Sparks flew between slashed of blades and blood ran thin mixed with droplets of sweat. The movements were fast, sharp, and unpredictable with only flashes of light against metal to signal their next moves. Sand sprayed up from the ground with every shift of a boot, stinging exposed skin and grinding into mud-stained socks. All around, the crashing of metal, the crumbling of stone, and the cries of the wounded unified to create the song of a bloody battle.
With one flick of her wrist, Kara splashed the blood from the tip of her spear onto the dry dirt, pausing for just a moment to soak in the sights as she wiped the sweat from her forehead. Glowing magitek eyes pricked through the kicked dust and minute flashes of light caught the metallic stripes on the Kingsglaive's armor. Black hoods weren't enough to conceal their humanity. Blood soaked the earth and nurtured the plants like water, and blood flowed freely from their wounds. It was all the same to nature, and it was all the same to Kara.
Fifty feet to her left, Kylinn gritted her teeth under the weight of a glaive's sword and threw it off, stumbling. Ky never stumbled. Kara ran as fast as she could, arms pumping and lungs screaming for air. With a strangled cry, leaped into the air. Her momentum propelled her enough to twist her body around and drive the lance clean through the glaive's body. Kara stepped on the crumpled man, ripped her spear free, and glanced over at the oozing wound that left a crimson trail down Ky's sleeve.
"Think you can manage it?" she asked quickly.
Ky's eyes jumped from soldier to soldier when she nodded, licking her chapped lips. "It'll hurt like a bitch later, but I'm good now."
Kara nodded back and watched the Glaive scurry toward the toppled stone buildings that once were homes for Lucian citizens. Now, they were nothing more than cover on a battlefield. The hiding soldiers reminded Kara of frightened rabbits poking their heads out of their holes only to duck back inside once the danger reappeared. Insects, even, scurrying away from poison or the underside of a shoe.
"When's the brigade supposed to come in?" Ky called over the sound of gunfire. The magitek soldiers were having a field day with the fight, slinging blood left and right like petals at a wedding.
"Wyn said once we get past that road," Kara answered, gesturing toward the dirt path that served as a boundary for their plans.
Weeks of fighting, rationing, and gritting and bearing ungodly pains had led up to this final moment. If Imperial occupation could land and stick here, they were golden. Lucis would never be able to get them out unless the gods themselves came down to smite them for their deeds. I couldn't blame them, either.
Ky threw back her head and laughed, adjusting her grip on her long, sleek katana. "You're kidding, right? All we have to do is run the weasels out of their shelters."
"Well, they've got their fancy magic," Kara grumbled, watching a glaive hurl a ball of fire over one of the crumbled walls.
"Damn Lucian witches," Ky grumbled. She jerked her head toward Wyn, who'd just kicked a lifeless man off the end of his blade. "They can't burn all of us. Can't he send in the tin cans?"
Most of the troop had taken to calling the magiteks "tin cans" in favor of referring to them as "soldiers" as the bots didn't have to go through an ounce of the training they'd suffered. Loqi called it a "respect thing." Kara thought it inconsiderate that Aloc's life's work had been reduced to nothing from creations that entirely changed the tides of the war.
"He can tell our overhead pals to direct them."
"Then what are you waiting for?"
Kara took off, ignoring the edge in Kylinn's voice. When Wyn saw her coming, she pointed at the magiteks and jerked her head toward the hiding glaives. He nodded and pulled the radio from his pocket. Further down the field, Ravus glanced down at his hip, concerned by the sound of her brother's voice. It was momentary, but it was there. Kara wished she could relish in seeing some sort of care from him directed toward anyone, but she couldn't.
The morning after Leo died, she'd been too busy vomiting and pressing her fingers to her temples to ease the pounding in her head to worry about what had happened with Ravus. The instant she left her tent and realized that he was blatantly refusing to look at her, she remembered it all. And it had been that way since. Awkward exchanges when Wyn was with them, indirect statements hinting that he wanted her to do specific assignments without saying her name, and spending most of his time hidden away making plans and letting Wyn do the face-to-face work.
Wyn started to catch on pretty soon after, though he didn't know why they were acting odd around each other. He'd tried bringing it up to them both, and both times they'd been silent or changed the subject. It just didn't sit right with Kara. She didn't want to pretend like she and Ravus never knew each other over something as silly as a drunken kiss, but clearly, he'd taken it as more than that and it was unbearable for him to be around her. Embarrassment wasn't something that kept Ravus from acting; she'd probably hurt his pride somehow.
And nearly a month later, he was still holding on to that night like his life depended on its secrecy. Perhaps if he held it away from her long enough, he could convince her it was only a strange dream. It certainly felt that way already.
By the time Kara reached Wyn, the magitek soldiers turned and rained on the hidden glaives. They hurled spell after spell, but the exposable soldiers pressed on. Only a handful faltered and bent over, the red lasers in their eyes flickering in and out in a cry for help only their creators would understand.
After the first of their number was nearly sliced clean in half by an overhead swing by a magitek, they scattered like a den of roaches, sprinting for cover elsewhere and hurling their weapons into the distance only to appear where they landed dozens of feet away. Kara couldn't help but feel proud—Wyn and Ravus had finally earned back what they'd lost. But it wasn't over yet.
Wyn nodded when she glanced up at him, and she was the first to sprint after the glaives, hair whipping behind her and legs burning from how hard she pushed them. The others followed suit as Wyn and Ravus stayed behind, turning around and staring hard at the dingy clouds overhead. But it wasn't the Kingsglaive that they were hurrying toward. Kara knew full well an entire army waited just beyond the road.
Instead of continuing after the glaives that disappeared over the sandy hills on the horizon, Kara ran across the road and dropped straight down into the trench that lay hiding on its other side behind a fortified wall of dirt and stone. The hole was deep, but not very long. It was meant only to shelter their human troops from any drastic fallout from the magitek engines.
Quickly, everyone began to drop down into the trench. Kara hunched over and clutched her knees, nodding when Lis clapped a hand down on her back and reminded her that it was almost over. She wasn't afraid; her back was killing her and her arms were starting to go numb. If she lost all feeling before the fight was over, she'd have to sit on the sidelines like a bad athlete waiting for their mercy play.
Wyn finally flung himself over the wall and into the narrow hallway of soil, followed quickly by Ravus. He found her and stuck close, waving to everyone else over her head.
"Stay low! They're about to drop!"
Kara obeyed, keeping her back pressed to the wall. The bombs were only supposed to tear up the land and scare away most of the Lucian army, so she wasn't too worried. Still, it was better to be prepared. She leaned forward a bit, looking left and right to search for her teammates. Ravus stared dead ahead at the dirt wall in front of him, refusing to look at her.
On the other end, a long line of their slowly shrinking ranks stood just as she did, holding their breaths. Ky tightened the cloth around her arm and shot a nervous look to her own left. Frowning, she turned sharply to say something to Kara, but she was cut off when the ground shook so violently that they were both violently pitched forward in the wall ahead of them.
Kara barely caught herself before her head crashed in the wall of dirt. Gritting her teeth, she pushed herself back and pressed her back to the wall. Loose soil rained down over their heads, and for a moment, the world went dark when a magitek engine blocked out the sun. The ground trembled once more, and this time, rocks from the wall poured down overhead. Lis cried out when she couldn't make it out of the way in time. Her leg was pinned hard against the ground, buried by a pile of loose rubble.
"Everyone hang on tight!" Wyn called, squeezing past Kara to help her at the other end of the trench.
Another quake that was stronger than the rest sent them all to the ground and more stones piled down. Lis shouted again. Kara stumbled backward when she stood, muttering an apology when she knocked into Ravus. For a moment, she panicked because she'd bothered him again. But then she remembered that that was hardly a priority.
Sharply, she turned to face him and shouted over the rumbling over the engines. "This doesn't feel right!"
Ravus spared her the quickest glance before shaking his head solemnly. They were promised a little help, not the utter destruction of the entire landscape. Before she could ask what was happening, more dirt rained down from above. Fingers dug deep into her arm and slammed her back against the opposite wall just in time to avoid a boulder that surely would've pulverized her skull. The wall hit her so hard that it knocked the breath from her lungs and sent a shock wave throughout her entire body that erased all feeling from her limbs. Shuddering, Kara pitched forward and gasped for air.
"Shit." Ravus dragged her back to her feet and held her up against the wall. "Can you stand?"
Kara tried to speak, but everything burned. She could hardly breathe, her throat and eyes were stinging from the dust, and her body felt like it was buzzing. The ground shook, but it was lesser than the others. Through the clouds of dirt, she saw the others scrambling around and could hear Lis struggling to contain her cries as Ky and Wyn comforted her.
Loqi shouted something over the noise, but Kara couldn't make out what it was until it was too late. Bullets rained down over their heads and they were forced to duck as fast as humanly possible. Well, Kara fell like a ragdoll, but it forced her to move her trembling arms and attempt to lift herself. Ravus stood quickly and thrust his sword into the air, catching a Lucian soldier's chest as they went to dive down into the trench.
"Kara, can you stand?"
"I'm trying," she replied weakly, shivering as she got one foot planted on the ground. A cold sweat broke out across her skin and she thought she might puke.
"Here."
Ravus grabbed her elbow and, with a grunt and a grimace, hoisted her to her feet. Kara hung on to his arm tightly and fell against the wall behind him. Gritting her teeth, she used both hands to force her spear upward and skewer a soldier that got too close. Her arms gave way under the man's weight and he tumbled down into the trench. Ravus roughly turned her to face the others and pushed her forward.
"Go."
And she obeyed, stumbling over rocks and clinging to the wall as she hurried to rejoin the group. Ravus held tight to her shoulder when another quake shook them around. Lis clung to Wyn's shoulder, white-faced and shaking. Her leg looked badly crushed. Once they reached the others, Ravus pushed Kara back against the wall to keep her from falling again and headed toward the end of the line.
"You good?" Wyn asked, concerned when he saw Kara slouch against the wall.
She nodded, taking a deep breath. "Yeah. Hit my back."
"Ouch."
"Ouch?" Lis moaned when Loqi bumped her foot. "I'll show you fucking ouch."
"All pain is valid," Wyn muttered, shifting her weight on his arm. "What the hell's up with these engines?"
"You're the one in charge," Loqi pointed out, stabbing up at a soldier. "These gotta be stragglers."
"Hopefully," Ky grumbled, rubbing the wound on her arm sourly.
The hour continued the same way with relative silence on their end. The ground continued to shake violently and Ravus continued to pace the length of the trench searching for any Lucians that might've sought shelter in the wrong place. Every once in a while, a lifeless body hurled into the hole, thrown by the shaking of the ground. Kara squeezed her eyes shut and prayed for it all to end. The endless booming and shaking and screaming were going to haunt her for months, maybe even years.
Finally, what felt like centuries later, it ended. Wyn offered to go first, lifting himself out of the trench and looking around a moment before offering to help everyone out. Kylinn and Loqi went first, followed by the rest of the able-bodied. Ravus stayed behind with Lis and Kara, though he wouldn't look at either of them until Wyn stood at the edge with his hands on his hips.
"Alright Lis… I'm not sure how to get you outta there without hurting you."
"Just drag me by my arms," she replied, hopping on one foot. "I'll deal with it once I'm up."
"You're sure?"
"Yeah."
Wyn knelt and took her hands, pulling hard. She winced when her knee dragged up the wall and tears tore streaks through the dirt patches on her cheeks, but she was up easily enough. Kara sighed and forced herself off the wall. She felt a little better, though she was still drained of all energy. Struggling with the blow to her back had taken a hard hit at her morale. She glanced over at Ravus.
"Could you give me a boost?"
"You can't pull yourself up?"
Kara raised an eyebrow, getting irritated by his arguing. "No, I can't. I can hardly walk, Ravus, because you slammed me into a wall."
Ravus scowled. "I saved your life."
"You did the bare minimum," she retorted.
Ravus took a breath to fight back, clearly pissed that she was blatantly disrespecting him in front of everyone. They're used to it by now.
"Guys, seriously." Wyn rolled his eyes and slipped an arm under Lisa's. "Ravus, the least you could do is help her up. I shouldn't have to tell you that, man."
Ravus's face contorted and his scowl became a glower. Huffing, he finally got on one knee and held out his hands. "Hurry up."
Kara bit back a snarky reply and stepped on his hand. She tried her absolute hardest to haul herself out, but her elbows buckled under her weight. Her nails dug into the sand as she tried to claw her way out. Loqi stepped up and pulled her over the edge. Her skin broke out in a cold sweat again, and this time, she couldn't hold herself back. She managed to crawl a few feet before her stomach clenched and she threw her breakfast up onto the loose soil. Ky crouched beside her and held her ponytail out of the way, ever so cautiously rubbing her back for fear of breaking her two.
"Fuck, sorry," Kara mumbled. When she tried to sit up, she only fell forward and heaved again.
"Hey, take your time," Ky answered softly. "Curses don't fit you, Highwind."
Ravus pulled himself out of the trenches and Kara could feel his stare until he directed it toward the torn-up wasteland that was once a small desert of small ruins and small battles. The magitek engines hovered high overhead. The creaking of magitek soldiers hit Kara's ears sooner than she was ready for them and she jumped to her feet to fight off what she assumed was an enemy. Ky held her steady and wiped the sweat off of Kara's face with her sleeve.
"Cool it."
"Sorry."
Shuddering, she hugged her arms close to her body and slowly shuffled closer to the group that gathered close to Wyn and Ravus. When Ravus didn't move, Wyn huffed and turned his tired eyes to the group.
"They're going to deploy more magiteks and let us ride home for a few days."
"Didn't that fail last time?" Lisa asked, breaths shuddering.
Kara's heart sank when Wyn rolled his eyes. "Yes. They have our replacements up there as well. I'm not stupid enough to make the same choice twice."
"Okay, damn," Lis scoffed. "Who shit in your bed?"
Wyn ignored her, jerking his head up toward the sky. "Ravus, call 'em down."
Suddenly, Kylinn's face lit back up. "Guys, where the hell is Mairi?"