Fear's Union

Chapter Forty-Seven

—Anejo—

The battle had taken its toll. Anejo was physically and mentally drained. Her body was light, her mind was heavy, but she continued nonetheless. There was only death, and the intent of death.

She had been hauled back through the ranks, given brief respite. Time eluded her, the passage of things passing at undefined and random rates. She breathed heavily, gulping down packets of air, and she looked to the heavens. The sun was high. It was near to midday.

Mother Bright! It felt like years had passed!

Enthusiasm leaked from her and she slumped where she stood. Her muscles ached, each one an entity with no power of self-sustainability. It was as if she was physically supporting the dead-weight of her body. Her shoulders slackened, her head wobbled, her arms swung gently beside her. Even her eyelids were heavy, teasing towards the comfort of closure.

But the battle was not won. There were too many of them.

The enemy casualties must be large, but it was not enough. It would never be enough. The defenders were immense, gigantic, a whole entity far beyond the sum of the individual parts, and yet the maths was still against them. The enemy numbers were too great and the momentum was shifting. The enemy was winning. The defenders of Ahan were like a well-greased siege engine: they would be magnificent until one piece failed. At that point, the whole thing would tumble.

She could sense a change in the collective about her. Something was amiss. The engine was faltering.

Concern stirred her from her shattered state. Some of the weight lifted. Not a lot, but some. She opened her eyes and scanned her surroundings. The infantry about her mirrored her state, but it was cleaner in them. It was the punishment of continuous physical exertion rather than her own extreme flashes. They looked back at her, those same eyes that betrayed such mixed emotions earlier. Now there was respect in the ranks about her. But there was something else there too. She could only imagine how she looked, but that was the nature of her chosen life. This was her: a blood-soaked monster. It sickened her.

Reflection, though, was a luxury outside her grasp. Something was wrong, and despite her lethargy, it registered. She did not know whether it was from casualties or something else, but her fellow mandahoi were in thin supply. The grey hoods were scattered throughout the front ranks, but it was a sprinkling.

The entire battle impetus was shifting. The machine was seizing.

At the extreme left flank, resolve was breaking. The check had been compromised, the straight line becoming a curve which the enemy was forging a splinter right through. Other checks were also stalling, the contagion spreading along the front line until the beautifully ordered pattern tended towards a single, sprawling mass. A battle-line. They could not win that fight. Numbers were king in that world.

There was real danger here, as the entire battle teetered. She seemed to lose weight instantly, and stood straight. The men about her shuffled. Something was afoot.

"Damn."

She was re-energised, but that was not enough. The hard reality was that there was nothing she could do. She scratched at her cuticles, scraped skin from her thumb. She was useless in that close quarter chaos. None of her skill, none of her ability, nothing that she valued so highly mattered. She would die in that chaos. Ahan was falling, and its safety relied on brave strong men. It relied on the infantry; the Body of Ahan. How wrong she had been.

At the thrust of the enemy resurgence, a monster was creating bespoke havoc through axe-craft. He was vast, a mass of fiery red hair and naked muscle. The damage he was reaping with the double-headed weapon was brutal. Yan was a powerful foe that she had somehow overcome, but that contest paled against this. This was a man of the wild, a killer, and a rabid psychopath intent on destruction for destruction's sake. He was single-handedly shattering their stubborn resistance, and for the first time since the arrows had flown, defeat was looming. They needed a hero.