by DJ Molles
The Old Section was in ruins. Buildings lay in heaps of rubble. Thin tendrils of smoke from dying flames lifted straight into the sky without wind to jostle them.
The New Section had fared no better, but looked more whole only by virtue of the fact that the buildings there were larger. Many of their tops were still crumpled, or scorched, or melted like candle wax.
In amongst this backdrop, the noise of what occurred between those wrecked buildings seeped out of Karapalida. It was the sounds of chaos. Of a populace caught between two worlds, their reality yanked out from under them like a dirty rug. And now they fought, and they squabbled, and they looted, and occasionally, they cheered.
Not the sounds of celebratory cheering. It was the sound of rage. Vindication.
None of it made much sense to Perry. And he didn’t try to puzzle it out. He just knew that Karapalida had never before looked so uninviting. Even when the pontiff had wanted to hang him for murder. At least then it had been orderly.
Perry looked at Stuber, whose eyes glared at the city from under his craggy brow. “You sure you want to go in there?”
“If that’s where Petra has gone, then yes.”
Perry supposed he’d expected that. “Alright. Onwards, then.” He turned and looked back at the deck of the ship.
Mala sat against the rail on the port side, holding the wound to her abdomen that Stuber had done a hasty patch job on. They didn’t have much in the way of medical supplies, but he’d done what he could with a few scraps of cloth. The rest was up to Mala’s hearty constitution.
Teran knelt beside her. Perry didn’t think there was much love lost between the two of them, but then again, Teran seemed to have a natural inclination to care for wounded.
“I’m not sure we should make her walk into Karapalida,” Teran said.
“I’m fine,” Mala immediately answered.
And was immediately ignored by Teran. “She’s lost a lot of blood. She’s not immortal, despite what she thinks.”
Mala glared and opened her mouth to respond, but Perry cut her off.
“Mala, I’m not sure you should go into the city anyways.”
Mala frowned and irritably blew a strand of black hair out of her face. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t think many people are feeling very friendly towards the demigods right now. And if we hope to have anything but a hostile reception…well, frankly, I don’t think we should be seen with you.”
Mala relaxed back against the rail. She seemed to prefer the brutal truth to any prancing around and sparing of feelings. She nodded to Perry. “I understand your position.”
Teran stood up. “Well, we can’t just leave her here.”
Stuber finally twirled in place, his expression all scrunched up irritation. “We can’t do this, and we can’t do that. Everyone’s talking about what we can’t do. Let’s not say the word can’t for the next ten minutes, and maybe we’ll figure out what we can do.”
“Like I said,” Mala raised her voice, and, to her credit, it did sound pretty strong. “I’m fine. I haven’t lost so much blood that I can’t sit here and drink water while you guys go in and scout out the situation.”
“See?” Stuber thrust a hand at Mala. “There’s a can-do attitude.”
Perry nodded in appreciation to Mala. “Petra is a doctor. When we find her, we’ll bring her to you, or we’ll sneak you in to her, however we can figure it out. She’ll be able to patch you up.”
Despite her assertions that she was “fine,” Mala appeared to appreciate this. “Good. And, not to add any problems to your plate…but the sooner the better.”
Perry didn’t shrug that off. He imagined it took a lot for Mala to admit to these puny humans that she was hurting and needed medical attention. If she was urging them to move fast, then he would take that seriously.
“We will.” Perry jerked his head towards Karapalida. “Time to see what all the fuss is about.”
***
The fuss was what Perry had anticipated.
They avoided the gates into the Old Section, and angled for the New, as it seemed marginally less crowded, and the fewer people they had to come into contact with the better. They were volatile at the moment.
The Guardians had come through Karapalida and wrecked any semblance of order and structure. Now, left hanging in the wind, those that had managed to survive, and those that had arrived in Karapalida as refugees, now simply sought to get what they could, while they could.
Perry wanted to hate them, but he found himself pitying them instead.
He’d at least had forewarning of what was coming. From the very moment that he’d listened to the message his father had left him on his clasp, he’d known that the pillars of his reality were hollow, and subject to crumbling.
None of these people had ever suspected. One minute they were living their lives, going about their duties, staying under the thumb of the demigods and focusing on the small concerns of peon life: Harvesting millet, gathering scrap, repurposing old things to make new things, and trying to find some comfort and escape in the arms of a lover or the bottom of a bottle. A simple life, really. The life that human beings had been living for their entire time on this planet.
And then, seemingly out of nowhere, the gods had abandoned them, and the wrath of the Guardians had come out of the sky, and razed everything they’d known and believed in. And why? They wouldn’t know. They probably couldn’t even imagine the truths that Perry now knew.
All these people knew was that the world appeared to be ending. And like every other animal, they were inclined to avoid death, and try to tease out an extra day to their existence.
But none of that explained the raucous cries of vengeance and hatred that poured from the center of the New Section. They came in waves, louder and louder as Perry and Stuber and Teran wound their way through the ruins of Karapalida, closer and closer to the source of the noise.
A pause. A breath. A few moments of silence, wherein the occasional gunshot and yelp from the Old Section leaked through to their ears. And then another roar.
“You sure you wanna be heading towards that?” Teran asked as they moved down the center of a wide avenue that led to the heart of the New Section.
Perry kept his focus forward. “Don’t you want to know what’s going on here?”
“I’m wondering if we can find out by asking someone.”
Stuber pointed to all the someones around them. “They’re all heading to the same place we are.”
It was true. The crowd grew thicker the closer they got. Streams of people, turning into rivers. All eyes forward, as though hypnotized by the noises ahead of them. No one seemed to notice Perry’s party. Everyone was just moving forward, like the herd animals that they were, drawn by the noise, encouraged by the fact that everyone around them was heading in the same direction.
Perry was here for a different reason. He had a mission. And it wasn’t just finding Petra. The fact was, just as nature abhorred a vacuum, so did humans who sought power. Which was pretty much every human. Some were just better at it than others.
The power in Karapalida might have shifted, but it wasn’t gone. Someone was in charge here, or fighting to be in charge. Even if it was a dozen warring factions, Perry needed to find their leaders. Because no one knew what was really happening, but Perry could enlighten them. And maybe, if luck chose to shine on him, he could convince them to work together.
Their only hope to avoid the coming of an absolute extinction, was to figure out some way to fight back. And—call him a hopeless idealist—but Perry liked to think they had a better chance if they fought together.
So, onward he would push. Because where there were crowds of angry people, there were other people who were manipulating their emotions and making them angry.
Leaders. And those were the ones that Perry sought.
The avenue they were on reached a Y intersection, and they turned left, following the flow of people. As they made this turn, Pe
rry saw the time wheel of the temple jutting up into the sky, dead ahead. That seemed to be the destination that everyone was heading to. But he couldn’t see what was going on at the temple.
He was, of course, too short.
Stuber noticed him craning his neck, trying to catch a glimpse over the wall of bodies as they began to pack tighter and tighter the closer they drew to the Temple. “You want to hop up on my shoulders, Shortstack?”
Stuber had been so dour and focused on finding his wife that Perry actually found himself relieved to hear him crack a joke. But he also had no intention of riding on his shoulders.
“No—”
Another massive cheer went up and cut Perry off. And as it quieted, Perry heard another voice over the crowd. Someone was speaking, projecting their words like a good orator.
What do you know? A leader.
“No,” Perry continued, unable to make out what the orator was saying. “Just tell me what you see.”
“Well,” Stuber grunted, his voice growing louder as they closed in with the back of the crowd. “I can do you one better than that. Shortstack, Teran—who is also short—stay on my ass.”
And with that said, Stuber raised his rifle into a port arms position and began elbowing his way through the crowd, bodily moving those unfortunate persons that didn’t see him coming.
The temperature seemed to rise as they mashed their way into the stew of human bodies. The temperature, and the stink. It spoke to Perry of no running water. Usually you wouldn’t find people smelling this bad unless they were from a scavenging outfit.
Or they’d just gotten off a skiff after accidentally beginning a sequence of events that would probably destroy the world.
“Legionnaire coming through!”
For a second, Perry thought that Stuber had said it, which would have been a somewhat hazardous thing to proclaim to a mob of people with unknown loyalties. But then he realized it hadn’t been Stuber’s voice. And then he noticed that the sea of people before them began to part, straight down the middle.
“Legionnaire coming through!” the voice sounded again.
Perry caught a glimpse of a burly man with his hands cupped to the side of his face, yelling down the aisle that he’d just created. And the people continued to move out of the way. No bodily encouragement from Stuber necessary. They looked behind them, and though Stuber no longer wore his armor or his sagum cape, they saw his size and the mean glint in his eyes, and figured that was confirmation enough that he was a legionnaire. And they stepped aside.
Stuber cast a backwards glance at Perry. His expression held a hint of worry, but he didn’t say anything about it.
The crowd continued to split, and they moved forward until they reached a new wall of bodies. Or, more correctly, a wall of shields. Behind these shields stood two ranks of legionnaires—real ones—standing shoulder to shoulder and back to back, their shields like a fence against the encroaching mob.
Their shields were dented and scuffed from innumerable battles, but some of the original paint still clung to the iron surfaces. Blue. These were legionnaires of The Light.
Stuber halted in front of the line of shields. If they had heard the call that Stuber was a legionnaire, they gave it no note, and they did not try to speak to Stuber, and Stuber didn’t try to push his luck with them. The crowd closed in behind them.
Perry had the sudden conviction that they’d managed to trap themselves. If things went poorly for them in the next few moments—as things were prone to do—they were going to be squashed between the crowd and the shields.
Perry touched the round lump of metal in his pocket. The clasp. His shield. He’d left his longstaff behind, not wanting someone to mistakenly identify him as a paladin despite his size. But he’d kept his shield. That, at least, could give them a way out. Though he didn’t relish the idea of burning his way through a crowd of people.
He didn’t notice it at first—the humming in his ears. The shifting crowd around them seemed to absorb that noise, until it grew strong enough that he suddenly realized he’d been hearing it for the last few moments.
He jerked when he registered it. Eyes up. Apprehension clenching his gut. He knew this humming noise. It wasn’t the same as when his ears would ring from being exposed to explosions and gunshots. This was something that had to do with Confluence. It was that same humming sensation that got stronger the closer he’d drawn to the Nine in the East Ruins.
His eyes scoured the sky, everything around him fading to obscurity for a moment of rushing adrenaline. Were they here? Were they coming?
But the skies were empty of anything but a few whispy clouds.
The second that his eyes descended back to the crowds around them, he locked eyes with her. On the other side of the ring of legionnaires, just visible from between two of their shields. No particular reason why his eyes had landed on her, except that she was staring right at him, and she had a flare of bright red hair that drew his attention.
A stranger, though she was looking at him as though he should recognize her. Smiling at him with a mischevious little glint in her eye. Then she turned around and slipped into the crowd. Disappearing.
Perry craned his neck, his heart thumping, ears humming…and then not humming anymore. The murmur of the crowd around him leaked back to the forefront of his attention.
Perry stared at the place where the strange woman had been, frowning. He shook his head, as though to see if he could jostle that hum back into existence, but it was gone.
Just some weirdo, he told himself, though something in his chest stayed locked up. Tense.
The orator’s voice was clear in Perry’s ears now. He blinked a few times, then righted his gaze back to the temple square. He was able to see just above the shields, and between the shoulders of the hulking legionnaires that faced them.
A gray-haired beast of a man stood at the front steps of the temple. He wore the armored plates of a legionnaire, but no sagum to identify him as a follower of The Light. And he was not speaking to the crowd, Perry realized, but to an individual that stood, bound, upon a hangman’s platform.
“I offer you the same as all the others,” the gray-haired legionnaire spoke, his voice loud and clear. “Acknowledge your faults. Beg the people’s forgiveness for your lies, for taking their food, and their gold, and their hopes and prayers.”
The man on the hangman’s platform was dressed in orange robes. A flamen. One of the priestly order that preached the Ortus Deorum, and accepted gifts from the people in exchange for prayers to the gods. Prayers to the Nine Sons of Primus.
A legionnaire—also with no sagum—stood behind the flamen with a noose in hand, ready to place it around the priest’s neck.
The flamen wept openly, unabashed. Terrified. He lifted his swollen, watery eyes to the crowd. “Please!” he called out. “My people! Do not continue to compound your sins! The hour of our destruction is at hand! There has never before been a greater need for our prayers! Pray to the Sons of Primus, and they may intercede on your behalf!”
The gray-haired speaker shook his head, appearing disappointed, then pointed to the legionnaire with the noose.
“Hang the motherfucker!” someone yelled.
The rope was tightened around the flamen’s neck.
“Our gods have not abandoned us!” the priest cried. “You have abandoned them!”
“Lies!” several people screamed, their voices bloodthirsty.
The gray-haired man waved his hand, and down the priest went. A short drop. A sharp shock. A crack like a muffled gunshot.
And the crowd cheered.
Perry realized his hand had crept up to his own neck. Not so long ago, he’d been close to that same fate. He’d only been saved from it at the last minute, by none other than the two people beside him: Stuber and Teran.
“Bring the next,” the orator bellowed.
Two of the legionnaires in front of Perry shifted their weight, and for a flash, Perry saw a mound of orange robe
s. No, not just robes. Bodies.
“Gods in the skies,” Perry murmured, barely audible above the fading cheers of the crowd. “They’re executing them all.”
The legionnaire directly in front of Perry lowered his gaze and frowned at him. “Watch what you say, peon. You’re surrounded by the Faithless, and no one’s feeling all that friendly right now.”
Perry seized on the possibility of establishing rapport. “Who’s the legionnaire with the gray hair?”
“Our legatus,” the legionnaire grinned over his shield. “Daddy Mordicus, Slayer of Demons.”
“Slayer of Demons?” Perry echoed. “Sounds like I’d like to meet him.”
“I’m sure you would,” the legionnaire sneered. “But Daddy Mordicus doesn’t have time for peons.”
Stuber tilted his head. “Does he have time for a legionnaire?”
“A legionnaire you say?” Obvious doubt in the soldier’s voice. He eyed Stuber up and down. “Where’s your armor then, huh? And that rifle. That’s not standard issue.”
Stuber looked down the rifle in his hands. “No. I stole it from a demigod’s skiff. I believe these are the ones the praetorians use.”
Eyebrows arched. “Is it really? How fancy.” A laugh. “You know what? Just because you’re a ballsy fuck…” The legionnaire turned his head and raised his voice to a leathery shout: “Legatus Mordicus! A wayward son to see you, sir!”
Legatus Mordicus looked up and scanned the ring of legionnaires until he found the one speaking. Then his eyes landed on Stuber.
A new flamen was being hauled up the steps of the gallows. Legatus Mordicus held up a hand in the direction of the platform, halting the proceedings.
“What’s that, legionnaire?” Mordicus called.
The legionnaire was still smiling as he nodded to Stuber. “This one here claims to be a legionnaire. And a killer of praetorians.”
Mordicus’s stern face broke into a beaming smile, like a father spotting his prodigal son returning. Perry saw why his men called him “Daddy Mordicus.”
