The blond youth ran over the muddy soil, sliding down one side of a wet crater and clambering up the opposite side. When he emerged, he darted from the soot-black trunk of one tree to the next in short, erratic sprints. The trencher helmet he wore was too big, and jostled on his head so much he was forced to hold it in place with a free hand.

Holden kept his rifle trained on the boy, just above the heavy bouncing pack he wore. The occasional lump of coal spilled out of the pack’s top when he hurdled a stone or fallen tree.

“Come on,” Holden whispered.

The boy, Planter, wove toward the inert form of a Sentinel warjack. Planter was within fifteen yards of the warjack’s steel and brass body when the Khadorans took their first shot. It hit just ahead of the running boy, pelting him with charred bark and splinters.

“Run, kid,” Brinn said, intense but not loud enough for Planter to hear. The older, heavier man clenched his rifle to his chest and repeated himself, this time with a voice like a quiet prayer. Holden swiveled his rifle toward the report but couldn’t spot the shooter through the rain and the haze of blasting-powder smoke and mist drifting over the battlefield.

Another shot rang out, hitting behind the running coal porter. It showered him with wet dirt, and he threw himself down. Coal spilled from the pack over the boy’s head, and his helmet went spinning. He lay there, panting, while Holden whipped his rifle back and forth looking for a target, finding nothing.

“Get up. You’re almost there,” Brinn urged. Holden glanced to the fallen boy and saw him rise to run a dead sprint for the warjack. He had only a few yards to go.

The haze drifted, and Holden spotted the shooter. A woman amid the trees on the Khadoran side of the battlefield pointed her scoped rifle at Planter’s running form.

“I see her,” Holden said.

“Shoot! He’s almost there!”

Holden was aiming when something emerged from the rolling clouds. It looked like a soldier in a disheveled uniform, but its face was wrong. Its skin was papery and grey, its eyes and mouth three black and withered holes. It lurched forward like a drunken puppeteer’s marionette. Despite its lack of eyes, it fixed Holden with those black pits, and with one hand it made an entreating gesture to him.

Somewhere, a crow cawed.

Holden tried to shoot the grey man, but the shifting white clouds swallowed it. When the clouds blew on it was gone, vanished, as if it had never been there. He didn’t know if it ever had.

The woman fired, and Planter pitched over. Blood soaked through his pale hair. The woman vanished behind the tree, likely pulling back toward the Khadoran line after killing the boy. She left only a plume of fresh gun smoke.

Holden’s eyes were wide, and he barely gripped his rifle as he sank to the wooden duckboards of the trench. He shook and stared down with unfocused eyes. After a moment of silence, Brinn crouched next to him and put a hand on his trembling shoulder.

“It’s okay. You tried.”

The beautiful woman walked forward, the heels of her boots knocking out a steady rhythm on the ship’s deck. She leaned close, smelling of leather,

COURAGE AT THE CROSSROADSSeason 2: Here Dead We Lie

By Matt Goetz

76 COURAGE AT THE CROSSROADS

rum, and blood. Next to her, Planter’s grinning corpse stood at the head of a gaggle of rotting men. He held out a curved dagger for her. She took the proffered blade with a casual ease.

“Please,” Holden begged as she brought the blade to his face. “Please don’t do this.”

“Only you can stop it,” she said.

“Join us and it all stops,” Planter’s corpse chimed in.

“Join us and we can make it end,” the dead men crowed.

Then the knife began to do its work, and he screamed.

“I heard they’re sending a warcaster to our position,” Holden muttered as he looked down the barrel of his rifle. The rain that started the night before hadn’t stopped, so he had wrapped the rifle in an oiled cloth to protect it from moisture.

“What? Who told you that?” Brinn said around a mouthful of tinned meat. As he spoke, Brinn shot a glance over his shoulder to where other soldiers were emerging from their dugouts to get their own breakfast in order. He and Holden had taken the first leg of the morning watch.

“One of the new recruits from Northguard. Fowler, I think.”

“Do you think it’ll be Maddox? Does Sergeant Rogers know?”

Holden shrugged, keeping his gaze over his rifle as he played it over the line of the Khadoran trenches. “Dunno. Just what I heard.”

Brinn moved to Holden’s right and lay down in the sandbag-rimmed fire bay, pulling out a spyglass. “I damn well hope so. We could do with a warcaster.”

Brinn swiveled the glass over the field north of the trench. He hesitated on the inert Sentinel. He didn’t mention Planter or comment on the three other dead coal porters lying at the warjack’s feet. It had been days since Planter died, but no one had dared to venture out to rescue the bodies.

“I think Patriot might still work, if we could get him fired up again. With a warcaster guiding him—”

“Warcasters have their own ’jacks. Besides, Patriot’s not worth much anymore.” Holden couldn’t bring himself to look in that direction. He kept his gaze fixed on where he’d seen the thing in the smoke in case it decided to reappear.

The Khadorans made sure the platoon couldn’t get its ´jack working again, despite its best effort. Even before the ’jack’s heartfire burned out, Patriot had been in rough shape. Holes perforated its heavy shield and hull, and a slash through half its face had destroyed one eye. Patriot stood there for weeks in the rain, still as stone after its boiler had burned cold and its nearly four-ton weight had settled down into the mud.

“Well, a warcaster might draw some of their attention,” Brinn continued as he squinted at their Khadoran counterparts across the churned and muddy field. “At least give us the chance to take the east hills.”

The hills were a strategically important position, a patch of high ground staking the east side of the battlefield. They held a commanding view of both the field and potential Khadoran reinforcement routes to the northeast. Through the cold morning fog, Holden could make out the bodies of a dozen trenchers still laying on the southern edge of those hills.

“Maybe,” he said, counting the dead men in his head. The platoon’s last push to take the high ground four days prior had almost made it to the line of dead trees that defined the hilly perimeter, but a rain of Khadoran shells and rockets had driven them back after killing many where they stood. The squad sergeant died leading that advance, leaving Holden and Brinn’s friend Rogers to fill the role. Holden shrugged. “I doubt the Khadorans will wait until she shows up. If she’s coming.”

“Go to hell, you pessimist,” Brinn replied. With one hand he steadied the spyglass and dug out a wet handkerchief with the other. Swiping at the lens, he examined the enemy across the cratered battlefield. “Reds are moving to the trench line. Handful of ‘em. Wait, what the hell?”

“What?”

Before Brinn could explain, acting-sergeant Rogers approached them, a tin cup of coffee in one hand. Despite the wet and cold, despite the bullets that had left scars on his armor and the exhaustion creasing his face, Rogers maintained a wry grin.

“See something fun, Brinn?” Rogers asked as he clambered up to their position. He shared his watery coffee with them.

“No, sir.” Brinn didn’t sound convinced as he handed over the spyglass. “Reds are mustering for a push. Just thought I saw something else.”

“Stuff the ‘sir.’ What did you see?”

“Not sure. It looked a bit like a soldier in no-man’s-land. In the fog.”

Holden’s head snapped to Brinn, fighting to keep his expression neutral. “Did he look strange?”

“Couldn’t tell. Barely caught sight of him.”

Rogers looked through the spyglass, a small smile on his face. “You’re sure?”

“Dead sure.”

Rogers swept the glass back and forth for a few moments. Satisfied, he handed it back.

“Let’s hope he’s on our side. At least you’re right about the reds. There’s a bunch of the bastards on the west line ready to come up and over.” Rogers shrugged. “Anyway, get some rest if you can. Both of you look like hell, and I need you fresh if the northerners are mustering for another push.”

Brinn nodded acknowledgment and slid back down, grabbing his tin of food and shoveling the rest into his mouth.

“Holden, wait up.” Rogers said as Holden started to move. “Brinn told me about Planter.”

Holden swallowed. “I’m sorry, Rogers. It’s my fault.”

“Stow that. Lieutenant Landry let you keep that old rifle because you dead-eyed ten out of ten on the range, so we both know you could have made the shot. I need you to tell me if there’s something else going on.”

“I . . . I don’t think so. Smoke came up before I could fire.”

Rogers frowned at the younger soldier’s answer. “Well, rest up. We’ve got Khadorans to kill.”

Hours later, Holden pressed against the berm of the trench and peered over the stacked sandbags. Brinn and Rogers waited on either

77COURAGE AT THE CROSSROADS

side. A dozen more trenchers stretched beyond them to the left and right, cold rain pattering off their brass helmets as they readied their rifles and affixed bayonets.

“How long until the sun’s down?” Rogers asked.

“A few minutes,” Brinn replied, holding his hand up to the horizon to measure the finger spans between the sun and it. “It’ll fall behind the left side. Be ready for them to move from that flank first.”

Rogers nodded, tipping a shower of rain off his helmet. “Right. Our job is to hold position. Brinn, be ready to fall back to the medical tents if I so order. Holden, shoot any red that looks inclined to kill your beloved sergeant.”

Both men agreed. Turning from them, Rogers moved through the press of soldiers to the chain gun team on the west flank of the trench. Privates Copley and Thatcher were checking the heavy weapon, ready to sling it up onto the trench rim at Rogers’ order. Holden primed his own rifle and set the worn wooden stock to his cheek, trying to predict where the enemy might emerge.

“Whistles,” one of the trenchers said. Idle chatter in the trench died, letting Holden make the sound out a moment later. It was the shrill whistles of Khadoran sergeants readying their soldiers to attack.

Moments later, plumes of white smoke erupted far behind the enemy trench line. The thud of three Khadoran mortars echoed across the battlefield just after. Rogers shouted to take cover, sending men diving for the trench’s dugouts. The small holes dug in the earth barely accommodated four men. Holden made for the closest, hauling himself into the dark with a grenadier named Carter close behind. Shells whistled through the air to detonate atop the trenches. The pressure of the explosions punched the wind out of his lungs. Dirt rained on top of him as one of the thick wooden beams holding up the ceiling cracked.

Over the scream and roar of artillery, Rogers shouted for the trenchers to hold steady. The barrage slowed, with the last few shells detonating in front of and behind their lines. Clods of wet dirt still pattered down as Holden scrabbled out and readied for combat. Other trenchers did the same. Through the rain of earth and clouds of blasting-powder smoke, the silhouettes of Winter Guard charged across the cratered no-man’s-land.

“Drive them back!” shouted Rogers, and the other trenchers responded with incoherent cries. They stood up from the trench and opened fire on the running men. Bullets punched through the front rank. To Holden’s left, the chain gunners hauled their weapon up and opened fire. The steady thump of the chain gun added to the erratic popping of military rifles as it mowed down the closest Khadorans.

Brighton and Simons, two fresh Northguard recruits, kept up a steady rhythm of gunfire. One fired as the other reloaded. They traded back and forth, shooting the closest Winter Guard on the left flank. Carter and Lewis, the grenadiers, kept back in the trench and fired rifle grenades up and over their comrades’ heads. The explosions ripped through the reds, dropping a half-dozen men between them.

A few Winter Guard reached the trench line and opened fire. Whitfield and Nauls dropped from blunderbuss shots. Gunser fell with a gushing wound in his leg. An instant later, a wild axe swing split Aberwall’s helmet, even as a chain gunner fell back into the trench with a hole in his throat.

The skirmish was bloody but swift. Even without Patriot, the trenchers managed to gun down most of the Winter Guard before they made the trench line. The rest put up little resistance. They

finished off the last few enemy wounded with quick bayonet strokes.

“Trenchers, report!” Rogers croaked, nearly breathless. Blood spattered his face, but the steady rain was already washing it away. Voices cried back to report the losses. The number was mercifully low.

“Medics incoming,” someone called. Behind Holden, medical personnel climbed down into the Cygnaran trench from the rear line carrying folded stretchers between them. Their uniforms showed white instead of Cygnaran blue, and they bore the symbol of Ascendant Solovin on their helmets and pauldrons. Under the direction of a Morrowan chaplain, the medics hauled the wounded from the trenches. They would bring them back to the battlefield hospital, a modest thing about a thousand yards south of the front lines next to an equally modest rail line.

The medics left the bodies of the dead behind. They would be seen to later, if time allowed.

He shot his rifle, catching the fleeing father in the back. The man fell to splash in the flowing blood of the village’s other dead. With an angry snarl, Holden rammed another cartridge into his weapon and tracked down his next target as he stalked between the burning homes of his victims.

Ahead of him a giant of a man swung his axe through others, mowing them down like wheat. Bodies and pieces of bodies went sailing, and Holden threw back his head and howled with delight. He’d been afraid at first, but now he reveled in following this butcher.

“Wake up, Holden,” Rogers said.

Holden jolted up, nearly hitting his head on the ceiling of the dugout. Next to him Brinn grumbled in his sleep and rolled over, pulling his sodden woolen blanket up over his head.

Holden crawled out into the cold night air of the trench, trying not to look at the stack of fresh bodies. “What is it?”

“Holden, you’re a wreck. Other men can hear the things you say when you sleep.”

“I’m not—”

“Shut up and listen. We know you blame yourself for Planter, and Collins, and the others.” Rogers dug into a pocket while he spoke, searching for something. “I saw you during the fight yesterday. You froze up. Didn’t fire a shot. You’re the best marksman in this unit, and I need that talent on our side. Ah, here it is.”

He held out an old golden crown, warn smooth at the edges.

“What’s this for?” Holden took the coin and turned it over in his hand. It was well worn and so old he didn’t recognize the king stamped on its face.

“Holden, you can’t control everything, but you blame yourself as if it’s your fault. You second-guess and end up doing nothing. If you don’t know what to do, if you’re at a crossroad and don’t know which way to go, just flip this coin. It’s how I decided to enlist. Hell, it’s why I helped you get on the train.”

“This is old, Rogers. Might be worth something.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll get another one. Now grab your gear and help me wake up the others. I’m sick of waiting for the Khadorans to attack us again.”

The two of them went down the trench and roused the rest of the unit, most of them reluctant to be woken after only a short sleep.

78 COURAGE AT THE CROSSROADS

A few hours before sunrise, the trenchers gathered around Sergeant Rogers, a few grumbling about the early muster as they shoveled tinned rations into their mouths. Once the sergeant began speaking, even they quieted.

“I talked with Lieutenant Landry late last night. We expect a heavy fog through midday, giving us concealment from sharpshooters and spotters. Landry’s going to use the opportunity to make a push on the east hills today, and we’re going to give him the chance to get there. A platoon of the Seven-One-Five is joining us to support this offensive. Two squads are joining our attack.”

That earned a few murmured comments. Brinn called for quiet.

Rogers continued. “While the reds are busy defending the hills, we attack on the main front. When they attacked yesterday we hit them hard, and Landry and I doubt they’ll have moved in reserves to replace the wounded yet. When we clear the trenches, we move to support the main offensive and hit them on two fronts. While we attack, I want Chambers and Colhoun to get my damned warjack up and running.” Those two men nodded and made for the supply bay to get tools and a fresh pack of coal.

Rogers sketched out the plan of the attack. The trenchers would split into two groups, one led by himself and the other by Brinn. The two extra squads would support them on the approach and help them take the nearest Khadoran position. Brinn did a quick inventory of their supply of ammunition and smoke grenades, divvying them up among the gathered men.

The trenchers rushed forward over the broken ground, their rifles held tight to their chests. Some slammed into the precious cover of the trees, snapping off wild shots into the haze. In front of Holden there was a metallic ring, and the head of Private Thatcher snapped back as he pitched forward into the mud. Holden and Rogers hurdled Thatcher’s twitching body and dashed for the charred cover of a fallen tree.

To Holden’s right, a squad of trenchers fired a volley from cover. A whistling Khadoran shell detonated among them, throwing up a geyser of earth. A trencher was hurled by the blast, his limp and broken body bashing off the trunk of a limbless pine.

“Forward!” screamed Rogers. The sergeants of the 715’s squads echoed his cry. The crackling of rifle fire on both sides, the thump of explosions, and the cries of the wounded made their voices indistinct. Holden snapped off another shot with his grandmother’s rifle, jammed a fresh cartridge into the breech, and vaulted the fallen tree. Bullets and blunderbuss shot rippled the air around him, splintering the blackened trees and exposing the pale, dead wood within.

The trenchers reached the twisted barbed wire south of the Khadoran lines, some catching rifle fire and pitching over to hang in metal webs of thorny wire. Holden saw the silhouettes of Winter Guard ahead in their trenches.

Rogers veered for a crater in front of the Khadoran trenches, signaling for Holden and the others to follow. Holden shot on the run and pitched himself into cover an instant ahead of another withering volley. The bodies of Brighton and Simons tumbled after him. Only the grenadier Carter remained, sliding down the crater’s rim behind.

“Call what you saw!” Rogers shouted over the sound of battle.

“Ten guard, tight formation in a fire bay,” Holden responded while reloading. Rogers nodded and pointed at Carter.

“Fire high. If you don’t hit them they might go for cover. Holden, give us smoke for the advance.”

As Carter fixed his rifle with a fresh grenade, Holden readied a smoke canister. Rogers counted down from five, pointing at Holden. He reached one and closed his fist. Holden rose, hurling his grenade before dropping back. Carter pulled the trigger and sent his projectile sailing up to arc down on the enemy trench.

“Now! Bayonets up!” Rogers cried. Carter and Holden followed him. Carter held his rifle like a spear and Holden drew his trench knife.

They burst from the smoke on the Khadoran trench. Carter’s grenade had dropped three Winter Guard with shrapnel and caused the others to dive for cover. Screaming, Rogers and Carter leapt down among the scattered men. Down the trench line, other blue-armored soldiers poured in toward the panicked Khadorans.

Rogers landed between two men. He stabbed the first with a thrust and cracked the skull of another with his rifle’s stock. Carter landed on a third. He fell to his knees atop the man, stabbing him in the heart. Holden fired as he hit the rim of the trench, catching his target in the chest. The man he shot fell, firing his blunderbuss uselessly into the ground.

The other three Winter Guard went for their axes, but Rogers and Carter had the advantage of reach. The Khadorans had to lunge forward to try to get to them with clumsy slashes, opening themselves up for the thrusts of bayonets. The last of the reds died trying to escape the trench.

When the fighting was done, Rogers called for a headcount. Other than the few who’d died on the approach, the trenchers had reached this first line of enemy trenches without injury. There were other trench lines to the north, other Khadoran soldiers to battle, but for the first time since reaching the battlefront, the Cygnarans had a moment of relief.

They were clearing the trench to make sure the last of the Winter Guard were dead or had fled. The distant noise of combat to the east still echoed over the battlefield from the hills, but in the trench all was quiet.

“I think they’re all gone,” Holden said as he emerged from a Khadoran dugout and brushed mud off his grubby knees.

“Good riddance. Brinn, let’s be ready to support Landry on the hill.” The unit began to move east down the trench when a shrill noise froze them. Holden looked toward the sound.

From the haze north of their position, a neat wall of men jogged forward. They wore heavier armor and had carbines braced on top of their large square shields. Another row marched behind the front rank. There were more than Holden could count. Behind the ranked men a towering form emerged from the fog, over ten feet tall and wielding axes over six feet long: a Khadoran warjack.

Holden didn’t wait for Rogers to give them an order. He clawed free of the Khadoran trench and sprinted back toward Cygnaran lines, running past the bodies of Brighton and Simons. He ducked between the trees and passed the grisly remains of the trenchers from the 715, breaking into a sprint when he hit the pockmarked mud of no-man’s-land.

Holden’s companions wavered and broke before the Khadoran advance. Their flight from the trench wasn’t an organized retreat. It was a rout. As they ran another man died, shot in the back by the oncoming kommandos. The warjack screamed a piercing whistle

79COURAGE AT THE CROSSROADS

and surged forward, bowling through two of its own soldiers as it did. Its heavy tread shuddered the earth. Carter turned and fired a grenade from the hip to detonate on the warjack’s faceplate. Enraged, it barreled on, snapping Carter’s bones with the impact and crushing his body into the mud.

Holden weaved through the trees until he saw a plume of coal smoke up ahead. The shape of Patriot was visible in the fog, and he could hear Colhoun shouting, asking what was going on. Holden screamed for Colhoun and Chambers to get to cover as he leapt down into the familiar Cygnaran trench line.

Already extra soldiers from the 715 were filling their old position. They were mostly trenchers, though there were a few sword knights in battered armor as well.

The nearest sergeant tried to get Holden to explain the situation, but was interrupted when the last few survivors emerged from the fog and trees. Brinn and Rogers led the retreat, shooting over the heads of their own soldiers at the rampaging warjack. Holden screamed and fired round after round, but most caromed off of its armored hull leaving nothing but dents.

Swatting aside narrow trees with its axes, the ’jack screamed steam once more and rushed toward the tiny forms of its fleeing prey, whipping its weapons behind them. Holden braced his rifle and breathed, then shot a round through one of the warjack’s glowing eyes. It paused for a moment, shaking back and forth like a wounded bear. It gave the fleeing trenchers another few yards of distance, but the wrathful warjack was only slowed, not truly injured. Shaking its head, it looked at the trenchers with one baleful eye and sprinted, slashing with its axes.

The thud of chain-gun fire echoed through the trees, and a shower of sparks fell off the Khadoran ’jack. Battered, limping Patriot emerged from the trees, his gun barrels glowing and smoking. The light Cygnaran ’jack squared its shoulders and set its shield, issuing a train-whistle noise as a challenge.

“One whistle means go to hell,” Holden hissed.

The Khadoran warjack veered off for this new foe, giving Brinn, Rogers, and the other grenadier, Lewis, the time they needed to make the trench. Patriot received the charge with its shield, its feet sliding back in the slick mud from the impact. As the Khadoran ’jack swung an axe up and over the shield, Patriot buried its chain gun in the other ’jack’s guts and fired a long burst of bullets. With a black spray of fluid from ruptured vital lines, the bullets punched steaming holes in the other ’jack’s boiler. The two collided again and tumbled into the mud, the larger Khadoran ’jack growing weaker by the moment as Patriot clambered on top of it, spending the last of its ammunition in a close shot under the other ’jack’s chin. The rounds chewed through hull armor to pierce the cortex. In the next moment, both warjacks vanished in the flash and roar of an intense arcane explosion.

Holden felt like cheering, but a barrage of shots punched into the sandbag he was hiding behind. The assault kommandos pressed their advantage and jogged across the battlefield, firing on the run. Holden called to Lewis, “Get a grenade ready! They’re in tight formation!”

When the first few kommandos came within range, they dropped into a crouch behind their shields. Bracing their carbines on the top rim, they fired a salvo of squat canisters trailing ribbons of smoke toward the trench. Most fell short, but a few landed among the trenchers, spewing out choking clouds of thick smoke.

“Fire!” Rogers screamed, and the trenchers opened fire. Rounds caromed off the front ranks, repelled by Khadoran armor and shields. Behind them, a second wave advanced and returned fire, their carbine rounds striking men in the trenches. Holden shot repeatedly at the approaching enemy, finding his rhythm and shooting true, but the enemy advance did not slow. The men of the 715 held one of the chain gun positions and poured rounds at the kommandos, but their shields held the worst of it back.

“Grenade!” Brinn shouted. Lewis primed his explosive and aimed for the second rank of kommandos. It arced and detonated behind the shield wall, flinging broken men away from the blasts. Holden and a handful of other sharpshooters kept firing, targeting men who were exposed when dead men’s shields fell away. Several more kommandos died, but behind them the red of Khadoran reinforcements drew closer through the haze of smoke. Holden fired a round that caught a charging Khadoran in the face. The armored man pitched back into the wet mud. In the gap the dead man created in the enemy line, the hollow-eyed creature was waiting. Only now, there were two.

Numb, Holden fell back. The sound of the battle was replaced by the thudding of blood in his ears. A rushing wall of Khadorans blocked the two creatures from his view, but he knew they were there, waiting. Around him his allies were turning back the Khadoran assault even as it reached their own trench. The Khadoran kommandos broke over the trench to his left, falling down onto the soldiers there. The fighting turned into a bloody brawl of men tackled to the mud, trying to strangle or stab their enemies with bayonets and trench knives.

The chain gun had fallen silent, its crew collapsed over the weapon as two kommandos stabbed repeatedly with their bayonets. Holden looked right to see Brinn hurl himself into battle with his trench knife, stabbing through the helmet of the closest enemy with a brutal downward strike. A short jab from an enemy bayonet punched through Brinn’s backplate and he stumbled and fell. The enemy was being turned, but not without cost.

Rogers smashed the butt of his rifle into the face of the closest enemy and charged another. His bayonet thrust scraped off the Khadoran’s shield but left the man off balance. Rogers shouldered the man against the wall of the trench and slammed the stock of his rifle up against the Khadoran’s throat, pressing his full weight up to crush the man’s larynx.

“Holden, get up!” he shouted. Like a drunk, Holden’s head swiveled unsteadily toward him. “Get up, god dammit!”

Holden rose to take in the bloody melee around him. He could see, then, how it would end. His comrades would drive off the enemy. They would charge again, to be driven off themselves. Back and forth, back and forth, over a useless muddy patch in southern Llael. If a Khadoran bullet, blade, or bomb didn’t claim him here, then one of those . . . things would. There was no way out. Already the kommandos were being overwhelmed. The sword knights’ heavy Caspian battle blades proved too much for their shields to stop.

Rogers slashed the throat of the last Khadoran in the trench and turned back to Holden. His lips moved, like he was asking “Are you okay,” perhaps. Holden couldn’t be sure. But the parting gift of a Khadoran bullet caught Rogers in the base of the skull, blowing out his neck and spraying Holden with gore. He sagged forward into Holden’s arms with wide, surprised eyes.

80 COURAGE AT THE CROSSROADS

And there it was. The way out.

The other Cygnarans were busy fighting, paying Holden no attention. Laying down, covered in the dying Rogers’ blood, Holden joined the wounded on the muddy, bloody wooden duckboard floor of the trench. Rogers sagged on top of him, lips still twitching as his blood flowed forth.

“Medic,” Holden cried, his throat raspy. He repeated. “We need a medic here.” Then he lay back and waited to be taken away from all of this.

Holden tried to lie still, tried to maintain the illusion of his injury as the medical crew rushed his stretcher away from the front and to the medical tents, but Holden couldn’t help himself. He picked his head up, looking north toward the trenches.

In the area Rogers fell, Holden saw a thin figure in tattered clothes obscured by the blasting powder smoke. It loomed over where Rogers died, staring down like a collector stares at a rare sample. It looked up toward him then and cocked its head in recognition.

“Why does he still have a rifle?” asked the battle chaplain as he jogged up to the medics.

“Wouldn’t let it go, sir.”

“Get him onto the train. Khadorans flanked us to the west and are advancing on the tents.”

The medics both said “yes, sir” as they veered toward the rail spur. Through half-lidded eyes Holden saw the chaplain give him a skeptical look, but if he meant to stop them, if he saw through Holden’s ruse, he gave no indication.

The medics trotted him up to the side of the train where dozens of wounded men were being loaded into boxcars. A few doctors were tending to them, performing triage to determine who would receive medical attention and who wouldn’t.

Then, without warning, a trio of Khadorans burst from the tents flanking the train on the west side. One of them wore a massive pressure cylinder on his back and carried a weapon with a tongue of flame licking at its barrel. The medics panicked at the sight, some dropping their stretchers as they dove for cover. Holden banged down on the ground, bouncing off his stretcher as the flamethrower-wielding kommando leveled his weapon and chuckled in a deep voice. Flying from between the tents, a black crow cawed.

As a reflex, Holden shot the kommando on the left, reloaded, and shot the kommando on the right. Both teetered and crumpled, dead. The flamethrower operator was stunned by this sudden display and swiveled to burn Holden to ash.

Holden loaded a fresh round and shot through the tank on the man’s back. The bullet ruptured the tank and it detonated, consuming the man in a flash of fire.

There was a moment of quiet. Holden felt the eyes of the wounded upon him. He heard them murmuring. One of Holden’s stretcher-bearers approached. “You say you’re wounded?”

Holden couldn’t meet the woman’s eyes. “I didn’t mean to—”

She cut him off, speaking loud enough for all to hear. “If you weren’t here, all of us would be dead. Get on the train.”

Holden nodded and lay back, trying to maintain his composure. What the woman said as she loaded him up into the train car hurt him more than any enemy’s weapon could.

“You’re a hero.”

Holden sat across from himself. The two Holdens faced each other in a wide and empty field of darkness rimmed by cold and impossible stars. Points of light flared and died in the distance, each one an echo of the sun that would never warm this world. It was an infinite theater with no audience.

The other him cocked his head like a curious bird, studying Holden from the corner of one eye. He said nothing, but had a wry smile on his face. Roger’s smile.

“What are you?” Holden asked the other him.

“I’m you. The you who stopped fighting. The you who understood the inevitability of his fate.”

“Am I . . . am I losing my mind?” Holden asked in earnest, but the other him smiled like he’d told some fantastic joke.

“Who said it was your mind to lose? I think the rest of us should all have a say.”

Holden clenched his eyes shut and clapped his hands to his face. Behind his hands he said, “You’re just a nightmare. You’re here because of my grandmother and Wyatt, because of Brinn and Rogers. You’re here because I keep letting people die.”

The other Holden laughed. The noise was a piece of broken glass. “You idiot. As if the gods care about them any more than they care about you. You’re just a grain of sand caught in the teeth of an awesome and terrible machine.”

Holden looked up. The other him had begun to weep a viscous black fluid from his eyes and mouth, mutating them into the pits that adorned the creature’s face. The endless fluid flowed down and stained his face, running onto his tarnished uniform.

“If they don’t care, why is this happening to me?” Holden asked.

“Because it had to happen to someone.” The other him leaned forward. Oily rivers ran down his face. “Because you made the wrong choice at the right time. Of all the possible fates to befall all the people alive, you failed to act when you should have. Or acted when you shouldn’t. In the end it doesn’t matter.”

Holden stared at the other him. It leaned closer, that black weeping dribbling to fill the space between them and flowing close to his feet. As if the vitality of the other Holden flowed with that foul liquor, its skin grew sallow and began to wither. Its face drew tight as its teeth dropped away like a handful of tiny stones.

Holden gaped at the grotesque version of himself, choking on his words. “Then how can I stop this from happening?”

Sweet child. As if it was ever up to you.

81COURAGE AT THE CROSSROADS