Chapter One Hundred and Twelve
Dwindling
Jack sat at the head of the War Council’s long, dark-wood table. His shield was leant against the wall and his mace hung from his belt, covered in dried, dark essence.
To his right sat Michael, running his fingers across the point of an arrow, trying focus on the way it scraped his skin and little else, ignoring Carter’s troubled glances.
Across from Michael sat Rose, waiting for her brother to speak as she picked away the Arcancy-blood crusted on her face. Her hands quivered as she pressed a wet cloth to her eyes and every now and again, her muscles would twitch beyond her control.
Flinn sat at Rose’s side, representing the ballistae unit. He’d abandoned his steel armour, sitting purely in sweat-soaked pants and a shirt stuck to his muscled frame. Beside him was Lillian, leaning forward on both arms as she took raspy breaths, avoiding Sidney’s cross-armed glare from the other side of the table.
Also gathered in the council room were Kirkley, Marken, Carlisla, Syon, Karmine, Nydol and a handful of others, each looking worn through to the bones.
Jack glanced each of them over. Most were bruised if not actively bandaged in blood-soaked wrappings, all looking to him with sunken eyes. “Friends, if I had the time I would go through my thanks with each of you. You have done more today than can be fully appreciated. But we do not have that time. So, we’ll begin with the worst. Reconnaissance, if you please?”
Syon sat forward, clearing her throat. Her long, thick curls were matted with sweat and blood beneath a bandaged wrapped around her skull.
Jack frowned, muttering, “I thought Dara was head of Recon?”
Michael remembered the green-eyed young woman from the first arrival of Nikereus.
Syon nodded sombrely. “She was. Her, then David, and Sym. I’m all you’ve got.”
The council sat in quiet devastation and Jack pushed his face into his hands, tiredly. When the commander pulled himself together, he sat up again, asking gravely, “What’ve you got for us, Recon?”
Syon’s eyes turned glassy as she picked up Dara’s notebook. “By estimation there looks to be some six-thousand, two hundred Soiltorn remaining. And twelve-hundred Shade Hounds and under two hundred Mountain Wolves on top of that.”
There was an uncertain shifting among the table as the Legacies glanced at one another. It was an immense number remaining, but it was not the statistic they all cared to know.
Michael glanced at Rose and could see her doing the dark math in her own head, but it was Karmine, with a long cut striped across his head and a thick bandage around his shoulder, who took the deep breath and asked, “What casualties did we sustain?”
Syon pulled a small sheet of parchment from the book, but even the act of glancing at it made her eyes well up. “There are fifty Legacies in non-fatal condition. A dozen in critical with Jordan, now.” She stopped and took a slow breath. “Sixty or so dead. All the ballistae are operational, but the left gate-ballista is having trouble with its loading-mechanism. The ballista specialists are... well, Flinn?”
Flinn, looked vacantly to the table. Tears were rolling numbly down his face as he nodded and weakly croaked, “All accounted for.”
Syon nodded, added that note with a short scribble, her face trembling as she turned the report over. “This is the current... list. Might be missing a few names because there’s a couple Legacies we... we couldn’t identify or um- retrieve.” She tossed it onto the table, letting her hands fall back into her lap.
Karmine stared at it for a long time before swiping it up. The man’s eyes landed on the unending list, and after only reading a dozen of the names, he could look no further. The man’s eyes were ablaze with fire and tears as he stood from the table, unable to decide what to do.
Jack stood from his chair, with a softer look in his than before. “Karmine-”
Karmine had clamped his eyes shut, refusing to move as he bent over the table, trembling. “We should’ve let this place burn.”
“We can’t focus on that,” said Jack, as flatly as he could manage.
“I’d known some of those people longer than you’ve been alive, Jack!” Karmine shouted, as the pain flushed to his eyes.
Jack slammed both hands on the table and seethed, “And I wasn’t the one who killed them, Karmine. Do you want to scream and shout or do you want to come up with a plan?”
The Crekaen man gritted his teeth and forced himself back into his seat. He looked at Jack and shook his head. “We don’t need a plan. We need to take that fucker’s head off.”
Rose raised her head as Jack huffed and said, “He’s right.”
Michael glanced at her to find a very sincere darkness lingering in her eyes.
Jack glanced between the two of them and raked a hand through his thick hair. “Look, I understand how you’re both feeling but if we can’t make a decision based on tactical, rational thought then it will get twice as many people killed.”
“Fuck tactical. Fuck rational. Let’s take Raeken, fly down there, and crush them!” she barked.
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Rose glanced up to see the number of councillors looking at her in concern and she merely shrugged them off but Jack held her gaze, before looking between her and Karmine. He firmly said, “We are making a plan. Will you allow that to happen or will you both keep shouting?”
Michael watched her as she picked up the cloth again and began wiping away the blood on her hands. The rag was so deeply red that it scarcely helped, but she kept at it regardless.
“What did you have in mind, Jack?” Carter asked, realising he hadn’t spoken since he sat down.
“If your intelligence is still reliable, then the Heart Stone is in Nikereus’ chest, and we need to assemble a taskforce to eliminate it. Though, in all honesty, I have no idea how to accomplish that, so I’m open to ideas.”
Rose sat herself up more properly and asked, “What’s to stop us sending Raeken? Ask him to engulf the entire command-tent in acid? We can all sit back and have a fuckin’ drink.”
Jack sighed. “The dragon’s already wounded. Not to mention, I don’t think Sarah would be terribly thrilled with sending her life-long companion into the belly of Nikereus’ army. If he isn’t quick enough he’ll meet a cloud of spears before he meets Nikereus.” Jack pinched the bridge of his nose, nursing a thorough headache. “We need to find a way to lure Nikereus away from their army, or the army away from Nikereus.”
Sidney mumbled, “They won’t fall for the same trick twice, Jack.”
“Unless we give them a reason to. A real reason,” said Syon, wide in her eyes.
The council seemed to round on her words as Jack squinted. “Such as?”
“We wait. Let Nikereus come back with their... device to bridge the gap to the main gate. We hold it as long as possible, and once we know they’re about to break through, we send a different unit to attack Nikereus’ command-tent. While they dispatch the Heart Stone, the rest of us fall back to the keep.” Syon stopped talking and nodded to herself, realising it hadn’t sounded half as crazy as she thought it might. “We give them a foot so we can take the league.”
Further down the table, Kirkley, with his fingers laced between his boyfriend Marken’s, added, “But if we fail... if we can’t take out the Heart Stone, every Legacy will get cornered. The moment you surrender the gate, it becomes a time-trial to a slaughter.”
Jack grunted non-committedly, scratching his scruffy face. “Could work.”
Kirkley frowned deeply, sitting up straight. “What if Nikereus breaks through before the unit is in place? What if the keep doors don’t hold? We lost six dozen allies today. The only reason we didn’t lose more, is because of those walls. This plan abandons them.”
Marken squeezed Kirkley’s hand and the riled-up holy-man let out a sigh, leaning back under his partner’s soft gaze. “Love, we’ll lose the main gate, one way or another. At least this plan utilises that.”
Michael couldn’t help himself but smile. The conversation was dark and the reality horrifying, but he was so fascinated that their hands could be so gentle after being used for such destruction. He almost found himself drifting off to the soft sight when he jolted back to the present.
Jack brought out a small, canvas map of the fortress, quickly adding the location of Nikereus’ command tent with a stick of charcoal. “I’m not sure what our alternatives are. If we don’t kill that prick, then this will go on until no one is left.”
Michael listened to Jack’s words and found himself suddenly perplexed.
Kirkley’s face fell and he shook his head bitterly, though not at Jack. “So, those are our chooses? Go and die, or stay and die? Rii, save us.”
Michael ran the words through his head as they continued back and forth.
Jack sighed and said, “Either way, we’re killing Nikereus and putting an end to this.”
Michael shook his head. “I’m not sure we can...”
The council all turned abruptly to him, and Rose let out a dark huff, immediately assuming the worst. “You want them to live?”
Michael blinked and said quickly, “No, of course, not-”
Carter scowled, pushing his palms into his eyes. “Michael, tell me you’re not about to spout some “we have to be the better men” type shit.”
“How ‘bout you both stop interrupting me. How about that?” Michael snapped back, glaring at the both of them.
Jack sighed and thought, I’d kill for Amekot’s patience right about now. “Why don’t we all just take a moment to breathe. Argue later for Khasm’s sake. Michael, why wouldn’t we just kill Nikereus?”
Michael shook his head tiredly and looked straight past his bitter friends. “The bastard has buried the Heart Stone in their chest... they’ve morphed it with themselves. Who’s to say killing them would even destroy it? I mean the Ancient Shepherds still hunt us, despite the fact that their commanders are dead. Why would this be different? The stone controls the Obthraie. Nikereus just works it.”
Jack sucked his teeth in thought as Sidney lightly inspected the bandage on her head and muttered, “Actually a good point. We don’t know the magical bindings at play.”
Carter huffed, and Rose rolled her eyes, causing Michael to lean back in anger, barely holding his true words behind his teeth.
“Do you want to kill everyone in Fort Guardian?” he asked the two of them, like he was asking for the time.
Rose scowled at him as Carter was staggered by his bluntness and Sidney groaned from irritation. “Say that again,” Rose said, flat.
“You have no fuckin’ clue how serious I am, do you?” Michael seethed, clenching his fists so tight he could feel his fingernails piecing the skin of his palms. “Because you’re choosing to be so ignorant that it could get people killed. You’re making that choice. Why? Because you’re angry? You don’t think I’m angry too? We can’t afford to be that stupid!”
Rose stood up, white-hot anger flaring from her eyes as Arcancy tinged in the muscles of her hands and Sidney erupted from her seat grabbing Michael by the collar. The warrior pulled him up as Michael shouted, unable to break her grip when she shoved him away from the table, completely blank-faced, before saying, “Out. Now.” She glanced back to Rose. “Both of you.”
Rose turned and left without so much as a word and Michael felt his anger wash into shame as the other Legacies either looked at him in irritation or completely avoided his eye.
Jack was among the only ones who held his gaze and said, “You heard her, Michael.”
Michael’s face went hot as he briskly left, and the moment the door clicked closed, the council relaxed again, and Jack let out a disheartened sigh.
Carter sat there for a moment longer before glancing at Jack. “Might go and- um-”
The commander gave him an understanding nod and Carter followed his friends quickly into the corridor.
Sidney shook her head tiredly. “Nikereus won’t have to kill us. We’ll do it for them.”
Jack gave a toneless huff. “Michael’s right. Who knows how Nikereus rigged up the Heart Stone. We can’t risk killing them if it won’t erase the orders of their soldiers. For all we know it might have some Dark Tongue properties. Only other problem is that the Soiltorn bastard will be watching the walls. How are we supposed to sneak up on the command tent?”
Nydol, the heavily tattooed Driftiken woman, leaned forward and said in her heavy accent, “Are there still tunnels beneath Guardian?”
Karmine frowned, wincing as he accidently moved his shoulder. “Condemned ones. Harlock Tunnel would put us a couple hundred feet north of the command-tent...” He looked to Jack with an amused amount of confidence. “As long as we don’t cause too much of a ruckus, it shouldn’t collapse… any further.”
The commander imagined Fort Guardian’s mightiest Legacies getting pancaked three feet into a cramped passageway. “Tragically, is has better odds than our current plan. Let’s do it.”