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.Momentum pushes our charge to a reckless speed.The air fills with the clatter of a shard-cannon.A man to my right is stitched across the chest and lifted from his feet, torn backwards as though pulled by elastic vines.The crystal forest erupts into puffs of glittering dust as it’s punched by gunfire.I hold my breath.Inhaling that stuff would tear up my lungs pretty bad.We’d hoped they wouldn’t have time to traverse their gun.We’d gained the high ground and flanked them, and we thought the element of surprise would be enough.I feel sick as the forest is shredded around me and Eskaran soldiers are cut to meat by needles of stone.Three heartbeats and we’re on them.More Gurta are running up the hill to meet us, teeth bared, knives gleaming.The shard-cannon crew are firing through their own soldiers.The enemy are being cut down from behind, but they’re still coming.One of them singles me out, seeing I’m Cadre, seeing I’m small and slender and mistakenly thinking that makes me less deadly than someone like Rynn.I feint left and then launch off that foot, using the slope to get the height I need.He gets halfway through a swing before my foot connects with his jaw.I hear bone splinter.I touch down on his far side and keep running.I don’t think I killed him but I don’t care; someone else can do it.I’m after that gun.I hate guns.Two heartbeats.I glimpse the lake through the trees now.The water’s bright, illuminated by phosphorescent plankton.Its light melds with the glow of the crystal forest.Patches of lichen glitter in the darkness far overhead, streaking the cavern roof.One.And suddenly the forest is smashing around me, the air crazy with the insectile whine of projectiles and the sound of breaking glass.The gun has been turned on me, and I’m coming out of the forest, right into its muzzle.I break right and keep low, every new instant a miracle.Needles slice past, too fast to see.For a small eternity, I’m cupped in the hands of chance, life and death determined by the bucking of the shard-cannon, by obstructions and ricochets.Then there are no more crystal formations.The petrified white world of the forest peels back, and I’ve made it.There’s only six of them.Two manning the gun, four waiting, knives ready for the onslaught.They’re yelling at each other in that foul dialect, everyone shouting orders, discipline crumbling.Just the sound of their fluting, trilling consonants makes something knot in my stomach.The old fear, the shame, the pain.I gather it and use it.I’m first out of the forest, emerging a little way right of the gun.The pitiful wall of rocks they’ve built to hide behind doesn’t slow me at all.I use it as a springboard, leaping over and among them.The gunners are my targets.I slash one across the throat, slicing through muscle and gristle with my shortblade.It’s chthonomantically-treated obsidian: cuts through flesh like it was warm butter.The rest of my assault force reach the emplacement moments later, by which time I’ve blinded the second gunner and broken his pelvis with my knee.The other Gurta can’t touch me.Their strikes are slow, bodies declaring their intentions well in advance.I’m three moves ahead of everyone here.The gun has fallen silent, its rotating barrel spinning to a stop.I get out of the way of the Eskaran soldiers as they come charging in.The Gurta put up a fight, but it’s futile.They’re taken down in moments.When it’s done, we count our losses.Three dead, one wounded, the rest covered in small wounds from flying splinters.I got off lightly with a few dozen scratches, nothing too serious.Could have been worse.I hunker down on the wall at the far edge of the emplacement and look out across the lake while the men reorganise.There are Ehru out there, far from the shore, tentacles rising and waving and touching.They iridesce with colour, oblivious to the men dying nearby.I can’t help but waste a few moments watching before I turn my attention to the troops below.The main Eskaran force is forging along the lakeside.The enemy contests every step.Four hundred of us down there, all told.It’s all to reclaim a tiny port called Korok which the Gurta took from us sixty turns ago.The Warmasters seem to think it’s of critical importance, a staging point for bigger things, but I don’t know about that.I just go where I’m sent.My fight is on the high ground, where the land rises to meet the cavern wall.We’re meant to secure the terrain and take out the hidden guns that are butchering our forces on the shore.We’re doing a pretty good job of it, so far.I narrow my eyes and try to pick out Rynn in the chaos below.Big as he is, I can’t find him
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