Eliona's War 1: Hesitant Healer

Chapter 39

"Hello," Severance offered a hesitant smile. Before him stood a pair of sentries, although they looked more like grubby farmhands than soldiers. They stared at him without blinking.

He tried again. "Augustus sent me? To see Orion?"

Like a switch had been thrown, the two sentries came to life. One blinked, the other raised his brows. "Oh," said the brow-raiser. "You're another one, then?"

Severance didn't know what that was supposed to mean, but he nodded anyway. "I guess so."

"Stupendous," declared the brow-raiser. That made Severance raise his own eyebrows, because who actually used that word nowadays? The sentry stepped aside, giving a grand, sweeping hand gesture.

"Welcome to the Fort," he intoned. "The last holdout against the most foulest of evils, the barren wasteland where we few defenders remain to protect the innocent and hapless. All ye who wish to die a terrible death, please, come on in."

I knew it, Severance thought. He eyed the sentry warily. This guy had to be a creation of Uncle Fenn's. No one in reality talked like that. Except Fenn when he got in a dramatic mood.

He wordlessly walked past the sentries, and past the tall wooden barricade they guarded. Just beyond that was the Fort.

Severance stopped dead in his tracks, his feet kicking up a small cloud of dry dust. It billowed around his legs before settling down. He lowered his gaze to take in the sight before him. The Fort was a literal hole in the ground.

Or to be more accurate, a deep trench. Portions of the trench were reinforced with stones lining the sides, while others had wooden poles driven deep into the earth to hold back the earth. On the far side of the trenches were more barricades, as if that would do much to protect the defending forces.

Severance shook his head, somewhat disappointed. This was not the grand Fort he was expecting.

"Hey!" The shout came from a gruff soldier in the trench. He was looking up at Severance who was standing near the edge. "You waiting to get your head blown off? Get in 'ere!"

Blown off by what? Severance lifted his gaze and looked about. There were no enemies in sight. Just an empty pockmarked ground littered with random barricades. And past them, there was only a hazy, distant fog that hid much of the horizon from view. Nothing dangerous at all.

Frowning, he returned his attention to the soldier below. He missed the glint of light within the distant fog. A streak of white shot out from its midst, firing across open air in a blink of eye.

There was no sound.

Light exploded at Severance's feet, dirt kicking up at his face, and a terrific force catapulted him off his feet. One second he stood. The next, he flew.

A man shouted. Another screamed.

Severance hit the far wall of the trench headfirst. White static burst in his mind like fireworks. His body crumpled, falling the last few feet to the trench floor. White spots filled his vision, his ears full of muffled static.

He lay motionless, shocked out of his mind. What had just happened? What was that light? It almost killed him! There was his poor health bar, flickering red in the corner of his eye.

I've got a millimeter of life, he thought hysterically. If I even cough wrong, I'm dead!

Of course, the second he had that thought, his throat startled to tickle. He groaned softly, more out of self pity than anything else.