Page 72 of Scorched Earth (Dark Shores #4)

“He isn’t going to watch?” she hissed, torn between gaping at the flow of ranks moving down to the water’s edge and Marcus, who had handed his helmet to Amarin and then seated himself on one of the stools.

“Doesn’t need to.” Quintus drew her forward so they stood on the ridgeline.

“There will be a constant stream of reports. Besides, watching implies interest, which suggests concern that the battle won’t go exactly to his plan, which gives the enemy confidence.

Even if everything is going all to shit, to the enemy’s eyes, he’ll always appear cool as a cup of water on a hot day. ”

Marcus might be cool, but Teriana was dripping sweat. Below, the first ranks were already in the boats, oars in hands as they pressed laterally across the river. The rest of the army remained still and unmoving as statues.

“What’s interesting,” Quintus said, “is that he told the Forty-First that they were the vanguard, but it’s our boys getting into those boats. Also, we appear to be missing a century of men.”

“What does that mean?”

Her friend shrugged. “I’m sure we’ll find out soon. This won’t take long.”

On the northern bank, the Gamdeshians were a flurry of activity. Smoke from fires rose into the air, great vats steaming above them, and piles of stones rested next to fifteen catapults, all armed and ready to deploy when the boats came into range.

“They’re going to die.” Horror built in her stomach. “Quintus, he needs to stop this. This is wrong, they’re all going to burn or drown, and he’s just sitting there”—she wheeled around to look at Marcus—“eating a fucking apple!”

The last came out more shrilly than she’d intended, and all eyes in the pavilion went to her. “You can’t do this. You can’t let hundreds of men die just to gain a riverbank.”

“Thousands of men have died for less,” Marcus responded around a mouthful of apple. “But thousands of men won’t die today. Felix, are they in position?”

“They’re approaching the Gamdeshians’ range, sir,” Felix said, and Teriana’s stomach plummeted as she realized the boats were well past the halfway point, rowing hard.

“Good.” Marcus abandoned his apple core on Amarin’s tray. “Rastag, shall we see what fruits your efforts yield?”

The engineer was clutching his papers in the corner, sweat beading on his brow. “I should perhaps accompany it, sir. To ensure the calibrations are correct.”

“The Gamdeshians are deploying their catapults, sir,” Felix said.

“Range?”

“As anticipated.”

“Good. Signal to hold position.” Marcus grasped Rastag’s elbow and led him out of the pavilion. “You’re too important to risk,” he said to the engineer, giving Teriana a look she couldn’t parse as he passed her. “You selected the men yourself, and they will follow your instructions.”

“If it’s the slightest bit off—”

“It won’t be.”

All the officers moved out of the tent, and Teriana stood frozen, not wanting to watch. Not wanting the horror of witnessing so many deaths under a storm of rock and fire, their bodies left to float down the river to the sea. But she made herself walk back to the ridge to stand next to Quintus.

Below her, the ranks remained still and unchanged where they were arrayed on the slope, but on the water…

there were dozens upon dozens of boats, the legionnaires in them rowing hard to keep in position just out of reach of the Gamdeshian catapults.

There was a loud crack as one deployed, a stone the size of a man’s skull soaring through the air.

It exploded into the water, spraying the men in the nearest boat, having barely missed.

Yet that wasn’t what held Marcus’s attention.

Teriana frowned, following his line of sight. A group of legionnaires was carefully moving a catapult down the hill, the war machine larger than she’d ever seen. Even so… “What are they going to do with the catapult?” The river was too wide to fling rocks across.

“Trebuchet,” Quintus corrected, then whistled between his teeth. “See that big block of stone waiting at the end of the bridge? That’s not building material, it’s a counterweight.”

Teriana watched in silence as the war machine was pulled down the length of the bridge, which brought them just outside the range of the Gamdeshian catapults.

Her concern for the legions had been misplaced.

Lives would be lost.

But it wouldn’t be theirs.

You did this, her conscience accused. You brought them here because your few mattered more than Gamdesh’s many.

The Gamdeshians saw the threat and turned their own catapults on the Cel trebuchet, but the rocks fell short.

Just as had been intended.

Out of the corner of her eye, Marcus nodded once, then a horn blasted. A heartbeat later, a deafening crack split the air, the monstrous war machine hurling a stone at the northern banks with deadly aim.

It slammed into one of the Gamdeshian catapults, wood flying every direction.

It was not the only victim.

Teriana hugged her arms around her body, unable to look away from the writhing forms of those who’d been injured. Or the still ones on the ground next to them.

Yet the others didn’t run, choosing to hold their ground.

Crack!

Another rock hurled through the air at a catapult, and tears trickled down her cheeks as it struck true.

“Surrender,” she whispered. “Put down your weapons.”

But as the legions carefully destroyed the catapults one by one, the Gamdeshians only pulled their weapons, staff and bow and sword, all held at the ready.

Marcus nodded again, and the cursed horn blew a series of notes. The legionnaires in the boats began to row hard for shore, those without oars lifting shields overhead as sheets of arrows fell.

Teriana’s body shook with tension, breath coming in rapid pants. “Surrender,” she pleaded, willing her words across the massive river. “ Please. ”

“They may not,” Quintus said, then, softly enough that only she could hear, he added, “You don’t need to watch, Teriana.”

She realized now that this had been the point of Marcus’s demon stration with the Fifty-First’s test of nerve. To show her what it would be like.

But this time, she refused to run. “I have to watch.”

Teriana clenched her teeth as the first boats neared the banks. But just before they hit the shore, another horn sounded from the north.

“Oh gods,” she whispered. “Kaira didn’t fall for the trick.”

Horns from the north meant Kaira had arrived with reinforcements, and the outcome of the battle suddenly became much less certain. Teriana’s heart threatened to tear out of her chest, the war of emotion in her making it very clear that she didn’t know whose side she was on.

Lifting her spyglass, she sucked in a deep breath and looked.

Only for her breath to catch, because it was not Gamdesh’s familiar banners moving to reinforce their countrymen, but the crimson and gold dragon.

Legionnaires with a 37 on their breastplates.

Only a hundred men, a pittance compared to the numbers on the field, and yet at the sight of them, it was as though the flames of the Gamdeshians’ defiance had been doused with water.

They went still, looking between the dozens of boats hitting the bank and the deadly lines that had come up from their rear, the centurion leading the Thirty-Seventh shouting something at them.

The Gamdeshians lowered their weapons.

“Felix, have centurion Qian accept their surrender and ensure they are secured. Then have our medics brought over to see to their injured.” Marcus turned back to the pavilion. “Rastag, I want the floating bridge in place within the hour and the fortress drained within two.”

“Yes, sir.” Felix motioned to signalmen and gave them orders that Teriana barely heard.

It was over. The Cel had won.

She had won.

Unspent adrenaline still surged in Teriana’s veins, and with no outlet, it left the world spinning. One minute she was standing, the next she was on her ass, forehead pressed to her knees.

Quintus flopped down next to her, silently watching masses of men moving to follow orders in the river valley below. “You all right?”

Teriana shook her head.

“We couldn’t have asked for a much better outcome,” he said. “It could have been a lot worse, trust me on that.”

She stared blankly at the dirt.

“It’s one step closer to securing the xenthier stems and freeing your people.” He bumped her elbow with his. “In a few weeks, the Quincense will be sailing to retrieve you and Cassius will have no choice but to liberate your imprisoned people.”

“And then what?” The question sounded like it had been dragged over gravel.

Quintus didn’t answer.

Gods help her, she’d tried. Tried to get help from Kaira. From Ereni. From her own people. No one had been willing to risk saving her five hundred.

And for the first time ever, Teriana thought perhaps they’d been right.

She’d bet everything on the belief that if it came to it, the West would have the collective strength to force the Cel back, if not across the seas, then at least to Arinoquia.

But it was now very clear to her that she’d underestimated the Empire.

That she’d underestimated him.

We do not fall back. That was the Thirty-Seventh’s motto, and yet that was the very thing she was trusting them to do once this was over.

A hawk screamed overhead. Teriana’s eyes jerked skyward to find Astara circling above, the shape-shifter’s cries filled with anger and grief as she took in the scene.

Teriana could only imagine how the Gamdeshian woman felt, knowing that she’d been duped by Marcus’s ploy in the harbor and that the northern bank had been lost as a result.

And Emrant, a city filled with innocent civilians, would be next.