I followed Letta back to Alder-Craig’s house where we had our dinner, and got situated for bed. However, before the last of the candles were put out I pulled the old deer-man-general aside, and whispered. “Sometime tomorrow, the sooner the better, I need to talk to you.”

He watched me for a moment, hardened his face in response to my serious tone, and nodded. “I can do that. I doubted you’d stay long, and Letta won’t take it well.”

I glanced over at her, happily curled up in a bed of furs and blankets, eyes closed, but undoubtedly waiting for me to come back. Yeah… I’ll have to leave soon. Regardless of the outcome of our talk… Or what I fear comes after.

I turned back to Craig. “That’s definitely part of it, but there’s something potentially more pressing. I would’ve brought it up sooner if I knew it was guaranteed to happen, but since it’s only a possibility I didn’t want to worry you or anyone else.”

Again, he just looked at me for a while. As if his old eyes could somehow pry the truth, or some semblance of the world’s mysteries from my stiffened facial features. “I see. Then let us not waste another moment on this tonight. Rest well, my friend, that sleep might bring us both clarity on the morrow.”

I gently clapped him on his thin shoulder, nodded, and wandered back to bed.

Letta wordlessly snuggled up alongside me, and before I knew it, drowsiness descended. Wow. If only every night could be this easy! As I distinctly recall my first night in this new world being fraught with restlessness… . Just like so many nights before… . Wait. Was I an insomniac? Or am I just remembering that wrong? Ugh. Intrusive thoughts suck… Sleep! Sort this out, dang it!

#

Sleep, glorious sleep. Just the thing I wanted, though it came in a form that I didn’t entirely expect. Though maybe I should have, given that it wasn’t my first nap in this new world.

Anyway, just like those other times, faces, places, and voices flashed in and out of my foggy awareness as I drifted through the darkness of dreamland. Only this time they were clearer than in the past, and more than once I recognized some of the Kormath villagers mixed into the mess of sensory data. Well it is true that your brain recycles the faces you’ve seen for use in dreams, so whatever.

I quickly lost count of the requests for guidance or assistance they brought me, as well as all the thanks. Again, I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve all this adoration, but it’s always nice to be on the receiving end of gratitude, and since it was only a dream, I concentrated what little consciousness I had into altering their situations for the better.

And I didn’t just give them what they wanted either, after all, I couldn’t change much. So instead I focused on giving them the opportunities to achieve their goals, or realize their hopes and dreams, with me only very rarely needing to actually intervene by moving some stone or other small thing into a better position so they wouldn’t get hurt, or so that they could find what they’d lost.

That went on for a time, but eventually everything faded into an all consuming blackness that gave way to a ring of gray, and a central disk of white.

Wait… I know that shape!

Suddenly, I felt wide awake. I knew I was still asleep, but every instinct I had screamed that this was all too real, and I couldn’t do anything about it, unlike in my previous dreams just moments ago.

Come on! Wake up! Wake up! … Nope. No luck. But what the heck is this?! How and why is that wretched anomaly inside my dreams?! Why invade my private space?! Wasn’t destroying everything enough for you?! Did you really have to stick around?! Did you have to come here?! Huh?! Answer me!

The anomaly just sat there, as constant and unchanging as ever, unreceptive or ignorant of my feelings and internal shouting.

Every part of me trembled before it. I couldn’t wrap my head around it no matter how I looked at it, and couldn’t shake the sinking feeling that it was looking at me.

Through me.

I gritted my teeth, or whatever approximation I could conjure within this dreamspace, and muttered. “If you want to be like that then fine. We can sit here for however long you like. I clearly can’t leave until you let me, so I’m just gonna do nothing until–.”

The anomaly shifted.

I froze.

It was so subtle that I thought I imagined it, but then it happened again.

The tiniest quiver.

The most minute tremble.

And once all my attention was once again on that great and terrible thing, it imploded back into darkness, and from the void it left behind a wellspring of information assailed my consciousness.

I smelled smoke, heard countless screams, desperate battlecries, and weeping. Sweat and dirt and something uncomfortably sticky coated my skin in the most disturbing film I’d ever imagined, and then fatigue, stabbing pain and sudden breathlessness washed over me like a flood.

I gasped for breath as I struggled to scrub myself clean of that nasty mix, but then a series of visions struck suddenly and stopped me in my tracks.

Wide eyed, I gawked at what I’d just seen.

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Letta.

Craig.

The whole of Kormath.

Burned to ash, along with the entire valley.

No one survived, not even the Wise Old Friend, as everything had become a slag filled caldera.

“But how? Why? Those soldiers aren’t that strong are they? If they were, then how could I have escaped in the first place?”

Again, sound hit me first. The clash of steel, the clap of thunder, the crash of stone and splintering of wood. I heard bunnyman’s shouted orders, and countless chanted spells before another wave of pain hit me.

Like before, it came with the sensation of dirt and grime and that sticky stuff I now knew to be blood.

Then the images caught up, and I saw them, clad in their armor, wielding their hateful weapons, positioned around Kormath where I led a few of the villagers to fight.

It was a fierce head on battle, and I did much better than I expected to, but then so did they. Bunnyman was no slouch, but the real threat was apparently some lady with the lower half of a snake, and that’s not mentioning the mole man who kept harassing me from below, or the fox guy who put oh so many earthen walls in my way.

But we won, they all died, though there were casualties too.

Bretta.

Rochelle.

And more than half of the village’s men whom I’d yet to be acquainted with.

All strength left me, and I curled in on myself on whatever passed as ground. “Is this my fate? To watch others suffer and die? To lead them to that death? To bring it?! Am I to wander this new world until it crumbles away too?!”

Then I was hit with a complete vision, and a horrible one at that.

Step by step, a woman, completely veiled in white, strode through the halls of my mind. Her shadow, blood. Her pace, relaxed yet menacing. Her voice, a discord of several others screaming out in endless agony, begging to be released, saved.

She said, “You will be mine. Mine and mine alone.”

I trembled.

At first I thought it was fear, only to realize that I was enraged. Filled with nothing but pure, unbridled, fury. Every shred of my being demanded that that despoiler, that desecrator, that hideous monster be punished for her sins. And I needed no further proof to do so as the vision continued, and showed me her arrival to this valley and her subsequent and merciless destruction of everything within.

The vision ended, and I sat, perfectly still as I contemplated everything I’d just borne witness to.

I clenched my imaginary fists, rose to my nonexistent feet with a deep inhalation, and shouted with all the force I could muster. “This will not come to pass! I won’t let it!”

I stared up at the endless abyss of dark for how long I didn’t know, or care to, but when I lowered my head I once again gazed upon the anomaly as it in turn stared back at me.

A wry smile crept across my face. “I don’t know if you can hear me, or understand what I’m saying. Heck! I don’t even know if you’re intelligent or if you’re even real! But if you can, and are, then I guess I should thank you. Thank you for this warning, and for watching over me. I won’t waste this gift.”

The anomaly didn’t change, or twitch, or respond. No further visions came, no sensations, or sounds. But the dark around us lifted, and within this boundless white light, I once again took hold of myself, and willed my body to awaken.

#

My eyes shot open just before the sun, and I gently lifted Letta off of me so that she could continue to rest, and not be privy to the discussion I was about to have with Craig.

I slunk out of the main room as quietly as I could, and found Craig waiting for me beyond an open door in what amounted to a small, yet cluttered office.

He beckoned me in, gestured for me to sit on the small stool across from his own simple chair on the other side of a wide yet basic table, covered not in paperwork, but in weapons.

Swords of various sizes and ornamentations, daggers, recurve bows, There were even a few spears, and heavy looking axes though they were leaned on the wall behind him. Regardless, it looked as if there was enough to arm every adult in the village, with little to none to spare.

Which is fine. I’ve got my own.

He rubbed his hands on the ends of his chair’s armrests and whispered. “So, Anon, I hope you rested well, but what is it that you wished to discuss so urgently?”

I glanced at the armaments, and frowned. “By the look of all these, I’m afraid you’ve more or less grasped it.”

He slowly shut his eyes. “It won’t be the first time danger has followed someone here. But in the past I was younger and stronger, and now we’ve known peace for so long that I’ve slacked in my training of the others.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You’re not curious as to why they’re after me?”

He shook his head. “No. We came to this place to leave our past behind us. Obviously, we still remember, and use the skills we obtained to better the community, but we try to do so in utmost peace… Though we know violence can’t be avoided with outsiders all the time.”

“I see… .” I leaned back, almost forgetting I was on a stool, but stopped before I toppled over. “I’m glad you don’t want to know much, because I don’t really have answers. I don’t know who they are, why they’re after me, or how many of them are coming, but I do know that they’ll be here soon, likely at sunset.”

Sooner if the Wise Old Friend lets them, but from that dream it looks like the old tree’s on my side.

Craig silently took in the information, then turned to stare at one of the more worn down spears against the wall. “Then we’ll need to prepare while we can. Fortify the village, and ready what little we have by way of resources. It will be a hard fight, but we won’t go down without one.”

I locked up and stared at the old deer-man-general. “You mean you aren’t going to drive me out? I mean, I’ve only told you the necessities, what if I’m withholding something? Why would you–?”

He held up a hand, and smiled. “I’d like to think I’ve gotten a glimpse of your character over the last few days, and I’m confident you aren’t malicious and mean us no harm. Further, you’ve done us more than one great kindness too, so it would be selfish to leave you on your own. Lastly, you already explained why you didn’t bring this up sooner, though by the way you’ve been talking as if it’s now a certainty, I assume something’s changed and there’s no further doubt.”

I blinked. Dang… He read me like a book!

“But–.”

He chuckled softly. “You are far too kind to worry about us still. We’d all be dead already if you hadn't appeared in our moment of need, so let us repay you now that the trial is yours.”

I sighed, and allowed myself to accept that they were going to be a part of this no matter what I decide to do from here. And maybe that’s for the best. I thought up a few plans already, to change things for the better, for everyone. But which do I settle on? How do I keep everyone alive? Should I ambush them, and use guerilla tactics? Quickly go and set traps around the village? Or do I just go out to meet them, spells blazing, in an attempt to lead them away? The villagers will get involved no matter what I do, Craig’s made that clear, so how do I give them the best chance at survival?

“Anon? Are you alright?”

I looked Craig in the eyes and grinned. “Listen up, I’ve got a plan. This is what we’re going to do…”