The Horde is brutal.

I had only known of them through stories, through legends. The Horde were the boogeymen that kept Griidlords, let alone children, up at night.

The city had once been populated by thousands. Now, only a sparse few hundred remained in the camp. The soldier led Chowwick and me through the debris of humanity that had survived the storm and the assault. There was hardly a body unmarred by injury. These people had been out of contact with the world for days after the attack. Some of them guessed who I was, but their diminished states, combined with the fear and respect common people had for Griidlords, kept most of them at bay.

There were some emotional outbursts. A mother rushed to me, tears in her eyes, pleading and hopeful that I had come to save them. An old man, who spoke of my father in a way that suggested familiarity, congratulated me on becoming Sword. A mortally wounded young man, not much older than I, lay on the ground, begging me to take care of his son. The boy, a scrap of a thing at maybe eight years old, watched with fearful eyes as we all smelled the rot from the father’s wounds.

I felt guilt. I know I’m good at feeling guilty when I don’t always need to. But this time, it was earned. I had raced out here on my own quest, determined to put the question of my father’s survival to rest, for better or worse. I hadn’t come here thinking of the people that my family had a duty to. The idea of survivors and what to do with them hadn’t crossed my mind until I saw this broken mass.

The soldier led us to a hard-looking man. He was a warrior, well-armored, though no weapon was in sight. He sat on the ground, his back leaning against the warehouse wall. I thought I knew him. Father kept a small army of bodyguards outside the city, stationed and available when he wanted to travel. He also kept men in the basement of our home. He liked them out of sight, never acknowledging that he might need their protection. Perhaps I had seen this man on occasion.

He sat staring, eyes distant, his left hand absently grasping the bloodied bandage on the stump of his right hand.

He looked up as the soldier walked away. Recognition spread slowly across his face, banishing the vacant, brewing despair that had rested there.

"You… you’ve come," he said.

I nodded slowly, my face expressing my pity for the man. For all of them.

"I seek news of my father," I said.

The warrior shook his head and let it drop to his chest. "I doubt I have any kind of good news for you," he said, then added, "m’lord."

I would need to get used to that.

"I don’t… I don’t really expect that you do," I replied. "But I’ve come here on the slimmest chance that he might have survived."

I paused, then added the lie, "And to arrange for the survivors."

He didn’t seem to detect my dishonesty. He just nodded in affirmation.

"Tell us what you can, anything you know. Did you see the Horde take him?" I asked.

The warrior said, "Not… not quite. Things were so chaotic. I’ve never seen the likes of it before. I never even imagined. Spent my life hearing stories, playing Griidlords and Hordesmen when I was little, watching the shows. But I never… Have you ever seen the Horde?"

He lifted his head and held my gaze. His eyes were so shockingly empty and frightened. This was a hard man, one of Father’s personal bodyguards.

Chowwick answered from my shoulder. Even his hugeness and brashness couldn't hide the fear in his voice. It was disconcerting to hear this bear of a man, this walking god, sound fearful. He said, "Aye. Once, and once only. That was more than enough. I’d heard stories from other suits about what happened in Cleveland, people who had been there when the Great Storm struck. They told me how frightened they’d been. Frightened! Full Griidlords, veteran suits! I’d scoffed at it, thought they were being weak or dramatic. But, aye, I had an encounter once. I did what anyone has to do when the Horde appears. I ran."

Chowwick ground his teeth a moment, then said, "Well, I wish I could say I’d been that smart. I tried fightin’. That foolhardiness nearly cost me my life. I clashed with the demons. As a man, they’re deadly. A Griidlord with levels will take one. With enough levels, more than one. But there’s never just one. The stories say it’s never one. It’s the power of them, and the weight of their numbers. It’s a tide. That’s what it’s like. You have as much chance of stopping the tide."

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The warrior nodded. He seemed comforted in some way. Maybe it made him feel less unmanned that a figure like Chowwick would share his fear.

The warrior said, "The storm came rolling in. Everything’s so flat around here, you could see it coming from a long way off. But what can you do? We packed in behind the walls, closed the gates, and waited. We thought it was just any other Entropy Storm. I’d seen one before. It’s terrifying, but you think the odds of it rolling all the way to you are pretty slim. The thing eats up the land around it, but it jitters—it doesn’t have a plan. It’s pure chaos."

He took a shuddering breath. "None of us were even thinking about the Horde. I mean, what are the odds? What are the odds that the storm would even turn our way? What were the odds that the fucking Horde would be riding inside it? I could have gone my whole life thinking of them as just stories…"

He trailed off, staring. After maybe a minute, I said gently, "Go on..."

He was startled by the sound of my voice. Those distant eyes had been trapped in a memory. Sweat had started to form a sheen on his brow. He said, "They came out of the blackness of the storm, riding their machines. Huge things that rumbled and roared beneath them. It was shocking. They came at the walls directly, not even slowing down. Hooting and screaming to each other. Explosive rockets hit the walls. Machine guns mowed us down. We had arrows and swords. They had machines and guns. It wasn’t even a defense. They just tore down the walls and poured through. They wasted no time. They just started killing and taking."

His eyes grew glassy. "There had been a serving girl at the tavern I’d met the night before. I was kind of sweet on her. I’d met her before, other times we came out here. She..."

He trailed off again. I nodded. I knew the stories. She hadn’t been killed. She’d been carried away.

He mustered himself and said, "You want to know about Sempronius. Well, he had us ready from the moment the storm started. Horses saddled, men mounted. When the Horde started charging out of the storm, he drove us to the other side of town, out the other gate. There were 50 of us, all galloping as hard as we could, leaving the chaos behind. We could still hear the noises, even over the wind and the hooves. But he was our job, our duty. He wanted to get away to the monastery."

I asked, "The monastery?"

The warrior nodded. "A couple miles to the west. Old monastery, falling to pieces. Just a couple of monks there. Sempronius went there a lot. He seemed to think it would protect him from the Horde. He was in a panic to get there. Thought there was safety there. There wasn’t."

Monasteries were outposts, places where monks carried out their strange works. To me, monks and priests were almost the same. They had similar practices and trainings. Many monasteries had connections to the priesthood, a subservient attachment. Others were fiercely, vehemently independent. Monasteries were largely a mystery to me—strange rites and practices were conducted there, odd relics guarded.

The warrior continued, "They came after us. Dozens of them. We had a head start, but their machines ate up the ground faster than we could ride. I was in the rearguard. I was shocked when I turned my head and saw one of the demons right alongside me. He was clinging to the top of his two-wheeler—a cycle—looking at me. When he saw me looking at him, he smiled. He had pointed teeth."

The warrior held up his stump. "He lashed at me with his sword. The sword was as long as a man is tall. It’s the wildest luck I only lost my arm... I was the luckiest of us... I think..."

"You think?" I asked.

He shifted awkwardly where he sat. "I don’t know what happened. I was off my horse, twisting in the dirt. Those fucking machines were all whipping past me. It’s a miracle I wasn’t ground into paste by one of them. But they all passed. The last I saw was the horses racing off, the Horde behind them. And the glow of your father’s relics. Then they were gone. The dust the storm blew up made it hard to see."

I straightened. "So Father might have made it to the monastery?"

The warrior said, "It wouldn’t have done him any good."

I said, "He must have had a reason for going there. Some way to protect himself. Some kind of refuge, maybe."

The warrior said, "There’s no refuge from the Horde."

I turned to Chowwick and said, "I have to go there."

Chowwick nodded. "Aye, I know that. But why wouldn’t these fuckers have sent some soldiers to check? They’d be better off knowing if Sempronius was alive before they started salvaging here."

The warrior shifted uncomfortably. "I was going to go. My legs are broken from the fall. But I was going to go when I got some strength back. I... I didn’t tell the Empire bastards about the monastery."

I was urgent, incredulous. "Why not?"

He said, "I don’t trust these fucking reds. Empire merchants are... they’re fucking ruthless. If they found him and he was vulnerable, well, it might be worth more to them to quietly cut his throat and have this place to themselves to pillage away at."

I turned to go, then paused and turned back to the man. "What’s your name?"

The man said, "Tiobair, m’lord."

I said, "I won’t forget you. I’ll be back with news."

Then I moved swiftly through the wreckage of the city, looking for an open space to enter the Footfield.