Emily

The Gloam poured through the breach, and the fields withered beneath its onslaught.

The wall was cut open like a bag of grain, with its contents slowly pouring out. Slabs of stone jutted out from the currents of grey mist, the only thing marring the otherwise smooth currents of grey that swallowed the world behind the wall.

Swallowed, and strangled.

Even the tall apple trees - with leaves and branches sticking out of the Gloam — were wilting as the seconds wore on. Leaves that had taken months to grow turned yellow and red in minutes, and fell like the world had turned from summer to winter in less than an hour.

It was a small comfort to know the Gloam would stop by the next wall. Because beside that breach lay a Golem's massive, ruined form. It's fingers, larger than train cars, lay stretched out in the breach, as if trying to reach for the Spire beyond.

For now, the Gloam couldn't touch them. The Golem was a ruin, brought low by the wrath of a single Crafter, a sight so astonishing it beggared the imagination. Cataclysmic explosions, wrath enough to lay the City to ruin, had been what was needed to bring that monster of stone down. That anyone possessed that kind of power would change how everyone gathered here at a nearby watchtower would view those who wore red.

"Specialist Varnell," someone said, shattering the moment as if it were a thin piece of glass.

"I hear you, Decklan," Emily replied. "And there's no burning need to be so ash-bitten formal. I have seniority by, what, two weeks?"

"Still puts you in command, until the sergeant manages to pull herself out of the bottle," Decklan Emir replied. Emily's eyes fell on his rank insignia, the three dots of a comms specialist over a single bar. But for the day he graduated from basic training, her subordinate. The fact felt like a lead ball in her stomach. "Got a response from comms HQ. Bit terse, sounds like the higher-ups are still angry about all the chatter from that mass broadcast we got from Corporal Redgrave over on the western walls."

Decklan brought that last missive up in every conversation, still both appalled and impressed by the audacity of making that information public.

"What does the response say?"

"As follows: Evac indeterminate. Priority low. Make for Barleybarrel at best speed," Decklan reported.

"Well that's burning useless. Barleybarrel is in the Gloam right now. And with the wall broken, the fire doesn't flow past the end of the Causeway," Emily said, tearing her eyes from the view.

"They also want to know why the lieutenant isn't responding. What should I tell them?" Decklan asked.

Emily laughed, but there was no humour in it. "Tell them he's buried in work. Which is true, since the abyss-touched wall fell down while he was looking for any survivors among the Crafter strike team."

The indignant bile of her own rage and despair seethed in her stomach and made her hands shake. "Sorry, Decklan. That was crass. Just tell them the lieutenant is missing, presumed dead, in an effort to rescue survivors. I'll tell the civilians our evac plan, then we cross the causeway on foot."

"The Causeway's two miles down the wall. Walking straight to Barleybarrel would be eleven miles shorter," Decklan pointed out.

"You want to walk the eight miles to Barleybarrel through that?" Emily asked, and she gestured out at the Gloam enshrouded field.

"Point taken," Decklan said.

Decklan hesitated, lingering by the door with his gaze set on the stone floor. He looked weary, his fires burning low. It occurred to Emily that too much more could snuff out what was still there. "What is it?" she asked.

"I, I just wondered if we shouldn't mount a rescue effort, to look for the lieutenant," he said.

A refusal was halfway to her lips before she had a chance to consider it. Every instinct in her body said their lieutenant was dead. If he had made it near the fallen Golem's form when it collapsed, he'd have fallen a hundred feet when the wall collapsed. If he hadn't, by some miracle, been killed in the fall, he would be beneath the Gloam.

And if that were the case, Emily would prefer to never find him.

But she mistrusted the easy logic that sprung in her thoughts, and cursed herself for a fool. She wasn't sure if she was angry at justifying her easy fears, or acting against it. "We should. Let's get the civvies prepped for a march, and take a quick run along the wall to see if he's just injured or delayed. I'll go check on the sergeant while you send that message."

"Aye, ma'am," Decklan said, rekindled.

"And don't burning call me ma'am. I don't want you getting used to taking orders from me."

"Was that an order, ma'am?" Decklan asked. As much as it rankled Emily, it was good to see the humorous twinkle in Decklan's eyes again. He saluted, fist to heart, and she returned it quickly.

As Decklan ran up the stairs, Emily made her way down the same stairwell, to the larder. The open doorway carried the distinctive smell of warm beer and worse, smells that had only grown more pungent since she had last checked-in on Sergeant Diedrie Talma a few hours ago. It took a very deliberate effort to push the door open, and step inside to look at the woman who should now be the officer of the wall.

Sergeant Diedrie was sprawled on a chair, leaning back with her feet resting on a table. Her cheeks were bright pink in the warm firelight, and her eyes couldn't focus when she looked Emily's way.

Eimly's left hand twitched at the handle of her sword, and her lips curled in disgust. But she managed to keep it out of her voice when she began to make her report. "Ma'am, we have orders from command."

"I told you not to burning bother contacting them!" Sergeant Talma bellowed, loud enough to be heard doing drills in the field. "Golem's down, which means there's no safer place in the City than right here. We have alcohol and food enough to last for weeks, by which time we'll have won the Fifth, or we'll all be dead anyway."

Emily cringed, and bit back the desire to shut the door again. The sergeant was right about the amount of food, with the nearby grain silos. If they rationed it carefully, as long as water and fire kept coming through the pipes, they could survive for weeks. "Ma'am, we have orders from Command. We're to escort the civilians to Barleybarrel, preparing for evacuation to the City. Decklan's reporting the LT's missing, presumed dead. We're going to get the civvies packed for a march, and do a quick search for the LT along the wall."

"You going to lead that search, Varnell?" Sergeant Talma asked, sitting up in her chair and wiping her mouth with her sleeve.

"That's the plan," Emily said. "We figure that if the LT fell off the wall when it came down, he wouldn't have survived. Or if he did..."

"Gloamtaken." Diedrie shuddered, and stood up. Despite the half-dozen bottles on the nearby countertops, she was steady on her feet. "Gloamtaken, burn us all, they could come through that gap."

Varnell wasn't sure if she should be angry or relieved that the Sergeant had talked herself into leaving. "I was about to brief the civvies, ma'am."

"Good, good. You do that. I'll go talk to the rest of the squad. We need food and water. For the march."

"Very good, ma'am," Emily said, and left without saluting. She managed to make it halfway up the stairs before she started cursing her inebriated sergeant, the night, the Gloam, and everything else that had brought her into army life.

She met Decklan just as she passed up the second flight of stairs. He fell in step beside her, keen to avoid slowing them down. "I sent that reply. How'd it go with the sergeant?"

"I got her think leaving was a good idea," Emily said.

"How did you do that?"

"The word Gloamtaken put the fear of the Fifth into her. Can I leave you to organize the civvies and get them to pack food and water for the march?" Emily asked, with a glance towards the broken wall and all it implied. "Sooner I look for the LT, sooner we can all get the burning hell out of here."

"Aye. You want me to go instead?"

"No," Emily said, though it wasn't a strong refusal. If Decklan pushed much, she'd probably relent. "You need to stay, in case we get any more messages. The rest of us can't use the comms."

"Right. That makes a lot of sense," Decklan agreed. "Take someone with you, though. No one should be going anywhere alone right now."

"Will do," Emily said, as they reached the top floor of the tower and stepped into the mess hall.

The hall, taking the entire floor of the tower, was normally a spacious place. But though a hundred people fit comfortably into the space without feeling like the trains back in the City, it was still far more crowded than any space Emily had lived in lately.

Almost immediately, Emily was accosted by one of the civilians. The lead hand for the farming crew working on the current harvest, Edmund or Edward something. The man was excruciatingly difficult to talk to.

"Do we have an evac plan?" he asked as soon as Emily made it up the stairs. A hard and lean man, with forearms like steel cable, he always spoke as if he expected people to stop and answer. Suitable for his job, but it grated on Emily's patience all the same.

"We do, Edward."

"It's Ivan, Ivan Strauss," the man replied tersely, his lip tightening just slightly, and his hands tensing into fists for just a moment.

"Ivan. Sorry," Emily said, and meant it. "We have our marching orders, and I'm afraid it involves marching. We're low priority for evac, so we've been ordered to make our way north to the next causeway, and follow it towards the City. Once we reach the next wall, we turn south, for Barleybarrel."

"Barleybarrel doesn't have any close access to the wall. It's a nine mile hike from the ramp down at the Causeway," Ivan said. "We'd be walking into the Gloam to get there."

"The fires are still burning at Barleybarrel," Emily replied. "That's our staging point for evacuation. So we can either get there by following the Causeway, then the pilot lights along the wall, or we walk straight through the Gloam. And no, we don't have torches enough to make an eight mile trek."

Emily took a slow, deep breath, and braced for a fight. She was ready for anger, frustration, or worse. To her relief, all she got from the lead hand was a curt nod. "Aye. I'll have my people pack for a long hike. Food, water. Anything else?"

"I could use a few people willing to pack extra ammunition, just in case," Emily admitted.

Ivan's grimace slackened, his mouth opened slightly, and his eyes darted to the window, where the Golem lay. "You think we'll see Gloamtaken?"

"Rather see them with extra rounds in my belt," Emily replied.

"Well said." Ivan gave her the first smile she had ever seen on his face. "I'll get my people ready to go. You can count on us, since we don't want to die."

As honest a motive as anything Emily had ever heard. Strangely, she appreciated it. She turned away and moved to Decklan, who was briefing a few other soldiers about the situation. "Did you figure out what our chain of command is, if we can't depend on the sergeant?"

"We have no corporals. Haven't since that industrial accident a few weeks ago. So we're over-strength but under-ranked," Decklan said. "Far as I can tell, you're next in line under Sergeant Talma. After that is me, Specialist Cara Reomar, then whoever the senior private is."

"Spit and burning ash," Emily cursed. Responsibility was like trying to pull a cart, when everyone around you kept piling weight on top of it. "All right. When we take our wall march, Decklan, take five others and lead. If trouble comes it will probably come from behind us, and we should pass another watchtower on the way to Barleybarrel. Best you get in contact with someone when we do, just in case."

"Aye, ma'am," Decklan said.

"And what the burning hell did I say about calling me ma'am?"

"That you don't want to get used to giving orders? Afraid that's not really up to you, ma'am," Decklan replied, and the normally irritating retort felt like a warm drink in this foreboding night. He fished out the last missive, and read through it again. "Dawn's in two hours. We should get daylight for most of our walk. At least we'll see whatever's coming."

"I'll take even the small blessings right now," Emily said. She held out her hand to the soldier next to Decklan. "Give me your Salamander. I need to go out on a walk."

The soldier complied wordlessly. The familiar weight of the gun was comforting to Emily, as she slung it over her shoulder. She turned to a nearby shelf, and counted the torches as she took one. "Is this all we have?"

"Afraid so. With the size of the crowd we're escorting, it's less than four hours," Decklan said.

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Emily said. "Have everyone gear up for a fight. Salamanders, extra shot, food, and water. And make sure everyone in the platoon has their sword and knife in a condition they'd be okay killing someone in. I'll do this quick search for the captain alone. I'd rather I came back with everyone armed and ready to go."

"Aye, ma'am," Decklan said, without a hint of humour or irony in his voice. And that worried her. He hesitated a moment, and asked, "No one should go alone, though."

"I'll keep your commander company," Ivan said from behind her. Emily nearly jumped in surprise. "It makes sense to get you solders armed, but the boy's right. No one should go alone on a night like this."

"How are your people?" Emily asked.

"Been ready to go since we got here," Ivan said.

Emily looked back at the crowd, and saw the truth of his statement. Every worker in the crowd was standing in front of a backpack, with water flasks strapped to the sides. Their farming tools were piled, neatly, in the corners of the hall, with each labourer's equipment bundled together.

They all expect to return, Emily realized. Despite what was out there waiting for them.

"Very well. At a quick march, let's make this trip quick."