Chapter 6

Soren turned his velocycle in a sharp arc, then swore under his breath as he maneuvered it through torn-up earth, heading to where a trio of revenant wild beasts was harassing the trucks.

"I didn't think death-defying machines were large enough for those things," a fellow warden shouted as she came up beside him.

Soren grimaced. "They aren't."

Or they weren't. Who knew what nastiness Eimarille had come up with since the last time he'd seen one of those horrible machines in person?

Soren shoved that thought aside, needing to focus on the threat at hand. Someone had given an order to the gunners not to shoot as the wardens drove into the line of fire toward the revenants. He aimed himself at the revenant wild beast that had attacked the truck he knew Caris was in. Tossing a grenade at it would put the convoy and Caris at risk, but if the blast came from within, it would be less of a threat.

"Let's get it away from the trucks and feed it a treat," Soren yelled over the sound of velocycle engines. "I'll get in close."

The wardens near him shouted their agreement, falling into a formation that would make it easy for them to weave quickly around the revenants. It was training they'd all gone through as tithes, four of them acting as bait for the hulking corpse doing its best to hunt through metal for the living flesh within.

Mindless but spore-driven, the revenant wild beasts were more difficult to corral and put down than if they'd been human-shaped. Doing such work at night while close to the ongoing battle made it even worse. That didn't stop Soren from driving forward to cut a U-turn near the revenant wild beast, tearing his poison short sword from its sheath on his back to score the blade over the putrid rotting flesh hanging from the revenant's rib cage.

Dead as it was, it couldn't feel pain, but the attack caused its attention to turn from those in the truck to the prey Soren was pretending to be. He revved his velocycle's engine, driving away from the revenant and enticing it to follow. A fellow warden cut between them to circle around and use their axe to harry the revenant farther away from the convoy.

Soren twisted the handlebars of his velocycle, back wheel skidding out and around as he abruptly changed direction. His teeth clacked together from the abrupt motion, but his hand unerringly found a poison grenade on his bandolier and yanked it free. He waited as the other warden drove the revenant toward him, herding it away from the convoy, shadow and light playing merry havoc with his vision through the night lenses. That massive mouth opened, jaw hanging from ragged tendon and stringy flesh. He pulled the pin on the grenade and tossed it into its gaping maw. "Get clear!"

He took his own advice, driving away from the revenant wild beast. Seconds later, it exploded with a muffled, wet sound that sent torn-up pieces of the rotting body flying into the air. Soren didn't see where any of it landed, thankfully out of range of the mess. Two more explosions rent the air as wardens handled the other revenant wild beasts in the same way.

Soren drove back to the truck where Caris and Blaine sat, pulling up alongside it to gesture at the driver. "Keep moving!"

The truck lurched forward, tires spinning for a moment before gaining traction. The rest of the convoy followed as the wardens took up guard positions again, everyone on edge. Another warden took up the lead, guiding everyone forward over pitted land strewn with jagged metal and spirals of barbed wire lining trenches still in use.

Soren knew the last few weeks had seen utterly brutal fighting around Amari and that the entrenched Daijal army hadn't given up ground easily. A truck halfway down the line weaved around a cluster of slagged metal that once used to be an automaton and rolled over a hidden mine, the explosion star-bright in the night. He swore, glancing back at the fiery outline of the truck, the soldiers inside it more than likely dead. The explosion would have marked their location, and they had to get clear.

Soren drove to the head of the convoy and signaled for the warden there to halt before signaling the same to the truck behind her. The convoy rumbled to a stop, engines still running, but the soldier cut it when Soren ordered him to.

"We're still not close to the entrance," warned Halyna, one of the wardens' master cartographers.

"And we don't want the enemy to know where we're heading. We'll need to travel the rest of the way by foot through the garrison and dugout trenches," Soren said.

She didn't protest, even if a few of the soldiers did as Soren drove down the line, verbally giving out the order for the march. The wardens remained on their velocycles, the two-wheeled vehicles capable of maneuvering in the field the way a four-wheeled vehicle couldn't.

"We'll move in groups," a legionnaire captain said.

Soren looked at Halyna, unable to see her eyes through their brass goggles and the night shadowing them. "Do you have the route?"

"Yes, but it's within the ranks of our battalions, which means it's within striking distance of Daijal's army."

"We'll all be within striking distance of Daijal if we don't get inside the city." Soren pointed at the legionnaire captain. "Get everyone down into the trench."

They weren't clear of the battle, and while no bombs had dropped in their immediate area, Soren knew that could change in an instant. The legionnaires gathered everyone into smaller groups, with wardens assigning themselves as guides. Soren made his way to where Caris, Blaine, and Nathaniel crouched near a truck with several soldiers. He went to a knee beside her and signaled for Halyna to join them.

"What direction do we need to take now?" Soren asked.

"A little more northeast. Scouts reported earlier the area we need to head to is clear of mines," Halyna said.

"Brilliant. So we only need to worry about bullets and bombs," Blaine muttered.

"The armies are making themselves a target so we don't become one. The least we can do for them is move quickly," Soren said.

"How long will it take?" Caris asked.

"As long as it needs to."

In the dark, her mouth firmed into a hard line. "Then let's get moving."

Soren offered her his hand, the first time he could ever recall reaching out to her, and she took it without hesitation. Caris rose up and followed him with a determination that spoke of the kind of queen she'd be if they could only get her on the starfire throne.

Fighting at night was terrible for everyone. The area between the frontlines and where command sat had felt like a pockmarked grave when passing through it. Now, as they entered the edges of an active battlefield, Soren couldn't help but think the poison fields and revenants were easier to deal with than the sheer chaos occurring around Amari.

The Ashion army captain traveling with them communicated via televox with the rear forces they approached. Their arrival had been expected, and a squad of soldiers were aboveground at the entrance to the rear garrison trench, keeping watch and ready to cover them. Group by group, they climbed down the ladder into the trench, the soldiers below barely acknowledging them.

Soren's boots hit mud, but it didn't impede him much from following Halyna. She led them with unerring steps through the trench, moving around barricaded anti-airship guns and other heavy artillery fire bay positions. Spiderlike automatons scuttled along the edges of the trench, the Zip guns welded to their boxy forms firing intermittently at targets they couldn't see.

Something whistled through the air, and he reached behind him for Caris' arm, throwing them flat to the muddy ground. "Get down!"

Blaine threw himself over Caris seconds before the bomb hit somewhere behind them and exploded. Soren didn't see the explosion, but he heard it, his ears ringing from the terrible sound. The ground rumbled with the hit, but nothing tore through the air near them. The screams coming from well behind them told him where it had most likely landed.

Soren shoved himself out of the muck, wiped mud off his face, and thumped Blaine on the shoulder. "Keep moving."

Between the two of them, they got Caris back on her feet, with everyone in their group marching after Halyna once again. He didn't know if the bomb had taken out any of the soldiers that had come with them, but it wasn't something Soren could stop and deal with at the moment. They maneuvered around soldiers on duty, some wounded, some not, some clearly dead but not yet dealt with.

Eventually, they reached the end of the garrison trench, the earth sloping up to the ground above, where an automaton stood guard amidst the pieces of others that had been destroyed by enemy fire. Halyna clambered up the ladder only far enough to get eyes on the ground and orient their position.

"How is it looking?" Soren called up.

"The front-line trenches are taking a beating, but the garrison trenches are holding. We're in the dugout line and far enough back we shouldn't be targeted by snipers on the city wall. They have airships to contend with at the moment," Halyna said.

"And the catacomb entrance?"

Halyna ducked back down and pulled out a map from her belt pouch. Soren waited patiently while she studied the trench lines carefully inked into the grid drawn around Amari. "Quarter of a mile away, according to the map. I'll check our route."

She hauled herself back up, pulling a spyglass from the other side of her belt and extending it to full length. The metal was painted black, with no gloss, and hopefully, no one would catch sight of the tiny glass lens she peered through. Soren waited tensely at the bottom of the ladder and didn't move until Halyna pulled the spyglass away from her face. "I see the landmark. Let's go."

Soren's heart rate didn't ease at all during the time they left the dugout trench for open ground beneath a night sky full of stars and distant aerial explosions. They ran, crouched low to the ground, other groups following after them. He kept Caris between himself and Blaine, with Blaine insisting on taking the position that would get him shot first if snipers looked their way. The prairie was flat enough they'd stand out, but he hoped the ongoing fighting would continue to be enough of a distraction.

Eventually, they made it to an outcropping of rock half-embedded in the ground. The stone looked as if it had been cut from a quarry and abandoned. Soren wondered how many times it had been passed over by wardens or other travelers. It was near Amari, yes, but nowhere close to a trade road, and travelers rarely left the safety of the roads.

They huddled behind the rock, the stone blocking Amari from view. Blaine kneeled and used his hands to brush aside dirt, fingers digging for something. When he found it, he let out a pleased grunt before pulling a key from a pocket, the chain it was attached to glinting in Soren's night lenses. He watched as Blaine pried open a tiny metal flap and inserted the key into a depressed hole that was the lock. He turned it, and Soren had to strain his hearing to catch the sound of grinding gears as mechanisms moved below the earth.

"Ready?" Blaine asked.

Halyna had her wand out while Soren held his pistol steady. The rest of the Royal Guards kept their own pistols out and ready to fire. Blaine twisted the key one more degree, and a handle rose from the metal plating, locking into place. Blaine gripped it and braced himself, pulling open the hatch that was only wide enough for one person at a time to pass through. It lay flat against the ground, revealing a dark hole hidden behind the rocks.

Nothing exploded; no one jumped out to attack. All Soren saw was an inky blackness that was their only way inside the capital city. He holstered his pistol and took the handheld gas light that Caris gave him. He stepped closer to the catacomb entrance, clicking the device on to shine a light down into that black hole. The light was too weak to reach far, but Soren saw a ladder and what he thought might be the ground below. He switched it off and handed the device back to Caris. "I'll go first."

No one protested, all of them aware that if revenants waited for them out of sight, Soren had the best chance at surviving their attack. Steeling himself, he twisted around and angled his body over the ladder. It creaked from his weight but held fast, and he climbed down into the eerie, quiet dark of the catacombs.

His feet eventually hit the floor, and he cast a bit of starfire to light the immediate area. The space was empty, dust drifting thickly through the air. Tilting his head back, he called out an all clear. One by one, the others climbed their way down to join him, the space nearly suffocating with so many bodies pressed between the narrow walls.

"Which way?" Caris asked, her voice hushed.

"Whatever way we take, you and I will need to keep everyone safe," Soren said, flicking sparks of starfire away from his fingers in a pointed gesture.

Caris nodded determinedly. "You lead. I'll follow."

Soren could only do as she asked.