Tim Lebbon - Dawn

“To me!” he called, and the Shantasi turned to face him. He climbed atop a dead machine, more than aware of the symbolism of his act as he rested his sword’s point on the thing’s ruptured back. A stink rose from within, curiously sweet and unpleasant. He breathed deeply and wondered whether all dead magic stank like this.

“This was only an advance force,” he shouted. “The spartlets will spread and hopefully disrupt any more attacks from above, but the Krote ground army will be here soon. An hour, or a heartbeat, but they’ll be here.” He looked north, saw nothing moving in the deeper darkness beyond the burning machines. “We’ll form two lines of defense. The first there, behind the largest burning machine. Its fires will blind them until they’re on top of you. The second five hundred steps back. Use the dead as shields. The Krotes see a dead warrior, they won’t expect a living one to rise behind it. We have more to send against them, and I hope that the land will aid us, and the serpenthals will rise again.” He looked around at the faces before him, grim and pale, dirtied and splashed with blood. And he wondered whether they knew what he had already realized: this was suicide. They were gaining time, that was all, precious hours or heartbeats for the witch and the girl.

None of them even knew whether those two were still alive.

“I’ve led you here,” he said, his voice falling on the last word. Most of the warriors probably did not even hear him.

“At least we’re fighting!” someone shouted. A sword waved, then another. There were no cheers-they were too tired and frightened for that-but O’Gan looked out at his army, and everyone he could see in this poor light was looking back at him. Not down at the ground, or east, where temporary safety may lie: at him. He nodded and jumped down from the dead machine.

The Shantasi regrouped, arranging themselves in two defensive lines with little discussion. Whichever line they were in, they knew that they would be fighting Krotes again soon. Krotes on foot, or on machines, or maybe those flying monsters again, swooping down through the spartlets and launching arrows or fireballs or stranger weapons yet.

O’Gan went to the forward line, approaching the blazing machine that had exploded with such devastating force. He passed by dozens of Shantasi bodies without looking. He did not wish to see the burns. The warmth grew and it felt good; eased his tensed muscles, tempered his tiredness, and he shrugged so that his cloak sat easier on his shoulders. A hundred steps from the burning machine he paused, looked around and knelt down. To his left he could see warriors fading into the distance, thirty steps between them in any direction, the line ten warriors deep. Their faces were lit by the flaming construct. To his right, the same view. The Shantasi-warriors, and those untrained in battle-staggered their positions, some heading farther forward as though keen to be the first to engage the Mages’ army, others hanging back. They all faced the same direction. Their faces were sweaty and grubby, determined, and none of them had sheathed their swords. There was movement here and there where other weapons harvested from the Mol’Steria Desert were prepared, but mostly the Shantasi sat alone. Crossbows were primed, quivers fixed tightly, hair tied back so that it did not get in the way. They checked the equipment strapping across their chests and around their waists, and some took weapons from dead bodies, careful not to look at the corpses’ faces. None of them wished to see a dead brother, sister or friend.

They could pass us by, five miles away, O’Gan thought. They could avoid the fires. But he did not believe that would happen. His best hope was that they would not be able to resist the flames of battle.

He rested his sword on his knee, turning it this way and that so that it picked up the fire and reflected moonlight.

“Mystic, can you help us?” a woman said. O’Gan glanced to his left at where she lay on the ground, propped on her elbows and staring at him. She had wide eyes, and the pale skin of her face was smeared with blood from a head wound. She was no warrior. She held a single sword, and there was a pile of throwing stars by her left hand.

“I can offer you hope,” he said.

She looked down at the dead grass, averting her gaze.

“I can tell you that what we do here is important.”

“Suicide is important?”

O’Gan nodded at the burning machine. “We did well against them.”

“No we didn’t,” the woman said, but there was no anger in her voice, and no embarrassment at talking to a Mystic like this. “I can see a hundred dead even from where I lie. When their real army gets here…”

O’Gan looked at the shadowy humps scattered around them. “I can’t pretend you’re wrong,” he said, “but I can tell you that there’s meaning to all of this. There’s hope, and we’ll fight for it every second it still exists.”

“If it’s that important, why did the Elders run? Why didn’t they stay and fight? I saw them in the streets. I saw one of them dead by his own hand, and you expect me to believe there’s hope?”

O’Gan nodded, holding the woman’s gaze. She was strong, he realized, perhaps stronger than he. But equally, she saw no valor in sacrifice for an empty cause. “It’snot an empty cause,” he said quietly.

She glanced away again. “You saw those words in my mind.”

“I read them on your face.”

“So can you help us, Mystic?”

He hefted his sword. “I have this.” He nodded up at the spartlets. “We have those, and more. And perhaps the serpenthals will deign to help again.”

“Perhaps.”

He fell silent, the woman smiled and they heard thunder from the north.

O’GAN’S PLAN HAD been to hide behind the glare of the massive fire. It was a good plan, but it stole sight from the first Shantasi line. They heard the advancing army, but they could not see it. They felt the ground shaking beneath them, but as much as they squinted or shielded their eyes, they could not make out anything. The burning machine turned the dusk beyond the battlefield into midnight.

The noise grew quickly. A rumble in the distance to begin with, like the sound of a storm rolling into Hess across the waters of Sordon Sound. Lightning scratched the sky, arcing from one point on the ground to another. The rumble soon turned into a roar, and the ground thumped to its beat. It grew louder and louder, assaulting the Shantasi’s ears, vibrating through their chests, punching at them where they lay or knelt.

O’Gan gripped his sword tightly, eyes closed as he tried to judge distance. If their machines are small, then they’re almost upon us. If they are large, then perhaps they are still a mile away. He had no way of knowing. The flying machines had surprised them all, and now he feared they would be equally surprised by what came across the land.

“Flyers!” someone shouted in the distance. O’Gan glanced up and saw the illuminated bellies of several more flying things, spartlets darting in, fire glinting from metal, bluish explosions ripping spartlets apart, the huge shapes ducking and weaving and fighting their way groundward.

The roar grew louder still, and O’Gan laid his hand flat against the ground. Small stones spiked at his palm as they vibrated from the massive impacts. He closed his eyes. “They’re close,” he said.

“They’re here!” someone shouted.

O’Gan looked. Just beyond the influence of the firelight, the whole darkened horizon began to shift. More lightning sparkled from shadow to shadow, leaving bluish impressions on his eyes. Metal glinted, stone glowed pale and the Krote army rode in.

Several Shantasi charged the advancing army, firing arrows and flinging stars, whirling slideshocks around their heads and screaming defiance at the dark.