Excerpt
Chapter I – Crimean War


Aberash, dressed in white climbed over the piles of bodies, pulling those that clung to life to the buckboard wagons. A fog of blackness from the anguish, fear, and horror of each person’s death invaded her mind. Growing thicker with each death until her sight was near blindness as she performed her duties on the battlefield. Other women, whose white dresses, like hers, were nearly dyed red, searched for the living among the dead. The brave and valiant, whose courage could not be measured in how long they endured the fighting, or by counting the number of dead lying among them, now forgotten and abandoned as their armies marched on. And be they Russian or Ottoman, they were heaped upon the wooden planks of the wagons and taken to a church in the square for treatment.
“Work quickly my sister,” commanded Aberash, “we must save all we can before the night falls.”
“There are so many lying in the fields,” Abagail lamented, “he shall have more than his fill of souls this night.”
Mind your words, sister, they betray your nature. We work side by side with women here. But you are right, we cannot save all these men from Deyhezas. He will grow ever more powerful with each battle fought, and bodies he consumes. However, he gains the most from those he takes alive, so let’s deny him all that we can. Use your powers to quickly find those with even a glimmer of life left in them. It is better they die in our company than here in the wasteland.
The wagons thumped and bumped as the women pulled them over the fallen and delivered another dozen to the already overflowing makeshift hospital. The church held meager supplies of bandages and wooden splints. The women, some maidens and some older, stitched and sewed the men’s wounds. Those Ottomans who could walk joined the line of wounded heading to Balaclava. The Russians headed for Sevastopol, which had already fallen. A Cossack captain caught the attention of Aberash.
“Captain, where is your commander? I need to have words with him.”
The captain laughed through the pain and lifted his mangled arm. His sword locked in his grip, unable to release it, frozen there by the length of time held and the wounds received. Pointing towards the window he said, “You can speak all the words you want, but I’m sure they will do no good. His body was blown apart before my eyes by a cannon ball that struck mere feet from me. Luckily, I was thrown from my horse and only broke this arm. I was able to continue my fight into the city and to this glorious victory.”
“Name the general who commands this regiment. I will speak with him.”
“Careful, nurse,” warned the young captain as he looked around the room. “Asking questions of this nature could get you hanged as a spy.”
“I seek no military information. I want to know where I might find medicine and bandages for your men,” cajoled Aberash.
“You waste your time here, sweet lady. Those that would die here will die, and those that live will die later. But if it makes you feel better, straighten my arm and pull the shot from my leg, and if I am alive come morning, I will take you to my General.”


Smoke from cannon fire caused the morning sun to shine dimly over the battlefield. The moans of the dying quietened to a faint hum. Bodies lay half-buried in pools of blood-drenched mud. White plumes rose slowly from the field and death drifted on the whispering wind, a smell of burnt flesh and gunpowder. Man, and horse disemboweled and scattered over miles was testimony of the madness that had claimed this land. Men too old for battle took to the field scavenging the dead for their worldly possessions. Stripping them of boots, clothes, and coins, then heaping their bodies together and setting them alight.
Shuza had fallen but at a great cost to Tsar Nicholas Pavlovich. The siege lasted three gory days. Each sunrise a gate flung open and screaming scimitar-waving troops flooded the battlefield as arrows rained down. The Sultan’s knights with razor-sharp crescent-headed spears rode out knowing they charged into Firdaws, never to return to the safety of the walled city.
The Cossacks were swift and outmaneuvered the cannon batteries that defended Shuza. They rode fast and hard from the Black Sea drawing fire on one flank, cannon balls falling short of their ranks. But cannons still caused them to ride through a rainstorm of rocks and debris ejected from the earth by iron balls, stripping more than a few from their horses as effectively as a line of riflemen. The cannon ball screams heralding death to all who approached. They rode a line of certain death that kept the thunder of hooves and iron balls in constant flow like a tide upon the shore. Neither could cease for fear of death washing over their position. This was the plan of the Cossacks, to draw fire, to invite death, to play a devilish game with the Ottomans until it was too late for them to change position.
A second wave attacked from the north, crossing the Alma River under cover of night. The Ottoman soldiers held the city for most of the day, repelling infantry and cavalry charges. Although most of the fighting was in the fields surrounding the city, the heaviest losses on both sides came late in the afternoon when brass guns formed a line to the east of the city. They were smaller, lighter cannons, pulled into place by soldiers. They loaded and fired five-pound balls, not as devastating as the big twelve- and twenty-pound iron balls, but effective. Multiple cannons fired at the same target, then repositioned slightly below and fired another round. The bombardment collapsed the old walls of Shuza and finally the Cossacks charged in. Swords and bayonets turned the streets slick with blood. No retreat was sounded. No surrender offered. The fighting went on until the last man gave his all.

Night drew near and fear rose within Aberash. The black cloud, the specter of doom filled her thoughts. A growing panic, something new to her overtook her being. Abby, where are you?
I am in the fields with the women. We have found hundreds of men still alive.
You must get out of there now. He is coming!
Mother, I am fine.
Aberash had thought she was well past spawning. Her straight black hair had turned bleached white and now straw-like. The last decades had hardened her once soft creamy skin. And having mated with men for centuries, she knew that another maiden was beyond her, then came Abagail. She kept her by her side at all times, even in this dangerous environment she felt she needed her Abby under her watchful eye. She had lost daughters to the dragons before; it was a pain she could not bear again.
Abby was a little over a hundred years old, she appeared as a sweet little redheaded child but spoke and acted as a woman much older. Maybe that was why the other nurses followed her. They were running back and forth with the most injured men and bandaging those who could be quickly set on their feet again. The horizon was set ablaze by the departing sun. The darkness was coming soon, and she had never faced a dragon.
I can feel him. This battle is of Deyhezas’ making, he will come to claim his prize, and none he prizes more than us. I can’t lose you. We must get to the Black Sea now, only the water can protect us.