There were several nods around the circle as everyone followed the elf’s explanation, the man pausing briefly to collect his thoughts.
“We made it about four hours out, without seeing anyone, not even a scout,” Kilgore said, picking up with his explanation, his exhaustion clear in his voice. “It was at that point where we started to feel that something was a bit off but chalked it up to the Dread Crew being a bit gun shy after you guys kicked their asses. That idea vanished when we reached the first camp that we’d planned to hit. It was completely abandoned and burnt to ash.”
“Shit,” Sierra cursed. “What happened?”
“We don’t know,” Kilgore replied with a shake of his head. “We searched through what was left of the camp and didn’t find anything left behind. Based on the embers though, my guess was that the fire had been started hours earlier, long before we even left Aldford last night. It had long since burnt out by the time we got there.”
“We figured there’d be some level of panic once word got out that we were taking prisoners,” Drace commented as he considered what the scout had said. “Did they just pull back and burn what they couldn’t take?”
“That’s what we think,” Kilgore said with a nod. “Anyway, we poked around the area for a little while before continuing on with the night’s plan. But we’d barely made it another hour before we caught sight of a wildfire straight ahead of us, eating through the grass like it was nothing.”
“Damn,” Sierra whispered as a wince passed through the circle, each of us having experienced one of those firsthand in the early days of the war. It was one thing to fight against creatures or other adventurers, but against something as fast-moving and hot as a wildfire? There was only one realistic option.
Get out of its way.
“At that point, we were forced to evade the flames,” Kilgore said, continuing from where he’d left off. “It hadn’t started to rain by that point in the night yet, and there was no way we could stop the thing, so we took shelter near the eastern river that flows into the forest until it passed by us.”
The elf paused for a moment to shake his head at the memory.
“It took us a bit of moving to get towards it before the fire did, but we did and managed to wait the flames out by the bank for nearly an hour until the fires had burnt down enough for us to retrace its path. Cassius wanted to see if we could find what had caused the fire in the first place.”
“And?” Halcyon prompted, his tone already signaling that he wasn’t going to like what was coming next.
“It took us some time to find its source, the charred grassland making it difficult to pick out in the ash, but it was another sentry camp that had also been abandoned,” Kilgore replied. “When we did though, it was pretty much the same scene as the first camp just on a larger scale. The only difference being that this time the fire had a chance to spread out of control.”
“Huh,” Freya grunted. “Carver and his group have a rather literal understanding of scorched earth tactics.”
“It sure seems like it,” Kilgore agreed with a tired chuckle. “But that set the tone for the night, with us hitting every single camp on our list and finding each of them abandoned and razed. At least until the sun started to rise and the nighttime rain tapered off.”
“Oh?” Sierra asked with mixed eagerness and trepidation. “What else did you find?”
“Smoke,” Kilgore stated, his eyes moving to look over to her. “Coming from the direction of Shadow’s Fall.”
There was a long, pregnant pause as the others all processed Kilgore’s statement, each of them glancing between one another and then to me, looking for an answer.
“They abandoned and burned Shadow’s Fall too,” I stated, giving the group a nod to their unspoken question.
“So they did,” Kilgore affirmed with a solemn nod. “And that’s where Cassius and the others are right now, sifting through what’s left.”
“Then that’s where we need to be, too,” Freya said, glancing over towards the others who nodded in agreement before turning her attention back to Kilgore. “Quick question though. I don’t suppose that you might have noticed if any of those camps had been attacked or something, did you?”
“Not that I can remember,” the elf replied, giving the woman an inquisitive look. “Why?”
“Because after seeing a few prisoners defect yesterday, I’m clinging to a fleeting hope that the Dread Crew might have decided to self-destruct, saving us the trouble of needing to fight them,” she said with a sigh. “And not laying some sort of elaborate trap for us.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” Kilgore answered in a tired voice despite shaking his head at the thought. “But honestly? I don’t think that’s the case. I didn’t notice anything like that while scouting the camps last night. There was a very methodical feel to how they destroyed everything behind them as they left.”
“Fantastic,” Freya said, similar sentiments echoing out from the group. “So much for that theory, then.”
“It might still be right,” I offered, my mind not having stopped racing as I considered all the potential possibilities and motivations that could have gone through the Dread Crew’s minds to prompt abandoning the field so drastically. “We can’t say until we get a better idea of what happened at Shadow’s Fall.”
“I agree,” Sierra said, glancing towards Kilgore and his other scouts. “Which means we’re going to have to get moving if we’re going to want to be there before the day’s over. Are you guys coming with or heading back to Aldford?”
“Coming with,” Kilgore replied, turning his head to look towards the other scouts in question, all of whom simply nodded to him in response. “Good or bad, we want to see what happened to Shadow’s Fall.”
“I understand,” Sierra said, each of us appreciating full well the group’s desire to see their home, no matter what might have happened to it. “Let’s get you all buffed, then.”
Breaking up from our impromptu meeting, we all turn our attention back to the raid, taking the time to refresh our enhancements and travel spells before resuming our journey, this time making a straight line towards Shadow’s Fall. But even with as far as we’d already traveled for the day, it still took us a few more hours to cross the length of the plains, the sun continuing its track across the sky until it finally started to descend and make its way towards the distant horizon, making it early evening by the time we finally arrived at Shadow’s Fall.
Or at least what was still standing.
Appearing little more than a hollow shell of scorched dirt and ash, there was next to nothing left of the growing settlement that I’d seen just a few weeks earlier, the smell of stale smoke greeting us as we approached. The buildings that I remembered from my last visit were now little more than charred frames—the few that still stood at all—their skeletal remains littering what had once been the heart of Shadow’s Fall. Even the trees and foliage surrounding the place hadn’t been spared, leaving the ground for dozens of meters completely barren and devoid of life.
They made sure that there was nothing at all left for us to use or to rebuild from, I noted as the raid came to a stop, my eyes scanning over the ruined defenses that the Dread Crew had built around Shadow’s Fall after they had taken it, nothing remaining but ash and charred wood.
Silence greeted us as the raid descended onto the ruined settlement, the exhausted members of Hallowguarde already there greeting us with blank looks before continuing to sift through the ashes of their home. Each and every one of us had envisioned reconquering Shadow’s Fall over the last week and forcing Carver and his group off the plains. But instead of the pitched battle we’d expected to fight to retake the place, here we were, standing with our vengeance denied, surrounded by nothing but ash and a hollow taste in the back of our throats.
de scouts. The majority of them had been up for over twenty-four hours since their day had begun yesterday, and they all showed it on their faces and in their movements.
I replied, the ground crunching under our feet as we passed the ruined smithy.
Amaranth said with resignation, both of us then walking in silence for a few moments before he spoke up again.
Assuming, of course, that it restarted at all.
Despite all of our fighting over the last week, we still had no idea why Carver or the Dread Crew were so interested in attacking us—at least nothing beyond the vague theory that they were trying to establish their own territory out here like we had. We knew that the situation around Coldscar wasn’t exactly ideal for long-term settlement, nor were there really any other nearby prime locations that weren’t already hotly contested in one way or another. While I personally thought it unlikely, given their involvement with the orcs that we’d seen, I had to admit to myself that it wasn’t entirely impossible that the Dread Crew had simply decided to cut their losses and head elsewhere.
There’s Cassius, I thought, recognizing the man despite the distance between us and angling our approach to take us directly to him. I can’t imagine how he’s feeling after seeing all of this.
Leaving the burnt-out remains behind us, it didn’t take long for us to reach the man, who remained completely unmoving as he continued to stare out over the lake. Stopping a short distance away from him, I didn’t say anything and instead simply joined him in looking out over the water and the distant greenery surrounding it.
“It was still on fire when we got here,” Cassius said to me by way of greeting nearly a minute later. “The rain had slowed things down a little bit here, but not enough to completely stop it. There was nothing we could do to save what was left.”
“I’m sorry, Cassius,” I said, knowing that there was little that I could say to make the man feel better.
“It’s okay, Lyrian,” the bald man said with a shrug. “I never really expected that we’d recover the place intact, not completely at least. But…just burning everything and running? It just seems like a waste. They could have made us pay dearly to take it from them.”
“This entire last week has been a waste,” I replied, watching the waves ripple across the lake’s surface.
“Yeah…” Cassius agreed, letting out a long sigh in the process. “I guess our plan to take prisoners hit them harder than we could have ever expected. Just like that, we have the plains back now…and they don’t have Shadow’s Fall to respawn from anymore.”
“It’ll definitely give us some more breathing room,” I replied, knowing that without needing to devote all of our energy fighting on the plains we could afford to double down on the construction around Aldford and let everyone have a short, and desperately needed, break from fighting. “Is there anything that you guys need help with here specifically? I know you’ve all been up for nearly the whole day.”
“No, I think we’re okay, Lyrian,” Cassius replied slowly, shaking his head. “At least as much as we can be. After all, all that we really lost were a few buildings and a couple weeks of work. Once this war settles down for good, we can start looking at rebuilding and replacing everything that we lost.”
“You don’t want to rebuild right away?” I asked, having expected that would have been a priority for the Hallowguarde guild leader.
“No, at least not substantially,” Cassius replied by both shrugging and shaking his head. “Until we’re sure the war is over, I think we’re better off focusing all of our energy on Aldford, especially with all of our effort going towards the palisade. If anything, I think we could keep this place as a forward camp if it turns out we need it but not devote too much into it so it won’t hurt us if we need to abandon it fast.”
“Are you sure you’re okay with that, though?” I asked despite appreciating the man’s pragmatism. I knew full well how hard that decision would be if our positions had been reversed and it was Aldford razed to the ground.
“I will be,” Cassius answered. “Establishing a camp is something that we were going to have to do anyway if we want to get control of the plains and keep pressing after Carver. Besides, do you see any of us wanting to hang back and play in the dirt if we have a chance to repay the Dread Crew in kind for what they did here?”
“No, definitely not,” I admitted, turning so I could look back towards Shadow’s Fall. “Though I can’t help but think that we’re missing a part of the bigger picture here. I just can’t put my finger on what it could be.”
“Your guess is as good as mine, Lyrian,” Cassius replied, maintaining his gaze towards the lake for a few more seconds before turning a
way. “All right. That’s enough self-pity. Let’s go see what we can do to get things sorted out here and get everyone to bed, it’s been…a really, really, long day today, and I think it’s about time it came to an end.”
“Amen to that,” I agreed, casting one final glance over the water and taking in the sight before turning away and walking back towards Shadow’s Fall with Cassius, feeling the events of the day starting to weigh heavily on my mind. “Amen to that, indeed.”
Chapter 7
Wednesday, April 10th, 2047 – 9:56 a.m.
CTI Player Housing Complex
“Ugh,” I let out a faint groan of exhaustion as I numbly stared at the coffee machine in front of me, watching the carafe fill with what I thought was glacial slowness. Reaching up to rub my still damp face, I couldn’t help but let out a massive yawn as my brain slowly continued to boot itself up, protesting every single step of the way.
“Marcus! Are you ready yet?” Peter’s voice sliced like a hot knife through my consciousness, causing my eyes to reflexively narrow as if in pain. “We need to go! We’re late!”
“Ngh,” I replied wordlessly as I continued to stare at the still-filling pot.
“Dude, if I’m the one who’s saying that we’re late, then we’re really late!” Peter called out, the sound of his feet echoing through the quiet suite until he appeared at the entranceway of the kitchenette, his hair completely wild and not yet dry from his shower. “What’s the hold-up?”
“Coffee isn’t ready yet,” I replied, turning my head to look towards the man, then back at the machine. “Any second now.”
Glory to the Brave (Ascend Online Book 4) Page 8