The Foolhardies 78 Missing In Action

As gently as I could, I pried Shaqs' fingers from the ax handle they continued to grasp even in death. This wasn't an easy thing to achieve because a Troll's grip was as hard as iron clamps. But it was necessary so that the others could easily transport his body away from this place. We left no one behind if we could help it.

Shaqs' heroic death wasn't the only tragedy we had to deal with. In that hour while we searched for survivors, we found many more dead fairy friends. But, mercifully, Luca's body wasn't among the dead. Nor any of my other officers. This brought a sense of relief to my strained mind which was already threatening to burst from a combo attack of confusion and grief.

Sadly, that relief was quickly replaced by guilt—the guilt of failing my fallen soldiers. I wasn't even there to fight alongside them. Now, Shaqs and other brave fairies would never get the chance to enjoy the spoils of last night's victory.

"Sir, we've got movement beyond our perimeter," my bearded visere a.s.sistant informed me.

It took me a second to remember his name. That's how out of it I was. Jensen. Jensen Padalecki. That was the name of this veteran visere who'd been with the unit since its formation.

I looked up at the short-cropped dark-haired man with the scar over his left eye and wondered inwardly when exactly he got that scar? There must be an interesting story to it. I'd have to ask him in the future.

"Friendlies?" I asked.

"Looks like," Jensen answered. "Although we're not sure which unit they're from. They're wearing our midnight blues." Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click for visiting.

I nodded. "I'll go meet them."

I looked around me and saw that there were more bodies in need of care. This made my eyebrows knot in frustration. 

"I need you guys to finish up here," I insisted. "We have little time before we're sent back to the front."

"I'm surprised the fighting hasn't started yet," Jensen answered. His gaze turned upward, toward the horizon beyond the forest we'd set camp in. "It's like the calm before the storm out there."

"Yeah," I agreed. "We need to find our people before the battle restarts."

Speaking of our people. It turns out the ones who'd arrived at the camp were Ashley, Varda, and some members of Ashley's s.h.i.+eld squad. All of them looked like they'd just survived a rough day. They were covered in new wounds that weren't there when I left them.

"It was an ambush," Varda explained after she'd given me the usual salute. "They hit us just as the sun reached its peak like they knew how sunlight weakened some of our team members ."

Obviously, Varda meant the drow who were extra sensitive to direct sunlight. I gritted my teeth while I thought about this. The enemy would have taken the time to learn about the group that caused so much damage the previous night. They would have known by now that my unit had drow soldiers in our roster.

"Luca tried to mount a defense… but the enemy was just too well prepared," Ashley added. "They were strong, Dean…"

I frowned. Just hearing that Luca was in danger was enough to make my head spin, but I had to focus. I needed answers.

She handed me a triangular piece of gray cloth I recognized as a Magesong banner. The symbol in its center was unfamiliar to me—an outward-facing palm with its forefinger and thumb lightly holding onto a thin wand-like blade.

"Do we know who this belongs to?" I asked.

Varda answered with, It's the flag of Dagger Spell… They're the group you and Lieutenant Aura asked me to look into, Commander."

My eyes widened as I remembered there was only one squad I asked Varda to research. It was the one belonging to Azuma's contractor. The fairy who was also one of the enemy's top strategists.

"Ardeen Spellweaver's personal unit attacked us?" I asked surprised.

Sure, we made a huge contribution in the last battle but I didn't believe it was enough to make Great General Spellweaver send his son to launch a sneak attack on us.

"They didn't just hit us, Dean… They hit all the scattered squads under the Darah center army," Ashley quickly explained.

If possible, my eyes got even wider. "Did the Darah army just get slapped in the b.u.t.t while our pants were down?"

Ashley sighed. "Did you have to say it like that?"

Honestly, any description I gave out would sound just as stupid. That's how absurd the whole situation was for me.

"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 a.s.sa.s.sination attempt against the center army's officers."

Oh my G.o.d! 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 a.s.suming 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…"