The Falcon in the Barn (Book 4 Forest at the Edge series) (36 page)

“
Don’t need to. The
surgeons see what’s happening. They’ll get here. I’m supposed to
stay by your side, Colonel, and that’s where I intend to
stay!”

---

Shem could do nothing but stare in morbid
fascination. All he did was throw the torch through the window.

It wasn’t even that big of a flame,
either.

He’d even hesitated, riding by twice before
guilt and duty convinced him to do it on his third pass.

He sat rooted on his horse which was growing
hysterical, but nothing in Shem seemed capable of reacting. It
didn’t matter that the ball of fire was growing above him, rising,
billowing, expanding, so that the heat was now scorching his
eyebrows—

“
Zenos, MOVE!”

Someone grabbed the reins of his horse, and
the animal whisked Shem away. He finally pulled his eyes from the
fantastic eruption to see his rescuer, Captain Rigoff.

“
What’s wrong with you? Got
hit in the head?” Rigoff shouted as the men raced away from the
fire.

“
I just, I just was so
surp—” That’s all he got out before another tremendous roar rose up
behind them.

Both Rigoff and Zenos twisted in their
saddles to see another ball of hot orange rise up behind them, far
more massive than the first. Bits of rock, dirt, and burning
splinters rained down upon them.

“
What is that?!” Zenos
shouted.

“
Don’t know, don’t care,”
Rigoff called back, gesturing frantically to soldiers to run away.
“Don’t think any of them will survive to tell us about it either.
MOVE!”

---

Finding the glowing orange village in the
dark was easy for Perrin and Brillen. A few hundred paces away from
Moorland they encountered the first soldiers heading to the staging
area, helped by aides. There were only a handful of injured, but as
they sped past them in the dark, Perrin caught the scent of burned
flesh and hair.

He glanced over at Brillen, and the cringe on
his face told him Brillen smelled it too.

“
It’s got to be some kind
of fire, then,” Perrin called to him.

“
Strangest fire I’ve ever
seen!”

They rounded the small hill that sheltered
the village and were greeted by a view so chaotic that they stopped
the horses abruptly, unsure of where to go.

Flames were everywhere, burning buildings
from the tops down. Men in black and blue ran in all directions.
Some were on fire, but all were racing away from the black
billowing smoke. The plume was so baffling that Perrin knew he had
to get closer.

“
Come on!” he yelled to
Brillen and kicked his horse. The men dodged and weaved their
mounts through the shouts and yells and debris. Perrin was sure he
heard Yordin calling after him, but he ignored him and continued on
to the bulging smoke.

He and Brillen dismounted about a hundred
paces away and tied their skittish horses to a large green
tree.

“
Colonel, no!” came Shem’s
voice from the chaos, and he appeared amidst the smoke and noise to
pull them back. “It’s not stable!”

“
What’s with that crater?”
Perrin called over the commotion.

Shem shook his head. “It wasn’t a crater when
we got here,” he yelled over the shouts of men and the crackles of
fire. “It was a building. The two-level store. Stone, timber—I
threw in the torch and . . . it just erupted!” He sounded
apologetic. “
Exploded!
”

“
I smell sulfur, but there
are no hotpots around here!” Perrin yelled. “Briter didn’t say any
were in the village.”

“
This wasn’t natural,
Colonel. We think they were making something they can explode
themselves. It’s already blown twice. Rigoff and I just evacuated
all the soldiers then you two come
barging
in here—” By now
Shem had dragged them to their horses.

Brillen and Perrin snatched the reins of
their animals who reared and whinnied in terror, and ran from the
smoking pit toward the end of the road where several soldiers
waited for them. But Perrin kept turning back to see the fire,
trying to imagine the large building that used to be there and
realizing that the structure laid in charred pieces all around
him.

At end of the road his jog was interrupted by
the shout of, “You’re in a lot of trouble, Colonel Shin.”

Perrin shrugged guiltily at Major Yordin.
“You try staying away from that,” he retorted as he mounted his
horse, Karna and Zenos following him.

Grinning, Yordin leaned over from his mount
and slapped Perrin on the back. “But I’m glad you’re here. This
will be our little secret.” He glanced at the two young officers
with him who nodded in agreement. “We need to head to the north,”
Yordin told Perrin. “A mass of Guarders were seen running toward
the forest there. We’ve already dispatched a couple hundred men to
chase them. All seems clear here. The explosions took care of most
of it for us.”

The officers rode at a fast gallop through
the quiet road to the forest’s edge, passing several groups of
soldiers on foot entering buildings to look for holdouts.

Perrin grumbling in frustration. It wasn’t
supposed to be
this
messy. It was supposed to be swift,
decisive, and humane, although they didn’t deserve that. The
Guarders should have been eliminated by now. It all should have
happened within minutes, with all Guarders summarily executed . .
.

But this was sheer chaos.

Good thing the commander of the offensive
showed up.

Within moments Perrin and his men came upon a
broad field that stood as Moorland’s buffer between the village and
the forest.

And that’s when Perrin’s heart caught in his
throat.

Well over one hundred soldiers were on foot,
battling just as many Guarders in black who were bafflingly armed
with swords.

And, for half a second, Perrin hesitated.

While the men on horseback with him veered
off to various parts of the field to render assistance, Perrin took
in—for one horrible moment—the scope of the battle. The blades. The
blood. The men in black. The men in blue. The running horses. The
clanging steel. The blood. The fire spreading to the tops of the
trees illuminating far too much of the field before Perrin, as if
it were day. Bodies running. Bodies falling. Bodies bloodied—

Something in his chest clenched and
shuddered, and he fought the urge to grab his chest in terror.

Because then Perrin knew what he needed to
do. He grasped the ornate filling-gree hilt of General Shin’s
sword—the one that had been waiting years to be initiated—and
everything in Perrin’s world slowed down as if completely in his
control.

Which, right now, it was.

Instinct took over as he drew the general’s
sword. Its balance was perfect, the blade sharp and eager. Perrin
kicked his mount and headed for a cluster of Guarders rushing a
small group of soldiers. He overtook his soldiers and held out his
father’s sword. A familiar rush of energy filled him as he turned
the tip slightly and steadied his arm. The targets hurried to meet
the blade, and it connected once, twice. He heard the unmistakable
thud of bodies falling behind him and swung his horse back around
for another pass, taking out two more men as his soldiers engaged
the remaining three.

“
Shin?!” he heard one of
them call as he rode toward the trees and to another knot of
Guarders slipping out of the forest. They ran straight for him. He
cut his horse hard to the left, catching the furthermost Guarder
with a slash across his throat, then dodged to the right to hit two
more Guarders from behind. Three Guarders scattered before him, so
he aimed his horse at the closest one and flattened him, while his
two companions found themselves surrounded by more men in blue.
Shin faced the forest again but saw no more bodies running to meet
his father’s blade.

---

“
No one said anything about
the army attacking!” one man in black whimpered as he huffed his
way into the forest. “Bad enough we live in rubble and trees, but
now the army—”

“
Shut up!” his companion
hissed at him, although the complainer was simply stating what all
ten in their group was thinking as they ran, panicked, into the
forest. This wasn’t what they signed up for. And where was the
gold?

“
We’ll hide in here until
the army gives up, then—”

As if hitting an invisible wall, the
retreating men stopped, stunned.

Actually, they’d hit a line of what seemed to
be trees but which abruptly thrust out arms and hit the men,
dropping them into the dried leaves. They barely had time to shake
off their astonishment to comprehend that they were now surrounded
by men in green and brown mottled clothing. Dozens of them.

And that they were holding long knives.

“
You’re not hiding
anywhere,” rumbled one of them, a massive brute of a man if not
actually a bear in a tunic and trousers. “Two options: go back out
there and fight like . . . well, not sure if you’d know how real
men fight, but you can pretend. Or, you stay in here with my
friends and me.” He shifted his grip on the long knife.

Another man in green and brown spoke up, his
words coming from somewhere behind the leaves that made up his hat.
“Really the only option is, by whose hands do you wish to die?”

One of the men in black looked frantically
from one camouflaged face to another. “Who are you?! Where’d you
come from?”

The bear-man shrugged. “Looks like you’ll die
here, and with a lot of unanswered questions.”

---

Perrin swiveled in his saddle to identify a
new target.

Zenos had just leveled a Guarder, and by the
ungainly way he fell Perrin knew he was dead. Shem was already
engaging another Guarder and likely didn’t notice his efficiency.
Just beyond Shem, Perrin saw a young officer on foot, his sword
clashing furiously with his opponent. He stepped awkwardly under
the pressure of the more experienced man, who stumbled momentarily
in his pursuit.

Perrin kicked his horse and headed for the
officer who hadn’t noticed another Guarder creeping up behind him.
Perrin aimed for that Guarder and rushed past the stunned figure of
Lemuel Thorne.

“
Colonel?!”

“
Eyes forward, Captain!”
Perrin ordered as he took out the Guarder behind Thorne, his
now-lifeless body dropping.

Lemuel turned abruptly to see that the first
Guarder had found his footing and was about to run him through.
Thorne dodged out of the way, but the Guarder’s sword still caught
him across his side. Thorne collapsed to the ground as Perrin cut
his horse to the right and came upon the remaining Guarder. As the
stallion leaped over the prone body of Thorne, Perrin leaned off to
the side and ran through Thorne’s other Guarder who crumpled next
to Lemuel.

Perrin came back around to see the young
captain gasping and holding his side, his hand drenched in blood,
and his terrified gaze fixed on the dead man in black who lay
nearly on top of him. Lemuel stared up at Colonel Shin with
awestruck surprise.

“
Stay down,” he commanded.
“I’ll be back for you.”

Thorne nodded wearily and let his head fall
to the ground, but through the slits in his half-closed eyes he
watched the colonel.

Perrin swung back to the field, satisfied
that there were fewer men in black among the growing crowd of blue
soldiers. But some of those Guarders were becoming brasher in their
panic, and one had acquired a horse. That man was Perrin’s.

The Guarder was intent on reaching Gari
Yordin who was already battling two men so he wasn’t aware of a
third galloping up behind him.

Perrin roared to get his attention. The
Guarder, just a few paces from Yordin, yanked his horse around to
face Perrin instead. He charged, but Perrin darted his horse just
out of his reach. He turned sharply to come behind the Guarder,
slashed him across his back, and felt the old scar on his own back
itch in approval. The wound Perrin inflicted, however, was
incurable, and the Guarder tumbled off the trotting horse.
Confident that there was one less threat in the world, Perrin spun
to help Gari.

He caught up to him just as Gari received a
deep swipe along his sword arm, and he dropped his weapon with a
shout. Perrin rode to his right to catch the two Guarders between
them. With a quick slash and another swipe, the Guarders fell
lifeless to the ground.

Perrin rounded again, his father’s sword
vibrating in his steady grip and ready for more exercise. But as he
searched for a new target, there were no more men in dark clothing
standing. Instead, only soldiers in blue remained upright, scanning
the area cautiously, their swords and long knives at the ready.
Guarder bodies—as well as a few groaning men in blue—littered the
field.

Perrin spun to look into the blazing forest,
but nothing more came running out of the smoke-filled woods.

He squinted into the shadows which danced
erratically in the glow cast by the nearing fire, because he
thought he saw something—some
one
—standing just behind a
tree. If someone was there, they wouldn’t be for long. Perrin
squinted harder, just to be sure, but when the smoke obscured his
view, he gave up. The fire would either flush him out or consume
him.

Facing the field again, Perrin did a quick
head count. Dozens of soldiers were down, along with Thorne, but
the majority were standing, panting, and now daring to smile at
each other.