Page 42 of Veiled Fate
We had thought to hit them there initially, but after a quick scout, Kiel had pronounced ittooobvious, even for Arcadus’ troops. Instead, we’d come up with an even better plan. We would hit them rightbeforethe trail funneled down.
Our scouts said Arcadus was two-thirds or so down the line. Many of his guards would have entered the tight confines, the close-packed trees and thick bushes, and would take longer to react. Thus hopefully keeping the numbers against us down.
“Easy,” Kiel said, his fingers brushing my hand, stilling the nervous twitching. “Wait for the signal.”
“I know,” I assured him before falling silent once more.
That was perhaps the hardest part of the wait. Not being the ones to launch the attack. Patience was key to its success.
Arcadus’ troops were close enough now I could hear them with my own ears. The creak of armor, the occasional clang of gauntleted fists on breastplates. Even the muttered chatting of soldiers as they marched.
Any moment now.
The screeching cry of a hunting bird pierced the dull rumble of the ranks of soldiers. Easy to distinguish. Impossible to miss.
Thirty. Twenty-nine.
I started the mental countdown, as was every other member of our second force. Despite our limited numbers, the plan called upon a two-pronged attack. Kiel, Gare, and I would lead that second force. Tave was overseeing the initial force.
The diversion.
“Thirty.”
Kiel spoke the single word like it was just a number. But he had to say it loud enough to be heard over the cacophony of battle filling the forest air. Shouts and cries, steeling ringing on steel, the whistled orders of officers trying to gain control of their men and the situation as it devolved into chaos.
A chaos that was about to get worse.
In total silence we stood, casting off our camouflage like so many others up and down the line. Even before it crashed to the ground, we were moving, charging across the open forest as fast and silently as we could.
Most of us ran, fists churning. We had few weapons. What swords and spears we’d been able to gather were with the initial attack force. The soldiers would be focused on them first, and they needed a way to fend them off.
A brand-new set of cries went up as we slammed into Arcadus’ men from behind, bodily throwing them to the ground. Those following in our footsteps paused to grab weapons and finish the armored soldiers off.
Kiel was a wrecking machine. He tossed men left and right, breaking limbs and delivering death blows with his bare fists. I snatched a dagger from one soldier’s waist and buried it in the throat of the next. His spear flew wild, and one of our other men grabbed it and crunched it through the breastplate of an Arcadian soldier on his back, begging for mercy.
The shouts of battle were pierced with the screams of the wounded and dying as shifters fell left and right in a deluge of blood, bone, and innards. One of our strike force went wheeling aside, holding his stomach as it turned inside out. Another spun in circles, his left arm missing, arterial blood spraying everyone around him.
Soldiers were dying, too, the second attack hitting hard. Armored forms dropped as we gained more weapons and pressed the advantage.
But was it hard enough?
“They’re getting formed,” Kiel barked, pointing west to the narrowing of the path, where a solid formation of troops was having their ranks dressed by officers, preparing to advance. “We have to find him. Now!”
Nodding, we split up, running down the lines of battle, searching for Arcadus. At the far rear of the formation, I could see the young adult shifters of Arcadia milling about uncertainly, trying to determine what was going on.
Just as I pulled my attention away from the noncombatants, movement in their midst caught my attention. Dodging a wildly swinging soldier, I watched the center of the knot of young shifters—the irony that they were no more than a few months younger than me passed unnoticed in the frantic chaos of battle—noting how they shuffled from side to side.
Almost as if they were letting something unseen pass through.
“Kiel!” I shouted, pointing. “He’s getting away.”
From the front of the column, voices brayed, and a wall of silver steel advanced, clearing the way as the soldiers regained their composure and emerged from the tight confines of the narrow trail, slaughtering rebels as they came.
“Retreat!”
I found Kiel by his voice. He was on the far side of the path, waving everyone back into the bushes. His eyes locked on me, and I pointed frantically.
“Arcadus is getting away!”
