Chapter 5

Three weeks after Lore's and Nathaniel's return, Blaine was wishing for solid decking underfoot while trudging through a garrison trench in ankle-deep mud. A passing autumn storm that did nothing but turn the plains between Amari and Fontaine into a swamp had created what felt like small bogs in the trenches. The muck was terrible for his mechanical prosthetic, and he kept it covered as best he could with sleeve and glove, but he swore he could feel grit in the gears.

The rain had driven the haze from the sky, though Blaine hadn't removed his gas mask since they landed less than an hour ago. The front lines of the fight were miles and miles from the allied command's location, buried where it was in a bunker accessible only via trench and fiercely guarded by soldiers, automatons, wardens, and magicians.

Blaine's fur-lined leather flight jacket was a little too warm for the ground, but it was durable, so he kept it on. He spared a glance over his shoulder at where Caris walked behind him, with Nathaniel and Royal Guards in plain military uniforms taking up the rear of their line. All of them wore gas masks and hard helmets like him, the lot of them just as filthy from the knees on down. Their escort—a grim-faced sergeant who'd hurried them off their airship transport upon landing—never slowed his pace.

A shadow swept over the trench, and Blaine looked up through his brass goggles, squinting through weak sunlight at the pair of airships passing overhead, escorted by aeroplanes. The bit of sky he could see was limited, but he could see they were of E'ridian make, and they flew at the height favored for a precision bombing run.

The E'ridian air force had enacted a limited bombing run of the enemy trenches dug in around Amari during the storm yesterday. Aeroplane squadrons were running long patrols and radioing back updates on troop movements as they worked to keep the sky over their location clear. Keeping command hidden was done out of necessity, but the risk of being overrun was always there, whether by the Daijal army or the revenants that made it through their defenses to claw against the field fencing.

Blaine hadn't agreed to let Caris leave Fontaine until they were ready to make a run for the catacomb entrance. Unfortunately, all of the ones that led to accessible tunnels mapped out by the Clockwork Brigade years ago were behind enemy lines. It had taken fierce fighting over the last week to get control of even one entrance. Traveling to its location would have to be done at night to keep everyone safe, but there was still a chance of failure.

No one liked the odds, but Caris was determined to go. Despite the danger of it all, Blaine knew she had to get inside Amari. Better to try underground than via airship since half the anti-airship guns were still active around the city. Bombing runs had managed to take out the rest, but they'd lost airships in the effort. Presently, Blaine was focusing on the things within his control to ensure Caris survived. That meant coordinating with command now that they were on the battlefield and preparing to go beyond the field fencing and into the trenches.

The sergeant finally brought them to a cement frame wrapped around a metal door. Two soldiers guarded it, both coming to attention when they spied the embroidered badge over Caris' left breast that depicted the Rourke bloodline's crest. It was a subtle notation of rank, the only thing Blaine would allow her to wear to distinguish who she was on the battlefield. She wore a veil beneath her gas mask as an extra precaution. He still fretted that it wasn't enough to stop a rionetka or sniper from finding her.

The sergeant pushed open the door, entering the bunker. Blaine and the others followed him into a narrow corridor lit by intermittent gas lamp lights. A tingle washed through him as he passed through the cement frame, magic curling against his skin. He glanced to the side, seeing the spell etched into the gray cement. He didn't know the underlying spell but assumed it was for security.

The muddied cement floor they walked on sloped downward to the command bunker, hidden as deep underground as excavators were capable of digging. Everything above and outside it was muffled, the quiet almost strange. Blaine pressed his thumb against the sigil ring he wore, the one his father had given him so long ago in the city he was returning to once more. As much as Blaine wanted to be on the airship where Honovi was, he had his duty as a Westergard to stay by Caris' side.

The room they were led to was fairly large, but the ceiling was low. Telegraph machines clattered and hummed away in one corner, their wires fed through a small hole in the cement to run through the dirt all the way to the communications tower located above some distance away from their underground position. The command table, filled with all manner of maps and reports of the battlefield, had the commanding officers of three nations huddled around it, but Blaine's gaze settled unerringly on the warden.

Blaine rocked to a halt, speaking the name he knew the other man preferred over all others. "Soren?"

"I hear you're going past enemy lines," Soren said in greeting in the trade tongue.

"Soren!" Caris moved past Blaine, hurrying over to where her brother stood. She didn't hug him when she reached him, though Blaine knew she wanted to. She was tactile like that with people she was familiar with. She did reach out and lay her hand on his arm in greeting. "I'm so glad to see you safe."

Soren cracked a smile but didn't pull away. "How is Lady Lore?"

"She's helping sort intelligence in Fontaine, a town south of here. She's doing better, though, and can walk again for very short distances."

"I'm glad to hear it. You can remove your gas mask if you like. The air in here is clean." Gray eyes the same shade as Caris' flicked to Blaine. "I came north after helping get some of the revenant horde under control with Vanya."

"Is that something we need to worry about?" Blaine asked as he reached up to unclip his gas mask, breathing in warm, stale air through his nose rather than a filter.

"Perhaps not until winter, if you're lucky. You've enough of the walking dead to deal with amidst the trenches."

"The prince arrived a couple of hours ago on an airship that kept pace with a steam train. He came with several Legion companies for reinforcements. Imperial General Chu Hua has assigned those legionnaires to the front, many of whom are already aiding the push to distract the Daijalans from our true target," General Votil said.

"I'll be going with you into Amari," Soren said, looking at Caris. "You've a mad plan, and you'll need a warden to get you to your destination."

Blaine bit back a wince, heart rate picking up at the thought of both Rourkes out in the battlefield and risking death on a desperate chance. It made him want to pray, but he didn't know to whom—the star god of his birth country or the one who guided the country that had taken him in. He doubted he'd be granted compassion from either.

"When do we leave?" he asked.

"Tonight," General Votil said. "Your escort is being briefed in another bunker, and you're to join them shortly."

Blaine glanced at Nathaniel, who appeared pale-faced but determined. Across the bunker, Caris stared back at him, her hand still on Soren's arm, the pair of them the entire reason three countries had come together as allies to ensure they remained separate countries. "Then I suppose we should hear what the plan is."

The plan in question—strategy they couldn't wholly rely on once they fled the safety of the rear trenches for the bloody front—found them hours later hunkered down near a cross-section trench that would lead them toward the bitter, bloody front.

The core group consisted of Blaine, the Rourke siblings, and Nathaniel, along with wardens, magicians, and fighters from two countries. The lot of them would join up with yet more soldiers and legionnaires on the battlefield north of them, some of whom would follow them into the catacombs. Once inside Amari, Blaine's group would head for the civic center of Amari while the others went to sabotage the Daijalans posted at the city's outer wall.

All of their plans to retake the city hinged on the catacomb tunnels being accessible, intact, and not overrun with traps. It was a lot to ask for, but every last person going with them had volunteered.

Blaine watched Soren confer with another warden at the front. Despite the sun having gone down and the stars coming out, Blaine could see him fairly well with the help of night lenses fitted over his brass goggles. Everyone had been issued a set, the spelled devices capable of allowing their wearer to see with a limited degree in the dark.

Half the wardens with them carried long-range weaponry in the form of shoulder-mounted grenade launchers capable of firing off their specialized poison grenades. The toxic explosives could incapacitate revenants, but the poisons were also deadly to the living. Two birds, one bomb, as Ksenia had happily explained last year when the wardens began producing their poison weapons again once the underground laboratories on the Warden's Island were fully manned and running after the attack.

The wardens knew what to look for in the dark when it came to revenants. They'd be leading the infiltration group forward behind the battalions that had broken up the front line and claimed the area where the catacomb entrance was. Airships on both sides were initiating bombing runs, the night flights coming with their own risks, while those on the ground had to hope they wouldn't get caught in an explosion from a dropped bomb.

Blaine followed Soren and the other warden through the cross-section, boots pulling free of the mud with a wet squelch. Soren, he knew, could fend for himself. From here on out, Blaine would put himself between Caris and every threat that would keep her from the starfire throne. The weight of his marriage torc around his throat was a reminder of who he had to return home to.

They trekked through the dark, at the bottom of muddy trenches, passing through cross-sections that connected the garrison trenches with the communication trenches in the vast land outside Amari. Their route would keep them out of the front trenches but not the battle. The catacomb entrance was in open land, no trenches close to it, and the allied forces hadn't had the time to dig new ones to claim it. The only route to it was over open land.

Eventually, they reached the end of a trench, the ladder leading out manned by a soldier and a magician. Amidst the sound of distant explosions, their group climbed out of the trench. Several vehicles waited above with their engines running hot, the heavy-duty trucks and velocycles military issued rather than scavenged. They were built with thicker metal panels and sturdier tires for back roads, most coming with attached Zip guns.

Soren climbed onto a velocycle, eschewing the protection of a truck cab. Blaine waited until Caris made it up out of the trench to join her in a truck near the middle of the convoy, and everyone else hurriedly claimed their spots.

Caris reached for Blaine's hand once they were buckled in; he couldn't feel her touch or grip, seeing as how she'd grabbed his left one. He carefully closed his gloved metal fingers around hers, trying to offer what comfort he could.

"Stay with me, no matter what," Blaine said quietly.

Caris' smile was a flash of teeth, there and gone again, through the oddly lit night around them. "I will."

It was a risk to travel in the vehicles, even with magicians to hide their passage, but the risk was greater without them. The convoy drove away from the main section of the trenches. Explosions and gunfire echoed in the air and cut through the dark sky in distant, radiant bursts. No one spoke in the truck, and Blaine stayed hunkered down in the back with Caris.

Sometime later, the radio crackled to life in the truck, and Soren's voice came out in stilted Ashionen before repeating the warning in accentless Solarian. "Revenants sighted."

Other voices radioed in—wardens acknowledging the warning and rattling off their movements. Velocycles sped past their truck a few seconds later, heading toward the threat Blaine still couldn't see. Both sides of the conflict were fighting against each other but also against the walking dead, and that made for poor positioning all around.

"Starfire could clear the way," Caris muttered.

"You know you can't use it yet," Blaine said.

They'd agreed that Caris and Soren would refrain from casting starfire in the field unless it was an absolute last resort needed to survive. The moment starfire was seen, it would paint a target on their backs, and it wouldn't be long before the Daijalan army shifted course to try to take them out. The restriction removed one of their best weapons from the battlefield, but not using it would hopefully get them closer to their goal in the interim.

But first, they had to survive.

The soldier manning the Zip gun in the truck ahead of them abruptly swung the gun around to the right and started shooting. The soldier positioned in the passenger seat of their own truck followed suit, the sound loud enough to make Blaine's teeth rattle in his skull.

Something heavy slammed against the side of their truck, nearly tipping them over, and the soldier stopped shooting. Glass shattered, and Blaine covered his face with his arm to protect it. The driver jerked the steering wheel to the left to try to escape the massive revenant wild beast that had reached the convoy, undeterred by the countless bullets that had cut into its dead body. Seen through the night lenses, the decaying wild beast looked like a ragged nightmare as its huge horned head swung back around toward the truck, intent on ramming them again.

Caris shrieked, driven up against the door as the truck's engine revved loudly. Blaine found his pistol with his right hand, snapped the safety off, and aimed at the dead through the shattered window, finger tight on the trigger.