“Trapped,” said Sergeant McGrady. “Nay, they won’t hold fire.” He ran an unsteady hand through his moustache. “It’ll be a massacre.”
Gaelyph spoke, but the rattling pop of crank-guns drowned out his words. Bullets zipped past them, kicking up puffs of dirt and thunking into the grass of the embankment. One of the sergeant’s men cried out. So did Brandon. The man clutched at a bloody leg.
Effie dove into the grassy slope as one of the duke’s gunships drifted lazily overhead. It was low enough she could count the rivets on the steel that banded its wooden hull. Its great balloon sagged. Scorch marks ran along its belly.
“Bollocks!” Sergeant McGrady cursed. The crank-guns continued to spit fire, hammering at the hilltop. The line of destruction raced down the embankment and scattered across the crowded field. Soldiers and townsfolk alike fell before the onslaught.
A smaller airship chased the gunship. Oval-shaped sails hung beneath it like swept-back fins. At its prow was a spiked ram carved like an open maw. Angled above, the smaller craft rained globs of fire down on the duke’s gunship. The incendiaries popped as they struck, sending out sheets of flame.
The gunship made no maneuver to evade its pursuer. Effie didn’t need to guess the reason why. It was clear the Barrow Witch had the crew within her thrall. Delving into the craft, she found those who manned the gunship and strained to free them.
“Leave them, Effie.” Gaelyph had to step before her to get her attention. He spoke above the din but did not shout. His words were hard and meant for her alone.
Her ire rose. She made to shove the warden aside but stopped herself. She met his gaze and understood. He wasn’t speaking out of cruelty or indifference. He was right, as the grindylows and Barrow Witch had proclaimed. She could not save them all. Perhaps she would not be able to even save her friends—or herself.
Her gaze swung from the burnt and failing gunship to the bloody field below. The duke’s army had fallen off the attack. Bodies piled like bales of hay across the ground. Horns blared a retreat. The cannons had fallen silent.
No amount of Fey Craft could save the army. She had to let them go. She had to get to the Barrow Witch before Caledon’s strength failed. Before the battle was lost.
32
Effie sensed the steward’s struggle. The weight of it fell over the hilltop like a blanket of iron. He kept the Unseily host from Elphame through strength of will. Gone was subtle craft and skill. Even with the immense power of the steward’s mantle, he tired.
“Let us end this,” she said to Gaelyph.
“Aye,” said the Warden of the Hunt.
She had sensed earlier the pockets of Unseily fey who roamed within the hillfort. Deep passages ran beneath the earthen embankments, a warren of tunnels and caverns. She eyed the slope above. The shadows cast by stone and crevice reminded her of where they had found young Clara Bowman.
But which hid an entrance into the warren beneath? She bit her lip, considering.
Gaelyph answered her unspoken question with one of his own. “Would you hide behind a scrawny pine bough when a palisade stood next to it?”
Effie grinned. “You’ve watched the thurs.”
“And the bogills.” He nodded and pointed at a shadowed area halfway up the slope to the hilltop. “They emerge from the cleft there.”
She could’ve hugged the warden. While she fought the Unseily directly with her Fey Craft, he used his hunter’s guile.
Grabbing Sergeant McGrady by the coat, she yanked the man forward. She had no more time for words. His attention snapped from the chaos below. He turned to shout an order at his men, but his jaw slackened in shock. He had none left to command.
Brandon sat in the dirt with his back against the embankment. He held his rifle at the ready and waved it for the rest of the group to leave him. The other soldier the gunship had felled lay on his side. Shallow and weak breaths gave the only sign he clung to life.
With effort, Effie pried her gaze away and forced the wounded from her thoughts. She had to remain firm in her resolve, no matter how much it panged her. They had all come to save the empire. To a man, she knew they would rather she carry on than risk defeat.
She ignored the distant rattle of crank-guns, the grunts of bogills and chittering of trows. Men screamed. Wulvers howled in misery and hunger. The wafting stench of spent gunpowder, churned earth, burnt wood, and smoldering canvas met her nose. Snowflakes fluttered before her face as she raced along behind the warden. Ice crunched beneath her boots.
Freiherr Jörg struggled to keep pace behind her. The gnome huffed with each stride. Sergeant McGrady came at an easier gait. He had holstered his pistol and snatched up a rifle from one of the fallen. His hands clutched it hard enough to turn them white. His face was a stone mask.
They encountered few Unseily. Those who’d gathered on the second ring earlier had either run off or been slain by arriving riflemen of the duke’s army. A pair of wulvers, one with a bloodied maw and the other with a lame forepaw, growled at them as they passed. But neither moved from their huddled position.
A goblin fled before them. Its flopping ears wriggled as it loped. It made a chittering squeal as it went, until it flung itself onto a boulder that protruded from the upward slope.
Only a bogill dared to stand against them. Tall and lean, the hairy creature howled a challenge at Gaelyph. Its muscles pulled taut, hands curled like claws. Sergeant McGrady shot it twice before the warden’s sword brought a final silence.
As the slope grew steeper, Effie scrambled upward on her hands and feet. The drifting snow did not pile high, but where it landed the earth had frozen and become slick. Her fingers quickly numbed. Her grip became less certain, and she was forced to slow.
Her head whipped about at the boom of an explosion. The smaller airship of the Unseily had downed the duke’s gunship, she saw. It sprawled in a flaming mass across the field, sending up a black plume of smoke. But the explosion had come from the smaller airship. One of the gunship’s sisters had swung around and launched a broadside. Its crank-guns had torn through the smaller craft’s wooden hull. Gouts of flame streaked from the breach.
The airship wobbled under its balloon. Pieces of its outrigger sails caught fire and came loose. The crank-guns opened up again, raking across the craft’s rigging.
Effie wrenched herself away from the spectacle. It would do her no good to know its outcome. Shambling up through a ridge of stone, she peered into the cleft where Gaelyph had led them. Her vantage revealed a deep shadow nestled into the embankment. It was the mouth of a cave.
Her neck stiffened. She lurched in shock. Her vantage had revealed more than the cave. Red coats dotted the far side of the cleft—Lieutenant Walford’s men. She could spy the man clustered with a few of his soldiers.
Their rifles cracked, taking aim at a band of Unseily who guarded the cave’s entrance. The size of the thurs made Effie’s throat run dry. From a distance, they had appeared like undersized giants, but that gave not enough credence to their sheer mass. The hulking creatures had arms like smokestacks and legs that could drive back a steam carriage.
They smelled, too—not like the decay of the bogills and grindylows, but of a powerful musk, like that of eggs left too long in boiling water. Effie gaged and covered her mouth.