*********************

Elizabeth Stroudwater

Positioning my hand above my heart, I breathe in and out, attempting to calm myself and lower my rampant heartbeat. This is all getting way out of hand. I've been given way too much responsibility. Johnny is out cold, and Tomas is in a coma from his fight. The Wolf's survival is unknown. Dawn is working on Tomas as I stare at this sheet of paper, crisscrossing lines all over it, but the woman is a fucking wreck.

Her eyes are red from tears that haven't stopped, her arms pale from blood loss, and her hair frazzled from her efforts. I can empathize with her, but even Millie is unsure of what to do. She and I are the only ones left to command this train now that the Angels are all out of commission.

Even fucking Kate is in hibernation, unresponsive, leaving only her artifact to move around. It gives me major creeps knowing her body is puppeted by an artifact, but I haven't made any outward signs to show it. Or at least, I don't think I have. We don't want any more problems.

The engine car is not as packed as the others, but there are still nearly a dozen people in here, many of whom are waiting for decisions from Millie and me. I—

My hands shake as I try to focus, the consequences of my failure far too high. All these people on the train... Wyatt, Earl, Johnny...

I—

"We've got more problems!"

Primrose bursts through the door, shoving it aside like it's made of paper with her shoulder. The 6th Sigiled points backward as she speaks frantically.

"There are other monsters besides the Winpe-like giants in the sandstorm that Johnny spotted before going under! Sandy monsters that can turn incorporeal!"

Primrose continues to explain, detailing these Crimlimes as she drags a gaunt and desiccated form into the room. It's awful like a human stripped of all flesh, muscle, and liquid to become a thing of loss. I can hardly look at it, my heart speeding up even further. My hands clamp around the table with greater force as I try to stabilize myself. At least I'm not strong enough to dent the surface like some others. I can still hide my panic, because if I don't, it will only make it worse for the others.

Millie takes the lead, asking other questions with only a glance toward me. She somehow manages to keep her calm despite all our Angel-level fighters out of the picture.

"Are these things attacking the train already? Or are they shambling like the... we can't call them Winpe. That's too foreboding as we might call one to us. Goregiant is much more fitting. Are they shambling like the Goregiants?"

Primrose nods as the entire car releases a collective sigh of 'fuck,' but she continues after the depressing nod.

"Yes, but Wyatt's awake. He's fighting them right now with Bonfire at the end of the train. At first, it was only one or two, but now there are almost a dozen at a time that reach us. We need to either go faster or help them."

Blake shambles to her feet, waving Lennox to not follow her as she leaves Johnny's side on his temporary cot. Silas groans, the gambler not wanting to fight, but he stands nonetheless.

The mention of Wyatt waking us brings me to focus, my eyes narrowing and my vision clearing. We aren't hopeless, then. As long as he's awake, we'll be fine.

A slow smile creeps onto my face as I procure a few questions from my mind.

"What about the Sigiled we picked up? Are any helping? There must be at least a dozen 6th Sigileds that we saved up among the hundreds. They and the 5th and 4ths can surely help, even if these beings are strong."

Primrose nods again as Blake rushes past her, waving a hand to signal her exit. She's been even more antsy than I am, twiddling her thumbs in frustration while waiting. I allow her to go without raising a hand to stop her, as Wyatt probably needs the help right now. He's strong. In fact, I've never seen him lose a fight, no matter the odds, but he's been through too much today.

An Angel-slayer... sure, it wasn't alone, and it was with Virgil, but still. If he can do it with the man always shrouded in layers of darkness, then he's not that far from doing it alone.

Primrose's answer brings my concentration back into order.

"Not many. We have about two that are, but the Base Realms are too scared to do anything. A single scratch from these things spreads like an infection, leaking out sand from the wound. Only Wyatt seems to be immune to it, even Bonfire is only resistant."

I nod again as Millie looks around for inspiration. The unsaid is understood. Wyatt is only able to hand them because of the Bloody Palm protecting his body. That damned thing won't let any other being take what flesh it believes is its.

Good for us, bad for Wyatt.

But that's not the concern right now.

We need to make the Sigiled help. Plenty of Marshall's soldiers remain, but the strong ones are all closer to the front of the train. I don't think any are even near the back. We'll have to send them back along with Silas, Millie, and Primrose. Those three should be enough to keep a chain of command proceeding back, especially once they contact Earl and Abraham.

I wish Lennon wasn't so fucking hurt! If only he could be moved... Whatever.

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First, send the soldiers down. Then what? Make the Hunters and Sigiled help while protecting the Unsigiled. After that... we can't fight forever. Almost two hours is the timeframe before we reach the plateau of Gravecross, the earth brought into the sky by one of Wyatt's ancestors. Growing up, I always thought that was a myth while learning about the Territories.

It always seemed so impossible—so extraordinary.

Then I saw a man Shatter The Sky.

But we aren't like Marshall. We don't have his relentless endurance to fight for days straight. Everyone is already fatigued. Few of us have gotten sleep in the past day, and our only combatant capable of fending off any Angels is Wyatt. Virgil is exhausted to his bones, sleeping just feet from me. He'll be rested soon, but not yet.

We can't fight like this.

So what then? Think! What do we do? I'm burning the fuel as fast as the engine can. Any more, and I may overload and break it. So what then?

How do we go faster?

Think! Outside the box! Think like Earl!

What would he do?

He'd... he'd...

He'd think about something unrelated and relate it.

How can I throw a rock faster if I can't throw it harder?

Change the rock—make it lighter.

"Shave off any part of the train that isn't needed. Toss out crates, barrels, and anything that weighs a lot. Save the contents only if they are important enough that you'd rather they survive than you, but otherwise, throw them out the train. We don't need our rations. Throw them out, too. Millie, Primrose, Silas, and Lennox, you four should go to the back to help fight. Wait... Silas, don't go with them. Stay here and use your Sigil skill to lighten as much of this metal as possible. We must go as fast as possible to stop these things from reaching us."

They all look at me like I'm crazy, but Millie nods sagely, echoing my order. Though Lennox does bounce from foot to foot with joy. His stone fists clank together as I ignore whatever crazy shit he's saying for now. I'll have time to hear him later.

"Do as she says. It's clever and risky, but it is our only option. Go! Follow me, you two!"

Millie immediately sets off, pulling Lennox and Primrose with her. Skyswain tries to rise, her wings bloodied and damaged, but I set my hand on her shoulder, shaking my head.

"No. You've done enough. If not for you carrying all those people to the train and out of rubble... Many more would be dead. Be proud."

Skyswain nods, but her eyes stay lowered to the ground as she holds her leg, the bone twisted and cracked.

Everything is so fucked right now. Turning around, I grab the shovel and hurl more fuel from the pile into the steam engine, the billowing smoke meeting my face. We don't have that much left since I've been burning through it like crazy to get us this far, but it'll have to do.

I pivot, staring at all the remaining people in my room. All of them are hurt, in a coma, or so exhausted they won't rouse even when hit.

It'll have to do.

*************************

Primrose 'Venomous' Gatran

Spitting out a cluster of dirty red sand from my mouth, I backpedal to inhale a deep breath of air. Gaseous eats through my Ether like nothing else, but at least it keeps me safe from that freakish crimson dust, even if it restricts my breathing.

But I can't wait too long. The furthest train car from the front is under a non-stop invasion from these Crimlime-things. They are relentless and seemingly unlimited. Injuries are piling up far too fast for any of us to keep up. Only Wyatt, Virgil, and I are immune to the dust due to our unique sets of skills.

However, the Wraith is depressingly still severely injured and fatigued from killing an Angel. One-on-one, I'd rather fight Wyatt than Virgil, but no one, not a single man or woman alive, can compete with that bastard's endurance. Cut off a leg? Pssh. He'll have it back in a few seconds.

Stab him in the head? Nice try. You're lucky if you pierce his skull. In the worst case, he'll recover in moments. Put a hole in his heart? Haha, it's stored in an Heirloom. Want to run him dry of Ether? Too bad. There is a being in his body that supplements that as well. Even his fucking Colt helps him heal.

It's just not fair.

But that's a good thing.

A moment after my lungs are filled with air, I dive back in, the entire train car cleared for our battles with the Crimlimes. Everyone else is evacuated and squished into the more forward ones. Lennox is chucking rocks from the roof of the following car to knock back any coming Crimlimes to us, but the rest of the soldiers and Sigileds that we've picked up can only fire weapons to slow down these creatures. All to say, I'm fucking furious.

I'm sure Earl could devise some genius plan to kill all these fucking things in a single second, but he's too busy keeping the Bladed Monster and the Soul Eater alive. Shaking my head filled with thoughts, I flip over a Crimlime slammed into the ground by Wyatt and dropkick another that's constituting itself for his flesh. My boots collide into their sandy form in less than an instant from my Quilt of skills boosting me. It's a hard-earned combination of Ether pathways that I can tell Wyatt does not possess from his barbarism. At first, my feet don't find purchase, but with a burst of Ether that partially turns my lower half to noxious fumes, I make contact.

The dust they turn into isn't an actual solid. It's a gas that appears to be swirling sand, which allows my Gaseous to be particularly effective—the Crimlime crumples, crashing head over heels backward while I reach out and latch onto the wall. Using the storm handle for stability, I twist my body and crash my heel into one of the three Crimlimes entangled with Wyatt.

The young man has sandy shark teeth embedded into his calf, a claw pierced into his gut, and a third that was biting him as well as it falls unmoving. In an hour, that corpse will be nothing but dust in the wind, flowing to rejoin the storm.

Wyatt can handle the infection that spreads from these things, the two-part unstoppable force that is his bloodline and the Bloody Palm doing their work. I leave those two to him as I sidestep a hurtling figure of dust while another nearby is slammed by a heavy rock, losing its stance momentarily. I see it pivot its attention to Lennox as gunfire unloads onto it.

"Uh uh. You ain't gonna kill the rock-boy."

Sprinting right for my target, I draw its attention with a flash of my hand, the air turning indistinct and hazy from the Ether leaving my hand. Poisonous Mirage doesn't hurt these things per se, but it does blind them.

As Wyatt and I battle the relentless onslaught of sand-formed monstrosities, I rely heavily upon my Colt. This extraordinary thing holds the extremely rare Sigils that allow for teleportation, and each bullet I fire can instantly transport me to its point of impact, saving me from almost certain death every time. It's a unique advantage but comes at a cost; with every shot expended, I can feel my strength waning. Otherwise, I would have followed the rest to Blackstone. But sadly, I can't keep up the motion forever. The price of the first eight or so shots is free, but the rest rise precipitously.

I stutter in my movement, the entire train lifting a half-inch from the track as a rumble fills all reality, originating from the eye of the storm. Earth-shaking quakes sporadically strike the entire train length, jolting us with each terrifying convulsion. The tremors add an extra layer of chaos to our already perilous situation. Whenever a move from those faraway figures reaches us, I worry that the train will derail and kill us all. Wyatt can't pull the entire thing back onto course like last time. My heartbeat heightens every time I feel the train shudder and groan as it fights to maintain its course, the once-sturdy rails now under siege by the relentless tide of sand.

In the midst of this turmoil, I'm constantly on the move. My Colt becomes both my lifeline and my weapon, allowing me to shift across the cabin, firing shots that rip through the ethereal forms of our assailants. But with each teleportation, the quakes grow more punishing, and my Ether depletes faster.

Wyatt fights valiantly like a man already sentenced to death. It's his usual style, though he is far more careful than he used to be, pushing back the monstrous entities with his strength and leveraged Ether. Yet, I can see the strain on his face, the toll that this relentless battle is taking. He was fighting long before I got here. He was fighting in Blackstone. He was fighting before that in Blackcrink.

I think he might have been fighting even while he was sleeping, based on what little I heard from him earlier.

Even him, a man with two souls in one body, will run out of charcoal eventually. But I doubt I'll last until that point. Shifting and evading consistently, I slay more and more of these Crimlimes to buy us time to reach the ever-nearing Gravecross.

Then, a tremor uproots my foot as I land from an evasion, disallowing my next sidestep. Frantically, I lift my Colt to teleport away, and I just barely fire too late. A laceration covers half of my side, tearing right through my garb as I reappear at the edge of the car beside Wyatt. I narrowly avoid the crimson dust swirling around the creature from invading my wound, but the injury alone is enough to force me to stop for a while. A shiver runs down my spine as grinding pain blossoms angrily in my side. I need to retreat before I'm overwhelmed.

Reluctantly, I signal Wyatt as he bites a Crimlime in turn while holding another aloft in a strangle with his hand, making a quick gesture to indicate my need to pull back. The unspoken agreement between us is clear. He will continue to hold the line, buying me the precious time I need to recover and reload.

I back away cautiously, leaving the man to face the horde alone for a moment. My breaths come in ragged gasps from the pain as it siphons what can only be my very life force as I seek a safe distance, ending beside the closed door to the next car to catch my breath. Pausing, I reload my Colt, taking out the magazine and refilling it as I close my eyes.

My Ether saturation is building dangerously, but I can't afford to quit now, even with this wound. Everyone is depending on me. Wyatt will be overwhelmed and devoured in a minute at most without me to take the heat off him.

Another deep breath fills my lungs as the grinding infection seeps through my veins. Gaseous, a bizarre mismatch of different Ether types, fills my form as the sand is gradually driven out. The instant I feel my veins wash themselves of the taint, I release the skill, exhaling my breath to gain a new one. Still, I fall and hold onto the side of the train, hardly able to stand upright.

Then?

Then I dive back into the depths of the car, a knife in one hand and my Colt in the other. We better fucking reach that damned Territory before I get turned into a block of stupid fucking sand.