* * *
Alba’s company was preparing to disable the cannons now that the ammunition was exhausted. They were expecting an enemy counterattack at any moment, hoping the pickets would discover it soon enough for them to make escape with their fallen comrades. The lieutenant worked at keeping her mind busy by focusing attention on different tasks at hand. It was the best thing to do anyway, not just for her, but the others as well. She thought of the Officers Hand Book, ‘An alert officer is a prepared officer.’
Surveying the field of honor they now possessed, Alba saw the fires were mostly out including the crater where the magazine had been. The enemy dead were pretty much where they fell. Alba’s people were wrapped in corded blankets awaiting removal, if possible. Six dead, nine wounded - some seriously enough to be fatal without proper medical attention, and soon. Over a third of her people were casualties. Would anyone care about the sacrifices made here? Would anyone remember the valor of her troops?
Truth be said, winning the redoubt was not even officially recorded in the Annals of Engagements for the Battle of PurooGlossa. Little historical information can even be found regarding the battle, it being one of the smaller and less significant of the many that were fought across the PrasiaOdous Mountains in those early weeks of the war. Alba remembers, and those with her remember. For many, it was their baptism into fire, thus the most terrifying and, strangely, the most fondly remembered.
Alba looked into the early morning sky. The rain was over. A cold north breeze was scattering the clouds, hurrying them away to the south. The stationary warm front that had brought the rain was breaking up, bringing hope of drier weather. Even with that, it would still take days for mechanized ground forces to fully mobilize. The infantry and mounted cavalry were currently the only combat units able to affect the battle.
An excited picket came charging into the camp, splashing muddy water on those he passed. “Lieutenant! Lieutenant! We’ve got company!”
Alba tried to cover her growing panic. She hadn’t expected the enemy to attack from behind, a truly foolish notion and a lesson the woman would never forget. What few pickets were available had been sent forward to watch the perimeters to the north and east, where the main enemy body was located. Only two were assigned other sentry duty.
“How many of ‘em are there?” she asked, preparing to muster the remaining troops for one last stand.
“They’re ours, Lieutenant! Ours!” The sentry stopped, breathless. “Must be hundreds! I’d say hundreds!”
Just then, Alba spied another sentry escorting several soldiers leading what appeared to be mule-like riding animals. The party came to a halt in front of the lieutenant.
A jaunty little man wearing a broad-brimmed felt hat sporting a feather fastened on the side stepped up. Extending a hand, smiling, he offered a greeting. “Colonel Skorpizo, Fourth Mounted Grenadiers. It’s my pleasure to meet your acquaintance, Commander.” He grinned while grasping Alba’s hand. “That was some piece of work! Some piece of work! Snuck right in under our noses and took the prize. And in right good fashion, too! Good work, Commander. Good work!”
Alba was dumbstruck. She blurted out, “You were to take this?! I didn’t know. Honest! We saw that something needed being done.” She motioned toward the mountain. “Needed to help ‘em, if we could. Sorry.”
Skorpizo laughed. “Don’t be sorry, Commander. There’re plenty of prizes to go around. What we need are more officers like you, people willing to take matters into their own hands and not wait for bosses at the top. You freed us up to press the enemy. The whole regiment’s on the move because of you.”
“Than…thank you.” Alba stuttered.
Colonel Skorpizo glanced around at the destruction, noticing the dead corded up in blankets. “My regrets, Commander…I mean for ignoring your sacrifices made to take this place. Do you have many wounded?”
A tear grew in Alba’s eye as she sadly nodded. “Too many for us to care for, and some critical, needing real medical help.”
Skorpizo spoke in a hushed tone to an aide standing close by. The woman nodded and mounted her animal, quickly retreating from the camp. The colonel turned back to Alba. “Sergeant’s going for help. Some of my troops will assist you with the wounded and take you back to base.” He looked at the bloody bandage on her leg. “Get you some attention, too… A wound like that can fester up bad in this wet, make you useless to all of us.”
Alba graciously accepted the colonel’s offer. They spoke some added pleasantries and then he departed, heading off toward the northeast. By the time her little company moved out, the distant ‘boom!’ of artillery and the rattle of small arms fire echoed back across the redoubt.
With the two dozen grenadiers lending a hand, Mongrel Company began pulling out from the captured compound. At that moment, the sun broke over the horizon. Through a gap in the clouds, its golden light shone across the mountains to the southwest. Someone wildly shouted...then another, and another. Alba turned to see what the commotion was all about.
On a peak, some two-thirds up the mountain, a green and scarlet banner fluttered in the morning breeze.
A jubilant cry went up from a dozen mouths. “We took it! We took it!”
Then there was the sudden release of joyous emotion, laughter and tears, bear-hug embraces. Some sat down in the mud and wept uncontrollably. Resting against the shoulder of a standing mule, Alba placed a gentle hand on the wrapped remains of the dead private now secured across the animal’s back. She leaned in close, thanking the woman for her sacrifice. “We took it. With your help, we took the mountain...”
It was late afternoon by the time Alba’s company reached the busy valley road leading to the main army depot dug in at the base of the newly captured northern mountain. There was little to identify it as such other than countless cave-like openings cut into granite bluffs and the beehive of activity a large army makes when on the move. The digging was less than twenty hours old and already huge chambers had been cut deep into the rock, leaving few supplies above ground for enemy airships to attack.
Countless tonnes of stone were being torn from the ever-growing catacombs beneath the countryside. Laser drills literally pulverized the solid granite, turning it into paving-size gravel, which was exactly what was being done with it. Dust drifted into the cold breeze as giant dump machines tipped house-sized boxes filled with the gravel onto ever expanding roadways. As soon as one would empty its load, another machine with an equal sized supply would pull up to do the same.
And what of the enemy? Alba observed the sky filled with ships and craft of every description. Dozens of cargo sky-ships disgorged troops, trucks, and armor along with other needed materials to keep such a large military force going. Warships, some as big as cruisers, hovered high above, keeping a wary eye for uninvited guests. Then there were all the smaller ships - tenders, lighters, scullers, and other inter-space machines, not to mention all the various fighter craft…but no enemy intruders.
Alba was spellbound, staring at the surroundings. Only hours before, she felt her company the last survivors of an immense armada that had been nearly destroyed. Now she felt very small and insignificant. For as far as the eye could see, the hands of thousands upon thousands of volunteers just like Alba were at work, attempting to bring success to this ongoing battle. The lieutenant was ashamed of inner feelings she had secretly harbored since her ill-fated landing. This was no ‘one person’s war’, with a single hero or victim. All shared the same fate. All shared the same dangers.
Alba was exhausted and emotionally drained. Only two or three miles and she and her company could rest up a bit...only two or three long miles. Not only did her feet ache, her every stride sent a sharp pain racing up her leg from the bleeding wound. ‘So close yet so far away.’ With tired eyes aimlessly following the road, she slowly trudged on.
At first, the shaking was imperceptible and Alba gave
it little attention. Then the grenadiers’ mules began balking and pulling at their reins. As the soldiers struggled to restrain the beasts from bolting, cursing and berating them for their unruly disposition, other eyes anxiously scanned the road ahead.
Like some legendary, fire-breathing beast rising from the depths of the underworld, a giant tracked, iron monster ascended from the dusty haze a short distance away. Roaring engines belched clouds of choking smoke as they pushed forty tonnes of steel over the crest of the hill. No sooner was the first one over the rise than another appeared, puffing and snorting as wildly.
Wide-eyed, Alba stared in disbelief. She had heard stories of these fabled denizens of war, but gave little credence to them, concluding they were tales told to impress and awe new recruits. Now she stood less than two furlongs away from the most fearsome beast her eyes ever saw, approaching at the speed of a racing horse. She nervously glanced around for a place of escape. There was none.
“I sure hope they’re ours.” Alba said to herself.
“Sure are!” Corporal Kfir replied, huge white teeth grinning from behind a grimy, mud-caked beard and face. “And those aren’t the biggest of ‘em, either.” He pointed toward the advancing machines. “See that big barrel sticking outta that turret? That’s what some call a ‘one-third cubit short rifle, 8 inch, Howitzer style’. It can throw up to six missiles a minute for better than two leagues and drop each one right on your toes.”
“How do you know all that stuff?” Alba asked, not able to remove her eyes from an ever-growing line of howling monsters.
Kfir nonchalantly replied, “Was a gunner’s mate on one like it in the Great War. Still buried in the tar swamps of KaraJewel, to the best of my knowledge.” He shook his head. “Things don’t float too good...”
Alba heard little of Corporal Kfir’s further accounting regarding the history and affairs of these tanks of war. Distracted by the deafening roar and overpowering sight of better than two dozen of these beasts rumbling toward and then past, she could do little more than numbly nod her head from time to time.
What little she did remember was that these tanks were not the largest of their kind, and that the history of such mobile, armored gunships was relatively new. Until the Two Hundred Years War, ground engagement weaponry had advanced little beyond the heavy cavalry and light artillery, combined with swords, crossbows, and spears of the infantry. It took the Great War to bring such machines to full maturity. But crafted one at a time, they were rare in the field. The recent arrival of the children from the Realms Below with their ideas of mass production and standardization of parts were filling the heavens with them now.
Colonel Skorpizo’s troopers’ hands were filled with keeping their animals reined in. They paid little heed to the tanks’ and armored, tracked transports’ passing. Alba’s troopers, though, waved and shouted to their advancing brethren. “Give ‘em hell!” some shouted. Others good-naturedly warned them to leave a few for the rest to have.
Alba watched one tank commander sitting atop her opened turret reach down and press her hand to her throat. The woman’s mouth moved as though she were talking but the lieutenant wondered to whom. As the commander’s tank lumbered by, the officer smiled and waved a salute to the lieutenant. She signaled and motioned back toward the base. Then she was gone down the dusty gravel road and beyond another rise, the shaking rumble rapidly following behind. Soon it was relatively quiet again, with only the occasional zip or roar of a lone lorry or personnel vehicle. Skorpizo’s grenadiers quickly regained control of their mules. With that success, Alba’s troops were again advancing down the road.
Mongrel Company had not gone far when Corporal Kfir drew the Alba’s attention to rapidly approaching machines skimming just above the rain-soaked, flooded fields. In moments, three squat, canvas-covered trucks sat quietly beside the tired soldiers, med-evac teams hurriedly scrambling to assist the wounded soldiers. In short order, all the company was packed aboard the machines, waving their thanks and appreciation to Skorpizo’s soldiers. The whine of turbines combined with the whirr of electromagnetic generators signaled the troops departure. Three trucks rose into the air by anti-gravitational inductors and noisily darted away, cross-country, just above the ground, toward the base.
Alba was too drained of energy to ask questions concerning these strange flying machines, why all trucks weren’t built this way, or why they even worked at all. She did perk up though, when an orderly began chatting about the war. Without invitation, the man went on with the latest gossip. The lieutenant intently listened to his news.
“Yep! There’s a big one goin’ on to the south of us. I hear the entire Second Army’s on the move. Tearing things up pretty good, too! They say we got the first toehold on the mountains, but it’s not the prize we were led to believe it was. Heard that we were just a decoy for the real fightin’.” He looked around at the wounded in the truck and shook his head. “Yep, we lost over fifteen thousand just gettin’ where we are… forty thousand wounded… and we have so little to show for it.”
The orderly reached up and tightened down a canvas flap to cut the cool breeze whistling into the compartment. He repeated, “Heard we were just a decoy...” then motioned, “The real battle’s off east of here. There’re stories told that we dropped most of the army off near Memphis…off in the Spider’s Lair.” He shuddered. “God awfulest place I ever was! Lost some close companions there.”
Alba perked up, disbelief showing on her face.
The orderly waved his hand, shaking his head. “True! True, I tell ya! Got the news from people over at High Command. Said that the field marshal took off to oversee the invasion. Also was told that we put our whole air wing down there. That’s why we got no help from ‘em here.”
A forlorn dismay began growing in Alba’s chest, constricting it with pain. She leaned back, eyes closed, head resting against the planked truck bed. It was all the woman could do to hold back her tears. All that death and suffering she and her companions had endured, and for what? For what!? She thought of the private dying in her arms, the enemy soldier with her dagger in his skull, the woman at the bridgehead. What had it all been for? Was this war any different than those her people had experienced at the hands of the rulers of her day? Were they, the common soldier, only worthless fodder used to indiscriminately feed the hunger of war? Worthless fodder to feed the glory of heartless leaders?
Holy War? All war is unholy and evil…evil in its very essence! It feeds on all, victor and slain, turning everyone it encounters into animals – vicious, snarling animals tearing at each other’s throats.
Her hands were now filled with blood. Could she ever wash it from them? Could she ever forget the look of helpless terror on her victim’s face, the sinking knife, the spurting blood, the smell…the sicky-sweet smell of death? She was a monster raised from the depths of the underworld to bring a finish to this madness. Yet it was only by madness that it could be brought to a finish. Oh, for the land of thoughtless dreams, a land of forgetfulness, a land with no feeling!
The whine of turbines quieted and then died away. Alba opened her eyes to see busy hands hurriedly moving the wounded to litters and whisking them away. A hand reached for Alba, beckoning her out. It was Corporal Kfir. “C’mon, Commander, let me assist you.”
An orderly excused himself and departed with a wounded soldier. Alba slowly nodded his leaving and crawled to the back of the truck, taking Kfir’s hand when getting down. She looked into the corporal’s face and sourly asked, “Was it worth it, Kfir? Was all this slaughter worth the goals achieved?”
Corporal Kfir looked away and raised his head to sniff the cool, damp air drifting up from some hidden natural cavern near the back of the excavation. He took a deep breath of the ancient breeze. Placing a hand on Alba’s shoulder while staring into her eyes, he answered, “LeKrinon…” He glanced toward the truck where the company’s dead still lay, then looked
back at Alba. “Her name was LeKrinon. The name means ‘tiger-lily’. She came from the Dursbay Province region, a star system little known to most of us. The woman had adventured alone in the mountains for ages, her life a secret to all but a few. Only some months ago did she even hear about the terrible struggle her brothers and sisters had been waging all these years. I have been told that she was an Ancient, born in the age when the Tarezabarians departed for the stars.”
Kfir then asked a most startling question. “What would you give to have her back?”
“Anything!” Alba blurted out. “Anything at all!”
There was a long, sad pause before Kfir responded. “There are countless millions of LeKrinons awaiting a return. Without our help…our sacrifice…they will never see it. Thousands of my companions have died attempting what has been given us to accomplish. They trust their spirits to us. We control their destiny. It’s in our hands to bring them release from death. This war is not fought in vain.”
Alba felt ashamed. It was as if Kfir had read her mind and seen the very secrets of her heart. He smiled and nodded. “I see what troubles your heart by the look on your face. It’s easy to forget the reason for war when one experiences the ravages of it.” He shrugged, “Yet it is the howling beast clawing at our door in the night that makes the morning sun so much more beautiful.”
Alba bowed her head, asking in a near whisper, “Corporal Kfir, how old are you?”
Kfir grinned. “My, my…I’d have to think about that. Let’s see now. Our king was not yet born when I ran with the swans on Lagandow.” He added, “It was a star system that had long departed this galaxy before your planet sprouted life.” He rolled his eyes. “Oh, I don’t know…old, I guess…real old by your standards.”
With wondering eyes, Alba asked, “Then tell me, please, why do you…why LeKrinon…or any of you, for that matter, why are you willing to follow the likes of me, a child of a forgotten age? Blind and naked I came from my mother’s belly, and blind and naked I returned to the dust of the earth, only to awake here, in this place, still naked and blind. My days… no, my minutes are fewer than the years of your life. Why trust me with the souls of the living and the dead?”
Kfir blinked with surprise. “Can’t you feel it?”
“Feel what?” Alba asked, incredulous.
“Why the power, of course.” Kfir answered in an almost nonchalant way.
“Power!?” Alba almost laughed. “I haven’t the power to hold my bladder in a fight. What power do you speak of?”
A dark shadow crossed Kfir’s face. He spoke words in a hush that chilled Alba’s heart. “The power of a Shadow-walker. It flows around you…through you. We can all feel it.”
He took her hands in his. “It has been said that a Shadow-walker cannot die. It has also been told that a Cherub leads the way before a Shadow-walker, preventing any lasting harm from advancing upon them.”
Alba shook her head, her long golden tresses falling out from her helmet. “No! No! I am no such a thing! I bleed! See my wound!” She pointed at her leg.
It did no good. Kfir calmly replied, “I have seen others of your kind in battle. I know of what I speak. There is an instinct Mother placed in you at your rebirth…and the ring you wear only adds to your strength. I have seen no animal act with greater prowess, speed or power than your kind. You move without thinking, listen without hearing, talk without speaking. Wisdom is to follow a Shadow-walker.”
“What do you mean by your statement? When have I talked without speaking?”
Kfir’s reply was instant. “This last night... You called to me for aid, showed me your enemy, and then commanded the storm to distract him for me. And this was not the first time you have done such a thing. You even called out to that tank commander for assistance.”
Alba vehemently opposed Kfir’s explanation, but he refused to recant.
“You…you will one day lead immortal armies into the final conflagration. This is but a dress rehearsal for your future days.” He touched the side of her head, nodding. “These things you already know in your mind…” then gently placing a finger on her chest, admonished, “but your heart refuses to accept it. You know I speak with truth.”
There was nothing for Alba to do but remain silent. Kfir was not going to accept any of her argument. She said nothing.
“Here.” Kfir reached into the knapsack hanging from his shoulder. “You should keep this.”
A sickening chill ran up Alba’s back when she saw the dagger resting in Kfir’s hand. She wanted no part of it.
“Take it, Commander!” Kfir almost shoved it into Alba’s palm. “It has a Cherub in it that cries out for revenge. It deeply cared for the owner of this blade and expects you to exact payment for her death. The Cherub has selected you as the avenger of blood for your sister.” He cautioned, “Do not show disregard for the wishes of a Cherub! It can be a powerful ally, but a most disconcerting pest if ignored.”
Fearfully, and with care, Alba slid the dagger back into its sheath. Kfir took her arm, offering to find some medical help for her. They passed near their dead comrades, still in the bed of the truck. Alba reached out and touched the blanket covering LeKrinon’s corpse, whispering, “I will not let you down. I promise, I will not forget you...”