Ania was different, though. While Roryn’s motivations lay in his men and caring for his wife and child, Ania seemed motivated by leaving an impression on his superiors. The men who would facilitate his advancement in the army. Men above Roryn. Roryn was just a lowborn soldier that had somehow stumbled on rising to the rank of sergeant.

  “What are we going to do, boss?” Ainle asked.

  All around the campfire, the Crows turned to look at him. All except Ania who busied himself with situating his bedroll just right.

  “Sleep,” he said finally. “Get as much as you can because it might be the last you get for a while. Tomorrow, we prepare. The day after, we fight.

  3

  The next day came early as men slipped out of their bedrolls as the dark sky started to lighten and the entire brigade set about preparing for the battle to come. Grand Marshal Thomme had decided to move his army out of the valley and up the side of a hill on the far side so they would have the high ground above the attacking Dreyumid. There, they dug lines upon lines of low trenches to slow the enemy with uneven ground. In those trenches, they added random holes meant to turn ankles.

  Still others built up earthen works, long lines of dirt mounds meant to protect the bowmen and War Walkers, the Sigils who specialized in the magic of war. The Grand Marshal’s brigade only had four of them. It took a special kind of Dust Breather to conjure the magics needed in battle, especially if it was a prolonged one. Having four in one brigade was a luxury not many grand marshals had.

  Roryn could have done without them, though. He had met all four and to the man, they were just angry and arrogant men who cared more for their craft than the men around them. They were dangerous and not just to the enemy. He had heard stories of War Walkers going mad with rage and taking out entire sections of their own companies.

  The way he saw it, the imperial army would be better off without them. He’d much rather take on their enemies with a sword and bow. That was why he never tried to recruit one into the Crows.

  It was right around midmorning that a deep, low rumble caught the attention of the men one by one. All around, soldiers straightened from their work and looked about in confusion.

  Shanlon, standing by Roryn in a low trench, cocked an ear to the hills. “Sounds like it’s coming from over that hill. Sounds like they’re close.”

  “Too close,” Ainle added.

  “Can’t be,” Roryn said. “There’s no way they could have moved that many people over the hill that quickly.”

  “Back to work!” a captain a little ways away yelled.

  The call was picked up by other captains and marshals as they rode up and down the preparations, calling for the soldiers to finish their work. For the most part, those orders were ignored. The men stood, staring to the east as the rumble grew louder at an alarming rate.

  When he felt the ground begin to tremble beneath his feet, Roryn glanced Ainle standing at his side. The twin’s dirty face was tight and he gripped the shovel like an ax. He then turned toward Ania on his other side. The man looked back and shrugged as if to say he had no idea how an army had moved that quickly. It should have taken them at least a full day to cross the neighboring valley, if not two.

  But there was no mistaking the source of the noise, what made the ground beneath their feet tremble.

  Roryn dropped his shovel, stepped out of the trench, and yelled, “Crows, to sword! To sword.”

  “Back to work,” a nearby captain yelled at Roryn.

  The Crows all dropped their tools and pulled themselves out of the trench they had been digging. It was a waste of a tool to leave them lying there, but they all knew tools could be replaced and they acted as another obstacle for the enemy to get past. A few other soldiers nearby followed suit.

  The captain reigned in his horse next to Roryn. “Get back in there and finish—”

  “Shit on your hole,” Roryn snapped back, stepping past the horse. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward the hill across the valley. “They’re coming.”

  “Get back here or I’ll have you…”

  The captain’s shrill voice trailed off until it was drowned out by the noise coming over the hill. Roryn turned just in time to watch the first of the Dreyumid crest the far hill. First a few dozen, then hundreds. Thousands.

  Then he saw how they had moved so fast. Even in the bright sunlight, there was a faint purple glow of magic beneath their feet. They had Sigils among them giving them speed.

  “Shit,” he muttered. A few men drew their weapons, but they couldn’t get caught out in the open like that. It would be a slaughter. Well, a worse one than he anticipated. “Crows, to the defenses. Run!”

  The thirteen of them broke into a run back toward the unfinished earthen work that would provide their only defense against the hoard. Other soldiers that had been working around them followed the Crows without orders.

  The captain that had been trying to get Roryn to continue working spurred his horse into a gallop, nearly taking out Shanlon on his way back to the defenses. The twin started to yell a string of vile curses at the officer, but his concentration was broken by the need to run. With the noise now roaring across the valley, Roryn doubted the captain would hear it anyway.

  He glanced over his shoulder as he ran. The hoard was sliding down the hill into the valley, their war cries echoing as more and more crested the hill. He turned just in time to watch that captain miss a newly dug trench in his haste. His horse stumbled forward and flipped over, tossing its rider to the ground in a cloud of dust. The beast jumped to its hooves and continued running riderless in a random direction.

  Roryn skidded to a halt at the top of the trench. The captain lay in the dirt, head bleeding and his arm bent at an unnatural angle. Muttering a curse, he hopped down into the trench while others jumped over with varying degrees of success. He grabbed the captain by the back of his leather armor and hauled him to his feet. The man cried out in pain and cradled his arm.

  That pain seemed to clear his head. He focused on Roryn and he blinked through the blood running into his left eye.

  “Run,” Roryn growled.

  When the captain hesitated, Roryn dragged him up the other side and pushed him toward the half-completed earthen works. The man stumbled forward before catching his feet and started running, holding his arm to his chest with his other hand.

  Roryn looked around. Just those few moments helping the captain up had cost him more than he imagined. He was now among the last of the soldiers retreating back up the hill to the defenses. Only a few stragglers ran around him, stumbling, for their lives. Either older soldiers who weren’t as swift as they used to be or others who hadn’t gotten the order to retreat in time. If such an order had even been given.

  The roar from behind him grew louder. It washed over him like a constant thunderclap, filling up the valley. His eyes were drawn to the dark mass spilling over the hill. They just kept coming. Though the Dreyumid ran down the hill, the magic at their feet made it seem like they glided several paces with each footfall. Roryn wondered how they moved down the slope at such speed without losing their footing and tumbling head over arse.

  “Dust take me,” he swore.

  Turning, he started running again. Just in front of him, a young soldier—no more than nineteen—had stopped and was staring at the hoard, mouth gaping open, fear routing him to the spot.

  Roryn grabbed the boy’s shoulder as he passed. He stumbled and would have fallen over if it weren’t for Roryn’s iron grasp on his shirt. The stupid idiot must have taken off his leather armor for the dirty, hot work of digging the trenches.

  Once the boy had found his own footing and was running on his own, Roryn let go and ran as fast as his feet could carry him. He didn’t dare look back. With all the noise and the way the ground rumbled, it felt like the Dreyumid hoard would be right behind him.

  As he ran, his legs started to burn and feel loaded down with steel. He could march all day and night for several days straight, but the run uphill had him winded and struggling to keep up the pace.

  He wasn’t the only one either. He passed numerous soldiers struggling to make it up to the earthen works defense. Twice. He had already stopped twice to help others. Stopping again would mean his death. If he stopped again, he wouldn’t make it to the others until it was too late.

  At least that was what he told himself as he ran past older soldiers hobbling up the incline at a speed barely more than a brisk walk. Still others had collapsed to their hands and knees and were crawling.

  And for what? Half-built field defenses wouldn’t hold off the hoard. It would barely slow them. If the few trenches they had managed to dig slowed down the advance, those charging in front might fall, but they’d just serve to fill in the holes in the dirt for their fellows rushing in behind them.

  Or the magic on their feet would allow them to glide right over the trenches.

  That thought struck Roryn like a slap in the face and he actually slowed in his run. He looked back again in spite of himself. The front lines of the Dreyumid were approaching the first trenches.

  He slowed to a stop and turned to watch, his breath coming hard and heavy.

  “Roryn!” somebody yelled from the defenses behind him. “Get your arse over the wall.”

  A few other voices joined the first encouraging him to keep running.

  “Bowmen!” another voice called out, high and shrill. “We need those Dust blasted bowmen!”

  Roryn ignored it all and watched. He knew he should keep running. He knew it didn’t really matter if the trenches slowed the charge. It was coming either way. They’d buy the imperial army maybe a few extra seconds.

  “Bowmen!”

  The first Dreyumid came upon the trench Roryn and the Crows had been digging and hopped nimbly over it. Those close on his heels did the same.

  Roryn’s heart fell. An entire brigade was about to be wiped out and for what? A city far from there? Was that the cost paid for a mildly strategic city? Thousands of men? Good men. A lot Roryn had known since he was fifteen.

  “Roryn, you stupid bastard. Run!”

  He turned back to his men and stared, dumbfounded. It took several moments for him to recognize the man standing on top of the mound they had built up. Their earthen works. Their defense. It was Reynaldus. He waved a big, meaty hand trying to encourage Roryn and the rest to finish the sprint.

  Before he knew it, Roryn’s feet were moving again. They carried him toward Reynaldus. Toward a delayed death. He was fifty paces from that delayed death.

  Thirty paces.

  Twenty paces.

  He could see Reynaldus’s eyes from that distance. They looked at Roryn before traveling over his head and widening. Roryn saw the whites in the man’s eyes. He raised his nocked bow.

  Ten paces.

  The mound of dirt exploded in a shower of dirt and body parts. The blast blew Roryn off his feet.

  He couldn’t tell how far he had traveled but one moment he was concentrating on reaching Reynaldus and the next he stared up at the bright sky, his ears ringing. His vision blurred in and out as he turned his head to see movement around him, nothing more than dark shapes passing in and out of his vision. He wondered how he ended up on the ground and why it felt like a horse was laying on him, preventing him from getting up?

  Finally, a figure came into view walking toward him. A woman wearing a long, flowing green dress. Feet bare. She knelt beside him, but his vision was so blurred he couldn’t make out any details. She reached out a slender hand and touched his shoulder.

  “It’s time to get up, Roryn.”

  “Evelyn?” he slurred.

  In a snap, his vision cleared and his wife’s face came into view. Her long, dark hair hung down either side of her face as she looked down at him with bright blue eyes.

  “You need to get up.”

  “I can’t,” he said. “I can’t move.”

  “Yes you can,” she said, a smile forming at the corners of her mouth. “Stop being a stubborn ass and get up. For me?”

  “Fine,” he groaned in acquiescence. “But you owe me.”

  Ignoring the pain shooting through his body, he fought through the stiffness that had settled in his muscles and rolled onto his stomach. Bits of wet dirt rained down around him. He ignored that, too. He gathered his arms beneath him and pushed himself up, first to his knees, then to his feet.

  When he looked around for Evelyn, hoping to see her smile at getting what she wanted, but she was gone. He stood in a field. He turned to find her and saw a dark, screaming mass bearing down on him.

  He didn’t know when he pulled his sword but it was in his hand. The ringing in his ears quietened and his head cleared a bit. With that came the realization that he stood out in the open against the charging hoard of Dreyumid.

  And they were on him. The first man to reach him on feet imbued with magic was a tall Dreyumid. His flat nose had a small golden ring in one nostril. His front teeth were crooked. He held a sickle, the long blade curved into a wicked half circle.

  Roryn’s sword slashed the man across the face. He thought he saw the golden nose ring fly off into the press of Dreyumid that engulfed him.

  Somebody bumped into his back hard, nearly sending him sprawling to the ground. He spun, lashing out with his sword, taking off a man’s arm.

  A woman came out of the mass, three green lines painted on each cheek, marking her as a Silver Hawk. They were a group of noted female warriors within the Dreyumid. She had strikingly blue eyes that focused on him with single-minded concentration. She had a small sickle in her right hand and a long dagger in her left.

  She stabbed at him with the dagger. Roryn batted it away with his sword and had to stumble back to avoid a vicious downstroke from the sickle. Before he could recover, she lashed out with the dagger. He blocked that one, too. This time, the sickle attack came from underneath in an upstroke. The blade cut a slice in his leather armor, but he had backed away far enough for it to not slash all the way through.

  While he was still trying to recover, she came at him again, but one of her fellow Dreyumid rushing forward bumped into her. She stumbled forward and Roryn brought his sword down on her wrist, taking her hand off cleanly. His upstroke caught her under the jaw. Her head snapped back and blood sprayed into the air.

  Before he could recover from the stroke, searing pain bloomed on his side. He looked to find a hand pushing a dagger under his leather jerkin and into his side.

  “Shit eating Kithean scum,” a Dreyumid snarled in his face. “Die.”

  The man twisted his blade and Roryn screamed. He tried to free his sword arm, but the strong Dreyumid had it pinned between them. The Dreyumid pulled the blade free and pulled his arm back, preparing to drive it into Roryn’s throat.

  An explosion off to their left rocked the ground and sent Dreyumid bodies flying into the air. It provided enough distraction for Roryn to snatch a small knife from his belt with his free hand. He jabbed it into the Dreyumid’s eye.

  Another explosion rocked the ground as the dead man fell. This time closer.

  Still another.

  With each explosion, Dreyumid bodies flew into the air, usually in pieces. With harsh realization, Roryn realized those explosions were coming from the War Walkers. Men in his army. Men meant to fight alongside him.

  When the fourth explosion landed so close Roryn felt the blast of heat, he knew he was in trouble. He turned to run, but he was completely surrounded by Dreyumid trying to escape the blasts, too.

  Then all went black and Roryn knew nothing.

  4

  “Didn’t I tell you to get up?” Evelyn playfully chided Roryn.

  He opened his eyes and immediately regretted it. The sun overhead was blinding and painful. With a groan, he squeezed them closed again.

  “You, sir,” she said, “have to be the laziest sergeant in all the imperial army.”

  He cracked his eyes open just a bit and squinted up at the form standing over him. “Don’t you have a baby to take care of or something?”

  “You’re an ass.” She prodded his side with a toe. It was playful, but she must have caught him just right because it sent a pang of pain up his side.

  “You love me, anyway,” he said with a grin.

  She folded her arms and humphed. “Against my better judgement.”

  He squinted up at her. “Do me a favor and move to your right just a step.”

  She did. “Why?” she asked hesitantly like she expected him to pull a prank on her.

  “Now one step forward.”

  She glanced at the river to make sure he wasn’t positioning her to be able to push her in and then stepped closer to him.

  With her shadow falling over his face, he opened his watering eyes. “Ah, now I can see.” He then moved his head to the side to try to look up her dress.

  “You ass!” she cried out as she stepped back, pulling the hem of her dress away from him.

  “Arg,” he complained as the sun assaulted his eyes once again. He lifted his left hand to shade them. “You’re evil.”

  “You love me anyway,” she said with a smirk.

  “I never said—Oof!” he grunted when she stepped one bare foot over him and sat down on his stomach. “Get off,” he said with a fake wheeze.

  “Ass!” She slapped his chest but slid off his stomach and sat on his crotch instead.

  “That’s better,” he said with a smirk of his own.

  She rolled her blue eyes but didn’t move again.

  “Since you’re there…” he asked, letting the unasked question hang in the air.

  “No,” she said firmly.

  “But—”

 

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