Cinders of Magic

By Nutt C. Sebastian

It’s hard for me to imagine the fields of shining knights and masters of sacred, magical arts forming ranks against creatures of endless shadow, shattering earth and sky in the battles of the Last War. The great glare that must have come as the Highlord ascended to godhood, banished the Shadow from the world. He ended it then, prevented the death of our world, but in his spite mortally wounded us all the same. The Age of Magic and Heroes ended that day with one man’s rage. 

Now man conducts its wars only faintly emulating the glory of the past. Men and women throw themselves against each other, dying without ceremony in mud and dirt to scraps of metal flying too fast to see. Those few with the power burn bright and are snuffed out for it. The end of Magic’s time on this world approaches, but no one is willing to see it. It could be prevented, perhaps, they race towards the possibility: the soldier, the prince, the spy, and the debutant. I pray they do not, though I doubt the Highlord will listen. I’ll need to ask him when I meet him on the mount.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Mar 24, 2023

Book preview

Prologue

Alara,

I am so sorry. For nearly a year, I have worried you so much. It is only now I realize the curse that I have for so long feared, a curse I confirmed for you so many times, doesn't exist at all. It is too much for me here, though I hate to admit it. Secrets, conspiracies, weapons of unimaginable death, I cannot bear it.

I have no poetry for you this time. There are no beautiful words to be found here where there is only smoke and death. I will be free of this terrible place by the time the day is over. 

I don't expect I will send this letter. I will leave Orailse tonight and ride to Haive if that is what it requires. You deserve these answers in person. I need you to see my face when I tell you the truth. I need to see yours when I apologize. You need to believe me. I know we both need that.

Chapter 1

Smoke rose from the corpse of the battle. Far afield, Fiorian soldiers advanced upon the retreating enemy in the coming twilight. Rain could see it all from where he drifted high above the outskirts of the city of Orailse.

           From so high up, they were little more than specs of sand on an ever-shifting shore, the tides of the two clashing armies sending the individual particles to be scattered about. The sand would surge with the ebb and flow of the two armies and eventually fall still in the mud to never move again. Rain imagined the bodies of men and women that he had left in his wake as mere sandbars piled high with grains of quartz. Those dunes reached into the sky like they might try to pull him from the air. Even still, it was a better alternative.

           He gazed down. Past his hovering boots that planted themselves solidly upon nothing, Sloan necromancers that had sought to ambush the meeting lay still in the mud. It was just as Weaver had said it would be. 

           Her men moved among the corpses identifying the fallen. No doubt there would be a detailed report given to the rest of the adjudicators about the battle. Someone needed to answer for the losses.

           Rain found his sight pulled to a woman below, waving for his attention. Adjudicator Weaver didn't stand out in stature or beauty, which was uncommon in Novani. The short, gray-haired woman possessed something unfathomable lurking behind those green, iron-touched eyes that made most turn away from her. Rain gazed once more out at the falling sun, and with a thought, allowed himself to slowly drift towards the ground.

The stench of death and dirt met him when he landed in the mud. The fighting itself didn't bother him. Pitting oneself against another in the most dangerous contest was something Rain had enjoyed his entire life. These last few years had been more than that, and the contests always ended the same way; bodies of the enemy lying broken and twisted in the dirt for as far as a grounded man could see.

We succeeded today, Adjudicator Weaver said as she slid up next to Rain. It wasn't without a cost.

Rain nodded. Just ahead, two men in dirtied uniforms were recovering the charred remains of Adjudicator Ronoa, a girl of eight. A dead girl, Rain reminded himself. With four of us, this shouldn't have happened. Adjudicator Ronoa's corpse was given all due respect by the haggard soldiers moving her off the battlefield before hefting it into the back of a cart. One of the little girl's impossible white hands stuck out of the back of the cart, a single finger curled in Rain's direction as if beckoning him to follow. Four, he thought with a shake of his head. If we needed four, we should have gotten a real four. 

He stepped forwards to kneel next to the body of the other adjudicator who had been brought along for the operation Weaver had thrown together. The man, almost into his third decade, stared up at Rain with blank, uncomprehending eyes. A spear of stone punched through his sternum to leave him propped awkwardly on the earth. 

An envelope, marked by the man's blood, peeked from the red adjudicator coat that he wore. Rain retrieved the letter before pulling the sacred artifact ring from the body. The letter was unsealed; he read it.

What is it? Weaver asked from his shoulder.

A letter to his sister. Rain stared down at the ink on the page, reflecting the light of the waning afternoon where blood splashed over the black lettering. It reveals too much. I don't think we can allow it to be delivered.

That is for the best then.

Did you at least get what you were after? Rain asked, not daring to turn to the woman for fear of his rage overtaking him.

I did. We will get him back to the Ciruliam as quickly as possible to pry whatever secrets we can from him.

Good. Rain knelt to gently lifted Adjudicator Ronoa's crown from where it had fallen in the mud. The sparkling, black crown held all the beauty of the sky on the clearest of nights and had just an hour ago sat on the head of a precocious young girl full of life. This wasn't a victory, Edendae.

As you say, she replied.

We have lost too many recently. Today we narrowly avoided their shards being stolen away with that man they managed to capture.

My men are on his trail. I expect him to come back to us quickly.

You miss my meaning, Rain growled. He turned to face Weaver for the first time. We are passing the shards on to those unable to fully wield their power and placing them too far in harm's way. How many have we been unable to recover now? Three? Only the Highlord knows what tortures they are being put under. How the abominable necromancers of the Sloanish are rending apart their souls to turn them to their purpose.

Would you have us leave our new blood safely tucked away in the South where they can destroy their sparring partners without a care in the world? Weaver shouted. The woman raising her voice was enough to cause the soldiery around them to stop mid-step. With a withering stare, Weaver set them back to the task. She stepped forward and placed a hand lightly on Rain's shoulder. This is war, Solin. The final war. We cannot win it by keeping our most powerful weapons in reserve for fear that they will come to harm. For a moment, the veil of stoicism peeled back to show genuine concern.

We will lose this war if we let the enemy take any more of our brothers and sisters, Rain answered. 

What would you have us do? 

Call a meeting, he told her. This is a situation that needs to be handled before any more life is needlessly given up. Rain looked down to the ring sitting in his open palm. The ruby set into its golden filagree burned with a pulsing light like a heartbeat; he knew it was truly the ebb and flow of an unfathomable rage. 

I can deliver their shards on my way back south, Weaver said, following his eyes down to the ring in his hand. 

No. I will do so. I am done with the fighting for now and am heading south as well. I will be relieving Asmodon from his position in the capital.

He has finally decided to join the fighting? she asked.

He says he fears his skills are rusting. I won't mind the time away and will gladly return when you have the war-winning information that you have promised.

Adjudicator Weaver turned, looking back to where her men were hauling the unconscious body of a man into the back of a wagon. His hands had been turned to calcified stone and were bound together in front of him. I will get you that information Solin, I promise you that.

I know you will, Rain replied. In the east, the last bit of light slipped from over the horizon.

Chapter 2

Just north of the city of Orailse, the sound of battle boomed, cacophonous. It was a common symphony, one that played after countless hours of silence and muffled conversation, but it always returned in gusto as unexpectedly as it disappeared. The blast of artillery from the Fiorian mortars sounded the percussion and was echoed back by the screams of dying men in the explosion of hellfire and metal that always followed. The peppering of rifle fire added its discordant notes to the everchanging song, undercutting itself with the shouts of the men firing and those being fired upon.

The Sloanish did not add much to the music of the battle. Their weapons were often quieted to the point of not registering with any of the participants. Rarely, but on occasion enough to bring an ever-present dread to the men of Fiorel that battled against them, the Sloanish would unleash a beast into the song to trample it out. They weren't doing that on this day, however, and were fleeing from what was once called the Orailse Plains. The song followed them: moving as they ran, stopping when they did so, and picking up once more when it was time to make certain all participants were awake. It was glorious chaos to everyone other than the most couched and hardened generals that could watch the proceedings from the high towers of Orailse like a master conductor having seen the same music reiterated upon one too many times.

Smoke clung in loose whisps to the dirt and licked at any movement in the sticky places where the men struggled for every inch of land that they could secure. As the Sloanish ran from their ditches to jump the stone barricades behind them, the Fiorians would race to make the next post, harrying the enemy with gunfire as they retreated. To these men, the stone was like an old friend they had not seen in a long time. It bore the marks of a previous time the Fiorian army had held these same positions to fight in a losing battle. The barricades stood broken in many places, sometimes the result of the successful Sloanish pushes to capture them, but more often a spiteful attempt to hamper the enemy should they need to retreat again like they had been forced to do many times before.

Despite the sabotage, there were many long stretches of the barricades that were still whole. Many of the more veteran Sloanish understood that there was a high chance they would need to retreat from the positions they captured and that maintaining the barricades would cover the retreat. The stone walls that the Fiorians built to protect themselves from Sloanish blades and spikes could be used by their enemy to keep the battle going, and it didn't take long for bullets to weed out the ones who thought ahead from those that didn't.

While the Sloanish would retreat from a failed attempt on the city, the Fiorians would work themselves into a lather of ferocity in their charge to send as many of their enemies to meet the Lowlord as they could. The retreat often cost more Sloanish lives than the attack. Those shortsighted enough to have destroyed the walls behind them running for the safer places in the fields would just as often as not find a hot slug of metal in their back. Those that grouped to the safety of the walls would dash as fast as they could from their trenches and run to make the next point as artillery would rain down upon the bunched groups. Still, it was a better route than running the open fields, and many men died as they ran into the metal shrapnel of the Fiorian artillery, fleeing the gunfire behind them; sometimes almost as many in the dirtied white uniform of Fiorel as their scattered enemy.

This day was unusual. The Sloanish had never made their attack. Their retreat was not a frenzied rush but a more methodical and measured maneuver. They pulled their groups one by one, firing back on the Fiorians with flying metal daggers as the retreating forces ran with the cover of the walls. The artillery still caught many, but it was as bloody for the Fiorian side that was so used to a mad scramble for land. The battle raged on, as bloody as it had ever been and twice as desperate.

At the sixth wall, Elias was just being roused to consciousness by one of his squadmates. His once light, wheat-colored hair was long stained with the dirt that he lived in on the Oailse battlefront, and recent blood was pooling onto the back of his head. Rifle fire resounded around him in its usual chaotic beat, and as Elias slowly came once more to his senses, he could see Roan shaking him where he was on his knees.

Wake up, you burning idiot! A harsh slap brought Elias back to reality. He tried to stand but found himself held in place. Behind him, pulling and fusing into the back of the jacket he wore, a worn down piece of the standard military issue, a massive block of stone ten feet on all sides sat half in the wall his squad was holding; the other half hung over the trench just below.

Roan, a strong squat man that had been in the six-seventy nearly as long as Elias had, helped him slip the jacket off so that he could clamber down into the trench beneath the wall. Elias found his rifle half-buried in the mud that lined the bottom of the trench and set to cleaning it enough so that it might fire as he studied the situation. Roan had already moved on, grabbing another man that was lying unconscious beneath the precariously hanging stone block above to move him to a safer spot. The blood coating the man's face and hair made it too difficult for Elias to make out exactly who he was at the moment.

Searching about with cloudy vision, Elias managed to spot Jen, an older man who had nearly lost all of his hair but still clung to the few grey wisps that he had left, worrying over the company's ranking sergeant. Elias discarded the rifle and hurried to where the old sawbones was working, tending to a weeping wound in the Sergeant’s chest. A long, jagged, metal blade still stuck out of the wound like the head of a spear, and its hooked shape made it impossible to remove cleanly.

What’s the situation, Jen? Elias asked.

The old man barely spared Elias a sideways glance as he continued to work. Hit us with a couple of blocks. Best we can tell Jamen, Glira, and Valley were caught in it. Vira lost her arm inside one of the blasted things; she might not survive the amputation if we don’t get her to a healer soon.

As Elias’s vision continued to clear, he started to see them now. Several of the stone cubes were suspended above, made into the wall that the squad had just taken, or having broken that, fallen into the trench below. Not far off, someone had been crushed by an incredible mass of stone, but that death was better than those who got caught up with them when they formed. From more than one of the cubes, an errant arm or leg protruded from the seamless face of white marble. The limbs marked where one of their comrades had died but helped little in determining who it was.

Aye, Jen continued as he cast his gaze over the stones of death, more than three for sure, but we don’t quite know who the others that we lost are yet. As soon as the blocks started forming, the razorbacks rained metal down on us. We lost more to that than anything else. Jen turned back to Sergeant Penigast and continued to delicately try to remove the blade from his chest with his instruments.

What can I do to help? Elias asked. He found a relatively clean weapon nearby and started to inspect it. It was in working order and still held several rounds ready and waiting to find Sloanish bodies to bite into.

Get Vira to drink some water, Jen replied, and then invite those Sloan bastards to join the Lowlord’s army, Sergeant.

Elias nodded and slung the rifle over his shoulder before searching around for Vira. He found her pale and shaking, sitting with her back to the trench wall and wrapped in several jackets. What was left of her right arm was wrapped tightly in bandages, cut roughly away at the elbow where the block had taken the rest of her arm. Elias took the canteen from his side and drew a quick drink before hurrying over to Vira; she barely seemed to notice him. She was far too young to be there--half the recruits that saw the front at Orailse were--she couldn’t have been more than eighteen. Barely old enough to walk about without her face covered.

Drink, Elias ordered, mustering all the authority he could as he held the canteen to her lips. Vira responded cautiously, taking the water in slow gulps before finally snatching the canteen from him with a shaking hand. He searched for a moment for something to say to set the girl at ease, found nothing, turned, and made for the nearest ladder out of the trench.

Men were still fighting on the wall, exchanging metal with the other side in quick peaks from the safety that the three-foot-tall wall offered. A lucky infantryman might hit a razorback as they tried to leap the wall ahead of where the rest of their brethren were filing through one of the small holes that they had dug beneath it. An unlucky infantryman would be caught peeking out of his cover to be hit with a flung blade from the enemy’s side that curved unnaturally to strike him while he was still behind the wall. Elias slid into cover behind the wall once he neared the top of the ladder.

To either side, the men of his squad were holding rifles tightly, waiting for a break in the firing to attempt to shoot into the enemy’s back, or trying to help move the wounded down into the trench below. Just above his head, Elias heard the all too familiar sound of Sloanish blades scraping against the top of the wall and could even watch as they whizzed out of sight towards where the rest of the Fiorian army held its lines. Intermittently, he could feel through the stone at his back when blades struck hard into the wall. Some of the wickedly sharp blades would even become lodged in it.

Someone’s comin’ up, Biddy said to Elias’s right. The mop-headed youth gestured to beyond the trench where six figures in Fiorian dress were sprinting across the muddy expanse towards the wall that Elias’s squad was currently holding. The Sloanish saw them too, and immediately a cacophony of blades descended upon the group, shining menacingly in the late sunlight of the day.

The blades were thrown away by some unseeable force, however. The two large figures that ran ahead of the group held their hands in front of themselves as they ran. The Sloanish blades bounced away from them, spiraled off into the sky, fell, and stuck into the mud.

Channelers, Biddy muttered, eyes widening in awe.

If you want to kill some razorbacks, now’s the time! Elias yelled down the line. He swung up to a knee and dropped his rifle into a crook in the wall. The retort of the weapon in his hands was a familiar, welcome sensation. The spent round shot into the air on his right to fall into the mud in time with the faint bloom of crimson Elias could see across the muddy field. A Sloanish blade slinger fell into the trench he was firing from, with a large hole erupting from the back of his skull. Other shots followed up and down the line. The Sloanish ducked back to the safety of their cover with a few less men to smuggle through the hole beneath their wall.

A blade ricocheted off the wall to the left of Elias’s face, sending an eruption of sparks to singe his cheek. He had the next round chambered before he even spotted the shooter. Far down the Sloanish trench line to the left, there was a trio of bladeslingers still willing to fire on the Fiorians that had come out of their hiding places. One shook the enchanted vambrace that the Sloanish used to launch their blades as he pulled another dagger from the heavy cloak he wore to hold his ammunition. The other two flanking him already had their blades placed snugly against the softly glowing metal on their forearms, sighting in their targets along the wall near Elias’s position.

Noting the one busy reloading his weapon as the one that had just fired at him, Elias took the man in the head before he had a chance to set his weapon. The other two were gunned down in a rush of metal as soon as their blades were loosed. A scream of pain from down the Fiorian line told Elias that at least one of them had chanced a hit. With those three dispatched, the Sloanish had retreated fully to the cover of their trench.

Cover! Elias roared as he dropped back to the slick ground. He chambered a new round into his weapon and waited for the rest of the men to do the same with a machinelike efficiency that could only come from monotonous repetition.

The train of six had almost reached the safety of the trench by the time the Fiorian firing had ceased. Close as they were, Elias could make out their members more clearly. At the head of the train were two powerfully built channelers glistening with sweat from their journey; the two men looked similar enough that they could be brothers. Behind them ran a captain, his blonde hair matching the gold shields that graced the sides of his collar. His uniform had been a pristine white that morning Elias was certain, but he had not made the trip all the way to the front lines without gaining a healthy amount of dirt and mud.

Behind the captain ran two more channelers. The six red chevrons on either shoulder told them to be Division Sergeants. The two in front only held the rank of Company Sergeant. Bringing up the rear was a woman that wore no official rank or uniform.

The train made it to the trench, the men in front stopped and held their positions to allow those behind them to drop to the trench below. Elias could then see the gentle yellow glow that spread from the tips of their fingers; it pulsed each time a Sloanish blade was repelled by the invisible force they were creating. This close, the ricocheting blades began to turn into deadly shrapnel that spiraled high into the air after hitting the invisible barrier before plummeting sharply into the earth below. The group had almost made it fully into the trench when, by some miracle of chance, a Sloanish blade bounced high off the invisible shield to come straight down into the skull of the woman in the rear, burying itself a fatal five inches. She fell into the trench like a sack of rocks, dead before she even hit the ground. The two company sergeants jumped down into the trench after her to where their captain was just starting to collect himself.

Where is the company sergeant? the captain yelled in the lulling silence.

Elias dropped to the trench below just as Jen was making his way over. Dead sir, the old man said, motioning to the corpse of Company Sergeant Penigast lying still in the mud.

Who is in command then? the captain asked.

I’ll have to pray for more mercy from the Lowlord, sir, Elias said as he stepped up to the man, I believe that would be me now.

The captain studied him for less than a second before nodding. What’s your name, soldier? he asked.

I got nothing, sir, one of the two division sergeants said as he stood from where the woman had fallen, shaking his head. The other division sergeant, a lanky black-maned man, strode away from the fallen corpse of the woman that had come with them and deftly ascended one of the ladders on the wall side of the trench.

Sergeant Basic Elias Rook, Elias answered, watching the man above pull a mirror from his pocket and attach it to an extending metal rod to peek over the wall with.

Captain Eladrine. Unusual to be delegating to a sergeant basic, but that is war I guess, the captain said. I’m going to require your men.

I have them, the man with the mirror called down from above. Runner with the red shirt and those three big bastards. We have about six minutes until they’ve made it through the breach. Captain, we move now.

Give me one of those minutes at least, Jild, the captain growled up at the man. He turned back to Elias. You heard the man; we don’t have much time. The Sloanish have captured an asset of the kingdom that we cannot allow to fall into their hands, and we have precious little time to recover it.

Elias stared at the man. He was young, much younger than Elias would have guessed at first glance, but his pleasantly smiling visage held none of the weariness that was so common on the faces of soldiers. His compatriots were another matter entirely. The eyes of the four men that had escorted the captain here were hard and impossible to read. Not even one of them spared more than a moment to look over the fallen body of their sixth member before returning their focus to the task at hand. They were planning to leap the wall as soon as they were able to charge straight into the maw of the enemy. That was a madness that only a soldier could do gladly.

I’ll give you myself and my best seven men that we still have, Elias said. In exchange, I need you to immediately send for medical attention for my injured. The Sloanish hit us with everything they had when we advanced to this last post, and we’ve been chewed through to almost nothing.

Eladrine smirked. I will do you one better, Sergeant. He gestured to the division sergeant that still stood nearby. Sergeant Lidew, will you see to these men? he asked.

Sergeant Lidew, a severe man with a crop of tangled brown hair, nodded as he strode forward towards Vira, who still laid pale and shaking against the walls of the trench. He set his hand on her shoulder, and a soft light began to emit from where the two met, pouring color back into the ghostly face of the young woman.

He will see to your men, the captain said with a nod. 

Elias glanced back towards the wall where what remained of the fighting force in the squad were preparing for the inevitable next exchange of fire with the enemy. Biddy, he called up to the man that was still seated where Elias had left him, grab Roan and his boys, and see if you can’t find Hlia. We are moving out in two minutes, and we haven’t a second to spare.

Biddy nodded down at his Sergeant and began to crawl along the wall to search out those he was ordered to find. We will be cutting it close, Captain Eladrine said as he grabbed a ladder rung to haul himself to the top of the trench.

Not much helping it, Elias said as he followed. It’s going to take some time at least to gather soldiers from along the wall. Elias slapped his back against the familiar cold of the stone wall and set about reloading his weapon. I don’t know what this asset you want to get back is, but I hope you know you’re more likely to die in this charge than succeed.

Wouldn’t be much of a challenge if that wasn’t the case, the captain said with a smirk. The man called Jild huffed from his position on the other side of the captain, and Elias agreed. This man was far too young.

Not much time passed before Roan came running back along the bottom of the trench with six men in tow. Heard we are to do something stupid, Sergeant, he called up with a smirk.

Get the lot of you up here, Elias called back. We move as soon as possible. He turned to Eladrine on his left. What are your orders, Captain?

The captain’s smile evaporated as seriousness returned to his features. Bilk and Braun will be our shield in front. When we reach the other side, we will dive into their trench and retake the asset. Retrieval is the top priority.

Elias nodded, and before any kind of signal could be given, the two mountainous men that had been leading the train when it approached earlier lept over the wall. Let's move already! Jild yelled as he hopped the wall after them.

Eladrine shook his head before moved to follow. Never waiting for an order.

Elias was already over the wall before the captain could set his hands on it. Hurry it up down there, he yelled back to the members of his squad that were still on the ladder as he bounded over. Sooner this is done, sooner we might actually get to enjoy some time in the city.

Chapter 3

The Sloanish were already firing before Elias had crested the wall. There were fewer of them now, and the two channelers that held the front of the assembling train were straining under the weight of the barrage; their heels dug into the mud a little more with each strike. The rest of Elias’s squad cleared the wall just seconds after he did and hurriedly fell into an ad-hoc position with the rest of the group behind the channelers emitting a slight yellow glow from their fingertips. 

Push forward! Captain Eladrine yelled over the sound of clanking metal hitting the sparkling, yellow force. 

The two men started their charge forwards. Elias lifted his weapon to manage a shot past the front of the group, hitting a Sloanish man in the shoulder and sending him reeling back into the trench in a scream of pain. 

  Fire through, Elias called back to those following behind him, but his voice was carried away in the retort of rifle fire that resounded before he even got the words out. A spread of lead hit the Sloanish line in quick succession, sending several of the enemy to the mud below and clouding the air with smoke. It was not too far a run, and the train had made it halfway across the expanse between the two opposing lines before Elias had time to slide a new round into the chamber. More of the Sloanish peeked out above the wall of the trench deep to the left and sent their blades flying towards the train. 

The channeler ahead that had been guarding that side stopped for a moment, and with a voice cracking like thunder, screamed, "Sistair!" Mud and blades alike were sent flying back from him in an arc twenty feet ahead as a wave of force hit everything ahead of the man. Some of those near enough in the trench were torn away from their posts, but most were able to weather the unexpected shock by bracing as it hit. 

Don’t stop moving, Division Sergeant Jild yelled as he shoved his shoulder into the stopped channeler’s back, nearly dropping him to his knees in the dirt. The shove got the man to moving again, and he rushed back to the front before the next volley of Sloanish blades could be loosed at the group.

The group had made it to within twenty feet of the enemy line by the time the Sloanish revealed themselves from their hiding place in the dirt. An exchange of fire ripped through the air. Several of the defenders went down in sprays of gore as their blades bounced harmlessly off the pulsing field of invisible force the group ran behind, but a lucky few made it under the wall. A cry of pain hit Elias from behind, and as he ran, he turned to see one of his squad, Biddy, fall in a spray of red agony as one of the Sloanish blades took his foot clean off. The woman who ran next to him, Hlia, stopped her own pace to try and help him up. Elias did not order her forward, but he knew all too well what would likely come of her in just a few seconds. 

Ahead, Sergeant Jild sprinted forwards past the two sweating and panting channelers that were still keeping up their efforts. Eyes down! he roared. 

Elias had the good sense to obey and managed just barely to avoid the blazingly bright sight of something like the sun appearing in the dim twilight of the setting day. The flash lasted only a moment, but Elias had to stop and shake himself back to reality when blackness threatened his vision. Dazed, he turned, found the edge of the trench only five feet away, and sprinted towards it as those around him did the same. 

Gazing over the edge, he found Sergeant Jild a storm of motion and death as he leveled his pistol at one Sloanish fighter after another, dispatching them to the Lowlord in a spray of smoke and red mist. Just ahead in the trench was a tunnel three feet wide and deep that had been used for the last hour or so to help the retreating troops run from the battlefield in relative safety. Each of the enemy fighters in the immediate vicinity was in a state of blind flailing, swinging pulled blades from their long cloaks and throwing them indiscriminately; none landed any strikes, even among their allies. 

Left! Elias shouted as he spied an advancing group of enemy fighters running along the bottom of the trench to the spot the group had stopped to fight in. Elias and five others dropped to a knee at the top of the trench, and like a well-practiced drill, fired into the group as they sprinted forwards. Three of the Sloanish fighters dropped to be trampled by those that ran unimpeded behind them, which sent their blades flying from the bracers on their forearms. 

The channeler that had launched a wave of force at the Sloanish lines before appeared once more to stop the onslaught of blades as they soared forwards, managing to catch most of them. Some flew past to cut into the sides of the group, but none managed a solid enough hit to bring anyone down. 

Into the trench, Captain Eladrine commanded. The man lept down to some of the stacked boxes the Sloanish used as platforms below. He pushed a dazed enemy out of his way as he fell before finishing him with a shot to the head. 

The two channelers that had been the shield for the group did not waste a second jumping down into the trench to follow the captain. Elias’s squad scrambled to jump down into the dirt and get back behind the channelers protecting them from the enemy’s weapons. The squad put their back to the decimated right side of what had been the enemy’s line as Sergeant Jild worked on finishing off any stragglers there and fired upon the group to the left that continued their advance, using discarded crates for cover. 

Bilk, cover the hole, Captain Eladrine commanded from over Elias’s shoulder. The channeler that had been guarding the right surged forwards to intercept the Sloanish forces already trying to push back through the hole beneath the wall. The captain hopped off of the platform he was on and seized Elias by the shoulder. Take your men and follow Sergeant Jild. He shoved Elias towards the right side of the trench that Sergeant Jild was already sprinting down like a man possessed. 

On me, Elias called back to his men, chambering another round as he did so. Jild was fast, and it took more effort than Elias had expended in a long time to keep up with the man as he chased after the group of Sloanish ahead that was in the middle of trying to hoist a large crate over the side of the trench and up to the wall beyond. 

Elias could just barely make out words on the wind as he ran after Jild, but he caught sight of the man’s hand beginning to glow with a stark white light. Jild raised a finger towards the group ahead. 

Eyes! Elias yelled as he pulled a hand up to guard his own, though he need not have bothered. A streak of pure white light shot from Jild’s hand to cut clean through the line the Sloanish had been using the hoist the crate. From eight feet up, the crate fell back into the mud to crack open with a wet thud. The Sloanish that had been carrying it turned to fire upon the oncoming group. 

Once again, Elias found himself at the front of the exchange of fire. Two of the Sloanish blades sliced through him, one leaving a deep gouge in the left side of his face and the other superficially cutting into his shoulder on the same side. Elias put a round in the belly of an abnormally large man too busy pulling another blade from his cloak to seek cover; someone else managed to score a more lethal shot on the man. Elias reloaded his weapon as he passed Jild, who was busy panting on one knee from exhaustion, to close in on the few remaining enemy fighters. 

The rest of the squad was just behind Elias as he made to fight close quarters. He managed to get a shot off just as one of the remaining fighters leaped for him with a blade in each hand. He was tackled into the mud by the corpse of the man and could hear the exchange of fire and cries from above him as he pushed to free himself of the body. Elias struggled in the mud with the body of a man twice his size when a rush of blazing heat hit him from the side, followed then by the screams of the dying and the stench of burning flesh. 

Elias managed to get out from under the body in time to see what had been left of the enemy fighters flailing, burning in the mud as flames consumed them and their voices; the breath that could give sound to their death cries was stolen from their lungs by fire. Opposite the way the group had hurried down the trench, a woman with burning red hair and violet shining eyes stood, smiling as flames danced along the palms of her hands. She wore the pristine white of the Fiorian military uniform, and smoke rose from the trench behind her for as far as Elias could see.

Seems you made it first, Jild, she commented.

Sergeant Jild hurried over to the cracked remains of the crate that still laid in the mud. Shocking, he replied dryly. He started to pry apart the wood of the crate to reveal the objective of the excursion. A man: bound, gagged, and unconscious, rested in an awkward position at the bottom of the splintered wood, a faint trickle of blood steadily dripping from his temple. Let’s hurry and get him back before the Sloanish realize we have their prize.

I’ll help with him, Elias said. He stepped forwards and hefted the unconscious man. It was not difficult. The man was slight and barely burdened Elias at all as he laid him across his shoulders.

Sergeant Jild nodded. We make back to the others, he said as he began to run. 

Roan ripped a blade from his thigh, binding the wound tight with a shirt sleeve before keeping pace with Elias towards the back of the group, his pained limping not slowing him too much in the heat of the moment. The red-haired woman stayed to the back, watching for any enemies that might come from behind. They found only one of the channelers and Captain Eladrine still standing when they made it back. 

The hole to the other side of the wall had been thoroughly demolished, and several Sloanish fighters hung from the wall above, shot dead as they tried to scale it. One of the two men that had gotten them safely across the expanse between the walls was unmoving in the mud with a Sloanish blade buried deep in his chest among the throngs of Sloanish dead. 

We’re out of here, Sergeant Jild said when he caught up to Eladrine. The captain peered back along the line of men to where Elias still carried the unconscious man and nodded. 

Good, he said. We pull back before any reinforcements arrive.

In an exhausted rush, the group scrambled up the side of the trench wall and made it back to the muddy field to begin their run back between the walls. The massive channeler pulled the dead body of his comrade from the mud and shouldered his burden back without any sign of strain in doing so. When they had finally made it back across, Elias found Biddy and Hlia still breathing, being seen to by the healer that Captain Eladrine had brought with him to the sixth wall.

The night had lapsed into deep darkness by the time Elias woke. A few lanterns burned in the damp pit that his squad camped in, and most were passed out from their futile struggling and exhaustion. Just across the trench, Elias could spot Vira sleeping, her chest slowly rising and falling in a natural rhythm that betrayed none of the terrible injuries she had sustained earlier in the day. 

Other than the soft orange glow of lantern light, there was only the warm green light of the moon above bathed in the glow of stars. The night was warm and humid, and the smell of dirt, blood, and smoke was as ever-present on the battlefield, but tonight Elias smelled something that reminded him of home, of his life in the south.

Captain Eladrine was easy enough to spot. He sat on a dirtied mat, resting his head against a wooden board that had been laid against the wall, and he swirled a bottle in his hand. Didn’t expect you to wake up so soon, he said with a pleasant smile.

How long was I down, Elias asked. The stiffness in his back relaxed with an audible pop.

A few hours, the captain replied. I don’t have a timepiece on me.

Elias nodded and found a seat on the mat the captain was occupying. That Svelen fire whisky you have there, sir? he asked, motioning to the brown bottle the captain still held.

Will be in a second. The captain pulled a bit of shredded svelen root from a pouch and lit it in his palm with a match. The Svelen caught instantly and gave off a warm, earthy smell before the captain dropped it into the bottle, where it continued to smoke, even drowned by the whisky. Here. Eladrine handed the bottle to Elias. It’s my third bottle tonight, and I ought to share it.

I’ll take you up on that, Elias said, downing a swallow and sighing when the familiar cool spread down his throat and into his belly. It’s been too long. 

You from the Svel, Sergeant?

Not originally. Father lost the farm to Deadtrees when I was eight, and we had to move further south to do any kind of living. Lord in the Svel was kind to my family and gave us a lot on the Spine to till and plant. Elias smacked his lips, savored the lingering burn, and took another swallow. Life was good there for a long while before things started getting bad all over. He handed the bottle back to Eladrine, who took a short pull on it before gifting it back.

Risky to farm away from the Spine, Eladrine said.

True, Elias agreed between drinks. Cheap too. Forest lords will pay second citizens to farm that land and build the soil up to something usable. I’ve even seen a few third citizens have their statuses raised just so they could be allowed to own a farm to work. Didn’t happen too often, of course, but it did happen.

News to me, the captain chuckled, but that’s none too surprising, I suppose.

Always been a topper, sir? 

That makes me difficult to speak with? the captain asked.

Not really. All the officers are toppers, so I don’t see too much of a difference. He smiled at the younger man. You seem better than most. Don’t know too many captains that would charge foolishly headlong into the enemy lines with less than a dozen men.

I wouldn’t have either, the captain said, if not for those channelers sent up to see it through. Have you seen many channelers in the fight, Sergeant? 

Not too many, and more often than not, they are on the enemy’s side. Took a shot at one once. Nearly pissed myself when the bastard took the round to the head and stood up not a second later to stare me down. Learned that day it’s probably better to leave the channelers to fight their own battles. We mortal men have enough problems to deal with without adding to the list.

Must have been one of the Sloanish necromancers, the captain remarked, surprised you survived the meeting.

Well, I was very, very far away at the time, and I think he was more focused on making sure his monster was protecting him from the mortar fire. Elias swirled the last bits of the whisky with what remained of the charred svelen root and gulped down what was left. Didn’t work though. Mortars blew the monster to bits, and the man behind it was gunned down a hundred times before he stopped trying to get up.

The captain hummed in appreciation of the story, and the two lapsed into silence for a while once Elias set down the emptied bottle. There was the sound of fighting far off to the north where the front must have moved to. Elias could not recall a time when the Fioran army had made so much headway in a single day. They had even gone to the length of pulling at least one artillery regiment out of their holes to follow the advance by the sound of it.

Do you like the 3rd army? Captain Eladrine asked to break the silence.

You mean do I like Orailse? Elias replied with a wry laugh. I pray daily the Lowlord might choose to hold his next battle up here with us so that at least the scenery might change. It was a lie; years had passed since last he prayed. I’ve been fighting in these muddy pits since I joined up, and that was so long ago I don’t bother trying to figure out just how long.

Think you’re due for a change of venue then? The captain asked with a smile.

I’d give a few fingers for that, sir.

No need to do that. You might need them.

I’ve plenty to spare.

The captain set his head back against the plank he was leaning on with a dull thunk and produced another bottle from his bag. I’ve only been on this field a week or so, and already I can feel it draining my spirit away. Can’t imagine spending years in this mud. The captain set about lighting another handful of svelen to drop into the bottle before taking a pull. That’s going to change soon though, he said after a contented sigh.

How’s that? Elias asked, holding out his hand for the bottle.

The 4th and 8th armies have been sent up to reinforce Orailse. The plan is to push the Sloanish back upriver before they can muster the forces to respond. Someone high up is angry that the city has stayed unsecured for as long as it has and wants to set about righting that. 

Burn me, Elias exclaimed softly. Didn’t think anyone cared enough to send us more men than they had to. 

 Well, if we succeed, the 3rd will likely change to securing Lake Trina and the river to the north to make sure the Sloanish never get another foothold here. 

That doesn’t sound so bad. 

Likely not, but it won’t be an enviable position holding out against endless assaults either. The captain gladly accepted the bottle back from Elias.

Sounds like you’re trying not to see the fire, sir.

Fair enough, Sergeant. Eladrine paused, and Elias was sure he was being weighed in the younger man’s eyes. How would you like to have your squad transferred to the 4th and rejoin us when we return to the fight around the mountain, Eladrine offered.

Don’t know if you’ve noticed this or not, Captain, but I don’t have too much of a squad left to transfer.

I’d be willing to take your soldiers anyhow, Eladrine replied.

Elias considered for a long time, sipping away at the Svelen fire whisky in his hand and listening to the distant drumming of the firing artillery. Plenty of spinebacks at the mountain? he asked.

The captain frowned. Unfortunately, not. There isn’t a war as far as it goes at the mountain if you didn’t know better. The Highlord or the Low conspires to keep it a quiet post, the captain replied.

Think I might like that, Elias said, handing the half-emptied bottle back to Eladrine.

I’m glad to hear that, the captain said before taking a swig. That reminds me. Noticed you were missing a jacket, so I went ahead and requisitioned one for you. Captain Eladrine picked up the garment and handed it over to Elias. Squad Sergeants need to be recognizable.

Chapter 4

Dawn was announced by a booming bloom landing three miles north, crashing to the earth, and spinning deadly shards of metal hardly bigger than the nail of a man’s thumb through the air. Where the shells landed, they left craterous ruin in the earth, often as not failing to detonate, thereby creating a mine ready to take a man’s leg off if he failed to notice metal tail sticking out of the mud in time as he moved by. The guns aimed for the enemy, but they had been fired for a long time, some as long as the war itself, and whatever skill their firing teams purported to possess was bent by burned barrels. Shells made their distance most of the time, but seldom did they manage to fall into the trenches the Sloanish held just at the edge of the Fiorian forces. Faulty aim did little to disturb the timber of deep echoes through a sky that burned with the orange of dawn. The booming had not stopped all night, but with the assistance of the vision which the dawn offered, it picked up its pace like a demonic war drum summoning dozing soldiers from their sleep.

          Captain Eladrine had been off at some time in the night, and in his place, the true commander of the six-seventy had returned. The man, round despite the scarcity of good food in the mud trenches and mouth so hidden in a salt and pepper mustache that Elias might have thought he had no mouth, took a look at the twenty or so men and women that remained to the six-seventy; he seemed more disappointed that any remained than glad so few had survived. I’ll have you for malingering! he swore even as he came down the ladder. Where’s Penigast?

          The captain was taken to the man’s body--covered beneath a gray sheet--but now with an additional layer of dirt shaken from the walls by the hammering of the guns. The captain twitched his mustache in irritation, found the new commanding enlisted man, Elias, and took him by the arm. We have men in the fight where you ought to be. Good men. Gather your convicts and relieve some of the fellows. You’ve four hours before the next break, and if you’re not at the lead of it, I’ll have every man here sentenced once over.

          The man never once looked to find the changed rank on Elias’s jacket. Elias doubted the man knew him as anything other than a ranking man, but being beneath the notice of men such as the captain was nothing newsworthy. The troops were already moving before Elias could relay an order; the men and women of the six-seventy were long used to the order forwards. Only half of the squad had landed the Orailse front as penance for conviction. The other half were merely shaggy-haired Renno with big green eyes. To most Fiorians, there was little difference. Until Elias had landed himself in the six-seventy, he had seen a small difference as well.

          They ran from the top of the wall beneath the cover of metal hurtling too fast to be seen by the eye. The lines had moved during the night, but with a good eye, it could still be seen not quite the distance off that the captain had said. Bridges lead over the trenches where half-collapsed slices through the earth housed tired and dirty men enjoying whatever rest they could achieve. In one of the artillery holes Elias lead his soldiers past, a pig was turning on a spit over a flame. The fire was small, snaking from a can that had been once full of a paste handed out to the troops that would catch light and burn for hours at a time. That can was almost empty as they passed, and the men that roasted their pig watched the passing soldiers with hard, miserly eyes. Elias steered the squad clear of the men and their catch.

          Soldiers were about, digging up unexploded shells in the dirt with spade and shaking hands. A month or two of recovery duty could earn a man a good six months somewhere else that never heard a shot fired from a rifle. Still, not many volunteered to go digging in the earth for shells that might be pulled out before a man stepped on them and blew himself to the other side of the shadow; more often than not, it was given as punitive duty.

          Three walls ahead, Elias lead the squad down a ladder to rest a while and have breakfast. Quartermasters had outfitted the six-seventy with food and supplies enough for sixty men ten days before when they had last been in the camp proper. With just under twenty remaining, the squad could afford to eat to contentment given how overladen with supplies they were. Men pointed out the squad’s good fortune, not to bring trouble, but as an opening gambit for trade.

          Biddy was the best for trading. The man turned three wheels of cheese and four portions of dried meat into four full bottles of whiskey and enough tobacco to last the squad through the five more days until their time on the line was over. If their luck held, the tobacco would last a mile longer than that. As his squadmates swapped food and medical supplies with the men of the twelfth wall, so named by the red twelves that were stretched along its length at close intervals on the south-facing side, Elias managed to ferret out a deck of cards. It cost him the one loaf of bread he managed to find earlier in the day.

          Breakfast finished, Elias lead the squad over the twelfth wall and closer to the sound of explosions. In the air of the day, the falling of shells was easy to hear from miles off, easier somehow when a man was beneath the earth in the trenches. As close as they were coming to the leading edge of the front, the squad felt the explosions in the earth when they hit and smelled the burning on the air when an errant gust swam their way. The edge was still two walls distant, but the craters were numerous enough to make finding a path through an effort without bothering to climb in and out of the holes.

          Wood bridges stopped being a constant. The bringing forwards of the bridges to make quick movement atop the trench lines would wait until commanders were certain the armies would hold their newly captured lines. The matter of constant failing to predict the ferocity of the Sloanish charge had left the commanders hesitant to send support forwards, which in turn left the forward arm bare of the support it needed.

          Approaching the thirteenth wall, Elias pushed the squad through closely spaced artillery holes, not daring to take the trick of the trenches and their promise of even footing. Men worked down there with spades to clear away the dirt mounds the Sloanish had left in their retreat, collapsing the stolen trench walls down on the heads of the soldiers that had likely helped build them in the first place. Then and again, the digging soldiers struck something not so solid as earth with their spade and pulled the body of a dead man from beneath the dirt, mouth full of the dirt those buried men tried to breathe through in their final desperate moments.

          At the wall, Elias had to turn west and run along the trench line itself to find a good crossing over the other side. Hlia hauled with her a wooden platform to lay across the more narrow spaces they could find to cross, and as soon as the last was across, she’d pick it back up and run to the front again. The woman never complained about the job, and no one tried to take a share of her load.

          They came upon a gathering of soldiers, the largest they had seen since the start of their run, standing around a man in priest’s robes down in the trench near the wall. The man called out his sermon over the booming of the guns, and those gathered watched him with numb, pleading eyes. Elias realized that it must have been a day ending in five, though when he thought on it, he could not recall the current month.

          Some of his squadmates slowed as they passed over the gathering. High up, the pounding of the guns on the wind carried off the pastor’s words before they could reach the squad, but still, they stopped. The Renno in the squad, Hlia lead among them, clenched metal talismans shaped like swords where they had them about their person and mumbled a familiar