“Whatever could lonely boy soldiers do all alone?” Hanna muses with a giggle.
The veteran walks a semi circle around us. “Each group gets two soldiers for safety.” She snaps her fingers, and two join behind us—tall, like Mistress Vincenza. “Ghouls are weak and disorganized, but they can easily overpower you. I’m the only necromancer; you have to call for me if you’re overwhelmed.”
Another group of soldiers walks across, handing out bolt-action rifles. They’re heavy, about the same age as the pistol in my pocket. I fumble to get the thing right in my hands.
Lucia glances at my handling. “Could we get a left-handed rifle?”
The veteran steps forward, following Lucia’s pointing to me. She pulls the rifle off her back and switches it with minebefore returning to the front of the group. “If you’ve forgotten how to use them since lower secondary, refer to your group’s escorts for help.”
And now another group passes out ammunition. Twenty rounds.
I clutch the rifle to my chest as I load them in. The sounds, the weight in my hands, it puts me just there. Wisps of memory fly over my eyes, the sound of gunshots in my ear. I was a child practicing for a routine I’d play in death.
The undead soldiers all surrounded me; my sniffly nose couldn’t smell what everyone else whined about. The teachers all grabbed their ringed fingers and prayed as the corpses passed.
I would just obey, focus on the target and shoot. The dead knew how to laugh, didn’t they? I was just another poor shot. Another poor heart. I could never kill. I would only be good for dumb labor when I became a corpse.
“Where will you work when you’re old? My dad said that undead will work all the stupid people jobs when we’re older,“ my crush said to me. She was tall; I got to see her look down at me as she snapped the lines to my heart.
“All set. March!” The veteran’s harsh voice breaks my distraction.
It’s time to muddy Mistress Vincenza’s perfect gift, following Lucia and Hanna as the Third Rifle of the First Hand of the Twelfth Hunting Regiment of the Lich Queen, may all worship the Great Ring and its divine heralds.
Our escort into and through the trenches is stopped to have the dugouts marked, then continuedout to the fire bays.
“Everyone stays in the bays!” the veteran shouts. “Youwillbe mistaken for a ghoul if you leave. Youwillbe shot. We willnotcome for you.”
Lucia groans, “you guys put up sword fights in the papers.”
“For high paying guests with parties no larger than five, and with a week of training in advance, yes. For twenty untrained teenagers? No.” The veteran pulls out a strange grenade. “I’ll throw this in twenty seconds. Everyone to their station. No shots until this rings!”
Hanna knocks my shoulder and whispers, “we’re going to jump out and bayonet some ghouls after, right?”
“Fuck yes, we are,” Lucia replies.
“Sh-should we?” I mount my rifle to a dirt hole. “Lucia… if you were…”
My throat tenses.
A whole funerary service full of Ringborns, and me. There next to Lucia. Body shivering. We left a concrete pillar in the garden, name inscribed.
And I knew, the whole time, that her family would never invite me for her funeral.
I can’t invoke it like this, to make her move as I wish.
A sharp, ear piercing bang tears into my perceptions, the veteran yelling, “ghouls incoming! Fire for effect!”
I frantically take a pot-shot in unison with everyone else. The sound of our bolts comes in unison too.
“She’s not using the term right,” Hanna begins.
Another round of shots. Through the dissipating smoke, I can start to see some corpses. Some are running towards us. Some are down.
“It’s for artillery,” Hanna adds. “We weren’t told what effect we’re firing for.”
“Aren’t you well educated?” Lucia muses in a honeyed voice.
The veteran orders, “break shot! Conserve your ammo. Shoot for the ghouls approaching you. No volleys.”
