Page 6 of A Monarch's Fall

“Yeah,” I heard him faintly.

“Are you good?” I asked.

“He’s as good as dead, and so are we,” Micky answered.

“Enough, Micky,” I warned. Panic never helped anyone.

“I’m fine,” I heard him answer, but he wasn’t in his usual mood, or offering his usual commentary, and he didn't even utter one insult to Micky. He was scared.

“We’ll get you out. Just stay put, we need to get the target out. We’ll be back for you. Hold tight,” I told him. “Fredrick, you’re in the lead, Micky, you’re covering our tail,” I gave the orders.

“You’re leaving me!” I heard Andreas scream in anger.

“No choice, hold tight,” I commanded as we began to move.

Fuck Andreas. He was expendable. Percy was everything. We were here for her. She was everything to our cause, our mission, our future.

I hadn’t taken more than a half dozen steps before the rumbling of the ground grew violent again, and a new wall burst out from the earth, directly in front of Fredrick, knocking him onto his backside. The sudden quiet that descended with the rising of the wall was eerie; the noise of the fighting between True North and Ardens' forces was reduced to a distant, dull murmur.

“I told you this was a bad idea! A stupid, deadly idea!” Micky cried behind me as Fredrick got back to his feet.

Before I could think of our next move, Andreas began screaming. The kind of agony-filled screaming that reminded me of when one of the dogs got kicked by a horse in mygrandfather’s stables a few summers back. It didn’t end well for the dog.

The ground shook again, and the giant wall that separated Andreas from us cratered back into the ground, revealing Andreas.

His mouth was open in a silent scream. His left leg was gone from mid-thigh down, crushed between two walls. Severed.

I retched and turned away, covering Percy’s eyes, though she was unconscious. It was instinctive to hide her sight from something so gruesome.

Blood spurted from his thigh, painting the grey wall with streaks of red, a large pool around the stub of flesh and protruding, splintering bone. Even his tactical trousers had been torn through by the wall.

“Micky,” I said.

He wasn’t only our inside man; he was carrying our medical supplies.

“What do you expect me to do?” Micky asked, his voice almost a cry. “I don’t know how to deal with that. I’ve had as much training as you,” he protested, stepping back, shaking his head.

So much for being trusted to follow commands. I’d rather it was him missing a leg and bleeding to death, though I wasn’t sure Andreas would help him either.

“Micky, get yourself together. We need you. Andreas needs you,” I told him.

“Fuck him. He would shoot me himself if he thought he’d get away with it. I told you we shouldn’t have entered here. I told you.” He screamed.

“Fredrick,” I called.

He ran forward, pushing Micky to the ground and ripping the medical backpack from him.

“Scared shitless,” Fredrick said, shaking his head. “This isn’t the fight for you, boy,” he told him.

Fredrick was older than me, Micky, and Andreas. He disagreed with us ‘kids’ being on the battlefield. Said it wasn’t our fight. But he was wrong. It was our fight. It was our future we were fighting for.

Micky allowed him to take the pack. He was quick to get back to his feet, spinning on the spot.

“Where’s, where’s, where’s the exit, where’s it gone?” He yelled.

The caw of a crow distracted me as I looked up to see the bird circling above.

“Calm down, Micky. See that? Idonea can show us the way out,” I explained.