Page 23 of Brought to Light
My numbness might’ve passed for bravery if someone watching didn’t know any better. I put one stumbling foot in front of the other, and I wasn’t crying or pleading or storming with rage. But I couldn’t feel.
I needed to feel, or the pressure building up behind my eyes might go off all at once and tear me to pieces.
One foot in front of the other. It went on and on. We had to hurry. The lodge had been a full three days’ hike from home, when we’d had all the time in the world to enjoy the quiet forest paths and their fragrance of pine and running water and sunshine on the branches above us. Now we had less than two days. We’d make it, but it meant keeping up a pace that felt brutal after the events of the days before.
And then it stopped, and I collided with Oskar’s broad back, my chin knocking painfully into the hard leather of his pauldron.
“Is something wrong?” Callum asked quietly from right behind me. He’d stopped without running into me, of course.
“I heard something,” Oskar said, even more quietly. “I’ll scout ahead. Wait here. Kaspar, light out.”
Kaspar whispered a word to his staff, which went out instantly. A little frisson of fear raised the hair on the back of my neck. Oskar wasn’t one to jump at shadows, and I could feel Callum’s tension, a sudden thrumming hardness in the air. Anger joined the fear. Did they know something I didn’t? Had they held something back?
For someone so bulky, Oskar could be shockingly stealthy, and he disappeared between the trees without so much as a snapped twig or a rustle of the dry leaves beneath his feet. I strained my eyes, trying to watch his progress, but I couldn’t see anything. The moon hung high and nearly full, but the little shafts of light filtering through the branches above us weren’t enough to make out more than vague shapes.
Callum tried to slip past me, and I grabbed his arm. “Where do you think you’re going?” I hissed.
“Watching Oskar’s six,” he muttered, and pulled free, jogging after Oskar. He wasn’t quite as silent, but very close. Once he’d vanished too, I felt incredibly lost and lonely and alone, even with Kaspar beside me.
I huddled closer to him, and I waited.
Callum
I couldn’t see Oskar ahead of me, but I didn’t need to. All my instincts were on full alert, and we weren’t alone in these woods. I’d heard something too. A faint jingle and the stamp of feet.
The others hadn’t been able to tell me precisely when we’d leave the dodgy protection of the forest’s ‘ancient name,’ whatever the fuck that meant—at least in terms of miles, though they’d mentioned some landmarks that also meant nothing to me. Despite my skepticism, though, I’d felt a difference a few miles back.
The air had changed. That was the best way I could describe it, and it made me really fucking uncomfortable to acknowledge that what I’d felt was magic.
So I knew that if we were going to get ambushed, it’d be somewhere here. They could figure out as well as we could how long it’d take to walk to Linden’s home, and set up somewhere we’d be passing at night, when we were already tired, and outside the other forest’s invisible boundary.
A moment later, I didn’t even need to try to follow Oskar’s trail. A shout rang out, followed by the clash of metal on metal. I already had the Beretta in my hand, and I cocked it as I ran, hoping Linden and Kaspar had the sense to say out of it.
The trees thinned, and through them I caught a glimpse of a clearing full of sword-wielding men bathed in moonlight, a cluster of horses at the other side, and Oskar’s bulky figure whirling in the middle of it. His sword reflected the moon like a mirror, throwing sparks of white in all directions. More shouts filled the air, and a cry of pain as Oskar’s sword found a target. The soldiers swarming around Oskar wore black leather armor, but the metal studs in the leather caught the moonlight and made them easy fucking targets. It could be a challenge in combat sometimes to only hit the enemy, but in this case, I only had one friendly to miss. The silver lining to being outnumbered as fuck—twelve to two as far as I could tell.
I ducked behind a fallen trunk, getting a little bit of cover just in case they had any ranged weapons, and took aim at the asshole right behind Oskar, dead center of mass. A head shot would’ve been better; at this range studded boiled leather might slow down an FMJ round enough to matter. And as soon as I fired, they’d know they had company and be on me like they were on Oskar…not to mention, I didn’t have unlimited ammo. But in uncertain lighting and at this range, I didn’t have much choice, either.
The fucker paused in place, raising his sword, and I paused too, wishing I had my M24. But when I pulled the trigger, the bullet hit dead on, and he stumbled and went down. Half the men in the clearing spun to stare, crying out in a language I didn’t understand—but I didn’t need to.What the ever-loving fuck was thattranslated just fine. I grinned and took aim again. Double-tap to the chest, and another one down. And then a third shot, a miss, but my fourth shot hit its target, the ringing in my ears drowning out the screams. The rest had scattered like roaches, taking cover or racing to the side of the clearing to try to flank me. The third guy I’d hit had fallen to his knees, so I put another one through him before I jumped out of my crouch to get a better position. Oskar didn’t stop, cutting down two more of his opponents while I fired on the others.
That left seven, two to my right and two to my left, with the other three still taking cover or dodging Oskar. I put two more rounds into the clearing in the direction of one of the guys who’d crouched behind a tree stump and then dodged back, glancing back and forth to try to get a bead on the four coming my way.
There, to the right. One of them came out from behind a tree, and I fired twice, winging him in the shoulder as far as I could tell. A shout to my left and the clash of metal on metal suggested Oskar had followed those two.
Four bullets left in the Beretta. Switch guns? Not yet. Fuck it. That was enough for the wounded one and his buddy. I went straight for them, and the one I hadn’t hit yet jumped out from behind a tree, sword swinging, closer than I thought he’d gotten. Two shots to the chest took him almost down, but he lunged. I put another round between his eyes.
The other guy came at me, blood running down his arm, and swung close enough to part my hair. I ducked, cursing, and got my last shot off. It hit him in the leg, and he went down too.
I shoved my useless weapon back in my shoulder holster and pulled the Sig out of my waistband, and ran back toward Oskar to help him out with his share.
It wasn’t necessary. I found him next to two corpses, leaning against a tree and favoring his left leg, breathing hard, with blood spattered all over his face. He still had his sword up and ready, though.
“I’ll do a circle of the clearing and make sure they’re all down, but I think that’s all,” I said. “You okay?”
Oskar nodded, and then he grinned at me, his teeth glinting. “You’re a worthy comrade, Callum.”
“Sit down before you fall down,” I said, and hit him in the shoulder as I passed him. His laughter followed me back to the clearing.
I did a careful circuit, keeping my Sig up and ready, with my weird magical flashlight aimed with it. Nothing came out from the trees. The horses tethered at the edge of the clearing whinnied and stamped, and I gave them a wide berth, even though I knew I’d probably end up on one once we got moving again. Horses weren’t my thing, ditto anything else that needed to be fed and humored. I’d grown up in central LA and hadn’t seen a horse in real life until I deployed the first time. My footsteps sounded loud as hell now that the battle was over. A few groans echoed out of the clearing, and I’d deal with the source of those next, but it didn’t sound like anyone still alive would be going anywhere.
