The Iron Pillars

Chapter 38

Brant stirred early the next morning. Sitting up in his sleeping bag, he stretched his arms and yawned. Around him, his tent-mates still slumbered, with Aaron snoring loudly in his corner and shirtless Baird strictly contrasting with his own silence. Ace also dozed quietly, while Khemera wriggled in his coverings, appearing to struggle with phantoms. 

After he sat still for a few minutes to allow the sleepiness to wash off, Brant rose to his feet, folded his sleeping bag up, and crept his way out of the tent. 

Outside, the fresh air of the early morning rejuvenated Brant and made him grateful to have awakened. He stared up into the sky, streaked with pink and violet hues from the rising sun. Fork-tailed swallows swooped overhead, chattering at one another as they soared. 

Brant's gaze dropped downward and he eyed the enemy camp across the field. Even in the daytime, their base appeared like a cluster of opaque black rocks. More men paced about in the spaces between tents now, but they still seemed to pay the encampment opposite them no mind. Trying to give us false hope, no doubt. 

Brant turned his head to his own camp and widened his eyes at the sight of two more flags waving over them. Nearest him fluttered the colors of the Odegoan Confederacy, a recently formed rebel group to replace the senile Insurgence that had preceded them. Hannah's people, he reminded himself as he eyed the soldiers' plain brown uniforms. 

Farther off, Brant smiled, spotting the vivid purple flag of foreign Antapeño, with its golden icons of a crossed sword and a pen filling the middle of the space. Their troops' uniforms were no less vibrant, a shimmering blue that reflected differently in various lights, highlighted by golden buckles and shoulder patches. 

With a sigh of happiness, Brant lowered his gaze and saw Track heading his way, so he rubbed his hands together and closed the distance. 

"Good morning." the Innutukian said with a hint of pleasure in his hazel eyes, "You missed some good things in your sleep." 

"Oh, did I?" Brant asked, half-joking. 

"Well, Antapeño and Odego showed up, for one thing. And the deathbirds are getting close." 

Brant's eyes widened. "So your captain succeeded?" 

"He did, and now he's back. So yes...the deathbirds should be decloaking in the next five minutes or so." 

Brant nodded and cast a quick glance at the enemy camp. "And...nothing from them?" 

"Nothing at all. But they're probably squealing in their tents at what they think will be the biggest fortune to ever befall them—all their enemies arraying themselves against them so they can swipe them away with one blow." 

"Do you think there's any validity to that?" 

Track frowned. "Of course not. We have the bitter taste of defeat in our mouths, which would alone motivate most of us to fight to the last breath, for pride's sake, at least. And many have still stronger motives. I have no doubt that by the time the day is through, we'll have millions of our own, on this side of the line." 

Brant managed a smile and squeezed the general's shoulder. "I hope you're right." 

The two of them lifted their gazes skyward at a low rumble in the retreating clouds to the west. A blur resembling liquid spillage in the sky slowly lowered itself toward their camp. The roar loudened as the hazy fog drew closer. Finally, it dispersed to reveal a quartet of heavily armored ships, jet-black in color and egg-like in shape. Off of the elliptical body projected a pair of wings that currently cranked up to fold over its top, and in the front, a triangular cockpit protruded.