21.
Outside, it was chaos.
When Sheyla followed Zan, she knew intellectually that the battle they’d been preparing for had begun, but it was another thing to smell the cordite and lightning in the air, and feel the ground tremble from the shells raining down. There was an orange glow to the west like multiple fires were raging.
Alastor paused long enough to touch her hand. “Don’t engage. Go to St. Casimir if you want to help.”
“Sire, we need you at the front. Everyone’s waiting for your orders,” Zan urged.
“I’m coming.”
He let go of her, racing off into the darkness, and Sheyla knew fear on a level so visceral that it was hard to breathe for a few seconds. She got it under control and headed toward the hospital. Impossible not to notice that she was like a salmon swimming upstream—so many people running in the opposite direction.
Finally, she grabbed a militia officer. “Is the hospital still open?”
He shook his head. “Sorry, ma’am. They’re evacuating this entire section of the city. Golgoth are on the march and they’ll sweep through here soon.”
The newer part of the city had no walls, nothing to check the enemy. Tycho’s forces might even raze St. Casimir to weaken the defenders.
We were prepared for this, she told herself.
Still, she ached to think of the ancient building reduced to rubble. Gods and curses, where would they put the sick and injured? What about Dedrick? While healthy civilians could evac quickly, it would be all but impossible to clear out the whole hospital. Some of the life support systems had no long-term mobile equivalent.
She had been about to turn back; instead, she nodded a thank-you at the officer and kept pushing through the crowd, resolute no matter how many times she got shoved or jostled. At one point, she blocked an elbow in the throat, thrown by a man in a complete panic. As she cleared the plaza, the crowd thinned. The path to the hospital was eerily deserted, though she could still hear the low rumbles in the distance.
Four kilometers, give or take. It won’t be long.
Inside, only a skeleton crew remained.
All the patients who could leave under their own power had been discharged in a great rush. She’d never seen the place so empty, so still.
“Color me unsurprised to see you, Dr. Halek.” Her former mentor managed to startle her yet again.
“This is where I can best lend aid,” she said. “With my specialized training, it would be a waste for me to fight.”
“But you’d like to.”
She let out a sigh. “My skin’s itching with the need to change. I want to get out there and—”
“Me too,” Dr. Seagram admitted.
“They’d be in trouble if all the doctors died in battle.”
“Too true. Sometimes the best measure of courage is forcing yourself to wait when you’d rather go to war.”
“Agreed. Is your mate out there?” She didn’t usually ask such personal questions, but these were rare circumstances.
“He is, much to my chagrin.”
Mine too.
The thought formed before she could stop it. They had made no promises, her family would be appalled, and she was useless to Alastor in terms of political leverage. This bond must be broken. Sheyla didn’t look forward to that.
For now, though…
“Brief me on the situation here. What patients are left and what’s the plan for keeping them safe?”
Dr. Seagram handed her the roster, patients listed in alphabetical order. There were only fifteen, most from the critical care unit. She skimmed the list and was relieved to find Dedrick’s name on it.
“You got here just in time, actually. We’re about to retreat to the sublevels. The Golgoth army can bring the building down on top of us, but they won’t be able to get in. Or hurt anyone.”
She stared, wide-eyed. “I thought the bunker was just a myth.”
Seagram shook his head. “It was built long ago for use during the human incursion and before the Pax Protocols. I never imagined a day when we’d use it again. The place is stockpiled with dry rations and fresh water, plus we’ve carried down enough medicine and supplies for us to last a couple of months with the patients we’re taking.”
“Months.”
“They’ll either win the war in that time or we’ll lose the city.”
He wasn’t wrong, but that was a grim way to frame the situation. “I understand.”
“If you choose to come, it’s a one-way trip. We’ll be powering down the lift once we reach the bunker to conserve energy and there’s no comm signal down there.”
That gave her pause. She wouldn’t be able to contact her family in the worst-case scenario, no way to update Alastor. Quickly she took out her comm, intending to send brief messages, but there was no signal. She shook the unit and Dr. Seagram touched her shoulder.
“They’re already jamming communications to interfere with our ability to coordinate. You don’t have to—”
“Dr. Seagram!” A young nurse dashed up, wolf by the smell of her, and she grabbed his arm as an indication of her urgency. “We have a problem. Dr. Manley has run off.”
“Not very manly of him,” Sheyla said, and then wondered why she was joking at a time like this.
Alastor’s influence, damn him.
As Seagram laughed, the nurse turned a puzzled look on her. “Dr. Manley is a woman.”
“Never mind that,” Seagram said. “It seems our staff is one short, Dr. Halek. Now it’s not a choice but necessity, if we’re to offer decent care to those depending on us during this crisis.”
The decision wasn’t difficult. If she wasn’t fighting beside Alastor, she wanted to care for his closest friend. He’d told her to head to St. Casimir; hopefully, he’d figure out that she was safe, even if the Golgoth took the upper levels of the hospital.
“Let’s go,” Sheyla said.
The patients had been transferred already, and half the medical staff had gone down. Sheyla accompanied Dr. Seagram in collecting the last of them, three nurses and another doctor. Then he led the group through the mazelike corridors. He opened a door and unlocked another, leading to a hallway that she hadn’t even known existed. By the looks on everyone else’s faces, it was new to them as well.
The hallway ended in a lift, dull and ancient steel that looked as if someone had taken a flamethrower to it. It bore various dents and scars, but it radiated an impregnable air.
That proved to be true when Dr. Seagram used three different levels of biometrics to activate it and open the doors. He flashed a cheeky grin as he stepped inside.
“That’s your incentive to keep me alive. After I cut the power below, I’ll need to do all that again to turn it on again.”
The nurse who had brought word about the runaway physician chewed her lip, visibly hesitant. “How will we know when it’s safe? You said there are no comms.”
An excellent question. Sheyla noticed that they were all waiting for the answer before joining him in the lift.
“There’s an old-fashioned signal machine and the other unit is attached to a militia outpost in Old Town. These are antiquated facilities, remember, so I doubt the Golgoth will think to dig up cables that have been in the ground so long and haven’t been used in fifty years.”
“Then how do you know they’re still working?” Nurse Nervous asked.
That was the end of Dr. Seagram’s patience. “If you’re coming, get in. Otherwise, do as you think best. There are triage teams or you can simply hide and hope for the best.”
There’s a chance I can get a message to Alastor, if the signal machine is working. And maybe if they take care of the jammers later, he can reassure my family.
In the end, there was no other path for her. Dedrick was down there, waiting. Sheyla stepped into the lift. Slowly, the others followed, one by one, until the nervous girl finally joined them. With a sigh, Seagram activated the elevator, using another cycle of biometric scans. Yellow lights kicked on overhead, sputtering fluorescent.
When the doors closed, it was with a certain grim finality, as if they might never see the sunlit world again.
Alastor couldn’t keep up with Zan in this form, so he kept asking the Eldritch to slow down. Mortifying, but necessary, if he wasn’t to get lost on the way. Eventually, Zan realized that was the issue and moderated his pace.
“Give me a status report?” He barely had the breath to ask the question. Without Dedrick to shield him from curious eyes, he probably wouldn’t be able to hide his condition for much longer. His men knew, of course, but the Eldritch, the wolves, and the city militia didn’t.
“They’ve massed in the south and west. Our scouts think they have sufficient numbers to flank and occupy. They’re already attacking in the west using artillery, CTAK, and ground forces.”
“Can we hold them?”
Zan slid him a look as he dodged around a terrified family fleeing for their lives. “Hopeful or honest, sire?”
“Honest.”
“We have some good defense weaponry, but too little personnel trained and experienced in its use and too much ground to cover. The modern boroughs in Hallowell weren’t designed to withstand a siege. It was laid out by architects born and bred in peacetime.”
“Thank you.”
At least he had some idea of the long odds they faced. We didn’t come this far to give up. A victory here, no matter how hard-won, will send a message to my brother.
With that familiar tightness in his chest, he ran on, until he couldn’t. He put up a palm, asking for a break. Zan didn’t question it; Alastor would have told the truth if he had. There was no shame in his illness, and they had come too far, he hoped, for anyone to question his right to lead. Now he believed what Sheyla and the pride matron always had—that he was no figurehead—he was the true center of this resistance to tyranny.
“Good now?” Zan asked, after a few moments.
“Carry on. A bit slower if you can. Your pace creeps up as we go.”
Zan smiled, sheepish. “Sorry.”
The trolleys were no longer running and the city smelled of smoke. Explosions boomed closer as they went, so he could tell they were approaching the western front. The horizon glowed with the lights of multiple fires; people sobbed as their homes burned but property damage was the least of his concerns.
At last, they reached the outpost where the allied forces were missing a commander in chief. Briefly, Alastor wished Ded or Sheyla was beside him, but these people were waiting for his word, nobody else’s.
Mustering all his energy, he vaulted onto a crate, accepting a bullhorn from Zan. Before he took a breath, the collected soldiers quieted. His ability to move people’s hearts had never mattered more.
The bullhorn screeched and his voice rang out, booming with a power he hadn’t know he possessed. “We will not falter. We will fight to the last man. We will fight until we empty every armory, until our last bullet is spent. Then we will fight on, with teeth and claws and kitchen knives. You have a strength that no invader can ever match, for you are righteous people defending your homes. We will turn the very stone of the streets against them—even the trees and grass may rise up! If we give ground, it will be to lay a trap. No matter the cost, Hallowell stands. We fight. To the last man, woman, and child.”
He hadn’t known he could sound like that, bellowing defiance at a burning sky, and the soldiers echoed it back. In the dark, he could tell some were citizens who had volunteered to fight, men and women among them, and yes, a few that could hardly be judged more than children, clutching their weapons with shaky hands. He made eye contact with those who seemed to want it, silent thanks to wolves who stayed, to the Eldritch standing with Gavriel. A little dizzy, he dropped to the ground and went to join Rowena, fully in command of the Exiles who had followed him from Golgerra.
“The time has come at last for us to take the field,” she said.
“Any regrets?”
She smiled. “None. What are your orders?”
“Change and prepare to fight. I need you on the front lines. We must prove to our allies that we are fully committed.”
“Understood.”
Alastor could have cried as his men transformed, revealing their brute shapes to their allies. He’d worried for nothing, though, because the other soldiers only made room; there were no horrified stares or whispered judgments. He allowed himself that moment of glad grace before hurrying to confer with Korin.
“You’ve been training most on the war machines the bears left us. Are you confident?” He’d received a brief tutorial, but he wasn’t qualified to take the lead, plus ground forces needed him to direct offensive and defensive operations. Once, he’d studied such things for amusement—always in the abstract, as pieces on a board. Never had his stratagems come with such high potential cost.
The wolf lieutenant nodded. “There’s nothing like immersion training. Whatever you need, I’ll get it done.”
“Do you have two more competent cadets?”
She nodded, beckoning to a couple of wolves he didn’t know by name. “Ria, Tellan. You’re with me.”
The male wolf lit up. “War machines?”
“You know it.”
Korin turned to him. “What’s the op?”
“Aerial assault. Take out of the CTAK if you can but don’t sacrifice for it.”
“Copy, strafe and run, one heavy hit.”
“Be careful. We took one RVAC from them but there may be more.”
It was so hard to be sure he was giving the right orders, but there was no time for self-doubt. Next up, the Eldritch. Gavriel met him halfway.
“Where do you want us? Sire.” The Noxblade gave a mocking smile that didn’t seem quite as acerbic as usual.
“Disrupt their forces. Sabotage wherever you can. Destroy weapon stockpiles. Also, see if you can do something about the comm jammers, and if you find an officer unprotected, take him out. That should create chaos in their chain of command.”
“Understood. Noxblades, to me.”
The assassins fell in behind Gavriel, and as a group, they took ten steps, and then Alastor simply lost track of them. He would never understand how the hell they did that.
Zan didn’t follow.
“Did you get culled from the herd?” Alastor asked.
“I’ve been assigned to guard you, remember? That’s my role, until Gavriel orders otherwise.”
“It doesn’t matter what instructions I give?”
The Eldritch’s friendly expression didn’t shift. “It would be impolite to answer that.”
“Forget it, keep me safe. There’s probably nobody better suited to it than an assassin. You’ll spot threats nobody else could.”
“I will take that as a compliment, sire.”
If he had time or breath to waste, he’d ask Zan to call him Alastor, but the militia outpost commander was waiting. Alastor jogged over, stopping the man’s attempt to bow.
“Please don’t. We’re fellow soldiers.”
That seemed to be the right approach. The man warmed and said, “You are too gracious. What are our orders?”
“Your squad is on defense, so just back the infantry at range, suppressive fire as you can. This is the first wave, and it will likely get worse before it gets better. You’re clear on the plan, should we need to give ground?”
The commander replied, “We blow the outpost along with any armaments we can’t carry and retreat to the cathedral first.” He listed each fallback site, ending with, “Our last stand will be in Old Town.”
A chill ran through him, as if those words might be prophetic. Alastor shook it off and forced a smile as he studied the sky. Korin and her two cadets went up like rockets, clad in the metal suits that the bears called war machines; they left an ion trail, pale against the night sky as they went to rain death on the would-be conquerors.
Raising the bullhorn, he called, “Does anyone need a word? Once I change, you won’t be able to understand my replies.”
Nobody raised a hand or called out, so he discarded the device and went over to the Exiles. Rowena hadn’t taken flight yet, so her dark wings were furled against her back. In this form, she was lovely, though the Animari and Eldritch might disagree.
“You mean to lead from the front,” she asked in base-Gol.
His answer came in the form of quiet disrobing; Sheyla had taught him there was no shame in it, but his men still circled to hide his struggle with transformation. As ever, there was blood and pain—the spikes emerging were like knives in his back but the strength—it surged through him in a golden wave, heady and delicious. Alastor put his head back and roared.
The Exiles called back.
To his surprise, war cries came from the wolves, from the assembled city militia, not base-Gol, but they understood the intent.
Alastor spoke to his whole army then, for they were united. “Come, my brothers and sisters. To war!”