by Heath Pfaff
The plan was simple. He was going to fill each of the lamps to capacity with oil, light them, and throw three or four of them at the building opposite the direction he intended to run. He would then dump the cask of oil down on the creatures on that side of the building and throw more torches down on top of them. Fires were loud. He wasn't sure how much sense these infected people still had about them, but he hoped that the fire would be enough to distract most of them, and hopefully destroy a good many of those stupid enough to get too close.
Xan went quickly about his work, filling the torches and preparing them for the task at hand. He lengthened the wicks on the lamps so that they would be less likely to go out while being thrown around, and frayed the ends of them so that they would produce a larger flame. His effort would be for naught if the fire didn't catch and spread quickly. With the last lamp prepared, Xan set about creating his planned chaos.
He lined the lamps up along the edge of the wall and began to light the first three with a bit of fire steel he'd found in the shop. He used his knife to strike the steel, and in a matter of moments he had all three of his initial lamps lit. He picked up the first and prepared to throw it. The weather had been dry lately, and the building he was aiming for was mostly old wood. He swung the glass lamp carefully and then tossed it in a wide arc over to the next building. The light from the wick went out about halfway across the gap, and the lantern slammed into the other rooftop with a loud rending of glass. Xan waited for a moment in hopes that the recently snuffed wick might still have enough spark to light the oil, but after a few minutes it was clear that his first lamp had failed. Had the breeze produced from being tossed gotten through the glass cover? Xan couldn't be certain.
Beneath him in the streets the infected horde had increased its attention anew. Some few of the creatures had returned to the next building over, following the sound of the shattering glass, but most of them still pressed in around the small bakery. Xandrith took the next lamp in hand. Instead of arcing this one to his target, Xan threw it hard and straight in the hope that if it went quickly it wouldn't have time to snuff out before it struck his target. He held his breath as the lamp zipped across the space between the buildings.
The fire held. The lamp crashed into the side of the building with a satisfying pop of glass shattering. Then there was a sharp whoosh of air as the fire jumped to life immediately, enveloping a section of the wall in a bright orange blaze. Xan had seen lamp oil fires wipe out entire villages before, and he could only hope that this one had that kind of ambition.
The assassin turned back to his remaining torches and began to strike them to life. In no time at all they were all burning brightly in the dark night. The cask of oil was still nearly three quarters full, even after filling all the lanterns. He lifted it and began to dump the remaining oil out over the crowd scrambling at the wall below. Some of the infected townspeople were already dissipating, heading towards the burning building like insects drawn to their doom in a campfire. Perhaps he should have felt some small piece of regret or compassion, but instead he found a grim chuckle rising up from inside of him. The laughter that slipped from his lips was dark and chaotic, a creature of malice and madness that he didn't even know had grown inside of him.
He finished emptying the oil and then dropped the lanterns into the remaining crowd around his building. The fire took off fast, burning the lamp oil and the rotting fat reserves on the walking corpses. The insects snapped and popped in the air as the flames spread. As the horde erupted into flames the creatures’ screams tore through the night sky to join the roar of the fire. The foul infected were ripping at one another as they burned, screaming incoherently as their feted flesh scorched and blackened, sending one of the foulest smells Xan had ever encountered coursing into the night sky. The smoke was inky black.
"Do you plan on watching until the fires go out, or were you going to get away?" Xandrith was started by his own voice from behind him. He turned away from the fire, the terrible laughter that had consumed him slipping away. The other Xan wasn't behind him. All that stood at his back was the blood covered sack of metal that he was supposed to return to the caravan.
"You're right." He said to the empty rooftop. "I need to leave." He ran forward and grabbed the scrap metal. It was time to take his leave of this doomed town.
The fire had spread faster than he'd anticipated. The distraction it caused worked perfectly, but by the time he was making his way to the gates of the town the flames had already gotten ahead of him. It hadn't helped that he'd been forced to take side routes on a few occasions in order to avoid some of the larger groups of infected townspeople, but the speed with which everything burned was still startling. It was as though the place wanted to die. The town had seen too much, and all it wanted was to dress itself in red and orange and roar at the night sky until nothing remained but broken lives and ash.
The gates were burning as Xan approached them, but the heavy crossbeam was still in place and the wall was still standing firm despite its cloak of fire. There was no way Xandrith could possibly hope to use the winch system to lift open the crossbeam, the whole system was aflame. Even if he could have stood the heat, the ropes and pulleys were burning and wouldn’t function for long if at all. He had to think fast if he was going to find a path of escape before he was consumed in the town's desperate self-immolation.
An open door to one of the towers near the gate caught Xan's eye. He dashed for it as the flames began to lick their way up the wall, feeding on the dry wood without mercy. The door opened onto a tightly curving stairway that climbed up to what Xan guessed would be the walkway along the wall. Xan ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. The inside of the towers was getting hot, and the side nearest the fire was already beginning to burn. The wood crackled angrily and smoke poured into the already claustrophobic stairwell. Xan reached the top of the stairs and ran into a locked door.
"Shit!" He cursed as he tried the handle and it resisted. If he'd had his picks, the lock would have been easy enough to manage, but he didn't. He looked over his shoulder to see a red glow rising from what had moments before been the dark stairwell he'd just climbed. He took a few steps back and then slammed his booted heel into the locking mechanism. The door was solid and didn't give way. He tried the handle to see if he'd knocked anything loose, but it was still solid. Xandrith wiped at the sweat that was beading on his brow. This didn’t seem like a good way to die.
"I don't feel like burning to death." Young Xan said, peering around the curve of the stairs, down at the approaching flames. "You should get that door open."
Xan slammed his shoulder into the door again, but the wood wouldn't give. "I'm trying!" He snapped. Smoke was filling the air all around him.
"Really, because it doesn't look like you're trying very hard." The other Xan seemed a bit agitated. "You're mostly troll. Can't you tap into that strength a bit?"
"Do you really think I'm not giving this my all?!" Xan’s anger was simmering down into a dark loathing. "You talk and talk, but you never help. What good are you?"
"I'm you, idiot. Or did you forget?"
"Now," Xan growled as he reared back to kick the door again. "Is not the time for this!" Rage and fear snapped inside of him and he gave a ferocious roar as he slammed into the door with everything that he could muster. There was a loud crack and for an instant Xan wasn't certain whether his foot had broken, or the door had, and then the heavy wooden portal swung away from him. The locking mechanism hung limply from the frame with a piece of the door still dangling from it. He charged from the stairwell out onto the wall, gasping for a clean breath of air. It took him a moment of coughing and choking to clear his lungs. He wasn't entirely out of danger, but being back outside was an improvement.
There was little time to waste. The assassin oriented himself and began searching for a way over the burning wall. A gurgling grunt sounded from the wall ahead of him and his eyes shot up in time to see one of the infected creatures stumbling alon
g the wall in his direction. Chunks of its flesh fell off as it moved and a cloud of angry, flying insects buzzed around its head. Xandrith noted that the thing had a bow hanging from its shoulder and he recalled that Lottan had said the caravan men had been fired upon. One of them had even been killed. Perhaps that arrow had been fired as a warning shot by this poor, revolting mess of a man? Either way, that arrow may have taken a life, but it had probably saved many more.
Without another moment's hesitation Xan dropped himself over the wall before the shambling horror could reach him. As he dropped himself down the wall far faster than was really safe his fingers ached and the wound in his ribs burned and tore. He'd had enough of this cursed town and its residents. His feet hit the ground before the infected man with his bow started howling in madness down the wall at him, a servant to the parasites that had taken his body. Xandrith turned his back on that man and the burning fortress.
It was time to begin his long trek back to the caravan. He was exhausted. He hadn't slept since he'd left the caravan, and he was injured. Despite that, he had no intention of resting before he'd returned to Lottan's camp. As much as he had no reason to trust those men, they seemed a preferable alternative to the horrors of the burning town and the wilderness around it.
Besides, the sooner he returned to their camp, the sooner they could be underway again. If he could secure passage with them heading north, it would make for a much more comfortable road up into the mountains. Xan couldn't begin to guess where he'd need to go from there, but that was a good start. The prospect of comfort drove his feet onward despite his exhaustion. The thought of a bed, a cot, or even a bed roll on the ground, was all the motivation he needed to keep himself moving forward. The quiet and the calm freed his mind to think and before long his thoughts drifted back to dark places.
Kassa's dark eyes flashed through his thoughts, accompanied by a pain in his human heart. It wasn't all at the memory of being stabbed either. Where had she gone? Was she safe? Xandrith knew that everything that had happened to her was his fault. He'd dragged her into this mess. He should have turned her away long, long before anything had happened to her. He'd tried, but he should have tried harder. If he hadn't secretly wanted her to be at his side, perhaps he could have convinced her to stay behind. Selfishly he tried to pinpoint the latest moment possible he might have left her behind and still had her with him for as long as possible. Maybe he could have left her just before they’d entered those disturbing gray passages, but he knew he should have left her behind before then. She was a good person and hadn’t deserved anything she’d seen or endured because of him.
"I'm going to set her free." Xandrith said aloud, merely to hear the words. "It doesn't matter what I have to do, I'm going to see that she's alright."
"Strong words, Xan, but she may be beyond us. You need to be ready to accept that." It was the younger Xan again. He'd taken up position at Xan's side and was marching through the underbrush as well, making a show of pushing aside brush and stepping over fallen branches.
Xan flashed a frown. "You should know me better than that. Once I've set my mind to something, I see it through."
"Of course, but some things just aren't possible. You freed her once, but it took the shattering of two minds to do so, and you don't have those kinds of resources to work with anymore. Our magic is gone, and our mind is already broken, or have you forgotten that you're talking to yourself right now?"
Xandrith shrugged as though the gesture might dispel his illusionary doppelganger. "I know I'm talking to myself. I know you're not real. You’ve made it abundantly clear that you're not actually here, but being broken doesn't mean I can just give up. Kassa wouldn't give up on me."
"Kassa might not exist anymore. She might be gone forever." The younger Xan's protest was half-hearted at best. He knew he was fighting a losing battle.
"And she might not. That's what matters. There is a chance I can save her, and I'm going to try. While I can still breathe and carry a knife I will not give in to despair." The words gave Xan a sense of purpose as he spoke them. The future was uncertain, and the tasks that lay ahead might seem daunting, but Xandrith was determined. He'd stood against the Order of Mages and survived, and he'd stood toe to toe with nightmares beyond imagining and come out on top. Xan wasn't going to let some piddling god-thing get in his way. He still had the bone dagger, and it was going to taste the blood of the god who'd taken Kassa away from him if it was the last thing Xan did. It wasn’t the most practical of weapons, but it would serve at least one purpose. God or not, if it could die, Xan would figure out how to make it happen. Killing things was something he was good at.
Xan and his fragmented mind continued their journey back to the caravan in relative silence, accompanied only by the crunch of Xan's footsteps across the forest floor and the sound of the wind passing through the still mostly bare branches of the trees. The assassin would have given anything for some conversation to take his mind from the horrors he’d just witnessed, and the memories that haunted his every footfall, but he had nothing but empty miles to keep him company.
The assassin realized something was wrong with the camp while he was still nearly an hour out from the site. By the time he'd come closer, he was certain that trouble lay ahead. The smoke he'd first followed to the camp was gone. He had warned the men of the caravan that their fires were dangerous and might attract unwanted attention, but they hadn't heeded him. Now as Xan drew near, their fires were out. The sun had risen, but the day was bitter cold, and Xan knew those fires hadn't been put out intentionally. Something had come upon the camp and those fires had been silenced by something.
The only question that remained in Xan's mind as he marched towards his goal was what exactly had come upon the caravan. So far north it didn't seem likely that it would be bandits. There wasn't enough road traffic to support a band of bandits. What did that leave? Maybe some form of pack hunting wild creature? Were-creatures? The other possibility was that a scouting pack of trolls had come across the little caravan. That would be trouble. If that had happened there probably wouldn't even be remains for Xandrith to find. Trolls were notoriously voracious eaters and wouldn't hesitate to turn a caravan of families into a food source. That thought turned Xan's stomach, so he pushed it to the back of his mind.
As he drew nearer to the place where the camp had been he began to move more cautiously. The tree cover was thick and there were a lot of evergreens, so Xan followed his instincts and ascended into the canopy. He moved through the trees almost as quickly as he moved across the ground, scanning the trails below with a careful eye, and watching for some sign of what had silenced the caravan. It was nearly mid-day when he spotted the first sign of the trouble.
Xan looked down from his perch with a mixed feeling of relief and regret. One of the men from the caravan lay in the middle of the path, eyes staring blankly up at the sky. He looked like he had been dead for about an hour. He had a sword wound through his chest and that almost certainly meant that he'd been attacked by humans and not trolls. It would have been ideal to discover that the caravan had finally decided to take Xan's advice and not keep fires burning, but at least Xan hadn't come across a shredded and half eaten corpse. Human bandits were something Xan could deal with. He proceeded cautiously, keeping his eyes scanning the forest floor for signs of passage.
Indications of combat were evident in several different places, though it seemed to Xan the fights had been tragically one sided. He only discovered one more corpse, which meant that whoever had taken the caravan didn't intend to kill everyone immediately. That was some small bit of good news, at least. As far as Xan could tell the force seemed to be at least a few dozen fighters strong and they all had some degree of training. They had easily overpowered the meager defenses of the caravan. He didn't need to see them to read the clear message left in the sign of their passing, the aggressor had taken the camp, and they'd done so quickly and with a clear show of dominance. Those who had been killed had likely refused
an easy surrender.
Xan had a few different options available to him. He owed the caravan nothing. They hadn't exactly treated him well. He could leave them to their fate and continue on ahead on his own. Of course, he had gone through all the trouble of bringing the scrap metal back from the forsaken infected town, injuring himself in the process. It seemed foolish to go through all that trouble only to turn back when his goal was so close at hand.
The easiest option aside, he could do one of two things. He could ignore the caravan's plight and deal directly with the aggressors who had taken the camp, or he could put an end to the aggressors and restore the caravan to its original purpose. The men who'd taken the caravan might not be interested in dealing with Xan. They didn't know him and likely wouldn't understand why the mechanna needed the spare parts they'd sent him after to begin with. Even if they did understand the importance of the scrap metal, they didn't seem like the sort of folks who would be willing to negotiate when it seemed clear that they had the upper hand. They hadn't exactly set a precedent for dealing with folks in a civil manner. On the other hand, if he did help free the men and women of the caravan, they would probably be even more willing to deal fairly with him. Not only had he returned with the scrap they needed, but he would have then freed them from their captors. He’d be the hero of the day.
"I do make a dashing hero." Xan said aloud, quietly. He chuckled dryly in response. He was a funny guy.
His decision made, he crept forward through the trees until the caravan came into sight. The new men were easy enough to spot. They were dressed like mercenaries, wearing expensive and well-kept armor of different designs. It was clear they weren't typical bandits, which made Xan feel better about the fact that he’d thought the likelihood of bandits being the problem was small. How could he be expected to predict special, militarized bandits? They'd broken up into groups, five men watching each of the caravans with a few walking in between the carts. From what Xan could tell, the men and women of the caravan were being jailed inside their own horseless carts.
