The Fifth Dawn

CHAPTER 22

Bruenna’s back itched, but she couldn’t reach it. She hated wearing leonin armor, but she hated being cut open more, so she endured the discomfort. The battle had lasted two days, and now four of the suns were already down. The fifth dawn was not far off now. Bruenna hoped the suffering below would prove worth it. If Glissa wasn’t successful, there might not be anyone left on the surface to save.

Her zauk trotted cautiously onto the smoldering battlefield at the head of a group of twelve mounted leonin warriors in battle regalia. Bruenna’s own armor had been damaged beyond repair the day before, when Krark-Home’s last charbelcher had gone up under an aerophin suicide run. The ’belcher had tipped over sideways, causing its molten ammunition to ignite, but not launch. Within seconds, the overheated weapon exploded, taking the aerophins, several levelers, dozens of nim, and far too many Krark-Home defenders with it. Only her sturdy old Neurok battle armor had saved Bruenna.

Now the mage wore a borrowed suit of segmented silver plate that was once worn by Rishan, the seer Ushanti’s long-dead daughter and at one time Raksha Golden Cub’s intended. Lyese had insisted the mage put it on before heading out onto the field, and Yshkar had concurred. The armor was certainly strong and would no doubt protect her from harm as well as the old suit, but it didn’t fit quite right across the hips. Nor, she groused, did it easily allow one to reach the middle of one’s back. The mage awkwardly slid the sword on her belt a little forward so it would stop slapping against the side of the bird, which brought a stop to its frequent squawks of complaint.

Bruenna chided herself for worrying about her own discomfort in the midst of an ongoing battle. The carnage the riders passed through was devastating and made her stomach roil. Corpses and pieces of corpses lay everywhere, interspersed with the writhing wounded who couldn’t leave the field under their own power-hapless souls who were already dead, but hadn’t realized it yet. Twisted chunks of metal and debris from the shattered vedalken quake-beasts and broken charbelchers lay amongst dead zauks, horribly mangled pteron corpses with their delicate wings crumpled and broken, and piles of stinking nim bodies that in their stillness looked more than ever like dead insects. An amber haze hung low over the scene-a noxious fog of blood, smoke, necrogen mist, and steam that spewed from ruined constructs.

The artifact armies had finally been beaten back into retreat with determination, courage, and hundreds of spent lives. Yshkar was already boasting of this “great victory.” Bruenna found the Kha’s boasting ill-advised, but the leonin had told her that the troops needed a victory, no matter what the cost, to keep going.

The other half of the royal couple was not on the field. Khanha Lyese had not been seen by anyone since returning from the battlefield the night before and entering her quarters. The mage wondered if Glissa’s departure was the reason for her retreat. It was strange, though, not to see the Tall Queen leading the defenders. Bruenna had never known Lyese to shirk a fight, and in fact the elf seemed to enjoy it a little too much. Maybe humans could never really understand the behavior of elves.

Bruenna reached the closest fallen defender and reined the zauk to a halt. She half-dismounted, half-fell from the side of the bird, thrown off balance by the new armor, but managed to land on two feet. She dropped to one knee next to a goblin soldier whose legs were gone. The Krark-Home defender was pinned to the ground by what had once been a part of a charbelcher. He moaned pitiably and reached up to Bruenna.

This was why she was here. With so many dead, dying, and wounded, there weren’t enough healers to go around. Bruenna had offered to do whatever she could, and the healers had told her they were happy for the help.

The mage took the goblin’s hand in her remaining real one and held it tight. “I’m here to help you,” she whispered. “Don’t try to speak. You’re hurt.” She locked eyes with his, and Bruenna saw that the goblin knew he was more than hurt.

The mage’s clockwork hand opened a pouch on her belt and removed one tiny vial of precious serum. Bruenna had medicines and salves from the leonin healers for the ones she could save, but the best she could do for this patient was ease his suffering before the end. The serum was not anaesthetic, but it would definitely take the sting out of death. Her eyes still locked with the dying goblin’s, Bruenna heard two thuds as Commander Jethrar dismounted from his own zauk and stepped up next to her, sword drawn. The dying goblin’s eyes widened in terror, and he began to shriek.

“Get back!” Bruenna snapped backhanding the leonin in the gut. “You’re terrifying him.”

“But we are allies,” Jethrar said. “Goblin, you have no need to fear me.”

“The alliance had been around for only a few years. Until that time your people kept his as pets. Now, back off, commander,” Bruenna said, staring the leonin down. “This man is terrified, and at the moment his needs are a lot more important to me than yours.”

“But I thought-I thought we were on triage duty. He deserves a warrior’s death,” said the commander, raising the tip of his blade.

“He’s already gotten it,” Bruenna hissed. “Now please, get back on your zauk and watch my back, as you were ordered.”

Jethrar snapped to attention and did as she commanded. Bruenna had no rank in the leonin army, but she had plenty of unofficial authority.

The mage raised the tiny, almost needle-thin vial of serum so the goblin could see it. “This will make the pain go away. May your soul find rest, defender of Krark-Home.” Bruenna tipped the open vial to the fallen soldier’s cracked lips, and he swallowed the serum with a wince.

The goblin’s eyes glowed a faint silvery blue, and he visibly relaxed, drawing faint, shallow breaths. Bruenna held his small hand for maybe half a minute, keeping eye contact, until the goblin finally exhaled heavily.

The mage sighed and rose, wondering what she had been thinking coming out here. She was no healer. Death, she had seen, and up close. Her entire village, all her people, were gone. But that had been … detached. There had been nothing she could do for her fellow Neurok. The deaths of her people had been violent, but they had been quick.

This war was different, and Bruenna hated it even more. She slumped a bit in the saddle and guided her zauk to the next injured soldier, a skyhuntress who looked like she had been thrown from her mount at a great height. The emergency wing pack every skyhunter wore lay in tatters at the fallen leonin’s side, shredded and burned by aerophin energy blasts. The skyhunter was wheezing hard, and Bruenna didn’t dare move her. Most of the leonin’s bones had shattered, and broke through her skin at several points. A pool of blood spread in a halo around her body. Another one who wouldn’t make it.

The leonin looked up, pleading, and Bruenna pulled another tiny vial from her pouch. She’d never have enough serum to help them all, but the mage was determined that what she had left would go to good use. Bruenna tipped the vial into the female’s mouth. Bruenna waited with her as she had with the goblin, until the leonin breathed her last.

A zauk, not her own, squawked a warning call. Bruenna scanned the horizon and immediately saw what had frightened the big bird. A growing cloud of silver and black arose from the direction of the Mephidross. Only the yellow sun still hung in the sky, but the cloud-no, swarm, she corrected herself-passed in front of it and clearly showed the tiny outlines of thousands of winged creatures.

Bruenna’s growing despair suddenly flared into anger and hatred for their relentless attackers. Even warring ogres allowed the other side to retrieve the dead. True, they ate them, but still. The mage struggled to her feet in the heavy plate.

“Jethrar, do you see that?” Bruenna asked. With a heave she hauled herself into the saddle and drew her sword.

The commander squinted against the setting sun and his eyes widened. “How many of those things does Memnarch have?”

“Too many, my friend. Far too many. I think the Kha may have boasted too soon,” Bruenna said. When she saw that Jethrar and the other leonin continued to gawk at the approaching flock of deadly constructs, she shouted, “One of you get back to Krark-Home and warn them this isn’t over yet!”

Jethrar, jolted from shock, nodded to a lieutenant. The leonin warrior kicked his zauk in the flanks, bolting back to the last bastion of living surface dwellers.

The commander wheeled his mount around in a circle, scanning the area. “Take heed, men,” he said. “The skyhunters’ ranks are depleted, so we may not expect help from that quarter. The rest of the troops have fallen back to defend Krark-Home. Until Lieutenant Zelosh returns with reinforcements, we’re on our own. I know this was supposed to be triage duty, but we just became the vanguard.”

Bruenna shielded her eyes from the glare of the dimming sun and checked on the progress of the new wave of attackers. She could already make out familiar shapes among the aerophins and other, stranger flying constructs. Beetle shapes.

“Nim,” Bruenna whispered.

“What?” Jethrar asked, and looked in the direction Bruenna pointed.

“Those aren’t just aerophins,” the mage said. “I’m not sure why, but there are nim flying with them.”

“But Yert is dead,” Jethrar said.

“I know,” Bruenna said. “I know.” She mentally ran over the fight with Yert, and her use of the Miracore. Had she done this somehow, in an arrogant attempt to control the nim without truly understanding the nature of the ancient talisman? Had she served only to put the nim under Memnarch’s power?

Bruenna shivered.