“You never really cared, did ya, comrade? Just going through the motions, huh… what kind of life is that? At least I can say I was a hero.”

-Some dumb kid’s last words, quickly forgotten. 243 YT.

Etyslund, 243 YT, Autumn: Six days after arrival.

Cigdem clutched his rifle close to his chest and counted out his grenades as he listened to his subordinates talk amongst themselves. Their voices blended together until all was dull and distant noise. He turned his gun, and focused on the sound of clicking and scraping as he pulled its bolt. One bullet in the chamber. He flipped the weapon over and pulled back the magazine’s slide. It was full, each bullet stamped and gleaming, the engraving too light for Cigdem’s tired eyes after days of thin rations and waiting.

“What’s the plan… Captain?” A voice near Cigdem’s ear startled him, and he turned, reminding himself that it was only one of his subordinates. He quickly forced his face into a neutral expression as he swiveled toward Arshay, who stood nervously, eyes looking at anything but Cigdem.

“As soon as we charge you’re leading your group out the south gate. You’ll recover the nearest vehicle and return to Carakhte for further orders, reporting everything you’ve seen here. If our charge goes badly, we need somebody to report back. You’re the one to do it.” Cigdem returned his rifle to a ready position and then, with stiff movements, turned it on its side and set it on the floor in front of him.

“I… I meant the plan for you, Captain.”

“And why do you need to know that?”

“You’re not going to lead your men into certain death, are you?”

Cigdem blinked. “Of course not,” he said, gruffly. “If defeat were certain, we would all retreat. No, we know that the Valers are holed up in the library, just as we are holed up here. We will use Fatih’s bombs to collapse the library on the Valers, before they have the chance to fight back. It will be quick, and it will be over before they can react.”

“If everything goes well.”

“Yeah. If everything goes well.” Cigdem stood, staring at Arshay. “Are you questioning my orders, Scout?”

Arshay quickly shook his head and backed off. “No,” he said. “Only asking for clarification, Sir.”

“That’s good,” Cigdem replied. “Dismissed.” He watched Arshay turn his back and walk away, and sighed quietly as he sat back down. His hands shook when he picked the rifle back up, and he struggled with the bolt. Madness. He chanced a glance out the window. In the distance, the library – if it could still be called that, misshapen and with tendrils of stone snaking out in all directions – stood quiet. The ashes of a few houses elsewhere in the village still smoldered, but their fire showed no signs of spreading and the village was quiet but for the occasional call of a carrion bird.

Zoe and Fatih approached Cigdem shortly after that. He heard them talking quietly, and glanced up to watch them come nearer. They were nearly inseparable now, it seemed to Cigdem. That worried him. “So Cap’n,” Fatih drawled as he came closer, “We’re about ready to do the thing aren’t we?”

“That’s right,” Cigdem said, looking over Fatih. Bandoliers of mines were slung over him, visibly weighing him down to the point where he looked more like a rack of explosives than a mere soldier. Cigdem didn’t like looking at him for too long. “And you’re ready, I can see. We’ll all be covering for you.” Cigdem gestured to the other soldiers gathered throughout the room, a broad and expansive wave of his arms. “If the Valers come out with their magic it might be a tough battle, but otherwise, we’ll just be watching with our guns the whole time. Zoe and I will take out any sharpshooters that try to spot you, and the others will be a phalanx of guns and shields.”

Fatih nodded, chuckling and smiling almost nonchalantly as though he weren’t about to take the most dangerous role in a battle to the death.

Zoe, grimacing, asked: “Are you sure about sending Arshay away? Don’t we need everyone we can get?”

“Maybe,” Cigdem said, “But we have to consider morale. Arshay’s going to be a liability in this fight, he’s too shaken to do much good.”

“Coward,” Zoe snorted. “He hasn’t seen half the blood and guts I have. What right does he have to chicken out?”

No, he hasn’t seen half the blood and guts you have. That’s why I’m letting him go. Cigdem didn’t dare say it out loud. He had to maintain his image in the eyes of his soldiers, after all. “You’re steadier than most,” Cigdem said. “That’s why you’re going to be countering sharpshooters instead of making part of the wall.” Though Zoe grumbled, she seemed satisfied enough by Cigdem’s answer. He ran his hand along the casings of the hypos slung to his shoulder, twisted them to check their points, and replaced each in its spot where he could easily retrieve them in the din of battle.

“Alright,” Cigdem said, and stood up, and shouted out to the room. “Everyone! You know your places! You know the plan! Now get in formation, it’s go time in five minutes.” As everyone around him snapped to attention and began to gather their weapons – some nervously, some eagerly – Cigdem took in a deep breath. He imagined the breath cooling him from inside, centering him and turning his blood to frost. With his right hand he clamped down and held to his left wrist, flexed his fingers, and inhaled again.

“You’re all tired, I know. We all are! This has gone on long enough, and all for such a small prize – but don’t forget what’s really at stake here! The entire Wanderer’s Vale, soon, will be Invictan land, and Aivor will stretch out his arm over it. We’re the ones who are making that happen, with each sodden step and each foot of rotten dirt we take.” He let go of his left hand and held up his right fist in a salute of strength. “It’s our strength that feeds the hungry of Gaurlante, our force that makes peace possible, and our will that prepares the earth for its true purpose – the final reunification of worlds! You all know this! You all know what is at stake!” He grinned. “And truly, what are a few backwater farmers before that purpose? It’s about time we showed them what they’re really dealing with – true Invictan mettle!”

With that, Cigdem turned toward the door of the gathering hall. Deep breath in, slow breath out. He readied his rifle and looked toward Fatih. The minelayer was grinning, giving a thumbs-up. Deep breath in, slow breath out. He looked toward Zoe. She had her rifle held in ready position in her hands, back stiff and straight, eyes wide. Deep breath in, slow breath out.

It felt like an eternity as he counted inside his head, before it was time and he finally gave the order. Without words he gave the order – he stepped forward and raised his foot, and kicked the gathering-hall’s doors off their hinges. In an instant it began.

They ran across the marshy field. It was empty, the space between their makeshift shelter and their target. In the dark, only the moonlight and the smoldering glow of a dozen homes’ ashes made their way clear.

Zoe fell into a crouch, her right knee digging up a furrow in the earth and splashing muddy water onto Cigdem’s greaves. She raised her rifle and swiveled her body, and Cigdem waved a hand forward over his head, his eyes darting from house to house. The soldiers came close behind him, their wall beginning to form as they locked their shields with one another, heavy iron-ribbed shields that clicked almost as one with each slow step forward. “Go!” Cigdem shouted again and again, and the wall advanced, slowly toward the library, rifles bristling from the wall as though they were a porcupine’s spines. Cigdem walked before them, shouting rhythmically for them to step forward. They advanced. Proceeded toward the library, approaching the furthest of its stone tendrils, resting in the brackish earth. Cigdem went to his knee to the right of the wall, glancing behind the row of soldiers toward Zoe. She was moving her gaze from place to place, her rifle sight held up to one eye, and Cigdem did the same. He wished he had a short-range radio so he could speak with Zoe over the din of the soldiers’ armor as they advanced together. Silently he cursed himself for not having thought such equipment necessary when the ranger unit had set out on this mission. If he’d known Etyslund would be such a tough nut to crack, when so many other villages had given up without a fight…

Fatih dashed past Cigdem, and with his rifle’s sight he followed the minelayer. Two hundred yards to the core walls of the library. The mines jangled on Fatih’s body. Cigdem scanned the area, checking for any openings in the stone. There were none, that he could see. One hundred and eighty yards to the core walls.

Then the shooting began. It took Cigdem off guard and blindsided him, as the first cracking shots rang out through the night air and the clouds of smoke began to rise around him. He cursed and scanned back and forth with his rifle, not seeing the source of the shots. He reached up to his forehead and lowered the tactical visor over his eyes, and the world was steeped in red light. Cigdem chanced a moment’s glance toward Zoe, and saw that she was standing up. Past her, several figures, clad in Invictan armor – Arshay and his group, Cigdem supposed – were still within sight, running for the exit of the village. But one of them had broken off from the rest of the group, and was making a dash for the north, toward the mountain pass. Toward Kivv, deeper into the Vale, and alone?

Zoe shouted something, but Cigdem couldn’t hear. Then she began to run. He rose to his feet, glancing back toward the library. Fatih was dashing for cover, ducking bolts and stepping over suddenly-bucking earth. The stone tendrils of the Valer’s library began to stir. From the library a crowd of Valers armed with everything from rifles to knives to slings and stones streamed. Cigdem fired into the crowd, and heard a distant scream, then as he prepared the rifle for a second shot he ran behind the shield wall and shouted at Zoe “What are you doing?”

“Arshay!” Zoe screamed, giving chase after the deserting soldier. “Arshay!” The distant red silhouette didn’t appear to react, didn’t even turn to look at Zoe as she came after him, screaming. Next to Cigdem, one of the soldiers in the shield wall collapsed to the dirt, his rifle clanging against his shield and misfiring in the man’s barely-lucid convulsions. The misfire took another soldier in the back, and the shield-wall broke just like that. Cigdem heard a sickening sound behind him, like the bones of the earth snapping apart, and by instinct he ducked, just in time to see a chunk of stone the size of his torso fly overhead. It clipped Zoe on the shoulder and she screamed, and fell almost to the ground, but she caught herself and surged back up. Though her armor was torn and she was clearly bleeding, Zoe broke into a run, her rifle held tight in one hand. From beyond her Cigdem saw Valers with their guns peeking out from behind buildings, taking potshots at the gathered soldiers.

“Arshay!” Zoe shouted. “Don’t forget why you’re here!”

The distinctive crashing boom of one of Fatih’s grenades startled Cigdem and he turned around, bringing his rifle to bear even as the situation deteriorated around him and his soldiers fell to the ground. He dashed toward Fatih, sparing a glance in the direction of the Valer charge. Dust issued from the spot where the grenade had exploded, and nearby blood spattered the wall, which was beginning to undulate and twitch and move. Cigdem raised his rifle. “Don’t steal my kill, damn it!” Fatih shouted as he moved against the still-stationary wall next to him. He raised his arm to throw another explosive, readying his other hand to pull out the pin. Something streaked through Cigdem’s peripheral vision and Fatih’s arm erupted with blood. He collapsed to the ground, the un-activated grenade rolling away from him as he fell backward.