Days passed, blending into painful weeks of slow journeying. The only consolation, other than my firm belief that we were continuously approaching our final destination, was that the shadow beasts grew less and less common the further north we progressed. We refused to make the mistake of not preparing sufficient materials for a complete perimeter to be established, so though our nights passed with fewer and fewer signs of unwelcome visitors, we remained protected.
Nearly four weeks after crossing the Shandise, well over half a year after leaving the den where I hatched, I felt an additional qualitative change in the air. Similar to every time I’d entered the mountains, or the heightened comfortability that the Shandise in particular had granted me, there was something in the air here. This change was more than what I’d experienced before, and I didn’t need the confirmation that came to me from Nievtala that same moment.
Home. My home.
More than just me, though, I witnessed as dozens of keelish and khatif felt her happiness, her excitement, her exultation. The weakest who felt her presence collapsed under the agonizingly powerful exhilaration, while even those who’d gained [Fanatic’s Fortitude] alongside me staggered. The only two who were impacted by Nievtala’s declaration that didn’t immediately collapse were myself and Shraal. Once he felt her presence, though, he fell to an adoring prostration between two of his stunned and twitching acolytes. Though her words and overwhelming presence were virtually impossible for the vast majority of the swarm to feel or understand, they still looked around themselves with wild eyes before falling to their knees in worship. Though some seemed reluctant, my elites follows suit as well.
There, in the foothills of the Shandise, I felt Nievtala’s excitement and was the sole keelish left standing as she declared that we’d found our home. Wordlessly, she prompted me to look up the mountain, where I could see the remaining towering structure that my dream had shown me. My heart soared, and without conscious thought, I screeched to the heavens. Seeming to have been released from their spellbound prostrations, the swarm rose as one and echoed my own exultation. Many of the herds panicked at our shrieks, but we didn’t slow our wordless declaration of sovereignty.
Several minutes passed, and I finally raised a hand. The swarm went silent under my wordless command, and a wide grin filled my face. Our destination was in sight, and I wouldn’t be held back from claiming it. I leapt forward from the center of the swarm and, at a near sprint, led the way up the slopes. Stones, fallen trees, ravines, and cliffs offered no obstacle to my frenzied pace. I leapt over what I could, and that which I couldn’t was immediately scaled. Stones flew behind me in my reckless charge, and my elites followed suit. I knew I could and should have sent someone ahead, done anything to ensure that our goal was moderately safe. I refused to do so.
My legs burned with the effort, and the rational side of my brain knew it wouldn’t matter if I slowed down, that the swarm would slow around me and ensure that the passage was a guaranteed one. With a snarl, I slew the weak-willed thought while it still formed, for I would be the first to lay eyes on Nievtra. In fact, as Foire and Silf drew abreast of me, I drew from [Spear of the Many] and disregarded the spike of discomfort as my body was pushed beyond its limits. Even so, I regretted nothing as my path carried me forward, and at last, I saw a large stone wall. Rocks from the size of a man’s fist to nearly as large as I was formed a twenty-foot tall wall around my city.
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With the last vestiges of strength granted to me by my [Skill], I leapt directly up. Though I’d hoped for my jump to propel me directly to the peak, I had no such luck. Instead, my fingers scrabbled and found purchase between two stones and I desperately clambered to the top of the wall. With a grunt, my left hand found the top of the wall and I pulled myself up. I refused to catch my breath and stood tall to survey the lands before me.
The dilapidated remains of a once-great city lay before me. I’d never truly understood what the cities of the people in the Veratocracy could be like, as I didn’t imagine that they would create the same homes that the Moonchildren and Sunkindred did. We’d never seen within the bounds of the walls of Shandr, and I supposed we never would, barring conquering it as our own. Mostly collapsed stone walls stood in ramshackle directions while no roof remained on any building. What once seemed to be paths between homes and buildings had returned to the domain of the wilds, grasses and brush sprouting wherever they could. Near the center of the established walls stood a proud tower, its peak collapsed in on itself while every wall still stood mostly intact.
An indescribable emotion washed over me, some sort of a mix of pride, relief, disappointment, and a dozen other feelings. Nievtala took that moment to change the way I saw everything. A giant golden light washed over my vision, and I saw Nievtra as it once was, or perhaps as it could be. The overgrown paths were paved with flat grey stone, and the decaying buildings stood tall and proud. Shadowy outlines of people filled the streets, and the tower in the middle of the city was surrounded by a beautiful building with wide doors open and a constant stream of occupants filtering in and out.
The walls I stood on had dozens of sentries patrolling them, and I saw the diminutive shadows of children play fighting in a yard filled with a dozen other similarly-sized visions. Life filled the city, and it was teeming with thousands of my people.
As my breath caught in my throat, the vision was pulled away from my eyes, and I was left again in the present, with a broken, forgotten city’s skeleton left before me. Silf and Foire stood beside me, and I watched as Took reached down a hand and pulled Sybil onto the wall as well. The complicated mix of emotions that had tainted my first view of the city was washed away by the vision of what I could make here, and I smiled broadly.
“We’re here! We’ve reached it!” I said and happily bunted my head against each of my elites that stood beside me. Down the mountain, I could see where the more reasonable members of my swarm slowly made their ways up the mountain. Now that I had seen possibilities and the past, from above I could see the overgrown remains of what was surely a path at one point. That would be one of the first things we would need to do to ensure our herds were kept well fed. Additionally, there was the possibility that the axebeaks could begin to lay eggs, now that they were given a home. Ideas of how to lead my people to prosperity flooded my mind and I sighed contentedly.
That was, of course, when the sound of hollow roars and bone-chilling screeches filled the air.