The Foolhardies 190 The Great Escape

Our retreat had three stages.

The first stage was to set up barricades around the oasis itself to impede the pa.s.sage of enemies once they've climbed over the northern slope, which at this point was half a winter wonderland already.

Luckily the forces below didn't have any fliers so they had no choice but to struggle and climb. Just wading through slick ice and then an uneven sand slope made even more slippery with blood would buy us a bit of time too.  

Included in this first stage were the straw soldiers we'd made to confuse the enemies, but honestly, we'd made them mostly to p.i.s.s the enemy off.

The second stage was to move our forces down the southern slope in turns while the units that remained in our vanguard held the enemy back as long as they could. This role belonged to the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds and the s.h.i.+eld squads which some would argue were the st.u.r.diest soldiers among the unit.

Ty hung back with the vanguard as well which added to a boost to morale. There was just something so rea.s.suring to our people when you told them the chosen one had their back. Although the man himself could be heard complaining loudly that he wasn't cut out to be in the front line.

"I'm more of a long-range specialist," he explained to anyone who'd listen.

Of course, Ashley set him straight with, "Weren't you training with Azuma so you could learn close-quarters combat?"

"Y-yeah… that hasn't gone well," Ty said.

"That's because you keep running away!" Ashley yelled as she slammed the front of her s.h.i.+eld against a, particularly rowdy kobold. "Man up, Tiberius!

I imagine hearing those words from your former crush was crus.h.i.+ng to Ty. I could only hope it would fuel his future growth than weaken him more. The chosen one really needed to shape up some more.

I heard all this because I'd remained where I was throughout the evacuation, resolving to be the last one to step off the oasis and leave no man behind.

Sadly, Aura was pulling at my arm and urging me to come with her which kind of removed the previous choice from my hands.

"The Commander has to survive," she reminded me. "That's how the unit thrives."

I don't think she meant for it to rhyme, but the possibility that she did remained in my mind all throughout our dash from the north end of the oasis and back to the south. Yeah, the weirdest things stick to my mind in a crisis.

As for Luca and Xanthor's cavalries, they were already making their way down the eastern slope and ready to cover the escape of any squad that had to hightail it out of Point Brave on foot.

It was the one problem of my brilliant plan, the lack of enough gliders to ferry us all home. With the inclusion of Al Sheridan's dozen gliders, we could fit three hundred soldiers in them, give or take a dozen.

The rest of us would have to march from the south of the oasis' sand dune in an easterly line back to the safety of our side of the battlefield. This was stage three of our plan.

If things had progressed smoothly on their end — and I was certain either Llewellyn or Redbull would make the most of the opportunity we'd given them — safety wouldn't be too far away. At the very least, I expected the middle of our huge battlefield to be under the control of Garm's army by now.

"Have you heard from Verania?" I asked Al as we climbed down together on the scaffolding we'd set up at the southern slope.

Al shook his head. "I left my sprite with her but haven't heard anything from them yet…"

"You don't think…" I was afraid to say the word 'failed' as I didn't want to tempt fate.

But it wasn't Al who responded, but Aura who said, "I don't know much about Dain, but Verania will get the job done… you can count on it."

I guess she'd know about how tough Verania was. They'd been rivals since they were kids, after all.

We reached the bottom of the sand dune where I was glad to see that panic hadn't settled in among the troops. This was clear in the orderly lines of injured making their way to the gliders and in the formations of soldiers ready to march the h.e.l.l out of this h.e.l.l hole.

"What do you think you're doing, old man?" I asked Azuma who I found at the head of the formation of soldiers ready to march. "You're already ga.s.sed out."

"I can march just as easily as the next injured man, Commander," he said stubbornly.

I understood him why though. He lost a lot of men today and as the gliders were reserved for the injured, which meant many of his uninjured men would still be at risk from our pursuers later.

Thankfully, Aura had a way around telling stubborn people to do what she asked.

"Azuma, we need you protecting the injured more," she said in a rea.s.suring voice that reminded me of my mother. "Don't worry… Dean will lead the march himself."

It was just like Aura to volunteer me for the hard job, not that I was complaining as I did plan to lead the march which she probably a.s.sumed.

"And to be safe, I'll go with him," she added smoothly.

"Hold on… that's not the plan," I interrupted. "You're getting on those gliders."

"Dean, my squad and I just got here, and most of us apart from Ty have done very little," she argued. "Supporting our escape is something we can manage better than a regular infantry unit can."

"She's right, Commander," Varda popped in from behind Azuma. "Landslides, creeping mist, overgrown shrubberies, walls of fire — you name it, we can do it!"

I groaned. It was just like Varda to make sense at the most inconvenient of times.

"You've got some strong females in your unit, Dean," Al whispered in my ear. "Must be nice…"

"Um, most times, they're a handful," I whispered back. "So your all-male team might be better."

"Trust me, buddy," he wrapped a shoulder around my neck. "You've got it better."

I asked Al to lead the glider teams out after they'd been loaded, and he was gone within the hour along with Azuma and the rest of our injured men.

At this point, the fighting above had slowed to a crawl as Edo and Ashley were leading their forces down the southern slope while their pursuers were impeded by the many traps hidden between barricades.

"Zarz would have loved to seen all this," I said as I accepted Myth Chaser's reins from Luca's hand. "He helped make it all possible."

"Yeah, the little gnome is as crazy as you are," Luca laughed from his seat on Jade Shadow.

My younger brother had been nice enough to drag mine and Aura's mounts with him during his cavalry's march. He'd even sent them to the bottom of the sand dune's southern slope with a few guards to keep them out of harm's way while he led the charge up the northern slope.

I climbed up Myth Chaser and patted its neck lovingly. Then I gazed up and saw that the last of our defenders were making their way down the lower half of the southern slope with pursuers not far behind.

"Qwipps!" I called. "Shouldn't it have all gone kaboom by now?"

"We used a pretty long fuse… but it should happen any second now," he answered while glancing down at the hourgla.s.s in his palm. "Right about… now!"

An explosion rocked the oasis above sending both sand and water raining down on us.

"How much black powder did you guys use?" Luca asked.

"Three barrels worth," Qwipps answered a little too gleefully. "We planted them just beside the watering hole and right underneath a mound of sand."

"That's a waste of an oasis," Luca said.

"Better us than them, Luca," Qwipps countered.

"That's our cue to go," I said.

I spent one last moment gazing up at the oasis and whispered a small prayer to the Fayne's spirits for the dead we left behind.

It was just that kind of mission where we couldn't afford to bring all the bodies back with us as there was barely enough s.p.a.ce for the living. Still, we had three wagons full of our dead — the ones we'd managed to take back — ready to join the march although they weren't nearly enough of them. We'd lost a lot of people to this plan of mine.

Sensing the turmoil inside me, Aura placed her milky smooth hand over my sun-kissed arm and squeezed.

"They didn't die in vain," she a.s.sured me. "As long as we're alive… their deaths will continue to matter."

"Thanks..." I said. Then I turned to face the surviving Foolhardies and yelled, "Let's move out!"