“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 theyremainedseparate 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.
Six
SOREN
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.
