Chapter 148

  Taking Shelter

  Lars spoke with a slow lilting tone, the kind that made people think he wasn’t paying attention. He often let them believe it. Easier that way. Right now, Lars sat on the damp ground, back pressed against the splintering wood of a barn. His sword rested on his knees, dull and nicked from too much fighting the past few days and not nearly enough sharpening.

  He glanced at the handful of soldiers also resting nearby. Bluewater men mostly, their tabards barely blue anymore now, so stained with blood and soot. A couple of Reldoni soldiers like him were mixed in—stragglers who’d gotten separated during the mess of fighting when the rakmen had broken through the wall. Lars didn’t know any of them before the battle. Now he depended on them with his life.

  He still didn’t know where exactly they were. He’d tried to flee south to Harriston when Bluewater fell, but he got lost in the woods, leading him east instead. He’d only stumbled upon this group of soldiers by chance in the woods. One of the Bluewater men guessed they were a day, maybe two, from the fortress. If Harriston still stood.

  For three days this group had wandered through the woods. They hadn’t been alone. Hunting parties of rakmen were always prowling around. By dawn on the fourth morning, they’d finally broke out from the trees and found this barn. It hadn’t been empty.

  Some local farmers and their families who’d thought the barn might give them enough protection from the passing bands of rakmen. They’d been wrong of course, but Lars wasn’t about to lecture some strangers on their foolishness. He probably might’ve done the same thing in their position. What do you do when monsters start roaming your lands?

  They’d been lucky that Lars and the other soldiers had stumbled upon them. Already they’d fought off a party of rakmen who’d tried to raid the barn. Lars and the others had decided to stay, if only to give the poor bastards a fighting chance. They’d posted lookouts, shored up what gaps they could, and tried to get a little rest. It would do until they could figure how to make a break for the fortress at Harriston. Assuming it’s still standing.

  Some of the Rubanian men with them weren’t from Bluewater Wall. Lars had spotted it straight off—their tabards bore an insignia of two towers. They looked worn and haggard, as all of them did, but they’d insisted on dragging their comrade—a blond Rubanian man the whole through the woods with them.

  The man had been falling in and out of consciousness, head lolling like a broken doll’s. His wound was bad—too much blood lost from a nasty gash at his temple. Lars had expected him to drop dead halfway through the forest, but one of the Rubanians—a wiry, grey-bearded fellow who seemed far past his fighting years—had surprised him. The old man turned out to be a bloodstone healer.

  The healing had worked, at least as much as it could. The bleeding stopped, the colour slowly returned to the blond man’s face, but the effort left him limp, still unconscious from the surge. The healer, visibly drained, had slumped against the barn wall afterward, muttering something about needing a rest before he could try again.

  The injured man was wrapped in a grey cloak, but when one of the men loosened it to check his wounds, Lars’s brow furrowed. Beneath the cloak, the man wore dragonhide armour—unmistakably Reldoni make. It wasn’t some cast-off either; it was a bit battered from the battle but it still looked new, the scales overlapping in a pattern Lars recognised from his own battalion’s smiths.

  “What’s his story?” Lars had asked, jerking his chin toward the unconscious man as he adjusted the strap on his own battered pauldron.

  “His name’s Tanlor,” one of the men replied.

  Lars frowned, his gaze shifting to the man in question. Tanlor. The name didn’t mean anything to him, but the sight of the dragonhide armour sure as hell did.

  “He one of yours then?” Lars pressed.

  “Of course he’s one of us,” another of the Rubanians snapped, defensive now. “He’s Twin Garde.”

  Twin Garde. The name stirred something in Lars’s memory. But he couldn’t place it.

  “That one of the outposts near here or something?” Lars asked.

  “We were one of the first hit by the rakmen,” the old healer wheezed out from where he sat.”

  “Shit,” Lars whistled, “guess there’s probably not many of you left then, eh?”

  “Watch your tongue, Reloni!” one of the Bluewater men snapped. There were four other Reldoni men, all of them locked eyes on the speaker.

  “It was us that saved your asses on that wall,” Lars shot back, “don’t forget it.”

  He leaned back slightly, letting his hand rest loosely on the pommel of his sword. “I feel bad for you folk, I do. But I ain’t about to sit here and take a tongue-lashing after what we just went through.”

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  The Bluewater man opened his mouth to retort, but another, the old healer raised a hand to quiet him. “Enough,” the old soldier muttered. “We’re all here because of the rak, yes? Not to fight each other.”

  Lars gave a short nod, though his jaw remained tight. He wasn’t looking for trouble, not with these men, but he wasn’t about to be anyone’s punching bag either. He empathised with these men. He really did. Lars had grown up in border town, little pisshole of a place a few miles north of Adesh. A place caught between two worlds—Reldon and Rein. The Reinish folk across the hills weren’t so different from the Reldoni, not really. They bled the same, died the same. But the politics of kings and lords had made enemies of neighbours.

  Lars had grown up fighting people who lived less than ten miles away, boys who might’ve shared the same river to fish or the same woods to hunt. His first battle, he’d gutted a man with a face that looked too much like his cousin.

  By the time he was sixteen, Lars had enlisted, a sword in hand and a cause he didn’t much care about shoved down his throat. He’d fought in a dozen skirmishes before he was old enough to grow a proper beard, every one of them over some patch of land too small to matter. But it hadn’t prepared him for this. For rakmen. For draega.

  These men reminded him of the folk back home—people who didn’t have the luxury of choosing their battles. The ones who fought because there was no other choice.

  “We can’t stay in this barn forever,” Lars went on. “And my guess, These lands’ll be crawling with more of those bastards before long.”

  “We should make for Harriston,” the healer replied. “Hopefully the fortress still stands. My name is Yaref by the way,” he extended a bony hand out to Lars. He shook it.

  “Was thinking the same,” Lars agreed.“That’s where my battalion would’ve pulled back to. Commander Torvin’s no fool. He’d have called for a withdrawal as soon as that wall fell.”

  “Harriston won’t hold against that… that thing,” the Bluewater soldier from earlier interjected, his voice sharp and bitter. “We should head for Nordock.”

  “Do what you like,” Lars said, with a shrug that didn’t quite hide his irritation. “But Nordock’s weeks away on foot. I don’t fancy being caught out on the road by those rak bastards.”

  “What... what was it?” One of the farmers, crouched with his family near the soldiers, asked in a trembling voice. His face was pale, his hands shaking as they clutched a battered pitchfork. Lars met his gaze and felt a pang of sympathy. These people weren’t soldiers—they’d had their homes burned to ash, their lives ripped apart, and they had nothing to defend themselves but farm tools and prayers.

  It was Yaref that cleared his throat, pulling the group’s attention.

  “We watched it go south from the wall,” Yaref began. My companions and I had not been on the wall when it crashed through. Most of the soldiers had rallied to Torvin’s calls for withdrawal. You probably heard them too, yes?”

  Lars gave a slow nod, but stayed silent, letting the old healer continue.

  “Ardent and I had spotted Tanlor on the walls and tried to help him. We couldn’t abandon him. In all the confusion… I think Daegan thought maybe he was dead…” he began muttering, then realised people were still listening to him.

  “Oh, yes… yes, the draega, he went on. “We saw it all. Didn’t seem like the rakmen could control it, yes? It was a wild thing. I think it headed south, then east towards the Balfold. The Reldoni soldiers seemed to try following it, before turning back south. Towards Harriston, yes. Maybe the rak’s next target is Harriston, it would make sense, yes? But that creature… I don’t think the rak’ll have an easy time getting it to do what they want.”

  The Bluewater soldier scoffed. “Control or not, it brought down our wall.”

  “Yes… yes, it did. But we’d been fighting all night. If they could control that beast, would it not have made sense for them to unleash it on us at the start of the fighting? My guess they have little control of it, yes?”

  Lars frowned, glancing towards the barn door. The memory of the colossus, its monstrous form silhouetted against the night sky, lingered in his mind. He didn’t like the thought of something that destructive running wild. “What if they do get it to attack Harriston?” he asked.

  “I…” Yaref hesitated, “I don’t know.”

  Lars froze mid-thought. A whistle sounded from outside.

  His hand instinctively dropping to the hilt of his blade.

  Lars caught the knowing look that passed between the Bluewater soldiers. They didn’t need to speak—it was written plain on their faces. This wasn’t good.

  The barn door creaked as another soldier slipped inside, his breath coming in short, quiet bursts.

  “How many?” Lars asked.

  “Only two,” the soldier replied. The others visibly relaxed, though the man’s wide, terror-stricken eyes stopped Lars short.

  “What is it?” Lars pressed.

  “They’ve… they’ve got one of those hellhounds with ‘em.”

  “Shit,” Lars muttered, the curse low and drawn out. “Any of you boys a runewielder?”

  Heads shook, eyes averted. The silence that followed was heavy. Lars himself could wield a topaz or aradium stone if needed—well enough to pass muster in training. But he didn’t own one, nor was he skilled enough to warrant being issued one. The King’s bloodshedders took most of the supply these days, and rightly so.

  “Right,” Lars said, his usual drawl now carrying an authoritative tone. “No time to sit around pissing ourselves. Get those gaps blocked. Everyone who can hold a weapon, arm up. This barn’s all we’ve got.”

  “You all should run,” Yaref urged, his voice shaky. “We can’t hold against that many.” It was clear the old man and his injured friend wouldn’t be running anytime soon.

  “And run where?” Lars shot back. “I ain’t about to drag this lot out into the woods with one of those hellhounds on our tail? Nah. I ain’t dying that way. I’m gon’ hold here. Make it ugly for ‘em.”

  “He’s right,” the Bluewater man said. “We’ve got no choice. They’ll kill us just the same if we run.”

  Lars turned to the sentry who’d whistled the alarm. “How close are they?”

  “Close,” the man replied, his voice thin and tight. He leaned forward, peeking through a crack in the barn door. “Five minutes, maybe less…” His voice faltered, and Lars frowned, stepping closer.

  “What is it?” Lars pressed, his gut twisting.

  “There’s someone else too.”

  “Someone else?” Lars repeated, his grip tightening on his blade.