The Dragon Chase: A Tale of the Everburning City

Chapter 13: Mia

"Set another two shells in the crevice of that stone," Valen instructed, from another piece of the wall nearby. He pointed behind him, as he stuffed a small handful of Salamander rounds into a small crack in the block of stone in front of him.

It took a few minutes for her to understand his plan, as the old Sergeant had instructed them to march out, past the last wall, to take the fight to their enemy. The manoeuvre he was describing wasn't in the handbook or even something in their years of training.

"Set, sir," Mia reported, as she put a couple of rounds next to the four she had already set nearby.

"Good. Take cover behind that rock up ahead. Do you remember staggered cover?" Valen asked.

Staggered cover was a retreat manoeuvre, where one squad would provide covering fire as another fell back. Not in the handbook, but Valen had drilled her platoon on it a few times almost half a year ago. "Yeah. But you said you need at least two squads to make it effective."

"We're improvising," Valen replied. He stopped at the block of broken stone he planned to use as cover, and looked back at the breach in the Wall. "It just occurred to me."

"What, sir?" Mia asked, confused.

Her sergeant turned to her and smiled. "No one's ever been this far from the City. Not since the Maester Rebellion, before the First Invasion."

Mia recalled the lessons on the subject. The Maesters were like the Crafters; they could wield the flame. But they were used to having authority, and objected to having oversight. When they were pushed out, they left with nearly a quarter of the City following them. The Crafters were imprisoned, despite fighting the Maesters, and probably would have stayed that way if the First Invasion hadn't happened.

"Feels a little like victory, sir?" Mia asked.

Valen laughed, as he readied his Salamander. "It does."

Twenty yards behind, Mia waited as the crowd of creatures drew closer, hundreds of them in tightly packed groups that shuffled forward as if pulled along on strings, like puppets. Their awkward gait grew faster, frenzied, as they saw Valen ahead of her.

Her Sergeant fired into the crowd, felling several of the creatures with flashes of blue fire streaking into their chests. As they fell, they tripped over others, drawing a group of them to a near halt.

He stopped to reload, forsaking cover, and stood tall and proud against the oncoming mob. He moved almost leisurely as he checked the fit for the Salamander rounds, before setting it in place and closing the latch.

Four more shots into the mob, reload once, and Valen stepped away from his cover, retreating to the far side of the rock she had hunkered down behind.

He had set nearly eight shells on that rock, ones he may need when they ran for the next wall. Mia rounded the corner and advanced, but Valen waved her off, even as the mob passed the corner and charged.

He fired one shot, at the rock he was using as cover, and the air around the Gloamtaken bloomed with blue fire, a fierce burst of light that threw at least a dozen of the creatures to the ground.

"Burn me," Mia whispered, as Valen didn't even bother to gawk at his success. Instead, he turned and ran to her position, dashing around the rock and laying his back to the wall,

"How the burning hell did you do that, sir?" Mia asked. "You a Crafter or something?"

Valen shook his head. "You'll know a Crafter at work when you see one. That was just a half-dozen Salamander rounds going off at the same time. Pack them into the stone, and all that fire gets released in one direction."