Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Bourlon Wood, France
THE LAST TWO DAYS dug into their tenuously held position in Bourlon Wood had been chaos. More shells than Sully could count were fired into the trees at them, blasting craters into dry, frozen earth and shattering the unblemished land.
It was nothing compared to this morning.
First light had hardly broken when the Germans stormed them, heavily engaging their troops in a relentless firefight.
They broke through the surprised British line to the south and spread in surging tides.
The fighting was fierce, brutal. Sully did everything he could to provide his side with an advantage, confusing Germans when he was able, running messages when he had to.
Moments ago, he’d been plucked from his attempts to hold off nearby snipers.
On General Townsend’s orders Allison came to fetch him.
Sully reluctantly complied, wincing as the German snipers resumed picking off men when Sully could no longer exert his illusions on them. Impotent rage curdled his stomach.
This had better be fucking important.
“Excellent,” Townsend said, nodding when he saw them.
The reek of his desperation pressed up against the already taxed dam in Sully’s mind.
A slight trickle of relief right behind it.
Probably that Sully hadn’t been killed before he could be of particular use.
“Precisely the men I require. Urgent reinforcements needed, got to get the message through. I’ve dispatched men twice, and haven’t heard from anyone since. ”
Those odds sounded awful. How cut off were they? Didn’t matter. Between his illusions and the burst of speed Allison could give them, they would make it. They should have been the first damn choice.
Sully tried not to think about how little sleep either he or Allison had gotten over the last few days, how much of his concentration was focused on keeping the suffering and terror surrounding them from overwhelming him.
Townsend withdrew letters from his breast pocket and handed one to each of them which they placed in their own. “Quickly now. Every moment counts.”
As if they needed telling. The two of them clipped out, “Yes, sir,” and took off at speed. Serving as a runner was dangerous and unpleasant, but it removed them from the immediate deafening sounds of the battle. Sully’s fraught nerves had several long minutes to recover.
Tense in front of him, Allison’s compact form was made lighter as he harnessed the air. Sully did his best to keep up. If it weren’t for the occasional boosts Allison sent, he’d have been left in the dust.
They wove through tall bare-branched trees, onto a packed dirt road, feet slamming into the dust and propelling them along the path. Up ahead Sully sensed a lurking threat. He created an illusion to distract them. Concealed himself and Allison as they flew past.
Struggling for air, and muscles aching with strain, they made it past several groups of Germans. There wasn’t time to dwell. He was tiring out mentally and pushed himself to remain sharp.
Up ahead, the captured German trenches came into view. The broken bodies of fallen British soldiers, discarded and bloody, littered the roadside. Sully sent up a short prayer to a God he didn’t believe in these days.
One of the bodies twitched.
“Did you see that?” Allison asked slowing.
“We can’t stop,” Sully said breathlessly, though every instinct he had insisted they couldn’t leave a man alive out here to bleed to death.
“But we can’t just—”
“We gotta.”
“Heeelllp meee,” The fallen soldier’s voice groaned. He was trying to push himself up, the one next to him, twitched too, with an echoing plea. Fuck.
Allison stopped, giving Sully a look. So much for focusing on their objective.
As they approached, Sully caught his breath, his senses reasserting themselves with the influx of oxygen to his brain.
A sudden tingle at the base of Sully’s skull spread ice-cold down his back.
There wasn’t any emotion coming from those soldiers. Nothing but a void.
“Allison, stop! Shite. It’s a trap. There’s a necromancer somewhere nearby.” Sully widened his senses, using his magic to search for them.
There.
He looked back through the trees, just as a sneaky flash of pride caught his attention in the opposite direction.
No, no, no.
Sully launched forward tackling Allison to the ground as a sniper’s bullet whizzed past them, passing through the space Allison occupied seconds ago.
Allison’s gasp rang almost as loud as the gunshot.
They were exposed. Sully’s illusion wasn’t strong enough to conceal them. He was running through energy too fast.
Moving them on instinct, Sully scrambled. He guided Allison toward a crop of trees for shelter. Dirt flew up in tiny bursts around them until they were hidden from view.
“Fuck,” Allison muttered under his breath, voice pinched.
Sully looked down at where Allison was sitting, his back against a tree.
He was about to tell him to shut up, when he saw it.
Dark red was seeping from the olive wool at Allison’s right shoulder, near his collarbone.
Sully’s gaze flitted to the strained grimace on his sweaty, sickly pale face. “Fuck,” he agreed, crawling forward.
For all they knew the sniper was closing in on their position, and Allison was shot.
He’s fucking shot. I should’ve concentrated harder on the illusion! Shouldn’t have let this happen. What the hell am I supposed to do? Put pressure on it? Or do we make a run for it? What do I do? What do I do?
“Go,” Allison whispered, as Sully crouched in front of him, staring helplessly at the wound.
“You’ve got to deliver the message.” He rubbed at the perspiration on his forehead with his left arm and winced at the movement.
“I’ll be fine. You’ll come back. If it’s just you, he won’t even see you, right?
The problem is you trying to hide us both at once when you’re run ragged, and you got nothing left to give. ”
Bile rose in Sully’s throat. If he left Allison like this he was good as dead.
They both knew it. The sniper would finish him off the second Sully stopped protecting him.
He’d be left here, vulnerable, bleeding, waiting for the shooter to put him out of his misery.
No. “Like hell I’m leaving you,” Sully hissed.
Allison huffed a breathless sound. Was he actually laughing? The stupid bastard. Didn’t he know what he was asking? “They need reinforcements, Sully, you don’t got a choice.”
Sully glowered at him. Bull. “Always got a choice and I’m sure as shite not making that one. Both of us or neither.”
Allison scowled right back. “Then we’ll die.”
“No we won’t, Allison. I’m not leaving you. I can do this.” This was going to sound foolish. He pushed down his embarrassment. Could handle any joshing if it meant not leaving his friend behind to die. “I wasn’t touching you. That makes it stronger.”
Allison let out a laugh, then grimaced, eyes squeezing shut. “Seems like a lot of effort you’re putting in here just to touch me. If you wanted to hold my hand, you could’ve just asked. You’re not really my type, but like they say needs must.”
Sully wanted to smack him upside the head, the sapskull, making stupid jokes at a time like this. He was hurt for fuck’s sake. “Shut up for once in your whole damn life! Just trust me.”
Allison frowned, palm pressing gently against his wound as he grunted. “Even if you get us past him, I’ll slow you down. Something’s broken. Can’t lift my arm. Doubt I can run.”
Sully sized up the options. He rolled his eyes heavenward. “Can you still do your thing with the wind? Make us lighter?”
“Probably,” Allison hedged, then his dark eyes narrowed on Sully’s face. “You can’t be serious. That’s going to look fuckin’ ridiculous.”
“Stow your pride, sapskull. Is it really worth your life?”
“Maybe.” If he could, Allison would’ve petulantly cross his arms. “No, you are not carrying me.”
A bullet hitting the dirt in a violent spray a few feet away shattered the false sense of security they’d briefly indulged in.
“On second thought,” Allison muttered, struggling to his feet. “Fine. But I hope you’re prepared to conceal a lot of cursing.”
Sully ignored that and warned, “This is probably going to hurt.”
“Didn’t think it would be a grand ol’ time, did I?”
Sully turned around and crouched a bit, his back facing Allison. Nothing happened. He let out an irritated sigh and looked round. “You gonna make me wait like this all damn day or what?”
“Oh sorry, just considering whether this is more or less dignified than how I thought you meant to do it.”
“Will you shut the hell up and get on so we can get out of here?” Sully growled.
“Fine.”
By some miracle, they made it past the sniper and the crawling, groaning corpses.
Allison’s good arm across Sully’s shoulders, he clung to him in a death grip, his legs tucked snugly around Sully’s waist. If anyone could see them or hear the pained grunts and foul words that Allison whisper-shouted at him the whole way, they were bound to laugh, Allison was right about that.
The boosts Allison gave them as Sully leapt over trenches kept them from falling in, and finally, they crossed into safety.
Once he handed Allison off for medical treatment and relayed the need for reinforcements, he found an officer he could tell about the necromancer.
Then Sully was ordered to rest before he was allowed back into the field.
He was walking through gelatin, muscles barely holding him up. When he found a place to lie down, even his concern for Allison wasn’t enough to keep him awake.
Three days later, the decision to retreat to a more defensible line was made. They would retain enough gained land that it could loosely be called a victory. Never mind they’d failed miserably to achieve the objective. The cost in terms of lives lost was tragic.
All for a few miserable goddamn miles of frosty ground.
Some prize.
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