It had been an accident, it turned out. The gas. The clouds of death. The Ofprovians had fired the gas at the trenches assuming them to still be occupied by the enemy. It was a problem of two armies working together without effective means of communication, a general had lamented. Celeste thought it was a bit too dismissive of the dead men. She bit her tongue.
A doctor examined her and assured her that the ill effects of the gas would pass. After a few washes, her skin no longer itched. The cough she had developed was taking longer to fade away. The doctor claimed her lungs could heal from the damage done to them unlike those of a non-wizard. She wasn't inclined to believe military doctors but there was nothing that could be done.
Her duties continued. She had to try harder to find time to soothe herself now, she didn't want to risk getting that close again. As well as forgoing her jacket most days, she also started holding rocks in her mouth. It might not be the most effective method she had, however, it was better than the alternatives.
The war, in general, seemed to be coming to another halt, as it had following the summer last year. This time it wasn't the weather that limited their progress. This time, it simply seemed that they were becoming incapable of winning any battles. They kept fighting but they couldn't push through the enemy lines. Their guns were too good and they fought too hard.
This was a last stand for them. The Itsopasarians were defending their homelands. Could they expect anything else?
It didn't matter to Celeste. Well, it did, she just ignored that fact. Ignored her own feelings on the matter. She had someone left to protect. So, she would keep fighting.
What a waste. You could end this war single-handedly.
“I couldn't.”
You could if you didn't hold yourself back.
She didn't respond now. She was deep behind enemy lines, it wasn't a good idea to go about shouting to your spirit.
She leapt over a deep gorge, not looking down until she felt her feet securely on the other side. Glancing back, she examined the craggy rocks. Malformed trees grew out of the side, struggling upwards for light that was cruelly blocked out by the canopy of the forest above.
The forest was a friend to her though, keeping her hidden from sight. She moved north through the dense, moist woodland. To her right was a gentle ridge leading down to the current battlefield. Once she was close enough to strike, she would have to stop the enemy artillery. She had been keeping a close eye on the plains below her, they looked like disused farmland, but had yet to see the dark metal of weaponry.
As she reached a small clearing on the cliff edge, she stopped to look out over the battlefield. Fires burned far in the distance. She could make out the trenches cutting through the landscape in the distance. But no sign of any guns trained on the battlefield. They couldn't be further back could they?
She bent double as she broke in a hacking cough. The sound of her lungs trying to kill her from the insides covered up any other noises. Right up until her guns went off.
She carried three on her when in the field. Two standard pistols tucked on her belt and a signal flare on the back of her waist. The pistols going off were the immediate danger. The shots whizzed into the earth below her, rather than lodging into her legs. One did skim past her leg, leaving a long streak of blood down it. It stung, but she would live. She didn't worry about the flare at first. The gun fired harmlessly into the air.
“Perfect.” Came a voice from behind her.
Stunned from the gunshots and recovering from the coughing still, Celeste pulled herself up straight and turned to face whoever had spoken.
He was a wizard, obviously. His skin gunpowder grey and his hair an unnatural shade of yellow. At least he didn't seem to have been made taller than her by magic. More importantly than the wizard, were his soldiers. Flanking him were a dozen men in orange Itsopasarian uniforms. They formed a semi-circle around her, their guns levelled at her.
“I didn't think that would work.” The wizard spoke in Laocienan, for her benefit she supposed.
Drawing her swords, she glanced between the men. At the sight of her preparing to fight a few of them seemed to waiver.
“What would work?” She asked, speaking in her best Itsopasarian.
“Your flare. I assume you use it to signal when your job is done.”
“My...” She paused as she realised what had happened. She looked up, taking in the arc of red smoke crossing the sky above her. The all clear. The men back at the line would think that the artillery had been cleared already. They were planning for a cavalry charge, but they would be running into a killing field. No, there wasn't any artillery. “That's not a problem. It looks like my mission was for nothing anyway.”
“If believing you gave your life for nothing gives you a final comfort, then I won't deny you.” He nodded and his men moved shoulder their rifles.
Celeste raised her swords, preparing herself to attack. Before either she or the soldiers had a chance to kill the others, there was a sound of sloshing water. By the time she looked behind her, a surge of water had moved through the soldiers, slicing their rifles in half. Celeste nearly fell backwards as Melanie appeared besides her. She looked panicked but as well put together as ever.
“We've got to go,” She said, not waiting for a response before her hand was on Celeste's arm.
“What do you mean?”
“Your ammo!” The Itsopasarian wizard shouted.
Celeste looked up to see the soldiers pulling out spare cartridges of bullets and throwing them towards her.
“Jump!” Melanie shouted.
hey did, moving in unison. Instinctively, Celeste had removed gravity, letting them jump unnaturally high. It was strange, as they moved through the air it felt right. They moved their bodies in unison to keep them moving smoothly. Maybe fighting for all those years had left them able to fight as allies better. Melanie summoned a disc of water below them and froze it to create a brief barrier. It did protect them from the explosion a bit.
The enemy wizard had clicked his finger and the ammo the soldiers had thrown all exploded. That had been how he'd set off Celeste's guns. With all remaining guns destroyed, he had reverted a more makeshift tactic. Had she not been hurtling through the air, arm in arm with Melanie, she might have spent longer wondering what this wizard's spirit was.
But she didn't have time to consider. Instead, she focused on her magic, letting them glide as high as the momentum would take them before air resistance took hold. Celeste glanced back at the wizard and his troops. It seemed they had no other way to fight because they were watching the two escape with a look of acceptance.
When they reached the apex of their arc, Celeste let them start to fall. Melanie pulled some water around them and gave them extra forward momentum. They dropped through the air in a controlled plummet before finally hitting the ground a nearly half a kilometre from the ridge where they had been. Melanie landed stationary while Celeste ran a little way to use up her momentum.
“What was that?” She said after a moment.
Melanie watched Celeste intensely as she spoke. “I came to save you. What's not to get?”
“They ambushed me, and you knew where I was going to be? Actually, they knew where I was going to be.” Celeste stood still as she registered her own confusion.
“They knew you would be on a mission like this because they had a spy. I knew they were planning that ambush because I found the spy.”
“And you came to rescue me?” Celeste asked, cautiously looking up to meet Melanie's eyes.
With a sigh, she nodded. “And now we need to move.”
“They don't have any significant weaponry though. The battle will be fine.”
“No, they have new weaponry. More that they stole from us. Short-range, portable mortars and an experimental rotating gun.”
“Why would rotating be new? I can rotate a gun?” Celeste asked, pulling out her unloaded pistol to examine it.
“The chambers rotate. Without the need to reload it should be capable of firing a bullet a second, if it works.”
“If?”
“Well, it hasn't been field-tested yet.”
“If it works, they're all dead,” Celeste muttered, trying to focus her mind. “Teo is supposed to be in that charge. I've got to go.”
She turned and started running, through the overgrown farmlands towards the battlefield. She quickly stopped again as she noticed Melanie running after her.
“What do you think you're doing?” She said sternly.
“Coming to help you.”
“I don't need help from you,” Celeste said turning away.
“I know you don't want it still,” Melanie said, stepping closer and resting a hand on Celeste's arm. “But we are allies whether or not you like it. And I am going to help you because...you are my friend.”
“We were...” Celeste bit her tongue and pulled her arm away. “Don't slow me down.” And with that, she broke into a run again.
The battlefield was a slight incline, a gentle hill with the Laocienans at the bottom and the Itsopasarians at the top. They were dug into a shallow trench where the Itsopasarian troops were lying in wait. There wasn't that much noise for a battlefield, yet.
The duo struck from behind, first attacking the mortar operators. There were a dozen of them, poorly equipped besides the short-range mortars. Killing them was almost sickeningly easy. Melanie, expectedly recommended caution, but without waiting to catch her breath, Celeste had begun to attack.
With the first main threat eliminated, they moved towards the trench itself. The soldiers had not been silent in their deaths, however, and those in the trench moved to turn their guns on Celeste and Melanie. Leaping high into the sky to dodge the first volley, she called down to Melanie.
“Flood the trench!”
“But you-” Melanie started to complain.
“Do it!” Celeste roared as she soared through the air, avoiding bullets with a subtle grace.
Melanie hesitated for a moment then ran out from the cover of a bank of earth and raised her arms. Celeste had never seen her create this much water before and marvelled as a waterfall appeared in mid-air, cascading into the trench. She could only keep this up for a few seconds as those soldiers far enough away to not be immediately swept up began shooting at her.
Far below them, Celeste heard the sound of a trumpet announcing the beginning of the cavalry charge. Had they been expecting this chaos or were the commanders just that slow? As hoof beats sounded alongside the shouts of charging men, gunfire intensified. Not just the single shot followed by the scrape of a bolt, but a consistent barrage. She looked down to see the rotating gun.
Fire exploded from the end as bullets whizzed towards the wall of charging horses. Celeste pulled herself back to the earth and slammed feet first into the operator. He cried out as she pressed him into the ground then made no more noise as her sword pierced his throat.
She looked up for a moment to see only a few horses fallen on the hillside. She didn't have long to examine them as a soldier lunged at her with a bayonet. She evaded with ease and spun, becoming a whirlwind of blades. Guns were still being fired down the trench. And she could hear the splash of water as Melanie fought. After what the other woman had risked for her, she couldn't leave her to fight alone.
Celeste began to move through the trench, ducking through the weapons brandished at her and effortlessly counterattacking. A few men kept trying to turn their guns on her, but she moved too quick to let them hit her. She quickly cut through the soldiers in her way and reached Melanie who was holding off half a dozen soldiers herself.
“Duck!” She shouted as she summoned her flames and swung through the air where Melanie's head had been a moment earlier.
“Did you stop the gun?” Melanie asked frantically.
“Of course I-” She cut off as they heard the sound of the gun firing again.
“Did you disable the gun at all?” Melanie clarified her question.
“I didn't think...I was coming to help you,” Celeste spat the words out, disgusted by herself for saying them. There wasn't any time to waste.
She leapt back into the air and sprinted along the top of the trench, keeping one eye on the charging horses that were being cut down. The soldier firing the rotating gun noticed her and swung it around to face her. It moved quicker than she expected, but it was aimed down. Bullets slammed into the ground as they struggled against the weight and the kickback of the gun to bring it level with Celeste.
She jumped up and over the gun. Mid-air, she exploded into firey blades and sliced through the gun and the soldier in a few brutal motions. She crouched on top of the gun to gather her breath just as the horses reached the trench. They galloped over, some soldiers leaping off to engage the enemy. The battle was won for sure now.
There was still fighting to be done, but Celeste had a minimal part in it. She was too busy coughing her lungs out to be much help. When the fighting finally died down she needed to take stock of what had happened. She looked at the soldiers moving around her, picking the corpses clean of useful weaponry like carrion birds.
But she hadn't seen Teo. There was a lot of men, that didn't mean anything. She started walking down the hill. There were plenty of corpses down here too. Men and horses, their blood drying on the growing grass. She glanced at some faces, though others she had to lift horses off before she could get a proper look.
It was halfway down when she found him. It had to be him. His stocky build, his mess of black hair. His kind face, twisted into pain in his last moment. The horse seemed to have crushed his legs, but he must have been dead before that. Blood seemed to have leaked from his chest. Not a wound you would live long with.
She knelt beside him, touching his grubby face, knotting her fingers into his greasy hair. Was that his blood or blood from her own hands now? She should sob, she thought, that was right. But tears didn't come. The cold grief just seeped into her like the blood on his shirt. After all this, all she'd been through, she had failed him. Death was so simple and terrible.
Her ears rang but she could hear a voice speaking to her, through the mud. Looking around, she saw an officer sat on his horse talking to her. Low ranking. A sergeant, maybe. Maybe just a Corporal. He would have been a private once as well.
“I'm glad we have you on our side,” He was saying.
The words didn't work in her mind. She was too focused on his face. Cruel. An unloving face. And she recognised it. No, the chances were low. The Wind wouldn't be so unkind. And yet the hatred boiled in her.
“You were there,” She muttered. She didn't even register the look of confusion on the soldier's face. “At the village. How does a monster like you survive when my men don't!” The muffled sound of her own voice cut through no better than his. She didn't recognise how loud she was.
It is him. This is your chance for true revenge. Her spirit's voice was clear. Inside her own mind, a final voice of reason.
She leapt in the air and kicked the soldier off his horse. He looked up at her with terror in the moment before she brought her sword down on him. She looked around her, vaguely making out cries of anger. Soldiers raising guns on her.
The next time she was fully conscious of herself, she was hotter. Fire burning behind her. Soldiers dead at her feet. Singed uniforms and the smell of burnt fabric. Terrible memories. She felt her own arm. When had she been shot?
“Celeste, you have to stop!”
She turned to Melanie. Was that anger in those cold eyes, or something more tender? Fear, concern? She should hate Celeste. After everything, hatred was all that should remain.
You must kill her too. You know what she did, she is the worst of anyone.
“Stop what? I am getting revenge. I am doing the only thing I have left to do.”
Behind Melanie she could vaguely make out soldiers running, fleeing. Or was that just the grass swaying in the breeze? It was hard to focus her vision.
“I'm not going to let you stand in my way.” She added, holding tighter to her swords. When had she pulled them out?
“Then I'm very sorry,” Melanie said.
Celeste raised her arms and swung at the other woman. She was a deadly cloud of fire and metal. But as always, Melanie was the better fighter. A huge chunk of ice smashed into Celeste's face. She didn't really see it coming, or how it got past her relentless attack. But then again, she didn't have long to consider this since it knocked her out cold.