Chapter 31 Echoes

Kate sat on the battlements with her mask on, fed and coffee fueled. She looked at the expansive landscape, snow on the peaks of the distant mountains. Ash and smoke clung to the fields and forests of the valley. Some few spots still lingered with visible embers, others still alight with fire. She wasn’t exactly an expert on forest fires, but she had seen a few predictive models for various situations, including two on the Maar Valley specifically. None had been this optimistic, though none had assumed military bombardment.

The visible damage, even from the walls of Keilberg Castle, was extensive. But Kate knew it should’ve been worse. The fires should’ve continued, for at least a few days. Maybe there are more of those tree beings? Or maybe other creatures that dealt with the fires? Magic users? Fire mages?

She remembered the goblin shaman. Creating flames with magic was obviously possible, why shouldn’t stopping them be a thing too?

Kate looked to the east, just barely seeing the edge of the Weywater Lake, Falstadt itself hidden behind the slope. All she could see was the rising smoke, nothing different from the entire valley. She gulped. The monsters were one thing to survive. Bombardment and fires another. She shook her head, focusing on the map in her hands. A planned route. One that didn’t lead to Keilberg but Grenndorf instead. A similarly sized town to the east of the castle, still along the slope of Steinwacht and by the Willow River but a little farther away than Keilberg.

It wouldn’t make a massive difference by car, perhaps a twenty to twenty five minute drive. Other villages and towns were marked, so far only the closest ones to the castle. Grenndorf, Hemdorf, Wilsdorf, Neidsturz, Kahrsdorf, Ehricht, and Heersdorf. Each a little farther away than the last.

Kate could wander to each of those locations in a single day, starting at Keilberg. Not that a route like that would be particularly interesting. The forests and mountains were far more enjoyable to her. Now they were planning to loot those places. She shook her head lightly, folding the map before she put it into her pack. Grenndorf was close enough, and she knew the roads. What she didn’t know about was the state of the road and that of the village itself, the monsters in the area, and what the fires had done to it all.

Only one way to find out, she thought, moving away from the battlements. Jon was right. They had to prepare for the worst, and as much as she hated it, supplies and possible survivors were more important than burning corpses in Keilberg or waiting for the military to show up. Not that she hoped for the latter at the moment, considering the hellfire they had rained down on the valley.

One step at a time, Kate.

She moved close to the walls and not out in the open, soon reaching Bert’s home. Supplies, clothes, and even furniture was set up in the living room, to be moved to the armory.

“Already?” Kate asked.

“It won’t help if everyone gets a cold,” Melusine said.

“We’re testing the stove. And the armory should be far easier to defend than the house, or both,” Jon said, a few notebooks in front of him.

“The truck is ready,” Ethan said as he walked in behind Kate. “We can leave whenever.”

Kate looked at the clock on the wall. It was past noon. “Who else is coming?”

“Grey wants to go,” Jon said.

“He should rest, but I suppose his condition is far from critical. Logan however, has to stay,” Melusine said.

Kate nodded, grabbing her radio before she spoke into it. “Grey, we’re leaving in five minutes. Get ready.”

Jon glanced her way before he looked down at the table.

“Don’t give me that. There’s enough work to be done here,” Kate said. The experience in the cavern had pushed them all to their limits. She hadn’t known much about violence and fighting monsters, but she had seen plenty of firefighters join and leave. Some were cut out for that kind of work, others were not.

And even those that had been around for a while showed cracks, broke down, and reached their limits. Regularly. She had thought about it often. How fucked up things were. In the end she assumed she too was a little fucked up. Perhaps it was one of the reasons she had chosen her profession. A rag tag team of fucked up idiots, running into the fires. She grinned, reminded of her crew-mates. Rolling up on an apartment building set alight, with Highway to Hell blasting through the speakers.

Maybe Berserker isn’t the worst choice for someone like me after all, she thought, checking her pack. “Got the list, fuel, bags, packs, radios. We’ll be fine.”

“Don’t overextend yourself,” Jon said.

She smiled. “A little optimistic, are we?”

He raised his brows and smiled a wry smile. “For the long term benefit of everyone here.”

Kate touched the top bit of her hammer. “We’ll do our best. Right Ethan?”

“Right,” the man said. “Our best it is.”

She looked at him for a second before waving to the others. “We should be back before nightfall. Don’t come looking for us.”

Leaving the apartment, she saw Grey come out of the armory, his sword and plenty of knives at the ready. He wore the usual gray gear with a white filter mask covering his black skiing balaclava, a skiing helmet on top.

She wore the same sans the helmet and skiing mask.

Ethan summoned a small flame above his gloved palm. “Let’s burn some shit.”

Rag tag team of idiots, Kate thought.

“The Forest looks clear,” came Allison’s voice through the radio. The woman looked out into the yard from atop the battlements.

“Logan still burnt up?” Ethan asked.

“He’s better. But it l… looked rough. W… when Melusine… c… changed the bandages,” Grey said.

“Why do you always stutter?” Ethan asked.

“Let him stutter,” Kate said.

“I didn’t mean anything by it. Just a fucking question,” Ethan said.

“It… it’s o… okay,” Grey said, looking to the ground, one hand on the handle of his katana.

Kate grabbed her battle axe and started towards the gate. “No it’s not. The question obviously makes him uncomfortable, you’re being a dick Ethan. And Grey, you’re an adult. Stand up for yourself. If others are shit to you, you have to tell them. It’s not fine to feel like shit.”

She ripped the wooden bar out of the gate and put it aside. “Allison, we’re leaving. Come close the gate behind us,” Kate said. She looked at the two young men and sighed. “Jesus fuck, you were killing orcs yesterday, how is this bothering you so much?” Kate moved to Ethan and grabbed his shoulders. “Stop being a dickhead. Apologize to him,” she said.

He rolled his eyes. “Sorry.”

“Sorry for what, Ethan?” Kate asked.

“I’m sorry for being a dick,” he said.

She glanced at Grey.

“I…” he stuttered.

“You could accept the apology, even though he doesn’t really get it. But it’s a start,” Kate said.

“R… right. I accept,” Grey said.

“What are you doing?” Allison asked as she walked towards them, staying close to the wall. “You’re not good at this, Kate. Way too direct. You have to manipulate people, not bash them with your hammer, but then what did I expect?”

Kate shook her head.

“You know I’m right,” Allison said, smirking at her with her head tilted a bit to the right.

“You’re a harpy,” Kate said.

“I made money selling cosplay pictures to horny nerds,” Allison said as she pulled on the gate.

Kate gave her a hand, the large wooden gate squeaking at the fast motion.

“God, you’re a fucking brute,” Allison said. “And I prefer siren,” she added with a wink.

Kate just rolled her eyes and walked towards the prepared truck. She glanced up to the sky and listened to the forest, nothing sticking out to her.

“Now go forth, fighters, and bring me back some corpses,” Allison said.

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Ethan entered on the passenger side and looked at her. “Think she wants to eat the corpses?”

Kate shrugged. “Who knows. I’m not clear on what sirens do.”

“What is a siren?” Ethan asked.

“Some screeching sea monster woman, I think,” Kate said as she turned the key. She checked behind to see Grey sitting between the gas canisters and empty packs, a loaded crossbow on his lap.

“She’s kind of hot,” Ethan said, glancing back towards the battlements.

“Your call,” Kate said in a dry tone before she started driving. “Do you mind Rock?”

“You’re the driver. Your music,” Ethan said, summoning a small flame before he made it vanish.

Kate gave him a look but didn’t comment on it. The sooner he learned to handle his tools, the better. She couldn’t exactly take away his magic. Let’s see what else you had, Lars.

The drive was rather uneventful, Kate taking the route through the forests as she had discussed with Jon. The trees would help hide them from any flying beasts. Anything else they just had to deal with. They had considered walking, but the large loading area and speed of the truck won out in the argument, despite possible roadblocks from fallen trees or debris. Many of the monsters they had spotted so far didn’t exactly seem capable of keeping up with a car, let alone breaking through a metal door.

More supplies for less time. At least that was the hope. Kate parked the truck backwards and between a set of trees, trying to hide it as best she could. She turned off the radio and then the car, rolling the window down a few centimeters before she listened.

“What are you doing?” Ethan asked.

She ignored him. “Nothing is coming towards us,” she said before she rolled the window down more. Kate turned on her echo location and clicked her tongue. All she could see was the glimpse of a forest. She turned it off again, shaking her head a little to get rid of the strange sensation.

“You okay? You don’t seem okay,” Ethan said.

“Sound magic, remember?” she asked. “And echo location.”

“Oh, right. What’s the echo thing?” he said as Kate opened the door.

She walked to the back and repeated her findings to Grey, in a whisper. “It’s what bats do to know where they’re going,” Kate said as she grabbed four large empty sport bags.

“I’m not sure I get what you mean,” Ethan said as he got out of the car.

“I’ll explain some other time, we stop the talk now. There will probably be monsters nearby,” she said.

“I don’t see any,” Grey said.

Kate saw him crouching behind a tree right next to the concrete road that led into Grenndorf. He looked through binoculars, slightly leaning past the tree.

“There are quite a few corpses. Not just human. Orcs, goblins, larger things too,” he said. “I can’t see anything that is moving.”

“Might attract other things, let’s move, quietly. Ethan you wait with your fire until we get attacked and can’t handle them quietly,” she said.

He shrugged. “How am I supposed to know if we’re being overwhelmed?”

“When I’m bleeding or on the ground,” Kate said and started to move into the forest.

“What if I’m bleeding or on the ground?” Ethan murmured under his breath.

She heard him but chose to ignore the man, instead focusing on her surroundings and the sounds of the forest. She soon managed to tune out the unimportant rustling of leaves, still glancing up at the occasional bird call. For all she knew the calls could come from a monster type she hadn’t encountered before.

Occasionally, she stopped and clicked with her tongue, her echo location giving her a glimpse of the surroundings. It still felt somewhat strange and disorienting but Kate found the added depth to her perception more welcome than detrimental.

Mostly she just perceived the dense forest of firs, occasionally spotting a distorted squirrel or bird, though either she had already heard long before. Slowly they crept up on the settlement, the outlines of houses soon visible through the trees. Kate clicked her tongue when they were a few hundred meters away from the closest house. She saw an old wood cabin with small windows towards the forest. Around her, she saw bushes and trees. And something that looked like a shoe. She shook her head, raising her fist, turning her head to look at the sneaker she would’ve missed without her echo location.

The loud steps of her companions ceased.

Kate took in a deep breath, reorienting herself. Looking through the underbrush, she could see an herb garden, a small slide, a sandbox with a toy excavator built onto its side. She could only see the top of the slide from here, but with the added bits from her spell, she managed to get a somewhat full picture, as disorienting as it was.

Following the trail that the discarded shoe left, she quickly found two dead humans lying between a few dense bushes, arrows sticking out of their backs. A woman, maybe in her thirties, holding on to a man, his left leg horribly twisted. Their eyes were open.

Kate saw that the woman had a blue blouse on, the man wearing khaki pants, both stained with dried blood. They smelled of decay.

She crouched down and started pulling out the arrows, one by one, hooked metal moving past flesh. She turned the woman around and closed her eyes, moving the pale hands onto her stomach. She repeated the same for the man. Standing, she looked at the two. Quiet. Already forgotten. She took in a deep breath, pulling the hammer out from the leather strap. Kate felt its weight, clicking her tongue again. The image of the two dead was clear as she wasn’t moving. More visceral and real, the added depth providing another dimension to the silent scene.

She could feel bile rising up in her mouth, steadying herself against a nearby tree as she took in a deep breath.

Grey gestured with a thumb, up then down. His brows rose up, vanishing below his balaclava.

She nodded, gesturing with her hand. She needed a minute, hearing her own heartbeat pick up. She heard Ethan’s doing the same. Grey’s stayed steady.

Her breathing calmed before she gave the two waiting men a thumbs up, seeing Ethan staring at the corpses.

She closed her eyes and sighed. “Sorry,” she said, more confused than anything.

Neither of them commented, for which she was thankful.

Didn’t think I could be impacted by corpses in an entirely new way of perception. Fun.

She continued onward and towards the small house, now seeing more buildings past the remaining trees. The pointy top of a church was visible behind a set of more modern stone buildings, the clock showing fifteen past one. Various colors adorned the apartment houses, each three stories high and lining the main road that led into and through Grenndorf. A bakery was visible across the street, the large loaf of plastic bread no longer attached to its intended metal clasp. Instead it lay strewn between decaying corpses, blood covered like the rest of the quiet road.

Kate moved silently past the slide and sandbox, to a stone building on her left and adjacent to the main road. She crouched down and listened, her two companions close behind her. “Faint steps from farther down the road. Growling. Something biting into flesh,” she said and closed her eyes. Kate moved her head past the side of the building and looked.

There was a lot.

Corpses. Humans. Orcs. Goblins. Four entire ogres. Two dead Wyverns. One more she heard was still alive, behind a set of buildings, the sound of its large maw biting down into flesh and bone. Wolves too, dead and alive. The growls she had heard. Kate clicked her tongue, her echo location adding a little more depth to the image, though the prone corpses quickly became a single form within the strange perception.

‘ding’ ‘Echo Location reaches lvl 2’

She took a deep breath. “One Wyvern, feeding,” she said and took out the folded up map from her jacket. Using the compass from her pack, she turned the map until it seemed right. “We’re here?”

Grey nodded. “I think so.”

“The Wyvern is here,” she said and pointed at a set of buildings. “Large wolves in this direction,” she said and moved her finger. “Corpses all over. No idea who fought whom. Doesn’t matter.” She put her finger down. “Pharmacy and general store are both to our right. We can cross behind the wooden cabin, there are plenty of bodies there.”

“What about the police station?” Grey asked, nodding towards the map.

“We’d have to circle half the town,” Kate said. “Let’s first do these two. Objections?”

They both shook their heads.

“Great. Let’s stay hidden and quiet. They have enough to eat,” she said, pushing away from the stone wall and sneaking towards the wooden house. Kate moved around it and checked again, her echo location scanning the street. It took a few seconds for her to reorient herself. She found it helped to pick a spot and stare at it.

The road was littered with bodies. She only got a glimpse of a Wyvern wing this time, the distant wolves barely registering by now. She motioned to the others and crossed the road in silence, still listening for anything that stood out.

With quick steps, they rushed past more houses, up the slope and towards where the pharmacy was located. Grenndorf had been untouched by the air strikes it seemed, little to no smoke rising. Kate soon reached the building in question, finding the entrance closed and locked. She circled the rather small one story concrete block, finding all of the windows closed as well.

Should’ve brought my crowbar, she thought, standing at the back of the building, a set of cabins farther up the slope and behind the pharmacy. Kate stepped back and walked upwards as Grey and Ethan checked the window. She soon saw the top of the building where she spotted a hatch. Closed but with a handle. Kate smiled, ready to give it a shot when her eyes moved past the pharmacy and over the town. She spotted the yellow wings of the Wyvern in the distance, more buildings beyond, then a patch of forest that led down into the valley.

Farther back she could see the Weywater Lake. And before it stood Falstadt. A city of nearly eighty thousand people, stretching along the shore and out into the valley, train tracks moving out from the arched main station. She saw smoke rise from all over, glowing flames visible in hundreds of spots, even from this distance. Bursts of fire erupted on occasion, just flashes of light to Kate, but she knew each explosion was worse than most she had seen.

Entire buildings were missing, others reduced to blackened hollow frames, as if they were mere stumps of burned down trees. Few windows reflected any of the weak sunlight, sections of the city entirely flattened and coated in a hue of black. Kate stared in silence, feeling her lips quiver before she bent down and retched up her lunch.

She fell back on her ass and closed her eyes, tears welling up in her eyes as she tried and failed to put herself back together.

Grey was by her side an instant later, touching the hilt of his blade as he looked around.

“What’s going on?” Ethan said as he walked up, his boots rustling through the autumn leaves.

Kate’s vision blurred as she stared at the ground, breathing faster.

“Oh shit. Holy fuck, that’s insane,” Ethan exclaimed, looking towards the lake.

“You should use your magic,” Grey said.

Kate heard him and nodded slowly, activating Mindless Ferocity. Immediately, she could feel her body calm down a little. Her thoughts focused. She rubbed at her eyes and took in a sharp breath. “Fuck,” she said through gritted teeth.

She closed her eyes and focused on slowing her breathing for a while. Then she sighed and stood up. Checking for the Wyvern, she ran at the building and jumped, Hunting Leap bringing her to the roof. She landed, nearly stumbling before she crouched. A moment later, she was at the latch. Closed from the inside, she thought, grabbed on, and pulled. She heard a slight groaning sound of bending metal before the lock gave in.

Kate listened before she climbed down into the small storage room below, the part of her that wanted to stare at the burning city silenced as she focused on the task at hand.

She had known. But seeing it herself was different. And she knew it wasn’t the time to deal with it. Nor was there anything she could feasibly do.

We shall prevail.

The words felt hollow in her mind, subdued and meaningless as she opened the window from the inside, waving for the others to come inside with all the empty bags.

Her magic deactivated, having fulfilled its purpose. A part of her wished that her dad was there right then. He always knew what to say.

She stood in the small pharmacy and sighed, reminded somehow of a strange thing he had once told her.

One step at a time, Kate. But when your stomach hurts from eating too much Nutella, you stop. Don’t be fucking stupid.

She hit the wall with her back and slid down, laughing and crying at the same time as she tried to keep the sound down.

Grey closed the window behind himself, Ethan sitting down next to her.

He found her hand and held it tightly.