The People of the Pillars - Broken Torch
The People of the Pillars - Broken Torch
In Those days
”You shall not touch my people!”
Rednans voice rang out over the night steppe. The voice trembled as from ice within his soul but the burning torch made his skin retract on the scorched arms and hands.
Somewhere at the boundaries of the circle, in the pitch black that surrounded the flickering light sphere the torch's fire created in the night, the Enemy was moving. Alone but terrifying. Rednan felt the Enemy's stare burn into his heart. Only because the torch lightened up and destroyed the darkness he himself found the slightest courage to stand firm. Rejecting the dark the torch gave his fellow kinsfolk, a great people, chance to find cover and leave him here alone, at the frontline where shadow and flame clashed.
But if he would have no courage the torch would not let him leave his post, however he would try. It was the blessing and curse of the torch.
His burned arms trembled in a pain he hardly was aware of any more.
It existed as a slightly dull ache and he knew it would fester and devour him with time but right now it could hardly be felt and he kept it at that level. He strained himself to not lose this, almost, pain free feeling.
Pathetic, as it was impossible to get rid of it. The torch granted that, as long as the Enemy roved around the people.
It was the People of the Pillars he protected, though that name was given by later folk in these lands. In these days they did not know what they would later accomplish before they would disapper.
Right now he stood upon a pillar, the first but not the last to be erected to guard the nights, built by simple, stable pieces of rock that put him high into the air and made the light reign over a vast land.
”You shall leave us this night!” Rednan swore, neigh commanded, the Enemy in the dark, and knew It heard him, reviled and cursed him but much more the torch that kept It from the people. The people whose heavy vapours of fear, hate, love and belief lay suffocating over the open steppe and lured, or forced, It's presence.
It hated the torch.
The man who held the towering torch was simply a tool. When the morning arrived and the torch faded to the first rays of the sun his body would be embalmed and be put next to the others whom had fulfilled their duty. Yes, the Enemy knew. Rednan knew and somehow the torch seemed to understand, as it always tried to restrain the heat from the flames.
But never man nor woman from the People of the Pillars stood two nights in the same place and every night the Enemy moved in the gloom around the Pillarpeople's great camp when the sun went down behind the horizon and the moon was hidden among clouds. As it had since It had found them in their need.
"Moon, oh moon, why can't we you see?
Moon, oh moon, when dire our need be
Moon, oh moon, dark and shadow we fear
Moon, oh moon, the night peace they tear
Moon, oh moon, sun's brother, People's friend
Moon, oh moon, harsh away the darkness send
Panion, mother of the stars, wake up thy son
Panion of the stars, do not forget or shun
Panion mother, what have we done?"
Rednan chanted and hoped it would be heard by the disc behind the heavy clouds. A single star would given hope but nowhere on the sky's heavy dome a single glance was to be seen.
”Please Panion, do not forget us. Please...?”
It was to be a long battle his people would fight. Rednan knew what would come, who would be the victor. He felt it would come long after his passing and his grandchildrens as well, if they were lucky. But one night the torch would no longer be litt and the night of the steppe would lie dark as only the lifeless can... lifeless beside from It. From the Enemy, who also would wander away.
The turpitude of the Enemy suddenly tore the silence apart behind the lights edge. A fool who had not left the fields or the river or the temple in time. Her poor scream echoed.
Rednan's tears evaporated on his chin. At the loud scream the flames of the torch rose in challenge, Rednan thanked it silently with cracked, bloody lips while he realized that the last of his hair on his body was lost and only ash covered his head and shoulders.
The torch would not let the Enemy come close to the people whom sought safety in the camp. It would keep himself up there on the pillar, whatever remained of him when the night ended.
His slowly boiling, chaotic mind prayed for a short night. The Enemy promised that with its presence it would not be so.
Rednan continued with his dry, cracked chant while the tongue thickened in his mouth.
Generations
Only Master Interpreter Hajion rode forth to kneel in front of the North Pillar. However he was not alone at this place and behind him twenty thousand men and women kneeled. Their light and heavy armours resonated loudly over the steppe. Their weapons were put in front of them in a motion that brought their painted faces towards the dust of the ground. Formal grim and cool they lay where they were while Hajion unmounted and placed himself in front of the North Pillar. It was a majestic pillar massive in size and scope. It was high as many men upon each other and built in a material the Pelans, his folk, never grasped; dense as stone but possible to mold like clay, if one knew how to handle it.
The People of the Pillars had known.
The People of the Pillars had been the predecessors in this land and had been gone long now, lost in the oblivion of uncertainty.
The sun stood high in the sky and the wind from the west was soft, barely able to keep life into the dust the army had pulled up. Midsummer had come and the days were long and hot but normally peaceful, since the people of the Pillarland moved at dusk and dawn in order to escape the frying summer heat. But not today. The warmth that made them all sweat created an unnatural, solemn atmosphere.
The Master Interpreter fell on his knee. The sound from his orange cap must have been hard to hear, but it broke sharply against the silence that besieged the field with its disciplined army waiting.
”Oh, shield of the Pillars People, hear their heirs prayer!” Haijon's voice was strong and enchanting and seemed to rise towards the sky, not losing its power. Among the soldiers Interpretors were spread out and repeated the words of the Master so that all would hear.
”We seek the strength of the Torch that protected those who once lived in this land, that we may be granted luck in our own struggles to live here. Now foreigners have reached our land, strangers without regard or reverence for the Pillars. We pray for the strength to drive them out. We pray for the support from the protector of the People!”
Hajion sang a short chant for protection granted by the Torch and ended with a ”Panion” that all the army had waited for and joined in.
Panion was the name of the first sunray of the morning and symbolized that you put faith in the Torch and the power of the Pillarpeople, sacred knowledge gain from the scriptures. The host cried and sang while they slowly but coordinately turned and marched away from the region of the Northern Pillar.
Hajion stood where he was, looking at the soldiers leaving, his fingers played with his long grey beard and his forehead was shirred. He had taken the soldiers here and now the commanders took over for the tactical decisions. He himself had no real power over the nation, mostly because it did not fell under his official mandate as Interpreter, that is Interpreter of the predecessor's lore.
”Hajion master, shall we not leave?”
Hajions prime servant stood behind him and held forth a full water bag. The young man with the fair lines in his face and the innocent eyes had an appreciated intuition for his learning master's needs.
Hajion thanked him and took the bag but rejected the thought for leaving. Instead he sent his liege to set up a small camp for the night, which forced the young man to first go after the soldiers, get the gasket by the horses behind the hills and then walk back again.
The Master Interpreter felt a bit of sympathy for his servant and mumbled something about getting rid of the ridiculous dogma that forbade mounts close to the Pillars, with the exception of the Interpreters own of course. Though while a good thought it would not come to pass. The dogma was barley a hundred years old and had no real reason behind it but had fallen to the romantic and ceremonial in taste and the Interpreter Guild had enacted it. Now the powerful conservative phalanx would never, ever remove it. Bah!
”I tell Marion 'Talafeon' that we will remain, master”, the servant said and then trudged away over the dusty plain.
Hajion sighed. Marion 'Talafeon' was the highest ranking marshal as well as a renowned warrior. His strength was great and his talent with the bayonet was feared by many. However, Marion was not only a worthy warrior, he was also highly regarded in the National Administration of the Pelans.
A knowledgeable, witty and too cynical management member for the Interpreter Guild's taste, since it often resulted in him not paying the old guild the reverence they normally ”suffered” from.
Still Marion indeed had thanked Hajion just before they had reached the region of the North Pillar.
”It is important for my soldiers. Their moral always improve when they feel under the predecessors and the Torch's warding hand... and what is good for my men and women is good for me.”
”And for the Pillarland, I might presume?” Hajion had added with a scorn. Marion's selfish goals the marshal seldom cared to hide but since it so far had been true that the warriors and the realms interests had been the same it had been fondly accepted.
”Certainly Master Interpreter! But I would like you to make it a short ceremony. I have reports that the pink skinned intruders dirty corpses rove close to the Northeast Pillars region and it make me furious...”
Hajion did not get the chance to drop an ironic comment on Marion's fresh zeal before the marshal went on:
”Northeast Pillar territory contain many of the fattest pastures when the winter comes, never shall it lay under the hooves of the enemy!
Marions problem, to Hajion, was the man's rigidity but he knew that his son knew his field as well as he knew his own science.
Still, or that was why, he had not mentioned anything about the suspicions he felt and the bad omens he had hesitated in front. Perhaps they concerned himself, or his son or even the whole of the Pillarland. It was about more than the pink intruders in any case. Yet he did not dare to go out and blow the night horn (an old expression inspired by the Pillarpeoples habit to warn for the coming on the night). His gaze ended up at the pillar with its carved, beautiful, imagery. About happy people. About change. About darkness. About something terrible.
”By the Torch, what happened to you...?”
Perhaps it was foolish, too many times his ideas had been rejected by the Interpreters. Influential opponents and rivals would use another mistake of his. So he hesitated, watching the host disappear behind the edge of the hill as perfect lines of ants. Yet he did not dare, caring for his reputation, to go out with what he feared to the Pelans. The nights grew darker again, fast. It was unnatural. Because the summer was reigning.
”By the Torch” he thought for himself once more.
Seven weeks
The tired and wounded roars of the agitated cow echoed through the night. From his spot uphill, behind the cover of a dirt wall covering a fresh bunker, the keen eyes of Marion darted over the scenery. He lay hidden five hundred steps north of the cow, that was halfway digged into the ground, with its back flogged badly and bloody.
Closer to the animal flies and midges swarm could be heard, even closer the insects eating and the cow's great eyes would be seen, but to Marion Talafeon it was just a dark shadow in a circle from the plain's only visible open fire.
The only light on the steppe as heavy, dark clouds filled the night sky, dragged along by a steady wind from the east. They promised rain and Danilo, the Rust River, behind them grew bigger each hour from distant bad weather. Marion had chosen it to cover his and his soldiers back, as a natural moat. Due to the weather it was no suitable night for a hunt, but it was the only one he had.
Seen from above the cow was in the middle of a tight ditch circle and after two hundred steps there was another, greater ditch circle. By the second ditch four elongated piles of dirt was built, pointing against the cow.
Two hundred steps from the second ditch there came a trench circle and just outside the trench a third and last ditch. For anyone who come close during the day it would look very strange, but it was dark, hopefully to dark to see, since as the summer had turned against them and the sun abandoned the sky early.
Two shadows, dressed in grey uniforms and dull dirty cuirasses, in the trench crawling over the steppe on Marions right, were uneasy. One of them, Carpenter from Pine Creek, in a grey cap trembled and said with a dark voice:
”Do he know what he's doing?”
His companion Olin responded in haste, creating a small variation in the low sounds of the night:
”Shut it, the marshal knows what he's up to. Remember how he even managed to win at South Pillar's Gate for crying out loud. Right, that was against the pink invaders, but you know how bloody many they were!” Olin's voice grew louder, adding: ”If your to afraid you can just...”
A sudden movement in the shadows made them jump high.
”...Quiet soliders. It can hear us if we're unlucky...” the strangers voice broke in, hoarse and strained in the dark from further back in the trenches. Carpenter and Olin at his side turned their heads towards the woman. All six pupils were large and if it wouldn't been for the dry throaths and jerky movements it could almost been natural due to the night.
”Now com'on Ynn, ehm, I mean Ranker” Carpenter said with a low but fierce voice to the Ranker who crawled up to them. She sat down next to them while Carpenter pulled of his cap and said:
”If it really is the Enemy that is back, I mean that just can't be true, it must be some mass hallucination or a revolution. By Bernai! The Enemy is what we tell our children to behave and eat their vegetables for crying out loud. Since we came to this realm there never been any proof. Five hundred years of nothing. Nothing! Look at it, all we have is a lost peoples writings and pictures. Look at us, fighting a tale. The darkness that have come over us now, the lost armies and the destroyed settlements in the west, I bet you it's only some of those invading barbarians we kicked out or something, some other barbarians from the wastes in the west, fooling all of us. You saw the destroyed villages too, by Bernai, it can't be a single creature that did all that. There is no bloody Enemy.”
Ynn and Olin said nothing and Carpenter continued:
”But if it is true, I mean only if, then we can't fight it like this. We're six, Ranker, against some kind of demon. It's crazy! We have to do it like the old people did, hey I mean they knew what was going on and all, they had – we need – Marion should get a Torch, by Parion! A Torch! Holy Light! Like the Interpreters speak about. Then we could go whip that night beast into oblivion I tell you!”
Olin in a hasty voice growled:
”Shut it Carp! A Torch? You stupid cowardly bastard, the old people got killed by the Enemy, what good did their fancy 'magic' Torches do to them?”
”Olin, quiet down or I'll tie you next to the cow” Ynn hissed between her teeths and then pushed impatiently at Carpenter. She said:
”Listen to Olin, the Torches and the old ones were gone just as our ancestors came here, you know that. But Marions father is an Interpreter and still not even Marion is dumb enough to dream about some magic artefact from ancient history coming to save us. Marion Talafeon is our captain and he say he got a plan; we all freely swore to back him up...”
They heard the cow cry in the night.
Ynn's jaw, shaking as it couldn't find more arguments, shut tight. She gave them another tala-cake each even if she knew them talking probably was an effect of the tala and crawled back. It took her into the dark north-east. Then east past marshal Marions tense back and out into the left trench seen from the north. The trench was a big circle on the long slope from the steppe towards the Danilo river. She meet her two stationed soldiers who were, somewhat ecstatic, going trough their gear again.
A very little fire well hidden in a buried oven and some flares were the most important part of the equipment; one of the soldiers were all over it while the other polished their swords and muskets.
They all expected the earth to soon tremble under the Enemy's approach even if no one ever encountered more than tales of It, and the bitter tala-cake strained their senses. They had not slept for a day and a night, digging, building, carrying barrels, steel, wood and oil, staying awake thanks to tala and coffee.
”We are the bait in this trap, you know that? The Ranker is a bastard” Carpenter murmured, waving his sabre in the dark in east trench. ”We need Torch Light to face the Enemy.”
”Do not worry about that” Olin responded. ”We'll give It light all right.”
The Final Hour
Suddenly the wind eased so that the night became utterly still, but not quiet because there were distant rumble from thunder. The cow bellowed.
”A storm would destroy everything,. We would miss It coming” Marion sighted. He moved his tall body, strong as a slender mountain lion, through the bunker opening to get a better view. His legs took him up in front of the bunker so he stood inside the circle of the trench.
The steppe was all nothing beside the fire in the centre of the trench circle and the distant rim of the blue shaded horizon in the west. He made an evaluation.
Perhaps he had misjudged everything? Perhaps It was not in these part on the realm at all? If so it was dumb to only allow so few soldiers to join him and force the others away. Perhaps the legends claiming It could and would find anybody in the night not protected by light were untrue so that they and the cow would not work as bait? Or, perhaps everybody gone crazy and there was no Enemy at all?
The cow was silent and the grass sounded soft in an increased wind.
Had Marion seen himself from the outside had he considered him speeded and disjointed where he wiggled in a circle but he felt sharp and calm. Perhaps he should call it and hurry back to his army he sent up the valleys, past the Danilo river? It suddenly felt embarrassing that he, the renowned Talafeon, had fallen victim to an outburst of some children tales superstition. Either way it was wrong to risk his soldiers like this!
”Ranker Ynn!” he shouted. ”We will go home, this is just dumb.”
A distant flash made the night slightly brighter and then it was apparent that next to the cow a mighty black shape towered.
Every vein till the core of his bone froze to ice. It was something there, It was there, only five hundred steps away in the middle of the circle. It was huge, and it had been all dead quiet. How on Earth could it? What was it...? Suddenly the marshal who was renowned for taking head in charges was all out of power, his legs trembled under him.
”What? What did you say Marshal?”
Ynns voice broke the momentum, she cried from his left and he just had the time to respond ”Fire! It is here! Fire!” before there was a terrible rumble. The Enemy acted directly it seemed and the moment later there was a big thud when the foe landed. ”Fire” he screamed. ”Fire!” First now Marions senses awoke but with a great force he flew trough the air.
There was a horrible scream of pain throughout the night.
”I told you so” laughed Carpenter when he heard the marshal's order of retreat.
”To be honest that's quite all right with me...” Olin confirmed while rising, then Marion shouted something else and strange bounces echoed.
”What the...” Olin asked and Marion yelled ”Fire” twice, then came the horrible scream of pain from the other western trench. After that all went silent. Olin said; ”Broken Torch Carp', It's here! Fire, the fire!”
If he actually said it out loud or not he could not say, Olin just fell and crawled at the floor towards the oven. He butted head with Carpenter who came with the same goal and they fell apart cursing. Then Carpenter was back, pulled a flare and lightened it in the oven, crawled up at the trench's outside wall and tossed his flare into the ditch at it's rim. The ditch was filled with thick oil and wood that quickly burst into flames.
Carpenter shouted in triumph ”One up, Olin! Let's get the bastard!”
The fire spread around the trench-circle like an outer wall, lightening up the gloom of night.
Then came the sounds of someone running and panting from within the circle. Olin and Carpenter could distinguish the silhouette of a person sprinting towards them when there came a greater sound of feet and something black tossed the person into the air with a frightened shout. A disturbing yell of pain and the sound of meat and bone breaking followed. Pale faced the two men took off without thinking, Carpenter south along the trench and Olin north towards Marions bunker.
Carpenter kept low and in good pace but didn't really knew what he was doing. From his point in the trench there could be no more than a thousand steps across, and now it had turned into a cage of fire. By the gods and forefathers accursed, why had he ignited the oil?
Close to the southernmost point he halted and sat down, leaning against the sandy wall with the fire crackling above. After a few breaths it struck him that in the light of the fire he possibly could be spotted and changed side so he had his back inwards. While it felt somewhat safer he also could not get rid of the feeling that now he would no longer see anything coming his way.
”No!” he yelled and then covered his mouth. In the corner of his eye he had seen a red, frog-like snake coming with a fanged mouth towards him. Then it was gone of course, as a child of the paranoia the tala-cookie could cause minds after hours and hours of use. But, had the Enemy heard him?
Deep breaths during what could been hours or seconds. Then when he had control of his breath he no longer could control his curiosity or fear. Slowly he looked over the edge into the 'court-yard'.
While he could see the fire wall and the four man-made dirt piles but no other people – and not It. Where could it be? After all, it had to be a demon of some kind but...
”Where are you?” he mumbled to himself and then with a hiss: ”The trap!”
Already the wall of fire were weakened, or at least it seemed so as he knew it couldn't last to long. Two hundred steps from the centre there was the second ditch with new oil. The plan had been to lure or force the monster into that new fence where the dirt piles were placed, and after that into the third. They had to catch it while the fire lasted. But first he had to find It and then in the right moment...
Carpenter tried to rise but was dizzy with nausea. He sat down, untied the cuirasses and dropped it. With shaking fingers he pulled out a tala-cake and swallowed it almost whole. Again he rised, looking in both directions. Still no signs. Then he heard a barrage of gun fire directly from the north and ran off west, to his right.
“Reload!” Ynn tossed the muskets at Olin, who were just finished with reloading one as he gave her in return. They sat in Marion's bunker and had just on pure instinct emtied everything they found ready in the bunker trough the southern opening, as the big black creature had appeared and crashed into it.
“Did we hit anything? Ranker? Did we hit It?”
Ynn didn't answer, just lay low close to the opening, looking and listening. She had a good name as a sharp shooter but this time the same question as Olin asked pondered inside her. Everything outside was either darkness or shadows caused by the fires. She heard sounds, but not from the beast of prey she felt stalked close by.
“Ranker? Where is It? Has It gone?” Olin wined and continued with the next rifle. He loaded it the wrong way twice.
“I can't hear, be quiet” Ynn said and then looked up as sand fell into her face. Now she heard it, as a heavy beast on soft palms were switching feet.
“It's on top of us. Get out!”
The bunker floor came collapsing down upon them. They darted out to the left and ran, believing to hear some kind of roar in the general turmoil. Their lead was not far, they could hear the thumps of the pursuer. Ynn turner her head once and could spot a massive shadow in pursuit, it seemed fast.
Olin who ran first took a bad step and flew in a spin trough the air to the ground.
“Watch where you are running gods damn it!” Carpenter swore and rose up, he had been hiding in the trench gloom. Olin panted and called out: “My arm! You goat-doer! I think I broke my arm!”
“Pick up Olin, Carp!” Ynn commanded and jumped over them, turning around aiming her musket behind and over them. Carpenter pulled up his friend to get behind her but when the three of them stood clustered the shadow came in a great leap towards the soldiers. Ynn's weapon boomed into the night and the shadow lost it's course in the air, falling and rolling past them.
“Inwards! Run inwards!” Carpenter said.
Ynn reloaded while the men hurried towards the second ditch. The sky now added to the sounds of the night even more, the thunder was heard much closer.
The shadow came over them but once more Ynn honoured her reputation, with an odd sound the Enemy's unclear silhouette backed off and the Ranker ran after her soldiers with smoke rising from the musket.
The Last Minutes
“We have no flare” Olin noted.
“We have no flare!” repeated Carpenter as Ynn came up to them. Ynn got the same despair for a moment until Olin remembered them that at the dirt piles there were additional ovens with flares. They ran against the western pile as it was closest and they found them.
Then Ynn fired into the night again.
“Where is it?” Carpenter begged.
“It- it was not It” Ynn mumbled, reloading. “Bloody tala-cakes, think I got the shakes by now. I was sure I saw it but it was not it. Curse, curse, can't have that now...”
“We must lure it here before we ignite, Ranker” Carpenter answered like he had not listened, while to only thing he could picture himself was the sight of the red snake and it made him quiver.
“Then we must spread out too” she concluded and each held their burning flare while soft rain started to fall on them.
They looked around but if the Enemy were anywhere close they missed it. “Who goes where? It can be anywhere. It's big right? How can it hide? We need to get it inside the second circle...”
Without further ado Olin then ran south screaming as loud as he could but used no words. Ynn cheered and ran north waving and screaming while Carpenter held his place adding to the choir: “Com'on you bastard. Here we are! Come and get me. Don't you dare?”
Then it struck him that It would go for Olin. The man bleed and was slower due to his wound, and they had let him go south. Somehow he knew the snake... the Enemy would be down that direction. “Oh, this is so bloody dumb....” he hissed and went after Olin.
Ynn saw Carpenter take off south and hoped there was a good reason, she could hardly see Olin but it looked like he was doing what he was supposed to. Where was It?
Once more her ear sharp saved her. Over the distant thunder came the sound of fast movement trough the grass behind her. She jumped aside but was hit by a terrible force and sent trough the air. Nothing got her though, she hit the ground hard on the shoulder, mouth filled with dirt. Aching she turned over and the great beast suddenly took a vague form, for splits of seconds it was like a great, awful bear that came down upon her. The sound of gun fire made her open her eyes again, next to her head were two impact holes and the air smelled of something rotten, but she was alive.
As fast as she managed she crawled to her feet just to face Marion Talafeon with a musket and a gun in his hands:
“You hit It Ynn, twice. It want you for that, what an awesome beast.”
“Marshal! You're alive! We thought, I mean, and then we tried to get It into the trap” she gasped but he stopped her while putting on his bayonet:
“The trap is my idea. We shall have It's head Ranker, I shall have it. Oh no, It can not match me! We shall force it into the centre and then we shall lighten up the day in ways It never faced before! It's after those other two now. Ignite the fire! It's inside the second ring now, ignite the fire Ranker! I will get It!”
The bright cold in the eyes of the marshal looked trough her and he ran away. Ynn took up the flare and closed the second part of the trap.
”Broken Torch! It went after the Ranker” Carpenter thought and stopped, listening carefully. There was the sound of gun fire and then silence. Better to get hold on Olin then than be here alone. After just a few steps he stopped, looking around.
The insight crushed his chest, there was the obvious sound of something walking trough the grass in the dark just outside his range of sight, then a hasty shadow against the outer wall of fire, something that almost resembled heavy purrs from a cat. It circled him, he turned around on the spot, trying to catch It.
”Why did I volunteer for this crap? Oh gods, my family...”
Carpenters scream echoed into the night.
The rain became heavier but now the second ring burst into fire, with greater flames so it suddenly was possible to see all, if also clad in shadows of the dancing flames.
Marion Talafeon looked down at the body of his soldier. Carpenter was it? The world still spun, he shook his head. He couldn't recall right now, no matter, It was close.
He just had to lure It closer in, and then it would be completed. It was a grand foe, he had seen It, but he would take the Enemy down. He knew it now, it was his fate. The greatest warrior of this time against the bane of old old. Then they had tried their Torches, pitiful. But now...
Across some hundred steps of space the Enemy's vast silhouette stood looking at him, coming without haste from the direction Olin ought to had been.
”Good” Marion considered, ”that bought me some distance.”
He could not see it clearly, but It was big and It was his. The inner, third ditch were just twenty-five step from the centre and thus a good bit away from them both. He had to run and he had to make It follow but also ignite the inner fire wall so it all worked out. He began to laugh, it was so easy.
The sound of his laugh caused the Enemy to stop and shrink, like it crouched to a sprint. Marion took off. He ran as fast as he could, great steps in a breakneck speed but the Enemy's silhouette leaped over the yard against him, to cut off the way.
Reaching the ditch the Enemy was over him, tackled him so that he flew into the air but just as with Ynn It was not there to catch him up. The rain had made the ground slippery, making the beast slide while trying to stop. But the flare was gone. Marion swore, jumped upon his feet and ran towards the cow and the dead fire by it.
He plunged his naked hand into the scorching ashes pulling up still burning coal and kept running to the ditch on the other side of the cow, tossing the coal into the oil. Flames burst up, these the very fatest and hottest of them all. With the smile of victory he turned around facing the Enemy as it moved agitated towards him. He walked defiantly towards the Enemy pulled the rifle from his shoulder. But beside some distant thunder it came no sound..
The trap did not work. The plan had failed.
Marion's smile died utterly, still he went forward facing It, with the bayonet unbowed.
Then it came - the thunder of doom.
Ynn limped towards the inner ditch when she saw it blaze and from it went oiled ropes towards the four dirt piles pointing at the centre Into each two great cannons were buried, aiming at the centre and after a few moments when the fuses had caught fire they all went off causing a great roar and deafening rumble.
From the inner circle came a terrible bellow, It was the Enemy's cry, she knew it, but it was consumed into the thunder that now came in over them. Flashes stroke near them and at centre nothing stood any more.
”Marshal, you did it, you did it!” Ynn tried to say but just managed only to pray silently. She sat down, feeling the rain shower her from blood and dirt. ”You did it.”
From nowhere Olin came up beside her, his arm hanging and with some new bad scars over his face, but alive. They looked at each other, smiled but said nothing. Ynn arose again, walking north towards the supply wagon that stood behind the crushed bunker. She had to change into something warm and was just about to tell Olin to do the same when she heard him say: ”Oh, oh no.”
Through the dying flame wall of the inner circle the dark mass of the Enemy came. Flames licked it badly. Still tall in stature it staggered and stopped outside, standing like a black cliff in front of the fire. Ynn pulled Olin's jacket and they backed off but It saw them and started to move again. Slowly, faltering, but without hesitation.
”We won't let it take us alive Olin, we won't let it take us alive. There, the river, it's just over there.”
They limped closer and closer to Danilo across the burned out ditch but the Enemy came closer and closer, no matter the sounds of painful strain It emitted. They crawled over the trench and the last ditch and with just a few steps to the river brink they turned and looked straight into the black enigma that was their death.
”May the abyss take you” Olin said as it lifted a great front arm, or leg, to fall down upon them.
”Shoot it! Shoot it” an unfamiliar order came. A barrage of muskets was heard and the great beast with a cry fell in an arch over them, tumbling over the bank and into the river.
A company of soldiers, who finally had disobeyed Marion's orders when gun shot echoed, ran forward, helping the two survivors up and covered them with blankets.
”What was that? The Enemy? We could not get a clear view” they asked exalted.
The Ranker among them and some of his soldiers speed on looking down the river brink. In the light of a flash they could see something big, and motionless, that was swallowed by and sucked away by the river.