Spare the bodies of the unfortunate souls caught up in the blast, the port was empty. All the barges had left, and on board was the remnant of the imperial garrison. The docks were cracked and ruined, as were nearby buildings. Most of the windows in the city had either been broken or cracked, the shards falling upon the scarred streets like crystals in the rough.

Victor stared wide-eyed at the devastation all around him. The Justitians were nothing but a vapor trail, and all the Frontsmen were left behind kicking rocks in the dust. Their final trap perhaps wasn’t as effective as they had hoped, given that most of the bodies in the port bore the hammer sigil, but it was well executed by any measure.

As the wind picked back up, Victor saw others enter the port. They too were surprised by the grim sight which greeted them. The smell of soot and blood didn’t help matters either. It was all very sombre. Everywhere he and the others wound up would inevitably become tainted with the smell of human blood. It was sickening, something to gag at. But alas.

Out of disgust, Victor pulled his breastplate off. It felt very cramped and sweaty, despite his inability to sweat. A familiar wing curled up around his back. “Looks like we’ve missed the lot of them,” a familiar feminine voice spoke.

“I think that’s the least of our worries, Celesta. Look around here.”

The lavender dragoness sighed. “They’ve got everyone good. Not just us, but some of their own as well, looks like. Lord Lothar isn’t going to like seeing this one bit.”

“Sometimes, I wonder if everyone’s slowly losing their minds. I mean, look at this,” Victor said. “I wonder how many of these people would’ve been perfectly capable of getting along with dragonkind if we got to know each other in a different world. A world where we’re not killing each other. Wouldn’t that be a better place to live? A life more worth living than one like this?”

Celesta grimaced. “I imagine a world like that too sometimes. But I’m afraid that’s nothing but a fever dream, Vic. The truth is, we have to fight for our survival, and these people are here to conquer and exterminate us. And that’s something we have to live with. They certainly are living with that thought on the mind. They had no problem with killing a whole bunch of people who were on their side to cover their own tracks.”

Victor hadn’t had it in himself to rebuke her. “A man can dream, right?” he mumbled, almost choking on his own tongue in the process. On the one hand, upsetting the lone person keeping him from going insane wasn’t the best idea. On the other, she wasn’t quite so sweet anymore. That wasn’t a surprise, given that she had no qualms about making the long journey from her hometown to the Origin Mountains to begin with; but it was lemon juice upon the tongue. Victor bore scales, yet remained ever so distant at heart from his blood brethren..

“Victor? It probably isn’t safe around here. There might be other bombs around here,” Celesta said.

“Yes, yes, I get you, I get you.”

The lavender dragoness’ face turned sour. “Victor? What’s the matter?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, you seem very tense all of a sudden. Is it something I said?”

“No, no, not at all. I’m fine, thank you. We should get out of here, right?”

Celesta lowered her head. “Yes, that’s true… come, let’s go then. I wouldn’t want to keep anyone waiting...”

As they left the scene behind them, and tried to forget about it as best as they could, Victor was careful to linger slightly behind Celesta. It was for the better, he told himself. That cruel man from before the fight didn’t like me, neither did Jim for that matter, everyone else fits in better than I ever have, right… right. I shouldn’t be surprised that Celesta is also starting to have her doubts. I should’ve seen it coming, if I were to be honest with myself . But that’s nothing for me to worry over. They might not like it, but I’d rather be around ordinary folk anyway. It’ll take some time to get used to that, though...

It began to drizzle. Victor only felt lonelier. A strange silence held the atmosphere in a firm grip; as the clock ticked on, he found it impossible to keep up with the lavender dragoness, who hadn’t spoken to him since those last few words back in the port. Eventually, he drifted off into an alley.

He wasn’t the lone one in the alley. About a dozen odd faces sitting against the wall looked up at him. They all stared with sunken eyes, cracked lips, dirty cheeks and dusty foreheads. Civilians who hadn’t managed to make it to the barges before being caught up in the thick of the fighting. One sat pulling glass shards out of his foot. Two others were busy tending to someone who had barely the strength to open his eyes. None had the strength to stand up, for that matter. Victor felt the sour pressure of fear pelt at his nostrils from both sides. He gave the bums a bug-eyed stare. He wanted to leave quickly; alas, the glass wasn’t making it easy on him.

Fortunately, he wound up turning the corner. He was safe for now. Then again, it was but matter of time before something else would happen. The entire city was a mess of glass shards, wood splinters and mangled people crawling with Frontsmen and dragons in every last corner. It wasn’t unreasonable to imagine seeing more citizens stare hopelessly at the ground, or to see a dragon having a little fun at the expense of said civilians. Victor shook his head, as he turned into a different street come the next corner.

“Ow!”

Victor bumped snoutfirst into someone coming from the other way, who evidently had the same idea he had.

“Ack! Sorry…Will?”

“Ah, it’s you, Vic. I was looking for you.”

William’s scent came to his nose all the fanfare of a carriage barreling off the road and into a pool of mud. And even though the slurry that he’s been trudging through for the past few days wasn’t fit for even a pig to stay in, he certainly was more prepared to brave that mess again than to have a little tit for tat. Hadn’t it been for the smell, it wouldn’t be easy to identify him. A bandage had been plastered over his left cheek, and he sported a peach fuzz growth of a beard on the sides of his face.

“Oh. I see. What for?”

“I just wanted to talk. The battle’s over, and I’m not too sure of myself or the Front right now. Street-to-street fighting’s not pretty.”

Victor laid down on a dry, cold slab of stone at someone’s doorstep. The streets were narrow; there was only a small strip of path left for others to pass. His tail swept away glass shards as it swept over the ground. “You could say that. Was a bigger mess in the air. Dragons getting hit left and right. You might’ve seen a few of them fall before you ran in.”

William bit his lip. “Saw one hit the ground, even. It wasn’t pretty.”

“I can imagine,” said Victor while nodding. “What a mess. We got hit hard, and they escaped. This isn’t like Westedge at all. Then again, I didn’t have to kill my best friend this time around, so I guess it’s not that bad.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

The captain laid his crossbow, then sat himself down by the red dragon’s side. “Lothar’s not going to be happy. I doubt many of the other commanders will be, either. We’ll be on our laurels again for the foreseeable future.”

Victor breathed out deep through both nostrils. “I could use a break. Fighting’s stressful. You never know if you’re next. And it does something to you, watching people fall over dead all around you. Here’s to hoping for the best.”

“No need to worry about that. They might reach the Steyer, but that’s because there’s no dragons there, unlike here. They’d be fools to try and cross that river now. Doubt we’re short on the kind of crazy that wouldn’t mind killing more,” William said. Victor shook his head,

“Couldn’t have said it better myself...”

“Hey… I’ve been thinking for a while, how do you see yourself after this is all over? The war, I mean.”

Victor folded his forelegs over each other. “If my father had his way, I’d be getting lectured all day and night about what it means to be a king, something of the sort. If he had his way, that is. But the truth is, I don’t know. I'm no king, I'm a yokel from a small town at heart. He's certainly never asked me for my opinion. Not to mention, the idea that I can ever win over the others is absurd. I'm no Draconist, and I imagine that won't do me any favours with the rest of the front. But I certainly wouldn't mind showing them a different way. If we could show the heartwarming side of Divinity and dragonkind to the world, we'd all be better off. Truthfully speaking, there's a lot we can learn from each other, right?”

William nodded. "You're right. I've only been here for a few months, but I can't imagine what my life would be like right now if I hadn't been captured in the Origin Mountains. I feel respected somehow."

Victor hummed. "Indeed. There's something captivating about Draconism that I haven't felt anywhere else. But who knows, perhaps I'd be better off going back to my small town life, but..." he paused to let out a long, drawn out sigh. “It doesn’t look like that’s in the cards anymore. How’s about you?”

William leaned upright against Victor, who reflexively stretched out a wing afterwards. “...Yeah, that’s also not very clear for me either. Maybe I’ll just go back to Pine Grove, see how my parents are doing. I’m not cut out for military life at all. ‘S why I’m hoping this whole war won’t last forever, you know. It’s rough living for madmen. Everyone’s gradually losing their mind, it seems, and I don’t think I’m an exception. Damn, you just have to hear my voice. I’m starting to sound like the others in our group, aren’t I?”

The red dragon laughed. “I can hear that, hah. Your parents probably aren’t going to be too happy, unless they raised you to be a provincial yokel, that is.”

“Hey!” William shoved against the dragon’s neck, grinning all the while. “Don’t say that! Let me have my fantasies, I like having them around.”

Victor laughed with a deep voice. “Hahahah! Don’t worry, it’s not like I’m no provincial yokel myself! Besides, it’s questionable if this’ll end anytime soon anyway. Maybe we’ll both wind up dead eventually. Maybe not. Who knows what’ll happen. It’s better to leave that for the future.” If only because I’d rather not think about it.

“For all we know, maybe you’ll actually wind up as a king. You certainly are someone I can trust,” William said. Victor tilted his head away.

“If you say so.”

“Hm. Where’s Celesta?”

“Huh?”

“Where’s Celesta, Victor? I wanted to talk with her, actually. Wait, don’t tell me she’s-”

The red dragon shook his head. “No, she’s alive and well, don’t worry. I saw her just after the battle had ended.”

“Oh? Pray, did you talk to her, by any chance?”

Victor clicked his tongue. Probably not the best idea to say this, but I can’t keep a clean conscience to save my life otherwise. “Yes, but I don’t think she was in the mood for it. I think I might’ve agitated her a bit. She’s devoted to her religion, and I might’ve said something I shouldn’t have.”

William sighed. “I guess I’ll just stay here for now.”

“Aren’t you a captain though? I can’t imagine you’d win the commanders favours if you leave your lads to run around in the streets.”

William bit his lip. “If they’ve got a problem with that, then they can blame themselves for not telling any of us what to do after the battle’s over.”

“Fair enough.” Victor hummed.

The wind echoed hollow in the streets of the scarred city. Where there once was the vibrance of a great many people living out their lives in the streets and squares, where there once were people at work, browsing goods of the market row or praying in the temple, that was all brought to a halt. Whoever hadn’t left on the barges was left roaming through the glass shards, avoiding Frontsman and dragon alike. Those Frontsmen certainly hadn’t forgotten the many years of hell that those who had fled the town had suffered under from their neighbours. Many of them were ratted out to the dreaded inquisition, others gave in and confessed to a Bailiff; those men and women likely had been the first to flee. Those who had betrayed the cause were certain to receive a most painful retribution; it was the one thing all the peoples of the world, no matter their race, culture or creed could agree on.

For those that remained, it was the worst day in living memory. Whitestream had fallen before; but this time, what her residents had done has not been forgotten. It was a waiting game to see whether the wrath of Divinity would fall as the gavel of Justitia had done years ago; a game with fatal consequences and bone-chilling calls, the first of which ran through the streets at that very moment, as one man blew the horn on the main square.

* * *

A whip cracked in the late night’s dark. An agonized yell rang through the trees, sending the birds fleeing from their nests.

“Spit it out.”

“Never, never you bastards… Aaargh!”

The whip struck five more times. It’s victim coughed up into the slush, only to be beaten again when a stray droplet fell upon the boots keeping him pinned.

“You know damn well what is going to happen if you keep being so stubborn, moron. Do you want to have whip leather for breakfast?”

“We both know you’ll have me killed, just like the others...”

“We’re in no rush.”

The Frontsman was hit on his back again, and again, and again, until his skin began to turn blue.

“I… I… what in Divinity’s… name did I… do to deserve this?”

“What’s this? Did you forget what we’ve told you earlier? Allow me to repeat my previous words. We’d like to know where your friends have run off to, and we’d also like it if you spilled the beans on the beasts you serve. Might be harsh, cruel, whatever you want to call it. But you better not forget that the only reason you’ll be struggling to stand up on both legs in the foreseeable future is because you’d rather stay quiet instead of being a good citizen. We’re not harsh on honest prisoners.”

“Lies! Lies… ARGH!”

“Either you tell the truth now, or there’ll be the abyss awaiting you.”

“Why do you… do this...”

The tormentor sighed, and muttered to himself in Justitian.“There’s no hope with this bastard, is there?”

“Elias, you’re wasting your time,” yelled one of the tormentor’s compatriots from a distance. “Whitestream’s theirs already. No point in trying to extract information we won’t be using. Just cuff that sham of a human being already.”

“Gennady, I’m trying to get him to spit out where his partners in crime ran off to. You saw that when we first ran in here, right? Bunch of ‘em just turned tail and ran.”

“Whatever you say, Elias. If you enjoy talking to a brick wall so much, be my guest. Look at him. He’s half dead already. If the alcohol had its way tonight with me, I’d say to the abyss with the orders. Might as well put him out of his misery.”

“Not worth the effort. Just send him off to the camp. They’ll know what to do with him. Besides, it sure’s not as if we’ll be going further than this anytime soon. You said as much yourself.”

After having someone else push the Frontsman off in their stead, Elias and Gennady sauntered off to a bunker. “Well, that was quite the joke, wasn’t it?”

“You could say that.”

“Had worse stormy days than that, hah. You think that’s the best these lunatics got in ‘em?”

“Probably just a rear guard. Rest of this mess won’t be so easy.”

“Damn. Not looking forward to having to stick around this place for the next few months. It was boring enough out east.”

“Yeah, yeah, Elias. My thoughts exactly. If I have to walk up a mountain again, I’ll be going mad. That bastard Gallie hasn’t got a damn clue how annoying that is. ‘Oh, we found three idiots up there, go and arrest them. Oh, here’s ten! Get up there and kill them all before they start pelting us with magic crap.’ That old fart better be glad he has his age to lean on. Else he’d be sitting out here with us, eating local junk in between stints in the middle of nowhere. Hopefully the food’s better out here.”

“Oh, that reminds me actually, Gennady. Got any bread left? I ate all of mine already.”

“You’re outta luck. Ate all of mine too.”

“Damn.”