Though he did kill Jareb. Maybe that’s worth forgiveness right there . . .
Ava collected her thoughts as Margo’s men responded to her birdcall.
Three soldiers sprinted to a spot behind the water trough at the stables where Eder had spotted the same number of enemy guards earlier. Another four moved in the opposite direction, hopping lightly onto the porch beneath the building where the other sentries waited.
Those four slipped inside while the three others crept closer to the trough.
Now the hard part.
Ava was not so much worried about those near the stables. Margo’s men had more space there. But getting onto the roof undetected would be difficult for the other four. She hated to tempt fate, but giving up their position so early in their plan would kill any chance they had at success.
She reached out to draw in power. She did this while also monitoring other sorcery in the area to avoid detection. Though she felt nothing from the enemy to cause her worry, she kept her spell simple and subdued.
A large eagle appeared over the rooftops, calling out as it circled overhead. The noise startled those on lookout. They pointed up in fascination.
She made the eagle illusion descend away from the house as her four men slipped out of a window and onto the roof’s edge. Then the eagle climbed quickly before darting fast toward the high grass as if it had spotted an animal for supper. The sentries fell prey to the distraction of the illusion. None noticed Margo’s men until the moment before they pounced. The three at the stables timed their attack beautifully to coincide with the ones on the roof.
Less than five breaths later, the enemy sentries were down.
Passing through Imbal, they only came across one random soldier who seemed to have been on some errand, perhaps relaying a message to the lookouts.
He died quietly.
Reaching the south side of Imbal, Ava climbed atop an old inn. She spied the enemy digging graves and hauling bodies away just as Eder had described. Two sorcerers stood overseeing the efforts.
She stared at the product of their hard labor. The dead soldiers standing in ranks sent a chill down her back for they didn’t droop or sag. If not for the rotting flesh and threadbare remains of their clothes, they’d appear like any other army running through simple stationary drills.
Gods, it’s worse than I thought.
Small jolts to her wrist once again let her know each squad was in position.
She slowly gathered power. After a half minute, she began to cast her spell. All was going well until she avoided an attack to her connection, as if the enemy had tried to slice her link with a sword. Thankfully, she had enough experience to avoid losing control.
Surprise was no longer an option.
She opened herself as wide as possible, pulling in a tremendous amount of sorcery at once. She felt the increased attention from the other sorcerers.
Ava stood fast, facing the two sorcerers positioned near the ranks of dead. She released all the power she had drawn, barely leaving any behind to protect herself. The spell was crude in every sense of the word, like a sorcerer still coming into their own. There was no dancing of colored tendrils. No balls of fire. Just a massive pulse that she directed at the sorcerers. As it disrupted the air, it created a loud boom that rang her ears.
The hurried spell had her so lightheaded she dropped to a knee, desperately trying to keep focused on her targets. The two sorcerers flew through the air when the blast struck, sailing backward and descending more than fifty yards away.
Ava had no time to celebrate her success as the other three sorcerers reacted. Raising her shields back to full strength was not an option with so little time so she leapt into the air as the rooftop exploded.
Her timing allowed her to avoid the worst of the blast, but the force of the attack threw her farther out from the building. She twisted in the air as best as she could manage, but no amount of body positioning could make the landing safe. She struck the ground hard, her shoulder taking the brunt of the impact with a crack that raced across her chest and upper back. The searing agony of what was surely a broken collarbone preceded the pops of snapped ribs and more pain.
Instinct again, had her roll off her injured side so she was face down. Debris, splinters and larger pieces of wood pelted her back.
“Ao’s bloody teats,” she swore. Her voice came out as a rasped whisper that she barely recognized from the loud explosions muting her hearing. The heavy smell of wood smoke nearly gagged her.
All she wanted to do was roll up into a ball and cry. Or die. But another explosion sounded. It sounded like it came from the second unit launching the destruction cylinder at the graves. That jarred her from the beginnings of self-pity. She would not allow the mission to fail.
Ava bit down hard, until the pressure of her teeth traveled up her jaw. The pain did not make her forget about her useless shoulder or her shattered ribs, but it did make it possible for her to get to her hands and knees without passing out.
The first step to her feet made things worse when she put weight on the same side as her injured shoulder. Her hip had taken more of the fall than she had realized. Stars swam before her.
Ava created a small fireball in her cupped hand. She pressed it on the exposed flesh of her forearm, eyes watering as she embraced the scalding pain. Only the smell of her own skin cooking made her recoil and release her grip. Some might have thought her mad for purposefully injuring herself, but the small localized burn distracted her some from her more serious injuries as she hobbled to rejoin the battle.
She rounded the building she had leaped from in time to see the three remaining sorcerers unleash an assault on units two and three just as they sprinted to the graves. Though her men had far more experience with sorcery than most, several could not avoid the crackling tendrils of silver chasing them and fell dead.
Rage swelled inside of her.
Anger had gotten her into trouble more times than she could recall. It was the one thing she had tried to work on controlling, but in battle she knew better than to stifle it. Anger was her comfort. Her best friend.
She used that rage to push aside her fatigue and the pain of her injuries. She wanted to cast one of her more powerful spells to obliterate the three enemy sorcerers, but knew that would be a waste. They would have stronger shields up now.
Ava reinforced her own shields then extended that protection to the remainder of the second and third units as they engaged the enemy soldiers climbing out of the graves. It protected them from the next sorcerous attack. The three sorcerers turned toward her in confusion, likely believing she had perished. They advanced.
Wisdom said she should have stayed hidden, but wisdom wasn’t part of the plan. Distraction and deception were.
Ava stepped out in an open challenge. As expected, she didn’t need to do anything further. Hell came from the three enemy sorcerers at once.
She went on the defensive, casting aside one attack entirely before focusing everything into her shields to block the other two.
Units one and four timed their efforts perfectly. The three sorcerers wheeled on the two charging units. She dropped part of her shields, casting a simple earth spell. The earth split at her targets’ feet. Two sorcerers hopped away from the small chasm. The third fell in while releasing an errant fireball that sailed skyward.
She allowed herself a small smile. The third likely wasn’t dead, but maybe if she was lucky the idiot had broken something.
Like a shoulder and hip.
Her smile vanished as the two remaining sorcerers lashed out, one at her with intense fire, the other at unit one with thick vines of light. Margo and his men were ready. One man did fall, but the others leaped and rolled away from the attack.
Being so physically battered, she couldn’t attempt a similar leap herself or at least shift her stance to counter the sorcerer’s blo
w. The most she could manage was to increase her defenses as the spell bore down on her with greater heat with no sign of it waning. She wondered if the man saw his imminent death coming and hoped to take her with him.
If so, the sorcerer failed. Unit four reached him just as Margo’s unit struck their own death blow on the other sorcerer.
Margo ordered several of his men into the hole the other sorcerer had fallen into, wisely checking the man’s fate.
No longer under immediate threat, the clashing of steel behind Ava reminded her of units two and three.
She turned to the fighting.
Ava couldn’t tell how many of her men had fallen in the short time it took to finish the three sorcerers, but enough of the Kartan soldiers had rallied that her men were in danger of being engulfed.
“Margo! Support units two and three!”
He must have realized the same as her for as she yelled out the command soldiers from units one and four ran past to join their brethren.
Still too many to fight like that. They’re already giving ground.
“Margo!” she began again.
“I’m here, Ava!” he said beside her and taking her arm as she hobbled about.
He didn’t understand.
She yanked her arm away. “Have everyone fall back to me. I’m spent, but I have enough to protect them if they’re close by.”
He called out commands as she settled herself into several spells meant to enhance energy, strength, focus, and protection. Basically, it was every spell she wanted to cast on herself, but could not and still help her men. She sank to her knees to conserve energy while holding every spell.
While doing so, she caught sight of the army of dead the enemy had resurrected. Amazingly enough, they had not fallen as she would have expected following the death of the enemy sorcerers. They necromantic spell had lingered. Since they stood unmoving, Ava paid them no further mind. She’d figure out what to do with them later after seeing her men through the reminder of battle.
When her men had fallen back to her position, she dared to take a chance. She knew she didn’t have enough in her to stretch herself with a complicated attack spell. However, thoughts of her recent practice with the southern kingdom sorcerers and earth-based magic once more came to mind. She lifted a single pebble off the ground with sorcery, spotted one Kartan soldier, and threw it at him. The man’s skull whipped back as it struck his head. He dropped.
She lifted another and repeated the process.
One at a time, but I can do it.
The Turine soldiers held their ground as the Kartans beat on them with mostly shovels and spades. They called out words of encouragement to each other between flinging curses at the enemy. In every word, her men’s resolve stiffened.
No. We can do it.
* * *
We did it all right.
But there was not much joy behind that thought, just somber relief.
Ava recalled similar feelings when the costs of battle became so high the lines of victory were blurred. Joy was a difficult emotion to express when a close friend, or even just a familiar acquaintance, lay dead at your feet.
Still, they had managed to eliminate five enemy sorcerers and defeat a force four times their size. It wasn’t as complete a victory as Danso had wanted with three dozen escaping rather than the two he had asked for.
But by the gods, it will have to be good enough.
Margo had asked if they should pursue those that had escaped, but Ava said no. She was too battered to follow after them. And without her protection she worried what would happen to the survivors of her own company.
Since giving that order half an hour ago, she had barely moved from the post she leaned against.
She felt bad for leaving her men to tend to each other, but following the enemy’s retreat, her anger had burned out and her injuries could no longer be ignored. Even the slightest rise in her chest from too large of a breath sent lancing pain into her damaged ribs, shoulder, and collarbone. The nagging ache from the bubbled patch of skin from her self-inflicted arm wound no longer kept her distracted. She stared at the injury and spoke a low curse.
Left my hand there longer than I should have. Going to scar pretty bad even if I get a healer to look at it.
Several of her men shuffled about the battlefield, finishing any enemy they discovered still breathing. Soldiers who suffered the worst injuries received treatment first.
Gods, we’re down to thirty. There was a tug at her heart. You’re doing one crappy job of protecting your men, Ava.
Two officers carefully searched the bodies of the five dead sorcerers while three more went through the enemy supply wagons, hoping some worthwhile information might be gleaned.
Her eyelids began to droop. Ava thought of fighting sleep, but succumbing to her exhaustion was too hard to resist. She leaned her head back.
Just a few minutes.
“Ava!” called a voice just as her body had finally relaxed.
Her eyes popped open, but she didn’t move. Margo walked toward her with Eder on his heels. It pleased her to see both had survived the battle. They were the closest people she had to friends among her men.
“Feeling all right?” Eder asked.
“What in the name of Molak do you think?” she asked more biting than intended.
Eder frowned, wearing a look that made him appear even younger than his age.
It’s one thing to be concerned, but he does he have to look like such a boy when doing so?
She thought of Nason and how he was a more compassionate man than any she had known.
Yet there’s still strength and maturity that Eder lacks. Molak’s balls, what am I doing thinking of Nason again? Why did he have to tell me he loved me?
Margo cleared his throat. “Just give her your report, kid.”
Eder blinked. “I scouted the enemy’s trail. They’re heading mostly east, just as we hoped. No sign of them backtracking any time soon.”
“Good,” she said.
“We finished looking over the sorcerers too. Found this,” Margo said, handing her a piece of parchment. “Hoping you might be able to make sense of it.”
She took the parchment carefully with her good arm, hiding a wince from the movement. She scanned the contents and shook her head.
“No. This isn’t in the old Noval tongue. Probably Kartan or Bozrathan. We’ll need to take it back to Danso. He’s got people who can translate. You hold it for now,” she said, handing it back to him. When she did, a jolt of pain stabbed her chest, causing her breath to catch.
Margo turned and called out. “Corporal. Finish up what you’re doing over there and come look at Ava.”
“Yes, sir,” said a soldier, cleaning a gash on a man’s leg.
“I’ll be fine,” said Ava. “Let everyone else be seen first.”
“Prax’s balls, you’re not fine.”
She gave a slow nod, conceding because she didn’t have the energy argue.
“How many horses do we have?” she asked shifting subjects.
“Enough to bear the wounded.”
The thought of riding a horse where every sway or step would hurt like ten kinds of hell left her wanting to retch. However, it would be necessary if they hoped to make decent time in returning to the main host.
“I know you probably want to leave today, but we really shouldn’t move until tomorrow morning at the earliest,” added Margo.
“We can’t go anywhere until we deal with them anyway,” she said, gesturing to the thousands of dead that stood eerily still.
“What do you mean?” asked Eder, a trace of fear in his voice.
“We can’t leave them like that,” she said.
“But they’re not doing anything.”
Ava could tell Eder wanted nothing more to do with the dead.
“I don’t understand why they didn’t just collapse when we killed the sorcerers. That’s what happened before,” said Margo.
“I don’t know. My guess is that the Noval sorcerers are getting better with necromancy. We’ve already seen how they’ve progressed from shuffling dead to bodies moving and fighting like soldiers. The answers might be in the parchments you found.”
“So, how do we handle the dead?”
Margo wasn’t nearly as freaked out by them as Eder, but Ava still heard his dread.
“In whatever way we have to in order to keep them from being used again. Just remember, we say nothing to anyone outside of those here.”
Ava touched her pocket where Danso had given her prayers to recite according to the Southern Kingdom custom. She doubted that the prayers would cover what she’d need to do to ensure the dead would not rise again.
Well Engai, if there’s a chance you’re real, I hope you take your wrath out on me over anyone else.
CHAPTER 41
The journey north to Kasala was a slow, miserable, grind.
We traveled as far and as fast as the animals would allow, but with a steady rain beating on us, the roads fought us in every way. The one benefit to the extra work and weather was that no one was in a mood to speak unless necessary.
Our return home came several hours after the sun decided to make an appearance for the first time in days. I’d have welcomed the blasted light if not for the heat that came with it. The stink of drying mud caked to animal, wagon, and person alike was not one of my favorites.
Driving the lead wagon, I rolled into town covered not only in mud, but also rain, sweat, and the weariness associated with traveling. People paused in their work to greet us. Questions began about the council’s reaction as well as the identity of the five newcomers.
Forever Soldiers: The Tyrus Chronicle - Book Four Page 35
