Page 284 of Scorched Earth

Horns bellowed, more ranks moving to reinforce the lines, and Surly reared, giving Killian a clear view over the sea of shifting men. Marcus held a horn, his face splattered with blood, and his mouth formed a single word.

Go.

Digging in his heels, Killian drove his horse into a gallop and chased the tail of his cavalry disappearing into the trees.

As though eager to escape the carnage, Surly put on an extra boost of speed, and within moments he’d caught up to the last riders, passing them until he was alongside his companions. Agrippa’s face was slick with tears, but he only said, “We have to be quick! She’ll be sending reinforcements to the stem, and we have to beat them to it!”

Nodding, Killian moved closer to Lydia, who was pressed close to Seahawk’s neck with Gwen and Lena riding on her heels. “Are you all right?”

Her face turned to him, green eyes full of tears. “Rufina knows we can save the blighters. That’s why she made them do that. So there is no hope of getting them back.”

Having seen the looks on the faces of the legionnaires as they were forced to kill their own, Killian suspected Rufina’s motivations were darker still, but he only said, “She knows we’re coming for her.”

And this time, he was going to kill her.

They wove through the winding paths, the air thick and humid, the stink of blight growing as they flanked the front lines and headed into Rufina’s territory.

It was truly the land of the dead.

The ground was ashen from the fire Killian had sent north, the trees nothing but charred skeletons and debris thick on the ground. But worse were the streams and pools of blight. The horses attempted to leap over them, but it was not long until everyone in the company was splattered with black murk. Which meant the hours of life for anyone not marked were severely numbered.

Still they pressed onward, deeper into the deadlands that had once been Mudamora. The horses began to falter and stumble, some willfully resisting traveling farther. Knowing they were close, Killian slowed Surly’s pace, then dropped his reins in favor of his bow.

Only to draw up short as they exited the charred trees.

“You’re going to need more arrows,” Agrippa whispered, as theylooked out at a sprawling lake of blight, at the center of which sat a small island containing a glittering xenthier stem.

Farmore arrows, because surrounding the lake were hundreds upon hundreds of blighters.

109MARCUS

Marcus sat in the dirt cradling Nic’s body, what should have been silence broken by the screams of the injured. By the retching of those pushed past physical endurance. And by the weeping of those whose minds had been pushed past what anyone could endure.

Under the control of Rufina’s blight, the Fifty-First had fought past human capacity, crawling onward no matter how badly they were injured. Attacking and attacking, those among the living given no choice but to deliver the killing blows required to make them cease the onslaught. Men Marcus had never once seen break had fallen to their knees and let the undead kill them rather than fight on. Had turned and run, leaving their brothers to see the battle through. No matter how they’d reacted, Marcus knew none of them would ever be the same. That none of them would ever forget the horror.

Which was as it should be, because to forget would be the greatest crime of all.

The masses of men around him stirred, and Drusus pushed through them to sit at Marcus’s side, his eyes taking in Austornic.

“I’ve been doing this longer than you’ve been alive,” the older legatus finally said. “I’ve seen more than you can ever know, and I will say, it does not get worse than what you have endured today. What we have all endured today, though the Thirty-Seventh and Forty-First took the worst of it.”

Marcus swallowed, his mouth dry as sand. “It was my fault.”

“I know.” Drusus slung an arm around his shoulders, thick arm squeezing Marcus tight in a way that made him feel younger than he had in so very long. So incredibly out of his depth, and yet it had been his actions that had brought them to this moment.

“But this isn’t the time for you to break, Prodigy. You can’t lead men to the edge of oblivion and then leave them hanging because itwas harder than you thought it would be.” Drusus sighed. “You’ve been scheming. You have a plan. That much was abundantly obvious to all of us, even if it didn’t go quite as you had hoped.”

The plan had been to give Lydia and her allies an opportunity to reach the blight. To give her a chance at destroying it on the hopes that those who’d succumbed to it might be brought back to life. Yet as Marcus stared down at Austornic’s corpse, he knew that no matter how things fell for Lydia’s plans, the Fifty-First would not come back from this. Knew that Mudamora and its allies might have victory, but it would not be a legion victory, for their enemy still sipped wine on the far side of the Endless Seas.

Lucius Cassius.

Marcus’s jaw tightened. “We’ve been fighting the wrong fight, Drusus. Our eyes have been on the wrong enemy.”

Drusus banged a hand against Marcus’s armored back. “You’ll not get any quarrel from me on that. So get up, and get us marching in the right direction, boy.”

Marcus carefully set Nic’s body on the ground, ensuring the boy’s eyes remained closed, and then allowed Drusus to haul him to his feet. All around them, the ranks were in shambles. Men sitting in the dirt, or staring into the distance, or wandering aimlessly, all while the Mudamorians fought on against Rufina’s forces. Fought for their land and the lives of those they loved.

It was past time the legions did the same.