So Juna stood up above on that giant and beastly insectoid as it ravaged around wildly. Juna held her sword tightly in her hands and plunged its sharp steel blade deep into the shell of the arachnid, or at least as deep as Juna could dare to thrust it in. The gigantic spider, whatever it was, was irked by this, and when the nerves of the creature were felt by its mind and pain of the wound was felt, it began to shake and flail uncontrollably.

Juna could not hold on to the spider for very long when that was how he was acting. As it went to and fro, shaking and twirling, going one way one second and another way another second, moving and shaking wildly. Even Juna would not be able to keep her grip on the beast, and soon she would be flung from the thing. However, Juna was not fool, and instead knew quite well that, just as one cannot stay on a wild horse, one can neither long stay mounted on a giant spider, apparently.

Juna was thrown off, yet she was expecting it. She gripped her sword, and it remained in her hand as she went off the spider’s back. She once again swung through the air, and she was in complete control. Juna was no amateur in a fight, no matter how strange or unorthodox it may have been. She landed, her two feet grounded and her two weapons firmly gripped into her hands.

The giant spider went down towards Juna, surely filled with anger and spite for the wound that Juna had given to it. Juna shifted her feet, dashing to the left and avoiding it. Then with a slash of her sword she cut through one of the spider’s leg, and it was once again recoiling in pain. Juna came up again, jumping up towards the spider’s mouth and striking it. The spider recoiled back in pain. Juna looked down at her sword that was covered in yellow saliva. As it began to disintegrate, Juna dropped it. She still had her long knife, and it would do. The gigantic spider had retreated from her, so Juna would see it as a victory.

After having finished the battle, Juna looked around herself at felt a fool. There was something else she should have been doing instead of engaging in battle, no matter how exciting it was. Where was Annara and Alonso? She didn’t know, although she aimed to find out. She headed back towards the others, or at least what remained of them.

Juna ran back towards Lothren. Juna had pledged everything to the man, even her very life. She wasn’t just about to abandon them. She hadn’t seen Annara or Alonso. It’s likely Alonso wasn’t there at all, and he hoped that Annara had gotten out. For now, she would focus on Lothren.

“Hey there,” Juna said, kneeling down to him. “You better not be dead. There seems to be something wrong with the ground, so you better hurry up.”

Kolbe quickened his pace when he heard Serona's voice carry from beneath the glistening black shape, careening into the thing hard, enraged, and hauling it with all his strength onto its loathesome back. Its limbs scythed the air mindlessly as the Captain's blade was driven home, yet even then the creature continued to thrash murderously on its back, its foul blood seeping into the hot, flowing dust. Behind them, the walls of the canyon were dripping, flowing, reshaping with a terrible, thunderous noise. Kolbe made a dry, grim noise in his parched throat. Better though the earth was for its extinction, slaying the rod-bearing fiend had bought them far less than he had hoped.

The knight extended his bloodied, mailed hand to the Captain, hauling him up. Supported him on one shoulder, labored breath hissing through his sand-encrusted helm as they dragged themselves toward the King over the undulating waves of terrain.

"This is no Vicenni sorcery." rasped Kolbe, "Is this... What you sought... sire?"

A noise pierced through the thunder of upheaval -- He looked back, bracing his shieldarm, expecting to see a tide of misshapen black bodies surging through the heaving earth behind them. Instead, through the filmy orange haze, he beheld a lone horse, with two riders. One -- incredibly -- bore the colors of Areta, the other...

Hrnn.

--the other conspicuously did not.

Linus limped over the shaking ground to the King's side, flanking him, ready for whatever fresh ordeal the desert had in store for them this time.

"Hey there."

Two words Lothren never expected to hear floated to him through the dim.

The ground rocked beneath him, murmuring a continuous warning, even as the warm sun fell peacefully on his skin. His lungs filled with air for what felt like the first time in an age. Only one eye opened, the other violet and swollen, to find the icy Juna kneeling over him. Ageless and pristine, golden hair pouring around her neck. He would have liked a little longer to simply look at her, but she was right. There was no time.

Just beyond her, swathed in sandy clouds and shifting beams of sunlight, the lithe arachnid stood firmly among the shifting sands that had once been a rocky ridge. Its glowing eyes were impossible to follow, but Lothren was certain they were fixed on the two of them.

“I thought I understood,” the elf croaked past reddened teeth. The Knight’s vengeful blow had delivered no small amount of his imprisoned rage. “An antlion… migration through northern… Eretolia.”

The arachnid’s mouthparts moved, spewing its infernal, indecipherable speech. If Lothren weren’t assured it was too far to hear him, he might think he was being mocked.

“… But it was them.” Lothren hissed through his teeth as a wave of white hot agony shuddered through his body, sourcing from his broken arm. “But why—ah!” Another attempt to move choked him with electric pain. The land was heaving beneath him, and its threatening rumble was growing louder.

Beyond them, the arachnid monster unfolded its scythe arms and began to lean forward. In a flurry of movement, a spray of sand began to cascade behind it as the creature buried itself in the sand, tunneling into the earth. In the periphery of his vision, another of its surviving smaller counterparts was doing the same, leaving the bloody ruins of the caravan in posthumous tranquility.

In another moment they were all gone, but the earth still shook. If the entities that created this chaos were fleeing, there must have been something more they were anticipating.

“Go.” He would not be a burden. The Ytharien had followed Lothren to their undoing, and he would not drag another down with him. “Go, Juna! Go swiftly! Leave me here. I will only encumber you.”

---

“Flaming…” Serona grunted as the world spun and placed itself under his feet, “… bastards…”

He fell over Kolbe’s shoulder, wondering how the man could possibly be mortal. Falkenburg and the Colossus dead. Three monsters of nightmare. And here Kolbe still stood, dragging Serona from the very maw of oblivion.

The weight of Linus’s question was felt and mulled over as he stared at the passing corpse of one of the beasts that had risen from the earth. Aretans had grown to despise Viceni magic enormously over the past fifty years, and to know that the enemy had come from elsewhere was almost difficult to admit. Vicenna was understood, tangible, and soon, bound by a treaty.

If this was a new threat, if this was what the King had feared, Areta may yet face ruin.

“What are you made of, Kolbe?” Amon asked in amazement. “Why do you live?” And, if indeed no man lived forever, what would finally fell him?

King Alonso argued mildly with his nervous mare, which chewed on its bit and tugged at its reins, but the beast was old an obedient. With enough encouragement, Alonso was certain the animal would carry its rider into hell itself. He stroked its neck and mane and whispered assurances, while staring at the haggard shapes of his battered Knights.

This is what they endured in his name, and now they staggered toward him to offer what remained of themselves. They believed the King was worthy of this, while their commander swam quietly in self doubt and questioned a thing as petty as a birthright.

Alonso stared at the unsightly scepter in Kolbe's hand. It had been wrested from what could be called the “hands” of those hellish creatures, but to what end? Something about it was significant, perhaps almost familiar, but he couldn’t name it.

“We must run,” Alonso urged, swinging his horse suddenly toward the river. “Here, get him up here. Snowdrift will endure two for a short while, but I don’t know about that one.” Mr. Hooves was indicated with his chin. “This is what my elven friend was speaking of, I am sure of it.”

The King turned his head to spy two more men approaching by horse, coming from direction of the caravan. They certainly had the right idea. He thought he recognized his country’s colors, but out here that seemed impossible. Unless… perhaps one of Kolbe’s fellow Knights had survived?!

There wasn’t any time to consider that. All of them had to flee.

“Friends!” the King called out while his horse stamped the earth. “This way! Cross the river! The deeper we go into Areta, the safer we shall be!”

As they began to move onward, the desert began to lift itself. The land beneath them swelled and rose, defying everything logical, as if they stood on the breast of a great creature taking a large breath. This actually made running much easier, transforming a sandy trek into a downhill sprint.

But then the creature exhaled.

Caving in from somewhere miles behind them, the sand drained away from the topsoil and receded into the creviced rock beneath them, which itself began to break and crumble inward. All the land fell into widening chasm, a deep, dark pit that seemed to have no floor. An entire desert, an entire country was avalanching into itself, akin to the sand in an hour glass.

All of it fell just behind Juna’s feet. Every village, every city, from the dwarven tunnels through the Scarlet Steppes, from the monolithic Towers of the Magi, to the Ministry Palace and the rolling evergreen forests, hundreds of square miles slipped away into nothingness. Everything not far beyond the rivered border of Areta was swallowed into the abyss.

In this year, on this day, at this hour, Vicenna collapsed beneath its own weight, leaving behind nothing by a dusty crater.

For the most part, letting Lothren stay there was never really an option. She could have let him go, and quickly made an escape away from here. Those giant arachnids, no matter their size, wouldn’t be able to catch her. She’d slip through and underneath them faster than they could hope to react, and she’d escape to somewhere safe. The thought never seriously crossed her mind.

Juna had sworn her life to Lothren. While that was a deal that a lot of people made, Juna actually took it seriously. All the knights swore their life to their life to the King, and it belong to him, and he could throw it away at a whim without a worry. Yet other people seemed to worry. Juna wondered if the Aretan Knights worried about such things, and she decided that they probably did, since they hadn’t seemed very impressive when she killed her share of them. Juna took it seriously though, and would not even consider leaving him. She was glad he had said it though, and she wouldn’t have preferred any other way.

“I’m glad you said it, and I wouldn’t have preferred it any other way,” Juna said. “Yet if you think I’m going to leave you behind then, well, you’ve forgot about the oath I swore to you.”

It was at this moment that Juna grabbed the weak, he sure seemed like he was weak, Lothren by force. If he was going to be stubborn, Juna didn’t have time for that. She was in quite a hurry. She held him up by her arms and would drag him if necessary. Through sheer willpower and ignorance of any of her limits she dragged him away. He was heavy, so Juna told herself that he wasn’t heavy, and suddenly he didn’t feel so heavy anymore.

She saw everything behind her sink. It was if the sand had turned into a deep ocean and everything were heavy rocks that sunk into the deep, never to be uncovered again. The creatures themselves had fled, and calamity had followed their departure. She didn’t have time to look back. Vicenna was falling, and she and Lothren would be falling if she did not hurry. What a shame it was that there was not a horse within sight.

The sand fell just behind her feet, but fortunately it was just behind her feet. Juna ran as quickly as her feet carried her, and didn’t care anything about having Lothren holding her back. She would admit that he was indeed a burden, as there was no need to deny to herself. Yet perhaps it was not too much of burden for her, just as heroes use handicaps to make themselves stronger. As the sand sunk behind her feet, Juna herself and Lothren ahead of the sinking ground. That was surely an odd thought; the ground was sinking.

Eventually, Juna saw a river in front of her, and Juna thought that maybe she saw something beyond that as well. It would be a good place to start, she thought. That was good enough for her for now. The Ytharien had not gone the way of extinction quite yet. There was still her, Lothren, Annara, and Aust.

Gawain rode his horse, nearly falling from it, his mere determination to survive being the only force keeping him upright in the saddle. He had begun stammering, saying something about 'lichens' and 'giant thorns' as the horse pushed it's limits and headed towards the king, whom was running from the lands that were once called Vicenna. “Mage,” Gawain stammered as he slumped slightly forwards onto his horse. “You’re clever. Can you hear it? The singing noise? I think it's the Monarch, calling me.” His words were slurred, slightly, and the man was clearly exhausted from the imprisonment.

They followed behind the king and his two knightly companions, though Gawain could only make out the moving visages of three figures, bobbing up and down, left and right as they made their escape from the desert. “It's getting louder, Monarch guide me, it's getting louder, mage..” he stammered while the horse caught up with the king and the two knights. As he drew closer, Gawain could make out the figure that was unmistakably Captain Amon Serona. The last time he'd seen that man was when he left the capital to go on his business near the border of Vicenna, the very same trip that had landed him in the clutches of that damned mage. “C-captain? You're a long way from home, captain..” he stammered, before looking at the figure that was riding with him. He did not recognize the man, though even if he had been more stable mentally, it was likely that he'd still not recognize Kolbe.

Finally his gaze rested upon that figure at the front of it all, leading them further into Areta whilst shouting that the further into Areta they got, the safer they were. Gawain chuckled slightly while he leaned against the mage, whom was still with him. “Hear that mage? You might very well be the last man.. the last mage from Vicenna that is alive..” He raised his hand in the sky, before sending it down onto the mages' back, slapping him rather hard while laughing at the boys' misfortune. His family was likely dead, as were his masters and fellow apprentices, and whomever else a mage apprentice would be familiar with. Oh, the agony. It didn't seem to connect in Gawain's deluded mind yet that they, too, were in grave danger as long as this threat would poise itself in the face of Areta.

And he had taken the mage to testify that Vicenna was at fault here, without realizing the mage likely knew nothing of this either.

“What a story you can tell when you get back home, mage. That is, if.. if I don't spit you atop my sword for herecy.. hehe! Hehehehe! Hehehrughh!!” He spat out on the sandy desert below his horses feet, the sand becoming a bit too much for his sore throat. “Ah yes. Quite a story..” he mumbled to himself, now barely holding onto the horse. He'd gone how long without water now, in this god forsaken desert. Without food, without rest. He slowly brought himself to ride next to the captain, looking to his right. The image he saw was vague, with the captains visage being blurred almost as if he was in a deep sleep or something akin to that. “Captain commander Serona. I've brought this... this here, heretic from Vicenna. Dragged from the clutches of spiders and elves alike, whom.. took me prisoner as if I were some low-born peasant!” Again he spat on the sandy desert floor, this time out of disgust.

He shook side to side in the saddle while his horse - out of instinct or training - kept the pace with the rest of the band. It would be in Gawain's favour if they got rest soon, and water, and food. His current half-delusional state did not help them further escape the claws of whatever it was that shook Vicenna, and it did not help the rest of the knights in their duty to protect the king. “It's good to see an Aretan again, captain.. last I saw was an Eretol bitch who said she'd opened her legs for all of Areta. 'twas not a plea-pleasant experience.”

The rest of the journey would be filled with Gawain's random mumbling, stammering and talking about random subjects that were neither of grave importance nor of any interest to the men.

As they crossed the river, that which divided the lands of Areta and Vicena, he turned back to survey his home one last time. As the dust began to clear, he could see. He could see the absolute destruction that those wicked aliens had wrought. There was nothing left. When finally, the earth came to its rest, there was a chilling silence. The empty land stretched on to the horizon. Everything. Gone. The mountains, the forest, the lakes, the rivers. The cities, the towns, the villages, the people. Swallowed up into the gaping maw of hell. In an instant, Vicena had been reduced to a wasteland. And Marcus could do nothing but watch as his home was stripped from the face of the earth.

He was empty. As empty as Vicena now lay. He didn’t have words to articulate the sorrow he felt for his loss. He still couldn’t even fully comprehend it. Everything he knew, everyone he knew, flushed away in some earthen maelstrom. Was he all that remained of the Vicenean Mages? Did centuries of history really just wash away at the whims of those creatures? He felt like he was adrift in a raging sea in a rowboat. If only Almeri were still around, though Marcus was unsure if even he would have known what to do about this situation.

He closed his eyes. This was all just a dream. When he opened them, he'd wake up in a cold sweat and these images would fade from his mind. None of this was happening. That had to be it. A nightmare. He opened his eyes again. The emptiness remained. This was a nightmare, just one he wouldn't wake from. He now lived in a personal hell, created just for him by those abominations. He wished he had remained behind, to never have been made to bear witness to these horrors.

As they finally reached some modicum of safety, he could faintly hear the knight’s voice. The last mage of Vicena. The knight just continued rambling. A story to tell when he got home? His head turned slowly to address the knight as his words cut into Marcus, “Are you mocking me? Home? Look out there, do you see my home any longer?! Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children are dead! Mock all you’d like, but I would be more worried about what these creatures plan on doing to my own home, were I you.” He spat his words with the anger of his lost home. “In one instant, those creatures destroyed what may have been their only threat. Without magic to counter these demons, what hope do have against an enemy that can strike you with heretic magic from the shadows? These creatures with no moral fibers or care for the lives they take or the chaos they sow.”

He turned back, looking on to Areta. It still stood, beautiful and pristine. As he spoke, his head sunk, and his voice was solemn, “I fear for your lands. I fear for your people. These demons could spell the end for both our peoples.” He was silent. He shuddered at the thoughts of what those creatures had in store for them. And he was unsure if there was anything they would be able to do to stop them.

---

As Annara came to, her memories of what happened were vague.
She remembered Skye rearing and throwing her off as the arachnid monstrosities rose from the earth, bolting in sheer terror as she stared up at them, no less mortified.
She remembered seeing Lothren on the ground, the knight nowhere to be seen, and running over, shaking him and screaming at him in her fear, urging him to wake up.
She remembered pain exploding in her right side as one of the spider-like beings swiped her away with one of its legs, breaking her ribs and sending her flying. Then... nothing.

Now... now... now, a loud groan escaped her before she could even open her eyes. Her left arm hung limply from her side and hurt worse than it ever had before and when she tried to move it, it only sent a wave of red-hot agony in response. Every single breath she took was torture and every muscle and bone on her left was throbbing and aching. But all of that was nothing compared to the blinding anguish that was her head - it felt like it had been split open, nausea washed over her in waves and blood, her blood, was gushing out of a wound at her left temple, dripping from her hair. Dripping... Why dripping? Why was her arm 'hanging'?

Somebody is carrying me.
Labored breaths, her healthy right arm slung around a neck, her legs swinging back and forth... Annara slowly opened her eyelids and was greeted by painfully bright sunlight and the face of Aust, as close to her as if they were in the middle of a play again.

But every thought, every pain, every word on her mind was forgotten as the low rumbling in the ground drew her attention, made her turn her head just in time to witness...

Annara had been to Vicenna twice - once with her father's caravan and once more before she met and joined the band of 'mummers'. Vicenna was a strange place to her, not only because it was lush and green compared to Areta but because its cities felt different. Generations of war and darkness had made many of its inhabitants humble and friendly; they knew all too well what hostility could lead to. Of course, one or two of the few mages she met seemed arrogant and distant but most of the others, at least the ones willing to talk to her, saw their powers as a responsibility to protect their people, not a birthright to rule them.
To her, 'home' had always been a group, the men and women she wanted to be with. Her last trip to Vicenna was the first time she thought she understood the notion of 'settling down', the idea that 'home' could be a place.

And here she was, witnessing the end of that nation. It was a sight so bizarre that she thought she was dreaming. How else could you explain that miles and miles and miles of firm soil seemed to break away, flow and fall as if they had been swallowed whole by... by what?
What could be big enough?
But she knew that she was awake. She knew that, as impossible as it seemed, she was watching the death of millions.

The world began to spin, faster and faster, a carousel of colors, then intense whiteness. Annara felt lightheaded and all strength left her. She heard the elf speak her name with urgency as her head fell against his shoulder but before she could answer, the Eretol woman was unconscious again.

"...and I beheld a cow eating a golden goose, and lo, it began to move across the desert and walked into the sea, crying "here is the man who slew his mother's son!" I tell you that the black stars align! The Eye opens! The deceiver, that old serpent, Sothis, trembles, spitting forth his venom, for he knows the hour of his reckoning has come! The day of judgement! When all hellbound souls shall rise from the desert soil to make war upon the kingdoms of God! I see its gaze upon you, faithless harlot! And you, profligate fool! I see it upon... no. NO!!"

--Friar Caius Bacon, prior to his last, fatal seizure

---

Linus Kolbe rode in silence.

He had stared, expression invisible beneath the blank iron visor, as the nation of Vicenna had ceased to exist, as though dragged to the bottom of some hellish hourglass. Watched as the dust settled in a great, horizon-spanning cloud.

And then, with a creak of tortured metal, he had simply turned, mounted the panting mare that was once the plaything of a spoiled child, and ridden slowly away.

---

Of all the horrors Kolbe had seen, nothing approached the magnitude of what they had witnessed. Vicenna, the Opal Expanse, garden of the oases, warren of sorcerers. The second greatest civilization in the desert. Gone.

And he felt nothing.

There was bickering, as they rode, shock, numb silence. The boy, unworthy of Kolbe's scrutiny -- for now -- he had no one left to betray them to. His ragged brother, delirious from his ordeal, babbling, a deep and suspect obsession with whores. The captain, wrung as close to despair as the sorcerer. The King, a dark burden growing upon his shoulders. All agreed word must be carried to those who may next face the black foulness that wormed like a cancer through the desert's heart. But none of them, these men of valor, of majesty, of learning. None of them knew what to say.

But Kolbe had no doubts. Nay. It could be nothing else but the end of all things. Sothis was rising in the east. Surely the black star hung above them even now, drawing and goading his putrid offspring to muster for the last great war. The last days. There was a metallic creak as his fist tightened murderously on the reins. They would not find him wanting.

He straightened suddenly in his saddle, remembering something at the thought. He drew the black scepter from a saddlebag, held it horizontally in the palm of his hand, leaning slightly toward Gawain and Marcus, resisting the urge to break the foul thing and cast it away.

"Wizard," he grated, breath wheezing metallically through the helm, "Know you of such as this? Did your masters..." another dry breath hissed through the visor, "...hold such?"

“Annara. Can you hear me? You’re going to be fine.”

Aust had set the Eretol woman down beyond the riverbank, where he and his fellow Ytharien could be obscured by a cover of dry foliage. He kept speaking to her as he tore cloth from his pant leg to wrap around her head, attempting to keep her conscious. While he wiped blood from her cheek, he stole occasionally glances to the side, unable to believe his eyes. Part of him wished to think it might be there the next time he looked.

The Aretan King had somehow fled all this mess, spared the fate of the rest of the caravan. Was it coincidence that his Knights had materialized in the morning to collect him? That they had rescued the Magus’ captive in Muon Pond, and now remained among the few survivors after the raiding party had been decimated?

Had Alan anything to do with this destruction of Vicenna? It seemed extraordinarily unlikely, but the strange alignment of these events seemed just as implausible.

Hearing movement behind him, Aust turned to find Juna appearing on the bank. Lothren was slung over her shoulder, one arm hanging limply at his side. The limb had been crushed and looked like the rind of a plum, and his face was caked in blood and bruised hideously.

“Aust, Annara,” Lothren gasped in relief. “Are we all that’s left?”

“Richter lives. He led three others north along the river. Anuwelyn and the twins.” Aust caught Annara as she began slumping to the side, having passed out of consciousness again. “I stayed behind. Annara was hurt.”

“And the King? Set me down here, Juna.”

After settling down, Lothren reached out with his working arm and clasped Juna’s wrist. For a moment he made her his captive, both in hand and in his one open eye. He had told her to leave him, but this hour he still drew breath and saw light because she risked herself to save him. And to think, Lothren had guessed Juna hardly had a fond sentiment left in her body.

“That was foolish,” Lothren said to her. “Thank you.” He released her wrist.

Aust raised his head over the ridge. “His Knights are with him.”

“Then we’ll catch up with the others.” Lothren bared his teeth and hissed as he tenderly adjusted his mutilated arm. “What we did for Vicenna—it was never going to be enough. We must find someone and send word to our home.”

---

The King stood at the edge of the shallow river, staring out into ruin. After both strangers rode across the river at Alonso’s beckoning, they were momentarily forgotten as the desert caved in behind them. Great shelves of earth dislodged and slid gradually into a hungry god’s cavernous maw. The thunder died away, replaced with a steady, reverberant hum as a newly formed canyon settled into itself. As the debris still fell into unseen chasms, filling them with crumbled stone and sand. With pavers, bricks, blood, and flesh. Mothers and children. Mages and men.

Alonso had dismounted, leaving Captain Serona alone on the horse. The Knight leaned over while he could, grasping his chest with both arms and focusing on breathing. He did not look ahead at Vicenna. Surely he had heard it fall, but it seemed he could not even lift his eyes to it.

Not so for the King. There he stood on Areta’s lip, the dusty wind pulling at his hair and ruffling his short cape. While a madman and a mage bickered behind behind him, Alonso simply gazed out, silent as Vicenna.

There was no sign of the caravan. Of Lothren. Aust and Annara. Or… Juna. Had this been Juna’s fated death all along?

Gone. Everything beyond the river, gone. What could pull an entire realm into oblivion? Into Hell? And why did it consume only Vicenna, and along mapped borders?

Unhelpfully, the only thought that came loose inside Alonso’s paralyzed mind was a trite lesson from a fable he’d heard as a child, something the nursemaid used to read to him. When the house of your neighbor in flames, your own is in danger.

“I remember you,” the King of Areta spoke solemnly as he turned, facing the rambling Knight. One of the younger men that Alonso himself had bestowed his title. Unique fellow, but loyal to his last breath. Brave, perhaps to the point of foolishness. The makings of a hero. “Castagher. The missing Knight from Udny Pass. They sent you out here to placate me.”

Alonso didn’t shift his eyes from the Knight, but the mage was remembered in the side of his vision. He was in mixed company, so the King inhaled the rest of his thought and decided to choose his words carefully.

“They told me you disappeared from the Pass days before I arrived. I thought you merely out on patrol.” No one had particularly seemed to miss the Knight, so no one had gone looking. Deplorable, though understandable. Aretans living this far from the country’s heart remembered more of King Hubrach than his successors. “Taken prisoner, you said?”

Alonso’s eyes fell and dimmed as he absorbed the news into his thoughts. There was too much to think about now.

By elves? The Ytharien had no Knight with them while Alonso stayed among them. There was much to learn, but now wasn’t the time. While Vicenna lied there before them as a pile of dust, it felt so meaningless and trivial. Alonso had no desire to extract a report from a battered knight in front of a recently orphaned mage.

“Those creatures…” The King looked back over his shoulder one last time, then made for his horse. Serona made room after a beckoning tap, coughing once in pain as his ruler hoisted himself into the saddle. He sat there for a long while, rubbing creases into his forehead. “We make for the castle, as quickly as we can move. There is more dire need for Areta’s King than there ever has been. Mage.”

Alonso lifted his head at last.

“I know that my words sound paltry, but I mourn your loss, wizard. Listen to me: Vicenna’s leader lives. He is at my home now, safe with his daughter and escorts.” Viviana Solus, his promised bride. He wondered if the wedding would still proceed after all this. What would be the point? What was to become of them now? Did they still hold any sovereignty at all? “Please, return there with me and my men. If Prime Minister Solus is to hear of the death of his realm, best he hear it from a countryman.”

Alonso kicked his horse into a trot, even if it felt like sacrilege to leave Vicenna behind like an abandoned corpse. What a thing to simply a walk calmly away from the most horrific thing witnessed, possibly in all of human history. Was this reality? The King felt inebriated. Was this his reaction to it all?

“The mage is to be our guest,” the King decreed, riding ahead. “I would like to do for Vicenna what I can. Whatever crime he has done to Castagher matters little for now, as long as he does not cast any magic.” The Knights implicitly knew what to do with him if he did. “We have little for provisions, so we’ll have to make do until we reach the Calhoun homestead, up the river—”

“It’s gone,” Serona mumbled behind him.

“What?” Alonso turned his head.

“The hamlet is gone, sire.” The Captain paused to clench his teeth. “Swallowed.”

The King’s eyes went dead for a moment. Curious thing, the sensation of complete powerlessness, in the hands of a country’s sovereign monarch. He’d felt this once before, as a child standing at his father’s wake.

“Then we ride to Udny Pass.” To Alonso’s relief, Serona had nothing to say about that. “Kolbe.” The wicked Knight was regarded warily, somewhere between respect and resentment, grateful on principle for the honesty but not the manhandling. “Come up abreast with me. Let us pray it is still there.”



The trek along the river felt more like a funerary march. Alonso found little to say, even as Castagher and mage exchanged heated words behind him. Occasionally the King looked sideways to attempt to get a read from Kolbe, but the man was positively stone. A childish part of Alonso wondered if he should make some sort of apology, as all children knew to do when they made missteps. He knew better, but the King had been drinking and singing while his Knights, Kolbe’s brothers-in-arms, lost their lives looking for him. Something personal was owed.

Perhaps the time would come when he felt he could explain himself to the scarred Knight, or offer some recompense. Between Vicenna and Udny Pass, that time never came.

Serona drifted off against the King’s back, to which the monarch did not protest. Once in his sleep he mumbled his wife’s name and a fractured apology, and only then did Alonso nudge the man awake. Something about it was unbearable to hear, whether it was the man’s troubled dreams or the missing of someone precious.

Castagher needed rest perhaps more than any of them, but somehow managed to keep up his energy. Nothing had been gained by stationing him at Udny Pass. He had not been able to find evidence of the disturbances along the borders. Been able to provide no warning about the existence of sinkholes or the impending doom of Vicenna. Alonso would be comforted to blame the man’s incompetence, but even the King had noticed little amiss. Antlions could cause disturbances, but they couldn’t sink a nation.

The scepter Kolbe wrested from that creature could be the key to understanding what had happened. Whatever the mage couldn’t explain, scholars in Marion Bay might be able to.

Marcus was the mage’s name. The man without a country. His tragedy was too much to think about. There would be talks with the Court when the King returned to Marion Bay. Long talks, hours of old men arguing and meandering off on wild tangents while Alonso sighed with his cheek on his fist. The noble houses would come forward with concerns about trade, aldermen might arrive with complaints of refugees, and the witch hunters would be foaming at the mouth with bloodlust. There was also still the Prime Minister and his daughter to contend with.

At least there wouldn’t be war with Vicenna.

---

The road had been found just beyond where the Calhoun homestead and surrounding hamlet had once been. Now it was little more than a bowl of sand, with pieces of a windmill and a wind vane protruding from the earth. There was no sign of any corpses, not one hint that men had lost their lives here. Nothing to mark the passing of honorable servants of the kingdom who deserved better. Alonso thought of stopping to craft some makeshift graves for them, but felt the gesture would be ultimately hollow. Services would be performed at home when his men weren’t starving or in need of shelter.

He did not linger there long, as his horse continued to ride lazily by, but he craned his neck as the ruin passed them, and uttered a quiet prayer as he gazed on the banner that Kolbe still carried.

By sunset, the Neratine had taken the King and his men into the redstone cliffs of eastern Greenbank, at last providing the riders with some shade. The dry wind carried to them familiar scents of burning stoves, horse manure, and hot food. Here, waist-high lamps were staked out along the road, still yet to be lit for the evening. Not just the signs of civilization (and thank god for that), but the beginnings of a compact, bustling city.

Once a small village with a humble river port, Udny Pass had developed into an important trade hub along Areta’s eastern border after becoming the seat of Lord Anquis, Baron of Greenbank. The city gave the impression of layers, having expanded to fill a shallow canyon. Structures of stone and iron to make a dwarf marvel sat along the canyon’s shelves, from the base of the river to the lip of the cliffs above. Some of the buildings had been carved into the cliffside itself, transforming rocky walls into brick facades and friendly storefronts.

The King’s men rode toward a stone wall that defended Udny Pass against the elements and threats likes Viceni attacks or elven raiders. An archway at the base of the wall allowed the water to flow on, while a gate stood at the end of the road. Militiamen at the top of the wall hoisted the gate open as they spied the banner of Areta, allowing the Knights to pass through.

Just inside the gate was a deplorable shantytown of tents, and canopies, hastily assembled, which had not been there the last time the Knights passed through. Some few dozen Viceni peasants, having fled here after being driven from their village the night before, huddled around spits and knelt on colorful throws and blankets.

Refugees. Possibly all that remained of Vicenna.

Alonso dismounted his horse as a militiaman with a sword on his belt approached to see to the new arrivals. Though the King wore no crown, he was well dressed and in the company of armored Knights. If he didn’t appear to be Areta’s ruler, he at least looked noble.

“I wish to see Lord Anquis,” the King said with an arm wave. “Call him here. My men are injured and our horses our tired. We are in need of water and succor.”

The militiamen gave a nod and began to deliver orders to the other watchmen. Alonso turned to his party.

“Now’s your chance to get off these damned horses and stretch your legs.” The King passed a sideways look to Kolbe and the spider scepter. “Keep that thing covered up. Not a word of it until we’ve spoken to Lord Anquis. I don’t want to alarm the locals.” A look of warning was sent in Marcus’s direction as well.



The elven party arrived by an alternate route, choosing to enter through Udny Pass’s western gate to avoid alarming the King’s battle-ready companions. Richter the dwarf and his companions were nowhere to be seen. All that greeted Lothren and his meager collective were overtired guards leaning over the stony wall.

“Who goes there?!”

He'd woken to a grey morning. Fog hung low to the ground like clumps of cotton, and the air had a cool, damp quality to it, coating the skin like a film of sweat after a nightmare. And of late - of nightmares - Harold had plenty. He resented the reminder.

With tired eyes and a throbbing headache, Harold watched the figure in the mist approaching his house through his kitchen window. He held his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose and willed the hangover to leave him, but his head would not forgive last night's indulgences so readily.

A demanding rapping at the door announced that his visitor had found his way through the early morning's murk. Harold flinched at the noise, but this was a visitor he could not simply turn away.

It was the court's official. Harold had been forewarned of his arrival the night before, though much too late to put the cork back in the bottle, or so he told himself. A prim and wiry man with a fine moustache stood at the door, unsmiling. His name was Kirn Atam; Harold had worked with him in the past, on official and not-so-official royal business.

"Harold," Kirn said.

"Hello, Kirn," Harold replied. "I expected you might be coming."

Kirn raised an eyebrow. Harold, wearing naught but a long and grimy bedshirt, did not look prepared to entertain guests.

"Then you probably know why I'm here," Kirn replied, plucking a small envelope from the breast pocket of his immaculate uniform. The envelope bore the royal seal, the outline of a jackal's feral sneer stamped into a button of blood-red wax.

Harold took the envelope without reply. He had suspected this day would come, though not quite so soon. If Kirn was at his door, it was serious. Harold had expected some fallout from his role in the recent execution, but now it seemed more likely this was to be a summons to appear before the high magistrate; the beginning of an investigation.

Kirn was looking at him like a bug under a lens. Studying his reaction as he processed this information. For a man so utterly devoid of emotion, Harold always thought it curious that Kirn took such an interest in the feelings of others.

"Thank you, Kirn. If that will be all...?"

Kirn straightened, nodded and, turning on his heel, stepped back out into the mist. Harold closed the door and looked at the envelope in his hand.

"Blasted witch," he muttered, bitterly. Though she was now surely rotting deep down in the salted earth, she continued to torment him. Her legacy, the decimation of his hitherto untouchable reputation.

Harold returned to his kitchen and watched the silhouette of Kirn fade away. It was still early. "But not too late for another drink," Harold whispered to himself, tossing the letter aside, delaying reading it 'til the next hangover.

“Shut your mouth boy!” Gawain spat back at the mage, though it was not as much an argument as just petty squabbling between a raving madman and a mage that had just suffered the loss of not only his family but also his kingdom, and his master. In any other situation the exchange of words would have been petty, but to Gawain the exchange made as much sense as ever. “I am not mo-mocking you boy, I am simply telling you the.. truth. Yes. The truth. Your home is gone. Great. Now you can swear of magic and- maybe.. no.. perhaps? 'twould be a sight..” Gawain mused over something that apparently only he understood the meaning of - and the term 'understood' would be used rather loosely in that. He had no control anymore, simply babbling to fill the time while confusion and headache filled his head. “My own land? Areta? Hm.. perhaps these creatures will come. That must m-mean Vicenna sent them. Those bastards.. you would know, wouldn't you, magus-boy-man? No.. I fear not for Areta.” Suddenly his posture changed from hanging slump, barely holding on, to a straightened back and a chin held high, even if he swayed more to the left and right than before. “Areta fields the finest soldiers, and unlike the mages, we are with many, we are strong, and we can kill these beasts. I cut one his legs, and he bellowed and beckoned like a co-cow in a slaughterhouse. I am sure if.. hmm.. three? Five.. Yes, five. Five men can take down such a critter, with no trouble.”

He spoke about Areta with a sense of pride - perhaps an unfulfilled pride, since Gawain had not done much for his country, nor his country for him, but being an Aretan with no goal was always better than being a Vicenni mage. Always. Slowly he slumped forwards again, looking left and right in a haze of foggy vision. It was then that the man up front spoke up, the one in the fancy clothing that Gawain had yet to realize was his very own king, his Monarch, God on Earth. “Missing knight? Me?” For a moment Gawain pondered upon the man's words, thinking about whether he had been missing. “I knew where I was all along.. did I? Was I.. lost?” he said to himself rather silently, a frown forming on his face as he thought long, only enhancing his headache. “Placate.. you?”

“Captured.. yes, captured. Ahem!” His cough was the prelude to a long rant about his capture - from the start to finish, a rather lengthy story to keep himself busy in his delirious state of mind. He raised his voice then, hailing the man at the front. Whomever it was, he had shown an interest in Gawain for some reason, and that was well received by Gawain's ego. “Yes, it's true! Th-this here mage fellow, he and his 'master' captured me. First of all, they only managed to do so with tr-tricks not befitting of a noble man like myself, you understand surely.. second of all, they were.. are.. been mages.. and they committed crimes against God. Against our Monarch, truly. Then the elves came..”

He waited for a moment to gather his thoughts through the haze in his mind - collecting images, words, the things he required to form a rambling but somewhat cohesive story. As far as that was possible..

“Yes.. the elves. They burned the town. I felt bad, see, the villagers may have supported a mage, but frankly, the elves treated them much worse, killing and raiding. It was like a band of Eretol feasting upon the remains of a abandoned caravan in the desert. They found us, in the jail, prison I mean. And they knocked the old mage unconscious - a despicable act. They hadn't found him worthy of a decent death, in combat, instead taking him down like he was some poor old fool in a back-street that got mugged.. I had released myself after that, through my cunning and intriguing skills. But then the elves came back and captured me once more. I was unable to defend myself as the mage had taken my blade, and I was unarmored. I exchanged words with one of the.. hm.. that man. And a woman. Two women.. two men, too. One was a human, the rest elves.. they treated me roughly, ungentlemanly, and beat me up, for no reason. I had shown nothing but respect.. Ah yes. And then.. they killed the mage. I heard him gurgling in his own blood, drowning in it if you will, a death not worthy of a mage, even if he is a heretic.. I wish we had gotten to purge him from his misdeeds at a pyre, but instead he shall remain in the hells of the Monarch, paying the price for magic..”

Most of the story was probably made up and made no sense, but Gawain had talked for some time then, and he felt rather accomplished with the story he told. Maybe he shouldn't have become a knight.. maybe he should've been a bard. Playing an instrument sounded like fun right now. He glanced around some more, before his eyes fell upon the mage. “Well mage. At least you have us.. until the Inquisitors arrive and-” An interruption from the man that rode up front, in his royal clothes. Must've been some nobleman - little did Gawain know his thoughts were not only true, but he was looking at the king. “Hear that mage.. you're free to stay alive. Just don't pull any spooky magic from your.. where does magic even come from.. Ah, what do I care. Just don't p-pull it no more. I saw you casting that fire, and it was well timed though unneeded. Heretic magic is never needed boy..” At times he sounded like a madman - at times he sounded like a drinking companion that had a few too many mugs of beer. At least he was not yelling.

---

As they strode into the small city that was, apparently, called Udny Pass, Gawain got to take a look at the many colorful canopies that had been placed here. “Eretol? Inside our villages? Pre-preposterous.” They may not have been Eretol but at that point, any person living in a tent was practically an Eretol to Gawain. A the small party stopped and dismounted, Gawain clumsily followed their lead and also dismounted. It would've been best for the mage to dismount quickly, or else he'd risk being pulled into a fall by Gawain.

Ultimately it took him a full minute to dismount, though that wasn't so strange given the mans mental state. He'd always been noble, but most of that came from his title and not his behavior, as was evident right now. Spotting a pot of water near the refugees, Gawain quickly made way there, sitting down next to the pot without saying as much as a word. He gripped the edges and.. SPLASH!

He had thrown his face into the water, submerging his head entirely under water, drinking it as he went under. He hung in there for some time, to the great surprise and fear of the refugees, who did not seem to understand what overcame them. When he finally pulled himself out he was smiling, and looked considerably more fresh. “By the Monarch!” he proclaimed, before folding his hands together and raising them to the sky in a gesture of prayer. “Bless you, Monarch! Your bounties know no limits!” Well, the bounties of the refugees knew no limits. And it was forcefully taken from them. But Gawain cared little - it was just some water after all, and got up from his knees leaving the refugees behind again as he approached the group again. Wait, when did the king join them? For a brief moment Gawain wondered if he'd been sleeping the entire time, but he remembered profoundly that a noble man had asked him his life story, which he'd gladly provided for him..

In his mind he decided to not say anything for fear of appearing stupid, though he did not realize that, yes, that too had likely already been accomplished. He simply grasped the pommel of his sword, wanting to appear like he was actually on guard like a knight was supposed to be. He stood near the mage, wanting to keep an eye on him, but also feeling himself strangely drawn to him as if he had known the boy for a long time and gone through some major things with him. Perhaps, one might say, that was true. Gawain would say that was horseshit and he simply wanted to ensure no magic would be cast near or around the king.

@Thortimer

It was becoming clear that the Knight had become delusional from the events of that morning. There was little point in arguing with the man further. It would only serve to make him appear unstable. But still, the words hurt. Each time it was reaffirmed that his home was now gone, there was another chip at his soul. He still didn’t want to believe it. But the reality of it all kept bearing down on him like those Vicenna mountains as they eroded into nothing.

A second, far more intimidating Knight approached once Marcus’ travelling companion had finished rambling. Something didn’t feel right about the man, it seemed like latent magical energy were coursing from his body. The source became apparent when he revealed a scepter, one he pried from a fallen bug mage. Marcus’ breath caught in his throat and the hair on his neck stood on end as the Knight presented it. To be so close to an artifact so powerful was practically intoxicating. Maintaining his composure, Marcus addressed the imposing Knight, “That... That is an artifact of extreme and dangerous power. A nefarious thing. It amplifies the power of its wielder by orders of magnitude. It would explain how a single insect could manifest the power to swallow a whole country…” He paused a moment, eying the scepter, almost hatefully, “Vicenna hasn’t wielded dark powers like that since the dark ages. I believe that a creation of blood magics. Take great care with that. It’s said that items like that can drive their wielders to madness. Simply holding it, being in the presence of that evil force may cause corruption.”

He could feel the energies rippling and swirling around it. How many lives were claimed to make an artifact that powerful? He shuddered at the thought. “We must keep that out of the hands of those abominations. It won’t be as simple as just destroying the scepter with force. It needs to be dispelled before it can be dismantled. But with Vicena gone, that will take ages to prepare…”

At least he was promised amnesty for now, from who seemed like their King. He would at least agree to stay his hand from magic, so long as no serious dangers threatened them. As long as they were on Aretan soil, it was in his best interest to respect their customs. Though, strangely, none had though to strip him of his staff. Sure, it was innocuous seeming, looking like little more than a walking stick, but that other Knight at least remembered him wielding it earlier. He didn’t question it; he was just glad that his memento of his former master remained his.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After what seemed like far too long to travel, they finally began reaching signs of life again. It was almost surreal, to see these people none the wiser that only a day’s trek away was a complete wastleland. They were carrying on as if nothing had ever happened. He could hear the faint play of children in the distance, the calls of various animals. It was such a stark contrast from where they had come from. Is this what the cities of Vicenna sounded like moments before they were swallowed? Had there even been time to panic as everything was consumed around them?

Marcus didn’t have much time to tend to those thoughts as they finally reached their destination. He quickly dismounted, legs wobbly and practically asleep from the journey. He crutched himself against his staff and looked out at the city before them. It was no Vicenna wonder, but it was none the less impressive in its own right. Unlike most Vicenni cities crafted meticulously through magic, this city was made by the blood, sweat and determination of its people. Unlike the general uniformity that grace Vicena, you could almost see the soul of each building crafter shine through its architecture here. It was beautiful in a way.

As the King addressed the party, Marcus was paying keen attention. It would be best if these people weren’t unnecessarily sent into a panic. Their panic would do little against the foes they were facing and would probably only interfere in any sort of defense they might mount against those demons. Marcus nodded to the King in affirmation. He turned back to his horse, stroking once down its neck. Mischief gave a single huff in protest for having been ridden so hard and so long with two men on her back. But beyond that, she seemed to not be any worse for wear.

Juna had finally arrived alongside her companions, arriving at the bank of a river. She had turned her back on a great danger. Whatever the danger was, however, was unknown to her. It some kind of kind of giant spider or some kind of nightmarish insectoid, and Juna had no knowledge beyond that vague idea. Well, she had had quite enough of that, and fortunately she was now away from all of that. It seemed she was once again somewhere safe again, although Juna suspected that this was quite far from being over.

Now amidst her companions once again, Juna heart had jumped. It was quite unlike her to be one to be overcome with emotion, so she would not. Nonetheless, she was quite glad to see them alive and in good shape. Well, at least alive. Annara certainly did not seem to be in good shape, which was certainly a disappointment. She saw her wounds, covered by makeshift bandages courtesy of Aust. Juna certainly would have to thank him later. Juna was glad that Annara was alive and would live, and she felt disappointment in herself for not being there in her companion’s hour of need. She had jumped into combat far too quickly, instead of tending to the aid of her friends.

Aust mentioned that some of their friends still lived, which brought Juna some comfort. Richer lived, and led three others to safety, along with Anuwelyn and the twins. Yet still the words brought on anger and grief. If this was all that lived, then it was truly a calamity. Had it been even a single death that would have been a tragedy. With this many dead, Juna truly had no words with which she could express her thoughts, either to herself or to her remaining friends.

Lothren requested to be set down, and Juna had figured that her leader had been carried long enough. He was tough, and blessed with all the other qualities she needed in a leader. She was sure he would shoulder on, even if his had taken a temporary toll. She helped him get to a comfortable spot, giving him a smile.

“Foolish, maybe,” Juna said. “But it sure as all hell worked. And it sure makes me awesome for doing it. I’m joking of course. Remember, Lothren, I pledged my life to you, and I’d not easily turn my back on my word.

Juna listened to the rest of the talk. She wondered a bit what Lothren would do, although in reality there was only one path they could really be expected to take. Indeed, they did take that path. Soon they set out, and it was on foot. Juna had grown a bit lazy, as she had grown quite used to the idea of having a steed. Kevala was gone, and Juna would prefer to think that she was not dead, although she probably was.

As Juna meandered through the greenery along the river, Juna noticed that the journey was long. She felt a little guilty that the most thing she was worried about was finishing their trek and finding some place to have a moment of rest. Then she remembered that she never felt guilty, and that did the trick. All of these thoughts reminded Juna what had been lost. As she wondered through the endless monotony of the green foliage and uncomfortable melancholic silence of her friends, she recalled the faces of those who would not return.

Juna had spent a lot of time with less than pure intentions. She had led some of the men on when she was feeling flirtatious and chaste through chosen expressions, playful mannerism, and pretty words. On rarer occasions she was feeling a bit more open and adventurous, she would take a lover. Juna had not seen Reginald’s body, but she knew all the same that his death was certain. She already missed him, and her soul was filled with regret. Last night she had the chance to be with him for a final night, but she had passed up on it, and her soul bitterly wept because of that. They had seperatedly long ago, and the chance of them getting together for another night had been nearly zero for quite a while. Still, Juna wished for it, because as it was now she had never gotten to say goodbye, and it pained her.

“You know,” Juna began. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can’t stop thinking about what happened back there. Untold numbers of people died in Vicenna, if the entire country really did go under. It’s the world’s greatest atrocity. And so many of our companions, our friends, they were killed. I guess what I’m really trying to say is that there’s a few spiders that I’d like to crack open.”

Juna was rarely so serious, and so open about it. It seemed to her, however, that seriousness was the correct state of mind. Right now, Juna wasn’t smiling. Even the charade wasn’t something worth keeping up. She kept on walking. Juna had enough time to calm herself down. In spite of whatever vengeance her heart demanded, she would be able to remain calm. A town surrounded by a stone wall appeared in front of her. as the group approached, the guard demanded who they were.

"Just a humble group of travelers," Juna said, giving a tired smile.

“It is an unimaginable tragedy,” Lothren agreed breathlessly. “I share your sentiment. What I truly wonder is this: whatever those beasts were, what did they gain from destroying a nation?”

He traded a look with Aust, who had been carrying Annara without complaint. They did make quite a pair. After seeing them playing each other’s love interest in The Aurelian Collector countless times, it was sometimes difficult to separate stories from reality.

“And will they stop there?”



“Humble group of…” The guard leaned back off the parapet, pushing back his iron helmet to unobstruct his view. After hanging there to stew for a moment in incredulity, he passed a look to his partner further down the wall. “D’you hear that, Rod? They’re just travelin’.”

“Look like elves to me,” Rodney replied, leaned back in his stool and plucking the string of his crossbow. “You gonna do somethin’ about it or stand there and make jests?”

“Well,” the first guard sucked on his teeth, “did have a good one about the human there. Suppose they'll eat her for supper?”

“A human?” Rodney set all the legs of his stool down and rose to his feet. From below, the Ytharien saw another silhouette blot the sky as he appeared over the wall to peer down at them. Uttering a curse, he moved his partner along with a shove and drew a bolt from the bench nearby. “She looks hurt. Come on, you idiot.”

In short order, the gate was lifted by the winch, revealing both guards standing just beyond on the other side. The first had his sword drawn, and the other held his loaded crossbow at the ready. The swordsman ducked under the rising and approached the party with his blade pointed at the blonde elf.

“Each o’you, show your hands.” A necessary question for elves known for their hand cannons and magic devices. There were tales of elves shooting men dead after little more than reaching into their vests. “Yer all three to come with us peaceful, and nobody gets hurt.”

“Four,” Rodney offered from behind his crossbow.

“Damnit, I can count!” The guard tipped his head at the human. “The girl’s a blasted native, not a human. An' looks like she's comin' to.”

The past few days had taken a lot out of Tobias Ilingard. His normally bright eyes were dull, having been watching over his small flock of concerned villagers who had managed to survive the elven raids. They had managed to escape their burning town, only in time to see their country crumble into the ground. Tobias, being a foreigner to Vicena, couldn’t truly understand the magnitude of emotion that ran through those who he had spent the past three years with. Still, it was perhaps because of this lack of attachment that he had managed to lead the group of villagers from Muon Pond to Udny Pass. They had only escaped with the help of Marcus, a mage's apprentice who had been staying with his master in the town, and Tobey cursed his luck that he had lost track of this very powerful ally.

Tobias, or Tobey as those he was familiar with called him, had helped the remaining villagers set up, and had taken on the role of leader among the small group of refugees. Their former clan leader had been struck down by a well-placed elven arrow, and the paltry amount of able-bodied men were grieving the loss of their loved ones and country, catatonic and alone. He took on the role with some ease, though he felt extremely restless.

That was then, this was now. Tobey had taken up guard duty along the western wall. He wasn’t expected to be there, but he was always waiting for news that could be shared with his people. And the guards did not object to having another man who knew how to fight on the wall. Something had destroyed Vicena, and all were on edge. No one had felt safe when the only concern were elven raiding parties, and now things had only become worse. Tobey wished he could find out what was going on. He had family he needed to see, relationships that needed to be repair, and perhaps most importantly, life to be lived. Standing on that wall, he had half a mind to simply grab a horse and depart back towards land he had once called home.

Still, his gaze wandered to the small group of tents that was all that remained of his village. To Martha, with her three children who had lost their father. To Kile, who had held onto the hem of Tobey’s cloak for most of the journey, a grown man frightened out of his wits. These faces needed him, and he couldn’t muster up the heart to leave them so easily.

Tobias was awoken from his pensive daydreaming by the sound of voices. He saw guards gathering on the wall near the gate. Slowly, he walked over to join, spotting a group of travelers who were likely fleeing the destruction of Vicena. There was a human woman, along with- Wait a moment. Were these… elves?

Tobias had never had issue with these creatures. Until they had nearly killed him and all those who had resided in his village. He still couldn't understand why they had done it, and it was perhaps because of this that he found himself running back and down the stairs, to watch from a distance as the guards began to step out. He wanted answers, and he didn't imagine he would find them if these elves were impaled by all manner of pointy objects. He recognized Rodney, whom he had spoken with a few nights prior while swapping drinks and tales of woe. Yet here he was tense, crossbow raised and pointed towards the newcomers. Tobias stepped forward.

“Come now Rodney, there’s no need to have that thing pointed at them. What sort of threat are they? A few elves and a dying human?” Tobias knew how quickly things could turn sour. He smiled, a bit of the light returning to his eyes. He understood what it was like to come to a foreign place and be mistrusted, and beyond that, these people could prove useful. “Your friend has good sense. Let them through.” He didn't recognize a single member of the party from such a distance.

"Evie - my girl, my youngest. She's fiery, too. They must be about the same age. She's turning seven next week and if I don't have something good when I get back I'll be in big trouble." The portly diplomat from Vicenna delivered the line with an air of solemnity betrayed by the twinkle in his eye. Then he reached out and placed a large pink hand on Perrine's head, ruffling her hair. "You'd like her."

Perrine stiffened. A sidelong glance at her father told her he would not be calling his new acquaintance out on the indignity. He looked amused. She exhaled sharply. "I'm ten," she said. "And I am not fiery."

The two men's laughter flooded the room. The diplomat's laugh was loud and hearty, where her father's was shallower, and had a rasp to it. The realization that they were laughing at her swept through her like dizzying wave, and for a moment she was sure she was falling, though the ground stayed in its place. Her breathe came short, but no tears came; she wouldn't let them.

The diplomat caught her eye and quickly reined in his careless guffaw. "I seem to have given offense, m'lady." He went to one knee before her, his face a mask of contrition, his hand extended in invitation. She was reasonably sure he was still mocking her, but she put her tiny hand in his big one anyway. It was the polite thing to do. "I wish to offer my humblest apologies," he said and kissed her hand.

Perrine eyed him coolie, evaluating his sincerity. "Your apology is accepted," she said, through a smile she didn't mean. For now.

---

Matthieu, the burlier of her two chaperones, grappled the diplomat from behind, crushing the man's flabby wrists together with one hand, while the other arm wrapped around his chest between the throat and collarbone. With the man thus pinned, Perrine's other chaperone, the scrappy older tutor and maidservant Renée Kennin, frisked him down, removing two daggers from the folds of his silken robes and tossing them onto the table next to the man's short sword and the dirk and three belts they had found by upending the guestroom.

"I apologize for having to do this," Perrine said, and meant it. "They will be returned when you are in a calmer state."

Sir Orson Farwater, trade ambassador of the late Republic of Vicenna and something of a family friend, squirmed and twisted against Matthieu's grip. He had managed to jerk his left wrist free, and was now attempting to pry the strongman's arm loose from his upper torso, but lacked the leverage for success.

"This is pointless!" Sir Orson's voice was hoarse from screaming, and lacked even a trace of the joviality Perrine had become accustomed to over the decade since his first visit to Greenbank. "It's not a fucking favor you're doing me. I am nothing. Nothing! Just let me fucking die."

So went his thesis: he was a ghost now, his tethers to the world flying loose, their anchors systematically unfastened and in one sublime moment too terrible to comprehend, swallowed by the swirling sand. "Fiery Evie" swallowed, along with the rest of his six children, his five grandchildren, and the wife whose improbable beauty he would seldom shut up about. Swallowed, too, his brothers and sister, his aging mother, and a whole clan of relatives with strong personalities. Perrine was surprised at how many of their names came to her own mind unbidden, though she had never met a one; it was just that Sir Orson talked so much. He had always been a family man.

Perrine was no stranger to deaths in the family, but the magnitude of this was not something she could comprehend.

"My father wants you alive to speak for the refugees. We have a rapport." Rumors of whole villages driven by raiders across the Neratine and the great ravine that marked the border with Vicenna further north had been trickling into Udny Pass for the last week or so, though Perrine and her father had not paid them much mind until the night before, when the population of Muon Pond turned up on their doorstep. Perhaps they were too late to the game and other minds had already tackled the problem, but if House Anquis could make itself instrumental in the successful integration of this new wave of peasants, it could help to elevate their standing in court.

"Besides," Perrine continued, "I won't allow a guest in my father's house to be damned."

Sir Orson sneered. "How quaint. Fuck your hells and your backward desert god. And the refugees. I'm not a politician anymore and I'm not your father's pet."

Perrine ignored the man's provocations. By now, Renée Kennin had wrapped the knives and belts together in a cloth bundle and come to stand at the door. "You may release him now, Matthieu. We're going." To Sir Orson, Perrine said "There will be a guard posted. If you try to leave, or harm yourself, he will stop you. If you wish to walk the city or the castle you may do so with an escort and my or my father's permission. Just send one of the servants when they bring you your meals." She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry for you loss."

---

The woman was waiting in the hall when she exited. She was lithe, handsome, and taller than Perrine by almost a foot. Deeply tanned, and black haired, with a bit of an Eretol look about her. Her perfume smelled of orange blossoms and she draped herself in bright colors and jewelry of bronze and glass. "M'lady Anquis," she said, and bowed a bit deeper than etiquette required. "Your man bade me come here. They...let me in at the gate."

"Your madame tells my man you're Ambassador Farwater's favorite prostitute. Is that true?"

"I don't know, m'lady. I... Probably. He's a regular, when he's in the city."

"And this has been going on for three summers?"

"Four m'lady. But yes. Is..." Her question trailed off. From her apprehensive tone, Perrine suspected the woman wanted to ask if she had somehow stepped afoul of her lord's family - if she was in trouble. Probably, she was not accustomed to the attention of the highborn, excluding the client in question.

Though perhaps Perrine needn't reach for an explanation for the woman's demeanor. The cliffs of Udny Pass shook visibly when Vicenna fell, and many an Aretan eye had born witness as the nation's distant mountains sank into the sand. News spread quickly to those who had not seen, and Perrine doubted greatly that many of her countrymen would rest easy for months to come, if not years. She had long since learned to bury her own panic, but she could still feel it threatening to overwhelm her if she let herself stop to think.

"Do relax," Perrine said. "I asked for you because I mean to hire your services."

The woman raised an eyebrow. "M'lady?"

"Not for myself. I want you to keep the good Sir Orson company for a time. Stay with him. I fear you may be the last thread tying him to this world."

As Perrine's meaning sank in, the woman's eyes went large. She shook her head slowly. "He is a sweet man, but..." The woman was not ready to have the weight of the man's life on her shoulders, to share his quarters and weather the fits of rage and anguish that were like to punctuate his existence for the weeks and months to come.

"Do this for me and for Orson. House Anquis will see you are generously compensated for your troubles. If you are not stupid with it, you will not soon want for coin."

The woman bit her lip and nodded, because, of course, she didn't have much choice in the matter. "Yes, M'lady," she said.

---

Perrine sat at the small writing desk in the keep's library, a tome on the philosophies of Favian of Aul opened to her right and to her left a small plate of cheese and olives, untouched. The dry quill in her hand tapped a tight, anxious rhythm on the blank sheet of papyrus before her. It was to be, in theory, an essay drawing an analogy between Favian's doctrine of the primacy of animal virtues to the classical Veckish notion of the five roots of thought. But the written word was beyond Perrine; her head was full of swirling sand.

She didn't notice the door open behind her until Renée Kennin's hand settled on her shoulder. She jerked around, but then relaxed, seeing her old tutor. "The world is quite literally crumbling around us and here I am failing to dissect the thesis of some long-dead Aulic demagogue. Please tell me there is anything else I need be doing right now."

Renée Kennin smirked. "I thought you rather liked Favian. But as it happens... Those knights are back. Amon Serona and his men. There's some noble with them, demanding to speak with the Lord Anquis."

"Father is not in a state to entertain visitors right now, I think."

"No," Renée Kennin agreed.

"Alright, have them escorted to the smaller dining hall. See that there's meat and bread, and that good mead, with the pomelo. I'll meet with them."

---

They were, most of them, seated around the small, ornate table when she entered, her two chaperones flanking her. She had not met in person with Captain Serona and his company when they first passed through Udny Pass two days prior, but she had heard reports and the numbers here were wrong. Serona had lost men.

Aside from the captain, there were four others. She recognized Sir Gawain Castagher, the surly knight who'd disappeared not long after he'd been assigned to Udny Pass a few weeks before. Her eyes and ears in the city had reported that Serona's knights had been looking for someone. She wondered if it was him. Beside him sat a tall, robe-garbed commoner she didn't know.

The remaining knight, the last of Serona's original company, stood to the side, still helmeted. Sir Linus Kolbe, by the description she'd been given. It was a name she remembered.

And there, seated at the head of the table, the place reserved for the Lord Anquis, was the mysterious young noble who had demanded this audience. Perrine could swear she had seen him before, but where was the question. Perhaps he had a common face? Pretty, though.

"Welcome to Udny Pass, Captain," she said. "I am Perrine Anquis, the lady of this house. Regrettably, my lord father is indisposed and will not be joining us, but I am authorized to speak on his behalf." She sized them up again. The lot of them looked bloody and haggard. "I mean no offense when I say that you and your men look...worse for wear. You must be famished. Food and mead are on their way and the servants are preparing hot baths and guest quarters for you as we speak."

Indeed, almost as she said the words a pair of maids emerged from an inconspicuous serving door and began to lay out food before the guests. There was fresh baked bread; basil roasted kid with walnuts and nutmeg; a soft, musky cheese; and a blend of coarse-ground herbs and seeds soaking in olive oil for dipping. The mead came last - two great carafes, from which the servants filled each of the guests' goblets to the brim. It smelled strongly of honey and bitter citrus.

"Now to business," said Perrine. "I am told you have some urgent business with my house. Judging by the timing of this visit and the gate through which you entered, I believe you have news of Vicenna and I would very much like to hear it. I suspect our ends may be pointing in the same direction, here. But first," she eyed the mystery nobleman, "who's the man in my God damned chair?"

The journey from Muon Pond to Udny Pass were a blur to Annara, a constant shift back and forth between consciousness and strange, disconcerting dreams that so vivid she had trouble telling them from reality. The first time she awoke, the mumbling of the river Neratine filling her ears and a moist, cool cloth on her forehead, she started up, thinking herself back in a damp cave she had once been trapped in as a child, and despite the comforting words of her companions, Annara required a minute to be convinced otherwise. Her headwound, that much must have been obvious to the others, could prove the most serious of her ailments.

But as time passed and Aust carried her towards their destination with a resilience that was difficult to match, she became more lucid, the headache and nausea were almost bearable and the unconsciousness turned more and more into sleep, despite the fever dreams. She couldn't have done much of anything else anyway - her broken ribs turned breathing into a loathesome affair and sitting upright, let alone standing, felt like somebody was stabbing her with a red-hot knife.

When she came to at the gate, her broken arm held to her chest by a makeshift sling, most of the words that had been spoken had found their way to her ears and into her nightmare; as her eyes opened, the two guards looked like arachnids to her, a sight so absurd and terrifying she couldn't make a sound, not before she realized that they were human - or, well, Aretan, if that counted as human. Pride and anger were boiling deep inside her but they were nothing to the pain and exhaustion she felt despite hours of uneasy rest.

"We need help", she murmured as loudly as she dared, wincing at the agony even these small words subjected her to. "He...", she weakly nodded towards Lothren, "he's injured and I-I can't breathe... It hurts so much."

The Eretol didn't have to fake the wheezing or groans of pain. She was scared, of course she was when her entire body seemed to be one big aching wound, but she hadn't shown it to her friends like this because she knew they had done all they could and she had felt that she needed to appear as strong as she could. Here, however, before some guards who would decide whether they could enter the city and a man who seemed willing to help convince them, she dropped all pretense of strength. They wouldn't have hesitated to slit her throat if they knew that all of them, even Annara, were Ytharien, but surely they couldn't turn away a small, weak woman with a serious injury? Not if she...

"Please... I beg you... Help us."

---

"Alonso vas Aretaeus." Kolbe's ragged voice was like a rusted blade through the lavish courtesies of the dining room. "King of Areta." The helm inclined, grimly. "Your sovereign."

The statements hung there in the ensuing silence, like crows over a gibbet. Kolbe watched her expression a moment before continuing.

"...You are young. Minor lapse in courtesy, hnn?" he rasped. "Confident this oversight will not be held against your father."

The armored knight stepped slowly around the table, each step heavy with the jingle of metal. "Vicenna is gone." He said, the voice dry and implacable. "Not conquered. Not destroyed. Gone. Drunk by the earth, to its last drop. The work of demons. Demons..." the knight's hand reached behind him, the armor still caked with blood. "...And weapons such as this."

He drew the black scepter from a carried saddlebag, pressing it forcefully to the tabletop. The thud of the twisted substance sounding against wood seemed to reverberate in their minds, the aura of the thing making the ambient noise from outside suddenly muted and distant, as though miles of distance separated them from the next room. Kolbe's mailed fingertip remained atop the rod, as though a rash opportunist might try to snatch it up at any moment. His one clear eye moved from one face to the next behind his visor; watching. Weighing. Finally settling on Perinne.

"The darkness," he breathed, "is at your door."

Mr. Harold Marthas, in the name of His Royal Majesty King Alonso vas Arateaus and by order of High Magistrate Aeronas Harking, is hereby ordered to appear before the Court of Magistrates within Castle Araetaus in Marion Bay on the First of May in the Year Five Hundred Twelve, to inform inquiries into the dubious circumstances regarding the death of Elizabeth Guiseppe, who stood accused of witchcraft as of the Thirteenth of March. Mr. Marthas must appear in person to stay the ruling of a guilty verdict on the charges of murder.

Send no proxies. Any failure to respond or appear in person will be considered an act of hostile resistance against the Crown.

Signed and officiated,

Magistrate Ronan Merriweather

Post Scriptum:
Personally speaking, it would be in your best interest to dress impeccably, to shave, bathe, and cut your hair. The better half of H.M. Harking’s decision not to hang you rests on how you decide to present yourself. I would be the one tasked with recording your execution in person, hence I ask that you save us both the trouble of a very disagreeable afternoon.

---

Sir Kolbe spoke before Alonso found the need. The King gradually lowered his quirked brow while he sipped on his warm mead, peering into the slots in the knight’s helm. After his name was spoken in full, Alonso pointedly set down his mug and allowed the Lady her moment of profound embarrassment.

The King stood out of his chair at the conclusion of Kolbe’s brief speech, planting both cuffed hands on the table. Softly blue eyed and not quite six feet tall, Alonso relied on his sharp brow and good breeding to assert his royal presence in the dining hall. Amid this meager handful of battered souls and one well-dressed noblewoman, he was nearly startled to have the effect that he did. His authority within the Court of Magistrates—men who had seen the King mature from boyhood, some even from infancy—was often less felt, considering his lack in experience and stature.

“Forgive me, my lady, for not announcing myself first.” Despite the mercy in his words, the King did not speak them kindly. A breach in etiquette was at the bottom of his current list of concerns and he wished only to move on. “You understand the cause for my discretion, considering the predicament your House contends with outside.”

Alonso sized Miss Perrine up for half a moment, realizing she was exceedingly young. A grown woman to be sure, but a questionable stand-in for the head of the household. Still, there was something sharp about her. Refined and stern. Perhaps even more so than the young King.

“My lady, are you certain your father cannot join us?” The question came after Alonso had looked Perrine from head to toe. “As Sir Kolbe demonstrated, the news my men and I bring is grave indeed, and if your constitution is too fragile to bear it…”

When Lady Anquis did not wilt, the Alonso discarded his hesitation and proceeded, assuming (perhaps out of foolish optimism) that she was competent.

“Not only are my men worse for wear, but they are two less. Sir Konrad and Sir Gerald perished retrieving me from the Viceni border.” His eyes slid away for a moment, resting at the center of the table. “Perhaps you recognize Sir Gawain,” Alonso extended a hand, “who disappeared from his post here some time ago. Held prisoner in Vicenna, so I’m told, but I have not heard his tale in full.”

Clashes at the Viceni-Aretan border were hardly uncommon. Why the mages chose to imprison an Aretan knight, which Alonso would usually consider a high offense, seemed meaningless now. Gawain’s tale was most likely a mundane one, as indeed, the Magi and the Knights were eternal rivals. Each had something to fear from the other, and would be compelled to protect their people from any perceived threat.

But the days of those conflicts were over. It was still impossible to fathom.

“As mad as it sounds, I will personally attest to the work of demons, or some hellish creature from the bowels of the earth. I saw them with my own eyes, Lady Anquis. Great, spidery beasts, climbing out of the sands. Were it not for Captain Serona and Sir Linus, they may have taken me as well.” The King turned his head to acknowledge Kolbe. “Sir Linus felled two of the creatures on his own, and pulled that thing from the clutches of their leader.”

The scepter resonated a steady aura of gravity and power, palpable to any trained mage. It was more than a simple conduit, and yet also somehow less. Its power was limited to absolute specificity, capable of only one spell, but it was extraordinarily single minded. Focused as the point of any sharpened blade. More than that, the pressure it exerted through the room seemed to pulsate, coming in waves like a soft heartbeat. It was alive.

Ignorant to its effects, Alonso unfolded his hand again, this time toward the mage.

“I must disclose to you that there is a mage among us, Marcus of Vicenna.” Not the first of his kind Udny Pass had seen, but perhaps one of the last. “I have asked him to travel with me, but I must make clear that he is not immune to Aretan law.” If Marcus became a problem, the Anquis guards were given leave to do as they saw fit. “Now, Lady Anquis, mage, Sir Gawain—you have been in proximity to Vicenna far longer than I have. Is there anything you can tell me of this weapon or the creatures that carried it? A nation lies dead, but who is this hitherto unknown enemy?”

The King held still after speaking, listening to a distant commotion in a far off room.

“What do I hear? Is someone crying out?”

---

The city guard at front began to sag, overcome with pity for the pouting girl. While his sword dipped, he glanced back at Rodney and grimaced his wordless question. Of course he would buckle under the pressure of a begging woman and one foolish bowman, even with claims of Eretol murderesses murmured through the refugee tents.

“Oh for God’s sake!” Rodney pushed ahead, keeping his crossbow aimed while he shouldered pass his partner and took the lead. “Firstly, you,” he twisted and looked back at Tobey, the stray refugee, “shut up. Secondly,” he swung back around to the elves, “I’ve got dozens of refugees here claiming that elves and natives not only drove them from their village, but murdered their kin and burned down their homes. And you think you can just come stumbling back up here because the road to Vicenna is out?”

Rodney waved them in with his crossbow, issuing an order to march inside. His partner straightened with a shock and decided to stop being such a useless lout. He began to move alongside the elves, his sword at the ready while he kept pace with the blonde, willowy elf woman.

“We’ll let you in alright,” Rodney added, walking after the dark haired elf with the gimp arm. “Right into a cold cell, where you’ll wait for justice for what you’ve done.”

“Don’t resist,” Lothren cautioned in elven tongue. Although Annara was not fluent with the language, he doubted she planned to fight in her state. The elves were proud and needed an order. “We need rest, and we cannot weather the desert in this state. We still have a chance to escape if we—”

“Quiet!” Rodney kicked Lothren’s leg out from under him, and the elf crumbled forward onto his knees. Lothren barked a short scream as his broken arm swung from his shoulder. “Get up!”

Lothren stumbled back to his feet, promising something bloody and brutal under his breath, still in his mother tongue. While he caught his breath, the front guard leaned toward Tobias as he passed by.

“You want to defend them?” he asked lowly. “Go with them, attend their questioning.” Or, if he wanted, he could simply identify them as the elven murderers they were and see to their hanging, but it would be a shame to see a rope around the native girl’s pretty neck.

The prisoners would be marched through the city—straight through an alley of refugee tents for all of the remaining Viceni to see. Two more decorated swordsman joined the parade, ensuring that the elves would come peaceably. Whether the raid had saved their lives or not, the last memory these poor, nationless dregs had was running desperately into the unknown to survive while the Ytharien set aflame their entire lives behind them. For all they knew, the elves had brought about the final destruction through their country, through whatever foreign elven magicks they possessed.

And some, some, may have simply resented the elves for giving them the chance to survive the death of their country. To live out the rest of their existence in exile in foreign lands.

Incensed simply at the sight of elves, the refugees picked up whatever was in arm’s reach and hurled it at the unbound prisoners. Rocks, hard bread, food too rotten for even stray dogs to eat. Rodney shouted a curse at one of the curs when a poorly aimed stone thudded off his spaulder.

As they neared the Anquis Keep dungeon, he leaned toward one of the waiting city stewards.

“Inform the Lady, and fetch the old inquisitor,” Rodney growled, having run out of patience. “I don’t care if the man’s retired; if any one of these vermin is a mage, he’ll be able to sniff them out.”

After being forced down a narrow staircase along a stone wall, down into the base of a square yard bordered with barred doors and shackles, the lot were shoved into a large cell, barred with a grid flat iron slats. They were given the view of one dark-haired man, one of the refugees no less, stood locked in one of the stocks after an act of violence against an Aretan citizen. Left to their straw-covered floor, Rodney locked the cell and began to lead his men back to the gate.

At least, now, they were out of the open sun.