Outlanders

Chapter 25: The Taking of Inti Valley

Zoltána marched with a fraction of her army, facing the musketeers. Her archers hunkered down in thickets and behind rocks, where they took aim at the dense of row of enemies ahead. A few arrows arced into the targets, and two musketeers fell. A third one threw down his gun, broke rank and ran, earning four seconds of freedom before his cohorts turned and shot him.

The pyromancers cast their spells, and rows of fire ignited on either side of the musketeers, hemming them in. Three more arrows found their mark. The enemy sergeant gave the order, and the musketeers put out their bayonets and charged.

"Get back," said Zoltána. "Let them chase us."

With the shield-bearers in front, Zoltána's group shuffled backwards. As the musketeers ran, pairs of them split away and sprinted for the shrubs and crannies where the archers hid. Most of the archers stood up and ran, but the rest stayed where they were until they writhed on bayonets.

Zoltána watched as the main group of musketeers divided in two. "They're trying to surround us!" she yelled. She pointed a thick arm at the right group. "Face that one! Charge!"

Feet pounded the dirt as the warriors ran. The right musketeer group dropped to their knees and took aim, and a few shield bearers managed to hold up their heavy shields as a volley crashed into the front line of mercenaries. A few people fell, and the rest kept coming.

The two groups met, and shouts filled the air. Spears dueled with bayonets while axes slipped in through the gaps, biting away arms and legs. One sorceress circled around the melee, throwing a cloud of white dust onto an unlucky musketeer. She pronounced a magic word, and he screamed, then solidified into a pale crystal statue. Another musketeer, who had been caught in the cloud of powder, fell to the ground and clutched her petrified hand. She cried and beat at the ground until an arrow caught her in the neck. After a gruesome few minutes, the carnage died down. Zoltána, Leif and the other survivors stood panting in a circle of death. Looking around, Zoltána felt her adrenalin wear off, and she shuddered for the first time in a decade. She had seen grislier deaths in the factory, but never this many at once.

The other musketeer group turned and ran. Shading her eyes, Zoltána watched them retrace their steps to a ramshackle camp, then skew away, retreating farther into their own territory.

"Get to their camp," ordered Zoltána. "We need to find out if they've sent a distress line yet. If they haven't, we can keep pushing."

With audible complaint, the mercenaries continued on, some stepping around the fallen musketeers, while the rest trampled them, making for muddy white shapes of the abandoned enemy tents. As they walked, the shield-bearers buoyed to the front, admiring the fresh scratches on their shields.

The camp, several hundred yards away, showed every hallmark of haste and minimalism, containing little in the way of uneaten food and even less of functioning equipment.

Zoltána stepped through tossed-aside mounds of cloth, and metal rang as she kicked away a discarded tin. She stepped up to a strange device, running her fingers down the wooden surface.

"I know what that is," said a bony, dark-skinned woman in the group. "That is a telegraph."

"Can you use it?"

"I think so. A trader taught me how..."

"Find out if they've sent a message recently, and what it said."

"Yes, Commander." Kneeling before the device, she thought for a moment, then began to tap out a message. "I'm sending them one line. I'm saying that the last message was sent in error. Their response will tell us whether there was a previous message or not."