The procession glumly trudges down the cracked asphalt road, passing rows of abandoned buildings. Apartments, shopfronts and office lots. The indistinct and anonymous landscape of the concrete desert. The faithless were exiled after the Age of Strife, leaving behind all their worldly possessions. After the initial bout of looting, the survivors of that conflict adopted a taboo about these abandoned neighborhoods. There would be no more plundering. Anyone who wanted to resettle in those areas had to do so respectfully. Doing otherwise would invite bad luck as the anger of the faithless would be drawn upon the offender.
There was also a more nostalgic reason for the sudden reverence. The exile had torn many families and friends apart. There was the unspoken hope that the faithless would one day return. The survivors wanted to show the faithless that there was still a place for them in this world. A place that's worn and ragged around the edges, but a place nonetheless. So the abandoned ruins were left to lie fallow, waiting for their occupants that would never return.
In the meantime, the more desirable sectors were being settled by both humans and beast folk. Independent villages sprung up amidst the concrete desert, filled with people who could not or would not reside inside the Citadel. Occasionally, a priestess would be found and commissioned to consecrate some patch of land so the villagers could tear the wrecks down without attracting the wrath of the faithless. Little by little, patches of life and civilization began to return to the concrete desert. Far inferior to what had been achieved in the Citadel, but things were moving in a the right direction.
And the War of the Fallen had put all this progress at risk.
Who are the Fallen? We know they are creatures which may resemble animals, people or household appliances. The bodies of the Fallen are also made out of an indeterminate inky substance. Anything else are guesses and conjecture.
Where are they from? Again unknown. The Fallen seem to spawn wherever they feel like it. The only thing that can prevent this spawning process are structures that have been blessed by the Divines. The blessing forces the Fallen to pop up a minimum distance away from the building. That's why the Citadel has become the unbreakable final redoubt of humanity. Its blessed walls are the surest defense against any attack from the Fallen.
We only know two things with any certainty about them. One, the arrival of the Fallen is always heralded by the Tears of Iros. Two, they are attracted to population centers. The Fallen act like packs of hunting animals rather than an actual army. They may only employ basic tactics and have no idea about strategy, but that does not mean that the Fallen are stupid. Since the Citadel is such a hard target for them to crack, Fallen will usually detour towards the more vulnerable villages for some easy wins before going for the real prize.
I raise my hand and signal the unit, directing us towards an overpass that soars over the main road. There are groans coming from the refugees as the procession begins to climb up the incline. Many children and elderly are part of the group we are escorting. Our progress in the journey, already slow, soon degenerates to a snail's pace.
Which is exactly what Don wants.
As the line of refugees struggles up the slope, the Tears of Iros begin to fall with increasing intensity. The Fallen will be making their grand entrance soon. And with the number of people we have concentrated in one place, this procession is going to attract them like a beacon. An undercurrent of unease begins to ripple throughout the unit. My men know what is coming next. They begin to finger their weapons nervously as they scan the area for threats.
"Why ... why are we climbing up this flyover?" Thomas pants tiredly by my side.
"The flyover is the most direct route to safety." I say, making something up on the spot, "It allows us to bypass the more dangerous parts of the concrete desert and gives me a vantage point covering the whole area."
Thomas nods before his head droops from the fatigue, sweat dripping from his brow. I give Thomas a light push to encourage him to make that final effort.
"We've almost crested the incline." I observe, "Just a bit further and the flyover will start leveling out."
"Easy for you to say," Thomas grumbles as he wipes the sweat away with the sleeve of his jersey, "you're walking around in that bulwark of yours. I bet the interior is air conditioned as well."
"It's really not." I laugh despite myself, "That's an urban myth." Thomas's face cracks into a warm smile, driving away the black feeling in my heart and helping me forget the grim business that I have become part of. We finally crest the incline and begin walking down the elevated freeway, passing the long dead husks of ancient skyscrapers.
"Living among the clouds." Thomas muses, "I wonder what that would be like."
"You could settle here in one of the skyscrapers, find out for yourself." I answer, "Though the lack of food and running water would make the experience rather unpleasant."
"Spoilsport." Thomas replies, but there's no unhappiness in his voice. If anything, he sounds more relaxed than before. Simply having the opportunity to talk to someone must have done wonders for his nerves. Just as I am about to continue this tete-a-tete, I receive a private communication over the radio from Don.
"Can you feel it?" Don's voice is hungry, expectant, "The party's about to start." My bulwark's HUD flashes a shade of warning red as it displays the expected, yet dreaded words.
WARNING. FALLEN PRESENCE DETECTED.
"Halt!" I command and the entire procession slams the figurative brakes. The refugees look around in panic, their senses strained to breaking point.
"Weapons up!" I direct as my troops assume battle formation, alert for any danger. Riflemen to the front. Swordsmen form the second rank. Skirmishers to the flanks. I scan my troops, satisfied that everyone knows what they're doing. But out of the corner of my eye, I see Don slipping further behind the line instead of moving to the wing of the formation as he is supposed to. Don nods almost imperceptibly at me and uses the barrel of his gun to point at the pair of Auxilia I had left with him as he drifts behind them. A single index finger draws across Don's throat in a slitting motion before morphing into a thumbs up gesture.
I turn away from Sheryl's best friend, sick to the core.
The clouds make an angry, low rumble, before spitting out a massive glob of ink which slams squarely into the flyover right in front of us. The whole structure shakes from the impact, sending the refugees tumbling about, but the bulwarks enable my unit to keep our balance. The seething pitch black mass churns, with small pieces of it breaking away and forming tall, gangly creatures, each roughly resembling a human, but completely featureless and bearing elastic, clawed limbs. A high pitched chittering noise comes from the Fallen, despite none of them having the equivalent of a mouth.
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"Open fire!" I order and the riflemen light up the Fallen that have begun their chaotic loping charge towards us. The Fallen quiver like jelly whenever they are hit, their bodies breaking apart and splattering across the ground once they have taken enough damage. But too many of them survive the barrages of gunfire and make it to our line.
"Swords, charge!" I shout, "Rifles take to the air and focus fire on their rearmost ranks!"
In a well synchronized movement, the riflemen rocket into the air on their jets as my unit's swordsmen form up at my side as we engage the hover mode of our bulwarks. On my signal, we surge forward at the enemy as one, our swords flashing in the light of the afternoon sun. The Fallen respond by extending their limbs and slashing away at us as both sides close the distance. Above us, the riflemen keep pouring fire into the quivering mass of death that stands in our way.
"Brace!" I bark as the merciless claws of the enemy rake across our entire line. Torn armor here and there, but Stormers are tough enough to take a few hits from run of the mill Fallen. The discipline I had instilled in the unit holds and our charge does not falter. We drive into the Fallen like a wedge as our blades begin the terrible work of carving them asunder. The fight is going well, but a sinking feeling creeps up on me.
"Skirmishers, turn the flank!" I order. The wings of the formation begin to move in unison as my light Auxilia take off and close the pincer on the Fallen pressed against the anvil of the Stormers. The Skirmishers tear into the rear of the Fallen with their pistols and rockets, scything down the opposition. As the ranks of the enemy begin to thin, a loud cheer comes from the refugees. They think the danger is over. They think the day has been won.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
There's a loud clap of thunder and several more globs of frothing ink are spit out from the clouds. Fallen like to attack in staggered waves, tying up defenders with an initial frontal attack before spawning the main assault force right on top of their beleaguered opponents. And now that I have deliberately tied up my unit's Skirmishers, there is no one available to intercept the incoming Fallen or to buy time for me to straighten our lines.
We have been left completely open.
The fresh globs of ink break apart in midair, spawning fully formed Fallen infantry that airdrop right in the middle of the refugees. Screams break out as the Fallen begin slashing apart the defenseless people while cutting the procession neatly into two. My Auxilia, suddenly finding themselves hemmed in on all sides, begin to lash out blindly, all sense of unit coordination lost.
"Take off! Take off!" I shout, "Don't let yourselves be surrounded!" My bulwark rockets off the ground, but many of my colleagues aren't so lucky. Entangled in the questing limbs of the Fallen infantry, they find themselves pulled to the asphalt and torn apart. The rifleman and Skirmishers, already in the air begin firing into the black seething mass beneath them, hoping to buy themselves time to escape. Several Fallen collapse thanks to this concentrated firepower, but a forest of elastic limbs extends from the ground towards the sky, seeking to snare the remaining Auxilia in their web.
"Bombs away! Bombs away!" I hear Don's insane cackle over the unit's general frequency as his bulwark swoops sharply around the Fallen's limbs. He then performs a steep dive and empties his Skirmisher's rocket pod into one of the struts of the flyover. The strut is taken out in a huge explosion, sending a section of the flyover plummeting to the ground.
With all the refugees and Fallen still standing on it.
There's a deafening wail of despair as the refugees plummet to their deaths, unable to do anything about it. The Fallen snarl in fury, but show no other emotion to their fate. Don's jets scream as he performs a loop, preparing for another attack run to knock out the flyover's next strut. The remaining Stormers and Skirmishers take inspiration from Don and ready their bombs and rockets, not caring that there are still refugees mixed up in the melee on the flyover.
Another strut goes up in smoke from Don's rockets and the section of flyover it had been holding up begins to fall as well. My eyes open in alarm at the sight of human, not beast folk, refugees falling to their deaths. Don must have wiped out all the beast folk already thanks to his earlier attack run. He now wants to turn this episode into a free for all harvest. A low groan comes from deep within my blood. Its Sheryl. She wants to join in the fun. I mentally hammer down on Sheryl, shutting her up. I won't allow Don to have things entirely his way.
"Cease fire!" I bark as authoritatively as I am able, "Follow me and rescue the refugees!"
The unit hesitates for a few seconds before joining me in diving into the thrashing mass of limbs to snatch up as many of the refugees as we are able. An outstretched hand desperately reached out and I grab it without hesitation, pulling up from the forest of snarling death. But many of my troops are not so fortunate, falling victim to the Fallen as they are dragged into the voracious mass of darkness.
There are suddenly multiple flashes and explosions, causing a wave of pressure that knocks me off course. I grit my teeth and allow my bulwark to automatically compensate, while folding my body to protect the survivor from the shock wave. My HUD screams a warning about systems overloading as the bulwark's sensors give up the ghost, sending everything plunging into darkness and chaos.
SENSORS OFFLINE. DISENGAGING PILOT ASSIST. REMOVING HELMET.
My face gets a full blast of wind as the helmet disintegrates into the void and I come face first with the rapidly approaching roof of an derelict building. I slam the air brakes hard, bleeding speed away from the bulwark before swerving hard to angle myself for an impromptu landing. My armored feet hit the roof hard, digging up a furrow as I power down the jets. I totter for a moment as the bulwark comes to an abrupt stop, and manage to gently place the survivor I rescued on the ground before collapsing to my knees.
"I knew hanging around you was the right choice." the survivor smiles.
"Thomas?" I pant blearily, blinking the sweat from my eyes, "What happened?"
"The rest of the Auxilia starting bombing the flyover." Thomas murmurs, "We got caught in the aftershock of the blast and you lost control of your bulwark."
"They must have lost their nerve." I curse, but without any real venom, "Cowards."
"Plenty of them died before things came to that point." Thomas pats my sweaty hair in consolation, "So don't judge them too harshly."
I nod morosely. I set out on this mission to save people, but in the end I hardly saved anyone. I even got most of my unit killed. I stare off into the distance and smoke rising from several fires. The aftermath of that skirmish.
"Did you have a dream when you were younger, Captain?" Thomas suddenly asks. I shake my head in bewilderment, not sure where he is going with this.
Thomas stretches his arm outwards dramatically as he explains, "I wanted to touch the sky, a silly dream isn't it? Don't laugh, I was a young boy then."
"Not laughing." I say, but bite back a giggle all the same.
"My dream came true today." Thomas gives me a friendly cuff on the cheek, "It was absolutely terrifying and not what I thought it would be like, but thank you all the same."
"Bravo." a deadpan voice coming from a bulwark's external speaker interrupts my conversation with Thomas. I hear a bulwark touching down near me and get back up to my feet to meet the newcomer.
"Don." I breathe hard as I take in the sight before me. Don dismisses his helmet and idly twirls his dual pistols about by their trigger guards, all the while giving Thomas a very significant look.
"We should search for other survivors." Don says flatly, "There may be some left."
The accursed woman residing in my head cheers happily, causing my migraine to return. I decisively clamp down on Sheryl's presence, shutting her up for now.
"I don't think that is necessary, Conscript Kuat." I say, slipping into Captain mode.
"There may be other survivors." Don insists, "You can bring your new friend along if you want."
Thomas gets up to his feet and shrinks behind me, sensing the tension between Don and I. Instead of answering Don, I activate my communicator and fire a message on the unit's general frequency, "All Auxilia, rally at my location at once."
Don frowns, "Are you sure?"
"Yes." I nod firmly, "There will be no need for any of that, Conscript Kuat."
I raise an armored arm and place it between Don and Thomas before continuing.
"I've everything I need right here."