Ludendi laid back down. "Don't worry about me. I can still move around, I just won't be doing any fighting for a while." She paused. "What about you? Are you ready to make the big leap?"
"I grew up in the wilderness," Ellen said. "Losing the fortress just means I'll be returning to my old way of living." She didn't want to return to her old way of living, but there was no choice now. Her answer at least seemed to satisfy Ludendi.
"Do you mind if I come in?" Trevor asked from outside.
"It's alright," Ludendi said. "Come in!"
Trevor moved inside the house, but he stayed near the door. Something about him made Ellen uncomfortable. He looked discouraged, much more so than she'd ever seen him before.
"I've been asking everyone," he told Ellen, "but I haven't had any luck. Our families all have their own plans for the future, and none of them are comfortable with having a group of strangers come with them after they leave the fortress."
It was the worst possible answer he could've given her. After all they'd been through together, they were going to be separated and there was nothing she could do to stop it from happening.
"But I'm going to keep asking," Trevor added quickly. "And every family is willing to accept you by yourself. You just have to choose who you want to stay with."
Ellen let her head hang low. She loved all of her friends. How could she ever pick just one and cast the others away?
But still, she shouldn't complain. She at least had a choice. Trevor, Barry and Ludendi had zero say in the matter. Their families were pulling them apart and nothing could change that.
"That strange cloud out in the forest has everyone terrified," Trevor said. "Everyone's planning to leave either tomorrow or the day after. There's not much time left for anything. I'll keep asking, but you should make your decision soon."
"Thank you for doing this," Ellen said earnestly.
Trevor smiled. "I need to get back to work. Barry is at his home, if you want to talk to him. Ralph... I haven't been keeping up with him. I figured you'd rather be alone than have him around."
Ellen thanked him again, said goodbye to Ludendi then made her way to Barry's home. He was asleep in bed when she arrived, but her footsteps stirred him awake.
He leapt out of bed and took her hand. "Did you pick me?" he asked excitedly, his voice still groggy. "Oh yeah, Trevor told me everything. You can come with my family, if you want."
"I like all of you," Ellen said, "but-"
Barry let go of her hand. "There's always a but," he sighed.
"But I haven't decided yet," Ellen snapped. "It's a hard choice-"
Barry collapsed back into his bed.
"Do you feel alright?" Ellen asked. He didn't look sick, at least not on the outside.
"I haven't slept at all since I got back. I keep having the same dream. We're hiding under that rock again, everything looks alright, then that giant ugly thing finds us. And by us I mean me, because everyone else took off when I wasn't looking."
Ellen remembered that dream, she had a similar one herself, but she didn't mention it. Dwelling too much on the past wouldn't do either of them any good. "That monster is gone now."
"It's probably going to find its way to the fortress eventually," Barry said with a nervous shudder. "You're helping the Fortress Guard, right? Don't let that thing see you. It'll probably recognize you, and it's going to get mad when it remembers you escaped."
"I'll hide if I see it," Ellen promised. The thought of a monster remembering her specifically made her smile at first, then it terrified her. It was possible that monsters had some kind of memory, which meant that giant monster could very well come after her again.
Barry seemed to pick up on her distress. "Are you feeling alright?" he asked.
Ellen moved towards the door. "I-I need to go. Everyone's probably waiting for me."
"Wait!" Barry called out, and Ellen stopped. "You're not really going back on the wall, are you? Just stay down here where it's safe."
It was a pleasant idea, but Ellen shook her head. "The only reason it's safe is because there are people up on the wall risking their lives. It's not going to stay that way if everyone hides down here." Barry was still staring at her in disbelief, so she added, "I'm in a team with Kilroy, Brendon and Lindsey. They're probably the strongest people in the fortress. I'm not going to get hurt."
He still didn't look convinced, but she moved on anyway. She only planned to stay on the wall until her friends were ready to leave. After that, she'd leave and never look back. She might leave even earlier if the danger became too much to bear.
As she headed up to the top of the wall, someone above her started screaming. She took out her knife and darted up the stairs.
A soldier ran passed her. Another raw meat looking creature with claws flapped after him. Ellen ducked down the stairs and waited for it to have its back to her, then chased after it. Her knife cut through the monster's soft wings without a hitch, then she kicked its body off the wall.
The soldier dropped to his knees before her and hugged her tight. "Thank you so much!" he wailed. "I owe you everything! There's no way I can ever repay you for this!"
If he wanted to repay her he could help her protect the fortress, Ellen wanted to say, but he hugged her so tight she couldn't speak. The smell of sweat and grime and other strange odors radiating off his body and into her nostrils didn't help either.
The soldier released her then took off running. In the time it took her to open her mouth and call out "Wait!", he was already halfway down the stairs.
He didn't wait, and as far as she could tell, without him she was the only person on this section of the wall.
Ellen moved cautiously to the nearby tower, which was deserted. Broken weapons, dry spots of blood and bits of hacked up meat and flesh littered the area. The flesh and meat was all from monsters, or so she hoped.
Going back down into the fortress sounded more appealing than ever. There was no way she could hold an area this size all by herself. She wanted to help, not sacrifice herself.
She took one step towards the stairs, then paused when a voice shouted her name.
"Ellen!" it called out, and she turned around. It was Kilroy. Brendon and Lindsey were right behind him, and a dozen soldiers were behind them. "Get away from there!" he cried.
He sounded so frightened it made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Ellen bolted towards him as fast as she could move. She made it to the edge of the tower when the ground shifted beneath her feet and she tripped.
She landed hard on her chest. Her whole body ached, but the tower was starting to sink to one side and everything was going to hurt a lot more if she sank with it. She forced herself up and kept running.
She made it off the tower and joined Kilroy and his group. Kilroy brushed some of the dirt off her tunic then complained, "Don't you remember what I said yesterday? You weren't supposed to come up here today. You were supposed to stay home where it's safe!"
"No, she was supposed to leave this dimension with her friends," Lindsey said.
"She's the ornery type," Brendon said. "I bet we'll end up opening a rift ourselves and tossing her in it."
"S-sorry," Ellen told them. She didn't know what else to say.
Kilroy had more complaints for her, but she couldn't hear a thing he said. Something was lurking beside the fallen tower; something massive and white with a big brick shaped head.
It was the monster from the forest. It had found her.
"What do we do about that thing?" Lindsey asked plainly. "It's larger than anything we've fought before."
Kilroy shouted, "Just hit it with-"
The giant monster rammed its head into the tower. Broken chunks of bricks erupted in every direction.
"Just hit it!"
While everyone around her raised their weapons and started casting a giant whirling storm of blades and metal at the giant monster, Ellen crept backwards away from the group. She'd spent enough time around that monster to last h
er a lifetime. There was zero reason for her to get involved with it again.
The tens of dozens of weapons hitting its body didn't seem to bother the monster at all. It rammed the tower again, which caused the entire upper half to slide off its base and crash to the ground outside the fortress.
The monster then turned its eye towards the wall and started spinning in place. Violet energy gathered in the air around it.
Ellen watched the monster as she slunk away. It moved far more gracefully than something its size had any right to move.
After the sixth full rotation, the monster jerked its tail forward so fast it cracked like thunder.
A solid wall of black and twisted scales shot towards the fortress's outer wall. Ellen summoned her shield as a precaution, the monster was far enough away that she couldn't imagine it aiming at her, but her fear ended up saving her. Several of the scales hit her shield and bounced off into the plains. The others either sailed over her head or hit the wall below her. Not one single scale went anywhere near Kilroy's group.
The monster did recognize her, she had no doubt about it now. She dropped her shield and ran.
What had she done to make that monster hate her so much? What had anyone done to make any monster hate them? Why was their world full of things that lived, if their existences could be called living, only to kill them? It didn't make any sense. It was just like Trevor had said a long time ago: the whole thing was little more than a bad dream, except there was no waking up.
The monster caught up to her after a moment then ran alongside her, the black ridges on its head bobbing in and out of view with each step it took.
Ellen set her sights on a staircase in the distance ahead. She just had to make it to those stairs and then she'd be safe. In the time it took the monster to break down the fortress's outer wall, she'd be long gone and it'd have to find some other hapless victim. Or maybe Kilroy and his group would kill it. Either way, she wouldn't have to see its awful face ever again.
The monster rammed its head into the wall so hard she lost her balance and fell to her hands and knees. It rammed the wall a second time, and the section she lay on started sinking. She had time to reach the higher ground, time she lost due to the pain in her arms and legs. By the time she made it onto her feet it was too late. The walls on both sides of her were too steep to climb.
The monster peered inside the crevice with its large eye, and Ellen sank to her knees in defeat. She could only move backwards, then fall off the wall to her death, or forward, right into the monster's mouth. There was no escape. The monster had won.
The monster darted backwards a few steps then lowered its head. It was getting ready to ram her. Ellen closed her eyes and waited. In just a second her mangled body would be launched across the fortress. Maybe she'd have a chance to wave goodbye to her friends before she crashed into the ground.
But the final blow never came. After waiting for what felt like forever, Ellen opened her eyes.
An axe was separating her from the monster. It wasn't just one axe, but rather, a colossal axe made up of hundreds of individual axes. Each one was shaped like Brendon's axe, and each one flowed freely through the body of the giant weapon, filling the air with metallic scrapes and clangs.
It was a living weapon made up of smaller weapons. She'd never seen anything like it before.
The axe moved away from the wall and joined its counterpart: a second living weapon. The two weapons took turns hacking at the giant monster. Each blow damaged them just as much as the monster, they lost their smaller weapons as quickly as the monster lost its flesh, but in the end, the living weapons won and the giant monster fell dead to the ground.
The two weapons dispersed into their individual parts which rained down lifelessly around the plains.
"Up here, Ellen," Kilroy ordered. "Take my hand and we'll get you out of there."
Ellen snapped out of her daze and took Kilroy's hand. He lifted her out of the crevice with help from another soldier.
Right away she spotted Brendon laying on his back behind the group. She rushed to his side and crouched down beside him. "Did you do that?"
Brendon answered with a proud but exhausted chuckle. "There's a reason why I'm in charge of the special forces." His voice wasn't much more than a whisper. He sounded half dead.
"Are you going to be alright?" Ellen asked. Tears were already forming in her eyes. She didn't mind Brendon before, but now that he'd saved her life, she couldn't stand the thought of being without him.
"That's the first time I ever made two of those weapons. My body wasn't ready for that kind of strain. Maybe if I can use your... No, it's yours. I don't need it."
Ellen forced her knife into his hand then folded his fingers around the handle.
"There aren't any monsters here. What do you plan-"
Ellen grabbed the blade with her left hand and squeezed as hard as she could. It cut straight into her flesh. Her blood flowed down the blade then dripped onto the ground.
Brendon sat upright and immediately shoved her hand away. "You didn't have to do that," he said, his voice as energetic as ever. "But... thank you, Ellen."
"I don't mind," Ellen said, panting. She tried to stand up but only made it half way before she collapsed to her knees in exhaustion. It felt as if a portion of her life had been sucked away. It was an unpleasant feeling, but it was worth it. Brendon was alive, at least until the next giant monster cornered her.
She pulled a few pieces of fruit from her pocket and stuffed them into her mouth, then followed up with a piece of bread and a hunk of monster meat.
She continued eating while a soldier cleaned her cut and wrapped a bandage around her hand. The whole group had watched her give her knife to Brendon then cut herself on the blade. An explanation was in her future, an explanation she had no doubt was going to get her into a great deal of trouble.
Chapter 23
Fortunately, her explanation was cut short. Ellen had only enough time to tell Kilroy, Lindsey and the group of soldiers with them that her knife was magic before a spear wielding monster climbed up the wall and attacked. The group shredded it into a hundred pieces before its feet touched the ground.
"We're abandoning this section of the wall," Kilroy called out, then he bolted towards the stairs. "Get back to the ground before everything collapses!"
Ellen stuck to the back of the group, hoping to avoid any curious glances or even more curious questions the others were bound to have about her knife.
Brendon walked beside her. "There are a lot of injured people in the Fortress Guard, and in the fortress itself," he said quietly. "Your secret is going to catch up to you before you know it. You might want to use this downtime to go somewhere safe."
"You mean leave the Fortress Guard?" Ellen asked. "Or the dimension?"
"The first, then the second. The sooner you go, the better."
"I can't leave yet." None of her friends were ready. If she left now she'd be completely on her own again.
"Keep the knife to yourself then," Brendon said, "and don't put on any more demonstrations like that, or you might find out just how desperate some of the people here really are."
That was her plan already, but Ellen still nodded. Using her knife to save Brendon was a spur of the moment decision she had no intention of repeating.
The commander who wanted her gone from the wall the other day was waiting near the base of the stairs. He confronted Kilroy right away.
"Our teams in the south are being hit hard," he said grimly. "We need more support."
"I can spare a few soldiers," Kilroy said, "but we're already stretched thin over-"
"It doesn't matter how many soldiers we have when we're outnumbered ten to one. We need something more. We need a shield."
Ellen felt a chill when the commander set his eyes on her. She felt an even worse chill when all the soldiers set their eyes on her. And then they stared. Her shield could make the lives of everyone around her somewhat safer, but was it enough o
f a boon to cause an argument, or worse, a fight?
Kilroy gave the commander a hard pat on the shoulder. He said sternly, "I know you're hurting for help, we all are, but where Ellen goes is my decision. Now I'll give you a few extra soldiers if-"
"You have the most talented soldiers with you already," the commander argued quietly. "We need something, anything-"
"I'll give you all of my extra soldiers," Kilroy said. "I was going to assign them to guard that tower behind us, but, well, that's not an option anymore." He urged his squad of soldiers forward. "New assignments," he told them. "He's your commander until I say otherwise."
None of the soldiers moved.
"That's an order," Kilroy said, more firmly than before. "This is a difficult time, and it's going to become even more difficult if you ignore your orders."
The soldiers did join the commander, but they moved slowly. Ellen couldn't stand the sight of their long faces. Each one looked as if they were being shooed to their deaths. Even as they marched off into the fortress, a few of them still gazed back at her. Their expressions were so dreary and miserable she had to avert her eyes.
"I would've gone with them if you'd asked," Lindsey said. "The three of you are more than capable-"
"You're not getting away from me again," Brendon said.
Ellen said, "Maybe I should-"
"No, you shouldn't," Kilroy interrupted. He quickly added, "If you were going to say you should leave the dimension, then I agree, but if you were going to say you should've join that group, then you're wrong. In fact, you're already down a hand. I should send you home right now." He eyed her for a moment. "But I'll leave the decision up to you."
The same desperation she'd seen in all of the soldiers' faces was creeping into Kilroy's expression as well. Brendon and Lindsey had a touch of it too. "I'll stay," Ellen said glumly, fearful of what might happen should she leave them alone.
She spent the rest of the day on the wall. More monsters than ever attacked the fortress. Many had spears, but even more came wielding swords and axes and sickles and scythes and sometimes nothing but claws and tendrils. A few of their appendages were so awful and twisted she couldn't find the words to describe them.
Forlorn Dimension Page 24
