Aberration

by Kyle West

  I flew up there for a while, trying to drink in the sight for the last time, gathering my own thoughts and memories about the place. For me, Haven had been true to its namesake. It was where Isaru and Jorla had first taken me upon rescuing me from Colonia. I had taken my parents there after winning them back from the Covenant. And it was where we had stopped, time and again, for rest, for information, or just when there seemed to be nothing better to do. Haven was a place we went when we needed perspective, and every time we had come here, we always had the answer for where to go next.

  Isaru watched as well from the back of his new dragon, along with Fiona, each of them lost in their own thoughts. Isaru, tears on his face, was the first to urge his dragon northward, followed shortly by Fiona, who was also crying. The sky above was clear, full of stars, altogether pure, the dust even seeming to settle for a moment. A startling contrast to what lay just a few miles to the south. At least Haven had another moment to stand in beauty before being destroyed. For a moment, I doubted whether withdrawal was the right move. And how could I not? Haven was more than just a place. It was the closest thing to home that I knew. When it died, it would be the passing of an era.

  We had dared too much in trying to protect it. How many had died because of that risk? If the fight hadn’t been worth it, then perhaps the spirit of the fight had been.

  Get them to Mongar first, I thought. Keep ahead of them. That’s all you can do.

  Another dragon pulled up alongside me. It was Elder Arminius, on his own large Askaleen.

  “Elekim?” he said, breaking me from my thoughts.

  I nodded, the tears finally falling. “It’s just hard to say goodbye.”

  He nodded sagely. “You’re not responsible for it.” He nodded toward the south. “Only he is.”

  I forced myself to nod. “I know that. And I know I can’t save everyone. Or everything.”

  “As important as this city is,” Arminius said, “it pales to all those souls marching north, and the hope they have. One day, they might live in a world without those monsters threatening them. Haven can be rebuilt, Shanti. Human lives cannot.”

  I knew he was right. “Is everyone out?”

  Arminius nodded. “That’s what I came to tell you.”

  “Let’s go, then.”

  The Elder turned his dragon around, and I followed in his wake. I didn’t let myself look back.

  * * *

  Despite the army’s weariness, it was force marched throughout the entire night and only allowed a rest the next afternoon, after some thirty miles had been put between us and the Grand Canyon’s northern rim. The dragons and airships brought up the rear, always keeping watch for signs of the Radaskim. Shara, Isaru, and I flew with Dailyn and the Colonian Dragonguard to keep track of the swarm’s progress. So far, nothing was coming after us.

  Measures were taken to slow their advance, on the theory that the crawlers could eat almost anything organic. Whatever food hadn’t been taken by fleeing people was loaded and carried off. In people’s haste to leave, some of the harvest had been left behind in silos and storage houses. Whatever was impossible to take, we put to the torch. And more than that, we scorched whatever crops and fields we happened upon the way. Anything edible was liable to end up in a crawler’s stomach, so it was better for that fuel to be emptied into the cold, blue sky as columns of thick, acrid smoke.

  Not everything was easily burned, and setting the fires took time. Our dragons would fan the flames with their wings to spread them more quickly.

  A day and a half after we began marching, we saw the first signs that Odium had regained control. The crawlers pierced through the scorched earth, still finding sustenance in the places the fires hadn’t reached, but not as much as they would have otherwise. At times, the fires were still smoldering, taking to the surrounding forests and xen, which made it hard for the Radaskim to advance. Slowly, but surely, we gained distance from them until our forces were a full fifty miles ahead. Our strategy seemed to be working, at least for the moment.

  Even though we were ahead of the main force, it still didn’t stop ambushes from the dark forests lining either side of the road. There were never more than fifty or so, but it was enough to slow us down. The attacks had the clear purpose of allowing Odium to catch up to us.

  Radaskim dragons, too, would find us in the night, attacking our scouts that strayed too far south. The airships kept constant vigil, beating them back any time they chose to attack. But with every wave that came, more of our forces fell. By the time we were passing the junction that led to the Sanctum, a dozen of our own dragons had fallen from the attacks.

  After the Sanctum, the forests came to an end, and there were less towns, all of which were abandoned. Furniture, clothing, and household goods lined the streets haphazardly. Open doors creaked in the cold wind while windows were smashed in. We never found anyone in these places, and very little food. With the end of the forests was the beginning of more wild lands, filled with rocky, xen-covered hills mostly. Here, there was less to set fire to, but we were already halfway to Mongar, with the Radaskim swarm still fifty miles behind us.

  But we could not keep up this pace forever. The people’s exhaustion only grew worse as a winter storm set in, blowing off the Red Mountains while sending the temperature plummeting. The cold didn’t have any effect on the Radaskim chasing us; our scouts reported that while we had slowed down, they had maintained pace, and over the next few days, they had closed the distance between us by ten miles. At this news, the people needed no further encouragement to keep going.

  But then some of our people started to die. There were not enough carts to carry our dead with us. There was nothing to be done but to leave them on the side of the road, the luckier ones getting a shallow grave and a few stones to mark their resting places.

  The road forked, the left side being the Pilgrimage Road, leading north toward Laston, and the right side being the Eastern Road, leading toward the Red Mountains and Mongar, and eventually, the Eastern Kingdoms, if one were to keep going. It was a sign we were getting close. But the weather only grew worse as we entered the foothills of the Red Mountains. Most of the towns here were completely abandoned. The bad weather was a blessing in disguise; the Radaskim’s air forces didn’t seem to want to engage us in it, which was just as well because the airships had trouble maneuvering in the high winds.

  When Mongar was just a week’s march away, and the Radaskim swarm thirty miles behind us, hundreds had already died of exposure. The people’s forms were lean and their faces gaunt. Some muttered at the cruel pace we were setting, calling it a death march. It wasn’t hard to see why, but such talk ceased every time an advance party of crawlers struck at the column’s rear. This always had the effect of redoubling people’s efforts, reminding them of the reason we were doing this in the first place. We promised them rest, food, and warmth in Mongar. But all three things might as well have been a world away.

  The worst part came as we began to ascend the foothills of the Red Mountains. Snow came down, falling on the forested valleys, covering mountain lakes that had already frozen over. After a couple of days, the snow thankfully stopped, leaving a land covered with white. But it only got colder as we gained elevation. An emissary from Mongar arrived a few days out from the city. The knowledge that the city was close gave our people the will to make one final push, while convincing the dissenters that, indeed, Mongar existed and we hadn’t been lying to them.

  The swarm followed us into the mountains, but without the food of lower elevations, their progress slowed substantially. But we didn’t make the mistake of slowing down. Even I was beginning to wonder if we’d ever reach the city, especially when the snow started falling again. The grumbling of the people returned – at least, for those who still had energy for that.

  And then, there the city stood. After the final turn of the Eastern Road, between two towering peaks, Mongar shone like a beacon in the night. Those walls, as high as they were, didn’t obscure t
he stone buildings built against the mountainside, filled with warm yellow lights that glowed in the snowy, evening gloom. The men were too tired to even let out a cheer. We were beyond that now, and too many had died on this six-week journey that any amount of celebration seemed a hollow thing indeed.

  Some were so far gone that I wouldn’t have been surprised if they thought the opening of Mongar’s gates before us was a hallucination. Even I couldn’t fully believe it as I walked through them. I didn’t relax until every one of our people was in, until those thick gates shut the dangerous world outside firmly out.

  Chapter 37

  The stone streets and buildings of Mongar were overflowing with people. Refugees, mostly, camped out in the streets and huddled around fires built on the wide stone promenade that served as the city’s main thoroughfare, which wove its way up the mountainside. But there were also soldiers and fighting men scattered among them who had sought refuge here. From their haggard appearance, it seemed that they had been here quite a while. Tents made from animal skins had been shabbily set against larger buildings. Mongar was a city full to bursting, and from the wide-eyed crowds staring at us as we entered, they were probably wondering just how there was room for more.

  I was beginning to wonder that, too.

  For well over two hours, our people poured through the Red Gate, Mongar’s western entrance. There seemed to be no end to it. People warmed themselves by the fires – men, women, children. Most were staring at us and speaking in low murmurs, their faces changing from unfriendliness to greed as soon as the food carts started rolling in. They stared with hungry eyes, some even licking their lips. Some of the fires were warming giant pots of stew, each with a line of hungry people extending well over a hundred feet, some even wrapping around corners. City guards kept watch, making sure no one cut or took more than their fair share. There was some order in this chaos, at least.

  They not only slept on the streets. They slept in the alleyways, the more unfortunate seeming to not even have fires. Some of these people were lying entirely too still for comfort. It was bitterly cold, well below freezing, and many of them didn’t even have coats. Some of them were no doubt dead.

  As time wore on, and the people grew bolder, some of the refugees pushed toward our supply carts, asking the drivers for food. Our men held the line, not allowing any of the carts to be ambushed as they rocked over the rough cobblestones. For now, the carts were going to the Skykeep, at the end of the main promenade, where the food could be kept under guard and distributed equally. It was hard to watch those eyes. The people seemed to congregate at every one of the street’s turns. They weren’t starving – not yet. But they were close. If we had arrived just a week later, things might have been different.

  After half an hour, we arrived at the gates of the Skykeep, its walls and towers rising high against the mountainside. The doors slowly opened, revealing what had to be Syndic Salas and a sizeable retinue of men, along with several of the city guards. He wore a heavy fur coat and boots, and looked the definition of a mountain man. He was of middling height with a swarthy frame, with blonde hair that fell to his shoulders, along with a thick beard tamed just enough to not be thought unkempt. His retinue dressed similarly, and all their faces were grim.

  I walked forward with Lord Harrow on my right and Elder Arminius on my left. Fiona, Isa, Shara, and Isaru stood just behind me, while the Elder Seekers stood at Arminius’s side. I could see that the courtyard within was spacious, though not spacious enough for all our men to set up camp in there.

  When I was close enough, Syndic Salas broke into a relaxed smile that belied the tense mood. “Welcome to Mongar, Elekim. You and your men both. You’ll taste Mongarian hospitality, soon. We have to take care of each other, as the days grow cold and dark.”

  Well, he certainly hadn’t thought that way when Queen Fiona had called for his men, but in retrospect, perhaps that wouldn’t have made much of a difference. “We’re grateful to be here. It’s been a long journey. All of us are lucky to even be alive.”

  “Thanks to you, Elekim,” Syndic Salas said, with a regal bow. “Fiona wrote of your bravery, and how you were able to give your people a chance to escape. The walls of Mongar will hold, even against them. Just as they’ve held since our founding.”

  If only you knew, I thought. But we couldn’t get into that now. “We’ve brought food and firewood that’ll last the city a while longer. The Radaskim are thirty or forty miles behind us. We lost many on the journey.”

  Salas nodded gravely. “What matters is that you’re here, Elekim. Safe and sound.” It seemed he didn’t doubt my identity, at least. But behind his welcoming words, I got the feeling he viewed our arrival as more of a complication than anything else. Mongarians were notoriously isolationistic; they wanted to stay safe in their mountain home rather than get involved in the wider world, sustaining themselves from their mines and the trade that passed through. Mongar itself was situated on the uncreatively named Red Pass, which was the larger of the two main passes through the Red Mountains, the other being at Highgrove.

  Syndic Salas continued to speak. “I’ll cut to the chase, Elekim. The situation here is dire, as you might have seen on your way here. There is too little food, and quite frankly, too many people.”

  “We understand your concern, Syndic,” Lord Harrow said, speaking with a measure of familiarity that said the two men had met, but didn’t know each other well enough to drop titles. “However, you will be grateful for our men in a week, when the Radaskim swarm begins their assault upon the city.”

  “We should discuss the situation more inside. We have food, and a warm hearth. Two things that are conducive to what will be an important and long discussion.” The Syndic looked at the others who were with me. “Queen Fiona.” He gave a pronounced bow. “Be welcome to our humble city. Though beautiful, it is not Haven.”

  “Well,” Fiona said, “Mongar is surely the most beautiful of the two by now.”

  Syndic Salas paused awkwardly; had the man forgotten that Haven was gone?

  “Forgive me,” he said. “I’ve no excuse for that, other than I have been under quite a deal of stress lately.” He opened his arms, seeming to embrace everyone in general. “Be welcome, all of you. Introductions between my people and yours can wait until we’re inside and out of the cold.”

  “What about my people?” I asked. “We have thousands, and the city is nearly overflowing.”

  “That it is,” the Syndic agreed. “Fortunately, we have caves accessible from the Skykeep, which we have reserved especially for your men. They are spacious enough to host most of them, though some will have to set up camp in the courtyard. The houses and inns, I’m afraid, are already quite full and have been for some time.”

  I nodded, relieved that most of them, at least, would have a warm place to stay. Even the courtyard would be better than being out in the streets. “That will work. Thank you.”

  “Let us step inside,” the Syndic said. “My men will secure your carts and situate your people.”

  As we walked through the gate and across the cobbled courtyard, Harrow spoke to the Syndic, cutting right to the chase. “We have about a thousand carts of food with us. We gathered what we could with what little time we had, including the stores we set in place on the road beforehand. Much of the harvest has gone unused as people abandoned their homes. It’s a shame to think of it falling into the hands of the enemy.”

  The Syndic nodded, likely doing the math in his head of just how much longer that amount of food could keep his city going. “We are grateful, Lord Harrow. Most grateful.”

  We stepped inside the warm keep, to be met with a great hall, square in shape and sporting four large hearths, one centered on each of the four walls. The combined effect made it feel very warm, especially compared to the frigid air outside. Several rows of long tables were set up in the center, with seating for perhaps fifty people. It reminded me a lot of the Sanctum, though on a smaller scale.

  T
he conversation was put on hold while all of us sat at one of the tables, mostly the people who had been present at the last war council, though my parents were elsewhere. At a gesture from the Syndic, large pots were brought out by serving girls, along with bowls and spoons. The smell of the stew floated in the air. As my bowl was filled, it felt wrong to eat warm stew while my men were still out there, cold and hungry.

  Perhaps guessing the reason for my hesitation, Lord Harrow leaned over. “The people will eat soon enough, Elekim. You must keep up your strength.”

  I didn’t need further prodding. I ate as slowly as I could, though my bowl was cleaned much quicker than the Mongarians’. For a city that was starving, the higher-ups still seemed to be well-fed.

  After the dinner was over, Lord Harrow and the Elders, mostly, worked out the logistics of situating our men with the Syndic and his council, Fiona adding her own touches every now and again. Salas’s chief military advisor, a swarthy man with a gray walrus mustache named Lord Amon Percy, seemed especially keen on mounting most of the cannons on the eastern wall, pointing out toward the Plains People, who were besieging the city on the other side. I kept my mouth silent on that subject, at least for now.

  While discussing all this, High Guardian Mian and his airship captains entered the hall, and pulled up chairs to the table. Introductions were made, but they refused their stew, saying they had already eaten.

  Mian had entered just in time to listen to the arguments being made for where to mount the cannons.

  “This talk of defending against the Plains People is pure foolishness,” he said. “They should be our allies, not our enemies. The true enemy is to the west, and every shot we take at the Plains People is one less we can take at the Radaskim.”

  “Mongar’s walls are ten feet thick, and twenty feet at some points,” Lord Percy said. “And Mongar has never fallen. We can defend both sides. We have the numbers. And the Plains People do not negotiate with civilized men. That much is known.”