Chapter 24 of 89 · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

Chapter 24 — No Man's Land

Book: This Inevitable Ruin · Part: The Ramp-Up · Previous: Chapter 23 — Killing in the Name · Next: Chapter 25 — Empress, you have visitors · Floor: Floor 9 — Faction Wars · Series: the series

Opening

I couldn’t see more than two or three feet in front of me.

Summary

Chaos two feet deep: music through earplugs, strobes, casualty plinks like stabs. Pulse light cuts the fog like scythes; one sparks off Carl's shield. Imani hovers over a man whose arm is gone. Poison rocks, shrapnel like fireflies — his grandparents' house in Texas had fireflies; why think of that now — grenades thrown at tanks that do not exist, the soul poisoning staggering him. A great diffusion spell: 'You've been Deshrouded. Your War Protections are gone! Like, all of them!' — illusions, smoke, invisibility and ear protection gone, and the Dazzlers still playing. For a flash the enemy line is visible: bugbears, gnolls, dreadnaughts, humans, nagas, saccathians with glowing armour and guns beside fur-clad NPCs with bows, most with hands over ears and eyes, a few in full helmets firing steadily, three on a heavy pulse gun scything through the charge. Carl knocks Mongo and Donut behind a rock, tosses a hob-lobber at the gun, which stops; Imani restores the ear spells; a Troll Smoke Mantle; his 'Go. Forward!' goes to the whole army by mistake and the army obeys. A bolt kills his tech shield; his soul poisoning worsens to 'Post Coital Blues'; flaming rolling rocks are a new weapon. Boomer hits the craters and Carl drops into one with Mongo, Imani and two soldiers she carried, one dead. He reads a Build Trench scroll, turns the line to meet the enemy trench, enjoins it, digs — and a saccathian soldier falls into the new channel at his feet, helmet cracked, rifle flying. The old exploit: craft magic ignores protections and never got fixed, and the factions never bothered because the scrolls are expensive. Everywhere soldiers dig into the enemy line. A Dazzler rolls into the crater and the squid-faced soldier's wet skin smokes under the light. Daughter's Kiss on the right foot. 'Take cover!' He jumps onto the soldier's chest.

Characters

• Carl — Deshrouded; a scroll read under fire; a foot full of souls.
• Imani — Two soldiers on her shoulders, one already dead.
• Princess Donut — Screaming at the music with the spell stripped off.
• Mongo — Rearing at the noise; deft into a crater.
• Boomer — 'Hitting the craters.'

Locations

• The southern front — Rocks, bodies, glittering traps, craters, and an enemy trench dug into.

Motifs

• Faction Wars — A Build Trench scroll as a siege weapon; Deshrouded.
• Carl's family — Fireflies at his grandparents' in Texas, unbidden.
• The Scavenger's Daughter — Post Coital Blues; a kiss delivered by foot.