CHAPTER 22 - LOW GUARD

  “Low guards, Lads! Low guards!” Burton reminded urgently, leading a group of five, including Levan, up a particular space at the village wall. He peered over it.

  “They’ve made the bed for us,” he said. Then he rolled up and over the wall.

  Levan balked and rushed forward.

  Burton landed the depths of a bush large enough to hide him.

  A moment later, the big man rolled out of the bush, beckoning them to follow.

  “See you at dawn,” the village boy who’d bullied him a bit called back. He and a few others were backing away.

  “See—” Levan began, then realized the boy hadn’t been talking to him.

  “See you at dawn,” the girl behind him said, and Levan cringed.

  “You’re next,” she said to him.

  “Next, with regards to what—”

  He felt a hand on his shoulder, another hand on his leather armor near the small of his back, and a third and fourth scoop up his feet.

  The sudden sensation of falling was startling, and he cried out before hitting the brush a moment later.

  A few branches scraped, but then he was past them, falling into what seemed like a hole dug in the ground and a bed of leaves piled within.

  It was pitch black, and for a startled, panicked moment, his head didn’t contain a single thought.

  An arm grabbed him by the front of the chest piece, and he felt himself tugged up and over the leaf-filled hole and out through the shrub that concealed it.

  “Quiet, Bread!” Burton urged in a whisper, and the other Lads began to drop, one by one, into the shrub.

  Poof.

  Poof.

  Poof.

  They waited, hunched behind a small group of stakes as the rest of the group came to join them.

  “The other Lads’ll be dropping on the far side of the village,” Burton said, looking around at their surroundings from his crouch behind the wood barriers. “They’ll plug one of the Windows over there, we’ll plug one over here, then we’ll hide out till dawn when the city will let us back in.”

  Windows?

  “Windows—” Levan took a guess. “Is that…the alternate realities they’re coming through?”

  “Exactly,” Burton said. “Four or five of them tonight, I’d guess. Two big, two small. We just worry about the small ones tonight.”

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  “Okay,” the big man said when all five of them were up and over and crouched together, huddled in a small circle.

  It was terrifying, doing this. But there was also a bit of excitement here.

  I feel like a paratrooper, he thought to himself. Not that a fifteen foot fall into a shrub and a bed of leaves was altogether that similar. This is some D-Day stuff right here.

  Except instead of fighting the germans, they were fighting the fish…lizard…monster…fallen…empire…things.

  Potato potah-to.

  And, he reminded himself, the paratroopers went through training.

  “Bread,” Burton said, “Try to stay close, but don’t suffocate me. Don’t do what I do.”

  “O..kay.”

  “Do what, ummm,” he scanned the faces. “Do what Trina does.”

  The girl, Trina, sagged, staring up at the sky and cursed, while the other two Lads relaxed.

  “Trina, keep an eye on Bread, don’t let him die,” Burton said.

  “Do I have to?” the girl said.

  Burton’s expression changed. The muscles that made his expression, from the big exaggerated bravado ones, to the small, micro nuanced ones, all dissapeared, fled his face like they’d never existed.

  He didn’t say anything, just gazed at the girl, who audibly gulped.

  She nodded a few times.

  Burton turned back into the woods and took a deep breath.

  “Liam, Posey—” he said, and the two boys straightened, faces sober. Each had a bow slung across their back, long knives at their hips, and each held two quivers—a large one the size of a laundry basket stuffed to the bushel-full of arrows, and a smaller, more traditional one with a few dozen arrows in it.

  “Are you two twins?” Levan asked.

  “Cousins,” the boys said at the same time.

  “Bread,” Burton said, and Levan turned. The man’s face was lit by the moonlight and the light from the planetary rings. He somehow looked both older and younger than he’d seemed at the same time.

  “Never interrupt me unless it’s urgent,” he said. “Last warning.”

  Levan’s stomach grew cold, and he nodded.

  He wasn’t used to being disciplined.

  A combination of trying to fly under the radar and punishing himself more harshly than most authority figures would think to do had gotten used to a specific pattern that did not include much scolding.

  “You two freaks find a good place to set up, as usual. You’ve been doing well. Keep us alive.”

  “Yes, sir,” they said in unison.

  “Good Lads,” Burton said with a smile.

  “We can see in the dark,” one of the boys said to Levan, either Liam or Posey, Levan wasn’t sure.

  “Cool, that’s—”

  “That’s why he called us freaks,” the other explained.

  “Oh, I—” Levan began.

  “Bread, quit distracting the archers,” Burton said, but he flashed a grin. Then the smile dropped like it had never been there. He leaned one way over the wooden stakes.

  “Go,” he said, and the cousins dissapeared into the woods without another word.

  Burton counted to himself, then peered around the other way, beckoning Levan and Trina to look with him.

  Over near the gate, a flow of monsters with taut bright skin, webbed fins, and sometimes even crude weapons assaulted a defense of mostly archers, as well as a few village soldiers in front of the gate, which was cracked open for a hasty retreat or quick close if overrun.

  The villagers in front of the gate fought, too far and too dark to see, besides the flashing of steel and the shouting of orders.

  The main bulk of the monsters were, without a doubt, pressing toward the gate, making their way directly up the hill.

  They thinned considerably the farther from the gate Levan looked, and by the time they reached the position he, Burton, and Trina now occupied, there were just a short number of them. Still, though, he saw their outlines in the dark, and more details as their shiny, orca-like skin caught the light.

  “With me,” Burton said, and peeled around the corner of the palisade.

  Levan followed, with Trina close behind.

  “Low guard,” he whispered, turning a quarter-turn and showing Levan how his sword was brought from above to a diagonal downward, blocking more of his center of mass.

  Levan mimicked it.

  “Good enough,” Burton said. “Call if you need help.”

  “I’ll need help,” Levan said, heart rate rising.

  “If you need it,” Burton said, glancing at Trina.

  I don’t like the sound of that.

  “It’ll be fine,” Burton said, and Levan found himself relaxing.

  Until Burton spoke again, this time, much quieter.

  “It’ll be fine, Burton," the man whispered to himself.

  "It’ll be fine.”