“Then I need to get back to where I came from,” she insisted. “Others—”
“I have accessed the facility you transported from,” the man said coldly. “It has been compromised.”
“What does that mean? It doesn’t work anymore?” she asked, concerned.
“No, it means that dimensional intruders currently infest the facility and the area around it, and while the Truelight systems are operative, they are wholly incapable of dealing with the situation.”
“Dimensional what?”
The apparition sighed, looking like her mother when she’d done something particularly foolish.
“Demons. You call them demons,” he said wearily.
Elan nodded. “Of course. That’s why I have to go back. There are people there!”
The figure shook his ghostly head and looked up, as though casting a plea to the heavens. “Almost a thousand years, and this is the best I get to work with?” He sighed deeply, eyeing her with annoyance. “Well, at least you’re proactive. That’s something, I suppose. I would prefer intelligence, but courage and duty will do. Follow me.”
Elan didn’t know what to do, so she did as he asked.
*****
“Quickly, this way,” Simone said, rushing people into the tunnel she and Kaern had snuck into the temple from.
They would smuggle them out of the city, grabbing everyone they could along the way. They would lose many, but many times that would be saved by fleeing the city. With the lord’s forces solidifying their control over the area, it was impossible now to remain.
The tunnel Kaern had known of led almost to the city walls. From there Simone knew more than enough about the defenses to get people out on the seaward side. They would have to flee along the coast with as many as they could manage to save.
It would not be enough.
There was little else she could do, however. Simone had been through there before and, the universe and fates willing, would likely go through it again. There was no standing up to the forces of one of the lords. They were forces of nature…unnatural disasters, things to be weathered rather than to be fought.
In her youth, Simone had made the mistake many fell to and believed it was possible to win.
Youthful naiveté only lasted so long, and eventually even hope died.
Now, she would settle for survival. All dynasties fell, even those of the demons. If she, or those who followed after her, lived long enough to see that, then Simone would consider her life of value. For that to have a prayer of happening, however, she needed to keep as many of her fellows alive as possible.
“Gather weapons from the guard houses on the way out,” she ordered, clapping hands on the shoulder of a lightly injured guardsman. “We need to get as far from here as we can. We’ll have to walk through the day, not rest until the sun sets.”
“The heat will be hard on most of us,” the man said grimly.
Simone nodded. “I know…and we don’t have enough water to go around either, so we’ll have to go south. There is a river within range where we can get water.”
“I’ll make sure everyone picks up water skins as well, then. Even empty, they’ll be worth as much as a sword,” the man said.
“Good man, go,” she told him, gesturing as she looked over the survivors who were moving like a shell-shocked, shambling mob. It hurt her physically to see them like that, but better this than the alternative that many of her, and their fellows, were now enduring.
The living may well envy the dead, she thought as she looked back on the city.
“I’m going back.”
The words made her near jump out of her skin as she spun to glower at Kaern and hissed, “Don’t do that.”
He didn’t bother acknowledging her. “Get as many out as you can. I will…provide distraction.”
Simone caught his arm as he tried to move away. “Wait…”
Kaern looked back at her. “What is it?”
“Why?” she asked.
She didn’t really have to say more than that. He understood both what and why she was asking.
He hesitated for a brief moment, as though uncertain himself, mostly because he was.
“The world was never meant to be like this, you know,” he said, his comment catching her by surprise. “You humans were intended to stand or fall on your own. The demons, they were not part of the grand plan.”
She looked at him quizzically. “I don’t understand.”
He laughed mirthlessly. “Join the club. None of us do. Why any of this has happened…” He sighed, shaking his head. “Maybe the Creator abandoned us as a bad idea… I don’t know if I can accept that, but very little else makes sense. Pain, suffering, these are elements of free will…but annihilation or the Change? Those are abominations to what we were promised. So, no, Simone, I do not understand it either.” He sighed. “As to why I’m doing this? I told you, the stink of prophecy is on this place, this time…and that girl.”
“You also told me that you wanted nothing to do with prophecy,” she reminded him.
“Maybe I’m just tired of watching the world die,” he said, though not with enough feeling to convince her he was speaking the truth. “Of watching the universe rot from the inside. Go, Simone, look after your people.”
Simone nodded as he moved away from her, wondering how much had to do with what he had just said and how much had to do with a certain child the gruff man professed to not care about. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me,” his voice came back over his shoulder as he walked away. “Thank the memories that girl brought back to me. I used to be a hero, once.”
“I think you still are,” she called after him. I suppose that answers that.
She almost missed his last comment before Kaern vanished into the shadows.
“I may be,” his voice drifted from the dark. “I learned a long time ago…heroes only arrive when everything is lost and the darkness has swallowed hope. It’s looking very dark and hopeless out tonight. I think, though—” She barely made his last words. “—that I am not the hero of this night… Something tells me that player has yet to make their grand entrance. Good luck, Simone. I’ll see you again, in this life…or what comes after.”
*****
“What happened!?” the general roared, furious beyond reason as he looked down at the pitiful excuse for flesh and blood that was kneeling before him.
“W…we were ambushed,” the human, Venadrin, stammered out. “They came from nowhere, a pair of them…”
“A pair!? Two measly humans slaughtered my demons?” The general drew back to unleash a blow that would, like as not, kill the ignorant human.
“No! Forgive me, General! They couldn’t have been human!” Venadrin shouted out, his hands up to defend himself, for what little good they would do him.
The general paused, large eyes narrowing as he leaned down. Steam puffed from his nostrils as he breathed out on the man. “Why do you say that?”
“His blade,” Venadrin said desperately. “His blade sparked with unnatural lightning.”
The general straightened up and took a step back, turning away from the worthless human.
“The Forsaken,” he said grimly. “It must be the one they call Wanderer.”
Venadrin’s eyes widened, unnoticed, as he heard the name uttered.
“Why are one of those…filth interfering with this operation?” the general grumbled, still having difficulty understanding it.
The Forsaken had long been boils on the arse of the expanding circles, but he had believed that those of this world had either finally given up or moved on. They normally did not stay once it was clear a plane had been lost to the circles.
Why was this…Wanderer still here? Still fighting?
“Get out of my sight,” the general ordered, not looking at the human. “Gather your squad, what’s left of them. Comb the city for survivors and hold–outs. I want them all here in the center square by dawn.”