Exile

by Riley Morrison

  “Good luck with that.” Valeria sat down again and stared into the dark corner. “I think I will remain here and wait for the end.”

  Lillus glared at the other woman, then spun on her heel and strode past Yana and Ajax and headed for the exit. The succubus all but dragged Ajax after her.

  CHAPTER 8

  ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US

  Lillus led them through the deserted streets toward the southern wall. Soon they passed a small patrol of NPC Sinjharian conscripts, and the Demon Mage stopped them. “Where is Captain Cynthia?” she demanded of the two men at the front.

  They glanced at one another before the younger of the two answered, “Near the South Gate, overseeing the reconstruction of the catapults.” He pointed down a street sided by wooden houses. “Go that way.”

  Lillus stormed off again, and Yana dragged Ajax after her. The succubus had refused to let him go since they had left the prison. Ajax still had no idea what was going on, but judging by the way Lillus was acting, along with the pace she set, it had to be something dire.

  What had the Demon Mage and Valeria been talking about? Why had Lillus so far refused to talk about herself? Was she hiding something?

  Once we get to the captain, I better bloody get some answers. I’m sick of being kept in the dark and treated like an idiot.

  All along the wall, the conscripts reinforced the defenses with mounted wooden stakes pointing downward at a diagonal from the crenels, painted fresh mortar into any cracks they found and placed boxes full of fresh weapons and arrows strategically along the battlement. The southern gate itself had been reinforced with forged iron bars. Clearly Cynthia never intended to have it open again, as the bars ran from one side to the other and were bolted into the wall.

  The captain must have been expecting a sizable attack soon to have gone to this level of trouble mere days after York’s capture.

  They found Cynthia shouting at some conscripts who were in the process of trying to piece together a catapult. Considering all the parts were already built, it was clear the siege engine had once belonged to the Dernese garrison but had been dismantled and perhaps placed in storage. The enemy had clearly never expected an Imperial attack in such an out-of-the-way place. After all, York was situated in an icy and mountainous region, making it near impossible to march an army large enough for an invasion through the area without taking staggering losses from attrition.

  When Ajax was a kid out in the real world, when it was still ruled by humans and not the treacherous machines, his grandfather had told him a story of an ancient general who had once marched elephants along with a massive army over a great mountain range in Europe. The general had lost all but one of the elephants and half his army before he reached the other side.

  Now that Ajax thought of it, why had they been ordered to come out here? They were so far from anywhere of importance in Dern, and far from reinforcements from the Imperium. It didn’t make sense.

  Cynthia fell silent as Lillus strode right up to her. “You need to set the prisoner free,” the Demon Mage demanded.

  “I— what?” Cynthia seemed at a loss for words, for once.

  “You must let her out.”

  The captain stood tall and crossed her arms. “Who are you to order me around?” Her lip curled. “Level 4 conscript.”

  Lillus bared her teeth.

  Oh, great, Ajax moaned to himself. They're about to start fighting.

  Yana finally let Ajax go and he approached the captain and quickly saluted her. “Captain... she means that the prisoner bears dire news that you must hear.”

  “News?” Cynthia rounded on him, hands on hips. “What news? Tell me.”

  Ajax stared at her, his mouth working but no words coming out. He had no idea what news Valeria had because no one had told him anything! Doing the only thing he could think of right then, he shrugged his shoulders.

  Cynthia glowered at him, her green eyes narrowing to slits.

  You idiot, what are you doing? he raged at himself, and prepared for the worst. She’s going to hang me from the walls for this.

  Lillus spoke up before the captain could order his summary execution. “She has information on a growing threat that endangers not only the Imperium, but all of Visaria. You must set her free so Ajax and I can escort her north to meet the Imperator.”

  “Wha— what?” Cynthia’s face darkened. “You speak nonsense, Demon Mage. The prisoner will remain where she is, and you two—” She scowled at Yana. “You three will report to the south gate. My scouts saw a group of Dernese soldiers heading this way. No doubt the handful of enemies who escaped this town before it fell headed to the nearest garrison to bring reinforcements.”

  “How many?” Ajax asked, heart beginning to pound.

  “About a thousand.”

  “Then what are we doing here still? They greatly outnumber us, and probably have Spirit Mage healers with them. We need to fall back while we still can.”

  Cynthia shook her head. “No. We hold here. Those were my orders.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t you see?” The captain let out a bitter laugh. “We were sent here because we are all expendable. This whole thing...” She gestured vaguely around. “Was a diversion.”

  “What do you mean?” Ajax watched Lillus out of the corner of his eye. The Demon Mage had clenched her fingers into claws, her teeth still bared. She looked about ready to explode with rage.

  “We were to attract the attention of the Dernese army and make it seem as though the Imperium had decided to use these mountains as a path to invade the Republic. While we hold this town and keep the enemy’s attention here, a huge force of Sinjharian warriors will soon begin an invasion of the far-eastern border region.”

  “So we are nothing but cannon fodder.” His shoulders sagged. “We were sent here to hold out as long as we can, and left to die.”

  “That about sums it up.” Cynthia lowered her head and Ajax thought he saw a tear in her eye.

  “Why were you sent here?”

  She scuffed the ground with her boot. “Because they knew they could trust me. I will fight to the death for the Imperium.”

  The answer had been quick in coming, and it was clear there was more to it than that.

  “Then this is all the more reason to listen to me, while there is still time.” Lillus shook with barely contained rage. “If you won’t set the prisoner free, at least go and speak to her and see what she has to say.”

  “The prisoner refused to speak to me,” Cynthia said.

  “I’ll make her talk. There is too much at stake for stupid games.”

  Ajax didn’t like the serious tone Lillus had taken since meeting the prisoner. It made his stomach unsettled.

  “I don’t have time.” Cynthia turned. “I need to prepare the town’s defenses.”

  “Then let us escort her here to speak to you. I implore you to listen to what she has to say.”

  Cynthia studied the Demon Mage, her hand clenched around her sword hilt. Then one of the conscripts screamed in agony, breaking the tense moment. Everyone turned to see what had happened.

  One of the NPCs had dropped a sledgehammer on his foot, and now hopped around clutching it as he wailed at the top of his lungs. Cynthia let out an exasperated sigh. “Fine.” She tossed Lillus a set of keys. “I will meet her in an hour’s time at the deserted tavern near the center of town. Then she can tell me of this threat.”

  CHAPTER 9

  ANSWERS THAT LEAD TO MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS

  Half an hour later, Ajax finally started to get some answers.

  They had brought the reluctant Valeria to meet Cynthia in an abandoned tavern with dusty tables and chairs. “So, after you were exiled from the Republic, you went where?” Cynthia sat across from Valeria at an old wooden table.

  “West, until I hit a rugged coastline and could go no further.” Valeria ate some of the steaming soup Ajax had placed before her. When she was done, she wiped her mouth on her
dirty sleeve. “I followed the coast north for days on end, wanting to be as far from civilization as I could. I was, and still am, done with humankind.”

  “Where did you first see it?” Lillus stood next to Ajax beside the table with Yana behind them, sitting on a stool at the bar, applying pink nail polish to her claws.

  Valeria glanced at the Demon Mage. “Many weeks later, I think. It is hard for me to recall. But I remember coming to a vast ice wall that stretched for as far as the eye could see, the land around it dead, silent and frozen.” She took in a long breath. “Then I saw something beyond the wall, a vast... nothingness, as if the world itself had ceased to be. And in that gray void, I saw dark shapes moving. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, flying like the dragons of your Elite Imperial Guard.”

  “Then what?” Cynthia seemed intrigued by what Valeria was saying, but not convinced it was a threat.

  Ajax wasn’t sure he believed it a threat either. It sounded far away, and might be nothing more than the edge of Visaria itself. After all, it had to end somewhere, for it was known that Visaria wasn’t a globe, unlike the real world. It was a flat expanse with a day and night skybox above that changed according to the season, and five miles down, an unbreakable layer of Endstone (to prevent miners from falling out of the boundaries of the world).

  “I hid in a dead copse of trees and watched,” Valeria replied. “I remained there for days, so enthralled by what I saw, convinced I had reached the edge of the world, something no one has ever seen before. But then... I saw them.”

  Ajax suddenly noticed how dark the tavern had become. It was late outside now, and the air had grown cold, the wind blowing down from the nearby icy mountain peaks bringing a fresh layer of snow.

  “Them?” he asked, hugging himself.

  “Figures emerged from the void and scaled down the ice wall. Watching them, it felt as though my blood had turned to ice. When they got close enough for me to study them, I found that they appeared human, but made of shadow and wreathed in a visible light-blue aura, as if the air itself froze when they were near.” Valeria stared into the distance as she spoke. “I was too afraid to move until they were almost on me, when my animal instinct to flee danger kicked in. Of course they saw me, and followed me as I fled across the frozen ground.” She shuddered. “Some of them called to me. They knew my name, knew things about me, knew me as well as a close friend. They even spoke the names of people I knew before the end, and they used this against me.”

  Her eyes had become vacant. “The figures called to me in the voices of old friends, a half-forgotten lover, of my own father! They said they wanted me, needed me, and that soon their kind would spread across all of Visaria and the only way to be spared the embrace of the void would be to join them.”

  Lillus nodded knowingly. “You refused them, like I did, but they still speak to you, don’t they?”

  Valeria snapped her head around to face the Demon Mage. “Yes, and I managed to escape them, or more likely—they let me go.” She rubbed her temples. “But now I can’t silence them. Their voices are as ceaseless as my own thoughts. Always talking, sometimes singing in their alien language, but always demanding I join them.”

  Yana came over and placed a hand on Lillus’s shoulder, and the Demon Mage stiffened. “What is it?” Ajax asked. “What do you know of this?” Lillus had been beyond the human realm when she had unlocked the ability to spawn as part of the Elven race (a mysterious people rarely seen in the human lands), so perhaps the Demon Mage had seen the same thing Valeria had.

  Lillus blinked, then gave him a forced smile. “I like to keep my secrets close to my chest, remember? The air of mystique surrounding me adds to my considerable feminine charms. You yourself, Paladin, find me fascinating. Do you not?”

  “Well, I ah...” Of course I find you fascinating. And damn beautiful.

  Cynthia frowned. “If you know something more, black mage, I order you to share it.”

  Lillus gave a slight shake of her head. “I will not share everything, for I am forbidden to do so.”

  “By who?” Cynthia interjected.

  The Demon Mage ignored the question. “But I will tell you this. I know of what the Spirit Mage speaks of. It has been in this world since we outsiders came to be here—but it was not made by the programmers who coded this place.”

  “Think of the void as something like cancer,” Yana said. “It slowly spreads, withering all it touches, its endgame the death of everything.”

  Cynthia leaned back in her chair, hands gripping the edge of the table. “To me, this all sounds like a scary bedtime story my idiotic brother used to tell me as a child.” She inclined her head toward one of the boarded-up windows. “We have real enemies out there, and they are on their way here—and mean to kill every one of us. These... things, this void, all of it is far, far away, assuming it is even real.”

  “It is real,” Lillus said, leaning over the edge of the table.

  Valeria seemed to have stopped listening, or no longer cared about what was being discussed. Ajax wished he could contribute more to the conversation, but what could he say? He knew nothing about this void or the creatures the Spirit Mage had seen, and had never been out of the human realm, at least as far as he knew. Who knew what he had done in his previous life, or even how or where he had died.

  The captain glared at Lillus, as if considering whether to argue—or have the Demon Mage arrested. But then her eyes flicked to Ajax, then to Yana, then Valeria, and Ajax saw fear in them. Perhaps the captain realized she was outnumbered, that if she dismissed Valeria and Lillus’s warnings, there would be no one else around to help her if the Demon Mage decided to take matters into her own hands. And from what Ajax knew of Lillus, he would not put it past her.

  He had to do his duty, for if he was to ever join the army as more than a hired conscript, he had to show his superiors he could be depended on.

  Ajax cleared his throat. “I think what the captain says is true. The Dernese are our immediate threat.” His words almost caught in his throat when he saw the look Lillus was giving him. “But... I offer a solution.”

  Valeria, who had moments before seemed uninterested in everything, suddenly watched him intently.

  “And that is?” Cynthia demanded.

  “Someone you trust escorts the Spirit Mage to the capital to see the Imperator and warn our leader of the threat, while the rest of us stay here and fight.”

  Lillus caught her breath. “It must be you and I that escorts her.”

  “Why me?” He frowned. “I am needed here, for I am one of the few healers we have.”

  “Because...” She started opening and closing her right hand. “Because you are important.”

  “Important? In what way? I am just a low-level Paladin trying to make his way in the world.”

  “Enough of this.” Cynthia started to stand but Valeria put a hand up and stopped her.

  “I will only go to speak to your Imperator if the black mage and the Paladin come with me.”

  The captain shook her head. “You’re not going to the Imperator. No one is leaving—”

  “After I have warned your leader of the threat, I will offer her my services as a Tier-2 high-level healer. The Imperium has long tried to bribe members of my class to join their ranks, and as you know, few have ever accepted the lavish ‘gifts’. Never has the Imperium had a Spirit Mage as high a level or experienced as me offer to join them.” She smiled for the first time. “Think about it. You will be well rewarded as the loyal captain who sent your leader a warning of a grave threat to the Imperium, and for sending her one of the most powerful healers in all of Visaria.”

  “I’ll be dead once your kind gets here. The Dernese will show me no mercy.”

  “Well then, you’ll be remembered as a hero. Forgiven for all your sins.”

  That made Cynthia stop and think a moment. “But you can’t be that good.” Cynthia curled her lip. “You were exiled.”

  “My exile had nothing to do with m
y skills, and my loss was indeed a blow to the Republic.”

  “Then why were you sent out there?” Cynthia had found something to grasp onto in her desire to get her own way.

  Valeria sighed. “I will not speak of it, other than to say I served my former masters well. Until they betrayed me.” Her smile had disappeared. “Once, I wanted them all dead, the entire Hanseatic Council. But now... I struggle to care about them, or anything anymore. The voices of the void have robbed me of all the desires I once had. The only thing I want now is to find a way to silence them.”

  What Valeria had said about the Imperium needing high-level Spirit Mages was true. Ajax agreed Valeria should be sent to the Imperator to warn her of the threat, as well as to offer her services, for they would surely be needed in the days ahead. But why does it have to be me that escorts her?

  “Fine.” Cynthia stood. “But the Paladin remains here. I will need him.”

  “No.” Lillus latched onto Ajax’s arm. “He must go with the Spirit Mage, as must I.”

  “I will not leave without him.” Valeria remained seated, her eyes glittering in the torchlight.

  With a growl of annoyance, Cynthia pushed past Lillus, grabbed one of the torches, and strode across the room. Once she reached the door, she turned back to them. “Fine, take him. But when you reach the Dragon Keep, inform the Imperator that York has fallen, for by the time you reach her, it will have indeed returned to Dernese hands.”

  “Wait,” Ajax said as the captain went to leave. He quickly caught up to her. He wanted to beg Cynthia to order a retreat. After all, why stay here knowing full-well you were doomed? But, he saw the steely resolve in her eyes. Though she was a bully, Cynthia was also a loyal soldier, and would carry out her orders until the end.

  A message appeared in Ajax’s mind.

  Quest complete.

  Proceed to the local barracks, find and interrogate the prisoner. Report your findings to Captain Cynthia.

  + 200xp