The Hollow: At The Edge (18 page)

“I don’t want to go
back,” added Holly.

“Brant?” Caellix turned
him. “Thoughts?”

“You know me, Sergeant.
I’m game for anything.”

“Dogbreath?”

“Maybe they’ll have a
pub,” Dogbreath grinned.

Caellix turned to
Dhulrael. “I don’t know what’s waiting for us. If you know of
anywhere safe you can hide, we can probably get you there and-”

“If it is all the same
with you, Sergeant,” Dhulrael interrupted. “I will come with you.
You will need my help.”

“How?” Caellix asked
suspiciously.

“For one thing, I am
quite sure I can get you into the city without anyone knowing.”

Caellix regarded him
carefully. “We can continue this discussion later. For know, let’s
back track to the forest and...” She trailed off, and cocked her
head listening.

Serrel did the same,
and he heard voices again, but this time speaking in Imperial.

“Did you hear that?”
said a male voice unnecessarily loudly.

“Please be quiet,” a
second voice told him.

“Hello! Anyone there?”
the first called out.

“Shut up.”

The group exchanged a
glance. Caellix nodded to the right, and lead them in the direction
of the unseen speakers.

As they came around the
remains of a smoking tent, staying out of sight, the group spotted
three people in stained Legion uniforms. There were two men, or
more accurately, two boys, as they looked about as old as Serrel,
if that. The third speaker was a much smaller girl, with long,
unbound brown hair. She spoke to the others with an infuriatingly
calm voice.

“If you keep shouting,
the elves will find us,” said the girl, matter-of-factly.

“But what if it’s
someone hurt?” said one of the boys. He looked petrified.

“Then we should go
look. But
quietly
.”

“This is so dumb,” said
the second boy. He managed to look even more scared than his
companion. He was visibly close to tears. “There are monsters out
here. We should go back!”

“Calm down,” the girl
told him. “We can’t go back.”

“Why not?”

“Shush. If you don’t
stay quiet, they’ll find us. Now listen, because I don’t want to
say it again. If there are people out here, we should help them.
How would you have felt if I had left you all alone out here?” The
girl said all this in a completely level and unemotional tone. She
seemed completely unaffected by the devastation around her.

It took Serrel a moment
to recognise her voice. He had not actually heard it that much in
the month he had known her.

“They’re all dead,” the
second boy complained. “Everyone’s dead!”

“We heard voices, so
someone is alive,” the girl replied. “So what we’ll do is this. You
and Theo can go that way. I’ll look over here. If you stay quiet
and-”

The attack was sudden,
and took them all by surprise. A creature, just like the ones from
the forest, bounded from the smoke and launched itself at the
group. The Hounds sprinted out from cover to help, but even as
Serrel lifted his staff, he knew he would be too slow.

He opened his mouth to
shout a warning, when the girl spun around, a staff in her hands
pointed straight at the creature. Barely a second before it landed
on her, she weaved a powerful bolt of energy and fired it point
blank at the creature. It contained so much energy, the light it
gave off left everyone in the vicinity seeing spots.

The bolt hit the
creature with enough force that it not only stopped its forward
motion, it managed to throw it backwards several metres in an arc
that dropped it hard onto the ground. The girl didn’t hesitate for
even a second. She advanced on the creature as it tried to rise,
and blasted it repeatedly with more magic. She paused an arm’s
length away from it and raised her staff over her head. A huge
lance of fire that burned white hot ignited from the end of her
staff. With a single swipe she brought her staff down, and sliced
the lance through the creature’s neck. It passed through with
little resistance, and decapitated the creature with a single
stroke.

The body was still
twitching when the girl turned, dousing the flame from her staff
with a puff of smoke, and returned to the two boys, who were
staring in abject terror and complete shock.

“That’s why I said to
be quiet,” she told them in the same level tone.

The Hounds stared.

“Mouse?” asked Serrel
aloud.

The girl turn to regard
him casually, as though she was not in the slightest bit surprised
that he was there. “Oh. Hello, Serrel. I didn’t see you there.”

“You know her?” Holly
asked.

“Yes. This is Mouse. I
mean, Caster Jilla Freman. We trained together.”

“We were Pond Scum,”
said Mouse, and this time there was just a tiny bit of pride in her
voice.

“You call
her,
“Mouse”?” said Caellix with amusement.

“Well, I didn’t come up
with the name,” Serrel said defensively.

“I don’t mind,” said
Mouse. “I’ve always been Mouse.”

“Hey, Fresh Meat,” said
Brant. He was standing by the dead and headless creature, and
prodded its corpse with his foot. “How come you can’t do that?”

“Because Kaitlin Astral
refused to teach me,” Serrel replied.

“I bribed her with a
pie recipe,” Mouse explained. She turned to the Sergeant. “We
should probably move away from here. Others will be coming.”

“Good idea, Little
Mouse that Roared,” said Caellix. “We can head back to the forest,
lay low for the time being, then make our way north.”

“What about other
survivors?”

“I like the sentiment,
but you could search all day and never find anyone, and the Ferine
are hunting us now. We need to go.”

Mouse nodded
reluctantly.

“All right. You two,”
Caellix turned on Mouse’s companions. “What are your names?”

“I... I’m Theo,”
stammered the first boy. “That’s Snell.”

Snell looked too
terrified to speak.

“Well, boys, we’re
going to make a run for it. You can come with us or stay here.
Either way, I suggest you both shut up or the Ferine will be the
least of your worries.”

“Y...Yes,
Sergeant.”

“Good. Everyone stay
low and follow me.” She turned around and headed back south west,
across the blasted plain. The others followed quickly behind her.
Snell hesitated, still overcome with fear, but at the urging of
Theo, went after them.

Caellix led them on a
winding path around burnt tents and smouldering defensive
barricades. After two days, Serrel had a feel for her movements.
When she slowed and crouched low to the ground, he copied her
instantly. They darted from crater to crater across the plain while
occasionally dark forms shifted in the slowly dissipating smoke
haze around them.

The edge of the forest
appeared as a dark wall though the smoke. Serrel didn’t think he
would be, but he was glad they would be back in its cover, and not
exposed on this blackened, empty battlefield. When he glanced to
his left, he found Mouse beside him. Up close he could see her
uniform was torn and frayed, and her face streaked with soot. The
end of her hair was singed. But she still wore an expression like
she was off on a morning run, rather than dashing like hell for
safety.

Then a shrill scream
tore through the still air. Serrel and Mouse spun, staves raised.
They saw Snell, who had been lagging behind, now on the ground,
being dragged away into the smoke fog by something tall and elf
shaped. The two of them took a step forwards, intent on going to
his aid, when the Ferine sprung out of the smoke all around
them.

“Hounds, blades up!
Schteillen
!” Caellix yelled. On command, her two dogs bolted
from her side and pounced on the nearest Ferine.

Serrel threw up a
shield, blocking three throwing knives hurled at Mouse and himself,
while Mouse turned in a half circle and fired off a rapid volley of
ether energy so fast and powerful the air cracked like thunder and
filled with the smell of ozone. Three elves went down instantly,
consumed by blasts of green energy.

All around, the Hounds
fought viciously against the attacking elves. Holly fired arrow
after arrow at anything that moved, while Caellix was a blur of
dreadlocks and blades, hacking and slashing and killing anything
that got too close, an axe in each hand.

Serrel could barely
keep track of anything that was happening. He just weaved as fast
as he could, shielding anyone who looked to be in trouble and
shooting down any Ferine who got too close. Mouse was laying waste
to any elf that was dumb enough to show up in her line of fire, all
while wearing a calm, thoughtful expression of someone intent on
doing her job right.

Serrel heard Dhulrael
call out, and saw the elf fall down, a Ferine standing behind him
with bloody claws moments before it lost its head to Brant’s sword.
One of Caellix’s dogs yelped in pain somewhere out of sight. Then
Dogbreath yelled out, “Bollocks!” and dove to the side, narrowly
avoiding the claws of a wolf/insect creature diving into the
fray.

Serrel lifted his staff
and formed a shield that encompassed the monster, just as he had
the previous day. He held it prone and defenceless, fighting its
feral strength with his own willpower as it struggled to free
itself. But doing so left him exposed.

From the corner of his
eye, he saw three more Ferine advancing on him. Then Mouse
appeared, and weaved forth a torrent of fire from her staff that
engulfed them all. The cloud of flame was so vast and wide that
even though the Ferine dove away, they couldn’t escape the inferno.
Mouse burnt them to cinders, then cried out as a Ferine throwing
knife grazed her arm. She turned, raising her staff and weaving a
shield around her as another Ferine came at her, a huge sword of
rusty iron and bone in its hand. The blade hammered at Mouse’s
shield, hard enough to make the girl cry out. She lost her footing
and slipped down on one knee.

Serrel couldn’t help
her without releasing the creature from its ethereal cage. He could
see Dogbreath hacking at its head furiously, but the thing still
snapped defiantly with bloody, mutilated jaws.

The Ferine stabbed its
sword down at Mouse and snarled. Mouse pushed back with her shield,
and gazed up at the elf, utterly unmoved, her face bathed in green
light.

There was a glint of
metal, and then the Ferine’s head snapped to the side, a throwing
knife embedded in its neck. Its grip on its sword loosened, and
Mouse was able to push the weapon aside with her shield. She
dispelled the barrier, and slashed her staff at the elf. There was
a flash of white flame that blinded anyone looking, and then the
elf fell into two neatly cauterised pieces.

From out of the smoke
came two new figures, one tall, and one shorter and more slimmer.
They wore black coats similar to the Legion ones, with the hoods
pulled up and the bottom half of their faces masked to show only
their eyes. The taller figure had a long belt full of throwing
knives running diagonally across his chest, and short sword short
in his hand, while his smaller companion held a long curved knife
in each hand, and spun through the fray cutting everything in its
path.

The first new arrival
danced with amazing speed and agility into the fight, slashing and
stabbing with his blade, sliding effortlessly around swiping claws
and swinging axes. His left arm would snap out quicker than the eye
could follow, and a throwing knife would slam into a target with
absolute precision. One Ferine hurled its own knife at the man. He
simply lifted his left hand up towards it, and slapped the blade
aside in mid-air, before throwing his own right between the
Ferine’s eyes.

Serrel caught the flash
of green light as the Ferine’s knife had been deflected. He could
only gape in amazement. The man had weaved a shield.
Without a
staff
.

Unexpectedly, the man
found himself caught between three Ferine, two before him, and
another charging him from behind. He spun, his left arm lashing out
to throw two knives at once that tore through the air and struck
down both Ferine in mid-stride. As he completed the turn he threw
one final blade, cutting into the last Ferine’s leg and causing it
to trip and fall. It hit the ground face first and slid painfully
along before coming to an end at the end of his sword.

And Serrel knew, beyond
a shadow of a doubt, that there was only one person on the planet
who could throw a knife like that.

The man pulled his hort
sword free, and flicked it clean of blood before sliding it back
into the sheath on his back. Seeing the battle was coming to a
close, the final Ferine falling to a axe blade through the skull,
the man went about casually collecting his knives from the bodies
of his dead foes.

“Victor!” Serrel called
out.

The man turned and saw
him. He reached up and pulled down his mask, and swept back his
hood. He wasn’t a man, only a dark haired boy about the same age as
Serrel.

“Serrel,” Victor
Blackwood greeted with a smile. “Fancy seeing you here. Oh, hello
there, Mouse.”

“Hello, Victor,”
replied Mouse, still completely unflappable.

Serrel shook his head,
and turned back to Dogbreath. “
Can you just kill that gods damn
thing already
?”

“I’m trying,”
complained Dogbreath, still fighting the trapped monster. “The
bloody thing doesn’t know when it’s meant to die!”

Mouse sighed. She
walked calmly up to the creature, and shoved the end of her staff
into the bloodied mess of its face. There was a loud bang, and a
flash of light, followed by the creature’s entire head exploding
into a fine red mist.

Dogbreath stood wide
eyed, painted with red droplets from the face down. Mouse just
wiped her face on her sleeve and walked away.