,” he said somberly, “so they’re not lost.” Before I could reply, another Uroch approached, and they hissed and growled a conversation. Then the other hurried away. “I’ve been reminded to state my terms for our alliance. We keep Appleton. While it’s regrettable the way we acquired it, I doubt any of your people care to settle there now.”

  “I don’t have the power to—”

  “The devil you don’t,” Rex cut in. “You led this army. You united every able-bodied person willing to fight in the territories. You beat the horde. So if you offer Appleton to our allies, nobody will argue with you.”

  Could that be true? I supposed it was. “All right. Appleton’s yours. This isn’t the time to talk about such things, but there will need to be…” I didn’t even know the words.

  “Treaties,” Rex supplied. “Trade agreements. And the Uroch will probably want to wear those armbands, at least until the last of the old mutants are gone.”

  A flicker of pain registered in Szarok’s golden eyes. Those were his people Rex was casually dismissing. We hadn’t killed all of them; there would be stragglers in forest and field, but if we were careful, they’d die out in a few years and their legacy of violence with them.

  But I couldn’t help wondering, “Can the few remaining old ones breed … and start the cycle all over again?”

  Szarok shook his head. “They’re past the age of reproduction. The future of my people rests in our hands now.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Rex muttered.

  The Uroch favored him with a sharp glance, before saying, “We’re returning to Appleton now. These bodies are nothing to us since we can’t collect their memories. So the crows are welcome to them.”

  That was a way in which we differed, but I didn’t judge him for it. “Might be best. I don’t know how the men will react, now that the fighting’s stopped.”

  Rex nodded. “Peace takes time.”

  Szarok went on, “The Gulgur have returned to their burrows. They told me to ask you to bury their dead along with your own. I don’t know if they’re interested in treaties or trade agreements, but they’re pleased it’s safe to come into the light, if they so choose.”

  “I’ll take care of it. Thank them for me,” I said.

  With a lift of his taloned hand, Szarok turned and signaled his surviving warriors with another of those exploding things. They loped away, along the river and out of sight, leaving me to continue picking up the pieces. With each body I turned over and each face I searched, my hope grew fainter. The sun was past its zenith when I found Morrow.

  “Tegan!” I shouted, knowing she’d drop everything to tend him.

  He was covered in so many wounds that I didn’t know how he was still breathing. Two men came with her, drawn by my sharpness, and we carried him to the tent set up away from the bodies. I figured it, too, had come from Rosemere, and I silently thanked them for their help. There were fires burning and water boiling in huge pots, and women from the village moving among the wounded soldiers with bandages that looked like they had been torn from sails.

  “Someone should fetch his father,” I said.

  In case he doesn’t make it.

  I wished I’d let him inform the governor, as he’d wanted. Then they could’ve had a just-in-case farewell. But Tegan fixed a look of such ferocious denial on me that I stumbled back to the tent’s entrance. “Nobody is going anywhere. Get
me a damned pan of water, some clean cloth, and my medical bag.”

  I did as she demanded, then Rex and I washed up and assisted her as she cleaned his wounds and then prepared the tincture that had saved Harry Carter. With steady hands, she poured the noxious mixture into the bites and stitched Morrow’s wounds. His men heard about his condition, and fifteen of them paced outside the tent. We’d suffered such losses before reinforcements arrived—I cut the thought as I daubed away the blood leaking from his side. I couldn’t afford to let fear and impending grief distract me. A friend’s life hung in the balance.

  It seemed like it took forever before Tegan finished working on the storyteller. He was so pale that it didn’t look like he had any blood left in his body. She dropped to her knees and pressed her cheek to his, and that seemed like my cue to back out of the tent. Along the way, I stumbled, but there was nothing to trip me, only the smooth roll of grassy ground.

  Rex steadied me with one arm and said, “You have to eat something.”

  “I can’t. I have to find Fade.”

  “Eat,” he demanded gently. “Or I’ll tell Momma that you don’t listen to your brother.”

  Shakily, I assented, but only because I’d never locate Fade if I collapsed. If he was wounded and unable to call out for help, buried in a pile of corpses—I shook all over, just thinking about it. This battle would never end for me if he didn’t keep his promise.

  Rex led me to a fire where village women were warming soup. I took a wooden bowl of it and drank in a few furious gulps—anger because pain would drown me without the protective shell. Then I downed some water and glared at Rex.

  “Happy now? Can I go back out there?” Even as the words spewed out in that tone, I knew my brother deserved better than this.

  To his credit, he only nodded. “Let’s keep looking.”

  More bodies rolled beneath my hands, more dead faces to haunt my dreams. Beside me, Rex was grim and silent, but I was glad to have him. With Tegan tirelessly treating patients and the men looking for their own friends and loved ones, I’d be alone otherwise. And without his calm determination, I might be screaming and tearing out my hair. We’d been searching for some time and it was starting to get dark when Gavin rushed at us.