by Davis Ashura
So many regrets on this day of doom. Where would the people of Stronghold go? How many would survive, or would this be the end of the OutCastes? It was an unfair world in which they lived. Perhaps the next one—the one on the other side of the bridge of life—would be better.
He prayed it would be so. So many prayers to offer, so many needs. He even voiced a supplication for his new son-in-law, Rukh Shektan, regretting he couldn’t have gotten to know the man better. So proud was the Kumma, but he had also taught the OutCastes to be wary of their own arrogance. And that he made Jessira happy was obvious to anyone who saw the two of them together, always seeking one another in a crowded room and sharing a smile whenever their gazes met.
Sateesh climbed the stairs of Crofthold Lucent, wanting to reach his home. His family would have realized the futility of attempted escape and would be there even now, waiting for him at their flat. It was where Sateesh needed to be.
On his way there, he ran into dear friends, and he paused long enough to share a few final words with them. They spoke of regrets and love before embracing a last time. Sateesh knew he would never again see any of those warm, wonderful people.
As Sateesh hurried through the tunnels of Crofthold Lucent, he was struck by the silence of the city. Though the hallways were crowded, the people—usually so boisterous and alive—walked in a stern quiet with heads held high. There was no wailing or crying for salvation. No gnashing of teeth and tearing of clothes. His people were strong, and their bravery, their nobility in the face of annihilation almost unmanned him. These were good people. They didn’t deserve to die like this one. No one did: murdered by a mad fiend.
Sateesh approached his flat and struggled to hold back the tears. He ached for his people. What had been the point of Stronghold’s existence if it was to be wiped away as if it had never existed? All the generations before, their struggle, their sacrifice—did it mean nothing? He hoped it wasn’t the case, prayed that their cries in the wilderness were heard.
Before entering his flat, Sateesh stifled his tears, not wanting his family to see his weakness. They needed his strength in order to face this final day with the grace of their ancestors.
He opened the door. Crena sat on the sofa with their middle grandchild, Lure, in her lap. The child, only nine, looked so much like his namesake uncle, but he would never have a chance to grow up. Jeshni sat alongside Crena with her two youngest, Cearthee and Mahri, both girls, huddled in her arms. Kart stood alongside his wife, a frozen look of mourning on his face. He held tight the hand of his oldest child, Ruhile, who was almost twelve. The boy stood quietly, but terror lurked behind his eyes.
Seeing his grandson’s fear, Sateesh collapsed to his knees and finally gave in to his grief. He could no longer hold back the tears, and he sobbed. He gathered his family to him. “It will all be fine,” he lied, kissing the heads of Cearthee and Mahri. He clutched Lure, hugging him fiercely, never wanting to let him go. He didn’t want to let any of them go. He wanted to see his grandchildren grow up and live wondrous lives of their own, to have all the joy he had been so blessed to experience.
“Are we going to die?” a soft voice asked. It was Ruhile.
Sateesh glanced at Kart, who quietly and almost imperceptibly shook his head. His son didn’t want Ruhile to know the truth. So be it. Sateesh mustered a smile. “Devesh will see us through,” he said. “We are just afraid of what might happen first.”
Lure stroked Sateesh’s cheeks. “Amma says it’s a sin to lie.”
Sateesh’s smile faltered. “It is not a lie to say Devesh will see us through, or that He waits for us, one hand always open to bring us home.”
“Then we are going to die,” Ruhile said, sounded certain. He shuddered but didn’t cry. His bravery was beautiful to behold. What a man he would have been.
“Only our bodies,” Crena said, speaking into the silence. “Our souls and Jivatma will shelter in Devesh’s loving embrace. The First Father and Mother will show us the way to our Lord.”
A noise of thunder and breaking stone reached them, along with distant, short-lived screams.
Cearthee whimpered and buried her head against Jeshni’s leg.
“I love you,” Crena said, drawing Mahri to her lap, but speaking to all of them “The Lord loves you. This is not the end. It is just the beginning of a wondrous journey. Remember His promise as it is written in The Book of All Souls: in all the years of a person’s life is there a season. Now is our time for repose and prayer. Seek His light and let the fear pass; for nothing of this world can truly harm you. Our Lord’s promise is real. I know it to be true.”
Sateesh’s heart swelled with pride. Crena was so quiet and unassuming that others took her to be meek. She was anything but. Crena was the rock, the foundation of everything good in Sateesh’s life. She was the shelter and the harbor where he had anchored his soul against the wreaking tides of the world. Crena was everything.
The screams grew closer. Louder. The walls shook. Pebbles and chunks of stone fell to the ground. Larger pieces tumbled to the floor in shards and splinters. Echoing booms carried as tunnels collapsed and ceilings crumbled to dust. All of Plot Discus shuddered.
Sateesh could hear the thudding blows of walls punched open. He pulled his family closer about him, holding tight to them as if they might fly away from his grip in the coming storm. He whispered soft words of encouragement as the youngest among them cried again. He spoke brave words for his brave grandchildren. He cried for them. Their lovely light would be snuffed out before it could truly shine.
Still, he spoke his words of bravery, not caring how they tasted like bitter burnt offerings in his mouth. He would speak them over and over again if they brought even the slightest degree of comfort to his grandchildren.
Closer.
“I love you,” Kart said to his family. All of his children were crying now, trembling in fear, even the oldest Ruhile.
“I love you,” Sateesh said.
A closer boom. Sateesh looked in the direction from which the sounds were coming. A final echoing thud smashed through his family’s home, followed close by a raging wind full of scouring sand.
For an instant only, Sateesh knew terrible pain as his skin was flayed. The screams of his family were mercifully brief. Then all was quiet, except the singing light of Blessed Peace.
Li-Choke stood at the forefront of a single Fracture. He glanced back at the Chimeras strung out along the floor and surrounding ridges of a ravine running north-to-south. Sheer cliff walls—hundreds of feet tall and streaked with green and orange from copper and iron deposits—reared on either side of the canyon, casting much of it in near perpetual gloom. The sun struggled to reach the boulder-strewn floor of the ravine, leaving it cool and untouched by spring’s warmth. Long stalactites of ice speared downward from beneath the shadow of rocky overhangs and a wide, shallow stream gurgled in eddies and rapids as it made its way north.
In that direction, the canyon opened out, revealing a tremendous plume of dust blasted into the sky. It lifted heavenward, several miles from where the Fracture stood. A moment later came a sound of thunder. Choke rocked back on his feet, and the echoing boom hurled many Chimeras off their feet. It was a fearful sight, and the Fan Lor Kum watched it in stunned silence. Choke swallowed hard and came to a halt. How many had just been murdered by Mother’s hideous will?
Li-Boil, his second in command—his VorsanKi—edged up to Choke’s side. The western Bael was the elder by several seasons, but right now, he seemed the younger. He looked to Choke for guidance. “What evil has She done?” he asked in a fearful whisper.
“A terrible crime. Many of our brothers and sisters died today,” Choke answered.
“Humans?”
“Who else?”
“And what of us? Are we to go north and carry out Mother’s will? Destroy the survivors?”
Choke turned to him in surprise. “You were present when the SarpanKum and the senior staff decided on how best to deal with this situat
ion,” he said. “We’ll do our best not to engage with any survivors.”
“But what of the other Fractures? You’ve split our forces. What if the Humans survive Mother’s wrath in greater numbers than we expect? If even several thousand of them come upon us, we’ll be slaughtered like Pheds.”
“If several thousand of them were to survive, it would be a wondrous miracle,” Choke replied. “I fear it will be far fewer.”
“Perhaps. But they would seek our death. And I must know why these strangers are more important than our own brethren?”
Choke was no longer surprised by Boil’s lack of commitment to the ideals of fraternity. It was an unexpected failing in far too many of the western Baels. How could so many of his western brothers, the ones Hume had first instructed in the tenets and ideals of fraternity, have lost their way? It was sad to see. Thankfully, the current SarpanKum, Li-Shard, was an exception, and hopefully, he would be able to lead the western Baels back to the righteous path of their ancestors.
“There are times when we must willingly give all we have, even for a stranger,” Choke answered. “Death is fearful, but living with the sin of murder is far worse.”
“We aren’t the ones who killed them,” Boil protested.
“Aren’t we?” Choke asked. “Simply standing aside when we could have helped those facing Mother’s fury does not absolve us, nor can we claim to honor Hume’s teachings if we were to act in such a way.”
“Then what would you have us do?” Boil asked, settling down into a posture of attentiveness.
“The other Fractures are ranged all along the Privation Mountains. They are miles distant from us and ill-positioned to co-ordinate either with us or with each other.”
“We’re positioned in such a way that we won’t be able to trap any who flee. Is that why you’ve called a halt to our march?”
“Yes,” Choke said. “It is only the first step in our ultimate aim.”
“Which is?”
Choke smiled. “As it has been since Hammer’s demise: thwart Mother’s will.”
Boil nodded. “A good plan,” he said, not sounding particularly convinced. A moment later, he was called away to settle a problem.
Choke watched his VorsanKi depart, wondering anew how the western Baels had forgotten so much of Hume’s teachings.
But it was a question for another time.
Other issues occupied his thoughts. He wished he had a way to know how Chak-Soon was doing. He had tasked the young Tigon and his special claw with a special mission, one only he and the SarpanKum knew about. Chak-Soon had been sent to the Soulless River, separate from the rest of the Fan Lor Kum. He was to prepare for what Choke had hoped wouldn’t be needed. But with today’s events, it seemed it would be.
Much rested on whether Chak-Soon had completed his mission. If he had, then some small portion of this calamity might still be put to right. Choke hoped so. Thus far, so much had simply gone wrong. For instance, Choke had planned on alerting the warriors and scouts of this hidden mountain city that enemies approached. He had wanted to give as many of them as possible a chance to escape the coming destruction, but Mother had made sure no such warning could be carried. For the past few days, the Fan Lor Kum had come across a number of small caves and well-hidden cabins. They were outposts of the mountain city, and all of them had been obliterated. None of the scouts within had managed to escape, and reports indicated other such redoubts in every other direction had been similarly destroyed.
The city Mother was exterminating had been caught sleeping with no awareness of the death coming their way. The terrible irony of it all was that if not for Li-Dirge’s bilgewater story about a city hidden in the mountains—a story meant to save Ashoka—none of this would have come to pass. The Queen would have never discovered this place.
Li-Boil returned. “A nest reports a body of Human warriors—perhaps as many as fifty—traversing the valley just on the other side of the eastern ridge. Blended and with hardly any signs of their passage. The Ur-Fels say they found evidence of their existence purely by accident: a dropped leather glove.”
“How far ahead are they?”
“A few hours.”
Choke grunted. “If we’re lucky, they’re warriors Mother missed on Her way here.” He considered what to do about the situation. Fifty warriors couldn’t do much against the Shatter sent north, but they might be the difference between life and death for a number of their fellow Humans. “Have the Ur-Fels and Braids leave them be. We will deal with them.”
“We?”
“You and I and eight Baels of my choosing,” Choke said. “Command of the Fracture in our absence will be given over to Li-Silt.” Choke trusted Silt. The old Bael was someone who was devout in his beliefs regarding Hume’s teachings.
“If we aren’t careful, Mother will do to all of us as She did to Li-Dirge,” Boil warned.
There it was. The older Bael’s words only confirmed what Choke had long since suspected. The western brothers were terrified of extinction, and after last summer’s events on the Hunters Flats, it was a rational fear. For three hundred years, the Baels had worked to disrupt Mother’s plans, but just as diligently, they had hidden their deception. They knew the penalty for betrayal, an instruction vividly explained by the execution of the eastern Baels. And yet, Choke didn’t believe Dirge’s death and the extermination of his eastern brothers was a reason to abandon the unity of brotherhood. There had to be more to life than simply existing. A being had to have a purpose.
“We will be careful,” Choke said. “But we also cannot step aside and say this isn’t our fight. We will do all we can without risking that Mother sees our deceit.”
Boil didn’t appear convinced. “Did Dirge believe as you?” he challenged.
Choke frowned at the not-so-subtle insult. “Dirge lived to see the fulfillment of our deepest dreams: brotherhood with a Human. It was worth his life. And ours. Our SarpanKum—your SarpanKum—affirmed that. You would be wise to heed him.”
Boil bowed his head. “As always, I heed those with greater wisdom. I just hope that by doing so, I don’t live to see our kind destroyed and our lives stolen from us.”
“Our lives belong to Devesh; we simply borrow them. And He will reclaim what is His when the time is right.”
The terrain had grown familiar as Farn Arnicep led the Ashokans toward Stronghold. He recognized this long valley, the shallow stream flowing from here to the Croft, where it merged with the River Fled. He even remembered some of the stone outcroppings jutting out from the high granite cliffs and mesas forming the valley’s northern and southern border. They were but hours from the Croft.
Of course, the last time he had been through here, the stream had been iced over and the stony ground covered with a fresh layer of snow. Now, patches of tall, soft grass and fields of wildflowers in bloom softened the rocky terrain. Mountain bluebirds and robins trilled their delight in the early morning sunlight and fat bumblebees flitted about, lost in orgiastic delight as they fed on nectar and pollen. The clean scent of pine drifted on the soft breeze as stands of cottonwoods and aspen shaded the Ashokans riding quietly. It was a lovely spring morning.
Farn chewed his lip in worry.
Last time he’d been through here, there had been small outposts set up to monitor every approach to the city. Of course, in the winter, the Home Army of Stronghold didn’t man the outposts. Given that Suwraith’s creatures always waged war in warmer weather, the chance of an attack in heavy snow and cold was exceedingly small.
But it was spring now, and warm.
So where were the warriors? They should have confronted the Ashokans by now. But there was nothing, only a world strangely silent. Worst of all, every one of the outposts the Ashokans had come across had been destroyed by cave-ins.
It stretched credibility. One or even two, Farn could have accepted since earthquakes might be frequent in the mountains. But all of them? It defied logic and chance. Something else had happened. Something bad.<
br />
The answer to his unsettling question came a moment later in the form of a titanic cloud exploding skyward from the west. It rose higher and higher. A mile or more it soared. Seconds later, a thunderous boom washed over the Ashokans, the shock wave bending trees, grass, and men alike.
“Holy Devesh,” Jaresh said, picking himself off the ground. “What in the unholy hells was that?” Jaresh was a good man. A fine warrior, tough and efficient. He was certainly as skilled as any Muran and Rahail. And he was scared, as well he should be.
Farn certainly was.
He now understood what he and the rest of the Ashokans faced. The strange silence, the absent scouts…all of it made sense now. The grim cloud to the west was in the general direction of the Croft. Something terrible had happened, and something worse was about to happen to Stronghold. Suwraith must have discovered Stronghold.
Farn feared for what was coming next. While he hadn’t always been happy during his time amongst the OutCastes, time and distance had given him a new perspective. Fifty-five Humans had hewn a city from the stone heart of a mountain and grown to a multitude. It was the stuff of legends. It was inspirational, and it should be applauded, but Farn understood what that terrible black cloud presaged. Stronghold’s existence might end today.
And Rukh might be there. Farn swallowed down his fear. They had to find out what had happened, and save anyone they could.
“Everyone tighten your Blend! Make them as hard as you can!” Farn shouted before turning to Jaresh. “Suwraith. I think the cloud is from Suwraith. She means to destroy Stronghold.”
The blood drained from Jaresh’s face. “Rukh.”
“We have to hurry if we want to do any good here. Stronghold doesn’t have an Oasis, and without one, the city stands naked before the Queen. We have to save as many as we can.”