“How are you content with this?” Raddeus said, his long arms pressing against the ground, but not quite having reached the bulk of a mature Homid. They patrolled through the slums outside of Homewell, less to discover trouble than to be a public face of security, reassuring all the Lizakh and Homids and assorted other races that fled to Homewell that they were being protected. “Relations have been good due to the general sense of revelry, but as soon as the war starts back up again, we will once more be the ones bleeding on the frontlines. We will bear the lion’s share of the cost for protecting the city.”

The sun felt warm against Moish’s skin. Nearby, he spotted a Lizakh child in a ditch, his body covered in mud with some sticks artfully attached at the head. He shifted his burden to the crook of his left leg and raised the other of his slender legs hanging down from the base of his torso and rubbed his eyes. “I really don’t want to talk about this. Not while we are working.”

“Unwillingness to talk has caused our people no end of hardship.” Raddeus’s lip curled upward. “We cannot remain content with scraps. What sort of future are we leaving for our children, camping in filth outside of the true city? We need-”

“To deliver your daughter’s science project.” Moish lifted the small plant. Its thin stem swayed, just from the movement. Tiny green leaves fluttered. With the proximity to the badlands, it was difficult to find genuine plant life outside of the cloistered gardens of the upper-class.

Pride and frustration warred on Raddeus’s face. Perhaps a few weeks ago, pride would have won. But now, his brow creased and his mouth settled into a frown; witnessing the difference in the holiday celebration between the Turtlelines and everyone else had been the last straw. “Silence is consent when dealing with a regime like this. So we need to speak up and gather. A revolution, one that puts the Homid’s and Lizakh on equal footing with the Turtlelines.”

“It’s their city,” Moish responded quietly. The duo strode past a wooden shack owned by a feathered serpent that considered itself an architect; while most of the rest of the lodgings in the slums were single story, this one stacked itself up to a precarious three. The walls were slanted up on the upper floors, but it bulged outward like a growth on the skin. Threadbare laundry fluttered from the top floor. “They built it. They did not seek us out, we came to them, seeking a better life.”

“So they are excused for never looking at us with respect because they were here first?” Raddeus responded.

Moish couldn’t help but sigh, acutely feeling his age. Right now, the truth is the Turtlelines don’t even think of us, no matter how we cluster around them. What you speak of, revolution, a unification of the immigrants into a voting block… that will get their attention. And I do not think their first thoughts will be friendly.

Before he could figure out how to articulate this complex fear to the younger Homid who didn’t quite remember their people’s tortured history in the badlands, someone dimmed the light. As though the sun were a torch that someone could stand in front of to cast a shadow.

Both Homids looked up and saw a tidal wave of Nether clouds, crackling and heavy.

Belatedly, the alarm began to ring from the heart of Homewell. The Lifeseal swelled in power and presence, to the point that even Moish could feel the energy humming against his skin. But so far from the walls, the effect was weak.

“The far outpost. Now,” Moish whispered. Both burst into their fastest run, the younger Homid steadily pulling ahead with his longer and less bulky arms. As Moish looked at Raddeus’s back, he found himself very aware of the small, fragile potted plant in his arms. He considered tossing it to the side. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

They streaked past heavy-eyed beast people, stepping outside of their shelters and looking up to spot the impending Nether doom that had arrived at Homewell. Children began to cry, not understanding what had happened but knowing it wasn’t good. Meanwhile, those of Moish’s generation seemed to visibly age, growing brittle with familiarity to the suddenness that the world could turn.

Yet they were also the ones who turned on their heel, walked back into their houses, then headed out with old weapons to also head for the far outpost.

Moish quickly began to hear the sound of his heart struggling in his ears. The veins of his arms pulsed uneasily with each beat, struggling to get the blood where it needed to go; his people were designed for sprints, not for long distances. Yet he bit his lip, clutched the plant, and continued forward.

The wind of the Nether storm felt unnaturally cool against his skin, sending prickles up and down his limbs.

Homewell sat at the Eastern edge of the Badlands, a jailer and an oasis. The eastern entrance to Homewell was heavily guarded and patrolled, kept clear of any of the slum sheltered due to concerns the non-Turtlelines presence ‘negatively impacted trade’. So much of the refugees had crowded around the North and South portions of the city, creating massive and labyrinthine passages.

At some point, crowding and desperation made some of the new arrivals consider the more dangerous, but unclaimed west of Homewell, squeezed between civilization and the Badlands. In the mornings, huge storms of dust blew in, coating everything in a coppery brown caking of grime. To find safe drinking water, you needed to walk all the way to the North or South parts of the slums, to Homewell-approved wells.

However, to refugees, long walks and dirt were not too onerous a burden if it meant drawing a square in the dirt that would be your new home.

The Far Outpost was one of the few times that Homewell had agreed to send resources to the slums. Monsters had been wandering out of the wastes and slaughtering refugees at night due to the lack of defenses. Of course, they had extracted a pointed concession from the other races: the Far Outpost would be manned only by ‘only those soldiers not serving in an official capacity of the Homewell Guard’. Which meant it was those of the slums that protected the city’s edge.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Moish thundered around a slightly sunken dwelling where a Homid mother urged her two children into shelter and could finally see out to the West. The modest but well-built fort had been made with heavy stone, along the edge of an embankment along an old creakbed that Moish and other Homid elders had worked nights after patrol shifts for weeks to dig. And beyond that-

“We are going to die,” Raddeus slowed to a stop, his expression bleak. Moish slapped him on the back as he rushed past, wheezing and almost out of control with the momentum he had built up.

The churn columns of Nether forces had already burst out of the dust clouds, meaning they were only a few minutes away from hitting their defenses. Already, the ghastly sounds of the Nether Warriors' howls and cackling laughter sounded through the borderlands. Just from the vanguard, almost ten thousand Nether Warriors manifested.

Based on the clouds above, this was only the beginning.

Moish’s arms trembled as he reached the base of the stone steps to climb to the battlements. Some part of him wanted to remain in the shadow of the heavy building, shielded from the evidence of the threats. His chest felt strangely hot, somewhere between anxiety and a struggling cardiovascular system and a spinning head. Yet he forced himself to climb the stairs, hoping he would pass a convenient location to drop the plant. A slender sprout like this would be flattened just from the winds of the coming storm.

At the top, the unofficial Lizakh leader regarded his younger counterpart stoically. The younger Lizakh, a veritable Raddeus in terms of restlessness, spoke quickly. “We need to begin the evacuation immediately if we want to get the people to safely.”

“Retreating would be a waste of time,” The leader responded. He glanced sideways and nodded to Moish in acknowledgment while he struggled to control his breath. “They will arrive too fast. Honestly, any sort of our defensive groupings won’t be assembled in time.”

The other Lizakh’s eyes went white. If he had skin instead of scales, he likely would have gone quite pale. “Then…? At the very least, the population-”

"Did you see the size of the army?" Another young Lizakh warrior scratched at his neck in agitation. "Even if we cleared out some of the homes, there simply isn't enough space in the slum to evacuate."

"So we make a path," A Homid woman chimed in.

More of the younger, volatile soldiers climbed to the high point of the fort, gesturing at the oncoming attack and shouting loudly about the danger. Each had half an idea for how they could respond and turn the situation around and vocalized their opinion until the fort became an inaudible chattering. Moish walked to the edge of the parapet and looked down. Already, the older generation flowed to the embankment, taking up defensive positions.

The difference between us is how often we’ve felt like the blow was about to fall in the past. Sometimes, you cannot prepare perfectly. But you try to survive anyway. Moish felt exhausted, but he turned and left the viewing point to join the line. The Lizakh leader came with him, the two quietly shouldering their way through the press of bodies.

The ground-shaking rumble of the Nether offensive began to shake through the fort. The cold Nether wind seemed to suck away all joy and life from the air, even if it left Moish incredibly sweaty.

Lines of bodies walked down around the fort and taking up positions right outside the embankment. Almost belatedly, the bells of Homewell shifted from a constant alarm to more focused orders for the soldiers: proceed to your post, wait for further orders. What followed then was a complicated follow-up ringing as the Turtelines called for a full evacuation of certain areas. Moish didn’t know the combinations of chimes as well as he should, but it seemed the areas of the city interior around the West wall were being cleared.

Although, partially it was just the noise of the Nether drowning everything out.

It was only when Moish made it to his position, squinting to keep his eyes from filling up with dust, that he realized he still held the small plant for Raddeus’s daughter's science project. His heart felt strangely hot as he clung onto it. He knew it was silly, but he couldn’t bring himself to put it down.

“Every second counts,” The Lizakh leader remarked to no one in particular. They were a line of old soldiers, their bodies working like clockwork to bring them here, so they wouldn’t fail the civilians behind them. The first wave of the Nether Warriors got over the final hill, breaking into an uneven horde as they rushed down the slope toward the embankment.

“Every second is a chance,” Another soldier agreed. Everyone nodded.

The blood thundered in Moish’s ears as the sound of footsteps, the war cries of the Nether Warriors, and the wind merged into a living beast. He felt like he was being squashed beneath the monster of the conflict, his body pressured until blood was about to rupture out of his mucous membranes.

He saw a Nether Warrior only ten meters away, hitting the dried riverbed and bounding forward, its bestial fangs flashing. He could see the veins of the beast's legs, the bulging bunches of muscles as the opponent prepared to bound forward.

While Moish braced himself for battle, some of the warmth he had been ignoring in his chest trickled down into the small plant he clutched to his side. Several minute symbols flared to life and danced across the slender stalk. The leaves swayed, motes of golden dust twinkling across their green surface.

Unseen, the roots within the small pot thickened and curled, pressing up against the bottom. The bestial Nether Warrior had a long rope of saliva dripping out of its mouth as it crossed the last stretch of distance. Once more, the muscles of its legs bunched as it threw its body up over the small wall of the embankment.

With his heart pounding in his ears, Moish tightened his grip on his weapon. He felt so, so afraid. In fact he held two fears within his chest. But his self-preservation was the smaller of the fears and stepped gracefully to the side for the other. He could not stand aside, not while the younger generation still bickered and figured out the best way to evacuate. They needed time.

The thought that the next generation's time had run out left him shivering. So Moish prepared to fight and likely die.

Maybe that's why I can't let go of this plant. Moish began to hyperventilate. There were so many Nether Warriors, the density of their energy made the air difficult to breathe. Because it reminds me why I'm fighting. I cannot afford to forget.

Every second counts. And I think I can buy more than a single second.

His jaw clenched. There seemed to just be a tide of blurred bodies, rushing and leaping and they were about to arrive-

The pot in his legs cracked. A small root slithered down and into the ground.

A massive, thorny root erupted around the ground and speared the first Nether Warrior in the gut.