at us and spears started to rain into the clearing between the fires. I checked and found Gunner standing over Lynette and Virgil.
I only looked away for a moment but it was long enough for a Naga to sneak in and stab me in the back. The cut wasn’t deep thanks to the armor, but it was enough to get my attention. I turned with a bellow and fired, but the Naga had already disappeared into the writhing mass. Our gunfire started back up as we attempted to cover all four gaps in the fire line, but it faltered and then fell silent as we ran out of ammunition. The others switched out magazines but I had to drop my shotgun and ready my axe instead. The wound in my back ached and burned with each movement, and I could feel blood trickling down my ribs on that side. Another spear got through my guard and gouged my upper leg. For the first time I felt scared that I might not survive.
“Baran. Do it.” Ethan’s voice remained calm, cutting through the gunfire and cries without apparent effort.
I kept swinging, hitting nothing. The Nagas were moving so quickly in the cold night that it was impossible to tell where they were going to be from moment to moment. I couldn’t tell what was happening behind me, couldn’t take my eyes off the Nagas as they moved closer. They were toying with me, grinning at me with their lipless mouths and dripping fangs. Behind me I heard a sound that made me think that someone had switched on the world’s largest vacuum cleaner.
The light from the fires flared, brighter than anything I’d seen since the sunset. The Nagas reared back, hissing, and I got a chance to see what was going on. I looked back and saw Baran facing away from me, a bloom of flame ten feet high and twenty feet wide pouring from his face. It roared over the Nagas on that side, the snakes screaming as frost bloomed on their skins.
I gaped as the fire played out. It left the Nagas frozen solid, only a few body parts twitching on the edges before going as still as the main body. Baran leaned down to the nearest fire and made the vacuum noise again as he inhaled. The fire whipped down his throat until the flames were gone. He turned in my direction.
“Newbie get away,” yelled Raine.
I dodged to the side as best I could as the fire rolled out of Raine’s mouth. He opened wider than he should have been able to, wide enough to swallow my foot without chewing, and again I heard the roar of the flames. I got a little scorched but I was okay with that as the flames froze the Nagas. Birgitte and Baran held the others off as Raine froze the main body of the attackers.
I took the opportunity to reload the shotgun as I scrambled to join Birgitte’s side of the fight. She was dangerous as hell and faster than me, but with her lighter weapons she was barely holding her own. She struggled with holding three of them back at once, but there were another dozen trying to sneak by her as she did so. I was able to at least plug that hole, standing in the gap between her and the fire. Whatever she felt about me, for whatever stupid reason, I realized that she was one of the factors keeping me alive in this place. She apparently felt the same way, because she concentrated on the Nagas instead of stabbing me.
Baran did his trick again, freezing the Nagas by Raine, and between the five of us we were able to fight off the others. Baran moved slowly, as if he was sick, but since he wasn’t a front-line fighter he didn’t cause any problems by slowing any of us down. His shooting was just as sharp as before and soon we were surrounded only by dead or frozen Nagas.
Baran sat down with his forearms on his knees, his head bowed as if he was asleep. The bonfires he’d inhaled were just embers now, with no flames visible. The other Breakers gathered around him to check on him, pointedly excluding me from the group. I decided not to say anything. I checked on Virgil and Lynette. They were okay, if wide-eyed. I could relate. I took the time to haul some more wood and restart the depleted bonfires. By the time they were burning again the Breakers had resumed their previous places. There didn’t seem to be any more Nagas coming in so I edged around to Raine’s side of the clearing.
“So,” I said.
He nodded, staring off into the darkness. A few frozen snakes littered the ground, broken into pieces.
“What, ah… the fuck, you know?” I went on. I trembled from the aftermath of the adrenaline and winced a little as I became aware of my wound. Before Raine could say anything I opened my armor and dropped it. “Could you take a look at that, man?”
Raine nodded and came around behind, prodding at the wound with his thick fingers. He took out a small first aid kit and rummaged through it while. While he was doing that, I said, “So what the fuck was that all about, again?”
“Ain’t my place to talk about it,” said Raine. His tone was strange. I was used to him being garrulous, talking all the time, but now he seemed unable to answer a simple question.
“You’re the only one who’s going to. Seriously, what was going on there?”
He sighed as he put a bandage on my wound. When he was done with that I had him take a look at the one on my thigh. I was good at some things, but first aid wasn’t one of them. “Fine, look,” he said. “He’s just more than he seems, you know?”
“Another half-blood?” I said. He stopped, then went back to what he was doing.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, don’t give me that argh.” Raine pulled the bandage tight around the gouge. I rubbed at it a moment and then said, “Don’t give me that shit. I can tell Gunner’s not totally Human just looking at him. I figure part troll. Birgitte… I don’t know what she is. Is she another one?”
He put his kit away and looked at me. Even on his knees, he was the same height as me. “You got a problem with that, Ward? Way out here in the middle of fucking nowhere, you, you are going to start some shit about someone’s bloodline? Half-Dwarf?” I was surprised to hear the venom in that last word.
“No, I’m not gonna start anything. I wanted to know who’s on my side, that’s all. Might come in handy.”
“It’s not your concern, man. Just know that he doesn’t have any problem breathing fire. And remember that he just saved all our asses.” He got to his feet and resumed his station.
I squinted up at him. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Three out of five Breakers are half-blooded and you aren’t? What’re the odds, right?”
He looked at me, and the force of his stare set me back half a step. It reminded me of the way that Ethan had looked at Lynette and Virgil when we’d first met them: empty of all Human feeling. It was the stare of someone who would kill without considering it, because he didn’t think that he was looking at another living being. “Ward,” he said quietly. “Fucking drop it. Stick with the mission and you’ll be fine. Promise.”
I went back to my station and stood staring into the darkness. I thought about waking up Birgitte or Gunner to take over, since it was time, but I didn’t want to approach either of them right now. I stood there and waited for the shaking to die down.
Eventually Gunner and Birgitte took over, neither of them saying a word to me. I was okay with that. I went to sleep watching Baran and wondering what Raine’s secrets were. For that matter, I wondered about Ethan’s.
The next morning we pushed past the piles of frozen Nagas. They were wound together too tightly to pull them apart now that they were frozen, and it would have been too dangerous anyway thanks to the way the pile bristled with spears, fangs, and knives. We left it to their relatives and moved on toward the stronghold.
The day was cold but clear, and we made good time. Now that we were closer to the stronghold, Lynette gradually abandoned the back-paths and winding roads until we were walking almost a straight route. We had to pick our way around collapsed buildings from time to time but those were the only detours.
We saw the stronghold well before we got to it. Originally a whole block of offices, the buildings had been connected and walled up until there was only one obvious entrance. Girders of steel and wood stuck out of the walls, sharp and intimidating. A small accretion of makeshift buildi
ngs huddled around the bottoms of the walls. The gates were at least a story high, stretching much higher in spots. Sally ports were visible in the bottom of the main gates, though everything was closed. The whole place looked still and silent, which is what we expected: one of the best ways for a stronghold to remain unmolested by the surrounding creatures was to attract as little attention as possible. I suspected that it showed a little more animation at night, if only to remind predators that it was a concentration of Humanity and a tough nut to crack.
For all that it appeared halfway deserted, when we got within a block of the stronghold the main doors opened and a group of a dozen guards came out. They were on foot except for one barely-armored man on a motorcycle. I assumed he was a messenger. They double-timed to us, their footsteps in synch. They were armed with a variety of weapons and everything gleamed in the sunlight. We could probably take them, particularly since we had armor and what they had seemed makeshift, but I didn’t think that it would be an easy job.
We stood and waited, Ethan and Gunner standing together in front. Gunner was slightly in front of Ethan, ready to become a wall if the situation called for it. When the soldiers arrived they stopped about twenty feet away. The man with the most trim on his uniform stepped forward and raised one hand.