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After Earth Went Dark: Part III Chapter 3
"Where have you been?" Ida demanded when Elliot finally found her. "And what is that!?" She looked at the explosive device he was carrying.
"Tyr found it in the woods, it's a long story." Elliot answered. "He said to give it to you."
"Where is he now?" Ida asked, scanning the rows of tents. The camp had devolved into something like an ordered panic. The people knew their tasks and roles and were seeing to them but doing so in a mad scramble.
Elliot shook his head. "I don't know. He said he would meet on the east edge of camp."
Taking the bomb, Ida looked it over before frowning quizzically at Elliot. "I'll hear about it later." She finally said, hiding the device away in the supply tent. "For now, we need to get to the defenses."
"How many are there?" Elliot asked, trying to keep the fear from his voice.
"I don't know." Ida replied with some worry. "The sentry that made it back said it was a large force."
"With Carvers..." Elliot shivered at the name as he recalled the cruel misshapen weapons and jagged armor the fiendish special troops used.
Ida put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, stay close to me or Tyr. You'll be fine."
That was a good plan in theory, but there was still no sign of Tyr. Elliot couldn't imagine what might be in the box that could be so important. Under Ida's instruction, Elliot raced back to his tent to collect his full belt of knives. He usually only carried two of them around the camp. Strapping them around his waist, he then fell back in with Ida on the way to the edge of camp.
In the time since their flight into the mountains, they had established some defensive structures around the perimeter of the camp. It was not a full wall, but there were sections designed to force invaders into certain areas where the trees were thickest, as well as strategically placed brambles and bushes. They had also constructed traps along the easiest paths up the mountain that would slow down any attackers. Slightly raised platforms had been built to give archers an even greater height advantage on enemies coming up towards them, and also to provide cover in case of return fire.
They were as prepared as they could be, but Elliot didn't know if it would be enough. Tyr had spoken about the size of the New State before, and if they were bringing their full force, he didn't think some rock walls and pit traps would be able to stop them.
To Elliot's horror, when he reached the eastern edge of camp with Ida and a sizeable group of archers and slingers, he found that he could already see torches bobbing and blinking among the trees. They were still some distance away, but even so the distant lights made his blood turn to ice.
"Where is Marcel?" Elliot searched the group of gathered defenders for the tall lean commander.
"He led some of the more skilled ones down the mountain." Ida explained. "They were going to try and thin them out a bit."
Elliot bit his lip, not liking the sound of that. It sounded too much like a suicide mission to him. Also, he did not see Jay anywhere and worried that maybe his friend was in the advance party as well.
Before long, the sounds could be heard of a large group tramping through the forest. Occasionally a pained scream broke through the night as one of the militiamen fell victim to the many traps out in the woods or perhaps to Marcel's band of saboteurs.
Gripping his knives tightly, Elliot scanned the gathered crowd, not for the first time. Where was Tyr? At this rate the men would be upon them before Tyr even arrived. That thought did nothing to help Elliot's morale. The thought of facing off against New State soldiers, or worse, Carvers, without Tyr by his side was enough to make him want to break and run.
Ida must have sensed his fear because she gave his shoulder another squeeze before calling a command for the archers to knock their arrows. The group was not extensively trained and more than a few dropped the feathered shafts as they tried to fit them to the string. Others knelt with long homemade spears, hiding behind the makeshift barricades they had erected. At least there had been some warning. If the New State had come upon them suddenly there would have been no resisting.
"This is what we've trained for!" Ida called out as more screams came from the dense woods. Elliot hoped that none of the pained voices were Jay or Marcel. "You've risked everything to be here. Don't let them take it back now!"
A murmur of agreement ran through the gathered archers and spearmen. It was no rousing speech like the kinds that Marcel could give, but it was enough to remind them of their purpose.
"Draw!" Ida called out and the archers pulled their strings back as they had been taught. Elliot knew that the plan was to send as many volleys of arrows as possible into the front lines of the New State, to confuse them and cause them to dart forward to escape the deadly rain. Then, while they were disoriented and afraid, the spear wielders would dispatch them when they got close. That was the plan anyway.
The tramping sounds were getting louder. It sounded like an entire army. The screams were more frequent now, accompanied by the occasional gunshot that made Elliot flinch nervously. The defenders shifted uneasily as they waited for Ida's command.
"Loose!" Ida yelled, letting her arrow fly into the darkness of the woods. The moment she made the call, Elliot saw dark shapes break from the trees. The invaders were closer than he had thought, and Ida had timed it perfectly. The hail of arrows felled dozens of New State men immediately and seemed to have the desired effect. Their companions behind them issued shouts of profanity and rushed forward to seek cover. Only to be met with long sharp spears and more arrows.
Elliot felt a tremble run through him as fear mixed with excitement. Seeing the plan come together gave him a thrill that was unmatched. He moved forward and pitched two of his knives into the surging crowd, felling two men.
As he did so however, his heart sank. More and more men poured through the gaps in their barricades. The defenders had prepared for this and formed up into ranks. But there were so many, and they continued to stream through, despite the constant hail of arrows.
Elliot heard a pained a fearful scream to his right and turned to see a man fall to his knees, clutching an ugly looking serrated weapon that protruded from his chest. Eyes wide with horror, Elliot scanned the throng of invaders until he found what he was desperately hoping not to see. A masked man wearing some kind of helmet with leather stretched over it. The mask was a simple sheet of leather with holes cut in it to resemble a terrifying smiling face. This man wore cobbled together armor made of sporting pads, road signs, and jagged pieces of metal that stuck out at odd angles from his body.
The Carver seemed to feel Elliot's gaze because the black holes for eyes swiveled suddenly in his direction. Involuntarily, Elliot let out a whimper of terror though it was immediately swallowed by the roar of combat. The man began to take purposeful strides toward Elliot, ignoring the other defenders as he pulled out a wooden club that was thick with rusty nails. Elliot took a step backward and then another. He could see now that there were Carvers all around. At least a dozen of them, wreaking havoc on unsuspecting victims.
Taking another step backward, Elliot stumbled and fell as the smiling-faced man drew ever closer. He struggled to grab knives out of his belt, but his fingers felt like blocks. Finally, he managed to pull one out and launch it at his pursuer. Elliot's aim was good, and he hit the man right in the shoulder at a bare spot in his armor. The knife sunk into flesh, but the Carver simply looked at the blade then ignored it before continuing forward. Elliot then remembered what Tyr had said about the Carvers being so drugged up that they felt no pain or fear.
Scrambling to his feet, Elliot was about to make a run for it. Suddenly a muted stuttering noise cut through the screams and the clash of weapons. Short bursts of quiet but somehow stark plinking noises were accompanied by large groups of attackers suddenly and noiselessly dropping to the ground.
The Carver that pursued Elliot paused to search for the source of the sound, only to curiously fall to his knees and then into the dirt during one of the stuttered bursts. Elliot didn't dare get closer to check, but the man did not appear to be breathing. The din of combat began to turn to confused milling as, in groups at a time, the men that the defenders were fighting with seemed to simply drop dead of their own accord.
The advance of the New State militia slowly ground to a halt as the rapid muted sound continued and more and more of them fell. Even the Carvers seemed at a loss as they looked around in confusion before being similarly stricken.
Tyr appeared suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere. Only he was dressed in a way that Elliot had never seen before, with a form-fitting black shirt and pants that were obviously outfitted with armored plates of some kind. Tyr still had his array of knives strapped around his body, but in each hand, he held a gun. As Elliot looked on, he heard the stuttering bursts again and saw the barrels of these two weapons light up. Another wave of militiamen fell dead in response.
Elliot remembered back to their escape from the Jackson Hotel after the Tournament, when Tyr had executed an impossible feat of killing four men within a fraction of a second. As he saw the New State men dropping noiselessly left and right, he realized that each of these stuttered bursts was not the random silenced machine gun fire that it seemed to be, but that each shot was aimed with meticulous and deadly accuracy, carving easily through the attackers.
Turning in slow circles, Tyr moved himself to the middle of the fray, dropping attackers right and left. Elliot watched in awe as Tyr, with one fluid motion, ejected the magazines from his weapons and loaded new ones in so quickly that there was barely a noticeable ceasefire. Four Carvers charged him, brandishing their wicked-looking weapons, only to fall silently at his feet.
Sensing the turn of the tide, the defenders rallied with a triumphant cry and surged forward once more with renewed strength. Elliot joined the charge, grabbing up the spiked cudgel that the Carver had dropped and rushing fearlessly after the nearest militiaman.
He could hear someone barking orders to the New State troops, trying to rally them, but the men were cowed by the sudden appearance of this ghost-like gunman. And Tyr moved like an apparition, fading from view one moment into the darkness, only to resurface somewhere completely new. All the while, the deadly staccato of his firearms brought down groups of militiamen.
Elliot had been entranced by the elegance of Tyr in combat before, but this was something new. Tyr always moved as though his weapons were an extension of his body, and now it was as though each bullet was a piece of him, moving in a path that was predetermined before he even pulled the trigger. No matter what the militiamen tried, even with a dozen men at once, Tyr dropped them all, and the pile of corpses around him grew.
Turning his head, Elliot's amazement turned to horror as he saw Jay struggling to fend off one of the Carvers with a wooden spear. The Carver had a massive machete in each hand and was hacking at the haft of the spear every time Jay tried to thrust it at him and continuing to march forward as if the probing point of the spear did not bother him in the slightest. As Elliot watched, the badly damaged spear split, leaving Jay without a weapon.
Elliot knew that he wouldn't be able to reach Jay in time with his knives. "Tyr!" He shouted, pointing toward Jay.
At the sound of his voice, Tyr's head swiveled instantly, assessing the situation in milliseconds. Tyr's attention barely wavered from the group he was dispatching, only long enough to flick the barrel of one of his weapons toward the Carver. The sound of the silenced shot was lost in the chaos, but the Carver immediately fell dead. Jay stumbled backward, looking around in confusion before noticing Elliot watching him. He nodded his thanks before seeking out a new weapon to continue the fight.
Elliot barely had time to feel relieved, both for seeing that Jay was alright, and for Tyr's timely intervention. Another militiaman crossed his path and Elliot caught a swipe from a long knife on the club he still held before kicking the man between the legs. Tyr had taught him to use his small size to his advantage and take every opening that was given to him. It didn't pay to fight fair against men twice his size.
The man doubled over, and Elliot already had a knife ready to plunge into his throat. Winning these little duels came with a certain sense of satisfaction, but it was immediately soured by the knowledge that he had just killed another man. Right there in the midst of battle it struck him that he had lost count of how many he had killed. Only a year ago, the thought of killing another person would have been abhorrent to him. Now, he couldn't say for sure what the number was.
Despite their superiors barking angry orders at them, the New State men were beginning to realize that they were beaten. The impressive number of Carvers they had brought with them were dead, the defenders were rallying, and Tyr was unstoppable. A steady stream of shell casings flew from his two weapons even as the militia turned and began to flee.
"Don't follow them!" Elliot recognized Marcel's voice. He had to repeat the order several times though because in their excitement the defenders were eager to press their advantage.
Slowly, the battle began to disperse as the two parties separated. The New State fled into the woods, hurling curses and abuse as they abandoned their wounded. Elliot noticed, not for the first time, just how quiet things became after the intense chaos and noise of combat. He breathed heavily as his tunnel vision began to fade to normal. His senses returned slowly, and the metallic smell of blood was heavy in the air.
This was by far the largest fight that Elliot had been a part of. He was unprepared for the sheer number of corpses that littered the ground all around him. At least four of them had been put there by him, he knew that much, but possibly more. He would know when he went to find the knives he had thrown. A quick look around suggested that the New State had been badly beaten in the exchange of killing.
The cries of the injured and dying were horrifying. As Elliot became aware of his surroundings once more, they fell on his ears like knives into his soul. There were several faces among the dead that he vaguely recognized, but when his eyes fell on one in particular, he felt a lump in his throat and couldn't tell if he wanted to puke or burst into tears.
It was Brandon. The boy who had been part of his scavenging mission. His mop of dirty-blonde hair was smeared with blood and his young face was already pale and cold. A blade that could only have belonged to a Carver was still sticking out of the young man's chest. He could not have been more than seventeen.
Elliot wondered how far Brandon had been when he was killed. Wondered if there would have been any way to save him. Maybe diverting Tyr's attention to save Jay's life had cost this boy his.
"No one can save everyone." Tyr's words returned to him as he looked down at the boy's still calm face. That was what his guardian had said when Elliot blamed himself for Randal's death. That didn't make it any easier to accept.
The aftermath of the battle was almost as chaotic as the fight itself. People searched through the bodies of the dead, looking for loved ones. Sometimes there were tearful reunions, other times people collapsed to their knees with wailing sobs as they found who they were looking for in the piles.
Elliot felt numb. He needed to be close to Tyr, but Ida, Marcel, and a horde of shouting and confused refugees were standing between them. Instead, Elliot wandered the carnage aimlessly, not wanting to look anywhere for too long for fear of seeing another face he recognized.
Marcel had ordered that the wounded all be tended to first, even those from the New State. This was met with some backlash especially from those who had lost friends or family in the battle, but Marcel was adamant that they would treat all injured parties as best they could. He made a concession in saying that the defenders would obviously have priority when it came to the limited medical supplies. This was found to be an agreeable compromise.
Dawn was fast approaching by the time the injured were removed from the field. Then came the dilemma of what to do with the dead. There were almost two hundred of them. Marcel's final count though suggested that only about forty of them had been from the ranks of the defenders. Significant losses for a group of their size, but an impressive ratio nonetheless.
It was decided that the bodies of their people would be cremated during a funeral and memorial. The rest would be piled in a mass grave to prevent the spread of disease. It was not the most elegant solution, but there were other matters to attend to as well.
When finally, Elliot was able to worm his way back to the inner circle, Marcel, Tyr and Ida had retired to Ida's private tent. Marcel's stressed voice could be heard from several tents away however.
"We should move again." He insisted. "We can not allow this to happen every day."
"It won't." Tyr asserted calmly. He greeted Elliot with a nod as he entered the tent. He was still wearing that strange armored clothing that made his lean, broad-shouldered body look even more intimidating. "They won't risk another full-scale assault like that immediately. Moving the camp would only make us more vulnerable. Here, we have the high ground and defenses established. We should focus our efforts on fortification and sending out more recruiting agents."
Marcel sighed heavily and put his head in his hands. "I am not meant for this." He muttered.
Ida put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "No one is. But you're doing it well. I think Tyr is right though. They will be watching us. If we pack up and move, they will try to attack us while we're vulnerable."
"Is this the `gift' then?" Marcel changed the subject, gesturing at Tyr. "A change of costume and some weapons?"
Tyr shook his head slowly. "No. This is the real gift." He turned his head to one side and pulled back his ear to reveal a small black disk stuck to his skin, then turned to the other side and showed a second one.
Elliot didn't know what these things were, but he was smart enough to come up with a guess.
"So, they finished them." Ida observed with a note of disapproval.
"Apparently." Tyr agreed.
"Finished what?" Marcel asked with exasperation, not in the mood to be kept out of the loop.
"Tyr told you about the chronopods?" Ida asked, to which Marcel nodded. "For a long time, Aesir was trying to develop something that could expand the effects of the pods while being outside of them. Something that could prolong and amplify that sense of timelessness."
"And they work." Tyr confirmed quietly. "Quite well in fact."
"But we don't know if there could be any side effects." Ida continued pointedly. "When I was there, the prototypes they tested almost always resulted in mental breakdowns or severe brain damage."
"Ullr wouldn't have left it behind if it wasn't ready for field use." Tyr answered. "Besides, our casualties would have been much higher without them."
Marcel nodded slowly. "That's true... Just... be careful."
Elliot caught the twitch of Tyr's lip that indicated a smile as he noted Marcel's concern. "Elliot." Tyr addressed him. "I need your help with something."
Just the thought of Tyr needing him for anything brought a wide grin to Elliot's face and did a lot to wash away the horror of the battle they had just fought. However, he should have asked what the task was before he enthusiastically agreed to it.
Tyr and Elliot spent the next two hours combing over the battle field collecting shell casings, often on their hands and knees in the mud, while all around them people worked at moving the dead bodies. Not exactly Elliot's idea of quality alone time with Tyr.
Although, Tyr had informed him, the case that Ullr had left him had quite a stockpile of ammunition inside, it was important to collect the casings since eventually Tyr would probably have to start reloading them by hand. What shocked Elliot the most though was that Tyr had in his head an exact count of how many bullets he fired during the battle. One hundred and eighty-six.
It was that kind of pinpoint accuracy and memory that sometimes made Elliot wonder just how long Tyr had spent in those chronopods and if the time would be more easily measured in years or in lifetimes.
"I'm sorry." Tyr suddenly broke the relative silence that had fallen over the corpse-strewn battlefield.
"For what?" Elliot asked in confusion.
"I know you must feel..." Tyr paused awkwardly. Elliot knew how hard it was for him to discuss emotional matters. "I don't want you to feel that I'm ignoring you."
"I don't feel like that." Elliot insisted, although as he said it, he thought about it and knew that he was in fact feeling some neglect. "I understand. You have so many important things to do."
Tyr did not answer for a long time, obviously struggling to find words. "Maybe but... You're important too... to me."
Elliot knew that Tyr cared about him, but it was so rare and so difficult for him to express it. That made it all the more special when he finally did. Those few simple words made Elliot's heart glow. Suddenly it didn't matter that they were covered in mud, hunting for spent shells in the middle of a field of bodies. For a few moments, all the terror and grief from the battle simply ceased to exist. Not caring in the slightest who was watching, Elliot put his arms around Tyr's shoulders and gave him a long, passionate kiss.