Chris Evans - A Darkness Forged in Fire

The private lifted his head as Konowa approached and struggled to give his report. "They're here, the elfkynan army is here."

There was the unmistakable crackle of musket fire from the far side of the river. He saw the familiar shower of sparks out of the corner of his eye-contact had been made.

"One of their patrols must have stumbled into one of ours," Konowa said, sheathing his saber and looking at the group around him. He spied a corporal he didn't know by name and pointed to him. "You, report that we have made contact, though I'm sure they heard the muskets, then have the two cannon brought down to the river. Private Vulhber and the rest of you are with me."

Without waiting for a reply, Konowa headed back to the dock leading six soldiers. His eyes were more than capable of seeing the precarious planking that had been laid down over the kios, but he knew the soldiers behind him would not be so fortunate. He turned to tell them to light a torch and saw that Hrem was already lighting a lantern he had found on a pole near the dock.

When Konowa reached the other side, the first thing he noticed was the heat. It was like diving into a hot spring. The air was thick in his lungs and he coughed and wiped his brow. As he put his foot down on the far bank, his senses blurred, and the clarity he had known within the ring of trees vanished.

"Major!"

Konowa unbuttoned his cloak, took it off, and waited for a jogging Lorian to come to a halt in front of him. "How many?"

Lorian saluted. "It was a cavalry scouting party, maybe twenty, twenty-five. Hard to say in the dark, but it looks like we dropped about half of them. I managed to wrangle three horses, one slightly wounded, but no prisoners. We suffered no casualties."

"Show me."

Lorian led him and the six soldiers on a dirt path through knee-high grass for a couple of hundred yards. The night sky had an eerie glow to it, and it occurred to Konowa that he had no idea what phase the moon was in. From the degree to which visibility improved the further they moved away from the mist surrounding Luuguth Jor, however, he guessed it was probably full.

"There," Lorian said, pointing to a squad of soldiers kneeling in a line to either side of the path. From a distance, the wings of their shakos created the appearance of a row of vultures perched on rocks. They had built a makeshift wall with a few fallen branches of wahatti trees and an overturned kios, its hull so rotten that its only protective function could be to their morale.

Konowa motioned for Vulhber and the others to stretch out the line on either side and walked forward on the path to where the first body lay just twenty yards away. Other dark forms dotted the grass, some much larger than others and obviously horses. Konowa stopped himself. Better not to assume anything. He tried to search the area with his senses, closing his eyes momentarily and trying to recall what it had felt like when Visyna drew on the living skeins around her. Everything was jumbled, not that it really mattered. He could hear the sound of the main body of the elfkynan army fanning out in front of them, probably no more than half a mile away. Already the surviving cavalry scouts would be reporting that they had made contact. An attack was not far off. He opened his eyes and knelt to examine the body.

The elfkynan lay on his back, his arms raised over his head, his mouth and eyes open in surprise. He wore a simple pair of thin blue cloth pants, the bottoms wrapped tightly around his calves with red puttees. His feet were bare, as was the custom of most elfkynan. Instead of a jacket, his chest was covered by a length of white cloth wrapped up and over one shoulder, the fabric stained with blood still dribbling out of a copper-coin-sized hole where a musket ball had punched through his heart. The cloth was held around his waist by a broad, flat belt of jute fiber adorned with bits of gems and polished pieces of wood. His headdress lay a few feet away, a wide-brimmed hat of woven grass. Konowa looked around and realized what was missing.

"Where's his weapon?"

There were a few coughs and shuffling of feet, and one soldier bent and retrieved it from the grass. "A mioxja," Konowa said, taking it from the soldier. It was beautiful in its simplicity. Two blades of razor-sharp jimik grass were tightly bound to the end of a three-foot-long section of willow. It was more bladed whip than spear.

"Is that all they have?" the soldier who had handed Konowa the weapon asked. "I mean, it's just grass and twigs tied together. I've known blind beggars with canes who were more dangerous." A few of the soldiers laughed and voiced their agreement.

Konowa pointed to the grass hat a few feet away. "Pick that up and hold it out from your body. You might want to cover your face; I haven't tried this in a while."

The soldier looked a little startled, but did as he was told. He had no sooner held the hat out than Konowa snapped his wrist and flicked the mioxja. The soldier yelped, let go of the remaining tiny section of hat, brought his hand up to his mouth, and blew on his fingers. This time, the laughter was more subdued.

"Never underestimate your enemy," Konowa said, throwing the weapon to the ground and grinding the blades into the dirt with the heel of his boot. "A mioxja in the hands of a skilled warrior can flay a soldier alive with a couple of strokes. In the unlikely event that they get through our musket volleys, don't lean back. Close the gap and get right into them."

"What about the trees then, and the Shadow Monarch, sir?" the soldier who had held the hat asked. He had a weasely look about him, thin and conniving.

"Never mind that, Zwitty," Lorian barked, glowering at the private.

Konowa held up a hand. "It's a fair question. The answer is I don't know. The elfkynan are the enemy before us, so that's who we will fight."

The answer satisfied most of the soldiers, but not Zwitty. "What if the Shadow Monarch gets that Star everyone is talking about? What if She uses it to turn them into more monsters? Then what do we do?"

Konowa shook his head. "Bayonets and musket balls are cure enough for that. Keep your head, and they'll lose theirs. They'll attack at ceh-gwadi, " he said, staring into the distance. "The ears of the morning. It's a herdsman thing. It's the time of day when the ears of the brindos can first be seen against the lightening sky. Until that happens, they'll keep their distance. They fear the spirits that roam in the dark and believe if they are caught, their souls will be lost forever. So they'll wait until dawn to attack."

"But what-"

"No more questions!" Lorian said, looking hard at Zwitty. He shifted his halberd to hold it in both hands. "Save your breath for when you're going to need it. Back to your posts, and I don't want to see the glow of a pipe or I'll be flaying the stupid bugger with ten of those mojas, and the dumb bastards to either side of him who didn't stop him. Now move."

The soldiers melted away, the sound of their boots stomping through the grass receding quickly.

Konowa followed them, passing through the makeshift line and taking the path back toward the river. When they were out of earshot he stopped and motioned for Lorian to stand close. "On edge?"

Lorian grounded his halberd and let out a sigh, slumping his shoulders as he looked back toward the front. "This is utter madness. The elfkynan aren't stupid. Once they realize we're trapped, they'll cross the river to either side and surround us. We don't have supplies to last more than a couple of weeks, maybe a month if we slaughter the brindos and muraphants."

"They won't have the luxury of starving us out," Konowa said, wiping at the sweat on his brow. His breathing was labored, as if he had just run a mile, not walked a few hundred feet. He needed to get back within the ring of trees and the cooler air. "The Star is a lodestone to them. It's why this forest is here, why we're here, and why they're here. They've taken up arms in open rebellion against the Empire. They can't afford to wait for the Imperial Army to turn back from the orc border and move north."