The sun sank, spitting thin fire across the darkening sky. Storm clouds gathered to the north.

The stone wall served as a line of division between natural earth and Kaia-born annihilation. To one side, a rocky waste, the World laid bare. To the other, a deep void, like an amputation.

Gwil slowed down as he neared the end of the wall. The way was unguarded. A grand staircase bridged the top of the wall to the base of the hollow in which stood the manor.

He crouched and crept up the steps.

“Ooh!”

Though parts of the gardens were trampled, it was an amazing sight, something an artist could happily spend a lifetime on. The World thrived here, with a vibrance that beggared belief.

The twisting labyrinth of hedges and shrubbery was difficult to fathom. A forest of exotic trees served as framework, bordering the walls of the hollow.

An array of statues stood throughout, their bodies tangled in vines, their stone feet planted upon crushed hedges and torn-out roots. The damage was worse along the tree line, where there were piles of dirt and patches of loose soil.

“Woah,” Gwil breathed as he stood up and stepped into the garden. He could see only the manor’s top half over the heights of the shrubbery.

The smell—the smell was wonderful. It cleansed the taint of Kaia from Gwil’s nostrils. The first nice thing he’d smelled since that restaurant he and Leira had passed when they first got here. Oh no, we forgot the chocolate fountain!

The gardens appeared to be empty, so he strolled forward, awed.

Over a dozen statues were arranged throughout, each unique and strange. Several of the designs were familiar to Gwil, resembling illustrations he’d seen in old books back in Reverie. Most were made of stone, others metal, and a couple were hewn from gemstone.

The tallest was made of copper—a horse with a very long neck. Gwil wondered how it didn’t topple over. Beside it, a pearlescent elephant with three heads and human arms, wielding a giant hammer. And a solid gold one depicting a muscular man with a beard of serpents and a spiked crown.

Another was a wide, frog-like body with two human heads, a man and a woman, their mouths frozen in screams, their tongues tied together in a knot. There was a jade woman with an eagle bursting from her chest. A fan-like frill of arms grew from her back, with each hand performing a different gesture.

These were way cooler looking than Brock.

Gwil approached the nearest one—a skeleton sculpted from black-veined alabaster. It had its bone arms raised, and they were draped in stone rags with perfectly realized folds. Its ribcage was formed of centipedes. And the face had no mouth or nose, only eye sockets. Two silver spikes stuck out of the holes.

Gwil leaned in close to examine the maddening detail of the countless centipede legs. One of the arms swung down and struck him on the side of the head.

His legs buckled and his ears rang. He rubbed his temple, feeling the bones creaking back into place. “Hey, what the fuck, man?”

Gwil scrambled back as the statue raised its leg upright, and then slammed its heel down into the place where Gwil’s head had just been.

It didn’t seem fair that a being made of stone was so flexible.

Gwil laughed as he stood up. The skeleton had gotten its leg stuck in the soft soil. He pushed it over as it struggled to extract itself.

And then his smile melted away.

All the statues were moving, closing in on him. “Ahhh! They’re all Taluses! I’m so stupid!”

But as they approached, Gwil saw they were not quite like Brock. Their liveliness was not as natural. They moved strangely, limp yet spastic, like poorly manipulated puppets.

They were encircling him, pushing him back toward the cliff’s edge. And the wall. He had to deal with these things before the others made it up here.

Gwil dashed forward and slid under the clotheslining tentacle of a squid-like monstrosity that moved by clumsily flailing against the ground.

He was just trying to get away from the cliff, but if this sorry-looking thing was giving him an opening…

Gwil surged Nirva into his fist as he pivoted out of his slide. He leapt onto the squid’s mound shaped head, landing in a crouch. And then he slammed his fist straight down on the top of the statue’s head.

Craaack.

Gwil croaked like a squished toad and fell over onto the ground, clutching his hand. His fingers had been smashed inward so that they reached halfway up his wrist.

A storm of heavy footsteps. Gwil lunged out of the way of the golden snake-king’s scepter and then rolled under the spindly legs of a spider-bodied centaur woman.

Making to stand, he bonked his head on her bulbous abdomen and then ran deeper into the gardens. These stupid Taluses were destroying all the nice flowers. What a shame. Brock would never.

The statues were not very fast, so Gwil took a moment to bend his fingers back into place.

They were stupid, too. When they caught up to him, Gwil ran back the other way, and eventually began doing laps around the whole garden. Only twice did the statues attempt to cut him off or diverge from the circular path that he led them on. They kept crashing into each other—a few stone limbs had broken off.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Running at the head of this absurd train, Gwil kept his eye on the path that led up to the manor’s entrance. He could’ve made a run for it, but he didn’t want the statues on his tail when he found the sheriff.

Better to destroy them all, so that they wouldn’t give the others any trouble.

But he was getting bored of running. He tried a few hit-and-run attacks, but he just couldn’t do any actual damage to stone or metal. Not without beating on it for hours.

Jumping into the fray was risky too, with the Taluses all packed together, and with so many strange appendages and weapons in the mix.

As the sky grew darker, Gwil saw something interesting—thin, blue strips of light flickering across the grass.

Kaia. Of course. That’s how Brock worked, too.

Gwil scooped up the next broken limb that he passed—a marble arm holding an open book in its hand, which made it hammer-like.

Light seeped from thin gaps on the surfaces of the statues, revealing panels on their backs. Unlike Brock, the engines that drove these Taluses were hidden.

Gwil rested his new weapon on his shoulder, Nirva burning so that he could wield the hefty thing.

He started sprinting, tearing around the garden. The sudden increase in his pace stirred confusion among the clustered statues. They got jammed up on each other.

Gwil was coming up from behind, about to lap them.

He leapt up onto the back of the spider-centaur-lady. She twisted around to face him, baring human fangs and insectoid pincers.

Gwil smashed the book-end of his stone arm down onto the discolored square patch on her abdomen.

It did not crack or shatter at the impact, as stone would’ve, but crumpled—a sheet of painted metal.

A puff of acrid smoke, a flash of light, and a sputter of blue sparks. Gwil was flung away by the blast.

The spider legs spasmed as the animated figure collapsed, carving through the ground as it fell. Licks of Kaia flickered across the demolished engine and then died out as she went still.

Gwil leapt away as an instinctual vengeance took the statues. Metal and stone bodies slammed against each other, crunching and cracking, but their frenzy made them heedless. They pounded the spider-centaur’s corpse into rubble.

Gwil took advantage of the jumbled mess and smashed open the engine of the scholarly-looking statue whose arm he wielded.

The knot of Taluses again lashed out in his direction, but Gwil was too quick for them.

He grinned. It was very satisfying to destroy these statues, what with the light show and the way they petered out like a windup toy. This would be fun.

***

Of the two hundred-some prisoners, about half would assault the manor. Joining this attack demanded a strength beyond desperate self-preservation.

And then there were those who wished with all their burning hearts to participate but were unfit because of their feeble condition.

The escapees governed themselves on this matter. They forced hard decisions upon each other where they themselves were too foolhardy and feverish to think straight.

Cort paced back and forth through the horde as they made their preparations, barking the occasional order. His eyes flickering from the manor to the black crater to the town and everywhere in between.

From atop the wall, Limmy flashed him a thumbs up. He had sent her ahead to ensure that the wall was clear.

“I don’t see him, but I sure can hear him,” Limmy screamed down.

Cort climbed up on a rock to give the assault team a final once-over. Most still wielded pickaxes, but they’d gathered a decent arsenal of spears and clubs.

Just about ready.

Brock came rolling over to where Cort stood. Ansoir stuck his head out between the curtains, looking around as if crossing a street, and then he clambered down.

“I must come with you,” Ansoir said.

Cort stared at him.

“Leira told me I had to ask you,” Ansoir muttered.

“I don’t see how that could be a good idea. For you or us.”

Trembling, Ansoir pointed at the manor. “That is my home. You intend to kill my father and butcher my subjects.”

Cort stepped closer and Ansoir cowered beneath him. “Really? You think we’re gonna kill your slaves?” He tapped Ansoir under his chin to get the little lord to look at him. “I don’t give a damn what you do. Odds are you’ll die if you come with us. And you’ll probably survive if you stay here.”

“Don’t be a bully, Cort,” Leira sang as she approached. “Just stay with Brock and you’ll be fine, Ansoir. And don’t fuck anything up or I’ll stab you.”

Diom came hurrying over, his cane tapping, his lame leg scraping. Cort had been watching the man tirelessly hobble around as they prepared for the attack.

“Lord Ansoir,” Diom cried. “It’s really you.” He grabbed Ansoir’s sleeve, and the little lord failed to stifle his sneer at being touched by such grubby hands.

“Do you remember me, my lord?” the old man said. “It’s me, Diom.”

Ansoir’s expression actually looked human. “Diom?” he said on a heavy breath. “I can’t- You’re alive? I can’t believe it.” Tears welled in his eyes.

“Gods!” Diom sobbed. They hugged, Ansoir’s afro threatening to consume the old man. “You’re all grown up.”

“Diom,” Ansoir said, covering his face. “My father… Everything is ruined!”

Diom’s face wrestled against his own tears. “Your father was not a man accustomed to tragedy. To lose a light such as Ophelia… He had no capacity to handle such pain.”

Ansoir clenched his jaw and turned on Cort. “Slave!” he spat.

Leira gasped.

Cort raised an eyebrow.

“Erm, I– I apologize,” Ansoir said. “B-bad habit. Your name is Cort, yes? Please. My father is not the culprit here. Sheriff Jackson rules Podexia and wields my father as a puppet. Spare his life, I beg you. End the sheriff’s tyranny and Podexia can return…” His voice trailed as he turned to look at the ink-black chasm that had just yesterday been his family fortune.

“Your fuckin’ piece of shit father is the whole-”

Leira put her hand on Cort’s shoulder. He looked at her, and she shrugged as if to say, ‘What’s the point?’

Cort’s cheek bunched up. “Yeah, alright. I dunno what’s gonna happen.”

“That’s not for us to decide, Ansoir,” Diom said. “We are beholden to the decisions of these men and women, just as we forced them to live at our discretion. We can only greedily hope that they have more compassion than us.”

“We’ll see,” Cort said.

“Lord Ansoir,” Diom said. “May I accompany you?”

Cort threw his hands up. “Are you fu-”

“I’ll stay with them, Cort,” Leira said. “I can’t use my abilities, so I was gonna stick with Brock, anyway.”

“Why not?” Cort said.

Leira clicked her tongue. “Don’t you remember when I did your job and freed half of these people all by myself? I’m spent. All out of juice.”

Doctor Buzzard seemed to appear out of nowhere, causing Leira to jump in fright. Dwillard came lumbering over too.

“I couldn’t help but overhear. Are you in need of a weapon, Megrim Daughter? It would not do for you to face any undue risk. Heehee.”

“No!” Leira said. “That’s the last thing I want.”

“Nonsense,” Buzzard said. He took a long metal tube from Dwillard’s hands. It was covered with knobs and greebles and vents. It had a grip on the bottom middle, and another that looked like a throttle on the side.

“This is just a run-of-the-mill flamethrower. Stock-standard fire. You won’t sow such ruin with this.”

“Well…” Leira said.

“Allow me to demonstrate,” Buzzard said. “Heehee,” he cackled as he pointed the weapon at the sky and cranked the throttle. With a whooshing roar, a stream of fire erupted from the flared end of the tube, climbing five meters above their heads.

“Alright, alright,” Leira said. “I’ll take it.”

Buzzard passed her the weapon. She grinned as she cradled it in her arms.

“Delightful,” Buzzard said. “I shall take my leave. Many preparations to make. Best of luck to you all.” He scurried away, walking more with his long arms than his legs.

Dwillard hung back and leaned in conspiratorially. “If things… go bad, I’ll make sure we rescue the escapees that are staying behind.”

“Thanks, Dwillard,” Cort said.

“Let’s get on with it, eh?” Leira said. “There’s a bit of a ticking clock here.”