The Gift of Battle

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

Naten stood resentfully on the platform as it rose higher and higher alongside the peak of the Ridge, his men yanking the ropes as the rickety wood swayed and creaked. The horses pranced beside them, all of them anxious to descend the other side and venture on into the Great Waste to search for their brothers in arms, for Koldo, Ludvig, Kendrick, and the others. Naten bitterly resented it.

Naten stood there, and he brooded. He had done everything in his power to convince the soldiers not to go back out there, to abandon his brothers, and especially Kendrick and his men, and to remain behind here, in the safety of the Ridge. Naten despised Kendrick and the others; he did not want these exiles from the Ring here. He loathed outsiders, and he wanted things to be the way they had been before they arrived. He wouldn’t mind Koldo and Ludvig’s not returning, either—that would only give him greater power in the ranks of the Ridge’s army.

“It is their grave, they dug it,” Naten said bitterly, trying to convince his men one final time.

They all—the six other soldiers—stood there solemnly, unmoved.

“For us to go out there now, it is foolishness,” Naten continued. “We shall never find them. It took too long to regroup. And even if we do, by this point they shall certainly already be dead. Shall we all kill ourselves too? Will that benefit the Ridge? The Ridge needs us here now. You know this.”

But his men stared silently, glum, unwilling to budge.

Finally, one of them shrugged.

“We have orders,” one said. “We cannot abandon the mission. If they return, we’d be imprisoned.”

“We do not abandon our brothers,” added another.

Naten was silent, burning, hating this mission. He should have killed them all himself earlier when he’d had the chance. Now he was stuck, doomed to go back out there.

As the platform rose higher and higher, Naten racked his brain, desperate to come up with a scheme, some way out of this. As he thought and thought, an idea came to him: when they reached the desert floor, when the others weren’t looking, he would stab the horses in their underbellies. No one would know it was him. And with the horses dying, they would have no choice; they would have to turn back.

Naten smiled at the thought; it was the perfect strategy. As the platform continued to rise, he longer dreaded it, but looked forward to implementing his plan. As they neared the peak of the ridge, Naten had a smile on his face—he would outsmart them all. He always did.

The platform finally came to a stop at the peak of the Ridge, shaking as the wooden doors opened, and out went all the horses and men. Nathan led them, the first out, making sure he was out front and assuming command of the mission, not letting any of the others take it from him. He marched with a bounce in his step as he considered his new plan. The others, beside him, all held onto the group of extra horses they were taking back to Koldo, Ludvig, Kendrick, and the others—and Naten smirked inwardly, knowing they would never have the chance to use them.

Naten kept up the pretense, though, marching across the wide platform at the peak of the Ridge and heading for the far side, where they would board the next platform and descend. He looked out as he went, enjoying the vista from the other side of the Ridge, the vast, open sky, the sense of eternity. From up here, he felt like he ruled the world.

Naten finally reached the far side, and as he did, he stopped, looking forward to enjoying it. He had always loved this spot more than any in the world, where he could stand on the edge of the cliff and feel as if he were looking out into eternity.

But this time, as he stood there, Naten knew immediately that something was wrong. He looked out and saw no platform waiting for them. For the first time ever, it was missing.

He looked down, perplexed, and as he did, he was even more baffled to see the platform rising, making its way up to greet him. It made no sense—there was no patrol due to be headed up now. Who could be riding it up?

Before Naten could make sense of it, before he could understand what was happening, the platform stopped at the top. And before he could register what was happening, its doors opened, and he saw staring back at him faces he did not recognize. Faces that he realized, a moment too late, were not even human. Faces that were the enemy.

Naten’s mouth dropped open in shock and horror as he realized, standing before him, was a platform packed with Empire soldiers, Knights of the Seven, all armed and deadly—the first invaders ever to reach the soil of the Ridge. The harbinger of a vast army to come.

Before he could react, Naten watched, as time slowed down, one of them raise a long spear and thrust it through his belly, its blade piercing his chest, he in agony as the pain rippled through him. How ironic, he thought: it was the same death he had envisioned for his horses.

Naten began to fall, silently, wordlessly, over the edge of the cliff, plummeting down below toward his death, the first casualty of war. As he did, he saw below, waiting to greet his corpse, the final sight of his life: millions and millions of Empire soldiers, preparing to ascend, preparing to destroy the Ridge once and for all.