Mercenary of Lastia - BtLH - Ch 52 (Patreon)

Lys’s jaw dropped as a monstrous thing burst from the bushes.

The creature was nothing like she had ever seen before. Its scales gleamed where the sunlight punched through the thin forest canopy, creating a moving pattern of iridescent green and gold that seemed almost otherworldly. Its eyes, a piercing yellow with a black line for irises, glared with unrestrained fury at her and the company.

She had seen nothing like it before—but she had heard about something like it in stories. Even without firsthand experience, she knew what it was.

Fire Lizard!

The monster skidded to a halt in the middle of the road, its long tail whipping up dust and leaves in its wake. Every inch of its body radiated deadly power, from its razor-sharp claws to the row of spines running down its back.

The recruits stared, momentarily paralyzed by the sheer presence of the beast. Well, at least they were already in formation.

She was a group leader; she was supposed to say something.

“Brace yourselves!” Lys yelled.

“Hold the line!” Swift roared, his sword drawn.

The lizard’s jaws opened wide, revealing rows of jagged teeth capable of tearing through flesh and bone. A glow began to build in its throat, an ominous, deep red light that flickered through the thick scales. Lys’s eyes widened in horror as she realized what was coming.

She reached over and grabbed Plainfield’s arm and pulled him down to a crouch behind their shields—his was already damaged from the bear.

A stream of fire erupted from the lizard’s maw.

The blaze was fierce and unforgiving, a torrent of scorching heat that turned the very air into flame. It engulfed the front line of shields, the wooden barriers scorching instantly.

The smell of charred wood and burning flesh filled the air, a sickening blend that churned Lys‘s stomach. Screams of pain and terror rose, mingling with the crackling fire and the roars of the beast.

But the fire didn’t last long.

“Throw your spears!” Swift commanded, his voice cutting through the chaos.

She didn’t even know where he was shouting from anymore. Just recognized his voice. She glanced over to Plainfield. He was frozen. Too many of the group were stuck, pinned behind their flimsy wooden protection that was half charcoal.

Lys grabbed a spear from the recruit beside her, her fingers slick with sweat. She took aim, her breath coming in a ragged gasp. A few others did the same.

It was a thin volley that arced through the air, but the sharp points glinted all the same. Most of them bounced off the lizard’s tough scales, but a few found their mark, sticking in its leathery hide like quills on a porcupine.

Group two rushed forward through the thin trees on the left and—Bunzard, bless them—provided another set of spear throws. Group three moved to do the same on the right, turning the ambush into an envelopment. Just like they had trained to do.

The beast roared, charging toward the charred Group One.

Men flew like ragdolls as the lizard plowed through their ranks, its bulk knocking them aside effortlessly. Lys barely dove out of the way, rolling to her feet just in time to see the creature’s tail whipping towards her. She ducked, feeling the rush of air as it passed overhead.

Group One was flattened, and the beast leapt back to let out an angry roar.

Group Four moved from behind to replace them in the rough shifting line. She reached down and grabbed a fallen spear as fresh shields and faces she barely recognized moved to interlock in front of her and the other fallen recruits.

From the side, Group Two rushed in, their spears held like lances. They slammed into the lizard’s flank, drawing its attention away from Lys and the others. She scanned the chaos, searching for a bow, but they were all back with the supply carts.

The Lizard began to dismantle Group Two. The spear charge had done little. They might as well have been pricking a mountain. Everyone who didn’t flee was going to die if someone didn’t do something.

Gritting her teeth, Lys tightened her grip on her borrowed spear and charged forward. The lizard’s tail lashed out again, but she leaped over it, landing on the creature’s back. It bucked and writhed beneath her, trying to throw her off, but she held onto one of its back spines.

Step by step, she clambered up its back, fighting to keep her balance. The lizard twisted and turned, its muscles rippling beneath her feet. It spun wildly as the other recruits stabbed and prodded at it from three sides.

Somehow, she reached its front shoulders and raised her spear. It looked like there was a soft spot right behind its skull. A bulging yellow eye rolled back to stare at her.

Lys brought the point down, driving it deep into the creature’s flesh.

The lizard screeched, its body convulsing. Lys stabbed again and again, holding onto the beast with her legs, putting all her strength behind each thrust. Hot blood sprayed her face, but she didn’t stop, not until the creature’s movements slowed and finally stilled.

Lys slid off the lizard’s back, her legs nearly giving out as she hit the ground. Adrenaline began to ebb and a sick feeling hit her in the middle at the same time the stench of charred flesh and the cries of the wounded assaulted her senses.

“Trekhill!” Swift barked, his face streaked with soot and blood. “Help me sort the wounded. We need to get the badly burned separated from the rest.”

There was no time for celebration or even a moment to catch her breath.

Lys nodded, pushing her exhaustion aside. She moved among the fallen men, assessing their injuries with a critical eye. Those with minor burns and cuts, she directed to one side of the road. The more severely wounded, she guided to the other, where Swift was already setting up a triage area.

No one questioned her orders. There wasn’t time for it, and everyone was too stunned.

Finn emerged from one of the other groups and pointed at Plainfield. “You! Get a perimeter established, now. I want scouts out in all directions. We can’t afford any more surprises.”

“Yes, Sergeant!” Plainfield responded, his voice hoarse from the smoke.

As Lys worked, she found Stormwell and Woodrow nursing another recruit she didn’t know who had half his faced burned. He stared at her with wide eyes. “You jumped right on the beast,” he whispered.

“Get him to the triage,” Lys ordered. The other two nodded and slung the young man’s arms around their backs and carried him away.

She tuned out the rest of the chatter, focusing on the task at hand. When everyone seemed to be sorted, she turned to find Woodrow at her elbow.

“Tents are going up,” he reported, his face grim. “But we’re going to need more bandages and salve than we have on hand.”

Lys bit her lip, surveying the battered company spread out along the road. “Strip the cleanest cloaks and tunics you can find. Boil them if you can. We’ll have to make do.”

Woodrow nodded, hurrying off to relay her orders.

A prick of worry bit at her. What were their sergeants doing? Lys turned back to the wounded and realized they were doing surgery on a recruit whose leg had been torn partway off.

She blanched when Finn raised his sword and hacked off the thin strip of meat still holding it on. Swift then brought up a hot piece of metal to cauterize it.

Her eyes slid to the side at the small fire—when had they made that? She was losing track of time. Everything was happening so fast.

They had survived the lizard, but the real battle, she feared, was just beginning.

Swift stood up and moved toward her, his gaze sweeping over the recruits. “Trekhill, Stormwell, Woodrow. You’re with me. We need white scarp, and we need it now.”

Lys stepped forward. “White scarp, Sergeant?”

“It’s a moss,” Swift explained, already moving towards the forest. “Grows on the north side of trees around here. When compounded, it’s a powerful salve for burns.”

Stormwell fell into step beside Lys, his face grim. “You think there could be more of those things out there?”

“Fire lizards move in pairs,” Swift said over his shoulder. “So stay sharp.”

Woodrow hefted his spear, his knuckles white. “Pairs? Hells, one was bad enough.”

“Get anyone that isn’t injured looking for the stuff, quickly,” Swift ordered.

Lys nodded and gestured to the others. They headed into the woods. It felt like they were stalking into a beast’s layer as the forest closed around them, the sounds of the camp fading behind.

She scanned the trees, her eyes searching for the white patches of scarp. But her mind was on the chance they’d run into another lizard. She glanced at the others—they were all bunched up and they weren’t going to find anything at the rate they were going.

“Spread out,” Lys ordered, her voice low. “But stay within sight of each other.”

A little while later, she spotted a patch of the moss on a nearby tree and hurried over, knife already in hand. “Found some!”

“Me too!" Woodrow shouted back.

As she scraped the moss into a pouch, a twig snapped behind her. Lys whirled, her heart in her throat. But it was only Stormwell, his own pouch open and ready to be filled.

“Jumpy?” he asked.

She let out a deep breath. “Can you blame me? After that?”

“No, I suppose not,” Stormwell admitted.

As they collected more moss, she had one of the other recruits to haul it all back while the rest of the group continued to scour for more. Swift hadn’t told them how much they needed. From how many had been burned in her group, she guessed it was a lot.

It took a while, but they collected another load and hurried back to the road. As they emerged from the trees, Lys pointed them toward Swift, who was standing in the middle of a slowly forming camp, giving direction to another group of recruits.

“Got the scarp, Sergeant,” she said, holding up her pouch.

He nodded at her and pointed to a tent. “Get it to Hawkins.”

They hurried to comply. There was already a cauldron with boiling water going. The first batch of white scarp was melting in it.

Hawkins grunted, taking the moss and dumping the contents into the pot. “Good. This’ll help those burns.”

Lys nodded, and they filtered out of the mess tent. She turned to survey the camp. The wounded lay in rows, their faces twisted with pain. Or worse, some of them had gone still and had their faced covered. How many?

Plainfield was moving among them, offering water and words of comfort. He saw her looking and came over to talk with them.

“Eight burns in Group One,” Plainfield reported, his face grim. “But Hawkins’s salve should help.”

“What about the others?” Lys asked.

“Group Two got lucky,” he added. “Just bruises and cuts from the lizard’s tail.”

Lys nodded, her gaze drifting to Group Three. They were bustling about the camp, pitching tents and hauling water.

“Looks like Group Three is picking up the slack,” she said. “They didn’t get hit?”

Plainfield nodded. “Group Four is alright as well, just some bruised arms.”

Lys’s attention shifted to Finn and Swift, who had started a conversation. She moved toward them and the rest of her small group followed.

“Damned lizard,” Finn growled. “If we’d been a bit later or earlier, we might’ve missed the bastard entirely.”

“Aye, but we didn’t,” Swift said, his tone grim. “And now we’ve got wounded to tend to.”

“Sirs?” Lys said.

They turned to look at her.

“Are we going to camp here on the road? Should we put up a perimeter?”

They both nodded.

“We won’t be moving. We’ll build the camp right on the road,” Swift confirmed.

“You’re group is down half. Grab some axes and start felling some timber for the barricades. We want something between us and anything else out there,” Finn ordered.

Lys nodded and directed the others while Group Two was ordered to tend the wounded and help Hawkins. Group Three and Four began to dig out the trenches. It wasn’t a flat spot, and deep tree roots were everywhere, so it was a lot of extra work.

It didn’t have to be perfect though, just done quickly.

Felling the trees on quick notice wasn’t easy, either. Two recruits per tree, alternating axe swings. She had to remind them not to drop the damned things on each other. Once the first six had went down, Lys focused on debranching them while the others went to the next batch.

When she was done, she hefted up one of the heavy trunks on her shoulder and dragged it toward camp. A few recruits from group three hurried to meet her and move it into place.

Lys wiped her forehead. Other, younger trees had been chopped as well by Group Four for turning to stakes.

If the lizard came back, it would probably just set everything on fire. But if it was the bear… or something else… at least they’d be covered.

The air rang with the sound of axes and the thud of wood on wood.

Lys shook her head, turning back to her work. A shallow ditch and makeshift waist-high wall were all they got done before the sun began to betray them. That happened sooner than they were used to, thanks to the forest canopy.

The sergeants didn’t yell at them for that, and called them back in.

Everyone was exhausted, but she couldn’t sit still. She joined Group Two, checking on the wounded and helping apply the salve and bandages. The smell of boiled linen and the sharp tang of the scarp filled her nose.

“Easy now,” she murmured, wrapping a bandage around one recruit’s blistered arm. “This’ll help with the pain.”

He nodded, his jaw clenched tight. Lys patted his shoulder, then moved on to the next patient.

The smell of porridge replaced the scent of medicine just before Hawkins called out that food was ready. They weren’t split up into groups like usual, instead everyone came and got a bowl then moved out into the camp to eat.

The injured had theirs brought to them—if they were well enough to eat. There were too many that couldn’t even do that. Too pained, or too far gone.

Lys bit her lip. She glanced at the corpses. More weren’t going to make it.

She joined the line for food, accepting a bowl of the thick, steaming gruel and a strip of dried meat. Plainfield, Stormwell, and Woodrow sitting together and she joined them.

They ate in silence, the usual chatter gone. That was fine—she had to focus on eating or she wasn’t going to get it done, even though Hawkins had put enough honey in the porridge to make it sweet.

Swift approached them after a while. “Trekhill, you’re on dark watch tonight. You and Stormwell.”

Lys nodded. Dark watch was the worst, waking up in the middle of the night and then trying to grab a few more hours of sleep before dawn. But she was in decent shape, uninjured. It made sense.

She ate quickly, then crawled into her tent. Despite the nerves, the adrenaline, and the sweat and smoke clinging to her skin, sleep came easily.

It seemed like only minutes had passed when Stormwell shook her awake. Lys blinked, groggy and disoriented.

“Come on, Trekhill,” Stormwell whispered. “Time for watch.”

Lys stumbled out of her tent, shivering in the cool night air. Her eyes strained to pierce the darkness beyond the camp.

They stood in silence, the only sound the crackle of the dying campfire and the soft snores of the sleeping men… and the groans of the wounded being tended to by a few recruits put on medical duty for the night.

Her mind wandered, replaying the events of the day. The bear, the lizard, the screams and fire… the frantic rush to gather the scarp and build a makeshift camp.

She glanced at Stormwell, but he seemed lost in his own thoughts, his face grim in the moonlight.

Lys sighed, turning her gaze back to the shadows. It was going to be a long night for many.