78 Missing in Action (2/2)
”Fill me in… How many enemies and what were they after?” I asked.
”A smaller unit than you'd think… only five hundred enemies wrapped in the cover of sunlight,” Varda answered.
”That's smart… Anything smaller wouldn't make a dent in our formations… anything bigger would be too noticeable by our patrols,” I said. ”What was their aim?”
”Well,” Varda looked sidelong at Ashley. Then back to me. ”I think we were the target…”
My brows furrowed. ”You mean 'we' as in the unit?”
Varda shook her head. ”No, Commander. I mean us officers.” Varda pointed to herself and then to Ashley. ”It was an assassination attempt against the center army's officers.”
Oh my god! I thought. ”They're doing what we did…”
It was a good strategy. Especially now that their own center army was without a leader. Taking out officers like me would cripple our center army enough to give Thors a headache strategizing a plan of attack.
Ashley nodded. ”And they did it better than we did. We slew eight officers. They took out seventeen hundred-man, five-hundred man, and one-thousand man commanders in total.”
My first thought was, ”L-luca—”
”—Pike got him out… we think,” Ashley answered. ”Thanks to Shaqs keeping the enemies busy. Pike got Luca out just before Spellweaver killed him…”
”Yeah, Shaqs charged in before Spellweaver could stab Luca in the chest… It was chaos afterward but I saw Pike fly him out of here,” Varda added.
I looked at Ashley dumbfounded. ”I-it was that bad?”
I never thought I'd see tears in her eyes. It was admirable that those tears never dropped though.
”Worse. Ours was the first unit they hit… They came from behind like they'd circled the hills to attack our rear…” Ashley began.
”They almost got Thom and Qwipps too,” Varda added. ”If Luca and Ashley hadn't stalled long enough for Edo to cut us a path out of there… Well, Thom and Qwipps won't be getting up anytime soon… But we lost Enna.”
”She's alive,” I patted my dwarven Quartermaster on the shoulder. ”We found her and Sasha was able to stabilize her condition.”
Varda breathed a sigh of relief before asking a question I hoped she wouldn't, ”And Shaqs? Is that crazy troll okay too?”
Both girls' eyes widened at the sight of my face. I couldn't hide the sadness written there.
”He's the reason my guys and I got out… he held the enemy back on his own,” Ashley admitted.
I gave grief another minute of silence before I continued my questioning.
”Well done, you two. You made it out alive,” I placed a hand on both their shoulders. ”I'm assuming the unit's survivors are all gathered together at our fallback site?”
The girls gave each other another sidelong glance. I caught the worry appearing on their faces.
”What is it?” I asked, my voice almost cracking from stress.
”Well, most of us are there except for the viseres here with you… And Aura arrived earlier too. Told us to come here and get you because we'd left your anchor here, Commander,” Varda explained.
I recalled the obsidian orb half-buried in the dirt beneath my feet when I arrived. It was the first clue I had that something was wrong. Once I had an idea of what had happened, I'd sent Jensen to pick up the orb and store it with the supplies we could still carry out of here.
”I sense a 'but' coming,” I guessed.
”But…” Varda continued hesitantly. ”We haven't found Luca and Pike… they didn't make it to the fallback site…”