“Get to the breach!” Alter roared at the machine gun team who surged into motion at his order.

  Instructions given, Alter turned his attention to the freshly exposed floor as the radio blared into life with contact reports, friendly status and positions, and the iron-clad order to keep half an eye on the ground between your legs. Sensing that perhaps stepping on the rock was a bad idea, Alter hopped and lunged between the scattered floorboards until he reached the bed. Vangroover had closed his eyes but was still vaguely conscious, the bandages and gauze covering his neck blessedly free of blood. With slow, careful movements, Alter leaned down and retrieved his Eight’s pistol, placing it on the bed next to his twitching hand.

  “Can you hear me?” he asked gently.

  There was the slightest of nods and the man’s lips moved to signify that he was in fact still awake.

  “Are you in pain?”

  The lips moved again, in a shape that he translated as a ‘No’ followed by another word he couldn’t quite grasp.

  “That’s good. I’m going to cross back over to the doorway now, but I’m going to make sure that you’re not alone, okay?”

  Again he traversed the ragged floorboard path and settled into the cabin’s entrance. Eyes roved the darkness, now lessening as the first colours of dawn began to appear in the eastern sky. It was impossible to listen for movement over the shouting and gunfire from his right, he’d have to rely on the senses of sight and touch. He took a knee and bent forwards, placing an empty palm against the ground. The vibrations had abated, did that mean the enemy had no further forces beneath them? Or had they simply moved on to make a breach somewhere a little less contested. He squinted across the empty space to where the horses stood with heads erect and ears nervously attentive. All was painfully still.

  “They’ve reached the wall!” Boats shouted over the radio.

  “The stairwell just doubled in width in a heartbeat! Contacts on!” Boozehound added moments later.

  Alter processed this information as calmly as he could. Dire warnings they were but his men weren’t panicking, a fact that told him they were not yet at risk of being overwhelmed. If anything, the news made his job a little easier. The staircase shifting meant that the Kindler must be over there, and between Boozehound and Whim they had enough firepower to hold that position even if they started ascending two by two. He had maybe a couple of minutes of safety to play with before the tunnellers became a threat again, which gave him a window to reinforce the wall.

  Decision made, he wasted no time in shifting his position, loping across the open ground to slot in with Riptide and the machine gun team. The breach in the wall was their main focus, with a number of dropped torches illuminating the gap. Armed and armoured men would appear only to be gunned down a split second later. Fresh bodies within the perimeter indicated that they had made it pretty close to breaking through at one point, but a box-fed LMG makes for one hell of an equaliser. The small dark line of an arrow lashed across the gap, headed leftward and upward to bury itself in the wooden walls of the tower, and as Alter traced its path it was joined by several others. Boats was pinned but safe enough for now. Frontline secure and holding, Alter backed away and moved towards the stairs.

  “One, have you seen Farfield?” Riptide called out after him.

  “I haven’t, I thought he’d be with you!” Alter shouted back as he continued, he had bigger fish to fry right now.

  The situation was similar here, the two riflemen took turns firing short, sharp bursts over the side of the bluff. Whim even had the time to give him a cheery wave and a thumbs up. Not content to accept the gesture as a reason to move on, Alter continued towards them but froze in place a handful of steps away. There it was, that vibration again. Quickly, he placed his hand on the floor once more and focused on the feeling of the subterranean motion. It grew in strength with alarming speed before fading away again as if it had passed beneath him.

  “No you don’t.” Alter snarled and turned around.

  He stalked back the way he came, attempting to trace the path of the shaking as it headed towards the centre of the bluff. Eventually though, obstacles caused him to lose contact and he decided to return to his original position at the cabin door. Nothing had changed, Vangroover’s eyes had cracked open again and he lifted a hand to him at his arrival. There he kept his vigil, the light continued to increase, the gunfire continued to rip into the world. For a moment he thought he heard shouting coming from another direction but it was impossible to tell.

  “Staircase clear for the moment.” Boozehound reported.

  “It’s been a while since we had a push, they’re still tucked in behind the wall though.” Riptide added.

  “Acknowledged. Be advised the Kindler is still active. Wait-” Alter began but something caught his eye.

  Barely visible in the earliest of morning lights, a faint line split the scene, appearing from beyond the next cabin and heading for the wall with a slight upward trajectory. Alter frowned at it before realising what it was.

  “The Kindler’s aiming for the tower. Four, get out now!” he shouted before setting off to try and put an end to the fresh bane of their existence.

  There was a dull boom and the sound of raining wood as he crept around the edge of the small building. A frantic request for an update from Boozehound was met by the report that Boats had managed to escape, and other than a twisted ankle he was well and good. Alter breathed a tiny sigh of relief as he slowly peered around the corner. There in plain sight, a small section of rock shifted and flowed like water a few meters away. A single head bobbed at its centre, it faced away from him but the faint green glow against the stone waves told him all he needed to know. Sight the target, disengage the safety, aim, set, fire. A simple, well-drilled series of steps, with a deadly result. Alter followed it with extreme prejudice. The shot struck the Kindler’s head cleanly, just a few centimetres from their right ear. Gore and fragments of skull scattered across the ground as the remnants of the head vanished from sight. The ground had fully solidified by the time he closed the distance, but the damage had been done. The enemy was dead, they’d even done the service of burying themselves.

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  “The Kindler is down. Mop up the rest.” He reported with vicious triumph.

  “No need, the survivors are retreating westward. Orders?” Boozehound answered.

  “Let them go, we’ve spent enough ammunition for one day. Go and check on Vangroover. The rest of you, scan the bodies and grab what you can. Oh, and somebody find and dig Farfield out of whatever hole he’s hiding in. I’ll keep watch.” Alter rattled off his orders as he wandered back through the cabins to where he could watch the retreating figures disappear over the horizon. The sun peeked out at his back, and the world was bathed in a crisp golden light.

  Ten minutes passed, no further contacts were reported, Vangroover was given as clean a bill of health as he could get. But of the young ostler, there was no sign. Worry began to gnaw at him as he kept his vigil. Eventually, the approach of timid footsteps caused the muscles in his neck to tense in anticipation.

  “Boss.” Whim sidled up to him, his words low and nervy. “We’ve found Farfield.”

  Alter did not turn to look at the man. He kept his vision steady and focused on the middle distance. He digested the tone of his friend’s voice, the skittish syllables, the quiet reluctance, the awkward gloom. He took in those facts, and drew his grim conclusion.

  “How bad?” He asked, tearing his eyes away from the mild scenery.

  “It’s not ugly. But I wouldn’t call it good, either.” Whim admitted as he shuffled gently on the spot, his head turning away as his eyes flitted from point to point.

  Alter exhaled slowly, nodding his head as the familiar wave of dread crashed against the walls of his stomach. “Where is he?”

  “In between those two tents over there.” Whim turned and pointed to where the heads of the rest of the squad could be seen gathering above the canvas.

  “Right.” Alter began the slow walk over, steeling himself with every step.

  The squad parted silently as they noticed his approach, allowing him an unrestricted view as the distance closed. Farfield was intact at least, no blood marred his body in ugly blotches. But that was where the niceties ended, most of his body was hidden, swallowed up by the hungry maw of the stone floor. His left side was fully submerged, with the only revealed part of his right leg being a thin ridge formed by the top of his thigh. The visible section of his shoulder twisted backward with his one free arm reaching out behind him. His neck had been stretching to keep his head above the rock, causing more of his face to be exposed than perhaps expected. Although, the majority of his jaw and mouth were submerged. His left eye was closed, barely visible beneath the shadow of his nose. His right eye was open, the panic of his last moments clearly visible in its wideness. Combining that with the paleness of his skin, Alter guessed that there were hidden wounds somewhere beneath their feet. He was akin to a swimmer desperately fighting the pull of the drowning depths, and even though he was successful in keeping his head above ‘water’, he had still lost. To conclude, this was not to be considered a good way to go.

  “How did this happen?” Someone asked softly, not as an accusation but as a statement of disbelief.

  “He must’ve been hiding in the tent, got spooked and attempted to run. As you can see, he didn’t get far.”

  “Remind me why he was off sleeping on his own?” Riptide asked.

  “He refused to stay with us in the cabin. Said he couldn’t get over the idea that a dead man was using it the night before.” Whim answered.

  “All he wanted to do was look after the horses. He never wanted to get into a fight.” Pavejack’s words were choked with sadness.

  Walross put a supportive arm around him and the group fell into silence once more. For a couple of minutes they simply stood and cast rueful glances at their fallen aide, until Alter could bear the inaction no longer.

  “It doesn’t feel right to just leave him here. Can we move him in any way?” He asked.

  “We can’t.” Boozehound shook his head sullenly. “Even if we could prise his legs out from whatever angles they’re stuck in, there’s another reason.”

  The medic leaned down and, with a grimace, pulled Farfield’s cheek back gently. The lips parted to reveal no teeth, gums, or tongue. Only solid grey. The sight was met with a sharp hissing noise as the observing men sucked in their collective breaths. His point proverb, Boozehound covered the man’s mouth again.

  “The stone’s wormed its way all the way in. Filled his whole mouth and pushed down the throat. I’d wager his stomach, lungs, hell his entire digestive tract is solid rock now, and there are plenty of other places where it could have invaded his body. If you want to move him, you’ll have to carve him up first and excavate him piece by piece. I’m pretty sure none of us want to do that.” He reported, bitterness emphasising each gruelling fact.

  “That’s …” Alter began, but his voice quickly tailed off as the implications settled.

  “Terrible? Horrific?” Walross prompted with a sweeping gesture. “It doesn’t matter. He died on our watch.”

  “Look, his sword sheath is empty, and I don’t see any loose blades around. At least we can say he went down fighting.” Boats mentioned, pointing to the empty scabbard that poked out of the ground next to his hip.

  “That’s slim consolidation, but from the brief interaction I had with his father he’d probably be happy to hear that.” Alter grumbled in response.

  “What kind of dad would … Ahh, what does it matter? Come on, if we can’t move him then we should at least protect his body from scavengers and the elements.” Riptide’s disgust melted into resigned common sense.

  The assembled men shook themselves out of their stupors and with murmured agreements they set to work. Farfield’s body was tightly covered in two layers of tent canvas which were hammered into the rock as hard as the men dared. With a little trepidation and a sense that they were breaking some sort of taboo, Alter and Whim sorted through the ostler’s belongings. They retrieved what they believed to be some personal items with sentimental value and placed them atop his shrouded body. Stones were carted in from outside the camp to be piled high, forming a cairn which should shield him from the worst of the weather. Satisfied with their solemn construction, the order was given to secure anything that could be used as evidence or supplies before departure. All agreed that they’d had more than enough of this place.