Chapter 70

  Now, all alone I remain (Part 1)

  A queen had to be many things, they had taught her.

  A queen had to be strong, to lead her people through adversity.

  A queen had to be beautiful, because she represented more than a simple human. She was an incarnation of an ideal, of a nation.

  A queen had to be diplomatic, capable of managing intrigues and machinations. A queen had to be charming, so as not to bore the guests who fret in her throne room. A queen had to be prudent, she should not squander the state's finances, and she always had to look ahead, to the future of her people.

  A queen had to be merciful, because it was mercy that saved even the most desperate. A queen had to be tough, with a heart of stone, because pity was a luxury that was not always possible to afford.

  A queen had to be all these things, and even more. Draudillon Oriculus was a queen, but she didn't know how long she would remain one.

  "They are outside the fortress, my lady. They will have no mercy," Aderbaal began with ominous news, and with a faint hope that permeated his lips. "Are you sure that the elf will be able to save us?"

  How many demi-humans were there? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Something even more? And the undead? What was the point of getting lost in counting?

  "Stay calm. If you have a better idea, I'm listening," Draudillon sipped her black tea with great composure, stirring the single sugar cube with a spoon. Not the most substantial breakfast ever, but a queen had to know how to be content with little. "The last one you had wasn't a great success." It was a strange feeling, knowing that tomorrow might not come.

  The general bit his lips. The scattered shards of his plan were still on the floor of the room. Draudillon had deemed it useless to give the servants such a useless task as cleaning, given the possible uselessness of all this, which could soon be revealed.

  "If things were to go wrong, I implore you... Take the souls of all those in the fortress, and use them."

  "Even yours?"

  "Especially mine!"

  Tearing out a soul was not a simple, painless procedure. It was not an ordinary death, but something more. The breaking of the cycle, the reduction of consciousness to oblivion. A taboo that required adamantine nerves to be accomplished.

  Draudillon would have laughed if laughing didn't hurt her so much now. Instead, she called Optics, who was waiting outside.

  "Did my lady call?" The swordsman wore the same confidence that had masked him since their journey together, if not for since they had arrived at the Biblo Fortress, a cloud of despair had made even his beautiful scarlet eyes full of misery. A dark emotion, digging deep, was written on his face, and to unveil it was a matter for another day.

  "Your lady desires to go outside, to see what's happening."

  "I don't think that's a good idea..."

  On this, strangely enough, the general and the bodyguard were on the same wavelength. If only all men were always so well-disposed towards her...

  Draudillon raised an eyebrow and asked a simple question: "Why?"

  "When all hell breaks loose, it will be much harder to protect you," Optics explained, massaging his throbbing temples, caused by that immense and displeasable effort that was thinking. "The demi-humans will scale the walls and swarm the citadel like bees attracted to honey. Fireballs will rain from the sky, thanks to their siege engines and magic casters. Throughout all this, the undead will spread miasma, paralysis, and fear. The few casters we have will be busy just preventing terror from reducing to dust every ounce of fighting spirit. Trying to protect you as well in all this, Your Majesty, would be like demanding the wind to not blow a house of cards."

  A charming prospect. Draudillon was already outside the door when she realized that neither of them was following her. "Well, what are you waiting for?" She asked, not without starting to feel that minimal irritation that did not cross the line into petulance.

  "Didn't you hear what I said?"

  "I heard perfectly," she said. "Optics, I want my armor," she commanded. "I want to be out there when the men who have decided to serve me die for me. I want to be there to incite them, at the very least, so they understand they won't die alone, that someone will be ready to hear their final wails, no matter how faint. Are you or are you not a hero, Optics? Are you or are you not ready to sacrifice yourself for my survival?"

  He looked at her intensely, so that she could see herself reflected in his crimson eyes, and he could waver before her gaze.

  "If you die, I'll pull you out of the grave so the half-elf can complain to your corpse, not to mine."

  "I am truly grateful to have such a devoted servant."

  "And such a devoted servant understands what his queen demands of him," he finally gave in. Optics went to get the armor on her order.

  "It's madness," Aderbaal blurted out. "If the queen dies, what will become of this kingdom? Or, worse yet, if she is captured? I dare not imagine what the Night Liches could do with a practitioner of ancient magic at their disposal..."

  "Someone else will take my place," Draudillon simply countered, without getting lost in too many frills. "Either you are perfect, or you are not a queen. Today, finally, I will find out what I am. If you want to come with me to see a miracle, Aderbaal, I will be more than glad. A general must always be ready to incite his troops, right?"

  The man clenched his fists, but in the end, he also agreed to follow her. "For the record, I still don't think it's a good idea."

  "I will make sure it is noted in the history of this kingdom, in a beautiful page adorned with ornaments and pictures. Now, let's go."

  After Optics had brought her what she requested, and after Draudillon had prepared herself, they climbed to the highest part of the fortress, from where they could see a large part of the situation.

  For the moment, a dead calm reigned. Tapping her fingers on her thighs, the queen wondered how long it would last.

  Optics sat on the edge of the roof, whistling a cheerful tune. "Soon we will no longer be able to enjoy this beautiful view. I advise your majesty to carry these precious moments in her heart."

  Draudillon didn't have to be told a second time. On the west side, the remaining troops of the Draconic Kingdom had gathered for the imminent clash. In all likelihood, the demi-humans would strike at that point.

  Stronoff and the soldiers of the Theocracy, on the other hand, patrolled the east side, mostly to be ready to intervene should an auxiliary deployment try to make a sortie on a different front.

  Cerabrate and the adventurers shuttled between the two ends, knowing full well that once the real battle began, all those predictions would mean little, if not naught.

  The one the queen couldn't see was Antilene: the half-elf had gathered a handful of Scriptures, who had arrived just a few days earlier, and had gone to perform who knows what miracle. The entire outcome depended on so few people, and this made Draudillon's heart leap.

  "Is it much longer?" Impatience was starting to set in. One leg tapped the ground, while a breath was held for a fleeting instant, stopping the world with that hushed roar.

  "Minutes, hours, days. Who can say," Optics shrugged, as if none of it concerned him.

  "Lady Fouche said three days, and three days have passed." Could one expect punctuality from demi-humans or the undead? Did the latter even have such a concept? If death was the final act, was it reasonable to suspect that what came after was free from such considerations?

  "Next time, I suggest we send a pendulum to our enemies. With a note serving as a reminder. If we can't beat them on the battlefield, we can at least triumph in good manners."

  "Witty," the queen scoffed. The swordsman performed an extravagant bow, whether to mock or to please her a secret to be shared only by themselves. Perhaps both, or whichever amused him more. "Why are you here, Optics?"

  "You know I was promised a juicy reward."

  "Materials and everything you could get your hands on. A nice haul, no doubt. But with the elf queen's first incursions and their war spoils, you should be set for life by now."

  "I'm the kind of scoundrel who likes to take everything. It's double or nothing, and I'm not the type to give up."

  Draudillon approached him and saw what lied beyond the beauty, the swagger, the scarlet hair, eyes, and armor, and everything else that served to craft that meticulously prefabricated image of the Red Blade: fear, loyalty, courage, and something even more important above all else.

  "You like to say that, but I know the truth."

  "Uh, what truth are you talking about?" He asked, confused.

  "That you're a good man, Optics," she replied, burying her face in his chest. Draudillon had never been the type to seek the warmth or affection of others. A dragon was a cold-blooded animal, after all. But to hell with all that. All that mattered was the moment they were sharing, before the storm broke. "Don't think I haven't done my research on you. Don't think I didn't know what you were doing within my kingdom. Smuggling, prostitutes, drugs. Every illegality passed through you, one way or another."

  He allowed himself to sink in the embrace, enough to relish the warmth, until common sense prompted him to leave.

  "Exactly. I'm a monster only interested in money. Luckily you've understood that too."

  She had understood well. Draudillon had understood him better than anyone. "The smuggling is a cover to give those with few means a chance to escape this hell. The pleasure houses you run buy minors, but they are not introduced to the profession until they come of age, and even then you always offer a choice for a different life."

  "You are deluding yourselves about me," he denied vehemently. "I have killed, robbed, deceived. Maybe sometimes I helped a kid in trouble get free from the jerks who were beating him, or a poor woman to get the just revenge that her condition denied her. Nothing more. I am filth."

  "You are not," Draudillon countered. "I know how many orphans you have saved, how many times you have succeeded where the kingdom's justice failed. The Draconic Kingdom is my home; what mistress wouldn't notice what happens in her living room? Do you think I'm that naive?"

  He didn't really believe it: it was evident from the way he looked at her, as if he were seeking absolution for his sins. Draudillon was not a priest, and she could not grant forgiveness as such. Optics' soul and his salvation were things that only he, and he alone, could direct.

  "Like I said, I'm just garbage. Those like me are destined to be this way. Born in filth, it's when we try to rise up that we truly show our colors: and they're not bright, blinding. They're gloomy and dark, worlds of dirt."

  He was wrong, but how could she make him understand? The wind howled, announcing that the battle would soon begin, and with it the war would finally reach its end. In that moment when the lives of countless people, human and non-human alike, would be decided, Draudillon stubbornly insisted on wanting to save the life of a single man.

  What idiocy... As a sovereign, she was truly a failure.

  "My queen, we were right," Aderbaal had drawn his sword, although it was clear he was no longer used to wielding it with confidence. The shaking grip and the unsteady gait confirmed enough. "They are coming from the west. Stronoff and his men are preparing to intercept them. Cerabrate is moving similarly. Nevertheless, they won't be enough alone, and once they're overwhelmed, this part of the fortress will fall. Also, the undead have not yet been sighted."

  It took her a while to focus on what had been explained. Draudillon saw rivers and rivers of demi-humans pouring into the western part, while from above she watched the walls filled with the last soldiers of the Draconic Kingdom tremble. May that be the last time they feel fear, the queen prayed.

  "Can I give you one last order?"

  "Always."

  "Be the man I see in you."

  Optics held his breath as the first notes of that final performance were about to begin. He opened his mouth. He didn't speak. He let out a groan that must have been a sign of assent. Meanwhile, the smell of ashes was spreading in the air, and the first screams of encouragement marked a fatal knell.

  "So it begins..." The worker unsheathed his sword, placing himself beside her, becoming one with her shadow. "If they manage to climb up, I implore you to listen to me."

  Leaning out, Draudillon saw the first casualty: an old man pierced by an arrow that had passed through his chest. He bent to the ground, while everyone around him continued with their preparations, unperturbed by the sight, indifferent to someone they could no longer save, and who in turn could not save them.

  "Can you tell me his name?" The first dead person had the duty to be remembered.

  Optics was forced to shake his head. "Just another one."

  Aderbaal, at his side, was more uncertain. "Jaime, I think. An old man out of service, but who cared about protecting his grandchildren, who live near the coast. A good soldier... Once."

  And that time was gone, never to return.

  So that was war, the queen found herself thinking. No glorious charge, no moment of heroism, or songs that warmed men in the face of darkness. It was not a cruel game, nor an unnatural act. A simple event, instead.

  "I must do something," there was still no trace of Lady Fouche. Would she arrive? Or had she abandoned her right at her moment of need? "They are already about to break through the walls! The demi-humans are already so many..."

  While at court, she had heard their praises and disasters sung: their dual face of ruin and redemption. Sitting on the throne, she imagined their nuances and complexities: the tactics and strategies, the goals to be achieved and the numbers. Then, stepping outside the palace, she grasped the consequences on the expressions of those who had lost someone, or of the survivors who pushed her into the darkness of their shattered minds, for fear that the memory would become clear once more.

  In the same way, she understood their more fomenting, more instinctive part. When Cerabrate broke into the enemy ranks, she could almost perceive the jolt of every heart that vibrated in unison with that small victory, with that moment that could make them believe that men were not all condemned.

  "My queen..." The old general helped someone climb the stairs from the palisade. "Badantel, the necromancer, wants to confer with you."

  Khajiit Dale Badantel was even more cadaverous than he had been the last time Draudillon had met him, a few days ago. His calloused hands still held the shards of the failed operation with which they had last said goodbye.

  "Lady Fouche wanted me to be here to protect you too," he began, bowing and contorting himself like a reptile. Not far away, people were dying, and he was wasting time on long and useless platitudes. "I hope you will accept my presence here with you."

  "Are you sure you wouldn't be more useful down there?" His disciples had swelled the ranks of the adventurers, but their contribution wouldn't tip the scales much, no matter how providential it might be.

  Khajiit arched his lips: that pointed skull wasn't really smiling, but rather projected a malevolent and disgusting shadow on his face, which suggested that the difference between him and the creatures he used for his aims wasn't all that marked. "I could buy time by summoning lower-level undead, confuse the enemies with concealment spells, and hurl acid javelins to stir up their rear guard. But it would be enough for a brave zoastia to make their way to take my head, for a nevayuu to cut down my escort with their cleaver to make me fall to their mercy, for an aarakocra to swoop down from above to stab me in the chest."

  "In short... While my people are dying, you're telling me you're useless."

  Where had Lady Fouche gone? The demi-humans were far too many. For every one of them who fell, two took his place. While on their side, every loss was painfully felt; every time someone gave in to the blows, the formation they were part of began to slowly disintegrate, until the rhythm became too hard to bear and, like a domino effect, brought every other piece with it; even with a single missing militia member, the difference became an enormous gap, an abyss too wide to bridge.

  Draudillon bit her thumb to relieve the growing tension, until it began to bleed. It didn't make her feel better, nor alleviated her sorrow.

  Khajiit, meanwhile, laughed. "Hehe, exactly. And I'm not the only one who's useless, I'm afraid. The Crystal Tear, the soldiers of the Theocracy, the last desperate ones of the Draconic Kingdom... They won't last long. And troubles never come alone... Look!" The index finger of his pale hand pointed in the opposite direction, prompting Draudillon and the other two men to turn to where he indicated. "The horde of undead of the Night Liches... So many that they bring obscurity with them, the sun darkens, the world trembles, and life changes its course."

  It was broad daylight, but the clouds retreated with that march of death that approached like a tsunami of gloom. Draudillon swallowed, finally understanding what it truly meant that things could always get worse.

  "Is this the border of the world? The end of everything?"

  The necromancer approached with such light steps that for a moment he gave the impression of crawling. "It's only the beginning, Your Majesty. Now you're watching all this, and you're thinking, 'Where are the Gods?'"

  "There are no gods. The Draconic Kingdom has never had gods."

  Only a dragon, and a rainbow that had abandoned the sky. The queen was not a dragon, just a lizard without wings.

  Khajiit laughed, but his mouth remained silent. His eyes glittered with malice, his bald skull twisted with euphoria. "On the contrary, they have never been so close to these lands. The first will fall among us soon: the shooting star that will grant the wish of weeping souls."

  Was he talking about Antilene?

  "What do you mean?"

  The necromancer still held the shards in his hands. Heedless of how the edges pricked and cut his palms, he tried to fit them together, never managing to return the orb to its original state. "Prayers are nothing but requests, you see. In the Theocracy, they turn to Lagusa to invoke help in adversity. Sacrifices are offered to Egarda when a new offspring is born, so that their life may be long and healthy. When one is on their deathbed, they beseech Surshana for a gentle and painless passing. Prayer is the primordial source of magic. Even the Old Dragon Lords prayed to the world, so that they could perform their miracles, shape their ambitions. The demi-humans pray to the battle, which they call a Goddess, so that war could be their life and death their spouse. Even the liches devote themselves to something they consider superior for their desire for a world without light. Lady Fouche is just the latest in a long list of beings who were prayed to for the lowborns' requests, their desires, to be granted. You ask her to save your kingdom, and for this, you will revere her when she drives away your enemy. The beasts will implore her to spare their lives, and for this, they will call her a demon when she denies them. For what are Gods if not listeners? And what are believers if not beggars?"

  Spoken by a Theocracy mage, such words ran blasphemous, and yet there was a kernel of truth in them. The Draconic Queen, who had limited her prayers to silent murmurs, feared how much she was in agreement with the madman.

  "Lady Fouche is not a goddess. She doesn't want to be considered one either," she responded, while her chest grew heavy for the breastplate, silver and amethyst fusing her gaze. "She is a fervent follower of the Six, and as such she couldn't consider herself more than a simple acolyte, just like the ones that are sacrificing themselves for this country. Don't you offend my friend, or I will tear off your tongue myself, and throw it to the beastmen."

  The threat was hollow, and both were aware of it. It was only that, grandfather had mercy, rage demanded more than subsided silence.

  There was sadness in the half-elf. Draudillon had understood it from the first moment she saw her. A yearning for normalcy, to be treated like any other girl. To shed the divine mantle they had covered her with, and the aura of superiority they had imposed on her.

  Antilene nothing more wanted than to be treated like any other girl, just like Draudillon did. And the more the both of them strived for it, the more neither could escape their duties, their responsibilities. That noose around their necks had tightened even before they could utter their first cry, condemning them to that role they couldn't break, imposing a toil that grew always in cruelty.

  "It doesn't matter. Like the ancient Dragon Lords, like the Six, like the Eight Greed Kings, when you reach certain heights, for us who remain below, the sky always remains the sky, no matter what you call it. But you yearn for it, don't you? Oriculus, you yearn because you, too, like Fouche, are destined for something more... And I know how."

  To be a dragon, Draudillon had always wanted that. To soar up in the vast infinite, with wings that knew no tiredness nor fatigue. To breathe fire, and spit blazes, so the one who challenged her reign would understand the price of flames.

  If she had been a dragon, born and raised as such, her kingdom would have been Draconic in matter and spirit, and not only in name. If she had been a dragon, now foreigners wouldn't impose their yore on the neck, while invaders treated her home as theirs.

  And, most importantly, if Draudillon had been a dragon, mayhaps grandfather wouldn't have left…

  "All I know is that your last experiment failed, Bedantal."

  "A setback along the way," he said, finally casting away the remaining fragments. His hands, bleeding, stretched out toward the sky. "Great goals are achieved through failures, after all. My mistake was to underestimate you, Queen Oriculus."

  "What is this madman talking about?" Optics commented. Even Aderbaal was confused, unable to understand the intentions of the one he had plotted with just until days before.

  Draudillon motioned for them to stop before the situation degenerated further. "I am an imperfect dragon, necromancer. I can use ancestral magic, but I don't control it with the same ease as my ancestors." If she could have, there would have been no war, and her kingdom would have never met ruin.

  "Our plan wasn't wrong; it was the means that were erratic," Khajiit began to explain, a vein of rational madness that flowed coldly into his small irises. "The soul can be imprisoned, but without a proper catalyst, it dissipates because its intrinsic nature is to be contained within the body. Magic items, for this purpose, prove to be fallacious. You…"

  Aderbaal interrupted him. "We know that by now. The ancient dragons stored the souls of servants and enemies inside themselves. They could succeed because their very form had been shaped for this. Our queen..." He glanced at her fleetingly, still filled with shame for what he had done behind her back.

  "What are you implying, Dabental?" Draudillon stepped forward, closing the distance with the necromancer. The air was getting heavy; a pestilential stench flooded her nostrils. It was the smell of corpses. Not yet in decomposition, and already so intense. The queen held back the vomit rising in her throat, pushing down every sensation of disgust that made her head spin, forcing herself to be strong. "My esteemed grandfather could have torn out the souls of everyone present in a heartbeat. I, on the other hand, don't even come close to his greatness. If I were to try to extract yours, necromancer..." And with her index, she pressed on the man's tunic until her finger sank placidly into the fabric. "It would take me hours."

  "But you would succeed. In the end, you would succeed," Khajiit didn't flinch, nor was he terrified by that blatant threat. Rather, his spirit became even more resolute. The staff he held and leaned on tilted, as if it couldn't bear the weight born of that new conviction.

  "It remains a useless prerogative in the current circumstances."

  The more the smell of death spread, the more Draudillon was on the verge of collapsing, of fainting from the horror and the growing stench. On the contrary, Khajiit drew strength from it.

  He motioned for her to follow him to the edge of the roof where they had a better view. Draudillon complied.

  "Let's see..." Remaining in contemplation, his staff moved through the air, searching for something undefined. It didn't take long before it stopped in the direction of the breached wall, where Cerabrate and the adventurers were mounting their strenuous resistance. "Yes... that one will do."

  Draudillon's eyes widened, and she noticed the demi-human the man was pointing at. A zoastia with his chest cleaved, but who continued to fight undeterred. So much blood gushed from his wounds that it was a miracle he was still standing, relieving in the carnage of his doing.

  "What do you want me to do?"

  "Steal his soul," Khajiit said simply, as if it were something trivial and the gravitas of such an act no more than child-play.

  "You've truly gone mad. The zoastia are among the most fierce and resilient demi-humans; even I am aware of that. In my condition, it would take me hours. At that point, he would notice my 'touch.' And he would come here to get us."

  Optics became serious. "It won't be one of those creatures that kills you, my lady."

  "But twenty or thirty of them would. We would risk being discovered, or drawing attention to ourselves." Draudillon, who feared none of this, was still not ready to sacrifice herself for so little. If she had to serve as bait, she might as well do it to at least guarantee an escape route for the survivors.

  But her objection was not heard. Khajiit continued, undeterred. "Give it a try," he urged her, relentlessly. "Trust me."

  It would have been almost impossible to find a person less trustworthy than that walking corpse. All that Khajiit Dale Bedantel exuded was commiseration and contempt. A foul-smelling scent of plague and rot covered him from head to toe.

  And Draudillon, who could no longer remain clean and shiny, not while all those who stood to defend her were dipping their arms in the mud, decided that the time had come to get her hands dirty.

  The zoastia had fallen to his knees. An adventurer had managed to cut off one of his legs and was getting ready to finish him off, to avenge all the companions that rested, almost in peace, in the surroundings.

  Her grandfather had explained to her so many times how soul appropriation worked that Draudillon was almost on the verge of forgetting it. For a fleeting instant, her mind was a blank canvas on which nothing could be read.

  "What many call theft is nothing but adoration," her ancestor had repeated to her, in a time now passed. "The spirit of the world is a constant, a complex equation. The ancient dragons did not create matter out of nothing: they simply returned that same matter to its original state."

  For Draudillon, it was the first time. It was funny how something so important to her identity was nothing more than something stored in a distant part of her being, with the silent hope that it would never have to be used.

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  Nevertheless, it was a natural gesture. You didn't remember your first step. You had no memory of your first breath. You couldn't even imagine the first moments of disorientation due to hunger, dizziness, sleep... All those needs that required fulfillment drew their origin from a primordial need that could not be truly explained, locked in words and concepts whose significance acquired substance only after they had already been satisfied.

  They were such important steps, without which life itself would change its definition, yet they were taken for granted, without ever really questioning their initial functioning.

  Draudillon was now learning to walk again. Learning to speak again. In a few seconds, years of learning were condensed when she focused on the zoastia and opened her eyes to that world that had seemed hostile and frightening, but also so beautiful.

  The shadows writhed, and beyond the nuances, the essence of every thing—that which was called a soul but was in reality much more—became concrete, palpable. The dragon queen immersed herself in that spirit, while her consciousness united in that whole that flowed through everything. It was all a single river, in which the banks and inlets delimited the individualities.

  There were no differences between men and demi-humans, between plants and animals. Draudillon and the zoastia were the same thing. Together, they were more than the mere sum of their parts.

  What she knew as a soul was clear and refreshing as water, incandescent and fierce as fire, compact and tenacious as the earth, free and graceful as the air. Draudillon immersed her hands in that indistinct crucible, as if she were a thirsty person reunited with a well after days in the scorching desert, and she pulled, or rather tore, as much as she could, gasping.

  "Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh..." She came back to the surface, breathing on her own again. In a single second, she had lived dozens and dozens of entire lives, touched the most distant stars, and reshaped all her beliefs.

  "My queen, are you all right?"

  Draudillon was trembling from the effort, and yet her body had never been so overflowing with energy.

  "Never been better," she replied to General Aderbaal, who had rushed over to make sure nothing inevitable had happened.

  In a way, the wheel had turned in an unexpected direction.

  That sensation was worse than any drug ever created, opioid and invigorating in its totality, unable to feel pity and commiseration for those who had tasted its nectar. The only thing it demanded, that it asked, screaming at the top of its non-existent lungs, was to be satisfied again.

  "A complete success!" Khajiit had adopted a sly expression of self-confidence, caressing and savoring what he believed to be his triumph. "You'll just have to repeat it with dozens and hundreds of other demi-humans. There's no shortage of raw material here..."

  Draudillon found herself, to her surprise, hesitating. Theory was always different from practice. Now that she could truly give weight to what that act meant, was she ready to accept even its most scandalous consequences?

  The zoastia lay lifeless. From that distance, it was impossible to make out its features, but one didn't need sight to understand the torment it had been subjected to. Its body was no longer just a simple corpse: its history, its aspirations, its dreams, everything that made up its person was now Draudillon Oriculus.

  If death could also be a new beginning, what the queen had accomplished was something more: the bond that anchored the demi-human to the world had been severed, cutting off any possibility for its soul to be reborn in a new form. Every possible future had been erased, and not only had death been made eternal, truly eternal, but it had condemned that memory to the deepest oblivion.

  Without getting her hands dirty with blood, she had committed the most heinous crime. Repeating it hundreds and hundreds of times would mean committing atrocities that would haunt her not only for the rest of her life but also beyond the pale.

  "Don't say such foolish things, Badental!" Aderbaal snapped, concern etched on his pulsing forehead. "Repeating such a strain so many times, putting such stress on the body... The queen might... Not be able to bear the magnitude of what you're asking her!"

  It was incredible how, buried in a thirst for knowledge and supremacy, a spark of respect and interest drove the old general to set a limit, to draw a line of morality.

  But he had shown her with facts, not with words. In war, there was no opportunity for such sophistry.

  "It will be difficult to concentrate so much on the battlefield. To notice every enemy who is about to cross the threshold to the afterlife. And then, the amount collected might not be enough..."

  Because the truth was that the disparity at play was too great. They would have to collect an excessive number of souls before Draudillon could cast her grandfather's most devastating spells.

  "My queen, let me be your eyes," Optics offered.

  "It won't be enough..."

  Khajiit chuckled, as if he had expected those objections from the start and saw them as nothing more than problems he had long since solved. "Both these adversities are of little consequence. Allow me to introduce you to someone... In fact, she is already here."

  Draudillon whirled around, and only then did she notice a girl sitting apart, busy toying with a small bag, or rather with something hidden inside it. She was so engrossed that she paid no mind to the theater of conflict unfolding on that stage.

  "One of the Blacks..." Draudillon recognized her as a member of the Scriptures' most fearsome unit.

  "Astrologer, at your service," the girl stood up, straightened her dress with a couple of hand pats, and untied the ribbon in her hair to tie it on the queen's head. "Your Majesty, let my vision be your thousand eyes." Then she took off the lenses she was wearing and placed them on the queen's face.

  Draudillon couldn't understand, and neither could Optics and Aderbaal, who remained vigilant. At least, not until Astrologer put her hands on her shoulders.

  And then Draudillon saw; she saw as she had never done before. Her vision became hundreds and hundreds of gazes, each one aimed at a different side and angle. She could perceive every smallest detail, every most hidden point in a radius that extended for miles.

  The first sensation was one of nausea; holding all those visions, which split into a kaleidoscope of countless mirrors, was absurd. Impossible.

  "Scrying on such a radius can be disorienting at first," Astrologer consoled her. "All the perspectives, all the sounds… But you'll get used to it in no time. Be brave, stay focused."

  "I can do it... I can do it..." Draudillon followed the advice. She took a moment to adjust them, to find the best way to focus on every small fragment. The more she got the hang of it, the more she was able to bring order to that chaos: she didn't have to get lost in every little part but manage to consider them as part of a coherent and indivisible whole. "I see... I see Cerabrate cutting a horerunner in half. His soul is mine now. I see a spear piercing a tabixi. Its soul is mine now. I see a nevayuu whose head is smashed by rageous fists. Its soul is mine now. A burst of fire consumes that wolfman. Before it becomes ash, its soul is mine..."

  And again and again. But it wasn't enough.

  "Your Majesty!" Optics ran to her, wiping the blood gushing from her nose. She hadn't even realized how much that effort was consuming her. The more she continued, the stronger she became. "Badental, if something happens to her, I swear that..." The worker drew his sword and brought the tip to the necromancer's neck.

  "This is just an initial effort. These few souls are just an appetizer. Soon the dragon will have its banquet."

  Draudillon had collected dozens of souls, but they weren't far to suffice. They were insufficient. More. She needed more. Was this the hunger that afflicted her grandfather? Was this the agony that tormented him?

  "Khajiit..." A voice, Aderbaal's. "This method is dangerous..."

  "On the contrary. It's the only one that truly works. I thought we could collect souls as if they were wheat and we were farmers ready for the harvest. What we managed to trap and channel was only a small part. Life energy, but barely useful on its own. Memories, aspirations, desires, appetites, vices... All these things contribute to forming that thing we call individuals. And Queen Oriculus is taking every single one of them for herself."

  "You run the risk that Draudillon Oriculus will cease to exist, consumed by what now nourishes her."

  "So be it, then. You wanted a weapon, didn't you? What better one than this? We are finally making your queen a dragon!"

  "Not like this... Not like this..."

  That bickering was insignificant. Faced with that tidal wave of information, what was Draudillon Oriculus? Was she the young Aramai running in the plains of Bahal Geesi? The sweet Bashara who finally married her beloved Tashur? The carnal act between Gemai and Laman? Was she the educational beatings Retal gave to his son? Faniel's painful childbirth?

  She was all this, and more. The dragon was finally about to take flight, but the last piece was missing to complete the ascent. Not enough of them were falling.

  "It's about time..."

  At the threshold of fate, the door was opened.

  Draudillon Oriculus was jolted awake when the black and white blur began to walk across the battlefield. Fearless, the figure moved, and all the queen's thousand and one eyes saw only one thing.

  Antilene Heran Fouche.

  The half-elf who was war.

  When the demi-humans arrived, Gazef was ready, he thought he was ready.

  Every time, he convinced himself that he would get used to it, that he would ignore the screams, the din, the damned and incessant noise that burrowed into his eardrums. And every time, he was wrong.

  "Unglaus, to your right!"

  Brain drew his katana: with a single slash, he tore through the druid who was scattering roots across the ground. It was far from a perfect strike, executed with the usual grace and precision that distinguished the swordsman and yet lacking in beauty. Almost the work of someone less skilled than him.

  "How long have we been going on like this?"

  Days? Months? Years?

  No. It had only been a couple of a handful of minutes. Gazef had taken a contingent of his squad and left the fortress through a side exit, before the demi-humans could regroup and break through. Many of their druids were planting traps and casting spells to poison the air and cover the surroundings with a dense cloud.

  The tabaxi had excellent sight, and they launched arrows and projectiles from blowguns and bows. One narrowly missed Gazef's forearm, stopped by the armor's lining and a quickness that allowed him to block it at the last instant.

  From the tip, a corrosive substance, likely highly toxic, gushed out wickedly.

  "Human, have you not given up yet?"

  A gigantic nevayuu blocked his path. It bared its jaws, waiting to bite him. Gazef firmly gripped the arrow. The demi-human raised its spiked club. Gazef stabbed its thigh with the arrow. The poison took effect instantly. The nevayuu let out a groan of pain as its color paled. But it didn't change its trajectory, it didn't slow the impact's speed. Gazef dodged by a hair's breadth, as the club crashed a few feet from him, making everything tremble from the impact.

  He took his sword. The poison would take hold soon. Mercy had no place here.

  He cut off the nevayuu's head. It wasn't a clean severance: blood gushed and spurted everywhere, cascading. After wiping a little that had reached his forehead, the captain allowed himself a second of peace.

  "We're done here."

  Brain arrived with the rest of the unit. The priests and clerics had managed to neutralize the poison, and there were few wounded.

  "Many of them always use the same mixture. A concentrate of cockatrice saliva and giant rat glands," explained Talarico, one of the youngest priests, whose talent was undeniable. "It has an instant effect, but it's simple to cure if you know the affected area and act immediately. We have to thank the research of the Sunlight Scripture and the acolytes of the end."

  "Remind me to offer my thanks."

  If there was an opportunity, he really should thank Nigun and his men. In that moment, he felt the absence of the tactical support that the angels of the Sunlight Scripture conferred on the battlefield. The summons were perfect for stalling the demi-human advance, giving them time to retreat and reorganize, applying enchantments to equipment once their effect had worn off, and numerous other aids.

  His unit had few summoners capable of controlling so many archangels, and he preferred that they conserve their mana to act in the rear. There was always someone to heal, or an enemy spell to counteract.

  But it was useless to get lost in vague considerations; it was better to focus on what was happening around them now.

  "In any case, the situation is far from resolved. Captain, we should rejoin Vice-Commander Iovino and Cerabrate's adventurers, trap the enemy in a pincer movement, and crush them between the archers on the walls and our ground troops."

  A pincer maneuver could work. If they had enough numbers...

  "We are too few. The enemy also has archers and magic casters... The fortress walls are already giving way in several places. We risk ending up trapped, while the demi-humans will take possession of a high position and the internal fortifications."

  Thinking back to Gelone, the situation here at Biblo was ten times more critical. Their enemies had refined their coordination skills and developed their mastery of magical arts. Compared to the previous siege attempts, they were now more precise, more lethal. And this was despite the plague of the undead and the fragmentation of their army.

  In a way, they had been lucky.

  "Weren't they supposed to be divided? We've never seen the demi-humans so united, so organized."

  Talarico was right. Someone was leading them. And an unpleasant feeling suggested who it was.

  "It doesn't matter," said Esidoro, the spearhead of their vanguard. "They told us to stay here and die, but I have a better idea. We know that the demi-humans have established various camps in the surrounding area. Considering the forces they are deploying now, they won't be very well guarded. They want the fortress? Let them have it. We still have Gelone. We still have more than half of the kingdom. We'll take something more important to them."

  Such a move was far from honorable. But it was also true that from the beginning, the beastmen had made no distinctions among the citizens of the Draconic Kingdom: every prey was fair game, and there was a cruel equality in not distinguishing between old people, women, and children.

  "I'm a warrior, not a butcher," Gazef finally said, after a long consideration. "If we did something like that, would we be any better than them?"

  "We don't have to be!" The soldier replied, seeking the approval of his companions, and finding it without much effort. "This is first and foremost an extermination operation. Our goal should be total annihilation. If we cut off their progeny and their ability to reproduce, even if they win this battle, the demi-humans would still perish at the end of their natural cycle."

  Almost everyone agreed with Esidoro: the Theocracy had trained them to watch the bigger picture, after all. Those who were reluctant were simply not convinced by that strategic calculation, not because they found a moral objection to the plan.

  A systematic study, in which concepts like honor and personal glory did not matter. Gazef had to get into that mindset and strip himself of any remaining scruples. Nigun himself, before leaving, had warned him of the choices he would have to make.

  "It's either us or them, Stronoff. When you are weaker, when you could be at the enemy's mercy simply because you exist, then striking first is not merely an opportunistic choice, but an incontrovertible duty."

  Gazef had no illusions: the Sunlight Scripture had committed all kinds of atrocities against the demi-human tribes, not only in the Draconic Kingdom, so that Slaine's iron fist would remain unopposed. And he was now not only part of that machine; he was the same lubricant that made it so efficient.

  He waited for someone to propose something different, but everyone remained silent. They were waiting for him to make the decision because, in the end, they trusted his judgment.

  But before Gazef could express what was troubling him, Brain spoke up for him.

  "That's a stupid choice. Do you really think the camps are that easy to find? That just because they are women, children, and civilians they won't fight to the end? An adult demi-human, regardless of race or gender, can be dangerous even if they have never set foot on a battlefield before."

  "We are aware of that, but we are a trained team. We have lived our whole lives for this, and the element of surprise will give us an advantage."

  "Still, many will manage to escape. The numerical disparity is not insignificant."

  "We will hunt them down to the last one. Our diviners are much better than you think, Unglaus."

  Esidoro leaned forward, so as to be a short distance from Brain. Despite his excellent sword, Unglaus could have sliced him in one blow if he had wanted to, and both were aware of it.

  "And what about the women participating in the assault? Not all their females remained at the camps. Maybe you're confusing them with your beloved little wife."

  "My wife would kick your ass!"

  "Oh. Then I'm really curious to meet her."

  Tempers were starting to flare, and they weren't making any progress either.

  "Captain, we should go to Vice-Commander Iovino first," Talarico whispered in Gazef's ear. "We can still rejoin Cerabrate later, and if someone finds out about our flight from command, it could have a negative effect on the morale of our comrades."

  Gazef found himself agreeing. "That's enough!" He thundered, drawing attention to himself. "Let's go back."

  No one objected. The tacit agreement was that the final word remained with him. Gazef was relieved, but at the same time, a pang made him waver: once again, he had found himself taking the easiest path: the path of not making a choice.

  And while all that was unsettling him in his innermost being, it was nothing compared to the hell that was now befalling them. In years of long campaigns, Gazef had never seen anything like it: the sky had darkened, the clouds were laden with thunderstorms and torrential rains.

  The sky itself was weeping, torn by fractures and squalls that now crashed down on them. The drops began to soak them, and when they managed to get back to the battlefield, the visibility had become too heavy and foggy to clearly distinguish what was happening around them. But where sight failed, hearing provided an adequate overview of the situation.

  The demi-humans had managed to break through the walls and open a breach. But just at that moment, the undead army had arrived.

  Then, at that moment, everything had turned into a multi-sided clash. The soldiers of the Draconic Kingdom, those still on the walls, had to divide their attention between the evil horde and the invaders. The latter, in turn, had to fall back and decide whether to let the undead overwhelm them from afar.

  Logic should have dictated a common course of action: if both sides had set aside their differences for a moment and focused on the common enemy, they would have prevailed.

  But the risk of a stab in the back made that leap of faith impossible.

  "Sir... Iovino is surrounded by liches..."

  Gazef moved quickly, Brain at his side. The rest of their unit had been cut off from the adventurers. As he got closer, he realized where the screams above them were coming from: a bunch of skeletal dragons were flying through the air above them, swooping down to grab unfortunates and throw them to the ground, so that their remains would further stain the land, which was now colored black.

  "Watch out!"

  Gazef saw one of his men being grabbed. The cloud of dust that had been kicked up made him cough furiously. Magic was useless against such monsters, but they could imbue their weapons with fire and other elements to mount up a better counteroffensive.

  Brain had a cleric assist him, and he ignited his katana. The sparks dispelled the darkness. When the swordsman leaped into the air, the skeletal dragon was already about to complete its descent. Brain charged his downward slash mid-air, heedless of the difficulty of the move, almost as if his body and sword were weightless.

  It was impossible to tell if it was the fire or the metal that was blazing with such an intensity that it was blinding. The skeletal dragon, noticing the danger, stretched out its head to try to devour him, and for a moment, the swordsman disappeared, swallowed by those wan jaws.

  It only lasted a second: something sharp poked out from the creature's nose. The tip of Brain's sword had already cut through the agglomeration of internal organs and viscera, and had made its way to the outside. It was the first of numerous cuts.

  Gazef closed his eyes for an instant, and when he reopened them, Brain had already sliced the undead into a thousand pieces from the inside of the creature, saving the unfortunate man who was now lying in his arms, breathing with difficulty.

  "Are you okay?"

  Despite being covered with innards and other obscenities, Brain was more worried about the one he had rescued.

  "I'll survive..."

  There was no opportunity to get lost in too many preliminaries. Iovino and his men were strenuously defending themselves from the assault of a couple of liches and their guard of undead.

  One of the wights blocked Gazef's path before he could fully reach them. He was tall and slender, with a red hat and a long, sharp sword. The bones of his face were so deformed that they formed a small goatee of pristine cheratin.

  He rushed forward, furiously driving his weapon toward the captain's side. Gazef didn't have the necessary time to dodge and was forced to parry the blow with his sword. The sharp sound of the weapons scraping against each other was immediately a subdued echo, devoured by the ever-rising dissonance.

  They both caught their breath, and the wight returned to its stance. It aimed to the right, prompting Gazef to concentrate his defenses there. Once, twice, three times the metal screeched against other metal, but neither of them gave an inch. Then, after another exchange and the umpteenth parry, the wight's sword, which had been directed in the same way as always, suddenly changed trajectory with such unexpected speed that it caught Gazef by surprise and left him unable to react in time.

  The blow pierced his armor and his side, fortunately only grazing him. But that wasn't what caused his astonishment.

  'The weapon was sharpened by magic, and that last move... Martial arts?'

  It was the first time he had ever encountered an undead capable of such a feat. He gritted his teeth, as if to form a crooked smile. The wight, on the other hand, continued to stare at him emotionlessly; the two holes it had for eyes concealed a small burning light in the midst of the darkness.

  "Need a hand, Stronoff?"

  "You go help Iovino with the others, Unglaus. I've got this."

  Brain was torn by the choice, but in the end, he listened to his captain's command.

  Gazef and his opponent remained still, studying each other. The wind moved the feather adorning the undead's hat, lulled by that breeze which, in all other circumstances, would have been pleasant and reinvigorating.

  The man was the first to take the initiative. Gazef opted for an overhead assault, contracting his muscles and holding his breath to the bursting point, then striking down with all his might in a sweeping motion from above. The wight didn't even try to deflect the blow: in the depths of that dark mind, the awareness of the difference in pure physical strength between the two had already been established.

  Instead, it moved backward, without getting lost in a desperate run. It moved just far enough away to counterattack on the spot and give Gazef no opportunity to evade.

  Just as he had predicted.

  Gazef kicked the wight before its lunge could connect, causing it to stumble. He then followed with a shoulder charge to its chest; the impact sent them both tumbling into a puddle of mud. The undead tried to get back up, but the captain was already on top of it.

  During his campaigns in the south, Gazef had learned to turn his entire body into a weapon. Many focused on the weapons they held, neglecting the rest, only to be caught by a move that might not be conventional but was no less effective. That way of thinking had also trapped the wight in predictable patterns, which he had taken advantage of.

  But that wouldn't be enough to hold it back for long. With a kick, Gazef moved his still-prone opponent a few centimeters, just enough to give himself the opportunity to charge a blow.

  Unfortunately, the wight proved to be faster than he had thought, and it aimed its long-blade to the right again, ready to use its martial art once more and catch Gazef by surprise. Certain tricks only worked once.

  Gazef pretended to fall into the trap, following the original trajectory of the blow, but when it suddenly changed, it found only air to strike. He was already by its side.

  "You're not the only one who knows how to use martial arts," he taunted. The wight was quick once again, but this time, not quick enough. Gazef's blade shone so brightly that it tore through the darkness, and his unstoppable charge made its way into the undead's ribcage, tearing through its bones and putrid flesh.

  The wight's head turned ninety degrees with a completely unnatural motion. The overflowing hatred from that abyss washed over Gazef until it was all over and the creature of putrescence became nothing more than a pile of ashes. Melting like snow in the sun, the remaining malevolent energy dispersed into the wind.

  Nothing more than a small detour. Gazef ignored the strain he had put on himself and hurried in the direction Brain and the others had gone, managing to rejoin his unit. The liches had been defeated, but the horde of undead showed no signs of lessening its grip. A fireball impacted not far from him, engulfing the surroundings in flames and fire. Arrows, both magical and not, moved through the air in an exchange that made it impossible to clearly distinguish the parties involved.

  "Iovino?"

  His second-in-command was nowhere to be seen. Brain, who had gathered all the survivors around him, took a second to catch his breath.

  "He took a couple of trusted casters and headed to help Cerabrate. The adventurers have almost all been wiped out!"

  So quickly? The ones who remained were top-notch veterans. How could they have been so easily overwhelmed? Unless...

  "Oh, no. We have to hurry, Unglaus."

  He prayed to the gods that it wasn't too late. He prayed to anything in the sky to listen to him. He prayed like he had never done in his life, and yet his prayers were not heard.

  They found Lilianne missing an arm, with Imilcone, her companion, trying to cauterize the wound. The caster's weariness was shown by the labouring breath and the semi-closed eyes, struggling to remain open.

  "Where's Cerabrate?"

  Gazef instructed Talarico to give support with the healing, so that the two of them could rest, for a bit.

  "Stronoff..." The woman's voice was faint, and she could barely maintain herself awake, but she was alive at least. Whoever had done this to poor Lilianne hadn't given her much thought. "He's here. The White Lion is here..."

  "Cerabrate is trying to contain him... But won't last long..." Imilcone said, with a heartbroken look. "That demi-human... He's too strong."

  "Stronoff," Brain caught his attention, trying not to show his overflowing excitement. It was like trying to stop a river from flowing. "I'm going... follow me if you want."

  Gazef saw his men, waiting for orders. His soldiers. The only family he had had in recent years. Not only his future, but all of theirs, depended on that decision.

  Before he could open his mouth, something stopped him. Brain had placed a hand over his mouth.

  "Shh," he gestured for him to be quiet. "Do you feel it?"

  Gazef strained his ears. Nothing.

  Every sound had ceased, every slightest trace of noise silenced. It was as if the battlefield itself had changed, and in its place something different, not necessarily more reassuring, had taken over.

  Brain was trembling.

  "What's wrong with you?"

  "It's like that time... No... It's much better."

  For Gazef, all of this was incomprehensible, but for the swordsman, it was terribly familiar.

  "I don't understand what..."

  "Stronoff. I once told you about the summit, didn't I?" He started to run, heading who knows where. "Well, if you want to see it, follow me."

  The point wasn't whether to choose to follow him or not. There were no alternatives. Gazef couldn't afford the luxury of procrastinating, not when the lives of some of his men were in danger.

  But as he ran, trying to keep up with Unglaus, the way everything was changing around him couldn't help but leave him bewildered, in the grip of a feeling of dread.

  Had he ever experienced a nightmare? Everyone dreamed, and in turn, everyone could be a victim of that terror that disturbed sleep, that made waking life so terrible. Gazef had had many nightmares. Like everyone, after all...

  They were mundane, banal: losing loved ones, failing in one's intentions, finding oneself alone and lost. In a way, they were almost comforting. It was a kind of fear that could be rationalized with experience, to which an explanation could be attributed. The anxiety of loss, of not being enough, was a common, almost physiological feeling. It made him more aware of his limits and his weaknesses, to the point of being able to refine and control them.

  But there was also another kind of nightmare. Those born from the darkness of the mind. Those without form, distortions of abstract geometries and planes, which were not an explanation, but a representation of pure instinct, a mere fallacy in the ordered structure of the world, almost as if a scrupulous creator had placed every piece in a precise composition to create harmony, but had left remnants that did not fit into his design, casting them into the void.

  Those remnants had not disappeared, but had clung to the abysses at the borders of life, to remind those who lived that they were still there, and that perhaps one day they would return. You came into the world greeted by light, but you never quite forgot the darkness that preceded it.

  Those nightmares, in a way, were memories. Memories of what was waiting, beyond life, and beyond death.

  In the same way, war could be a nightmare. It could be the nightmare you got used to.

  For Gazef, who had been weaned on the blood of conflict, who had learned the language so he could receive orders and issue them in turn, who had taken his first steps on paths paved with death, war could be home.

  He rejected it, he despised it, but that didn't mean he didn't understand it. The intrinsic reasons, be they ideals or survival, conquest or defense, were easy to grasp. The worst parts, it was possible to get used to.

  When your friend took their last breath for the first time, it was a tragedy. When it was the hundredth to go, just a statistic. The nauseating smell of corpses could become indifferent. The battle cries, music to dance to.

  That was the nightmare you could make your own, even coming to appreciate it. Gazef, who could only lie to himself up to a certain point, couldn't shed the exhilaration that thrilled him when he ended a life, when he imposed himself as the strongest over his opponent.

  That nightmare, he had accepted. That nightmare, he had made his own.

  But now, in the Draconic Kingdom, the nightmare called war had been replaced by something much worse. The nightmare called demi-human, the nightmare called undead, had been wiped out, while a single indistinct spot overturned everything he knew, everything he had gotten to know.

  The world of war was a world stained with red, the red of blood. Instead, this was just a thin line, white as a sheet, black as the ink that was rewriting the meaning of the word, standing out in the ordeal, mowing down every enemy with precision and indifference, as if that was no conflict, or struggle, but just a mathematical operation, no more than an infinite subtraction.

  "Beautiful," Brain murmured, drawn in by that cacophony of destruction. Not that he had a complete overview of what was happening, no. For him, the less he grasped, the more he strived to get… In a perpetual reach towards infinite.

  For Gazef, it was impossible to clearly distinguish the dynamics of every single action, the intrinsic reasons of cause and effect that led what were nevayus, horureners, styxs, tabixis, zoastias, tortmen, bouffalors, aarakocras, owlins, armats, apemen, wolfmen, liches, skeletons, zombies, wrights, skeletal dragons, and dozens of other creatures to hurl themselves toward something they couldn't even conceive, and then expire, abandoning everything and everyone without even having the opportunity to understand what was happening.

  Forcing himself to let go of all this, the captain took a deep breath, regaining his focus.

  "Iovino and Cerabrate are over there."

  "What do you care about them?" Brain snapped, completely captivated by the scorching demonstration of might. Akin to a disaster, it was as if the sun and moon, and all the stars in the sky had been robbed from the above and placed on the earth, so that they might burn and blind everything that lived, until nothing more in the to-be charred plains would grow anymore. The morning light and the twilight glow would abandon those lands, never to return. "Don't you get it? This war... it's already over. And we've won! Enjoy this occasion, because there won't be others."

  Where Gazef saw an uncontrolled slaughter, the definitive abandonment of any rules, his swordsman friend was tracing an imaginary route, trying to point where that lightning on the ground came from, where it was going, what its next goal would be. For the both of them, it was like trying to chase the wind or trying to mark the passage of time.

  It was possible to be aware of the seconds passing. But how could you try to control their passage? Did the hands of a clock perfectly reproduce the transition from one moment to the next? Or were they a simple convention that tried to harness something undefined into more limited standards?

  "To hell with it," Gazef let his friend solve that mystery.

  Cerabrate wasn't far. He and a few adventurers had stayed to the side, in a part where the impact of that event wasn't yet fully felt.

  "No!"

  Making his way by stepping on fallen humans and demi-humans, sinking into those piles of corpses, Gazef recognized his second-in-command in a jumbled pile of dead, pulling him out of the grave he was buried in, enough to bring out the upper part of his body to light.

  "Iovino!" he called out loudly. "Iovino, can you hear me?" He continued, even though it was completely useless. There were no healers nearby, and in any case, they couldn't have changed anything. The vice-captain was at peace, perhaps truly for the first time since they had known each other.

  Gazef let out a cry of agony. Another dead, only because he had arrived too late. He ran a hand over his closed eyes, trying to remember one of the prayers of farewell for the last goodbye, with nothing coming out of his mouth. He squeezed the pendant of the goddess Lagusa that he wore around his neck, hoping it would give him the inspiration to find something to say, but to no avail.

  The goddess was not listening to him, or perhaps he was not calling her with enough strength.

  He felt like laughing, but even that was just an impulse that gave way before it was completed. It was still possible to save Iovino with resurrection magic. He just had to make sure his corpse remained in an acceptable condition.

  He finished pulling him out, finding him unexpectedly light. He soon understood why: only the part below the ribcage had been completely severed, and the rest had been scattered in the rest of the pile.

  "Damn it!" He slammed his fist violently into the ground, finding himself touching something soft, which he didn't even dare to check what it was.

  Brain was right. They had won. But he still hadn't managed to save anyone. What an idiocy...

  "Human, move." A voice called his attention.

  Behind him, the white lion was exactly as he remembered him, when he had crossed his path years ago. As terrifying as he was then, with fur so white and immaculate it looked like winter snow. A golden breastplate, an aquamarine sword, and a regal cloak fluttering in the wind. He exuded power and was so imposing that he towered even over a bulky man like Gazef.

  He only had one arm free, because the left one was holding a man by the neck with a shimmering armor, which, however, in front of the demi-human's splendor, was nothing more than an opaque reflection.

  'Cerabrate', Gazef recognized the most famous adventurer of the Draconic Kingdom, hero to millions of people, dazed and unconscious, at the complete mercy of that very particular nevayuu.

  "I'm just going to help my people. There's no need to fight..." Having said that, the white lion threw the adventurer to a distant place, without even checking if he was alive or dead, and passed Gazef without giving him too much importance.

  He was heading into the center of the storm. He would try to stop that force that was slaughtering his kin, just because it was his duty.

  There was no need to fight for Gazef to assert that that demi-human was much stronger than him. And yet...

  "Don't go. You're weak..."

  At least to satisfy his selfishness, he wanted to try to save a life. Any life.

  "Human, do you think you can stop me?"

  There was something in the deep green eyes of that being that Gazef recognized. It was simple sadness. The same one born from inadequacy, to be aware that your strength will not save you.

  To understand, at least, that they weren't so much different from one another… The final punchline of a not-funny joke.

  "No... But I have to try anyway."

  "Then... Die."

  Gazef closed his eyes, and he was in the void. He had no illusions about what the outcome would be. If he had resisted with his sword in hand, would he have satisfied the Gods? The truth was, in those last moments, they were nothing more than a distant concept to him.

  The blow that should have ended his life never came.

  "Ah, I knew I'd find something interesting here. I certainly can't leave all the fun to Lady Fouche!"

  Someone had intercepted the blow for him, and that someone was a human, just like him.

  "You okay, little one?"

  Gazef had never met a man like that. He rivaled the nevayuu in size; in fact, he might have been a few centimeters taller. He was old, with gray hair and a body scarred by battle, which he proudly displayed on his semi-nude chest, each one almost wanting to tell a different story, but all with a single ending: 'my bearer survived.' The weapon he wielded was a colossal axe, gleaming and captivating in its magnificence, which he handled with extreme ease, as if he had a simple rolling pin in his hands.

  Everything, from his equipment to the way he moved, left Gazef speechless. Had the Gods sent him? When the infidel called, Heaven responded, to remind them that it was there.

  That day had been a continuous bath of humility for Gazef, who wasn't even aware he needed one.

  "A new human... But you have something different from the others. Why do you want to stop me?"

  The stranger simply laughed, with such vigor that one could wonder if he had the slightest idea where he was. "How ungrateful. I'm simply giving you something that the young lady over there would never grant to your kind. A chance."

  The white lion gripped his sword with determination. "Human... I will eliminate you and stop the slaughter you have brought upon us."

  The stranger did the same. "I implore you... Amaze me!"

  And when both roared, before hurling themselves against each other, Gazef concluded that the newcomer could win. Because that man was strong. Perhaps he was the strongest man of all.

  Beta readers: HackSlashBash, Whostolemytea?, PervySageChuck

  Cerabrate's character sheet