Chapter 37

Miles

They trampled the ground, eyes rimmed in red as they moved with murderous intent. It was another wave of infected humans heading their way. Miles had served in Afghanistan with the Marines, but he faced a different level of evil in this war.

Their enemy didn’t fight for religion, freedom, or any notable cause—even an illegitimate one. They slaughtered their fellow humans because that’s what their masters told them to do, and they lacked a conscience to question it. Not once in the past two weeks had he seen them show signs of remorse, pity, or compassion. The only discernible emotions Miles had seen from them were anger or glee at harming those who stood against them.

Even when injured, they felt the pain but not the fear of further harm. They simply fought until they couldn’t anymore without food or water. From the stench of them, they didn’t stop to relieve themselves, either. He hated when they got too close.

The Kandoran scared the hell out of him, but not being able to stop them terrified him more. Humanity would be lost if their enemy won. Politics played no part in this war, only survival.

He braced himself for the onslaught. Bailey and Brody took down as many as possible, slashing their swords with ruthless intensity,butrelied on the human forces behind them to finish the rest. Miles didn’t know how the two slayers stood alone against such a massive wave.

He used to resent them for their abilities, but since the war began, his respect had grown. They never hesitated to put their lives on the line and always took on the most dangerous enemies to spare the more fragile human army. The pair could kill ten times as many as his team. Miles and his troops had to work together to stand a chance against far more powerful foes. They also tired more easily and had to rest more often, so they rotated during the night. The slayers rarely took a break except to urinate, and they usually just squatted next to a dead dragon for that.

“Get ready!” he ordered his squad of twelve.

They held shields before them side-by-side, taken from the local police station’s riot gear. He’d borrowed tactics from the ancient Greeks and taught his troops the phalanx when preparing for the war. It had made a difference in their survival rate, and those other squads who hadn’t adopted it did so after they saw how effective it was—though his guys were still the best. He’d only lost two guys so far since the fighting began a couple of weeks ago.

Each soldier held a spear in one hand and a shield in the other.

“Hold,” he said.

It wasn’t easy to do while watching the intelligent yet crazed Kandoran come at them. Not one of his men balked. They stayed still until the enemy came within three feet of them, and then they thrust out their spears.

All the pointed heads were tipped with magically enhanced poison. They only needed to penetrate the skin, and their opponents would go down. Unlike the dragons, they weren’t strong enough to fight off the toxins. It immobilized them first and then killed them a few minutes later. That had been a nice surprise to find it so effective. It was too bad they couldn’t get more of the poison, but they had hunted down every venomous animal they could find until they were practically extinct in the area.

As the first row of Kandoran went down, he backed his men two steps to make room for the next round of enemies. They struck again, and his squad thrust their spears once more, though the poison was gone. The maneuver still worked to cause severe injuries, but eventually, some of the infected humans broke through his phalanx.

Miles called for his range fighters.

The three soldiers pulled out Super Soaker water guns filled with freezing potions developed by Skylar and squirted the attacking Kandoran. The plastic weapons had excellent range and accuracy. It only took a few drops hitting their skin to stop their adversaries in their tracks and send them slumping to the ground. Miles and his team worked to hack off their heads.

Eventually, though, the toy guns ran dry.

He shouted another command, and everyone broke into groups of three or four, fighting back-to-back. One soldier removed the spears so the rest could switch to the swords they’d left sheathed at their sides. Miles always designated a person for that duty because he didn’t want to risk their enemy turning their weapons against them, but they needed their hands free to continue close-quarter fighting.

An hour passed before the enemy finally thinned to a few random stragglers here and there. He sent some of his men to finish off the half-dead dragons who’d made it to the shield, got electrified, and fallen to the ground. It knocked the Kandoran out, so they had a couple of hours to kill the beasts before they managed to rise.

Miles checked the horizon, and his blood ran cold as he caught faint wisps of fog in the distance. It seemed to come once every few days, keeping them on their toes.

“Gas, gas, gas!” he screamed.

Others repeated it down the line as everyone ran to get their masks. In pre-dragon warfare, they might have kept them strapped to their legs, but it was too risky thatthey could get damaged in the fighting. Miles certainly had to change clothes often because his got torn and ripped.

His position was a few hundred meters from the bunker. When he got there, people were already passing out the masks. He quickly donned his. A glance at the horizon told him they had about two minutes left before the fog reached their position, and anyone who wasn’t protected would get infected. Those who were wounded or too far away from the bunker were instructed to run behind the shield. The fog couldn’t get past that point. Unfortunately, there were always a few stragglers that didn’t make it either way.

About a hundred meters ahead, he spotted Morgan with his mask on, launching electric spheres at a few incoming green dragons. He alternated with Skylar, who froze them to knock them out of the sky. That allowed them a chance to recharge since they didn’t have an infinite pool of magic. When both were tired, the archers took point. They had to stop as many Kandoran as possible from hitting the shield since each strike weakened it.

Satisfied that no more human enemies were coming from the west, he ducked inside the dimly lit bunker. His wife, Danae, wore her mask. He knew she would have donned it, especially being former military from the old days before dragons, but he still liked to reassure himself. She could get absorbed in healing patients, forgetting everything else around her.

The fog swept in behind him as he headed toward her. She kneeled over an injured human who’d taken a blade in her shoulder. The wounded woman with curly red hair was young, maybe twenty. Despite the mask, he could tell her face was twisted in pain.

Danae sealed the wound so that only a faint red line remained, and her patient sighed in relief. She glanced up, pleasure lighting her eyes as she saw him. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Miles said, voice muffled through the mask. “You?”

“I’m fine, but I hate working with this thing on my face.”

He shook his head. “It’s no fun to fight with it on, either. Trust me.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” she said, rising to her feet and lifting her arms to stretch. “At least that was my last patient for now.”

“That’s good.”

Shouting outside drew his attention.

Danae groaned. “Looks like I spoke too soon.”

They ran for the entrance, finding a couple of soldiers hauling a struggling young man between them. The blond-haired guy they grasped had red-rimmed eyes. With the fog, it infected humans at a much faster rate than what they’d seen before the war.

It was designed to turn their people to the Kandoran side in seconds. If Kade hadn’t warned them about the poisonous gas and told them to acquire the masks, they would have lost the war as soon as the first wave hit. That would have taken down every human and sorcerer, turning them to the enemy’s side.

“Get him to the ground.” Miles pointed at a female standing nearby. “Go grab a mask and bring it back quickly!”

He helped the two soldiers lower their captive to the grass, and they held his struggling limbs. The female returned with the mask and maneuvered around them, forcing it onto the infected man’s head and ensuring it had a tight seal. Everyone knew how the process worked at this point. They had less than an hour from the start of the infection to extract it from the body. After that, it was too late to help, and they had to execute them. Another lesson they’d learned the hard way.

Danae knelt across from Miles and got to work. Any sorcerer could pull out the dark magic, but she always volunteered if she wasn’t busy with a patient. A couple of hundred feet away, he spotted Skylar curing another one.

“Done?” he asked when Danae pulled her hands back.

She nodded. “It’s easier when we catch them this soon.”

They’d also learned that extracting the infection didn’t give the person immunity. If the fog still lingered, they had to wear a gas mask, or they’d keep breathing in the taint and turn again.

Miles looked at the other soldiers, thinking ahead. “Take him in the bunker to rest, then return to the line. They’ll be sending more enemies soon.”

They helped the recovering male to his feet. He’d be out of the fight for the night but would be fine after a day of sleep. The process of getting infected and then having it pulled back out took a toll on the body. At least it didn’t last long, though.

“I miss Alyssa,” Danae said once the others were out of earshot.

Miles pulled her close, needing to hug her despite the danger surrounding them. “I don’t know when this will end, but if there’s time, we’ll try tomorrow. Okay?”

“Sounds good.” She squeezed him tighter while avoiding hitting his mask. “I love you. Be safe.”

“Love you, too,” he said, and pulled away.

Miles wished he could have kissed her then, but itwas time to get back into the fight. He’d find her again at dawn. For now, he had to get back to his squad and fight the next wave of Kandoran coming in the distance.