Chương 42: Smoke and Silence (Part 2)

"AHHHH!" A sudden, agonizing scream shattered my thoughts. It was Mathieu. He had taken cover not far from me, but now he was on his knees, clutching his side in sheer terror.

"My stomach… It… It hurts!!"

"Oh no! Mathieu!" I cried out.

"We don't have much time!" Henry urged. He took one short look at Mathieu and shook his head grimly.

"They're closing on us. We must make a run for it now!" Mathieu continued to scream and moan into the dirt for several long, harrowing moments before his voice finally hitched, and he fell completely silent.

"F-fine," I stammered, swallowing the bile in my throat.

"I'm ready." When I get off this hill of death and reach the shore road, I promised myself, I will run to the neighboring hill, find Cinderella, and we will take a fast carriage straight back to our hometown. And I will never, ever come back. Henry nodded. He cocked the hammer of his musket, took aim through the smoke, and fired. I think he hit his mark. Then he turned to the remaining survivors.

"Everyone to me!" he shouted. Our remaining soldiers ducked carefully between the incoming musket fire, scrambling over the rocks until we were all crowded tightly behind the large oak tree.

"Corporal Dubois!" Henry yelled, trying to get the attention of the 23rd Regiment squad fighting less than a hundred yards away from us. The corporal looked over. Through some clipped military hand signals, Henry apparently conveyed our plan and asked them to cover our retreat. The corporal gave a sharp nod. Henry swept his gaze across our soldiers.

"When they're loaded and give the sign, we make for that passage." He pointed down the rocky slope.

"We flank Drizella — you two on the right, you two on the left, you at the rear, and I take the front. No matter what happens — we keep running. If we're hit and bleeding, we keep running. We stop when we are dead." They all nodded, their faces grim but resolute. My soldiers can't really die. This… this was just a silly time loop. I had told myself the same thing a million times, but standing here, smelling the blood and gunpowder, it didn't change a damn thing.

I wanted to say something meaningful to them, to thank them, but the words caught in my throat. I stayed silent and waited. Any moment now, we were going to run completely exposed while over thirty soldiers shot at us from less than a hundred yards away. I didn't know what my odds were. I knew they weren't really good. My heart hammered relentlessly against my ribs. I waited…

"Drizella!" It was Cinderella's voice. My eyes went wide. I spun around and saw her. She was coming up from the backside of the hill, accompanied by four soldiers from the neighboring squad. Taking a quick glance, I saw that one of her escorts was heavily limping, and another's arm dangled uselessly at his side, dripping blood. How could they be here? There were twenty enemy soldiers blocking that path. Did they somehow circle around them? Did they actually fight their way through? It didn't matter.

Cinderella was here. And this was the absolute last place in the world I wanted her to be. This was a death trap. Henry exchanged a rapid string of words with the newly arrived soldiers, hastily explaining the escape plan and assigning them to my protective detail.

"We'll help too," Cinderella said, her voice steady.

"Drizella must get out at any cost." She didn't sound like someone who had probably just witnessed war and death for the first time in her life. Cinderella was amazing like that.

"I got the signal!" Henry shouted, drawing his sword.

"We run on my mark! Ready…" Crack! A spark flashed through the smoke. Cinderella let out a sharp gasp as a musket ball tore through her shoulder. She crumbled to the ground.

"NO!!" I screamed, abandoning the formation and rushing to her side. Henry shouted something at me, but the roaring in my ears drowned him out. I slid into the dirt next to Cinderella. She was clutching the wound, jaw clenched, not even screaming"You need to run!" Cinderella shouted at me "We all come back alive tomorrow, remember? You don't!"

"I KNOW THAT!!" I screamed back, desperately trying to haul her to her feet.

"I know that already!" Henry grabbed my arm in a vice grip, forcibly tearing me away from her.

"RUN! NOW!" I nodded, tears stinging my eyes. I didn't look back. I… I will see her tomorrow. That is all that matters. The soldiers flanked me, and we burst from cover, sprinting down the hill. Almost immediately, Henry collapsed. We had barely taken ten steps. I looked down in horror. The back of his skull was a mess of blood and bone. Angry shouting erupted behind us. Glancing back, I saw a sea of white robes breaking from their cover, charging straight at us.

They had realized what we were doing and decided to finish us in the open. A few of them were cut down by the covering fire from the 23rd, but by now, there were only five of our allies left shooting. We ran. By Gosh, we ran as fast as we could, but the white robes were after us and closing the gap. I pulled my cavalry pistol from my belt, aimed back into the rushing mob, and fired blindly. A man dropped. I hoped it was the bastard who had shot Cinderella. Love what you're reading?

Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. Crack! Crack! Two of the soldiers flanking my right side jerked violently and tumbled into the dirt, dead before they stopped rolling. Crack! Crack! Crack! More screams. More smoke. I ran. I just ran — arms flailing, lungs burning, the world reduced entirely to the ground beneath my feet and the noise behind me. Shooting, screaming, smoke — none of it meant anything. I ran until I didn't know anything else.

After what felt like an eternity, I realized I was entirely alone. The smoke ahead of me thickened, and out of it stepped a white robe, musket already leveled. He fired. Searing agony exploded in my left arm. The pain spread like wildfire, hot and sickening. But I still had my running momentum, and I was right on top of him. I grabbed my musket by the barrel with my good arm, screamed with everything left in my lungs, and drove the bayonet into his chest. He shrieked, falling backward.

I tried to yank the blade free, but it was lodged deep in his ribs. I let the weapon go, leaving it stuck in him. Two more white robes emerged from the lingering smoke. I spun around and sprinted the other way. There was more shooting behind me, more screaming — but by now I couldn't tell who was firing at whom. I only knew with grim certainty that we were losing, and that they were picking us off one by one. I found myself right back where I started—near the large oak tree.

There was no one left alive here, except for Cinderella. She was slumped against a rock, pressing a bloody hand to her shoulder. Her eyes went wide when she saw me.

"What are you doing here?! You shouldn't be—""It didn't work," I said, sitting down heavily beside her, back against the rock, catching my breath.

"They are everywhere. And… my men are all dead."

"You have to try again!" Cinderella pleaded, urgently grabbing my sleeve with her good hand.

"You must make a run for it, Drizella! Anywhere! Just run!"

"I will… in just a moment," I whispered. I was tired. God, I was so impossibly tired. An eerie silence had fallen over the hill. There was no more shooting, no more screaming. Only the occasional low groan, somewhere out of sight A gust of wind swept across the ridge, dispersing the thick blanket of smoke. And there they were. Five white-robed men had formed a half-circle around us. Their muskets were raised, aiming directly at my chest as they advanced slowly, ensuring there was absolutely no avenue for escape.

"Oh, no…" Cinderella gasped, tears spilling down her cheeks.

"No, no, no…" This was it. I knew it. The absolute end of the line. They had won, and there was good reason for it. They'd had the numbers and a plan, and we had been surrounded from the beginning without knowing it. We'd never really had a chance. But given that — I thought we'd given them a decent fight. I closed my eyes, bracing my body for the impact of the lead. Instead, the air around me dropped a few degrees colder. A faint tingling sensation moved across my skin.

When I opened my eyes, I saw a faint, glittering twinkle of light dusting the air around us. I looked to my right and saw a plump old woman with white hair and a blue robe. I see, I thought dimly. Cinderella felt despair, and so the Fairy Godmother had come. The Fairy looked down at Cinderella, then at me, and shook her head slowly, with something like sorrow. Then she turned her gaze to the five advancing men. She huffed, looking thoroughly unamused.

"Young men, that is quite enough!" The assassins froze, exchanging deeply confused glances. One of them muttered a word in English over and over. I didn't speak the language, but I could safely guess the word was"Witch." Then one of them shouted something else, angry, pointing at her as he raised his musket. Instantly, her wand materialized in her hand. She leveled it at the soldier.

"Bibbidi!" she called out. A flash of light shot from the wand and struck the soldier square in the chest — and he vanished. Just gone. Only his white robe remained, collapsed on the ground. For a second, there was total silence. Then, a tiny movement stirred beneath the discarded fabric. A small, gray mouse poked its nose out from the collar. It squeaked in sheer panic—but it wasn't an animal squeak. It was an English squeak! She had turned him into a talking mouse, just like Suzy, Gus, or Roger.

She could turn them into mice. Of course she could — it wasn't so different from what she had done for Cinderella, turning mice to horses and dogs to footmen. My guess was they would turn back at midnight — but until then, they were out of the fight entirely.

"Bobbidi! Boo!" The Fairy Godmother fired two more rapid strokes of magic. Two more soldiers vanished, leaving confused mice scurrying out of their robes. The two remaining men stared in absolute, unadulterated terror. They lowered their weapons and began to stumble backward. Could this actually work? Was the Fairy Godmother actually— CRACK! The old woman gasped sharply. I flinched as a bullet tore through her side, splattering a horrific spray of crimson across her lilac-blue robe.

More white robes were coming around from the far side, and among them, musket still smoking, walked the captain with the red cross. The Fairy Godmother gritted her teeth, whipping her wand toward him.

"Bibbidi—" But the captain was too fast. He rolled behind a boulder, narrowly dodging the bolt of magic that shattered against the stone, fizzling harmlessly. He barked a harsh, mocking laugh from behind cover, shouting a string of rapid English orders. Seeing that the witch could bleed apparently gave his men all the courage they needed. More muskets rose and leveled at the old woman. A devastating volley rang out.

The Fairy Godmother jerked violently as two more heavy lead balls tore into her—one in her thigh, another shattering her left arm. She grimaced in agonizing pain, but remarkably, she didn't scream or fall.

"I said, that is quite enough!" she roared, her voice echoing with terrifying, otherworldly power.

"Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo!" She swept her wand in a wide arc. Three bolts of magic struck the closest soldiers, reducing them to panicking rodents in a flash of light. Then, she pointed her wand directly at the soil beneath our feet and whispered an incantation. A tiny, delicate flower bloomed from the dirt. In a split second, it surged upward, mutating and expanding until several massive, thick, spiky green stems—each as wide as a tree trunk—erupted from the earth, curling around us to form a protective barricade.

I loaded my pistol. It was an excruciating process with one working arm, but I managed it. Through the gaps in the stems I aimed and fired. Another white robe down. Musket fire rained against our barrier, the heavy lead balls burying themselves harmlessly into the thick, magical stems. The Fairy Godmother shot another spell through a gap, turning one more man into a mouse, but the rest of the attackers had wised up and taken hard cover. Then, four white robes coordinated their fire.

Four heavy musket balls slammed into the same spot on one of the protective stems in perfect unison. The thick plant fiber splintered and snapped, collapsing inward and leaving us horribly exposed. CRACK! Another shot rang out. The bullet struck the Fairy Godmother cleanly in the chest. And this time she went down to one knee, the wand spinning from her hand and winking out of existence before it hit the ground.

Another bullet grazed her neck, opening a deep, jagged gash that poured dark blood onto the trampled grass. She looked at me. Her eyes were calm, and sorry.

"I'm afraid," she said quietly, "that I can't help you after all, dear." She turned to Cinderella, offering her a long, sorrowful look. Then, with a faint shimmer of fading magic, she vanished into thin air. I was alone with Cinderella. I had nothing left. The white robes seemed to understand it too. They lowered their muskets and simply walked toward us — six of them, the captain at their head, unhurried and certain. I looked over at Cinderella and managed a weak, trembling smile.

"Well… it didn't last as long as I hoped it would." I didn't mean this battle, but all our time together. I think she knew it. Cinderella's eyes were brimming with tears, but she didn't say a word. Instead, her expression hardened into a mask of hatred. Perhaps she was angry at the assassins. Perhaps she was angry at God. She reached into her coat, pulled out the small, loaded pistol I had given her at the start of the cycle, and gently pressed it into my right hand.

I raised the pistol, leveled the sights on the white robe captain's head, and pulled the trigger. The bullet struck him dead center. He collapsed instantly. I had a feeling he was a time looper. I smiled to myself as he fell. The remaining five soldiers shouted in sudden fury, raising their muskets in unison. Crack! Crack! Crack! The impacts punched the breath out of me. They hit me in the stomach, the side, and the back. It felt like I had been plunged into a roaring fire.

I collapsed onto the ground, blood pooling rapidly beneath me. Through the haze, I watched one of the enemy soldiers slowly detach from the group and walk toward me. He drew a heavy pistol from his belt, stood over my bleeding body, aimed the barrel directly at my head, and pulled the trigger.