Cinders of Magic

Chapter 2-2

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.”