The Ghost Army

Chapter 3

The world turned white.

The blast hit Robbin like a punch to the chest. Sent him flying backward. He crashed into something maybe stone or the edge of the well. The air was knocked out of him all at once.

Robbins sword was gone. He knew this before he even opened his eyes. He could feel that his hand was empty. Far away he heard metal scraping against dirt.

Everything was black. Then he heard a sound. It was high and thin like a needle stabbing into his skull.

Someone was calling his name. "Captain. Robbin."

He felt hands on his shoulder pulling him.

Robbin opened his eyes. He saw snow and dust everywhere. Elaines face was above him looking worried. Her blades were out.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

Robbin coughed. He tasted blood. He nodded. He pushed himself up with one arm. Looked around for his sword. He found it. A shape half-buried in the slush near the wall.

Robbin crawled to his sword. He grabbed it. Stood up.

The gate was gone. It was not broken or damaged. It was just gone. Where the solid oak gate had stood for sixty years there was smoke and splinters. The stone archway was hanging open like a wound.. In the middle of it walking through the debris like it was nothing was General Alistair Thorne.

General Thornes armor looked strange. It was too close to his skin. The black iron seemed to absorb the light. Snow fell past his face. Disappeared before it touched him. His eyes moved across the courtyard without any expression.

Behind General Thorne the trees spat out soldiers. They were Ironborn. Hundreds of them. Their armor caught the grey light. Held it clicking and scraping in unison.

"Form a line!" Robbin heard himself shout. His voice was hoarse and strange. "Frontier Guard. To the gate! Get your swords up!"

Men came out of the barracks. They were men, young men, men who had never seen a city. They had sabers and broadswords. They did not have guns. They had never needed guns. They formed a line quickly shoulder to shoulder a wall of steel and determination.

"Advance " General Thorne said.

His voice was not a shout. It was something a vibration that settled in Robbins teeth.

The Ironborn soldiers came.

The collision was loud and chaotic. Steel clashed with obsidian. People. Sparks flew. Robbin pushed into the mess swinging his sword blindly trusting his weight and the edge of his blade.

An Ironborn soldier came at him its arm-blade swinging for his throat. Robbin caught it on his sword. The impact rattled up to his shoulder. He kicked the soldiers knee. Felt it buckle. He brought his blade down into the gap where the soldiers chest should be.

The crystal inside the soldier shattered. The soldier. Fell.

To his right the line bent. Then it broke.

A soldier. He could not have been older than nineteen. Went down hard. His saber cracked against an executioner blade. Burst into pieces. The Ironborn soldier raised its weapon for the finishing stroke.

Then Elaine was there. She did not shout. She did not hesitate. She jumped off the soldiers shoulder, spun once and buried both her blades into the seams under the Ironborn soldiers arm. The soldier let out a mechanical shriek. It dropped.

Elaine pulled the soldier up. "Retreat to the wall! The gate is gone!"

Robbin saw it. The gate was gone. There was nothing left to hold.

"Retreat to the keep!" he shouted. "Elaine. Cover the rear!"

The survivors fell back fighting as they moved. Snow and blood covered the ground. People were. The sound of metal rang out.

General Thorne stepped forward.

Robbin saw it coming. He could not stop it.

"Get down!" he screamed.

General Thornes greatsword swept across the courtyard in a terrible arc. The sound was like nothing. A vibration that bypassed Robbins ears and hit his chest. It tore through posts, supply wagons, the support beams of the watchtower.

For a moment nothing happened.

Then the watchtower groaned. It. Came down in a roar of timber and fire right across the path between Robbin and the keep.

Robbin felt heat on his face. He had dust in his throat.

He was alone. He was separated from the others. Through the smoke and the wreckage he could see the keep. But between him and it was a mountain of burning debris.

General Thorne walking through it like it was nothing.

General Thorne stopped a paces away. He raised his blade with one hand. The blue light at the tip pointed at Robbins chest.

"You fight well " General Thorne said. "For a primitive."

Robbins hand was shaking. His sword felt impossibly light against General Thornes armor.

"Your era is a mistake " General Thorne said. "It ends today."

Robbin spat blood and snow. He planted his feet. He gripped his sword.

"Then come finish it " he said.

General Thorne moved.

He was too fast. For something that size he was impossibly fast. The greatsword came down in a killing stroke humming with light.

Robbin did not parry. He threw himself to the left. The blade missed his head by inches buried itself in the ground and cracked the stone.

Robbin came up swinging. He drove his blade into the joint of General Thornes shoulder with all his might.

There was a crack.

The steel hit the obsidian. Stopped. The shock traveled back up the blade into Robbins arms through his body. His sword did not pierce the armor. It shattered. A dozen pieces of steel flew in every direction. Robbin was thrown backward landed in the snow and found himself holding nothing but a hilt.

General Thorne pulled his blade free from the stone. He stepped over the pieces of Robbins sword. He raised his weapon.

Robbin was done. He could not move. He could not breathe. The rubble was at his back. There was nowhere left to go.

"Step away from him " a voice said.

The voice cut through the wind. The roar of the fire.

Juliana Sterling stood at the edge of the debris. She was not holding a sword. She was holding something a brass device, heavy, covered in gears that glowed faintly. She had pulled it from her research crates. It was never meant to be a weapon.

She was aiming it at General Thorne like one.

The device screamed. A high piercing sound that hurt to hear.

General Thorne froze. His armor twitched violently. The blue light, in his eyes flickered. On, off on, off.

"Robbin, move!" Julianas voice cracked. The device shook in her hands. Smoke bled from its joints. "I cannot hold him long!"