After I take a sharp intake of breath, life flows through me. My eyes pop open suddenly. All I see is flushed with crimson for a moment, but it fades as my eyes remember how to focus. The formlessness resolves into a grisly image: that of the Cenecan that choked me, now dead. His eyes are fixed upon a point behind me, and his mouth lies agape with one of the wooden replica rifles stuck clean through his soft palate. Flies have already found his face.
Startled, I back away, and the chain around my ankle pulls taut, preventing me from moving much at all. Around me are the remnants of a death storm. Red-coated bodies litter the battlefield, and there’s a patch of grass that has been lit aflame. The black smoke that rises from it fuses with the gray mists and envelops me and the corpses around me. All is bleak and dead, until I register some movement to my left. It’s Caleb; thank Brother Autumn he survived as well.
“I watched you die,” Caleb says, staring at me in disbelief. I return his expression with one of my own before shaking my head.
“No, not dead. It was dark. And hot. I think I was dreaming.” I point to the Cenecan with the wooden replica rifle through his face. “Your work?” He doesn’t nod but moves his head slightly upward in a way to acknowledge that it was. That’s two times Caleb has saved my life. I owe this man everything, and I’ve known him less than a day. We’re laid up in a small crater deep enough to fully submerge a pair of boots. Water and blood pool here.
The thunderbolts of cannon fire are relentless, but so, too, are the Cenecans. Another wave is birthed from the fog of war, and once again, with their bayonets raised, they charge straight toward us. There are hundreds of them, and it seems at first that Caleb and I are all alone on this battlefield when the supporting gunfire of the Kalykans ceases, but the silence is only momentary.
The stillness is shattered by snorts and grunts and stampeding hooves. Kalykan cavalrymen in cobalt uniforms and iron breastplates atop impressive destriers charge toward the Cenecans with their sabers drawn. Each dons the scrap-metal masks that I spied earlier in the day.
As Caleb and I try to flee out of the way, we find ourselves caught by the very chains that bind us.
“The dead,” I say, pointing at conscripts that lie on the chain line. “They’re weighing us down.”
Caleb says something in response, but I cannot hear. It’s as though my body knows of the incoming onslaught and moves in anticipation.
“Caleb, get down!” I shout, diving to tackle him. Luckily, the chains aren’t pulled so tight that I’m unable to reach him. As I push him out of the way, I fall to the ground, and all I can do is shut my eyes and listen as the cavalry charge tramples over and past us. Only when I hear the cries of death from the crimson-coated Cenecans do I dare open them again.
When I fell to the ground, I fell on the chest of a dead conscript in our group, one of the men who had been chosen with me in the pen. His face is caved in with the perfect imprint of a hoof.
“We need to get out of here,” I shout over the din of battle. Caleb nods in agreement, and the two of us begin the arduous process of dragging the bodies of the fallen to escape the shallow bomb crater. The cavalry charge provided a certain lull in the battle near our tiny pond of blood and muck. I take a moment to catch my breath.
To our right, the Kalykan cavalry loops back around for another charge. The two of us duck again, and as the horses gallop past, moving so fast that the air they create momentarily dissipates the smoke, giving me a clearer indication of the scale of this battle.
For Seasons’ sake. This is madness.
Clumps of bodies, Cenecan, Kalykan, and conscript alike, dot the battlefield covered in mud and blood. Columns of Kalykan infantry trudge forward, emboldened by the success of their calvary. There are thousands of them, at least.
But it’s not the sheer amount of manpower on the battlefield that gives me pause; it’s the sight of a singular conscript group that seems to be beating back a squadron of Cenecans by themselves. Where most conscripts stand in line, accepting their fates and praying to their gods for salvation, this group fights like a military unit, and I find myself watching with rapt attention, despite the insanity around me.
There’s a beauty in the contrast of the largest man and the skinniest man I’ve ever seen fighting back-to-back, fending off the red-clad Cenecans. Together they lure a group of enemy soldiers to their position, only to throw their chains at the soldiers’ legs. These wrap around their enemies like metal vines, tripping them and pulling them into the muck. Once down, the conscripts pounce and stab the soldiers with their wooden replicas. For good measure, the giant man turns the replica rifle in his hands and rains down blows that splatter a Cenecan’s skull. The efficiency in which they perform this routine speaks to a degree of skill and organization I wouldn’t have thought possible among the conscripts.
Is this how conscript groups are meant to function?
I wonder how many of their group have fallen, but before I have a chance to fully inspect them, Caleb shouts, “Look, the Cenecans retreat!”
And so they do. I’m able to see thousands of my countrymen fleeing as the Kalykans give chase across the battlefield before the window that the cavalry charge created in the smoke closes shut. I fall to the ground, exhausted by the sheer physicality of battle, and look up to Caleb, who has stood back up.
“I owe you again, Caleb. If you hadn’t run him through with your rifle, I’d be dead.” I point to the Cenecan who tried to choke me to death.
He shakes his head and almost looks afraid of me.
“You were stone dead, Nolan.”
“No, I just passed out. I told you I was dreaming. You don’t dream if you’re dead.”
I look up to Caleb and extend a hand, insisting that he accept my gratitude, and when he sees that I won’t withdraw it, he shakes it. He’s about to say something to me, and then he glances behind us with a sneer. I follow his gaze and take in the sheer number of conscripts in Group Eleven that have perished here.
Most lie dead, their bodies frozen in unnatural positions. “So much death,” I muse. Caleb simply grunts. I worry that I should look like I’m mourning them, but instead I feel joy at being alive. It’s perverse, and guilt washes over me.
“Come on, lad, we need to get the other survivi—” He’s cut off midsentence as Guard Lieutenant Hoods appears with his retinue in tow.
“You there, where is your group’s capa?” Both of us shake our heads, and he seems dissatisfied. He points at both of us simultaneously, with his pointer and middle fingers, and says, “Unlock them.” One of the men in his retinue approaches our ankles with a key. Hoods’s gaze features on me. “Find your capa. Alive or dead, I don’t care. Just find him.”
Caleb and I search in silence for the better part of ten minutes before he voices his frustration. “Forget Peter, let’s just help the others with the bodies.” We walk over to where the few remaining members of Group Eleven sort through the bodies of the fallen.
When I reach the tangled mass of Cenecan and conscript corpses, I’m taken aback by what I see. Greg, the conscript who got into it with Peter before we marched into battle, lies splayed on top of a pair of Cenecans. Did he kill them with his bare hands? I don’t see his weapon anywhere.
Greg’s body twitches. Still alive, then? I rush to him.
I try to pull the man up, but the weight proves to be a substantial burden.
“Help me with him, Caleb,” I say.
We pull Greg up and confirm that he is as dead as a doornail.
But cowering underneath Greg’s corpse is our very much alive capa, Peter. The wretch shakes like a newborn lamb beneath the bodies of two dead Cenecans. To his credit, upon seeing us, he hops to his feet and acts like nothing is wrong, like we didn’t just find him waiting out the battle underneath some corpses.
“Good, the two of you survived.” He looks toward me. “Now you’ll have your pick of the boots, but you’ll have to help with the bodies first.” He gestures toward the dead conscripts we still haven’t had a chance to sort. “I’m sure you can find yourself a nice pair.”
He stalks off, assuming his role of capa and walking with the confidence of someone who has figured out how to beat the system. I turn to Caleb, and the two of us share a look before I say, “We’ve got to get out of this group.”