Seeing the others did not slow the three of them at all. They understood their cover under the veil of night was blown. There was no hiding, especially with the two guards still on their tail.
Running past the alley opening, Asterion was only able to get a glimpse of the dark cooridor, trying to see where his grumpy captain was. There was nobody.
It wasn’t a thing he did out of the goodness of his heart. He needed the man to tell him what the hell they were going to do after they made it out of the gate.
Alas, with no idea, the only thing to do was to run with the group toward the approaching gate. The gate lay just ahead, no less imposing than the wall that it was inset upon.
The gate was forged of thick resilient metal, attached inside the wall itself through an unseen mechanism. It was nearly as durable as the stone bricks that made up the wall, but it did not have the unblemished quality that the stoney edifice held. There were chips and scratches covering the steel pillars inset into the massive wooden door.
Asterion shivered to think about what abominations could have made such deep scratches into mystical steel over the uncountable years Hope had endured.
But there was another reason he shivered. One much more important than the reverent curiousity of history.
The doors, which should have been opened, waiting for their escape, were completely shut. The wood and steel door was sealed, its surface impenetrable, sitting as if mocking anyone wanting passage. He had a feeling they would not be opening soon before he reached them.
‘It’s over…’ he thought, his mind numbing.
The shouts of the patrols still on their tails rang like a bell, warning those ahead of the prey they have in their sights. As he got closer, it was obvious who they were calling to.
Four guards, who sat at the foot of the doors oblivious to them immediately looked in their direction. Pulling the swords from their hips, they readied to meet the group of eight people rushing at them. It was obvious what they were readying. If the group running at them did not stop, they would stop them regardless at the cost of their lives…
‘Oh no.’
But what was there to do? Their captain was nowhere to be seen. The other party was missing, too. It was just them alone.
Just as the front of the group began hesitating, slowing from their sprint into a light jog, a shout rang out from one of the guards at the door, ferocity imbedded in his every word..
“Halt, or we will—“
The sound of his voice was cut off from a much heavier noise. The guard who spoke began to turn around, suddenly surprised.
Asterion’s eyes widened.
The gate, which was still and silent before, was now opening slowly, giving a vast deep rumble to the surrounding area. The three guards that sat behind the one shouting moved with immense speed, not showing any hesitation. Even before the guard turned around, two of them standing on either side swung their blades to cut down the first guard. One aimed high, at the neck and the other aimed low, toward the legs.
Even from twenty feet away, the ringing of metal on metal was clear as the blades pierced the man’s flesh, stopping only when they found the more durable chest plate the man wore on his back.
A streak of blood splatter shot onto the ground before the body, now lifeless, crumpled to the ground.
The three remaining guards moved aside as the group covered the distance, running through the gates with renewed speed.
Asterion couldn’t help but look at the body as he passed it. The hollow eyes of the dead man were frightening, with surprise frozen in the creases of his face.
It was obvious what just happened. The four guards were meant to protect the gateway, it was their duty. Honor and responsibility bound them to the task. They swore an oath to uphold the safety of the city of Hope, to enforce its laws.
It just happened that three of them were paid to look the other way… and the one that died couldn’t be bought. He felt bad for the man. The only one who upheld their duties was the one punished.
Well… he thought that was what happened, at least.
Passing the gate, one of the guards yelled to the other, chuckling.
“Where is Brandon? They have no idea where they’re going!”
‘… These men are Pathfinders.’
The pathfinders seemed to possess more power than Asterion initially thought. Their influence was deep enough to integrate themselves as guards, which was a stunning realization. Aaron said the group was growing slowly, but to be so influential as to be bold enough to murder a soldier just to let eight people leave hope unabated was incredibly jarring.
They were more than willing to kill for each other.
Glancing back at the gate, the three soldiers began running with them, slower as they were weighed down by their armors. Asterion nearly tripped while looking back when a sudden dip in the terrain threw his vision back forward.
The sight that was ahead was terrifying.
In all of Asterion’s life, he never thought he would see what lay outside the high walls of Hope. They were what kept him safe from the dangerous creatures that were known to inhabit the strange realm humanity had been thrust into. But… the strange realm also resembled Earth, a lot.
At least that’s what the older generations have said their parents told them about outside the walls. He had never seen Earth, and there wasn’t many pictures of Earth still around after three centuries. He was inclined to believe it was true though. There wasn’t really reason to lie.
So, after nothing but Hope’s stone grey color and its various tone forms covering most surfaces, such as walkways and foundational buildings, he was totally unprepared to witness the dreadful wild landscape. It was unlike anything he had ever seen.
Lit only by the dim radiance of the full moon and its cocophany of stars set in the black sky, the horizon was… clearly not flat. It was very difficult to see the land’s distant physical features, since everything was various shades of gray, but it was apparent that the shaded horizon rose and dipped against the pitch black backdrop.
‘Is that… a mountain?’ Asterion’s mind wandered.
The landscape he was focusing on was so distant as to be unimaginable. Hope was large, taking hours to reach its other end by foot, but even in the dark he could see that reaching the footholds of the rising ground would put the size of Hope to shame.
‘Is this how big the world is?’ He thought, more seriously.
It felt as if his own mind could not comprehend the size of the world he had lived in all this time.
The others were surprised, too. Their rushed escape slowing to admire the sight before them. Just as the group ahead stopped completely, Asterion was already still.
‘Wow.’
Below his feet, were three massive stepped stairs that led up to the short platform where the gate was. The ground beyond was, of course, colorless in the dark. Closer, pieces of ground rose and fell like smaller mountains, forming what he thought may have been ‘dunes’, and obscuring what was behind them. What surprised Asterion most, though, was that he could make out in the moonlight a shade of green. In fact, most of the land was covered in it.
It was… massive.
It was… beautiful.
It was… terrifying.
There was no place he had easy line of sight, hidden by the small dunes, and hindered by the darkness of night. There could be anything behind them, or even something in front of them that he just didn’t notice yet.
‘Beasts inhabit the wilderness.’ He thought, fearfully.
The three guards ran past the recruits, yelling to continue moving.
“We aren’t far enough yet. Your commander should be ahead!”
It seemed Bellarus and the others made it through.
The journey afterward was both calmer and infinitely more harrowing. There was no more full sprinting, but they continued on with a faster than walking pace, moving with purpose. Fear plagued the group. It was the first time being outside the safety of the walls for everyone.
In the end, nothing happened. Their journey continued unimpeded, finding Bellarus and the others around a small fire they set up when his group was taking too long.
Brandon even showed up, a little while later, somehow even more grumpy than usual. Shocked surprise littered everyone’s faces except Bellarus and the three soldiers when he appeared out of the shadows with a sword in hand. He didnt speak to anyone, only giving a strange tired expression to Bellarus and facing the fire. The man was drenched in blood, wiping it off his blade with a cloth, clearly having fought a devastating battle along the way, since it didn’t look to Asterion to be his own.
‘More than one murder, just to get us out.’ The sick thought dwelled in Asterion’s mind, festering.
Bellarus glanced at him momentarily, but said nothing before turning away. Then, he spoke to the group as the campfire’s flames flickered.
“You all did good. We’re far out enough that they won’t follow us. Now, I know this has been hard, and that many of you are scared.” He paused, “The journey ahead will be perilous, but for now we need to find proper shelter. I know of a ruins not far from here. We will sleep there till morning.”
With that, the group — now much larger, set out guided by Bellarus.
Along the journey, Asterion kept a watchful eye out for any slight movements or subtle noises from the shadows. It wasn’t as bad as when they were sneaking through Hope, but it was present. He was much more at ease with the fuller company, since now five of the group had weapons — six if you assume Bellarus. But another thought was intruding upon his mind at the moment.
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‘Ah… this is exhausting.’
Walking the slopes and hills of the wilds, complete with the sandier dirt was much more strenuous than the hard paths of the city streets he was used to.
Still, all was not bad. He was now a Pathfinder now. He would get used to it. He would learn to thrive, even. It wasn’t the worst it could be.
‘I could be getting mauled right now.’ He grinned, a sadistic smirk etching into his face.
Dark humor was the best way to help cope with harsh realities…
It wasn’t very long before they reached Bellarus’s destination. Overcoming a small hill, the group stopped and looked down at a ruined building.
‘It almost looks like a church?’
Asterion knew churches well. Religion was one thing that had survived the great exodus of Earth. Asterion had never been a religious person, but he appreciated the good they did. They had helped feed him over the years, after all.
Granted, this one was a bit deteriorated and missing a good chunk of its potholed roof, from the looks of it. The walls looked pained and worn out compared to the pristine structures in Hope, but it held the same characteristics of most.
Its walls defined its shape, forming a more elongated building, like a ‘T’, with a sloped roof. The building sat at two to three floors tall, with its arching windows above the empty doorway, and stretching across the side of the entire wall before hitting the buildings intersection. Unfortunately, those windows — most of them at least, lay in remnants scattered across the floor of the small platform that surrounded the once opulent structure.
The ruins were built of bricks, but using a stone he had never seen before. It wasn’t the mystical and durable stone that Hope was built of — it would be unblemished if it was — but that of a brownish-red variety.
Still, the sinking lean the structure imposed to the side spoke to its heritage. It was damaged. It’s roof was heavily potholed with a large chunk visibly gone. It was ruined.
Bellarus was the first to walk onto the platform, followed by the other armed people, with Asterion and the rest just behind. The door lay broken in splinters on the ground near the doorway.
Asterion looked at the shattered remnants.
‘Uh… what did that?’
Bellarus stopped in the doorway, silence enveloping the group as everyone looked at the same door. Then, a knocking noise emitted from the ground.
Bellarus started stomping the wooden debris.
Asterion’s heart dropped at the sudden noise within the eerie silence, but nothing happened. The silence remained.
“Seems to be empty.” Bellarus said.
With that, the group moved inside. The inside was no less deteriorated from the outside. The moonlight reached the deepest parts of the long gathering hall, entering through the empty windows. The whole place was covered in useless debris.
Asterion noticed a small detail on one of the pieces of debris. On a piece of wooden furniture, too damaged to tell what it was — a bench, maybe, was what vaguely looked like scratch marks.
It looked like something intentionally broke the furniture in some harrowing battle, scratching the wood in the process. It was a little obvious, in his head since the place was obliterated, and time usually wasn’t so literally destructive.
Alas, the place was empty. Bellarus and Brandon had done a quick sweep of the structure, ensuring its emptiness before returning back to the group. With open air entering through the broken windows and door, they started a fire inside the stone bricked structure.
Gathering twenty people around a fire is tuff, but everyone made sure to give the fire enough space to breath while feeling its radiating warmth. Asterion had sat down on the cold floor, feeling more exhausted than ever. His frail body had endured a lot in the last couple hours and now he was paying for it.
‘Ah. That hurts.’
The feeling seemed mutual around the fire. The night was now early morning, and nobody wanted to fall asleep at the wrong time, lest they need to be awake. One of the guards spoke, his words a shining light in the literal darkness around them.
“You guys can rest. We will take first watch.” He said, pointing to himself and the other two of the guards.
So, most chose to take that opportunity and run with it. Figuratively, of course — they had no more energy to actually run.
Asterion, had a bit to think about, choosing to settle his mind instead. Looking around, most had fallen asleep already, their bodies strewn across the floor of the long room in their makeshift beds consisting of whatever they could find that was soft, or just cleared debris to make it not too uncomfortable.
Looking back at the fire, he refocused on what he wanted to reflect about, something that had been on his mind for a bit now.
‘I just watched someone get murdered…’
The thought was… unsettling. He knew death, it was inevitable. He knew of people he thought deserved to die. Or at least hoped they did.
But it was a whole different thing to be part of it.
‘He was just doing his job…’ he thought, sorrowful.
He imagined what the man’s family would have been like after they learned of their…
He cut off the thought. A tear began to form in his eye, anger fighting against his morals.
He understood the man didn’t deserve to die. He was just doing his job, protecting the city from what lay beyond the walls. A noble profession... actually.
What weighed even heavier on his mind than watching his death… than imagining his families reaction to their loss, was imagining the man’s thoughts, instead.
It was dark, but Asterion knew the man must have trusted the very people who cut him down like an animal… the surprise to the gate opening, and his sudden turnaround was proof of it.
He trusted them to have his back, like he had theirs. Instead, they used his trust to push a blade through him.
Asterion sighed heavily, fighting his emotions. He tried to rationalize the act. That the poor man’s death bought his own freedom, along with the freedom of everyone present… but it didn’t wipe away the stain of the act.
“Stop. It won’t help thinking about it.” An audible whisper resounded across the campfire.
It was Bellarus. Apparently he was awake, as well.
Asterion couldn’t help but scoff, “And what? Forget that a man had to die for us to, what, sleep in these eerie ruins? What mission is so important that lives don’t matter?”
Silence.
He let out a sigh. There was no point in picking a fight, he told himself.
Then, Bellarus responded. “The mission of the pathfinders is to secure a path for a greater humanity. Our methods may sometimes be harsh and unsettling, but in the end… people benefit. Tell yourself that now, because when it’s time you need to wield the blade that cuts down someone, you can’t hesitate, or you fail everybody.”
He stopped, gathering his waned breath.
“That man died because of what he fought for, not who he was. He wasn’t there when my group crossed through, and he wasn’t meant to be there at all. We have planned this for a while now. We planned around having to do that. Unfortunately, he wasn’t receptive to the suggestions to leave and continue his patrol. He was noble, sure. He was a good soldier.”
He paused again, this time conteplating, before continuing.
“But he got in the way, and became a problem. You’re lucky those three out there on watch were there, because the consequences of being caught would be bad. Pathfinders aren’t exactly welcome in Hope as much as you think. You wouldn’t be imprisoned, you would be tortured and executed.” He finished.
Asterion’s mood was dark, but hearing that last part was a bit shocking.
‘Tortured?’
Bellarus nodded.
“We are our own government. The royal family plays nice in the light with the people, but we are a form of rebellion to them. We show people they don’t have to be subjegated by them. We resist their attempts to have us join their ranks. We live outside of their control, mostly at least. Worse, for them, we accept people like you, and grow stronger as a result.”
The conversation left Asterion feeling conflicted. His oath wasn’t in question, he was still and forever, a pathfinder. But his morals were…
That was a much harsher battle.
The wake of inner turmoil was trecherous enough to tire one mentally. He was already physically tired enough. It all ate ate him.
He was finally ready to sleep.
Bellarus, obviously knowing this didn’t say anything else, concealed by the flames of the campfire, their conversation left Asterion hollow.
Shoving aside the debris that surrounded him, he made himself a makeshift rest area. It wasn’t comfortable, not nearly worthy of being called even a bed. But it was better than sleeping on shards of wood and chips of stone.
Laying there for a while, his consciousness slowly faded into a black, his eyelids mirroring the cover of night, and began giving way for a restful slumber.
He stayed like that, in a state of limbo for an unknown length…
Until he was jolted from sleep by the unmistakable sound of a distant war cry, followed by something large hitting the wall of the ruin outside, shaking the structure and shifting dust to rain down from the ceiling on everybody.