The Passage Between Guns

The battery line began where the road narrowed between two ridges. Sella’s signal tower disappeared behind them, and ahead, cannon barrels pointed over the road from timber platforms cut into the slopes. Men stood beside the guns with linstocks ready. Between the platforms ran a strip of churned earth marked with white stakes.

“Stay inside the stakes,” Sella told the column. “Keep moving. If you fall, call out. No one turns back without my order.”

The wounded moved as quickly as their injuries allowed. Odran walked near the front, one arm tied against his ribs. Esh limped with a human medic’s shoulder under his arm. Vael was farther back, wrists bound, with Teren and two soldiers keeping close to him. Aren walked beside the stretcher of a demon soldier whose leg had been splinted with pieces of a broken crate.

The passage had been granted for one crossing, Teren had explained. The batteries would hold their fire until the last person passed the far marker. After that, the order expired. No one had offered protection beyond the road.

At the first gun platform, a sergeant raised one hand. The column stopped. The people in front compressed together, and the stretcher-bearers lowered their load carefully to the ground.

“Keep the line moving,” Sella called.

“Identification,” the sergeant answered. His gaze stayed on Vael. “The prisoner is to be escorted through separately.”

“The written passage covers the column,” Teren said. He held up the document. “Including the prisoner.”

“Then keep him behind the wounded.” The sergeant glanced at the demon soldiers in the line. “We have a clear field. If one of them breaks away, my crew has a shot.”

“They are wounded,” Sella said. “They have nowhere to break away to.”

The sergeant lowered his hand. He had not agreed; he had only let the column resume.

Aren looked up at the gun platform. The crew kept their linstocks ready, but the barrels remained aimed over the pass. He could see the strain in the way one soldier gripped his pole. They were following orders. They were also waiting for a reason to believe the orders had failed.

The line moved again. The road curved beneath the second platform, where a young gunner stood apart from the others with a short bow in his hands. His eyes fixed on Esh as the demon soldier came into view. Esh’s injured leg dragged, and his free hand was empty.

The bow came up.

Odran stopped. Esh stumbled against him, and the medic caught both their weight. The column halted behind them. A human escort shouted for the gunner to lower his weapon. The man did not look at him.