- TMK -

In the smoking ruin of Lysander’s colony, Edwyn rolled up his pants and let out a content exhale. Locke too pulled her pants back over legs, answering Edwyn’s blissful sighs with silence. In this burned hut, far from earshot of the legionaries, Edwyn had done as he felt entitled to.

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Like he always did.

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An emotionless, transactional fuck that lasted less than their earlier conversation with Serham and Calafolis. Or that’s what Locke told herself.

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“Ercliff did not lie. You are wonderful.” Edwyn let out a long whistle as he wiped the sweat from his brow.

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Locke remained silent, watching him with emerald eyes that betrayed her disgust.

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“Don’t give me that look,” Edwyn said. “We’re all going to die here anyway.”

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Locke pushed him away. “Then why should I keep letting you ride me?”

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Edwyn pulled a handkerchief from his satchel, turning away to wipe his groin. “Because you’ll die last, of course. I promised Ercliff that much.”

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Locke scoffed as she cleaned herself off. “As if Ercliff cares.”

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“That attitude’s probably why Ercliff sent you here in the first place,” Edwyn replied, buckling his trousers.

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Locke threw the rag she cleaned herself off with at Edwyn’s face, narrowly missing the captain’s nose as the wet rag sailed through the threshold of the hut. “What are you anyway? Some half-breed provincial who wound up with captain’s stripes because they couldn’t find anyone else to take the job?”

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“Close enough,” Edwyn trailed off in a half chortle. “But even with that noble blood you’re so keen on name dropping, a half-breed provincial is still fucking you. And you’re letting me do it. All because a trench frightens the living shit out of you.”

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Locke clenched her teeth, facing away as she folded her own lamellar vest back over her head.

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“A little dick and a warm bed will always be better than a bullet to the face.” Edwyn gloated. “At least for a while.”

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He moved for the charred threshold where a doorway once stood, the cold silence of the ruined village the only thing to greet him.

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“Finally, we agree on something,” Locke jeered.

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“Oh?”

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Locke finished the last buckle on her vest, hoisting her revolving rifle over her shoulder and moving to the man she hated. Locke moved close enough to feel his breath on her face, Edwyn almost tempted to kiss her.

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Then she whispered as softly.

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“Little.”

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Edwyn’s face turned red, hand sliding for his revolver.

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“Ah,” Locke stopped him with her rifle barrel under his chin. “Let’s not and say we did. Besides, we’re all going to die here anyway. How fast do you want that to be?”

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Edwyn laughed and relinquished his revolver. “Fair enough, Locke. Those goat fuckers will be back soon anyway. Let’s see what song you sing then.”

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He started for the camp where the other soldiers continued their refortification, Locke following a few paces behind.

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“No.” Edwyn said abruptly.

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“What?” Lock stopped, annoyed.

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“Stay over here. Maybe see what life in the north is like without me.”

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“Oh, fuck off.”

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“One or the other Locke, make your choice. See, Ercliff, the Empress, nobody is out here but me. So maybe next time you’ll watch your tongue. Or at least get creative with it,” Edwyn said with a smirk.

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Before Locke could say anything, a series of pops rumbled in the distance.

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Edwyn stopped, craning his neck in the direction of the gunpowder crackle. A faint whistle droned overhead as the call from the trench rang out.

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“Mortar!”

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A moment later, the thump of steel against the taiga drowned out all else. A blast of compressed air flattened Locke against the ground. Her eyes rolled back in a daze. She turned on her side, the ringing in her ears reducing the gunshots and cannons to firecracker pops. As the ringing subsided, she felt something wet and warm on her skin, on her face. She placed a shaking hand on her cheek, pulling back a slick coat on her fingers. There, a pink glaze remained, filling the ridges of her fingerprints with what used to be flesh.

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In her daze, Locke attempted to sit upright, the rotten egg of gunpowder murdering the tundra perfume. Where Edwyn taunted her was scorch mark ringed with pink and red. The only trace of the man she detested was mangled boot to her right. A boot with a clean shinbone protruding from a severed foot.

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Locke’s chest tightened, the ringing of mortars replaced with scream and shot.

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“Move Locke!” Someone shouted at her. “Move!”

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Locke looked in the general direction of man, seeing Calafolis’ head above the trench’s firing step, belting shots from his rifle. “Get in the trench you fucking id–”

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Calafolis’ skull opened with teal fire as a streaking hailflare bullet found its mark. His headless body fell back into the trench, engulfed in the colored blaze.

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Locke crawled away. Another mortar slammed nearby, raining splinters over her. A mammalian grumble cut through the cacophony; the grumble followed soon by two-ton hoofbeats. A woolly rhino blasted through the ruined huts as if they were parchment. On its back, several grey-skinned Skald with salt and pepper dreadlocks belted war cries and bullets from Arrcosi rifles. The hooves of the rhino cratered the earth mere inches from Locke’s face as the beast charged the crumbling defenses of the legionaries.

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A hidden pitfall made by the Saironian alchemists made itself known. The beast and her riders fell onto rusted iron spikes. The rhino expelled high-pitched squeal.

Then the beast and her riders were silent.

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Locke stayed shaking on the ground as the scene unfolded. Unsure whether to fight, unsure whether to run, most of all, unsure of what to do.

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But as she froze, the assault entered its crescendo. Though the smoke, the first Arrcosi appeared. The bipedal, six-foot bird clambered toward her. In its arms, it held a revolving rifle low, searching for prey. Prey it found in Locke. Its avian eyes narrowed within the slits of its metallic, beaked helmet. As the enemy raised its rifle and zeroed on Locke, she could do nothing.

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It did not matter. The Ikaran jolted back, swinging its rifle wildly as it fired one shot that veered to the right of Locke. The bird’s head fell forward, brown feathers collapsing against the tundra. Out of the Ikaran’s eye, a bullet hole seeped avian blood on the Lyth.

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Locke faced the shooter. A tawny Salamander, one of the colonists the legionaries left to die, stood there with a smoking rifle. The Salamander grabbed Locke by her lamellar vest and hurled her into the trench Calafolis mentioned before teal flame consumed him.

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Locke tumbled against permafrost, hard ground bruising her ash-covered body. There was the clang of something following her. She saw the lifeless body of the Ikaran soldier splayed against the sandbags, blood seeping out of the hole where its eye used to be. Last came the Salamander; the reptile shattered the duckboards by sheer weight.

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Instead of paying her any heed, the beast strode past her, knocking Locke into the dugout. From there, the Salamander heaved its bulk onto the firing step, unleashing a rifle volley in the direction of the assault. More mortar shells rained around the trench. Each shell tore the permafrost and rained icy soil onto Locke. She covered her ears. Her heart beating erratically. Her chest heaved for breath.

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She wasn’t supposed to die like this. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She had Tutton blood in her veins, descended from Arthad himself. She was supposed to be making orders, not dying for them. None of this was supposed to happen.

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“I shouldn’t be here!” She let out a tortured scream that melted into the commotion. “Let me out. Let me out of here!”

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Locke clawed at the dugout’s iced mud, the cold embedding under her nails. As Locke found her footing, she weaved her head in either direction. The trench to her right caved in. By the woolly rhino or mortar shot, it mattered not. The Salamander was in her way now, its saurian bulk blocking a trench clearly made for Humans.

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In a panic, she clawed at the Salamander. Her nails raked against ash-covered scales as Locke tried to climb past the creature. “Move!”

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The Salamander’s eye veered toward her, the creature yanking its rifle from the parapet. Locked continued her scramble, stepping on its tail as she managed to get one foot on the other side of the reptile.

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“Get the fuck out of my way!” she screamed so loudly her vocal cords split.

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A gush of red erupted from her nose as a force tossed Locke back into the dugout. She opened her eyes as the Salamander retracted the butt of its rifle from her face.

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“Shut the fuck up,” the Salamander barked.

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Rage boiled within Locke now. Rage at Ercliff for sending her to this frozen hell, at Edwyn and his torment, but most of all, rage at the inhuman beast who dared to touch her.

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Her.

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A nearby mortar detonated, causing the Salamander to hunker down as fresh earth rained over them.

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 Red splotching her once immaculate complexion, Locke fumbled for her bayonet. Her panicked thoughts were replaced with a will to plunge her blade into the Salamander’s throat. As she felt the grip of the bayonet loop in her fingers, the Salamander brought the rifle butt down again, this time into Locke’s stomach. The bayonet clattered against the duckboards as Locke crumpled into the dugout for the final time, clutching her stomach.

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“Next time I’ll put you down,” the Salamander hissed, grabbing the bayonet before hurrying back to the firing step. It would not have changed anything had it left the bayonet within Locke’s reach. The blow to her stomach left her limbs paralyzed and chest wheezing.

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Sulfur stink and a gunsmoke haze overtook the battlefield.  Locke curled against the dugout, praying to whatever God was there to deliver her from this world.