Warden: A Novel (40 page)

He peered around the edge of the building where he’d teamed up with another Warden and two Olin archers to battle the Collective. The streets were choked with dead bodies and twisted metal—detritus from the latest engagement—and Dura identified dozens of combatants from both sides of the struggle. Despite their best efforts, he knew that there were probably some civilian casualties in the area as well.

When coalition forces took over buildings to attack the Collective, they sent the residents out of the structures and away from the battle. But some refused to leave, placing their lives in grave danger. And unfortunately, that peril was growing—as each successive battle seemed to go worse for the coalition. Partly because the Collective troops knew what to expect from them now, and were more prepared when the attacks came. But mostly because Sergeant Dura had far fewer troops than when he’d first started out.

Further down the street, he saw a fire spring to life where a Collective plasma beam had sliced through the facade of a building, joining several other blazes that had broken out during the intense fighting. But Dura had neither the equipment nor the manpower to do anything about it, and he just hoped that the residents were able to put the fires out when the fighting shifted to another area.

He watched as what remained of the Collective convoy wound its way through the destruction, turning down a side road leading further east. They were still pursuing the group of fighters Dura had tasked with leading the enemy from encounter to encounter—striking and retreating in plain sight to string the convoys along. But the Collective were unwilling to follow Sergeant Dura’s playbook this time, and some of their troops split off into the alleyways, searching for the soldiers hiding there. They understood how the coalition army was moving around unseen—striking from the shadows and falling back—and they intended to take those safe avenues away from them.

Dura toggled his comm. “Wardens. Send riders down through the alleyways behind the convoy and instruct them to engage the Collective forces there. Let’s try to make those routes so unpleasant that the enemy sticks to the main roads from now on. And make sure you tell them to catch the Collective patrols from behind, or the horses will be cut down. Those narrow spaces will help us bottle up the enemy and take them out quickly if we play this right, but they’ll also turn against us if we’re not careful.”

Dura knew the horses could move fast through the small spaces, giving them an immense advantage. It was how their troops had managed to stay one step ahead of the Collective so far. But a horse and rider also presented a large target in the constricted passageways, and if the Collective spotted them first—before the coalition soldiers could fire off their own weapons and neutralize the patrols—they’d be slaughtered. But it was out of Sergeant Dura’s hands now, and there was nothing he could do to affect the outcome.

He looked down the road in the opposite direction as they prepared to move out, and Dura saw another Collective unit headed their way—even larger than the one they’d just fought.

Sergeant Dura understood the importance of remaining optimistic in battle, especially when you commanded others. Your troops looked to you for guidance and strength, and a commander always had to appear confident—even if he wasn’t. In fact, that was often when it was
most
critical. But doubt was beginning to creep into Dura’s mind now. There were just so many of them, and the Collective army was far too powerful to make any headway against them with these tactics. This rag-tag collection of people he led was outmatched in every single way that mattered.

And Sergeant Dura damn well knew it.

But before the growing uncertainty in him could take root it was shoved aside, violently displaced by two simultaneous explosions ripping through the city walls. The detonations were so powerful that the ground shook beneath Dura’s feet, and everyone stopped what they were doing to look around in uncertainty. Dura peered over the tops of the nearby buildings and saw smoke rising up through the air in the distance, black and grey clouds billowing high into the night sky. He could make out two distinct plumes, easily visible on both sides of the brightly lit city, and Dura knew that large numbers of coalition troops were now flooding into Le’sant. Soon, Renik and S’to would be leading those soldiers south to meet up with Dura’s own beleaguered forces. And where just seconds ago there had been despair, Dura now felt a growing sense of confidence. The Warden was reassured by the knowledge that reinforcements were streaming in behind the Collective divisions—eager to engage the enemy, and open up several new fighting fronts.

Sergeant Dura just hoped that this one didn’t collapse before they got here.

Tana watched the small patrol move cautiously in the street below, warily surveying the alleyways and darkened alcoves as they marched past them. Even from the rooftop she could see the apprehension in their movements, and Tana had never witnessed Collective soldiers so spooked before. Even when responding to the occasional riots in the Outland the soldiers were never
this
cautious. And those situations were dangerously unpredictable, and volatile in the extreme. But the sudden arrival of an unknown enemy had surprised the Collective, throwing them off balance, and Tana could tell that these troops were actually worried. It showed in their excessive diligence to duty. Tana was one of the few people in Le’sant who knew the true scale of this invasion, so maybe the soldiers weren’t overreacting after all.

The coalition’s surprise attack in the Outland had certainly confused the Collective army, but it had also made them more dangerous. And Tana knew they wouldn’t make the mistake of overconfidence in any engagement now. If anything, they’d be expecting the absolute worst of
every
situation…just like this patrol. Tana noted one of the soldiers glancing overhead and slid further back into the shadows.

“Twenty-five meters,” she whispered over the comm.

Down below her, a surgical strike team was hiding in an alleyway—invisible from the street—waiting for Tana to issue the order to move out. The group was comprised of twenty soldiers total, including Olin and Exile warriors, and a couple of Wardens—all sworn to follow Tana’s orders to the letter. And so far, much to her surprise and relief, they’d done just that.

Tana’s unit was running into Collective patrols with alarming frequency as they made their way toward the Central District—some police, some military. So she’d taken to the rooftops to spot trouble before the group stumbled into it. The strategy had proven very successful so far, preventing their discovery at least a half a dozen times. Including this most recent incident.

From the darkness of her perch, Tana watched the patrol pass the alley where her unit was hiding, headed off in the opposite direction. So she gave the all clear and stepped out into the light.

Tana ran as fast as she could and leapt over to the next rooftop, rolling into a ball as she struck the ground. She sprang back up in one seamless motion, jogging over to the edge of the building to look out further ahead. Tana searched for more Collective patrols, but discovered only empty streets.

“Keep going,” she instructed her unit. “But duck back into hiding when you reach the hospital. I’ll move into a better position so I can look around the bend up ahead.”

“Affirmative,” came the terse, yet professional reply.

Tana appreciated having a couple of Wardens along for this mission; it made things efficient. If she told them something, it just happened. No questions or arguments, only immediate action. But she also knew that if they
did
have something to say it was important, and she’d be damned stupid not to listen. The Wardens were smart. And they were also lethal—Tana got a chance to see that combat proficiency up close during this mission. The Olin and Exiles were deadly as well, proving themselves against the few Collective patrols they’d been unable to avoid when first starting out. But while Tana knew they wouldn’t have made it this far without them, she’d still prefer a Warden at her back, any day.

Without question.

She also enjoyed having a few people around who knew what the real mission was—to rescue Barent. The others still believed they were making a move at the leadership of the Collective, and if the opportunity presented itself, they would. But the primary mission was to rescue the Great Betrayer and the Alpha of the Exiles. Barent would be vital in their effort to rally the people of Le’sant to their cause…and to control the Exile army. Tana knew that without him, those vicious warriors would eventually devolve into a ravaging horde. And the last thing they needed right now was another enemy. So freeing Sergeant Barent from the Collective was an essential mission—maybe even the most important of the war.

Of course, Tana had her own reasons for wanting him back.

She watched her unit dart under the covered entryway leading to the hospital’s garage—where the emergency medical vehicles were usually kept and maintained.
Usually
being the operative word, however, because from her position above, Tana could look down through the upper windows and see that all of the ambulances were gone. She wasn’t surprised, though. As they were making their way through Le’sant, they’d spotted a number of the vehicles staged throughout the city—positioned at different locations for a rapid response due to the ongoing emergency.

At least there’s no one in there to catch us slinking around,
Tana thought, smiling because the professional thief in her approved.

She leapt over to the next roof and landed atop the building’s rubbery water cistern. Then Tana slid off of it, running over to the edge of the structure to peer past the sharp curve in the road.

And her breath caught in her throat.

There was a large Collective roadblock directly ahead of them, with soldiers stationed down all of the nearby side streets and alleyways as well. Two mobile guard towers had been erected in the middle of the avenue, with just enough room left between them for a single vehicle to pass through. Floodlights from the towers swept out randomly over the entire area, allowing Tana to count at least fifty heavily armed soldiers—along with a dozen APCs lining both sides of the road. She noticed that a few of the vehicles had large plasma rifles mounted on top of them, and could only speculate about their destructive potential. Tana had expected more security as they neared the Central District.

But she hadn’t expected
this
.

Her unit would never be able to reach the city center following this route—not now. And Tana reluctantly realized that they’d have to backtrack and find another way. A quick look around revealed that all of the surrounding buildings were taller than the one she was standing on, so Tana would need to go down to the street level first, and then take a lift up to the roof of one of them before she could begin scouting out another route.

When
working
in this part of the city, Tana carried a hoverlift with her for just such an occasion. But gliding up and down the side of a building was often far more obvious than just going inside and taking the lift—even if you had to pick a lock to gain entry. And the hoverlift was always an emergency option anyway, because when Tana plotted a heist, she planned the route out well in advance. These types of complications simply didn’t happen.

Damn it all,
she thought. Then Tana spun around and walked toward the roof’s access door so she could enter the building.

“Hold where you are,” she instructed her group over the comm. “There is a major Collective force directly ahead of us. I’ll need to come up with another rout—”

Tana abruptly stopped speaking as the sound of a loud explosion filled the air behind her. When she turned back around, she saw that one of the guard towers in the middle of the road had disappeared. A moment later, the second one vanished in a blast of fire and black smoke. Then a wide plasma beam swept out across the street, moving side-to-side. It took out nearly half of the Collective soldiers before the rest dove for cover behind whatever they could find.

“What the hell is going on?” a Warden called out over the comm.

“I can’t tell yet,” Tana replied.

She was unable to keep the shock from her voice, but Tana didn’t care. “Stay where you are,” she said. “There’s some kind of plasma beam slicing through everything in sight.”

When she looked back down again, Tana witnessed an APC mounted with a plasma gun smash through the flaming wreckage of the towers. It drove straight down the middle of the road, entering a gauntlet of similar vehicles parked on either side of it. From her position on the roof, Tana could see that no one was actually manning the plasma turret; it was just automatically sweeping back and forth, covering the full width of the avenue.

The Collective APCs targeted the devastating weapon with their own guns and it exploded, sending metals shards and smoke high up into the air. But the vehicle itself continued moving forward, crashing harmlessly into the building directly ahead of it. That also happened to be the building Tana was standing on, and she got an up-close view of the aftermath. The impact threw the side of the vehicle open, just before it erupted in flames. And Tana looked down inside the APC, surprised to find it empty.

But she was even more astonished when she saw Sergeant Barent running down the road, dodging his way through the charred debris of the two guard towers. He bolted toward the closest APC and shot the soldier manning the plasma turret, and then Barent clambered up the side of the vehicle and dropped a grenade down inside it. He leapt away just as the explosion went off.

“It’s Barent!” Tana yelled over the comm. “Get out there and help him!”

She watched as her unit slid out of cover and began engaging the Collective troops. The Olin were using a combination of arrows and plasma rifles in an attempt to neutralize the turrets, while the Exiles went straight at the soldiers in the streets, relentlessly slicing their way through the enemy with their longblades. But despite the element of surprise, and the losses the Collective suffered from Barent’s attack, the coalition troops were still at a disadvantage. Tana saw several of the Exiles go down as the Collective started to regroup, and then one of the Wardens fell as well, hit in the waist by a plasma blast. Tana took one last look before leaving the rooftop, but she couldn’t locate Barent anywhere in all of the chaos. So she ran inside the building to take a lift down to the street.