Roderick

His father had only ever been careless with his fists when he was drunk. Which was hard to do in the City; non-essential foodstuffs were endlessly under rationing, and purchased by lottery tokens that were notorious for never leaving the hands of a bureaucrat from Distribution. So Roderick could count the number of times he could remember it happening with the fingers of his hands.

And there was only one occasion, in his entire life, when Roderick had been on the receiving end of his father's careless fists, and moonshine-induced rage. Barely a year ago, his father staggering home in the middle of the night, and one of his younger brothers had gotten the bright idea to lip the old man off for it.

Always quick to anger, but it was a collared dog when his father was sober. Only used when he meant it, and never at home. Even if it was aimed at one of his older siblings, never at home.

Which was why Roderick had been so unprepared for it. They had scrapped before, dad had taught him how to box and how to fight when it mattered. But feeling the rage in that first punch to the gut, hammering the wind out of his lungs first, and dinner out of his stomach next. Between being used as a bellow and dropping a pint's worth of half-digested lentil soup on the stone floor, he remember two shots to the head, a one-two setup from his left and right fists that dislodged a tooth in the back of his mouth, broke his nose, and left a ringing in his ears that he could still hear when he tried to sleep.

He didn't remember much after vomiting. At least not until he woke up in a hospice bed, his father asleep on the floor next to him.

Roderick hadn't been home much after that day. He slept at a friend's place, dropped out of school, and tested the limit's of the law's patience. That patience, as it turned out, was rather limited. He was arrested nine days later, rebelling in some stupid way to spite his old man.

He hadn't thought much about home, or his father, or that last day. The last couple of months he hadn't thought about much more than slipping past Gwen's watch, and slipping Candice out of her clothes. For all the hard work the months in that prison camp had been, it had been simple and honest. Perhaps not the happiest time in his life, but some days it had felt like a vacation from home.

But when he felt a Gloamtaken's hands try to reach for his eyes, his throat, try to bite and tear, he almost felt grateful his father had shown him how dangerous someone could be. A lesson he didn't want, wouldn't wish on anyone. But it was a lesson, and there was no not to learn it if it happened to you anyway.

So now, white scarf he didn't deserve around his neck, Roderick could push the panic in his stomach back down, when he he stepped ahead of Valen to cover his sergeant as he reloaded.

"Four, straight ahead," Roderick called out, as he picked the closest one and lined up his sights.

He fired, and was blinking away the flash from his eyes when the creature toppled over.

Valen was up, and tapped a hand on his shoulder. "Good kill. Reload. Sword out, take the one on the left."

Valen was already shouldering his gun, and drawing his sword. As Roderick snapped open the chamber and pulled out the spent shot, he hurried to try and make it in time to actually use his sword against the third creature Valen had pointed out.

Because even as he snapped the chamber closed, and pulled the Salamander's strap over his shoulder, Valen's sword swept through the air, somehow cutting both monsters down with a single wide swing.

Even worse for Roderick was seeing his sergeant, even before he had swung is sword, with a rag in his left hand to clean the blade off. As if Valen already knew every move his enemy would make.

Watching, Roderick had still forgotten to draw his sword, until Valen pointed to the last one standing with his own. "That one's yours."

Roderick gulped and nodded, and took three steps towards the creature before he remembered his weapon. He drew it clumsily, catching the tip at the edge of the scabbard.

The Gloamtaken shuffled towards him, raising its arms so dry, dead skin hung off if like cobwebs clinging to an old skeleton. Thin, clumsy, there was no reason for it to remind Roderick of his father that night.

But it did, and an unfamiliar anger rippled through him like a fever. But it wasn't hot, like he always thought anger was, like the anger of his childhood, or the anger he felt in the days and weeks after he left home. He gripped the sword in two hands, his eyes fixed on the outstretched arms, and he saw himself striking.

Drawing close he sidestepped to his right, and swung hard just beneath the creature's left arm. He heard both the wet chop of cutting flesh, and the crack of ribs snapping beneath his steel. The sword bit deep, the entire width of the blade was inside the chest. Roderick twisted his grip, and pushed on the handle, shoving the lower blade free, and the creature toppled and fell beside him.

Anger would normally have driven him to follow the creature down, to hit it again, keep hitting it until the seething rage faded. But this cold anger only had him looking ahead, eyes scanning the edge of the Gloam to see if there was something else to kill.

Seeing nothing but the churning grey mist, Roderick sighed and moved to sheathe his sword. But he stopped when Valen passed him. "Clean it off, first."

Valen then stopped, and turned to face him. Valen looked him in the eyes for a moment, looking for something Roderick could only guess at. A long moment later, he nodded, seeking to have found it. "For next time, widen your stance a little if your target is shorter than you are. That way you can chop between the ribs, rather than through."

Valen had seen Roderick's anger. He somehow knew his sergeant knew the strange, cold rage that thrummed through his body like music. Rage like what had propelled his father's fists, and Valen not only saw it, but approved.

In part, because no matter how dangerous he might become — even if he made it home a warrior enough that even that drunken rage could touch him — it was a toy compared to the disciplined skill Valen wielded.

"I will, sir," Roderick promised, as he cleaned his sword.

"Good. Take the torch from Mildred. Drink some water when you get the chance."

Mildred and he were being kept in this close rotation, passing the torch between them. It was the closest job they had to a chance for rest, since the torch carrier had to be kept from the fight. It wasn't a role that Valen had taken up himself since they started encountering the creatures coming out of the Gloam, and it wasn't a role he had offered to Mackaroy.

Mildred was already beside him, torch extended to him, with a bottle of water in the other. "You're starting to grow into this."

"Soldiering? You think so?"

"Your last couple of kills looked a lot better than my first few," Mildred said. "Kinda wish you had been this good last night."

Roderick flinched, as she she had just struck him. "Darius."

"Oh, spit and ash, sorry. No, you don't deserve that. Not at all." Mildred spat, as she shook her head and readied her Salamander. She stared ahead for a moment. "Going to go kill something now."

Mildred moved ahead, leaving Roderick to hold the torch, and to hang his head. The lesson he ought to have learned from a lifetime of fighting with his brothers, the petty squabbles of school that always seemed like the end of the City at the time, even the last night he had ever been at home, and he had taken too long to learn the right lesson.

If he had learned it earlier, perhaps he'd have made the difference, and Mildred wouldn't be grieving.

With a sigh, he turned his eyes to the now bright sky over his head, just in time to see a speck of bright orange fire dance in front of a cloud, and plummet towards him. "Ash and embers," he cursed, pointing up with his free hand.

The speck of flame dropped to the ground eerily quick, faster than a stone dropped from one of the control towers back in the City. It landed easily, without disturbing the ground, in an empty space just behind Hendricks. Once it was still, he could see the bird-shape the fire had taken.

Roderick gaped, recognizing it from the wall while they waited for the Golem. It was a Craft. "Vincent?" Roderick called out.

Over his shoulder, Captain Dremora was marching towards it. The captain glanced at Roderick for a moment, then bellowed at the fiery construct. "Hearthsward! Explain yourself!"

The construct seemed to dim for a moment, and Roderick wondered if Vincent had just cringed. But there was a flash of light in front of the bird, at the captain's feet.

"Report, then."

There was a larger flash of light, one that seemed to stretch a dozen feet across. Captain Dremora stared at for a long moment, moving little, nodding every few seconds. "So, another mile north-northwest. How many people?"

Another flash of light. "Good. Now Mister Hearthsward, has Sergeant Lorec noticed your wandering attention?"

There was a distinct pause, but Roderick could sense the shame in the moment before another flash of fire appeared in front of the captain's feet.

When the captain spoke next, the menace in his voice made Roderick quail, even though it wasn't directed at him. "Then you are disobeying orders. Return to your task, and focus on it. Get me a way through that wall, Mister Hearthsward," Captain Dremora ordered.

The fire vanished, leaving a small puff of smoke behind.

"Rangers!" Captain Dremora bellowed. "Close ranks. We're moving at a hard march. One mile or so. Third squad with me in the lead. First squad will take over once we get bogged down."

"Afraid you're going to be holding that torch for a while," Mackaroy said, from Roderick's right. He nearly jumped, not expecting the shadow to be so close. Even when he was speaking to Roderick, Mackaroy was watching the Gloam, not making eye contact."Stay close to Valen, and keep Captain Dremora in sight."

"Okay," Roderick nodded. "I can do that."

"Good kid," Mackaroy said, and looked him in the eyes.

Roderick suddenly wished the scarred shadow hadn't. There was an intensity in the man's gaze, a harrowing medley of rage, sorrow, fear, wrath, that all seemed to rest just beneath a surface thinner than skin. An intensity of pain, and of the kind of will that it took to conquer that pain, that made even his father's rage look like a tiny, frail thing. Like trying to be awed by a blast furnace after you've seen the Spire.

"Mildred, with me. On Valen's right. Looks like he and the Captain are spearheading us into this last mile," Mackaroy said as he darted up the line, taking a position a little behind and to the right of Sergeant Redgrave.

Roderick stopped a half-dozen feet from Valen, just as Captain Dremora pointed forward. The captain lead them forward, towards the Gloam, and Roderick followed with the torch.

Captain Dremora had two salamanders. One was slung over his shoulder, the way everyone carried theirs. The other rested in a holster on his belt, right beside his sword, and looked like at least a foot of the barrel had been cut off. When he unslung the rifle from his shoulder, he already had a knife in his left hand, the grip reversed.

It was a strange fighting stance, Roderick couldn't make any sense of it, though Roderick suspected his confusion wouldn't last long. They managed perhaps two minutes of marching, before the Gloamtaken appeared again.

And when they appeared, it was as if they had walked into a wall of them. From one edge of where the Gloam parted to the other, they came like a rising wave, and rushed forward.

"Hold position, plant torches!" Captain Dremora bellowed.

Roderick had no idea what that meant. He looked to his left, seeing Fauth dropping to his knees and ramming the handle of the torch into the dirt. Roderick did the same, shoving the torch down until little more than the fire itself stuck out.

Fire bloomed at the edges of Roderick's vision, while he pulled his Salamander into his hands. Everyone else in the squad was firing into the mob, cutting a swath of bright blue death through the crowd. And less than a second later, another single flash of fire. And a third. Roderick looked over, and gaped. Captain Dremora's hands were a blur of practiced motion, loading and firing so quickly his third shot was ripping through the air before even Valen was aiming his second.

Roderick fired, finally, careful to aim well between his comrades. His own shot was accompanied by shots from Valen, Mildred, and Hendricks, with Gwendolyn firing her own a heartbeat later.

The Gloamtaken died, every shot struck. There was almost no way to miss, not in the mass of creatures charging at them now. But felling them didn't slow the rest down, and a third volley was all most of them managed before they closed.

Closed, and died.

Captain Dremora and Valen both shifted their Salamanders over their shoulders, almost mirror images of one another. But where Valen drew his sword, the captain took up his other, shorter gun, and kept firing. Even as they closed to lunge, grab, grapple, and bite, the bright blue flash of fire kept shooting out of the captain's gun and through his enemies.

The captain shot one, stepped to his right, and used the fallen body to slow the next one. As he stepped, his hands were reloading gun, snapping the chamber in place and firing the next shot before the spent casing had hit the ground. His next shot punched through two of them, a third flanking on his far left took a knife to the chest without slowing down the captain's reload. Two more fell when he swung his gun almost like a sword, and somehow stretched the shot into hitting the pair standing next to each other.

Another on his right, and he caught the outstretched arms at the elbows with his short Salamander, twisting them away and punching it in the chest with his left hand. Only he had switched the grip of his knife, and the creature toppled in front of him, tripping the next one as it tried to grab him. He stepped back, reloaded, shot two more, then stabbed the one by his feet.

Roderick finally remembered to use the gun in his hand, and struck another one. He reloaded, his hands slow and clumsy when judged by what he had just witnessed. He raised it, ready to fire again, but there were nothing to shoot at.

Only the dead.

Roderick realized there had to have been nearly a hundred of them. Bodies lay in a wide arc, spattered sporadically in the field. On his right, Mackaroy was inspecting one of his knives, and Mildred had her ammo pouch open, counting her shots. Valen was doing the same, after sheathing his sword. To his left, on the other side of the captain, Cameron and Hendricks were only just beginning to relax, shifting out of battle stances and putting away their weapons.

"Third squad, ammo count," Valen ordered.

Roderick blinked, his thoughts panicking back into a semblance of order. He popped open his pouch, and started counting.

"Seventy-nine," Mildred answered first.

Gwendolyn and Hendricks both answered next, with Fauth answering a moment later. Roderick managed to finish before either of the shadows, who both seemed to have a small collection of knives to put away.

"Valen, what's your count?" Captain Dremora asked.

"Eighty-two shot, sir," Valen answered.

"No no, not that count. Gloamtaken."

"Fifteen in this engagement. Another ten from the march since Barleybarrel. My count is seventy-one."

"I only gained on you by six in that skirmish," the captain said. There was no boast in his words. If anything, he sounded rueful. "I'm not sure this invasion will be long enough to catch up to you, master sergeant. Private Lamar, your count?"

"Thirty-four, sir," Hendricks answered.

"Good grief. Specialist Crispin?"

"Twenty," Mildred said. There was an odd smile on her face as she spoke.

"Well, that is-"

"Seven," Mildred added. Twenty-seven. Now Roderick understood what had her smiling.

"Ash-bitten madness. Tell me I'm ahead of the squad's medic. Specialist Aranhall?"

"Seventeen. And that was fancy shooting, captain. Do you do tricks for children at the fair?"

"Right. Let's go find some more Gloamtaken. Torches up, quick march."

Roderick shouldered his Salamander and picked up his torch. He realized, as he followed his squad into the Gloam, that his father might have prepared him for the Gloamtaken. But that drunken anger, a slave to the man's own rage, would not have prepared him to walk alongside the warriors he now marched with.