Roderick

They were coming.

Vincent's fires had died away a few minutes ago, though the field still bore the scars. The land was blistered and raw, smoking in places. Soil had been scorched, the clay beneath baked, and something glimmered along the horizon. The shine was both ember-orange, and the white of milky glass.

The Gloamtaken were marching over it, unconcerned by trivial things like how their feet now blistered and burnt beneath the oven-hot ground. It was hard to see them as anything more than a single thing; like how you couldn't see the millions of drops of water that made up a river. The mass of dead marching stretched from as far as he could see, to as far as he could see. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, all forming a single surging wave that meant to swallow Barleybarrel whole.

Roderick could see them now, because the Gloam itself wasn't following. Perhaps the still-smouldering ground kept it back. Or perhaps, Roderick wondered, whatever power lay out there, the one that had extinguished the fires earlier and tried to kill the Rangers when the Gloamtaken couldn't, perhaps that power wanted to show them what was coming.

Someone elbowed Roderick in the shoulder. He pulled his eyes and his thoughts away from the fields, and turned to see Aranhall was standing beside him, holding her hand out. "Take a look," she said.

Roderick opened his hand, and Gwen dropped a small rock into it. Strangely translucent, like looking through a cup of dirty water, Roderick at first thought it was some sort of quartz, or some crystal mined from underground.

"It's glass," Gwen said.

It didn't look like any kind of glass Roderick had seen before. A crystal shard, as long as his thumb, the colour of industrial slurry.

"Glass is sand when you melt it. All the other kind of glass you've seen before is the stuff made in kilns, carefully controlled heat. This piece, I picked out of a sand mound about a quarter-mile back. Vincent had dropped a column of fire on a bunch of Glomtaken who were sanding by that spot. Didn't see much of those creatures after except ash."

"Vincent made this?" Roderick asked.

"Yep. Not even intentionally," Gwen said, and she closed his hand around the piece of glass. "Keep it."

"Why?" Roderick asked.

Ahead of them, Mack turned a little and held up one of his knives. "See the pommel stone?"

Roderick squinted. The stone was glassy, gleamed in the light, but was blacker than any night he had ever seen. "I see it."

"It's obsidian. Black glass, made from slagged stone. We take ours from the sites when a reject or a Crafter loses themselves and turns their power on the City," Mack said. "Gwen's giving you something to help remind you how powerful Vincent is. Help remind you of the scale of the battle you're a part of."

Strangely, Gwen frowned at Mack, even as Roderick was still the one she was speaking to. "I want you to keep that, just in case you ever start wondering why we're the ones fighting when Vincent's capable of that."

"Why are we?" Roderick asked.

He had seen Vincent at work. Vincent's Craft. Vincent's power. And it was terrifying. As much as any of the Crafters who had stood on the wall when the Golem had marched. Perhaps more so, there was something strangely restrained about the sweeping fire and twisted explosions that had ripped apart the fields. There were lots of small explosions rather than single large ones, the fire always held those unnatural shapes, as if the rending flame was being held in immense, invisible hands.

To Roderick, it looked like Vincent was being careful.

"Because we're just risking our lives," Gwendolyn said. "Your life doesn't get any shorter if you shove a sword in a Gloamtaken's chest. Well, unless you forget to pull it back out after. But if Vincent steps in, he's spending his life. Every Craft burns him, little by little. So you keep that in your pocket, and do your best to make sure we don't need him again."

"To save him for some other fight?" Mackaroy asked, somewhat bitterly.

"For when we need him most," Gwen concluded.

It was surprisingly difficult to disagree with them. Gwen had been an authority figure for Roderick for almost a year, and that impression had only cemented as she put on an army coat, a corporal's badge, and a white scarf. But something about their ruthless calculus, about how they talked about Vincent' fight as if it were wasted material on an assembly line, grated on Roderick's nerves. "I have his back. Already know he has mine," he growled.

Mack and Gwendolyn looked at each other for a long moment. Mack nodded, looking away, and Gwen held out her hand. "Give it back," she said.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because you don't need it," she said.

"Hell no," Roderick said. "It's neat looking, and it's another story I can tell Candice when I see her again."

"Fine," Gwen said. "But count your shots. I told the lieutenant that even without Redgrave, we'd take the lead. You're with me and Fauth, we'll be at the rear of our formation."

"The rear?" Roderick asked. "But..."

"But nothing. There's only room in this street for three people fighting with swords. If the Glomtaken get through our firing line, you're not my first pick for holding the line. That would be Mack, or Hendricks. After that, it'll be Cam, Mildred, then you. Fauth is in reserve in case we need to fall back, he's the one with the fuse for the explosives we've packed into these buildings," Gwendolyn explained.

"And you'e the medic."

"That's right. Hard to know if someone's nicked an artery if I'm elbow-deep in Gloamtaken," Gwen said. "Now eyes up, and count your shots. I want you to have that number etched onto the inside of your skull by the time they reach us."

"Why is that?" Roderick asked.

"Because we're only going to hold while we have ammo," Lieutenant Varnell said as she walked past.

Roderick knew a few people who looked like they had stepped out of the pages of a storybook. Vincent's master, Crafter Polden. Captain Dremora. A few of the Rangers. Sergeant Redgrave. Each of them had an odd, strangely larger-than-life mannerism, as if their thoughts and actions weren't based on quite the same fears and hopes as everyone else Roderick had ever known.

Seeing his new lieutenant, Roderick suspected he was about to add her to that list.

Emily Varnell didn't look as young as she likely was. Her eyes were too hard, too cold, as she stared out at the advancing mob. Her mouth wore a small scowl like an ornament, as if her irritation was less a part of her than Aranhall's hat. And the new sword at her belt looked as if she had worn it for quite a bit longer than she had actually been a soldier.

"Once you're all just about out, Decklan and second platoon will take over," Lieutenant Varnell said. Her left hand hovered over her sword, not quite touching it. "Then you stock up, and spot them while they do the same."

The Gloamtaken were close now. Close enough Roderick could see the weather-stripped rags some of the creatures still wore. Close enough that he could hit one with a well-placed shot.

"Hold fire," Lieutenant Varnell said. Her back was to him, she was standing several feet ahead now, and she somehow knew what Roderick was thinking. "We don't want to drop the creatures early. There's nothing to gain from it. We want them to fall in the alley, and force the ones behind to try and climb over the corpses we put in their way."

Roderick lowered his Salamander, not fully realizing he had raised it in the first place. Mildred, on his right, patted him on the shoulder. "Wasn't just you," she said. He didn't know if that was sympathy, or a confession that she had done the same.

"Okay, slight change of plans. First squad, ready and aim," the lieutenant said. "Second squad, at the ready, but keep your barrels pointed down. I'll tell you when."

Gwen, Hendricks, Cam, and Fauth all pointed their guns. Their hands were steady, their guns barely waved in their hands, and their eyes had no hint of fear in them.

They looked, to Roderick, as much like Rangers as any other soldier in the company.

"Not yet," Lieutenant Varnell said.

The Gloamtaken were crossing the line of pilot lights at the edge of town, sweeping underneath the exhaust pipes and filling the street. In moments, the mob blotted out any sign of the world beyond, in much the same way the Gloam itself might have.

There was a moment, just as the creatures filled the end of the street, where the entire mob stopped. When the Gloam went perfectly still, when everyone around Roderick held their breath, and waited.

Then the Gloamtaken charged, spilling into and filling the street.

"First platoon, fire!" the lieutenant bellowed.

Four bright-blue flashes of fire lanced into the mob. Creatures stumbled, twisted, fell, but the mob didn't slow.

"Reload! Second, aim," Lieutenant Varnell cried out, as she pointed her own weapon.

Roderick put the sights to his eye, and picked a target. Or at least picked a direction slightly aside from where Mack was pointing.

"Second platoon, fire!" The lieutenant shouted.

Roderick's shot struck the mob. So did three others. Creatures fell, others replaced them. The mob drew closer.

"Reload. First, fire."

Another flash of fire. The light wasn't quite as sharp; smoke from their guns lingered in the still air of the street. Roderick was replacing his shot without looking down at his weapon, eyes still fixed on the creatures trying to close. He barely closed the latch before Emily called out "Reload. Second, fire."

Another volley. And as they fell, Roderick could see the mob, even as it kept coming, was already slowing. Not hesitating, the Gloamtaken cared nothing for losses. But in the tight space of the street, every shot was brining down at least one, likely two. Which meant there were dozens of them already lying on the street, blocking the way and slowing the mob trying to climb over them.

Roderick was reloading as quickly as he could, only barely managing to finish by the time the lieutenant ordered them to fire again. The air shimmered around his weapon's barrel, and the spent casings bit at his thumb and fingertips as he pried them loose.

Another volley. Then another. And another. And only then, Gloamtaken reached them.

The first one didn't slow them down. Mackaroy had a knife in and out of the creature's chest with a casual efficiency that would have frightened Roderick even yesterday. Even the second didn't cause trouble, as Mildred managed to imitate Mack's knife technique well enough to make it a quick kill.

But the next three required Hendricks to shift to sword work, and their volley fire suffered for it. Cam and Varnell moved up with blades in hand to lend him support, Gwen was covering with careful fire between the front ranks, and Fauth had shifted to the left, near the entrance to the apartment building where their explosives had been set.

Roderick kept firing, pushing himself into position so that he had no chance of accidentally hitting his comrades. Even as creatures clawed and bit at his gun and his hands, he fired, stepped back to reload, then rejoined the fray.

Roderick's eyes stung, his fingertips burnt, his hair plastered with sweat. But the creatures were dying, and they held.

The lieutenant tapped Mildred on the shoulder, and pointed backwards. "You, Fauth, Mack, Gwen, and the kid, take two steps back, reload, and be at the ready."

"Aye, ma'am," Mildred shouted, dragging Fauth back with her. Roderick followed, and Gwen was a step behind him. He popped another shot into his gun, turned, and held his gun with the barrel pointed at the street, ready to pull it up and shoot.

The lieutenant, with Hendricks and Cameron, held the mob for a moment longer. Then another. Cameron was a blur of deadly motion, knife in one hand and sword in the other, both drawing death as they passed. Hendricks, closest to Sergeant Redgrave in both technique and skill, seemed to kill with the lightest touch of the sword. The lieutenant didn't possess quite the same skill, but she almost seemed able to predict what the creatures would do next, and it looked at times like the monsters were deliberately throwing themselves on her sword.

They held, astonishingly, until Lieutenant Varnell squinted at the mob for a moment, then waved her arm. "Cam, Hendricks, run and duck beneath the others,"

All three of them turned and ran, covered the half-dozen steps, and slid between the others.

"Let them have it," Emily cried out.

Roderick squeeze the trigger, and joined the other five in shooting.

This time, already stopped, packed tightly, the toppling Gloamtaken drove the others back a step, and halted the mob.

"Reload, fire at will," the lieutenant ordered, firing her weapon.

Roderick fired as soon as another shot was set in place, not even bothering to aim. Flashes of blue flame lanced through the crowd, driving the mob back not by pushing those who were standing, but by dropping them. Four more shots in, and Roderick was advancing on the mob, the others taking positions beside him.

Roderick advanced right up to where the Gloamtaken had fallen, stopping roughy where Emily and Cameron had cut them down with the sword. He kept firing, reloading, firing, and would have kept doing that, until Emily brought them to a halt.

"All stop," she said. Not shouted, just spoken. But everyone heard her, and let their guns fall as the barrels stooped to the street.

"Reload and at the ready. But let them get closer again," Emily said. She leaned her gun on her shoulder, resting the barrel against the thick hemp pad on her shoulder. "Not a bad minute. Let's see if we can keep it up another fifteen or so.

Roderick's mouth hung open. One minute. That had only been one minute.