Forest detritus crinkled softly under five pairs of boots and one set of paws. The early morning light filtered through a crimson canopy. A bird sung in an annoyingly amelodic manner.
“What you thinking?”
Blake turned a pair of bleary eyes sideways, towards the Face walking next to him. Bhan’s worn expression was tight from the exertion of their march, but he looked healthier than the younger man had ever seen him. The death of Frost and a few months of eating full rations had helped the older man shake the pallor he’d carried during his imprisonment under Heltia, escape, and subsequent re-imprisonment by Esfaria.
“You know me,” Blake said, gaze returning to Erin’s back, a dozen paces ahead of them. “Not a thought in here.”
“Hm,” Bhan grunted. “Pretend thoughts there. What you thinking?”
Blake licked his lips, then craned his neck to peer over his shoulder. Behind them, the twins walked beside one another, with Pat roaming ahead and periodically looking back to ensure they followed. Both stared resolutely at their feet. Dash blinked heavily. In response, Sash slapped him on the back to keep him awake. He shot her an angry look, opened his mouth, and promptly gave up on whatever retort he’d been brewing.
“They not listening, Blake.”
Then the young man nearly tripped over something in the ground before Bhan caught him. Unfortunately for both, Blake was far taller and heavier than the Face, which left the pair clutching one another in a stumbling dance as they struggled to regain their footing. When they eventually managed to brace themselves against a speartree and recover, Blake glanced back at what had tripped him. It was an arrow embedded in the ground. A yellowed strip of cloth was caught on a branch nearby.
“Another one,” he muttered.
“Mm,” Bhan hummed in agreement. “No dry blood, this time.”
The pock-marked young man turned to Bhan. “What in Siik’s mountain happened here? Who’d House Baylar fight? And why in the blood’s Erin takin’ us towards them?”
“She not scared,” Bhan mused. “But war over. No reason to harm civilian.”
Blake pursed his lips sceptically. “Maybe. She’s so confident, though. Why’s she’d make us walk through the night to head towards a House?”
“Fort Vane this way.”
“I know, but this is place’s bloody weird, Bhan. And Erin…” He lowered his voice. “She’s off, mate.”
There was no need for further explanation. Since she’d massacred half the Esfarian hunters, Erin had offered neither excuses for her actions nor an account of how she’d done it. The bone spur the young woman had grown from her arm and murdered Fink with seemed to be the key. The manifestation of a hidden type of Godsblood, and the hidden god it flowed from.
Erin did not speak other than to give suggestions. When they’d camped for the night, she did not meet anyone’s eyes, and slept far away from the twins. The only promises she made to them was that there would be an answer to her actions. Whether that meant an explanation or retribution, no one but her knew.
Her muscular frame was the largest of all of them. At the distance she walked from them, it seemed inscrutably small.
They continued walking.
Blake dropped backwards and managed to take the twins’ packs after a short argument. Bhan quickly leveraged the same argument against the younger man to take one of the three he carried. Erin tilted her head, but said nothing.
The day rolled forward as they stumbled along. Occasionally, they espied shattered pieces of air. Most were tiny: echoes of humble creatures foraging, storing food, or simply sitting upon a branch. Others prowled with predatory gaits. A few walked, like them, to destinations unknown.
At their first appearance a day and a half ago, they had warranted a remark from all but Bhan, who had seemed bewildered that the others could see them. The Face had wanted to perform a Divinity for them, and though the two other adults had tried to deter him, it was only a panicked breakdown from Dash that kept the group moving forward.
As their frequency grew, conversation dwindled. No remarks would make sense of the phantom activity that suddenly proliferated the wilderness. The world they walked through had merged with another, and all sensed that in this seemingly familiar land, they were foreigners.
The ground crunched. The crimson forest and the speartrees that gripped it grew sparser, until their density grew feeble enough to allow a hot breeze to buffet their faces. The ghosts of long-dead creatures went about their business. The sun clawed its way up the sky, then, exhausted at its summit, began to fall.
Then the Heartlands disappeared, and they stood before a great rolling plain with a Baylarian contingent arrayed in a line around it. Blake flinched backwards into the foliage until Sash gestured him back. The line was not facing them. They gazed at Fort Vane.
Four of them exchanged a glance. When their gazes returned, they found Erin walking ahead.
“Erin,” Blake hissed, “get your bloody arse back here!”
She turned, exhaled heavily, and inclined her head towards a gathering of individuals bereft of the Baylarian yellow, who stood slightly behind the line. “I know them. Come on.”
The young woman continued, head low. Bhan was the first to follow.
“Come,” he said to the others. “We knew it be like this, yes?”
Sash took her brother’s hand. The two walked in-step towards the Fort, their old hound trotting in their wake.
Blake stared after them. At the hundreds of soldiers pointed towards whatever lay within the fort and its open gate. But more than either of these things, his tired eyes followed the back of the woman he’d known for years as it drew away from him.
He wondered how the Butcher Boys were doing in the Foot. Whether their various apprenticeships were treating them well. If the younger children he’d cared for – now mature enough to hold jobs – were happy. If the House had forgotten the things he’d done.
But when he thought of the sandstone streets he’d left, they felt just as empty as ever. So Blake adjusted the straps digging into his shoulders and followed.
Far ahead of him, a Baylarian soldier clad in gleaming bronze split off from their contingent to address Erin. They pointed towards the forest. In response, Erin lifted the bottom of her shirt slightly, revealing the tattoo that lay beneath. After a few moments of contemplation, the soldier jerked their head towards the non-Baylarians gathered.
By the time Blake had caught up, the strange individuals had already begun to step aside to allow them passage. They were an eclectic bunch: unarmoured and roughly garbed despite being amongst a military force and while most bore the straight scars of Heartlanders, several bore darker skin or paler, sun-burnt constitutions similar to the twins. Whatever organisation they belonged to recruited from far away. Despite their differing features, they bore a single commonality: tall, well-muscled builds. For the first time since he’d finished growing, Blake felt small.
At their centre was a woman whose greying hair belied a sturdy physique similar to Erin’s, but slightly larger. Her dark eyes beheld Erin with little more than a squint, until they reached the twins and widened. She strode to the younger woman quickly.
“W-2, I presume?” the muscular woman inquired. Her enunciation was strangely precise for a warrior. "Though it might be easier if I knew your real name.”
“Uh, Erin, ma’am.”
“Is this them?”
Erin’s green eyes were wide. “Leader?”
The older woman smiled gently. “Just Gaia, now.”
At the name, Erin threw a panicked look behind her. “Am I allowed to know that?”
“Us Scattered Seeds have shed the need for secrecy,” the woman responded. “Though any one of us may die, the movement will continue. I’m no longer so important.”
Erin swallowed.
The four behind squinted at her. The only time Blake had seen her more nervous was when she’d tried to hold a conversation with General Maja.
“Do you mind if I address them?” the leader asked.
“Of course not.” The younger woman managed to regain a firm tone. “Go ahead.”
Gaia lowered herself to one knee with a stifled groan. “Dash. Sash.” Her gaze turned from the twins to the young man. “Blake.”
He found himself unable to respond. The scene displayed across his vision seemed as if it were at the end of a long tunnel.
“How you know them?” Bhan asked, at the same time Dash demanded, “How do you know us?”
The middle-aged woman paused for a moment. “…We know of your brother.”
“Erin.” Blake found himself suddenly whirling on her. “What’ve you done?”
The woman backed away a step, eyes wide.
“You bloody ratted us out?”
She shook her head frantically. “It’s not like that, Blake.”
He gestured between himself and her. “Was any of this- “
“We need Orvi,” Gaia quickly interrupted. “And so we need you as well. You’re in no danger.”
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Dash opened his mouth angrily, but the Face quickly stepped in front of the adolescent. “How we trust this?”
“If we wanted you dead, or in captivity, you would know by now.” Gaia’s voice was gentle, but not enough to prevent a shiver running down Blake’s spine. “We need your help.”
“I didn’t spend months trawlin’ through the Heartlands to get caught in this.” A plaintive note entered Blake’s tone. “We’re just normal people. We can’t help you. We’ll just… get him and go.”
For a moment, the young man feared they would be set upon by the people flanking them on all sides. An image of the human cages he’d seen beneath Bars flashed across his mind, alongside the tortured corpses rotting within them. Yet Gaia simply nodded and straightened.
She gazed at the Fort. “I’ll tell the Baylarians to let you pass through.” She looked back at them, hot steel beneath her eyes. “Enter the Fort. Find what remains of your friend. We can help take care of it, if only you help us.”
They stared upwards at the woman for a moment.
“…Come,” Bhan said.
The twins, the Face, and Blake departed with a dozen pairs of eyes on their backs. After a brief pause, Erin quickly followed.
Their approach towards the Baylarian line was marked by a churning sense of unease. When a signal from Gaia caused the unceasing stretch of soldiers to break and allow entrance, the feeling only increased. Each affected nonchalance – excepting Sash, who fidgeted constantly – as they walked through, yet a silence empty of anything but stares weighed their steps down. As he walked, Blake felt the phantom sensation of an army’s worth of spears impaling him. Though they passed unmolested by steel or remark, the hairs on his neck remained raised.
Fort Vane squatted at the centre of the plain in stolid defiance of all that watched it. There was a gravity to the place. The living arrangement of bronze and yellow drew the eye to it, but so did its stillness. No one walked the soundless battlements. The open maw of the drawbridge revealed broken fencing and flecks of blood. And, briefly, the dark face of a teenager a few years older than the twins, whose eyes widened before he hastily ducked out of sight.
“Who’s that?” Sash asked.
“Probably a godsdamned ghoul, with our luck,” Blake muttered.
“Blake,” Bhan rebuked. In a gentler tone, he turned to Sash. “Maybe friend of brother, hm?”
The girl nodded rapidly, but shuffled closer to her twin. The boy himself stared through the gate with a clenched jaw. Their hands clasped one another in a white-knuckled grip.
Blake released a breath and tried a shaky smile. “We’re so close, yeah? Just a bit further, and we’ve found him.”
He took the lead with a tight smile and resisted the urge to duck as he passed under the shadow of the wall. Placing one foot in front of the next was a struggle. One he failed entirely when he heard the voices emanating from ahead.
“I can’t,” someone groaned, “I can’t remember, Maddie, what, what happened? What happened?”
“Shh.” This voice was carefully enunciated to counter the slight slurring that edged into its corners. “It’ll be alright.”
“Maddie, it’s full of holes.” They released a strangled cry. “I… I don’t… It’s gone. It’s gone.”
Blake raised a hand to halt those behind him, and carefully stepped into the outer courts. What awaited him there were four people: three sat against a stone wall while a fourth – the teenager they’d seen coming in – held a spear towards the newcomer, teeth bared in a wide-eyed snarl.
Upon a cursory glance, one seemed to be an Oxblood. Only Blake’s acquaintance with Jackson and Maja revealed otherwise. Although bearing an impressive musculature, the person’s arms and legs lacked the additional, inhuman muscles strong Oxbloods possessed. At their size, the absence was noticeable. It was their underdeveloped arm – belonging more on the torso of a child than the huge individual – and strangely youthful face that revealed the person as a Strain. But what truly drew the eyes was the massive wad of bloodied fabric packed into a hole in their good arm.
When the Strain’s eyes – slightly diluted – fell on Blake, they attempted to rise. Only for one of their legs to promptly give way and send them crashing down.
The second was a small, flame-haired young woman. A strip of cloth was wrapped around her head, and her attention was focused entirely on the person beside her.
If it wasn’t for the frantic rolling of her eyes, Blake would’ve thought the dark-skinned woman dead. Her back was a mess of blistered skin that makeshift bandages could not cover. One leg hung crooked off its knee. An arm simply ended at its forearm. The woman kept trying to grab the cloth-wrapped stump, only for her companion to push her hand back down.
Something had broken her body. And Orvi was nowhere to be seen.
The sweat-beaded face of the ruined woman locked onto Blake. “Who’re you?” she hissed through clenched teeth in a shower of spittle. “Get th’ blood outta here.”
The other three gazed at him mutely.
“I’m lookin’ for my friend,” he blurted.
“Everyone that lived here’s dead,” the scarred woman spat. The vigour of her words forced an agonised groan from her mouth. Her whole arm beat at the ground.
“He didn’t live here,” Blake quickly replied. “His name’s Orvi.”
“I don’t bloody well…” Her voice trailed into another wince. “What?”
“He was travellin’ here.”
From behind him, Bhan’s footsteps rounded the corner. “Might know him as Vin.”
A quieter voice responded. “How many of you are there?” the teenager asked.
“There’s, uh…” Blake’s voice trailed away. He’d expected a threat. But he hadn’t seen worse wounds since the Lizard had left the Foot. It was as if a god had blown through the Fort.
Dash pulled Sash into the outer courts, a challenging expression splayed across his face. It collapsed upon seeing that waited there.
“Kids,” the crippled woman groaned.
“We’re his siblings,” Sash answered extremely quickly. “Do you… Can we help?”
“Sash,” Erin snapped as she walked in.
“Why don’t you shut your hole?” Dash retorted, placing himself between his sister and the much larger woman. “You’re not in charge here anymore. We don’t need a damn murderer.”
“Because the people trying to kill your brother were so innocent,” Erin stated flatly.
“That doesn’t mean- “
“Not the time,” the Face interrupted with a gravitas borne of years of training. He turned to the strangers. “You are Ronnie and… Kit?”
The injured woman tried to leap onto her feet, only to collapse onto her side. “How in th’ blood d’you know us?” she growled.
“I Face Bhan,” the older man said. “Vin’s teacher. He mention you.”
She swore. “Why’re you- “ A tormented groan ripped from her mouth. “Why’re you here now?”
“Can we help?” Bhan asked.
“Bhan…” Erin’s tone was low.
“What do you want us to do Erin?” Blake demanded. “Leave them?”
“We’re not doctors, Blake…” At their expressions, she paused, then ran a hand through her black hair. “Damn it all. Fine. What do you need?”
The orange-haired woman spoke for the first time. “Help us inside.”
“Maddie,” the teenager said cautiously, “it is not safe…”
The young woman looked at up him. “How long did you say I was unconscious for?” she muttered.
“…Around two hours?”
“And it has been another two. Whatever happened in there is over.”
“Something is still in there. I saw- “
“It could be him.”
“It could be dangerous. We won’t be able to- “
“Excuse me,” Blake interrupted, “but what the hell’re you talkin’ about?”
The scarred woman gave a pained bark. “Whether we’ll find your Orvi,” she said, “or a godsdamned corpse.”
----------------------------------------
Glass crunched between Blake’s boots as he and Erin struggled to help Ronnie walk through the dining hall. Light from the flaming torch in Taja’s hand glittered across dozens of shards strewn amidst the shattered furniture and corpses lining the room; the clear remnants of a hugely destructive battle.
It felt as if he were stepping into the ruins of Spires again. Only this time, the shattered city was a place he was meant to know.
Ahead of them, Kit – supported by Bhan and Maddie – had halted beside Taja and the twins. Pat gently whined.
At their feet was a skeleton. Its clean white bones were a stark contrast to the insect-ridden viscera leaking from the corpses lining the room. Missing from its frame was a right arm, left leg and skull.
Blake swallowed. “Is that…”
“I don’t know,” Kit grunted. “We’ll… We’ll find out.”
“…I still believe you two should leave,” said Taja to the twins.
“Why would we?” Dash’s voice had lost the fervour it held when Taja first asked them to stay outside. “He’s our brother.”
“It’s not worth seeing this.”
“…No. I want to see him with my own eyes.”
Taja did not press them.
They continued through the room, then upwards along a vast staircase fancier than anything Blake’d seen, outside Nests. Afterwards, they staggered along a black hallway. Patches of a dried black substance were smeared across the floor. Sash released a strangled yelp when her foot crunched on something.
“That’s bone,” Taja whispered.
Kit grunted as Maddie and Bhan helped her step forward. “You twins sure you wanna see this?”
Their only response was to keep walking forward. Within the oppressive darkness encroaching on their flickering light, no one behind could give any reply.
It was the darkness in front that spoke.
“Whose is this?”
“It may be mine.”
“Could be someone else’s.”
Three distinct voices. Their accents dove, soared, and merged into different manners of speaking mid-sentence, without faltering.
Every hair on Blake’s body stood on-end.
“Who’s that?” he whispered.
Maddie licked her lips. “…There shouldn’t be three people left in the Fort.”
“That’s not three people.” Sash’s voice quavered. “It’s just one.”
The arm Ronnie kept around Blake’s shoulders twitched. The giant bared their teeth in frustration. Whatever the Strain had wanted to say was incommunicable. But judging by the way Taja and Maddie eyed Sash, they had noticed something as well.
Blake squinted, then shook the thought from his head. It wasn’t the time.
Their torch’s light eventually clawed its way into the fragments across the floor ahead, scattered before the opening to a much vaster room. They entered the space and found themselves flanked by figures on either side, silhouettes as broken as the mirror they lay within. The mirror-shards ceased at a square at the centre of the room – the floor there had vanished.
They continued onwards.
“It’s a nice day.”
“To be killed by House Baylar?”
“To lose my mind?”
The voices emanated from a spiral staircase at the end of the hall. A ghost walked by it. The nine present watched it go.
“They’re coming.”
“Who is that with them?”
“Nothing can be said.”
The voices were loud, now.
“Should we…” Bhan began. “…Leave injured here?”
“…I don’t think so,” Maddie said quietly.
Though the motion twisted her burnt back, Kit nodded. “I’m bloody marked by this, ain’t I?” A hollow grin stretched across her face. “Sink or swim, we’re here ‘til the end.”
Bhan, Maddie, and her began slowly limping up the stairs.
The twins took a step forward.
“You don’t have to go,” Blake found himself saying.
Dash shook his head and said nothing.
“We need to see,” Sash answered hoarsely.
They wept and followed upwards. Their steps were faltering, but faded upwards.
“…What else is there?” Taja muttered to himself.
The teenager carried his light upwards, leaving them in darkness.
Ronnie and Erin tried to step forward. They stumbled when Blake did not go with them.
“What is it?” his companion asked.
“Is that Orvs up there?” he asked.
She gave no reply. The dark quiet was only broken by Ronnie’s panting.
His voice quavered. “Is that him?”
“We have to go, Blake.”
He didn’t want to, though. More than anything, he wanted to be half the continent and half a decade distant. Despite knowing that place no longer existed, it still gleamed in his mind. Polished after countless days turning it over in his mind.
Whatever waited up the stairs wasn’t that.
But it was the last piece of it that Blake had left.
They walked up the staircase.
At its peak were a set of wide open doors leading to an almost spherical polyhedric room. Dozens of glass panes formed the roof, letting in the heat of the afternoon sun. Everything within was rendered in terrible brightness: the map-table; the workbench; the kneeling, sobbing forms of the twins; the wide eyes of Taja and Ronnie; the tears running down Maddie’s cheeks; the hand of Bhan where he covered his eyes; the faltering snarl of Kit; the grim draw of Erin’s face; the god that huddled in a corner with a skull in its hand.
It was huge: almost ten feet of black flesh twisting as it tried to cover the eyes embedded across its entire body. But there were too many and none could blink, dooming its attempts before they began. Three maws swum across its flesh.
“How’d you make it here?” one asked with a quaver.
“Why did you leave?” the second demanded.
And the third simply screamed hoarsely.
Its head bore no mouths. Just a shifting mass of flesh that held a face much like a gnarl of bark, wisp of cloud, or stain of snow might. The only constant was the forms of eight eyes as they revolved around one another, independently flicking between the people gathered in the observatory.
“You shouldn’t have come.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Blake stumbled, caught himself on a wall, and slowly lowered himself to his knees. He stared at nothing. The collapsed form of Kit beside him mouthed the same words repeatedly, like a fish trapped in a circular stream. ‘I can’t.’ Maddie shuffled towards the other woman and buried her face in Kit’s chest.
Sash cried towards the sky as Dash’s wrenched face leaked snot and salvia towards the stone. Bhan held his head in his hands and begged for forgiveness. Taja had turned away entirely. Ronnie slammed their head against a pane of glass until it cracked.
And Erin stepped in front of the man who had disappeared and fell to one knee.
“Oh, godling,” she pleaded. “We beg of your aid.”
“What do you need?”
“For you of all people?”
“I can’t give anyone anything.”
She swallowed.
“To slay a god.”