Light of Epertase 01: Legends Reborn (39 page)

He shook his head and whispered loudly to his team, “The early suns have complicated things. I had hoped we would be past their rear before dawn, but it is what it is.” He pointed to the shores. “See how the campfires follow a line from the banks into the wastelands? That must be where they’ve dug their water supply from the river. There will be a lot of activity up ahead. Our cover of night will not conceal us for long. The boats have taken us as far as they can. Stretch the covers over and everyone into the water.”

Each member straddled the sides of their teetering boats before lowering into the brisk, calm river with hardly a ripple. They were professionals, there was no doubt. They pushed away from their boats and floated toward the banks just short of where the Tek fires began.

Simcane barely breathed for fear that his breath would be too loud.

The peeking twin sunslight glimmered across his lone piece of armor, his chest plate, like a mirror, and he cursed it. A high embankment along the shore proved to be the team’s only cover and Simcane thanked the gods for his luck.

The team drifted closer to the high embankment. Simcane heard Tek chatter from above and motioned for the others to be as quiet as they could. His team silently floated on the water edge like the experts he knew they were. He prayed they could be quiet long enough, knowing that if they were, they’d maybe just make it.

Their luck ran out with a misguided root protruding from the embankment and snagging Thairen’s clothes. As Simcane floated past, he grabbed Thairen’s arm and pulled himself closer to his teammate. The others stared helplessly as they rode the current farther downstream.

The volume of foreign chatter increased, not angry or excited, just more of it and closer. The enemy was directly above them, oblivious to their presence. If a single Tek peeked over the edge, even briefly, the mission would be violently over.

“Aarchh, thuoaa!” From above, a thick wad of green phlegm splashed into the water next to Simcane’s ear and rode the current past. But still the enemy did not see. After what seemed like an eternity, the chatter faded until it was gone.

Simcane reached beneath Thairen’s back to untangle his clothing from the root. Free of its snag, the root snapped against the mud with a water splashing thud. Simcane winced at the noise, hoping any Teks that remained above disregarded the noise as an overly enthusiastic fish.

An excited scurry of feet revealed they hadn’t. He and Thairen pulled themselves tight against the mud bank.

“Carpe, quianpe,” one of the Teks shouted, sending chills up Simcane’s spine. Then, just as quickly as they had come, the shuffle of feet ran away.

Simcane sighed.
What could they have seen? They didn’t see us. I …
He trailed off in mid-thought. His shoulders slouched. “By the gods,” he whispered.

Thairen looked to him and then followed his eyes across the river. “Damn,” he whispered.

Their surprise was blown – a tarp-covered boat was hung up on something, maybe another root, in the middle of the water. They needed to move quickly before reinforcements arrived.

“We need to climb up,” Thairen whispered.

“No. We need to stay. They can’t see us from the embankment.”

“If we stay here much longer, the war will be over. And we will have lost.”

Simcane bit on his lower lip.
He’s right. Damn him, he’s right.

Thairen leaned into his ear, “Besides,” he snickered. “I need to get this churn off of me soon. It’s driving me crazy.”

Simcane looked down at his arms as they hovered just above the water.
Churn!
His arms were covered with a thin, pulsating film. With his adrenaline, he hadn’t noticed at first, but now that Thairen had alerted him, he couldn’t think of anything else. Each pulsation was another bite from their microscopic teeth. First, they’d simply chew on dead skin. Next, their victim’s capillaries would begin oozing blood, which would attract even more churn and other more deadly predators. But once that outer layer of skin was gone, he knew that the irritation would change into excruciating pain as their teeth gnawed on raw flesh and nerves.

“We have to have patience,” he whispered, mostly trying to convince himself. He sensed Thairen’s aggression boiling.

Simcane’s leg throbbed beneath his cold, wet attire. Soon his flesh would be raw like a bad burn. Thairen fidgeted, telling Simcane that he wouldn’t be contained much longer.

Their decision was made for them. An ungodly roar rang out from the not-too-far distance.

Thairen whispered, “They are coming and they bring their machines.”

Simcane turned away. “We need to stay calm,” he insisted, but he was too late. Thairen climbed up the embankment.

Simcane ordered him to halt, but he might as well have commanded the water to stop flowing. Thairen hollered back, “Get to the others.”

“No,” Simcane answered as Thairen disappeared over the top. “You’ll be massacred.”

Simcane pulled himself up the bank to the edge and peered through the dead, shin-high grass. Thairen rushed the distant enemy like a madman. His shrill war cry was unlike any Simcane had ever heard. The Teks were without their armor. Their hesitation showed their surprise.

The rumbling machine that accompanied them fired a flash from its long cylinder, followed by a monstrous explosion of dirt and fire at Thairen’s side. But the rushing maniac wasn’t fazed. He never slowed, closing the gap between himself and the enemy. The nose of the machine fired again but again missed as Thairen zipped from side-to-side.

The Tek soldiers withdrew their swords; Thairen removed his knives. With squeals of delight, he leaped into their masses.

Simcane wanted to help, but he knew for the sake of the mission he could not. While he watched Thairen’s fight for survival, he ripped at the churn on his arms and legs. His flesh from head to toe was raw with peppered specks of oozing capillary blood.

He looked away from Thairen for a moment and to the Tek water supply ahead. The enemy forces had abandoned their posts to race toward the commotion.

Thairen was right – the crazy bastard’s plan was working.

The fearless soldier grunted and screamed as he thrust his knives into enemy flesh. There was nothing artistic about his aggression, only raw fury. He spun away from one lunging sword, and then drove his knife into another attacker’s chest. He ripped it out with a spray of blood and stood beneath it like a shower. Another Tek swung his sword, but blood squirted from his neck before he could finish his assault.

More Teks, armored Teks, rumbled and hissed toward the battle.

A sword swiped across Thairen’s back but the crazy warrior didn’t flinch. As he continued his killing spree, he was engulfed in Tek bodies. Simcane swore he heard laughter. And it wasn’t laughter from the soldiers.

Thairen disappeared for a moment before leaping from within their swarm. He was free.
Now run!

But instead of running, he turned back and leaped again. One of the Teks plunged a sword through his gut. Simcane cringed. Thairen paused for a moment. Then he pulled on the blade, sinking it deeper until it pierced through his back. It appeared he had taken the blade deliberately to get closer to his assailant. With a wide swing, he drove both of his knives around with such velocity that they stabbed through the Tek’s throat and embedded into his own hands. He pulled the blades free.

Thairen stumbled back from his prey. He grasped the hilt of the sword lodged in his gut. He grunted, yanked the blade free, and dropped it to the ground. He wobbled and fell to his knees as the other Teks surrounded him. They stood and stared, unsure of how to attack.

Simcane pulled himself over the edge of the bank. There was nothing he could do. He started along the edge toward the water supply. As he neared, the rest of his team stepped out from behind one of the enemy’s abandoned metal machines.

He shouted, “We haven’t much time to distance ourselves. They will search every bit of this land.”

Willum grinned. “That Thairen is insane.”

While hopping and pulling at the churn on his legs, Simcane looked up and snapped, “He bought us the time we need to escape. Let’s not waste it.”

B.J. said, “He’s fearless, I’ll give him that.”

Simcane stopped tugging at the churn long enough to glare at him. “He was reckless. Let’s move out.”

They came to the shallow, hand-dug creek that flowed inland from the river.

“This is their water supply,” Simcane said. “We should be behind their forces soon.”

Gillian asked, “Do you think they drink from this water?”

“Sure. That’s most likely its purpose. Drinking and bathing anyway. If the filthy bastards even bathe, that is. Why?”

“No reason.” She dropped her lower garments and sprayed a stream of piss into the waterway that would make any man proud.

B.J. shook his head. “Very mature,” he said. “Are you finished?”

She squirted out her last drop. “Quite,” she said and pulled her drawers up with a smirk. She backed into Simcane’s stonewall chest and peeked up at him. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “It won’t happen again.”

“Hmnph,” Simcane grunted. “Well, what are you all waiting for?” he asked before dropping his own britches and adding to the water supply.

The army of thousands in Andon’s command plowed their way through the heavy brush of the Lowland-Epertase border, leaving only matted fields and footprints. Their oxen struggled, dragging massive catapults over the bumpy, downhill terrain.

The army arrived at a weed-covered, wooden sign that amazingly still stood, bearing the name “Grande Villa.”

Andon thought,
what an elegant name for such a worthless dung pile of a town,
and he said so out loud. The narrow streets were deserted, just as they had hoped. Andon led his men through the nearest town to its western edge. The catapults barely fit through the streets, occasionally taking off the edge of a building or smashing a porch to splinters. When one of the catapult’s wheels snapped in half, the soldiers were forced to leave it blocking the way and divert to the next street over.

Andon ordered to his second-in-command, “Spread the word. The town is ours. Anything the men find, food, water, anything, it is theirs. We will not be leaving anything for our enemy nor will we be leaving anything for the Lowlanders to return to.”

The columns of smoke in the distance told him the Teks had entered from Lithia. The battle wasn’t far away.

“We will use the town for cover. Position the catapults at the ends of each road. Assemble our forces for urban battle and make sure the Teks can see us when they arrive.”

For the rest of the day and into the night, the soldiers prepared the town. The catapults were anchored, the front lines were set to display strength, and the town was filled with wave after wave of soldiers. Now all that was left was to wait.

It didn’t take long; the spies had been right. At the outskirts of town, Andon stared over the weed-infested field as the Tek army came into view. Their forces methodically formed their front lines.

Andon and his army studied them for two days as black-clad soldiers and rumbling machines hunkered down for the long fight ahead. The enemy appeared hard, battle-savvy, and patient. Andon’s men grew anxious; it was told in their questioning whispers.

Over the several days of waiting, the men wondered aloud when the fight would start or why they brought no ammunition for their catapults. Andon would reveal the answers soon.

On the fourth day, Andon decided time had come to divulge the entirety of the plan to his men.

He called for his lieutenant. “Inform the soldiers of our objective.”

“Is it time to get word to Terik?” his lieutenant asked.

Andon nodded. “Yes, send the word north.”

“Of course, sir. The retreat starts tonight, then?”

“Yes. Just how we planned. Leave everything, the catapults, the oxen, everything. Stealth and speed are most critical now. First, send the rear sector at dusk behind the cover of the town. Next, you will lead our second wave away when the moon is at its highest. I will bring the rest of the men, the front line, and meet you, gods be willing, in Epertase in three days. Explain to the men that we held our plan secret as the Teks are savvy warriors and if our men did not show a fear of the coming war, we may have been discovered.”

The lieutenant held his brow as though he was concerned for some aspect of their plan. After a moment of hesitation, he asked, “The Teks will surely see when the front lines pull back. What if they give chase?”

“They’ve fortified their forces for our attack. By the time they realize we are retreating and get new orders, it will be too late.”

The lieutenant offered his hand. “Good luck, Andon.”

Andon took it. “And you as well.”