"No one else has to suffer, at least," Aida said, trying to convince herself as much as Ghillie. "A fast death is better than what they were facing."

Ghillie nodded, then turned and pointed.

What Aida had thought was a cloud front darkening the horizon gained detail as they drifted towards it. Not a cloud, another stack, its size dwarfing even the largest of its kin. It filled half the horizon and reached up towards the blue heavens like the white cliffs of the Vale.

The World Spear, Ghillie signed.

"Thorn. Home." Aida said, slumping down against the nearest railing, suddenly more tired than she could remember being. "Home... whatever that is."

It took most of the rest of the day to reach the World Spear. The size of the thing kept reclassifying in her mind from huge, to stupidly huge, to colossal, to almost absurd. A pillar made from smashing a couple Mount Everests on top of each other.

The docks spread larger and more extensive than those pretty much anywhere else she'd seen on Stacks. In spite of that, they were clogged with ships, barges, rafts, and pretty much anything else that could float. Individuals of all sorts, types, and description streamed down the docks carrying bundles of all their worldly goods towards the theoretical safety of the World Spear. Many bore gruesome wounds, missing limbs, or soaked-through bandages - testament to the presence of demons or monsters or whatever all across the verse.

Squinting into the dusky shade, she thought she recognized the lone figure standing at the gap in a stretch of dock they tiredly paddled towards.

Eth. Tapping her foot impatiently and sighing between chewing on her fingernails.

"Nothing fancy about it," Eth called by way of greeting, speaking at the same time Aida did in that annoying way she had.

"Fancy meeting you... right." Aida called back. "So I guess you know what all happened? My turning Jaxe into chunky paste, breaking his stack, and fleeing the demons?"

"Of course I did. I've known it since long before I met you that this happens." Eth rolled her eyes.

"Of course you did. Oh, because... I just told you," Aida said, speaking her thoughts aloud as she the realization hit her.

The ship scraped against the dock and people scrambled out half in panic. The second barge neared another stretch of dock closer to the horizon-filling World Spear in whose shadow they stood, the craft nearly tipping as everyone pushed to one side of the boat. Mere meters from shore, the barge capsized, dumping everyone into the brink. Aida cursed impotently as people thrashed and clawed to find a way ashore while many of those who had made it to land lay prostrate on the docks, reaching down to pull others from the water before they drowned or attracted hungry sea creatures, natural or otherwise.

Screams broke out on a dock further away as an immense, tentacled whale-jellyfish-octopus thing crashed straight through a two-masted galley just pulling in itself and splintered the boards of the wide dockway there like matchsticks.

"Hurry maybe," Eth said, pointing towards the dark, yawning mouth cut into the Spear like an open mouth vomiting out a sprawling fan of bobbing wooden plankways. People pushed and shoved all around her to scramble off the barge, tilting it alarmingly. "It ends up being tight, as usual, especially since you insist on trying to get all these people through with you. Don't know how you managed to keep those clothes clean and intact this long, but they won't be by the time we leave."

"We taking them back to the One-Eighth?" Aida said, then turned and used a number of creative threats and sheer volume to stabilize the refugees' desperate scramble off the barge before they mirrored the other's fate. She waited to get off until most of the refugees had finished their departure, in part since she'd just gotten Eth's assurance they all made it and part to avoid getting knocked into the drink like a dozen-odd of those who'd gone before her.

Regardless of Eth's assurances, she had no more desire to face one of those creatures in the dark, fizzing waters than anyone else here did.

"Sending them there while we go to Terminus," Eth said, reaching out to help stabilize Aida as she lunged across the gap between ship and dock. "Yes, Terminus."

"Did you say Ter-" Aida sighed. "Name inspires all sorts of delightfully uplifting thoughts."

"It's not about the where we're going, it's about the who we meet there."

"Assuming you won't clarify? Wouldn't want to ruin your girlish cryptic mystique."

Eth grunted in a very un-girlish manner as they strode quickly down the dock in a thickening flow of other refugees. People mobbed about her as she walked, calling out for "the Mother's mercy" and begging for her protection. As the mob pressed in and slowed their progress to a crawl, she amplified her voice yet again. "I offer my protection to all who want to come to the One-Eighth with me. Just head to the Thorn my Imminent says they've got in the Spear and we'll get the hell off this rock ASAP."

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"I'm not your Imminent," Eth grumped.

The monstrosity that had broken the ship apart and half-beached itself on the nearby dock slipped back into the water dragging a dozen screaming unfortunates into the water. It made her doubt her ability to do jack to protect them, but if her words got them moving instead of slowing her down, she'd promise them anything.

They managed to make it to the huge cavern carved from the solid rock face without another attack, but the sheer number of people pushing their way in slowed things down to the foot-traffic equivalent of rush hour in Los Angeles. Even amplifying her voice to get people to move out of the way did little as there seemed to be nowhere to go for those already smushed inside aside from a wide yet still too-narrow stairway curving up into the rock on the chamber's far side. As they eventually passed under the yawning arch leading inside, Ghillie tugged at Aida's sleeve and pointed behind them.

At the sky, not water.

"Fuck me," Aida said, squinting out at what she first thought were sea birds fleeing the other stacks, but gradually realized were shaped wrong and as many undulated through the skudding, golden dusky clouds as flapped wings or wing-equivalents. "Are those more demons?"

"Yes," Eth said, without looking. "Sooner we get to that Thorn, less people get eaten."

Aida turned and shoved harder, but it did little. Boosting her voice to near-deafening level didn't help a bit. Then the people outside spotted the swarm of demons gliding towards them and turned the tight space reeking of fear and sweat into a mosh pit. If enough people went down, it would turn to a stampede.

"You have to," Eth said, looking at her grimly.

"You mean blast my way to the Thorn? I can't even see it yet."

"If you don't do it now, everyone dies, including us."

Aida froze with indecision for a moment, then turned to see a sleek, shark-bat thing at the lead of the flock of horrors dive down and impale a straggler as the man climbed out of an overcrowded rowboat. The thing didn't kill him quickly, either, seeming to savor his pain, fear, and futile struggle.

"Dammit," Aida said, thrumming her voice to a level she hoped would more displace and less maim. "Where's the Thorn?"

Eth pointed towards the staircase wide leading up into the Spear.

"Sorry people. It's the only way," Aida mumbled, before bracing herself. "MOVE!"

People tumbled like bowling pins, spun like tossed dolls, and flattened into those nearby. The force of the shout knocked people down ten rows deep on either side of the channel she furrowed through them. Ghillie took off sprinting while people still tumbled through the air, with Aida and Eth running flat-out right behind her. When they reached the stairs and Ghillie's needles came out to ruthlessly drop anyone in their path who couldn't or didn't get out of the way.

Aida glanced back. And immediately wished she hadn't.

The flock had arrived, dropping like hawks onto the terrified press still pushing to get inside. The Spear's cavernous interior filled with echoing screams of horror and pain. As Aida feared, the stampede began, those not fast, strong, or lucky enough trampled beneath an unending surge of their fellows.

Fortunately, they didn't have to go more than a few flights up before they found the spacious Thorn chamber branching off the gradually-spiraling stair. Most people fled past it further up the stairs towards who-knew-what, leaving the Thorn chamber mostly empty. Without a Valeer or 'nail, which apparently no one had, it wasn't an exit, but a literal dead end.

Eth raced to the Thorn, produced a 'nail, and rubbed it against the Thorn. The Thorn's swelling response came immediately, as did the rush of desperate people spotting it on their flight up the stairs and deciding out was better than up. Eth called and waved to her from the Thorn, but Aida stood planted on the stairs at the Thorn chamber's opening, gesturing for people to head inside while keeping her strings thrumming at high intensity, ready to vaporize the first demon she saw.

She didn't have to wait long.

A trio of things half-spider, half-hawk scrambled across the ceiling above the stair tunnel. Aida smeared them across the stone with a bark, wincing as blasted bits of stonework rained down on the poor people scrambling up the stairs. She glanced at the Thorn, gauging how much longer she had until it reached maximum extent and yanked everyone off to the Vale. No more than a minute, she guessed.

Turning her attention back towards the stairs, she cursed and leapt back. Another of the spider-things had launched itself at her while she was distracted and only a rapid-fire flurry of Ghillie's needles slamming into it as she crashed into it kept it from sinking it's hooked footpads into Aida's flesh. Ghillie rolled atop the thing, gripping its dark furry mass between her knees while driving the silver points into it like faster than a haywire sewing machine. Whatever her needles lacked in paralyzing power against the thing Ghillie made up for with speed. By the time the thing stopped moving and began to slough off into a thousand threads of black, oily meat and grimy hair, it couldn't have had less than a hundred holes punched in it.

"Thanks," Aida said, pulling Ghillie to her feet and walking backwards slowly towards the nearly-maximal Thorn with her strings still thrumming at her throat.

Not time to die yet, Ghillie signed before flicking dark blood and who-knew-what-else from her needles.

An unending chorus of screams accompanied by the horrible sounds of meat ripping echoed up the stairs. The last frantic rush of survivors threw themselves towards the Thorn. A heaving mass of crawling, hopping, slithering, scrabbling abominations hounded their every step, dragging down the slowest of those fleeing them.

"Aida!" Eth shouted. "Now!"

"One sec," Aida said under her breath, amplifying her strings to the point she worried they might come apart, blow her voice box out, or both. Waiting until the awful judgment that the last few runners wouldn't make it into the Thorn's embrace, she unleashed her voice on the stairway's ceiling. As it shattered and crashed down, Aida and Ghillie ducked back under the Thorn's protective reach.

A handful of demons proved fast enough to clear the raining debris. Aida screamed at them as they hurled through the air towards her.

And Stacks fell away.