Wrath of Empire

Chapter 69

Vlora wiped the gore from her sword, teetering on the edge of consciousness before a quick hit of powder brought her back from the edge. She leapt forward, sword in one hand and knife in the other, carving through a platoon of Dynize soldiers who attempted to hold her at the end of their bayonets. Sorcerous speed allowed her to slip through the gap between their blades, her sword flicking precisely. Her body moved mechanically, without the wherewithal for conscious thought, and she couldn’t have said whether it was seconds or hours between the time she’d turned on that platoon and the time the last man hit the dirt.

Probably seconds. She knew it had been hours since the fight had begun, in the same way a man half-asleep knows when someone is trying to wake him up. Thousands lay dead behind her, littering the road back toward the Crease. Thousands more screamed from their wounds. She forced herself to ignore the savagery of it and press on, looking for the next throat to open with the tip of her sword.

The little part of her mind still able to function wondered where Taniel had gotten to. Most of the carnage along the road belonged to him – he was an impossible force, cutting a swath through the Dynize column with the same unstoppable power as a cannonball skipping across a battlefield. They were both up in the foothills now, killing their way through a second brigade of soldiers, and she’d lost sight of him at some point in what she thought was just the last few minutes.

Someone in the distance yelled to open fire, and bullets whizzed over Vlora’s head or struck the dirt around her. One took a chunk out of her shoulder. She barely noticed it through her powder trance, but she reached out toward the sound of firing muskets and detonated the powder she felt in that direction.

A chorus of screams and a cloud of smoke rose from the ridgetop to her left, and the kickback from detonating all that powder literally knocked her off her feet. Her vision grew dark for a few moments and she wrestled with her mind to keep herself from losing consciousness.

Without even giving her body clear orders, she was back on her feet and sprinting toward a group of horsemen as they charged foolishly toward her down the road, horses leaping the bodies that Taniel had left in his wake. She reached out to detonate their powder, found none, and instead gathered all her sorcerous strength to leap into their midst with sword swinging. One thrust, midleap, cut the jugular of a dragoon. As she came down, she rammed her knife into the thigh of another dragoon, then landed in a crouch, sword swinging up to remove the leg of a horse that slammed into the ground behind her, rolling and crushing its rider.

Vlora barked a laugh and heard it tinged with mania. Nothing these assholes could throw at her could take her down. Not a thousand men, not ten thousand. She was soaked in the blood of their companions, coated in powder grime and dirt, her shirt half torn away and her hair a knotted mess of gore. She changed directions, pivoting on one foot to deal with the dragoons who had just ridden past her, and took a step forward.

At least, she tried to take one step forward. The leg worked, but her foot turned beneath her with a stab of pain that cut through the powder trance to hit her right between the eyes. She grunted, gave a half-hearted scream, and then felt the slashing point of a dragoon’s blade cut savagely across her sword arm. Her fingers numb, the sword flew from her hand, and Vlora dropped to her knees.

It took her a few moments to assess the situation. During her jump, one of the dragoons must have sliced the tendons of her left foot. She could feel the nerves screaming out in pain through the dull ache of her powder trance. That other dragoon had done the same to her right wrist.

She laughed again and flipped her knife around in her left hand, attempting to force herself to her one good foot to take the dragoons’ final charge.

Perhaps a dozen dragoons had made it past her. They turned their horses, swords held at the ready, and watched with uncertainty as she struggled back to her feet. All around her, wounded and terrified soldiers seemed to stare at her in the same way they might stare at a grenade whose fuse might or might not have failed.

Vlora detonated the powder of a squad of soldiers approaching from behind her. The act knocked her back to the ground and tore a gasp from her throat. One of the Dynize dragoons dismounted and took a half step toward her. His companions did the same. None of them had any powder on them, which meant that they’d been sent specifically to stop her. Perhaps even to capture her. Vlora reached out, gingerly feeling for every ounce of powder on the infantry within a half mile.

The sorcerous backlash of such a detonation would kill her. But it would keep her from being taken alive. Mentally, she held a match above that powder and prepared to set it off as her last living act.

“By the Mighty,” one of the dragoons said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

One of her companions shook his head. “The other one is worse. The general sent all of our dragonmen to stop him, and he cut through them like they were lambs.”

“She tires,” the first dragoon said, thrusting a sword toward Vlora. “The other one will, too.”

The dragoons approached slowly, swords held at the ready. She could see the fear in their eyes – fear tempered by the smell of victory. She waited until one of them had come just outside of sword range and sprang from her knees, knife slashing. The dragoon was able to lunge back out of the way and Vlora stumbled on her useless foot and slipped in the gore of an infantryman, landing face-first on the hard-packed dirt road. She heard someone laugh.

“She’s done,” a dragoon said.

“Do you hear something?” another asked.

“Only screams. Should we try to take her alive?”

Someone kicked the knife out of Vlora’s hand. She was grasped by the hair, her head jerked backward. She tried to stab the arm with her knife, then remembered it was no longer in her fingers. The feeble thrust of her empty hand was battered away. A foot planted itself in her gut, flipping her onto her back.

The pain meant very little through her powder trance. She wanted to laugh at them, that mental match still poised above all that powder nearby, but she couldn’t quite summon the energy. I’m dying, she realized. She managed to get to her knees, the single action taking an eternity. Hands in her lap, she stared up at the dragoon who gazed down at her over the point of a sword.

She wished she could have spent one last night with Olem before she died. She wished that she could tell him once more that she loved him.

“She’s gone,” the dragoon said, tapping the side of Vlora’s face with his sword. “Look at her eyes. We can take her back to the general, but I doubt she’ll survive the trip.”

“I’m not so sure. Look at her. She’s cut to ribbons, but she’s still fighting.”

Vlora wanted to scoff. Other than her hand and foot, she’d barely been scratched. She let her head roll around, looking down at her body, before realizing that it was far from the truth. She’d been shot at least four times. Her shirt didn’t even exist anymore, and her chest and thighs were a patchwork of bloody cuts that she hadn’t even noticed in her bloodlust.

“Just take her head,” someone said. “No need for the body.”

The dragoon pointed his sword between Vlora’s eyes, then raised it to one side with both hands. “It seems a pity,” he said.

Vlora reached out with that mental match, using the last of her strength, only for nothing to happen. She blinked, surprised, then let out a resigned sigh. Her sorcerous well had run completely dry. There was nothing left to give. No final detonation, no blaze of glory. She licked the blood off her lips and tried to smile at her executioner.

The dragoon frowned. Blood began to run down his face, and it took Vlora several seconds to realize that a perfectly formed icicle had sprouted from his forehead. Odd, that. There’s no ice in Fatrasta in the summer. Icicles rained down, slicing through the remaining dragoons before any of them could raise their swords.

Am I already dead? she wondered. Is this the final fantasy that my body tells me before I give up the ghost?

Something strange crept across the ground. At first, she thought it was a wave washing over the road. It certainly looked like a wave, but no water had ever been that shade of blue. A woman strode past her, hair tight in braids over both shoulders, wearing an immaculate crimson dress in the Adran style. She was wreathed in the same blue that washed over the ground, and Vlora realized that they were flames. They washed over and past that woman with a heat that hurt Vlora’s face and barely even sizzled when it touched off the powder of dead infantrymen.

Dynize soldiers tried to run, but were consumed in moments, their bodies turned to ash where they stood. Vlora fixed her gaze on the woman, wondering who she was, though a part of her brain told her that she knew that figure well. Her eyes fell to the woman’s hands, and the blue flame that sparked from them without gloves.

“You don’t look so well, sister,” a voice said.

Vlora tried to turn her head and found that she could not. Someone stepped around her, into her field of vision, and leaned close. Gloved hands touched her face gently, and the countenance of a man in his early thirties with auburn hair and curly sideburns smiled at her grimly.

“Borbador,” Vlora whispered. “Are you dead, too?”

“Not last I checked.”

“You must be. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here to meet me on the other side.”

Borbador gently slapped Vlora’s cheek. “Stay with me here, my darling sister. You’re not on the other side yet and I’d really rather you not head there when I’ve just arrived.”

“You can’t be here,” Vlora protested. “I only sent for you a month ago.”

“You think you’re the only one who can write a letter? Taniel told me over a year ago that the Dynize intended to invade. I’ve been raising an army. Look, I can tell you about it later. I just need you to stay awake until Nila finishes mopping up a few brigades. It’s going to take the two of us to keep you alive.”

Vlora felt herself shaking, her powder trance unable to hold off the pain any longer. She trembled and wept, wishing any of this was real, knowing that it was the wishful hopes of a dying mind. “I missed you, Bo. I wish I could really say good-bye to you.”

“Shush now,” Borbador said, pulling Vlora’s head against his chest. “Your family has come for you.”