by Thomas Green
Merewen shrugged. “I probably mistook it for another and tossed it into the abyss.”
“That spear is a priceless artifact, one of the most potent weapons in the world and the best spear in existence.”
Merewen smiled. “A demonic artifact, I know. Then again, as far as I am aware, your manifestation works fine with any weapon made of a single piece of metal. The Order’s smiths can make you as many new spears as you desire.”
I should have you both whipped till you can’t walk. Lucas sighed. But I need someone to command the army.
Victory shone in Merewen’s eyes. “You have to take better care of your stuff, for accidents do happen, especially to things that originate from demons.”
“Yeeeaaa…. You should be careful with your spears, else you might soon have nothing left to polish,” Miranda added.
Merewen leaned to him. “Not that I would want to underestimate your spear, but be wary around the monster girl, what was her name, Luna? One wrong move can leave you spearless.”
He forced out a smile. “Awfully worried, aren’t you?”
She giggled. “Of course, we are. We have a long and hard campaign ahead… we can’t have you roam through the camps spearless, can we? You would be so boring like that.”
Miranda chuckled. “I mean, what will we do when things get hot and wet? Nights in the military tents tend to be sooo boring sometimes—”
“You know what?” Lucas said in a tone that offered no space for resistance. “I’ve had enough of this. Miranda, you get a month of latrine duty while Merewen will get a month of stable duty. I believe cleaning other’s shit will help you with the long nights in military tents.”
He spun on his heel and left, leaving behind his frozen generals.
***
Lucas continued his journey through the barracks, noticing a half-open door and sounds of rustling feet echoing from the infirmary. By the reports, they had zero killed, zero maimed and zero incapacitated, so that place should have been empty. He entered and saw two healers working on Luna, tracing arcane symbols around her scar-covered body with their fingers. She lay on the makeshift bed, dug within duvets, looking like a pile of misery.
Lucas stepped to them and dismissed the healers with a wave of his hand. Luna formed an awkward smile, her face light blue, lips indigo, clear signs of the backlash from overusing aether.
He waited until they were alone in the room before he pinned her down with a cold glare. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Luna gulped. “Ehhh… surviving?”
“What stops you from doing that in your cell?”
Her eyes darted around as if looking for a way to escape. There was none. “There are no healers there to keep me alive.”
“The report said you were backlashed and lightly wounded.”
Her gaze sharpened. “Lightly wounded? I had a hole the size of a mug pierced through me!”
Lucas smiled. “The reports are filed here at the barracks, so you had regenerated before you were brought here.”
She ran her hand through her hair. “Errr…”
“Well?”
“This place has way better food! And it’s warmer! Plus, what’s the harm in me taking a few days off?”
He kept his face cold and firm. “You aren’t supposed to be connectable to the Order, so being around our infrastructure foils that, doesn’t it?”
Luna’s eyes widened. “… maybe a little.”
“Stay until the night, then piss off back to the arena and make sure nobody sees you leave from here. Your next mission is in Cinderwell where I will need an up-to-date map of the mines and to kill someone. Draw the map yourself if necessary.”
“Okay, sure.” Luna’s face relaxed into a smile. “But I’m bad at drawing.”
“Then you better steal one. I will specify the kill later.” Lucas sat on the bed near her and made a jar appear in his hand.
Luna arched an eyebrow. “This is the point where I expected you to disappear.”
He measured her with a calm look. Eyes wide, covered by sweat, trembling fingers, shallow breath… she looked like she would collapse at any second.
He ran his hand through his hair. She’s not ready for this, and she will fall apart if someone doesn’t give her a resolution soon. His memory flashed through his mind, reminding him of all the times he had conversations like this. All the moments when he helped others in similar situations were hazy, distant as if it wasn’t him.
Lucas closed his eyes for but a second to refocus. Can I find the words that would give her closure? I used to do it with ease.
He focused and twisted his expression into a callous, haughty smile as he turned to her. “If you think you could have done something differently to save the people inside the cavern, you are wrong. I was planning to burn the place down before we even met.”
Luna stared at him, petrified.
He smirked. “What? You think you had an impact on what happened? Don’t get too full of yourself, girl, because you are but a pawn in my hand, one I play with as I please.”
She huddled against her knees and exploded into tears.
Lucas kept drinking until she calmed down enough to speak.
“But… there were… innocents.” Luna tried to calm down her weeping without success, her voice stuttering. “Hundreds of innocent people.”
“And you wanted to help them. Noble, I know, but irrelevant, for the decisions aren’t yours to take. By my command, the Order would have killed everyone stained by demonic essence, anyway. Even if you somehow took the people, upon whom they experimented outside, I would have hunted and killed them myself. There was nothing you could have done to save them.”
With concealed satisfaction, he watched Luna’s soul calm down as the cold finality of his words created the wall that ended the mission, allowing her to place all her blame on him.
She whispered. “Thank you.”
Good. Lucas sat there calmly, drinking from his jug as the cheap wine tasted better than ever. Blame me for everything, hate me for what I had made you do, live on knowing the word monster is reserved for the likes of me, not you.
Luna wiped her tears from her face and measured him with a long look. “Why are you doing this, anyway? What’s the Order’s deal with the slavers?”
He shrugged. “The Order has decided to put a sword behind its preaching, especially about the part of everyone deserving to live in freedom. I am that sword. From the people you had met, the tall woman in spikes-covered armor is Merewen, the Order’s army general. She’s the second in command, answering only to the great general himself. Since I’m hard to find, go to her if you ever need something.” Lucas finished the contents of the jug. “Unless you need moral support, for that, visit a local priest. The Order’s army doesn’t deal in the spiritual.”
Luna clenched her fists, apparently trying to sound as calm as she could. “For how long do you plan to hold me by the tail?”
“Until the tournament is over. I will consider our arrangement finished afterward and let you go free.”
“Alright.” She smiled. “Also, would you happen to have more of the demon meat? Because Cinderwell is three weeks of traveling away so I would have to eat some people if I’ve got nothing else.”
Lucas nodded. “I will deliver it to your room. We will stop meeting in person from now on. When you have something to report, focus on a symbol of Palai before falling asleep and say aloud for my battle ends at dawn, the last dawn of my soul, the dawn of the thousand suns. I will visit you through the Limbo in the night you do that. Also, it helps to draw the symbol since that makes it easier to visualize it.” He peered out of the window and soulstepped away into the courtyard, disappearing from her line of vision.
Hidden from sight, Lucas visited her cell within the arena complex and dumped a massive pile of demon meat onto the floor. Later, he checked on her and was pleased to see her sneak out of the barracks all the way back to the arena, her doubts gone. He smile
d to himself. I can still do it.
20
Luna
The trip to Cinderwell was every bit as dull as the one to Grimdawn. Since they needed to avoid the Endless Lake, they traveled through the Desolation of Samsuuna. Luna heard the story for dozens of times. The legend of how the Dreadwolf, the champion of the Forsaken Prince, slew the dragon queen while destroying the entire region in the process always sounded like a fairy tale. Yet now, she gazed upon the hundreds of miles of barren wastelands, a land so dead no life sprouted in these lands in over a hundred and fifty years. For the first time, she realized the extinction of dragons that happened during The Upheaval may not have been as natural as history taught.
They spent weeks at the road, stuck between the convoys of the tournament fans moving between the cities. Upon his own request, Raven sat inside his cage covered by a black cloth.
Luna traveled atop the wagon carrying him, doing every muscle practice she could think of. The lack of space forced her to be creative, but she still ended up doing mostly push-ups with her legs in the air and single-leg squats.
To exercise managed to keep her occupied only for so much though, so she was bored to tears long before the view of Cinderwell opened before them.
On the horizon, the mountain against which the city was built towered like a broken stump. The city of Cinderwell lay spread all over the cliffs, like rot devouring an old tooth. Walls encircled houses in multiple layers, each more chaotic than the previous, a result of the city’s rapid growth.
The land around the town was torn and lifeless, unable to cope with the sheer mass of people living within the layered fortifications. What caught Luna’s attention was a makeshift house by the road. It bore the symbol of Cinderwell, a pickaxe crossed with a sword and stood surrounded by heavily armored soldiers bearing the same mark. The guardsmen were checking the passing convoys, wagon by wagon, person by person.
Luna threw them a bored glance as they checked their convoy. Their checkup was fast and painless, courtesy to Prince Stallington’s waning patience. She caught bits of the conversation between the guards and the prince. Apparently, there was a recent slave uprising within the city, making its entire districts a war zone where the guard was trying to capture the escaped slaves.
Yet nothing appeared like a battlefield. Sure, armed men were swarming all over it while most city streets contained barricades and outposts, but there was no scent of blood in the air. Luna gave the uniforms of the soldiers a closer look and realized only a small fraction of them bore the symbol of Cinderwell. The rest wore the crest of the Slaver Union, a dove with spread wings. They faked the uprising to have a reason to stop any Palai soldiers and agents from entering the city, haven’t they?
The local arena was carved into the mountain, hiding most of its size out of sight. The network of cells and corridors spread through it like paths of an ant colony. She and Raven shared a cell, the only one equipped with actual beds as a favor from Prince Stallington.
She spent the rest of the day practicing with Raven, who needed to regain feeling into the limbs stiffened by the weeks of sitting in a cage. Yet at night, Luna only faked falling asleep. Once she Raven’s snoring thundered through the air, she crept out of her bed, donned her black brigandine, and headed into the arena complex.
It didn’t take her long to find where it blended into the mines. The massive maze of tunnels and caverns was impossible to miss. First were the empty halls and corridors of the areas long mined out. Even now, deep at night, workers were swarming through the place, constructing iron tribunes for the upcoming matches. Since only lone oil lamps were present to banish the shadows, she snuck through without effort.
Luna sniffed and caught the stench of misery she sought. While the scent of sweat was almost universal among humans, the sweat of slaves, who never washed, was easy to tell apart from that of the workers.
Luna followed the trail and soon stumbled upon a guarded gate built within the cavern’s tunnel. A wooden plaque was nailed by the side, reading Cinderwell Slave Camp. Amused by the subtlety, she latched onto the wall.
Through her fingerless gloves, she extended her fingers into vicious claws. The cracked walls of the mines offered more than the sufficient amount of spots to allow a swift climb. She ascended by its side until she reached the ceiling. Slowly and carefully, Luna advanced through the darkness, crossing above the guarded gate. Her muscles burned and screamed by the time she was sure she was far enough from the guards and descended into the tunnels. I doubt anyone other than the overseer has the map. But how do I find him?
Luna roamed through the mines, sniffing with every step. The slaves were long asleep, and the few guards left holding sentry were slacking at best, sleeping at worst. The slave uprising was the worst nonsense she had ever heard. This place looked like it hadn’t seen an escape attempt in months. She had yet to meet a single guard paying attention.
Her nose caught the scent of wine. Luna grinned and ducked not to lose the trail. She advanced through the tunnels, following the line only she could follow. She lost count of her steps, so she at least tried to remember the turnings of the corridors. A dim-lit cavern filled with stone houses opened before her.
She prowled toward the buildings, hiding within the darkest of shadows. The best-decorated house soon towered before her. Luna slid by its wall and reached for the window that was closed and locked. She continued, checking everything that looked like it could be opened. An unbarred window presented itself to her at the other side of the house. She gripped the parapet and swung herself inside without making a sound, leaving no trace. The bowels of the building were made of smooth stone and iron furniture. In the dim light of the oil lamp burning outside, she saw tables, chairs, and cabinets.
She kicked something small. It tumbled across the room, clinging. Shit!
Grunts soon echoed from the hallway by the side. Luna reached for the wardrobe, opened its door and hid inside between the hanging slaver uniforms.
“I’m sure it’s nothing, dear,” a gentle female voice said from outside.
“I will go check on Miriam,” a rough male voice said. “She might be having nightmares, again.”
The sound of thudding steps and the scent of a middle-aged man filled the air. He stomped through the room where she was hiding and entered another one, but then came back a few minutes later.
He returned to his bed. “She’s sleeping like an angel, so I guess it was her toy falling from the table.”
“It was nothing, see?”
“I know, wife, I know…” the man said and paused. “I’m just anxious with the tournament coming here and all, sorry.”
“It’s alright,” the woman said.
The voices ceased.
She waited until his snoring echoed through the air before she left the wardrobe. This time, she made sure not to kick anything as she roamed through the house. In the next room lay a little girl, tucked within the blankets. Luna kept searching until she found an office with a robust table, multiple chairs, and stacks of papers. The dim light did not allow her to see much, but her eyes soon fixed upon a large, marks-covered map pinned on the wall.
Luna smiled and stepped to it. With a few swift moves, she pried the map free and rolled it up. A few moments later, she found a satchel that she fastened to her back. She put the map into it and left the house through a window she unlocked.
She snuck out of the house, returning to the central tunnel. As she did, she saw two guards dragging a screaming girl, not yet out of her teens, by her chains. She hid in the shadows, watching them. The gallows were their destination. Luna sighed and turned.
‘Not going to save her?’ the beast inside whispered the question into her mind. ‘I know you want to.’
The same way I saved Addie? She will die no matter what I do… like always. Just like Yala, the farmers, and Addie.
‘Come on, I can feel you want to try.’
Her heart sunk into her stomach. I do… I really do, but I would fai
l.
‘You will never succeed if you never do anything.’
But I also won’t be the one killing her. Luna sighed as tears shot up into her eyes. Sorry, Wolfie. You deserve a better host.
‘That’s not how I meant it.’
But that’s how it is. I am not good enough… I know, and I’m sorry.
‘Look, you don’t have to save everyone, but one person would be a solid start.’
Luna shook her head. I would fail anyway.
‘You spent your whole childhood dreaming of becoming a hero like the Dreadwolf. What happened to that?’
I was naïve and stupid… I’m not so naïve anymore, but I’m still useless.
The beast sneered. ‘I’ve had enough of your whining.’ It forced its will onto her, bursting into her body, taking over control. ‘Watch and learn.’ Using her as a puppet, he prowled forward toward the guards and the screaming girl. Luna observed through her own eyes, unable to control herself, being a chained guest within her own body. Resigned, she watched the beast extend her fingertips into claws and leap at the guards.
He tore them apart in a storm of blood. Shouts filled the air as the other guards responded to the screams. The beast, using Luna’s body, turned to the terrified girl. “Follow me.” The nearest group of guards drew crossbows as he blasted toward them. They shot. He weaved among the bolts to sink the claws into their flesh, relieving them of life. A swift dash brought the beast to the second set of nearby guards, skewering them with the claws.
The beast scoffed. ‘See?’
Luna sighed in her mind. Turn around.
He did, looking at the chained girl lying in a pool of her own blood with three crossbow bolts buried in her chest. As the beast froze, Luna used to moment to push it out, regaining control of herself. See? You also can’t do anything with my body. I’m too small, too slow, too weak, too stupid and I don’t have enough aether to make up for any of it. I’m defective and useless.
The beast withdrew, short for an answer.
