by T. C. Edge
And over in the west, it will be Commander Burns and Rycard leading the charge. And in the north, that role will be taken by Colonel Hatcher. Here, however, it is Zander who commands our men, liaising constantly with the other leaders dotting the city as he bids to ensure our defence holds.
I charge straight for him, desperate to hear any updates.
His eyes craft their way up to mine, identical. Though mine are now well rested, and his are bloodshot and intense. It appears that my brother hasn’t had any sleep at all. A man in his position cannot afford such a luxury.
“What’s been happening?” I ask hurriedly, keenly aware that the pace appears to have quickened somewhat.
My brother’s expression doesn’t inspire a huge deal of confidence.
“They’re wearing us down, sis,” he says. “I’m not sure how much longer we can hold.”
“Where? Where will they breach first?”
He shakes his head, pointing towards a monitor with a map of the city. His finger traces the wall in a number of different places.
“Here, here, here,” he starts saying. “It won’t take long before several areas collapse. We’re trying to arrange our best soldiers to meet them when they do, but they keep moving around out there. We never know where they’ll attack next.”
“Then what? Station separate units at all weak points?”
He nods.
“We have standing forces at each potential breach, with other mobile units ready to move right there as soon as the order comes. How…how did you sleep? Are you rested, Brie?”
“I’m fine, yeah. I take it you haven’t had a chance?”
He shakes his head.
“Well, what about now? Get a few winks?”
I know the suggestion is ridiculous. He can’t possibly leave the line now. He’ll have to make do.
“It’s too late for that. I feel strong. Adrenaline will keep me going for some time yet. How did you get back here?””
“Sophie drove me most of the way. I stopped at the main blockade towards the north.”
“Right, right. I’ve been in contact with them. They’re ready for the fight when it comes their way.”
“That’s the impression I got. Oh, I should tell you, I ordered Sophie and the Fangs to head to Inner Haven. I had a feeling time was short, and I didn’t want them forgotten.”
Zander’s eyes shape in a fashion that suggests they had indeed slipped his mind. Though, I suspect the likes of Rycard would have made sure his wife was alerted and sent to the safe zones.
“Good. And Rhoth, how did he take it?”
“Pretty well. I told him he should get them to safety, then come on out and join the fight once he’s done. I’m guessing we might need all the help we can get out here.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. But that’s part of the problem – this is still just a guessing game. We won’t know how capable their entire army is until we get them fighting in the streets.”
“We had them on the ropes in the woods until those Elementals came along,” I remind him. “And there’s no way the rest of the army will be as incisive as that lot.”
“No, they won’t. But neither are our soldiers. Half our ranks are filled with Con-Cops. They’re not the greatest soldiers.”
“Nope, but they’re fearless and remorseless. Not the worst people to have on your side.”
I don’t allow myself to think about who they really are. Behind their masks, somewhere hidden in their minds, are normal, good people. It’s only their reconditioning that’s made them as they are, and we know who to blame for that…
“You’re right,” says Zander. “Now lets…”
He doesn’t get to complete his sentence. A sudden flurry of action sounds behind us, and we swivel to find a soldier calling us over. We hurry to his side, and find him hovering over a screen showing footage from one of our few security drones still creeping around beyond the wall.
“Sir, it looks like a big attack is incoming,” says the man tensely.
He’s right. On the monitor, a great mass of soldiers seems to be moving through the mist. It’s a formless silhouette, but the impression is very clear. There are hundreds of them, and heading right for the wall.
“Where is that?” questions Zander fiercely.
The soldier points to a larger monitor, hand steady.
“There, sir. To the west of here, half a mile.”
Zander peers in.
“It’s a weak point,” he says. “We have a force there, but not a big one. Send a mobile unit instantly. Inform them I’m on my way.”
The soldier nods, and Zander sweeps off out of the room with me rushing in his wake. Outside, the area around the gate is more hectic than ever, a number of wounded now being brought down from various positions along the wall and many of the vehicles used for transporting our forces absent or haphazardly parked.
We head straight for Zander’s jeep and jump inside, and off down the street I see one of our mobile infantry convoys shooting off west along the southern perimeter. Zander hits the gas as we quickly zoom after them, pressing through the thick mist and heading straight for the wall a little under a thousand metres away.
When the wall comes into view once more, I notice that it’s an area with less fortifications and barricades, and from what I can see, no large gun placements whatsoever. The standing force here isn’t large – a hundred or less soldiers – but along with the influx of the mobile unit, that number is quickly doubled.
Up on the wall, our soldiers wait, and as we step out of the car, Zander quickly commands for others to join them. We go too, moving for the stairs and climbing. It’s clear enough, even through the smoke, that the wall has suffered some major damage, smouldering in places and with its façade threatening to crumble.
“Quickly, quickly,” hisses Zander, urging us into position.
We move quietly, though probably don’t need to due to the din, keeping low behind the metal barriers that shield the top of the wall. Several dozen soldiers, most of them highly capable, fix in position and wait. I stay low as Zander peers through the narrow window in the barrier, seeking out the enemy as they creep towards the gate a little off to our right.
“I see them,” he whispers. “Fifty metres out.” His eyes shift right and left. “Prepare to fire, on my signal.”
He doesn’t give the signal immediately. All soldiers along the line ready their weapons, pointing the barrels of their pulse rifles through the small windows in the barrier and aiming them right at the incoming soldiers. I stand a little taller and do the same, and through the fog the enemy comes into view.
It’s hard to determine how many there are. They’re well dispersed, most barely visible in the smog. I can see several dozen of them at the front, though those behind remain hidden. The monitor suggested there were hundreds. I have no reason now to refute that supposition.
I feel a knot begin to tie up my insides, and the endless wailing appears to quieten slightly in my head. I wait for my brother to call out and start firing, but he still holds firm, perhaps wishing for the entire force to get a little closer before he lets loose the fire.
Then, suddenly, the soldiers stop. Still, only a smattering of them are visible, blurred shapes that occasionally grow clearer as the smoke is pressed away by a sudden breeze, before accumulating and falling once more. It seems to thicken more than ever, a cloud gathering right ahead of us along this specific stretch of wall.
Is there an Elemental out there, just beyond our sight? Is he forming this cloud to hide the attack?
“We should fire,” I whisper harshly, looking to Zander.
A temptation runs through me, calling for me to do so and begin the inevitable avalanche. Zander’s cool words halt my thinking.
“Not yet…we need to know what we’re firing at.”
Here, there are no large guns protecting us. With only so many available, they had to be dispersed in a way to try to protect all parts of the wall. Yet, some stret
ches were always going to be more vulnerable. That was unavoidable. And here, at this particular point, the only guns are a little to the west and east, a little too far to join the fight. And right now, they’re firing elsewhere, their own battles to contend with.
We are very much alone.
And the enemy know it.
I continue to watch as the front-line soldiers of the Cure begin to disappear into the growing mist. And as they do, a slight rumble seems to vibrate through the earth. I feel it through my boots, the wall beneath my feet shivering as though caught in a stiff breeze. And the air, too, seems to hum and buzz.
The soldiers down the line share glances. I do the same with my brother, but find his eyes staring forward, narrowing. The rumbling grows a little more intense, the foundations of the walls shaking harder, and the source of the energy begins to grow clear.
It’s from behind the soldiers just ahead of us. Somewhere behind them, within the shroud, a great power is stirring. Setting my finger tighter to my trigger, I begin to pull down, ready to fire. And as I do, I see the barely visible soldiers ahead start to part, moving swiftly left and right and creating a gap in their line.
It happens fast, and before I know it the trembling is building to a crescendo, and through the gap shapes come flying.
Between the men they come, dark forms of varying sizes and shapes. I use my Dasher powers to try to slow my perception of the world, and zoom in with my Hawk eyes to see that they’re mostly trunks of trees, burnt to a crisp and ripped from the earth. The remains of the scorched woodland, thick hunks of wood torn from their foundations in the ground and thrust towards the wall at a tremendous pace.
Other shapes comes too. I see bits of rock and stone, blackened by the fire and taken from their homes in the outerlands. They join the trunks of trees and head straight for the wall, battering it hard, smashing it into submission.
And mingled in with the wood and rock, I even see flesh; the bodies of dead soldiers from the Cure’s army, now drawn up from the battlefield and hurled right at us along with the rest.
The sight is enough to cause a brief paralysis to flow down the line, our soldiers gaping at the show of power, disbelieving. Beyond the smoke that now hides them, back from the line, an Elemental of great strength can be the only culprit. Perhaps more than one, standing together combining their gifts to raise such objects from the ground and send them crashing into the city’s faltering façade.
The attack comes so suddenly and with such ferocity that we don’t react immediately. Even Zander appears bowed by the display, and takes a moment to realise he has no choice now but to order our attack.
Over the din, he does so. His voice suddenly scrapes from his worn-out throat, and along with it his pulse rifle begins to spit blue flame down into the smog beyond the top of the wall. Mere moments later, the rest of us join him, and a hundred rifles begin roaring their response.
The smoky cloud lights up like a rainbow once more, and I search through the illumination to see the soldiers of the Cure drawing forward shields to protect them. They’re rudimentary, but just enough to hold back the flame for now, our fire directed to all parts but tending to seek out those we see.
Zander’s voice rips through the noise once more.
“Fire at the Elemental,” he calls out. “Kill him!”
We can’t see him, or them, but know where they must be. From the mist, where the trunks of trees and rocks, and dead bodies come, we begin to aim our guns. All red and blue and green flame now begins to gather to one point, setting trunks and corpses alight as they come, the wall now peppered with flaming debris as well.
But the bombardment doesn’t stop. And soon I see just why.
Through the mist, a single Elemental comes. Not two or more. Just one. One man, imbued with terrible power similar to those I saw when Kira was taken from us. But this man isn’t the same. These soldiers aren’t the same. This army isn’t the same.
He comes, arms aloft and still drawing up all nearby debris for the assault. But he has a shield too, metal barriers hovering around him, held up by his ability to control such things with his mind. They cover him from head to toe, and I only see him through a slight gap as he moves. And around him, other soldiers stand with their own shields, offering greater protection to this man with such power.
“Shoot him!” shouts Zander. “Kill him!”
The desperation in his voice is deep, sending shudders through me. We all fire right in his direction, but nothing seems to get through. And still, over to our right, the section of the wall under attack continues to weaken, and the men who stand atop it flee off to the flanks to escape the barrage.
There is no respite, and there seems nothing we can do. It only lasts a minute or two, but it’s all this Elemental needs. Pressing the final debris at the wall, still hidden behind his shields, the barrage seems to end with the wall still standing.
I wonder, for the briefest of moments, whether we’ve done enough. Whether the wall is more than he can handle, too thick and strong to be downed by such missiles.
How wrong I am.
He has another trick to deploy.
With our pulse rifles still firing, clattering hard into the shields around him and partially held back by his staggering powers, a sudden lull falls as the vibrations stop. But they don’t stop for long. The lull lasts a split second, the rumbling halted before brewing once again in a more terrible fashion than ever.
It builds and builds for several seconds before, suddenly, a pulse of energy flows through the earth, emitted from the man’s body, his mind. It carves a path through the ground, ripping it up, before reaching the wall and doing the same.
The weakening stone and metal construct can take no more. It bursts apart, split down the middle and sending shards of itself left and right and high into the air. I watch in horror as it’s breached, exploding before my eyes and creating a gap big enough for the soldiers to pour through.
I look at Zander, whose eyes are no longer weary. They’re bright, tense, and fearful just like mine.
The city has been cracked open.
And turning his eyes down to the soldiers behind the wall, awaiting this exact event, he shouts out.
“Hold the line! Protect the breach!”
22
This stage of the fighting was always going to come. The city was never likely to hold out forever, not after what we’d seen. Once, perhaps, when they first marched to our doors, we considered them a threat that could be repelled without too much difficulty.
Now, it is clear enough that we are all in a fight for our lives.
If they can breach the walls of Outer Haven, then there’s no reason why they can’t do the same to Inner Haven. We have to stop them before they get there. We have to battle them in the streets. And the face-to-face combat that many of us have asked for is now set to begin.
And it starts right here in the south.
As the debris from the broken wall continues to fall, raining down from above, we fire at those who pour forwards from our precarious perch. And behind the broken wall, our men take their positions, launching their flame at the bottleneck, hoping to catch as many of the enemy in the growing inferno as possible.
It all happens so fast, and our attention seems to be taken by the soldiers now set to enter the city. For that split second, the Elemental is forgotten. He’s remembered quickly when another pulse of energy rips from where he stands, galloping towards the wall once again and opening the gap much wider.
More rock and stone hurtles into the sky, and I see a number of our soldiers, manning the wall, going right along with it. They spiral skyward before coming back down and disappearing into the smog, and as the rain of debris sprinkles the streets, the enemy begin to flow.
I see them now, all of them rushing forward at extraordinary speed. All Dashers and heaven knows what else, they rush for the gap and slide into cover behind, shooting at our men and displacing, trying to get beyond our cordon, flank it, destabili
se it so more of them can pour forward.
I fire from above, shooting at the gap through the soot and dust, until I feel Zander’s hand come down on my shoulder, twisting me around as he shouts, “MOVE!”
He draws me back just in time as I see the Elemental preparing another shockwave, and we retreat along with our soldiers as it rushes for the wall just right of where we stand. Once more, the ramparts explode, the gap widening, our defence weakening.
We have no choice now but to descend and join the battle below. We gallop for the stairs, firing as we go, and I notice that the Elemental is now retreating, sinking back into the shadows, his job done.
I wonder if he’s their leader, or one of them at least? Or just a soldier, thought too valuable to waste now in a direct attack. Or maybe, just like our Dasher powers, his energy can be depleted, and he requires some time to rest. I dearly hope the latter is the case. Such power can turn a war.
From the top of the wall, we move to the bottom, and begin setting our eyes to the breach where the enemy pour through. It’s large now, at least thirty metres wide, the surrounding space filling with broken shards of stone and rock that offer cover as the Cure come forward.
All over, a little way back from the wall, our soldiers hide. They fire from behind the barricades set up here, the smoke still so thick it’s hard to see who’s who. The armour and garb of the Cure is different from our own, particularly the official uniforms worn by the Con-Cops, City Guards, and Stalkers who all have their own distinctive outfits.
It is more like the clothing worn by the rebels, the Nameless, random patchworks of armour and combat gear. And through the smoke, it remains difficult determining just who might be who, a problem that will no doubt increase when the fighting spreads beyond the breach.
Yet here we make our first stand, controlling the areas just beyond the wall and refusing to let the enemy come through. As I add my weapon to the fray, Zander immediately gets onto the radio, calling for more mobile units to advance to our position. Before long, he knows, with more of the enemy spreading to this point, we will be overrun.
