The Bridge (Part 3)

Conrad nodded once to Kaladrian the two men began to move off.

“What should I do?” Idris called to his mentor.

Conrad had to understand that these weren’t normal circumstances. Once everything was over, maybe he could still join the Seekers. For now at least he could be useful in this fight.

Conrad stopped a moment and said, before continuing on, “Stay with your sister.”

What hope Idris had for making amends vanished. The Seekers spread out among the other adventurers and armed townsfolk to explain the plan, but Idris knew now that, at least to Conrad’s mind, Idris had no more place in what came next.

Idris felt a hand close on his arm. He turned to see Eana looking up at him.

“I still need you,” she said.

His father put a hand on his shoulder, “We need you. You’re the most experienced fighter in this family, and whether I like it or not, that’s what this family needs now.”

Eana pulled them both into a hug and Idris let Radiance wink out so they could have some semblance of privacy in this moment as a family.

“Need me or not I don’t know what to do,” Idris said, laughing self deprecatingly.

“Triage,” Eana said at once.

“Training for me,” Graham said, “I’m going to grind out as much XP as I can with the adventurers fighting the incursions at the bridge and see if I can’t get a couple more skills. Help your sister.”

His father held out his arm and Idris clasped it, then the two men separated and Graham, armed now with a heavy one handed mace and shield he had pilfered from the adventurer’s camp went off to kill bug men.

“Wounded to the center!” Conrad called.

Men and women in various states of health began making their way to a space behind the main line of adventurers forming around the base of the bridge.

Eana showed Idris what to look for and they set about separating the wounded into groups with the hope that she could return a large number of them to the fighting before things got too crazy and they all had to push across the bridge.

It wasn’t more than a few minutes before Kaladrian was back.

“It’s almost time,” he said, “When I say go, you drop everything and run. We get across that bridge and we do not stop moving until we’ve completely cleared the Hive’s area of influence.”

“How will we know when we’ve done that?” Idris asked.

“There won’t be any more bug men chasing us,” Kaladrian said.

“Makes sense,” Eana said, voice shaky.

Idris gave her a playful nudge with his shoulder, “It’s going to be OK. The best fighters in Irondale are all here.”

“They were all at the redoubt, too,” Eana said quietly.

“Then let’s be sure that this time is different,” Kaladrian said. He moved off to continue preparation, leaving the siblings among those gathering for healing.

Idris looked over the growing numbers of wounded, “It’s a shame Gendra didn’t make it back. I know how you feel about her but we could use her magic tonight.”

The two were quiet a moment before Eana said, voice pitched only for Idris to hear, “The monsters out at the redoubt. They didn’t kill everybody.”

Idris perked up, curious, “Survivors? I thought you were the only one to make it back.”

“I am,” Eana said.

“Then what are you talking about?” Idris asked.

“I… can you keep a secret Idris?”

“Of course, but is now really the time?”

“This is going to be a battle, Idris. It’s not like the fights we’ve had. Out there, it was insane. Monsters everywhere. People screaming and dying. I thought I was going to die.”

Idris waited, not sure where his sister was going with this.

“I killed… she was hurt so bad. She begged me, Idris.. I killed Gendra,” Eana said, almost choking on the last words.

“What?!” Idris said.

He looked around quickly to see who else might be listening. The wounded seemed oblivious to everything but their own concerns.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“How?” he asked, keeping his voice low, “What could have happened out there to make her…” Then as he looked into his sister’s eyes and saw her newfound hardness, he realized their entire relationship could hinge on his next words.

“Nevermind,” he said, “I wasn’t there.”

Twelve years old. His sister was a child and she had seen and done things that the most hardened of the adventurers in Irondale only experienced in their nightmares.

“She wasn’t the only one though,” Eana said.

Idris bit his tongue before he could shout that there was no way two people begged her for death.

He waited for her to continue.

“I killed Tomme,” Eana said, “He wanted to kill me and I killed him first.” Rage leaked into her voice as she continued, “I smashed his brains in.”

Emotions were a funny thing. Minutes before what would likely be a chaotic and dangerous fight that many of them would not survive, Idris was listening to confessions of murder. If he could have asked himself how he would have responded, in any other circumstance, from any other person he would have expected to feel horror. Fear. Disgust.

“Fuck yeah,” Idris said, feeling only the thrill of pride in the victory of somebody close to him.

Eana stared at him open-mouthed.

“What?” Idris said, “He had it coming.”

“And Gendra?” she asked.

Thinking a moment Idris replied, “Some day when you’re ready you can tell me about what happened out there. But until then, I’ll take your word any day.”

She gave him a quick, tight hug before leaning back and asking suddenly, “Do you think I should tell dad?”

They looked over at where he was lined up with the other adventurers near the bridge. He was clearly receiving advice on technique as one of the others near him demonstrated a few movements before both of them rushed forward to kill a few drones that leaked through the node.

“Let’s put it off until we’re out of this,” Idris said, and watching his father bash a drone into the ground added, “I have a feeling he’ll be pretty understanding.”

Kaladrian waved at Conrad who waved back. He walked over and said, “It’s time. Are you ready?”

They both nodded.

Kaladrian’s hand glowed with energy and he laid it on the shoulder of the first adventurer in line, a slim man with a bow and quiver of arrows on the ground next to him. The man immediately looked hopeful and relaxed. Kaladrian signaled to Eana and her hands in turn glowed golden.

The man had a broken ankle and she reached down and set it while the magic coursed through him.

Immediately above them the lightning patterns and a sense of sloshing returned to the energy wall that was the node. And in front of them the man’s expression changed to one of revulsion and rage. He grabbed at a belt knife but Idris pinned his arm down with his foot.

Kaladrian breathed deeply then once again cast his spell. The man’s face eased. Eana finished the healing, he nodded, and picked up his weapons to go join the line.

“Good,” Kaladrian said, “That went well.”

They looked out at the line of adventurers and the wall of the node. So far it seemed to be maintaining itself and only letting through the customary few it had been already.

“How do you deal with it?” Idris asked.

“Probably the same way you do,” Kaladrian said, “No time to talk, if we’re lucky we can get a lot more of these people on their feet before we need to run.”

Eana prepared for the next healing. Down the line some of the townsfolk had assembled makeshift stretchers and were loading up the more seriously wounded - those unlikely to receive healing at all tonight.

Above them the node roiled. Rips ran through almost to the ground and were sealed almost immediately, only to tear again.

“Ready,” Kaladrian said, casting his spell on the next adventurer in line.

“What if the node opens somewhere else?” Eana asked.

“It probably has,” Kaladrian replied quickly, “Which is why we can’t stop. We need to start the fight and end it. And we need to do it now.”

Eana began the next healing. It proceeded much as the first but Idris noticed the people down the line beginning to get antsy. Eana’s power had grown and they could all sense it.

A Swordsman’s arm fixed. Then an Alchemist’s mangled hand. They moved down the line.

A chorus of shouting and battle cries rang out as the section of the node in front of the bridge drifted open like a sheet in the wind. Around the slowly widening gap the insect monsters came pouring through.

“CROWD CONTROL!” Conrad bellowed from somewhere in the defender’s group. Fireballs, magically split arrows, alchemical bombs and a medly of other projectiles both magical and mundane flew out to meet the massed enemies. The resulting devastation was nearly total, with only a couple of the heartiest of the Soldiers limping forward to continue the fight.

Hand to hand fighters rushed out to finish off the stragglers, but before they made contact the next wave was over the bridge.

Idris cast his Radiance/Detect combination and sent the spell floating over the carnage of the battlefield to get some sense of what lay on the other side. The Chaos energy made visible by the spell lit the otherside of the bank in an eerie ethereal silver glow.

And the hoard of the hive monsters seemed to be without end. A teeming mass of what had to be a hundred deep of the creatures was stretched along the bank to either side of the bridge. A force so huge the task in front of them seemed at once foolish and unwinnable.

“Kaladrian…?” Idris said.

“I know,” the man said, voice strained as Eana continued her casting. Above them the node ruptured and twisted, lightning arcing out and across but always originating directly above them.

“She’s going to bring it all down! She’s going to let them all in!” one of the adventurers yelled, voice full of panic.

Kaladrian waved a hand at the man, symbols glowing. He shied back but Idris could tell it was only a temporary calm. He stepped up to put himself between Eana and the remaining wounded.

Back at the bridge the fighting had grown fierce. So far the line was holding and even the newly armed townsfolk had managed to find ways to make themselves useful while staying far enough back to give the adventurers room to do their work. Many of them were finishing downed drones and pulling the corpses back to keep them from tangling the feet of the fighting men and women.

But there was more work than hands to get it done. The corpses were beginning to pile and more and more the men and women of Irondale were finding it necessary to defend themselves against drones that had managed to push through the meat grinder that was the loose line of skilled adventurers.

Despite it all the adventurers did not appear to be flagging. The fighting had been going for nearly ten minutes and they still swung and fought as if they were fresh. Idris saw one or two here and there remove themselves from the fighting to catch their breath, drink some kind of stamina potion, then re-enter the carnage.