Chaos and confusion reigned. Blinding and billowing clouds of dust filled the air. The screaming hadn’t stopped. In fact, it had only grown worse. People were running everywhere, Ashen and soldiers alike, emerging from the violent fog only to disappear a moment later as they tried to escape with their lives.

Theo was only aware of this at the basest level. He was aware of the noise, though it seemed he heard it at some great distance. He was aware that Klara and Siegfried were no longer at his side. Some part of him had the wherewithal enough to take a few sharp steps forward and break the grip of one or the other of them when the human foolishly tried to stop him. Not even Eisengrim, were circumstances different, could have stopped him from going to his fallen master now.

“Dietrich.”

The ground was uneven and treacherous. The air shook, and swirling dust made it hard to see. Even so, it could not hide their fallen forms from him. His legs carried him mechanically across the shattered ground. He found them both. He knelt, reaching out to touch the dirty, cooling face, and amid the death and the screams the years washed away. For just one single, vivid moment, the open eyes of the old man were alive and warm and his bloody mouth was curled into a sardonic smile. Theo had never believed. Dietrich had told his apprentice he would pray that this ignorance would stay with the bull for whole of his life. Theo had not understood.

The world quaked. Pounding feet rushed past him. Theo let out a sob, his hand covering the old man’s face. His vision was marred by dust and tears. There was no time. His master had tried to save Eisengrim, but they were both gone. Theo was cold, but his hands grew warm, and wet.

“Rahm.”

The name came all on its own. It was at once an exhalation, a cry, a spark to light the blaze.

Actions occurred without thought. Theo closed his master’s eyes. Hands finished the job Rahm’s arrow had started, shattering what was left of Dietrich’s shield and casting the pieces into the dirt. He pressed his hands tranquilly into the awful, seeping wound. He could not hear his heart beating any more and was only barely aware of his own breath. Theo had never wanted the life of the warriors of his clan, but he remembered their rituals all the same. Hands sticky with Dietrich’s blood came to his face, daubing his chocolate fur in barbarian’s war paint. He breathed in the death and the appalling pain, and held onto it. His fears were gone, as were his tears. Doubt was dead. Theo found himself in the grip of a calm and terrible resolve, the path known to him already. The war paint was an oath, perhaps the most sacred known to his people. He understood what he had to do. He would find Rahm, and either the archer would die, or Theo would. The young bull shut his eyes, breathing in the bitter smell of his teacher’s cooling blood. The oath was made, and the world could burn for all he cared.

Theo pulled himself to his feet. He took in the chaos, saw amid the dust the writhing, screaming ground and made towards it. Beyond the maw that had swallowed up everything, hiding in the dust of that awful act, his enemy waited for him. Theo took in Dietrich’s death scent once more, and vanished into tumult.

*

They pushed the horse as hard as they dared, racing through the cobbled streets as with reckless speed and no concern whatsoever for the covertness of their approach. Despite Janus’ assurances, Kurt feared that they would be heard, that from around some corner there would appear a mob of screaming fanatics that had heard their approach and were waiting for them, but nothing happened. The streets were as dead as the odd corpse they found swinging from a lamppost, or smouldering at a corner.

“Don’t think about it!” Janus snapped at one point, after the big man began to feel sick at the awful things that had been done to some of these people. “They’re dead! We don’t have time for that!”

The runner directed their mount through streets that Bauer had never seen before, passing a house with chalk markings which the runner had said he had hidden his horse in successfully the night before. This was where Kurt was certain they might stop, but he was wrong. Janus kept going, pushing their mount to its limit. Kurt’s knees were drenched from all the froth coming from the frightened beast’s flanks as the runner kicked it and pushed it on.

“It needs to rest!” Kurt yelled out.

“It can rest when we stop!” Janus yelled back.

“When are we doing that?”

“Soon, Bauer!” the runner replied, keeping his eyes to the right as they passed street after street. “I came this way when I was trying to get back to my horse! I’m going to take us to the opposite end of the big square where the soldiers are coming in. We’ll tie our horse up there, far away from where the fighting will happen, and come at the fight from the rear! Hopefully it’ll be far enough away that it will still be alive when we get back to it!”

“It’s a pity we don’t have a spare stone for the horse,” Kurt lamented.

“Is that you volunteering?”

“Fuck you, Janus!”

The runner threw his head back and laughed. Not only did this grab the increasingly panicked Bauer as a reckless move, but the laughter itself sounded almost demonic.

Kurt had no idea how far they had left to go, when there came a great crashing sound from the Temple District as they circled around to its far side through dead and deserted alleys. The ground itself shook briefly, and trash in the streets and the dead on the lampposts were caught up by a sudden blast of air that swept through in the aftershock of the violent quake.

“Shit!” Janus growled. “It’s started!”

The runner tugged tightly on the reins, drawing their terrified horse to a rough, sudden halt. The stallion panted, obviously restless and irritable despite its exhaustion and the burden it bore. Thick frothy sweat splattered from its flanks upon the ground as Janus swiftly dismounted, keeping a tight grip on the reins. He tried to soothe the animal as Kurt dismounted, patting its head.

Janus led, pulling the horse towards the direction of the tumult. Kurt followed with some reluctance in spite of his words earlier, his large axe clutched in a white knuckled grip. They hugged the wall of a broken building, and risked a glance around its uneven edge once they’d closed to within a block of the square. The Ashen were there, led by Volkard, gathered around the old entrance to the Temple of the Elves. Janus clearly had hoped that they could have arrived before the King’s men and the fighting broke out. Kurt had not known what to expect as he peered over the head of his companion, and strained his middle-aged eyes down towards the gap before them that led to where his son was being held. He had never seen a battle before, and had been quietly dreading the prospect. It had been hell enough to see all his friends being laid out back at the farm, dead but otherwise untouched. The very notion of seeing a sight such as that again, though with the corpses hewn apart or broken, leaking their lifeblood everywhere, was enough to make Bauer sick to his stomach.

What a relief it was for him then, to look out upon the tumult, and see nothing but a near impenetrable wall of swirling dust and noise. This seemed to please Janus too, given the smile that quickly crossed his face.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

“That will do us nicely, Kurt.”

Kurt nodded in agreement before he began to understand the terrible significance of his companion’s words. When the realisation hit, it was followed a by a chill that ran the length of his spine, as his belly grew tight and unsteady. Terror gripped him, but he remained where he was. His hand dove under his shirt, found the star stone hiding there and squeezed it. Martin was out there, waiting for him. He had lived a cowardly, quiet life, but that had to end. His little boy needed him.

Janus found a ruined wall that looked stronger than most and tethered their unwilling horse to it, assuring Kurt that the reins would hold the frightened beast. He checked his axe and knife, but cursed as he checked his arrows and realized he no longer had a bow to shoot them with. Kurt remained at the edge of the building where he could glance down into the square, where a terrible stream of screams and a great many people running could be heard distinctly from even here.

Janus came up to stand beside the man, then. They both looked down into the chaos that waited for them to join in.

“Last chance, Bauer,” the runner whispered to him. “You should stay here and wait. I’ll move faster on my own. I’ll bring your boy back.”

It was would be a lie to say that the offer did not tempt Kurt Bauer. He was not ready for this, and knew that he never could be. Janus would indeed move faster on his own, but that alone could not justify staying back here to wait. The idea of his friend going out there into that madness alone, risking his life to save Kurt’s boy, was too much for the man to bear. Martin was his son, and Janus was his friend. He could not abandon either of them now.

“Let’s just get this over with,” Bauer heard himself say.

The runner nodded, keeping his sharp eyes directed at the storm beyond. He drew a rope from his belt that was perhaps six feet in length. He tied off one end to his own belt, before looping a knot around the belt around Bauer’s own wide waist.

“Just making sure you don’t lose me,” the runner said with a wry grin and a slap to the gut.

“Thank you, Janus.”

“Save the thanks for when we’re back here and riding for the coast, human,” the runner replied, his tone urgent, and authoritative. “You stay quiet, now. I need you to be my shadow, and I need you to watch me as we move. Keep low, and for the love of whatever god you pray to, if you see people fighting, then you let them fight. We’re here for your boy, and nothing else. Understood?”

Kurt nodded. He held his axe tightly to his chest, feeling heavy and light headed all at once.

“Good. Let’s go!”

*

“Siegfried, come on! We have to finish this!”

Siegfried tried to pull away from Klara, tried to scream out for Theo to come back, but it was as if the young bull was off somewhere else, staggering towards their fallen friends. The prince wanted to chase after him, but Klara was right: there was no time.

Fuck!

“Come on!” the large woman screamed at him, clutching at his shoulder and trying to drag him forward again. The prince patted her hand, letting her know he was here, was with her now. He gave Theo one last, despairing look before he turned his attention to what lay out there, waiting. The two of them resumed their advance, keeping tight together, their shields interlocked as they tried to find their enemy, half blind from dust as they fumbled forward. They drew their swords.

The dust was so thick that it obscured their vision. It got into the gaps of their armour and through the eye and mouth slits of their helmets. After just a few steps Siegfried was cursing and coughing, and Klara was faring no better.

“How the fuck are we supposed to find him in this?” The prince yelled.

“He was directly in front of us,” Klara replied stubbornly. “We just have to keep going forward!”

“Are we even going forward?”

Klara would not answer. Siegfried did not press the issue. Truth be told, he had no idea what else they could do. As they staggered forward, he looked at the dust that filled the air about them. Should they wait for it to settle? How long would that even take? Another thought occurred then, and it made the prince feel cold and helpless. What if the dust never stopped swirling about them? What if this was what Volkard needed so many peoples’ lives to create?

Stop it. Stop it! Remember your duty!

Klara cried out, dragging Siegfried out of his thoughts. The prince felt the flat of her sword against his breastplate. He glanced at her, and followed her gaze down, lowering his shield to do so.

The solid stone that they had been walking across had ended, cut away in a ragged line, revealing a drop of half a foot into a ditch of dirt and broken stones. Siegfried was silent, for fear of urging that they flee. He wondered if it was that same fear that kept Klara silent, as they both awkwardly stepped down into the ditch. There could be no question of whether they were going in the correct direction now, at least.

A few feet across the soft, yielding ground they found the head of a spear, jutting skyward as if it were a steel-tipped tree. A discarded helmet lay half buried in the soil nearby. Siegfried looked to the right, trying to judge where the line of men they led might have been. He saw an arm sticking out of the dirt. He saw a naked leg not far beyond in the swirling chaos. He stared at the hand, watching the fingers. He stared at the foot, watching the toes for some sign that could prompt action in him, but there was none. They were still, and they were not alone, for the prince could not help but thinking of all the others trapped beneath them. Dozens of people, buried alive beneath the ground they now stood on. A coughing fit took a hold of Siegfried, and it was only with luck he was able to pull his helmet off before he began to retch. Dear God in heaven, all these people…

“Siegfried.”

The prince looked up, wiping the acidic bile from his mouth with the back his sword hand. Klara had continued without him, and was now a barely seen silhouette in the grey and brown dust storm that hung unnaturally in the air. The prince wiped the dust out of his eyes, scooped up his helmet and hurried to catch up, leaping over yet more half buried weapons and people and trying his best not to think about it. It was pointless. Death ruled here now.

Klara stood before a mound of bodies that rose thick and fast before the prince as if they were a cluster of rocks at sea in the fog. They were the Ashen, a good many of them, at least. They lay naked, their faces mercifully to the ground, arms stretching out towards the two still living people as if they were imploring for their help. The way they had fallen on top of one another reminded the prince of the way that wheat lay after having been scythed in the field. He wondered if he should be horrified by this sight, but he felt little compared to the horror of just a few moments ago when he realised the fate of their own men and even more of the Ashen. Was he becoming numb to this already?

“We have to find Volkard,” Klara said, staring down at the slain mass. “We have to stop him.”

“He has found you, child.”

The voice was deep, its tone mocking, cruel, and callous. If the concept of evil itself could have a voice, Siegfried could not have picked one better suited.

Klara had her sword and shield raised in an instant. She spun about, trying to discern where the voice had come from. She almost cleaved Siegfried’s head off when he hurried over to stand at her side, letting out a frightened cry before wordlessly they pressed their backs against each other and readied themselves.

Seconds crawled by. Siegfried fought to control his breathing even as his heart thundered in his chest like never before. He looked left, looked right, but there was nothing out there but the dust and the silhouettes of the dead that they soon might be joining.

He heard Klara gasp. She took a terrified step back that nearly bowled him over. The prince understood at once. He turned and was at her side in an instant, locking his shield with hers. It was shaking, or was the clattering sound his own shield vibrating violently against hers? The thought was forgotten as Siegfried now partook of the same fear that gripped her.

From the direction of the mounds of the dead had appeared a figure. It grew steadily larger as it approached. Siegfried swore he could hear bones snapping as it began stepping on its victims. Siegfried wanted to run, but his legs had stopped working. How could he hope to hide in the swirling chaos, given how hard his heart was beating? Surely by its beating alone he would be found.

Volkard towered over them, his ankles and half his shins disappearing as he pressed his colossal weight down into the mass of dead before them. The elven sword in his hand was enormous. His eyes burned and blazed with darkness.

“He has found you.”