sailed into camp, landing in the fire. It sent a tiny burst of ashes into the air, causing a few of the men to curse the “squirrels” they heard moments before.
I knew better. Dekar and Ira were ready.
Hamath and I drew daggers as we burst from our cover. Our signal for the rest of our unit to attack was the sounds of us engaging. We pounced on the crossbowmen.
Our targets swung toward each of us, letting out hollers. Panting, my man hurriedly loosed his bolt. Thankfully, the bolt went wide. Some things boil down to luck, which, at least then, I had. At that distance, there was no such thing as dodging a crossbow bolt.
I heard the rest of my unit reach the campfire as steel sang and men screamed. I ignored them to focus on the task at hand.
I was hoping my target would make another mistake by trying to pull the sword at his waist. He didn’t. There was no time in the short distance between us and he knew it.
Instead, he changed the grip on his crossbow and swung it. I ducked under the attack and thrust up with my dagger. He turned enough so the blade caught only his arm.
He screamed as the crossbow came back around. I grabbed the weapon by the shaft, and stabbed. The blade entered his gut. A wet moan passed through his lips. His grip faltered on the crossbow. It hit the ground a second before he did.
I finished him off with another thrust through the chest and then looked to Hamath. He stood over the limp form of his man. We gave each other a quick nod before turning toward the fire. Every one of the Geneshans lay dead.
Over in a matter of seconds, the attack went about as well as one could hope. We hadn’t lost anyone, which is always a relief.
Ira called out, anticipating my question. “No injuries, Ty.”
“I hope it stays that way,” Hamath said, walking over.
“Me too.”
I don’t think either of us really believed it would.
* * *
“Molak, that hurts,” I hissed in the early morning light.
We hid among several empty supply wagons while tending wounds. We had managed to knock out three other targets before arriving at our current location, a small officers’ posting.
“Keep your voice down,” hushed Ava.
“And quit cursing the Father, Sarge,” said Gal, absently rubbing the spot on his chest where his pendants once hung.
No one ever had a problem cursing Xank. As the god of death, people felt he deserved it. However, religious or not, if you cursed the Father people got pretty uncomfortable. That put me at odds with most everyone since if I cursed any of the gods by name, it almost always ended up being Molak. The way I figured it is if Molak did exist, the old man was more responsible for all the pain and death since he created Xank.
I opted against another religious debate and clenched my jaw as Ava worked on my arm, cauterizing the wound. She wasn’t much of a healer, but she could at least stop bleeding, and in a bind, buy time until someone more specialized in that form of sorcery saw to the injury.
However, given my resistance to sorcery, she had to be creative in how she treated me. Her creativity involved heating up a dagger and placing it over the wound. A small grunt passed through my lips as the skin on my arm seared beneath the blade’s touch. I tried not to gag on the smell of burnt hair and flesh.
“Done,” she announced.
I eyed the rest of the unit. Each of us nursed our own injuries. The information we received from General Balak became less accurate with each target. There had been no mention of one of the enemy’s elite soldiers, a D’engiti, guarding the officers.
D’engiti usually stood about seven feet in height, some taller. All muscle and a lot of it. From what we know, the enemy’s Master Sorcerers, or High Mages as we called them in Turine, helped create the blasted things through magic and experimentation on their own men.
Thankfully, there weren’t a lot of D’engiti as the process was both time consuming and a drain on resources.
I was thankful our side hadn’t created such things. Something seemed inherently wrong about the whole process. I doubted our higher ups shared my view though. More than likely, they tried their hands at creating something similar, but failed.
Regardless, we weren’t expecting to face one of the monstrosities.