Shadows

Only the light of the moons shines on the dead, grey soil. Zal blends in so well in their grey clothes that Nadia can hardly see them lying in wait on the ground twenty Length away. Razha is more obvious, in all black crouched behind a cart full of grey dust. Nadia waits behind a pile of rubble, in the darker of its two shadows. She checks her watch, they are right on time. There should be a patrol coming any minute now. If the enemy can be counted on for one thing it is punctuality.

Lantern light shines down the ramp to their position. Right on time, two bored looking sentinels walk their route, standing out in their white coats, shivering in the cool mountain air. At this moment, in this spot, the patrol would be invisible to any other sentinels, assuming they follow the same procedure as last night. Of course, they are always prepared for a plan to go terribly wrong. But that is not the case so far.

When the sentinels walk in front of the metal cart, Razha springs from her position, her rifle Reverie pointed at them, with its sword bayonet attached. Their bright lanterns catch the tips of her white tattoos just above the grey scarf wrapped around her face. She is otherwise indistinguishable from her shadow behind her, in her black coat.

The sents are startled, but quickly draw their pistols on her. “Drop your weapon!” one of them says. “You can’t shoot both of us.”

Zal jumps up from their prone position into a full run, a grey shape moving across the grey desert. Nadia follows, another shadow of the night in black, except for the grey bandana over her face.

“Behind you!” Razha says.

“Do you think we’ll fall for that?” he says.

But his demeanor changes when he feels Nadia’s blade poking his back. His comrade must feel similarly, with Zal poking at him repeatedly.

“Come with us,” Razha says.

“Drop your weapons,” Nadia says. She thinks she hears them sigh as they comply and drop their guns where they stand. Their posture looks so dejected.

“Lanterns off,” Zal says.

Under the moonlight the Helbender girls and Zals lead them by the points of three bayonets and take them out of the strip mine. They go down a dirt trail in front of the slurry dam and around the mountain some ways until they reach a flat area below a steep hill.

Here they see what remains of an old underground mine tunnel, a square wooden frame surrounding a hole leading straight down into the mountain. The apparatus that once carried workers down and discordium up is decayed and collapsed, and only the mine shaft remains.

They march their captives forward until they both stand at the edge of the pit. Nadia and Zal keep their blades right against their backs and push them as close as they will walk until they are balancing on the rotted wood beams. Razha stands across the shaft from them.

“What--what do you want?” says the young sentinel, his knees shaking and his voice cracking.

“What do we want?” Razha says. “I want my fucking mountain back. Can you give me that?”

“N-no...”

“That’s too bad.” She raises her right hand and gives Nadia a thumbs down gesture. Nadia steps back, raises her rifle to a high ready position, lifts up her leg, and kicks him off the ledge down into the blackness below. They hear the thud at the bottom. The first ones made more of a crack, they must be cushioning the floor a little now.

Nadia steps around to the side of the square. The other sentinel is panicking, squirming in place, but frozen in fear.

“How far...down is it?” he says.

“Who knows? It’s pretty dark down there,” Zal says. “Maybe you’ll just break your legs, maybe your neck, ain’t really my problem.”

“Dear Goddess, please, I’ll do anything, I’ll say anything.”

“We learned everything there is to know from your last patrol,” Razha says.

“I surrender! Take me prisoner, I don’t care, just not this!”

“The K.R.A. don’t take prisoners,” Razha says, and gives Zal the thumbs down. They push him hard and he falls forward. He manages to catch onto the far ledge with his fingers and dangles there, flailing his legs, looking up at Razha with the most pathetic eyes. She raises her black boot and stomps on his hand, and he falls down into the mine shaft.