The Terror of Talheim

One hot summer day, white smoke covered Talheim valley like a dense fog, turning the sun dim and red. All night and all day, gunshots and cannon fire echoed between the ridges on either side. The birds had long abandoned their summer nests. Ancient trees were shot to splinters, some had even collapsed on their own from the number of holes blown in their trunks. Razha hadn’t seen any living thing here for two days--only death dwelt in Talheim Forest.

Razha Koronova was a shadow moving through the fog of war--black hair tied in a long braid and covered by a black bandana, brown skin wrapped in black fatigues and a long black coat. She crouched behind a barricade of stacked shale stones and opened her rifle’s chamber. She poured in a mix of powder from one of the little glass vials on her bandolier, then below the chamber she affixed a white cap, inscribed with the rune of Thea. She slammed the lever down, turning and pushing the chamber into position.

The enemy’s latest volley came like a cascade of lead rain, turning up dust clouds from the barricades and mud from the ground. Razha turned up her canteen to savor its last drops of water in the brutal heat. She wiped a dirty mix of sweat and humidity from her forehead and took a deep breath, coughing as she choked on the toxic smoke even through the grey scarf over her mouth. She sat up and slung the black rifle, Reverie, over the top of the wall, setting it in an indent between two stones. Looking down Reverie’s sights, she could only see smoke. Hopefully this spell would help with that.

“Ready!” she shouted. Her comrades called back, though they couldn’t see each other.

She pulled the trigger--a ball of light as bright as the sun blew out from the barrel and streaked across the battlefield. Its light cut through the smoke for just a second before it faded out. But it was enough, the approaching sentinels stood out as dark shadows on the bright white. Her comrades’ guns followed in a cascade of thunder, preceding a choir of screams of agony. One of them came from nearby, on her side of the barricades.

She dropped down behind the safety of the wall and crawled toward the screams until she stumbled upon her comrade, Kaia Koronova. It looked like his face was covered in blood, and he was clutching it tight as he lay on his back. She saw his rifle on the ground and immediately knew what had happened. Kaia had an older model breech loading rifle, prone to wear and malfunction, and it had seen far too much use that year. The chamber was blown wide open on the left side.

“Kaia! Kaia!” She straddled his writhing body and pulled his hand away from the wound, getting his blood all over her hand. The skin of the right half of his face was sheared off to the bone. Shrapnel in his eye prevented it from closing. She would never forget the sight of the terror on his face.

“Medic! Medic! Medic!” she said over the continuing volleys of gunfire. His screams stopped. His breathing stopped. She pressed her fingers into his neck only to feel his heartbeat slow down and come to a halt. She wasn’t sure if that was happening or if time itself was slowing around her and she would be trapped in this valley forever. “No! Kaia! Kaia! Kaia!” She slammed her bloody fist down on his chest.

She heard footsteps running up in her direction, but she couldn’t see the person clearly between the smoke and the tears in her eyes. Maybe it was a medic. It was pointless.

“Hands up!” said an unfamiliar voice. A white-coated Imperial sentinel stepped out from behind a large maple tree, with his rifle raised. She fell onto her back into a supine shooting position and put him in her sights. She hoped he would waste his shot trying to hit her as she fell, but he knew better. His torso was right in her sight and she pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. If only she had reloaded before leaving her position. If only her enemy had taken the bait. It was a worst case scenario, and her own fault. Exhaling, she dropped her weapon and stood up slowly as the sentinel crept forward.

“It’s you!” he said, taking a glancing look at her peculiar rifle. “You’ve spent three days slaughtering my men like animals, but now I’m going to be the one to finally capture the Black Death.”

It finally ends here, she thought. The only question was whether to give them the satisfaction of killing her now or letting them subject her to a longer, more torturous demise. Either way they would be parading her lifeless body before the top brass of the Sentinel Corps. Maybe they would put her on display in Misthaven and let the reserve troops watch her skin decay and fall off. They would make a mockery of all she worked to make of herself, and they would deny all that she was before all the nation. At least Kaia would get to rest here in the mountains and disappear from the memory of the world, never to have his body judged and categorized again, just like he wanted.

She slowly raised her hands in surrender, when a gunshot sounded close by. The sentinel fell sideways, blood and fluid bursting from his skull. He hit the ground convulsing. His finger tightened onto the trigger and set off his rifle, but the shot went up into the sky. Then he just stopped, frozen there with a 0175 Point hole in his skull. It wasn’t the first time she saw such carnage and in that moment she knew it wouldn’t be the last.

“Razh! Razh!” Zal ran out from the white screen, smoke pouring from the muzzle of their pistol. Their brown eyes were a joyous sight, framed with a mess of short black hair and a grey bandana over their face.

“Zal!” Razha stepped forward on shaking legs and threw her arms around them, squeezing them so tight. “Zal! Thank the fucking gods!”

Zal hugged her around her waist but pushed her to the ground with the motion. “Get your head down! There’s still bullets flying.”

“Zal...”

They rolled off of her body to lie on their back next to her, and began reloading their pistol.

“I came to report from the barricade that the last of the sents are backing off! They took heavy losses from your trick of the light, and they’re fucking retreating Razha, they’re pulling up camp in a frenzy and they’re getting the fuck out of Talheim,” Zal said.

“Tell Letz and the right flank to pursue! Hunt them down! Nobody escapes Talheim Forest!” Razha said.

“There’s no point Razha...it’s over, for now.”

“Kaia...” She pointed.

“Oh no...” Zal crawled over and saw the scene.

“It’s too late.”

“Fuck, fuck! Why Kaia?” Zal said.

“He had to like that old fucking gun so much,” Razha said.

Zal picked up Reverie and dropped it into her hands. “Come on, let’s stick together. There’ll be a time to mourn.” They were putting on a good show of holding it together, but Razha could see the facade falling apart in their eyes. It was her turn to be the strong one now.

She pulled herself up to her knees somehow, pulled up the lever to open Reverie’s chamber again, and reached for her powder flask. “Keep your eyes out for stragglers. We’ve got to find all our folks and regroup. See who...who we have left.”

Zal put their hand on her shoulder and leaned their forehead down onto hers. She could feel the tears falling from their eyes.

“Damn it, what was the fucking point?” Zal said. “They’ll just send more, and more, and more, and we’ll fight until there ain’t a tree standing in Talheim forest, just graves!”

“We can’t give up, Zal!” Razha lifted her head up to look into their dark, weary eyes. “It’s imperative that we fight to survive!”