Just as the title suggests, there was brunch.

The Reiszer that came with Date Masahito raided their entire supply and that of the base to hold a feast of what meagre supplies they had. The question of why they did this was as elusive as the gods tended to be.

“Eat, my dear, eat. And call me Masahito while you’re at,” Date pestered Tabira the instant Kiur was forced to translate who they were. For an unknown reason, Date was delighted to ask everything out of Tabira about her occupation as a priestess. “This god you’re serving—Enlil is his name, right?”

“R-right,” Tabira replied, agitated, suppressing a twitch. Date was cutting her food, giving her more than anyone else at the table. His own plate was empty. Date wasn't eating. Tabira whispered to Kiur, “Please get rid of this guy.”

“Keep him talking.” Kiur forced a smile. “I hate it just like you, but this guy will kill us if we don’t play along.”

“Is something wrong?” Date asked, moving his masked face close to theirs. “I hope I’m not too obtrusive.” His cold mask pressed against Tabira, and then he looked at Kiur. “Or am I?”

Tabira uncomfortably gritted her teeth. “Kiur, he’s annoying. Pleeeease get him away.”

“Date… sama?” Kiur asked, receiving a positive nod from Date. “You’re not obtrusive-”

“THAT’S GOOD THEN!” The snout of the stag imprinted itself on Kiur’s forehead. “Because I still have some questions left. What does your patron god stand for?”

“Storms, Wind, Earth, and,” Tabira forced a smile, though hers looked more evil and vengeful than anything pleasant, “Benevolence—but I doubt he has anything left for you.”

Kiur, the faithful translator he was, left out the last part, but Date picked up on something peculiar. He cocked his head in curiosity, resting it against his fist.

“Did I understand you correctly… you say she’s the priestess of a god of benevolence?”

Date’s stare deepened, his green eyes forming into swirls of a whirlpool to draw them in. His antlers loomed over them and silenced every nervous chatter that persisted at his brunch.

Soldiers and Escapees alike anxiously looked their way. Xander rubbed the reddened skin on his neck.

Kiur felt Gilgamesh’s grip on his shoulder, his eyes challenging Date’s. “Answer him.”

“She is,” replied Kiur sternly, holding back the fact he was technically one too not long ago. Date chuckled at Kiur’s reply, stroking the throat-long, thin chin beard of his mask—what material it was, no clue.

The Reiszer then took Tabira's empty plate and helped himself by taking a piece of every person’s meal to load onto his. His long and lean arms snatched the rare pieces of meat, cheese, bread and whatever else piece of food they hadn’t seen in weeks and presented the platter back before Tabira.

She awkwardly pushed herself away as far as she could, but Date persisted. He pushed her plate closer to her.

“Something wrong, priestess?” Date towered above her, clinging onto the armrests and breaking the bristling wood with his bony fingers. “Don’t you think, that carrying the child of benevolence, you should nourish it?”

“Kiur,” Tabira pleaded to him. “He’s getting weird. Get that creep away from me, please.”

Kiur held onto the lower side of the table, digging his fingers into the stone and breaking off a piece. He hated every moment of being here, being forced to do things he couldn’t stand.

He felt the glares of apprehension and hostility from his people on him. The reason they were all stuck in this was because of him. “Not that I want to be here.” Kiur gnashed with his teeth. “You Reiszer killed my brother and ruined all our lives. If I could, I would want nothing to do with you.”

Knowing Date’s status, Kiur assumed he was just as terrifying as Tomoe was. Not even Archil was strong enough to fight against her. None of them stood the slightest chance against him, but Kiur was ready to throw hands.

“I am this done with everything.” Were it not for Gilgamesh holding Kiur’s head in place, he would have long lost it. “You’re being too assertive, Date-san," Kiur reminded him—calmly. "Let's resume with what you need from us.”

“Me? Cooperation, of course,” Date answered with an innocent glint in his eyes and stood up, his antlers piercing the ceiling again. Plaster trickled down on them. “You’ll cooperate, won’t you?”

Kiur glowered at Date from his seat. “We won’t get back with you to your lands.”

Deerman cocked his head. “I think there’s a misunderstanding, dear polyglot, ” said Date. “I don’t care about your people, but killing them would overcomplicate things.”

Kiur spotted Samuru entering the room again. He had been gone the entire brunch, but now he was dragging someone behind him.

“After all,” Date snatched the person by the back of their neck and held them up, “we only care for you, polyglot, and Miss Benevolence.” The person he held was Ninda. She was unconscious and Date’s black and clawed fingers buried themselves into the brown skin of her face, drawing blood. “Anyone else is expandable. We're being nice by keeping them alive."

“Kill him.”

“Don’t accept this.”

“Let loose.”

Kiur couldn’t control the voices in his head anymore. He felt his delusion gripping his face, clawing at him as his anger ignited his heart. It was too much, way too much for him to take anymore.

“Don’t. Pace yourself.” Gilgamesh’s words fell on deaf ears. Kiur forgot himself in his emotions. Before he could stand up, Kiur saw Ragnar flash forward from his seat and brandish his sword at Kiur’s neck.

The traitorous Reiszer was stopped by Samuru, who hit Ragnar’s wrist with the hilt of his Katana, making Ragnar drop his weapon. “Don’t kill the polyglot,” he warned. “He’s indispensable.”

“Good lord, Ragnar, don’t be so brash.” Date loomed over the Reiszer leader’s face. “What would have happened to your daughter if you killed our only translator? Protect me without killing my assets, will you?”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Date drew his head back to Kiur. “What will it be, Artor-san? Will you make your people cooperate or shall I commence the pruning?” His nails dug into Ninda’s skin, making her unconscious body squirm in his hold as he peeled at her flesh.

Agitated, Tabira stood up. The display rattled the other Escapees. The Reiszer drew their weapons, but Kiur relented. The odds were stacked against them.“Fine, I’ll convince everyone to return with you. Just don’t kill anybody. Let her go, please,” Kiur pleaded.

More confusion swirled in Date’s eyes as he craned his neck to the other side. “Return? Who said anything about returning to our lands?” He threw Ninda’s body behind him for two Escapees to catch her and Tabira rushing over to her. Date gripped Kiur’s wrists, holding them against his side and pressing his mask against Kiur’s face. “I have a much more exciting place for us to go to. And you, with your people, will be many helpful assets to get the job done.”

—❂—

“That could have gone worse,” thought Xander as they marched through the desert. Date ordered them to abandon camp and march northwest—not the original route to Navarre, mind you.

Kiur and the others had an inkling where they were headed, but much like Date, they refused to elaborate. The tensions between the Escapees and Reiszer were growing, much like Xander’s remorse.

With Kiur pressured to become the middleman, Xander barely had the chance to talk to him, to apologise to him and explain everything. He felt abandoned by his friends.

Ragnar placed a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t even think about regret,” he said. “We did what we had to.”

“This doesn’t make me feel any less guilty,” Xander countered. “We had to try and-”

Ragnar’s grip tightened on Xander’s shoulder. The growing anxiety seeped through his hand into Xander's body. “You know we couldn’t. I couldn’t.”

Xander nodded, reciprocating the notion as his eyes wandered to the wagon in front of them—the hostage wagon. When they first heard about Date’s arrival, Ragnar ordered them to return to the base as fast as possible—even risking riding their horses to the ground.

Ragnar had hurriedly jumped off the horse, almost breaking his ankle as he ran inside to find Date already in the sick bay. His tall frame loomed over Jorunn, stroking her pallid skin with his sharp fingers. The Escapees kept their distance from the unsuspected visitor, hiding in the corner and behind Tabira.

With his hand over his sword, Ragnar was tempted to decapitate Date in one felling swoop and be done with the guy who tormented him and his soldiers for years. It would have been easy. Just one quick swipe and end the stag’s life. But when Date’s head turned around asking coyly: “Who’s this?”, and pointed at Jorunn, Ragnar’s hand dropped.

He couldn’t do it—risking his child’s life by killing an old tormentor. This indecision sealed his fate to continue obeying his master and do his bidding, even if it was to trample over his own pride.

He had priorities to keep his daughter and soldiers safe. He had lost enough.

“I’m with you in this,” affirmed Xander, with a pat on Ragnar’s back. It was less enthusiastic than he hoped to be. “I just hope Kiur will forgive me for this.”

“Even if he doesn’t.” Ragnar threw his arm over Xander’s shoulder, whispering, “Know that you have your back covered by us. Just as you have ours.”

Xander glanced back, spotting Leif and Kochel standing close by him and the rest of Ragnar’s soldiers flanking the Escapees. He then looked back forward to where Kiur was with Date and Tabira.

Their hateful silence was palpable. Date’s chatter made everyone sick. Xander avoided the glance Kiur gave him. He had so many regrets, but all he could do was go through it. They had already lost Cylia to the desert, and Xander expected he would soon lose one more friend.

“So this is the so-called ‘Centre of the World’,” Date awed, spreading his arms to hug the arid sky with his long and torn sleeves. The Achernar’s obelisk came into view just after a week of travel.

Its purple motes of light shielded them from the encroaching monsters. The curtain of light covered a wide area like an invisible wall. Entering it, they immediately felt safer that no more hounds would attack them at night.

Although the veritable monster remained in their midst.

“I’ve waited for the day to visit this place,” Date chuckled contently, hugging Ninda’s body and racking through her hair with his fingers, caressing her like a pet. She squirmed helplessly in his hold.

“This is truly the height of our journey,” cursed Tabira, involuntarily reclining in her mountain of cushions Date forced on her. She was visibly not in the state of walking anymore and sat angrily there with Kiur at her side. “We've got to get her out of his claws.”

Kiur gripped his knees and looked outside the wagon to stare at the Achernar. The old and broken letters were still edged on its surface after untold millennia. They were glowing dimly alongside the curtain and stars illuminating the night.

“The Centre of the World,” Kiur thought. “Why does this have to be my first time here?”

“Kiur, listen to me,” Tabira snapped him out of his thoughts. She readjusted her position so she wouldn’t get smothered back by the pillows—she hated how soft they were. “We need a plan, asap. We’re running out of time. The Solstice is in less than a month. It was already a hard stretch, but now it will be even harder.”

“I know, but what should we do?” he replied. “I can't believe Date’s driving us to our end here. He needs to have a plan of his wince it involves his life too-”

They interrupted their talk when Ninda screeched. Date pulled out a clump of her hair with his fingers. “Oops,” he said, embarrassed. “My fault. I believe you were talking about me?”

Tabira growled. She would have pounced at Date if Kiur hadn’t gripped her hand—so that he wouldn’t lose it and attack him himself. “Why are we heading to the centre?” Kiur asked. “We should have gone south-east rather than north.”

Date chuckled playfully at this, tightening his hug on the child. He didn’t say anything and finally let go of Ninda. She escaped into Tabira’s arms. Date continued to chuckle and not reply to their questions.

Three days passed, and the ruins of the Achernar surrounded them—passages of war frozen in time. The closer they came, the more numerous they became. Kiur didn’t know what he should think. He only heard about the tales.

The Achernar was the oldest ruin still standing in the desert. Its facade was cracked with time but remained and stood strong for every wayward traveller lost in the desert.

‘Reach the centre, and you will be surrounded by plants, stones and the history of a civilisation long gone.’

But the site was different from the reminiscing memories others shared about this place. The ruins of old houses and buildings lined every corner, overtaken by half-dead and withering plants and single, grey cedar trees. Muddy rivers crossed through their paths with broken statues and faces of icons lying in their bed.

Kiur loved ruins. His mother allegedly found him among his deceased parents and he often wandered around the ruins of the old city-state of Kutha. To him, the places told a history of life.

But this place reeked of blood, death and decay. Kiur's body revolted. He almost threw up on how horrendous he felt. An awful desire scalded his skin. Like hands gripping every part of his body to pull him down.

“You’re feeling it, don’t you?” asked Date, peeking out of the wagon. He sighed wistfully. “So much old history. So much destruction and godhood. This place is heaven on earth.” The wagon stopped with Date stepping out. Samuru nodded towards Kiur and opted to help Tabira out of the wagon.

They followed a wide trail on a broken road to the Achernar. Each step sent an excruciating amount of terror through Kiur’s bones. He heard the shouts and cries of people echoing in his ears.

Children begging for life. Elders begging for mercy. Warriors begging for peace. Men and women craving for the end.

Kiur’s vision blurred.

He heard the rivers boil and fish swimming upwards. The blue sky turned red. Fires raged, and curses ploughed through the streets like mist. Kiur gagged and stumbled.

Date caught him. His eyes glimming. “You feel its past. Good, you’ll be useful to unearth this place.”

“Unearth?” Kiur put a hand over his mouth. He could see faces swirl below his feet. “Why would you unearth this place?”

Date chuckled and took a fistful of dirt, watching it trickle through the gaps of his fingers. He looked up at the Achernar and placed a hand forward. It was stopped by an invisible barrier.

“To find Benevolence. To reach the height of goodness. To restore what was true. To find the truth of a greater time.” He put a hand on Kiur’s shoulder and pulled him closer. “And you'll help me, Artor-san. Together we'll find the hidden truths of this place.”