Hafi was painfully aware of the shrinking space between where the armies now prepared to fight again and the last mountain passes before Prin. His dreams of whittling down the Xenai forces before he reached the best terrain to bottleneck them had fallen away. Too many soldiers were lost, and he needed to keep as many alive as possible to hold the passes.
He watched from the hilltop as his troops moved into position below, tapping the legs of his armor with his gloved hands—counting the troops. Just over six hundred remained after the last battle. The lines were sloppy, and he could see the restless movements of the men below as he tapped out his own anxiety. He was flanked by a small troop of runners, ready to pass along his orders in the battle to the officers, who couldn’t afford to look away from battle to read LightTab messages.
The runners shifted their weight from foot to foot, rubbed their hands together and craned their necks to see into the distance, an echo of the larger army’s movements at the bottom of the hill. The rumor that the runners were chosen because they were disposable Underground children was preposterous, of course. It wasn’t Hafi’s fault that the Underground bred children were nimble and skilled at going unseen. Among them were only a few Topside orphans who had developed the same skills—it also helped that the children had no parents to refuse Hafi’s request to take them to the battlefront. Most of the runners understood their importance, even if it made others talk about Hafi as if he was heartless.
Hafi grabbed the shoulder of the boy next to him. If they lived through this, maybe he’d learn his name. It didn’t matter at this moment. He grabbed a second boy with his other hand, pulling both in front of him as he leaned down close their faces. He freed the boys from his grip and pointed down to the field, then turned his head slightly to the first boy.
“You, go tell the left flank to initiate the charge. The right flank is to charge with them and you—” he nudged the smaller boy on the right, “—you will tell the right flank to be ready.”
The boys nodded in understanding, both offering a “Yes, General,” out of sync with the other.
“Go on, now.”
The boys ran down the hill, sliding down the loose dirt and dragging their hands to catch branches to control the slide. Hafi turned his attention back to the army beneath him. At the base of the hill he stood on, his casters were ready. The flat dirt section of old road was a good perch for the casters before the last drop into the valley below, which was covered with their soldiers. Their scouts reported the Xenai were not far into the foothills that sharply rose on the other side of the open terrain. Hafi had retreated farther than necessary just to claim this high ground. They needed any advantage they could get to keep his men alive.
Hafi saw the chain reaction from his runners start. The horses of the officers began to make their way up the lines, shouting orders at the men that Hafi couldn’t hear, and the ripple of attention radiated out from the horses as the men heard and understood the time was near. The restless movement stopped in the same abrupt matter that a cornered creature holds their ground with absolute stillness. As each row of men took a step back and braced for battle, the uneven lines of the army came closer together in a loose formation. It was something, at least.
The small forms of his runners had reached the back of the men to start the climb back up the last hill. He couldn’t wait for them. He waved the runners near him to come in closer, “As most of you know, things are about to start moving quickly. I give you an order, you repeat it back to me. If I don’t correct you, you got it right and you run to deliver it. No time to second guess. Do not stop to help anyone, do not stop to fight. Anything comes at you, you get lost in a group of soldiers. They have their jobs and it depends on you not fucking up. Get ready.”
He glanced down to the right of his perch, where Shara stood, peering through binoculars at the battlefield. Her guard flanked her, including James. Hafi had put Taeri with the Source-casters below. He regretted not having Shara’s guards for the fight that was about to happen. Hell, he needed Shara for it even more.
There was no time to reconsider keeping his promise to Ayna. The familiar howl echoed through the valley. High pitched cries rang out in all directions, it seemed, from every side of the foothills. More and more voices joined the grating call until it echoed around the entire army. It was a frightening trick of acoustics-- Hafi knew the Xenai had not surrounded them, but it worked. The lines of his own men moved as they began to look around for Xenai from every direction.
The Xenai were exactly where Hafi’s scouts said they were coming from. Hafi watched the far edge of the field fill with darkness, like a deep chasm just split open in it. From the illusory chasm, small dark figures swarmed out in every direction, forming tendrils that sprouted off the growing pool of darkness in the center. The fingers of Xenai figures thickened and lengthened until they reached the edges of the valley. From there, they appeared to split again, forming new tendrils that grew toward the Pact. There were a dozen smaller branches growing from one edge of the field to the other, making Hafi’s planned pincer move useless. He yanked the boys closest to him, “Go to the flanks. Tell them we need to hold, not charge”
The boys repeated the command and ran. Hafi felt the knot in his stomach tightening as he watched the boys move. He could see the urgency in their movements—how little they slowed themselves on the slopes—and yet, the weight of time was crashing down on him as he watched the Xenai swarm, getting closer to the halfway point of the valley. If the army didn’t have the order to hold by the time they hit that point, it would be too late. He searched for the boys, weaving toward the officers, finding their locations by the occasional glimpse of a short figure.
They’re not going to make it!
Perhaps his officers would see the situation and issue the order to hold themselves.
If Lee holds on the left, then Bolos will, too.
The runner on the right heading towards Bolos didn’t matter to him anymore. He alternated between watching the tiny figure on the left weaving toward Lee and the progression of the Xenai. The Xenai hit the halfway point right a few seconds after Hafi’s runner reached Lee and Hafi watched as the orders spread. It was visible from both the front and back of the left flank, reaching toward the center. The front lurched forward in a charge while the back half received the order to hold. The men caught in the middle moved in chaotic ways, some joining the charge despite hearing the order to hold, and some holding.
Haft felt his stomach fall as the right flank followed, the front charging alone, although more men seemed to have gotten the order to hold. On both sides, the Xenai tendrils immediately reacted, spreading forward to the groups that had charged and encircling them on each side of the battlefield. More and more Xenai ran to the circles around the troops and Hafi watched the black lines around the trapped soldiers thicken. The circles of Xenai around his men contracted until the white and blue armor of his officers and the patchwork of colors on the men disappeared, and it was only Xenai remaining.
The Xenai spread back out, reforming circles around where the men had been slain. The charge stopped and the wall of Xenai moved forward together. As they moved forward, the field behind them looked as if it was consumed by smoke. From the front of the swarm near the middle of the field, two figures emerged. Each one moved toward one of the two circles. The tendrils of Xenai collapsed into the growing crowd of Xenai. The army came to a halt a few dozen feet behind where the circles of Xenai stood around his fallen men.
Hafi grabbed the runner next to him, “Go to center. They need to divide to fill the flanks and hold.”
The girl repeated and ran off.
He grabbed the next child, “Casters need to send three close enough to protect the front while the men reposition.”
As the boy ran off, he watched the Xenai circles part to allow in the lone Xenai that approached each side.
He motioned to the next child and pointed to Shara, “I need her binoculars.”
A few moments later, it was not the child who handed them to him, but Shara herself. She stepped to the side and continued to look at the field as Hafi looked through the binoculars.
The figures that entered the protective Xenai circle around the bodies were robed and each carried a staff with a circular medallion at the top. They now stood in the center of the circle, casting source to move the dead soldiers around. Bodies levitated a few feet off the ground, several at a time, each one moving from where it had fallen to a point near the edge of the circle. It almost looked like the Xenai was sorting the bodies. They made five piles. When the sorting was finished, the edge of the circle rippled and moved and four more robed Xenai stepped into each circle. They took up positions between the five piles, evenly spaced and closer to center. They reached into their robes and took out circular stones with strange markings on them then placed the stones at their feet.
The Xenai in the center began to chant while raising his staff and slamming it back into the ground. He repeated this several times. A spray of blood shot straight into the air from one pile of bodies. Each pile spurted blood until they all exploded in perfect circular patterns, spraying the blood straight up. As the blood fell back to the ground, smoke rose where the bodies had been. The ground was now empty except for the circular markings made of blood that looked similar to the patterns on the stones the other Xenai had brought.
The center Xenai began another ground-thumping chant. The other four Xenai around him pulled the daggers on their hips out of their sheaths, cutting across their hands. In time with the staff being raised, the four Xenai thrust their hands into the air. As the staff slammed into the ground, each Xenai slammed their bloody hands into the stones at their feet.
The center Xenai raised their staves again. A fresh howl burst from the Xenai army. Whatever this was, it seems like they’d completed it.
The swarm charged toward the army of the Pact once again.
The swarm of Xenai moved as a single, unpredictable organism. As the army of the Pact held their ground in almost straight lines, the body of the Xenai army burst forward in a series of loops. Each section of the Xenai ran forward in attack before looping back around to join the main body. The sections of the front line that they hit had no time to recover from the constant stream of Xenai attacks. There was nothing that Hafi could do as he watched the front lines crumple inward under the force of the assault.
Hafi yelled his next order to the child next to him, “Tell the casters to fully engage. No hold–”
He felt a hand on his shoulder. It’s squeezed him roughly and jerked him. He turned and found Shara standing next to him. She pointed out to the front lines.
“Wait,” he told the runner.
The attacks on the front lines stopped. The Xenai had pulled back into a solid mass, except for the carefully maintained circles around the robed Xenai. Hafi looked through the binoculars again as the grey smoke broke apart on each side of the battlefield until the horde left an open pathway extending from the original circles to two smaller circles. Inside the smaller circle, on both sides, was a single Xenai.
The robed Xenai lifted their staves. Hafi heard shouts across the battlefield, then saw arcing streams of blood rising from all the dead, Pact and Xenai alike. The blood lines gathered to two points above the lone Xenai soldiers. At this point, the blood created a pool, floating in the air.
“Full charge–Full charge from the casters. We need to stop that! Go!” Hafi gave the runner a push without waiting for him to repeat the command.
Shara spoke up, “Hafi, I can—”
“Nope, I’m not sending you into whatever the fuck that is to get you killed.”
Tendrils of blood formed in center of the pool, twisting around themselves and extending down toward the Xenai. It reached its arm up, and the blood wrapped around its arm like tentacles that worked their way down its body like inchworms. The pool above it shrank in size as the blood crawled across the Xenai’s body. Soon the Xenai beneath was not visible under the writhing dark red mess, and the robed Xenai casters slammed their staves down.
The Pact Source casters had gotten close enough to cast at the two Xenai soldiers. Round after round of lightning, ice and stone hit the throbbing red silhouettes. It didn’t have any visible effect. The crimson fluid rippled where the impacts hit and then reshaped itself. The waves of attacks from the casters stopped and an incredible stillness fell over both sides of the battlefield. The fluid around the Xenai bulged out and took shape, darkening. It took several seconds too long for Hafi’s mind to comprehend what was happening: it was melding into the Xenai beneath it. As the blood solidified, it looked just like the Xenai that had stood there, but over twice the height and with more bulk. The form finished coming into being, and the familiar shroud of smoke popped into existence around it as both monstrosities on the field spread their arms and roared.
Both of the giant Xenai ran toward the front lines, the Xenai army following them. The beasts hit the front and men went flying in all directions as they cleared paths, swinging their arms back and forth.
“What the unholy fuck is that?” Hafi said. He turned and yelled at all the runners, “Call for a retreat!”
Shara didn’t wait for the command, she knew that was her only real job. She ran down the first hill with the runners. They continued into the battle below while she stopped on the empty Source-caster overlook to prepare to protect the men during the retreat.
Hafi noticed the distinctive V pattern being made by the two giant Xenai through the Pact army. They were cutting through the men and heading straight towards the Source-caster perch where Shara stood. He waved at her guard and made his way down the hill with them to stand next to her. Maybe it was time to give up more ground and head for the passes; another battle like this one would destroy them.