Chapter 15: Fifteen
The ruins of the ancient city stretched farther than any of the traveling party had thought, reaching almost the entirety of the way to the safe space that they'd all rested at not that long ago.
Creaking gently along the now level road that had been revealed beneath the overgrowth, the wheels of the cot they'd found to move Taniel forced themselves up onto the campgrounds and came to rest as Ezekiel stopped pushing.
By the barest technicality, he and Gemma had accomplished their mission, but seeing Taniel so still squeezed something in his chest just hard enough to make it hard to breathe.
She'd trusted them and they hadn't been able to keep her properly safe…not only that, but their inaction had loosed even more Sirens into the world. The image of jobs failed by inexperienced adventurers flickered in his mind as he thought of how many people would undoubtedly die due to their failure to cut that threat off before it could grow.
His only consolation as he began setting up tents was that newborn Sirens usually took some time before they set up a communal nest, establishing individual nests before territory lines began to blur.
A small consolation, but a consolation nonetheless.
Setting up the tents went slowly, the mark on his hand throbbing painfully the whole time, though he didn't mention it to anyone.
The World Egg had done little else since they'd left, and Ezekiel wondered idly if it had anything to do with Taniel's condition, or the guilt he felt for letting her get hurt.
Then…she wasn't hurt, at least not according to the devices in the city…but what was wrong with her?
Pulling the last parts of the tent into place, Ezekiel rolled out his sleeping bag outside of the entrance and pushed Taniel inside, finally dropping onto his back after he finished.
The tent would keep her safe from the elements and the barrier would keep them all safe from monsters, yet another small consolation.
As the sun dropped below the horizon, Ezekiel watched the stars flicker to life, though…they seemed…dimmer for some reason.
All around him the runes and torches burst, exploding in a rainbow lattice of magical energy that dissipated upwards into the sky and the distinct shimmer of the barrier faded away.
"What the HELL was that," Azael shouted from inside his tent.
Gemma ran out from hers, sword drawn in her right hand and her left lit aflame with glowing blue fire, ready to fight to keep her friends safe.
But nothing came.
Jumping up, alert, Ezekiel followed suit and drew his sword, but still…nothing came.
The stars twinkled as though they were laughing, still dimmer than they should be, and Azael and Vanessa started working on getting the torches relit, but the fires wouldn't catch.
In the distance, a massive crashing sound like hundreds of trees falling all at once sounded, muffled by the forest on the way back to Vaen, and still…nothing came.
An hour passed and nothing happened, though when Ezekiel looked up into the sky, he saw a gentle white ring around what appeared to be a black moon…The Eye of Seris.
The Eye had been in stories he'd heard as far back as when he was a kid, but supposedly it was impossible for human eyes to see.
"Guess that's wrong," he mumbled.
Gemma put her hand on his shoulder and said, "Looks like we do this the old fashioned way. I'll take the first watch, you guys get sleep."
She whispered a few words and a new, weaker, barrier grew around the campgrounds as Ezekiel nodded and dropped back to his sleeping bag.
As his friend wandered to where the campfire had been, he could have sworn he heard a woman giggle as his eyes suddenly heavy, closed and he fell into a fitful sleep.
The first nightmare came, sharp as a blade, and he was surrounded by fire.
A church was burning, familiar, though he couldn't place which one it was, the giggle surrounded him on all sides, filling his head with something like a cross between lust and panic.
They ended slowly, blurring into one another until Gemma woke him to the sun rising, having kept watch the whole night instead of waking him up.
Sweat poured down his face as he pushed himself up, barely reaching his feet before Azael grabbed him and steadied him.
"We need to go."
Blinking sleep out of his eyes, Ezekiel asked, "What's wrong?"
The man shifted impatiently and he said, "Vanessa just got back from scouting…something's wrong in Vaen."
Taking him at his word, Ezekiel raced to pack up his tent and bag, checking Taniel briefly, only to see that she was sweating too…the first sign of change so far.
Minutes after the tent was packed, they were all on their way, walking as fast as they could through the chill morning.
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They saw the wreckage well before they arrived at the gates, smoldering remains of trees and outlying homes, scattered along the road back to Vaen, quickened their pace. It wasn't totally unheard of for towns to be attacked by ambitious bandits or unusually brave groups of monsters…but this wasn't that.
Town attacks usually left survivors, people who hid from the bandits or monsters and wandered the town in a daze after the trauma of their survival began to set in, people who could comfort each other and rebuild.
The sheer scale of the destruction caught Ezekiel off guard, drawing an audible gasp from the whole party.
Gemma took a few shaky steps forward, frantically scanning the ruins of the town they'd called home for almost half a year, a choked sob breaking free from her chest.
Azael put his arm around her shoulders and she broke down, holding him as though he were the only thing anchoring her to sanity.
Maybe he was.
Almost a thousand people, grown men, women, and children…gone, in a single night, every building in varying states of destruction.
Fighting back panic, Ezekiel forced himself to look, to see what had happened and if possible, how it had.
After a few moments, pieces of information began to present themselves to him, a surprisingly long career of analyzing combat and destruction kicking in and holding the frenetic need to know at bay long enough to make sense of what he was seeing.
Corpses…scattered, left where they fell along roads and in shattered doorways.
Despite being all encompassing, the destruction was fairly standard at first glance, but a closer look told Ezekiel that the church had been destroyed first.
The church was a ways into the town, well past guard outposts and other structures that would have been attacked on the way to the hallowed grounds.
There were also no prints along the grounds, nothing to show the size of the force that attacked, which could only mean that the attackers were flying.
It pressed on him, scratched at the corners of his mind and blurred his vision as he considered the evidence.
The first idea he had was possible, yes, but unprecedented. Yet…it was the only rational conclusion his strained mind could reach.
Ezekiel's head shot from side to side, searching desperately for some other answer, something, anything, that could have done this, but the more he looked, the more likely it was that he was correct.
His hand throbbed as the memory from the tower forced its way back to the forefront of his mind, of his and Gemma's failure, of the transformed Choir.
Newforms don't work together when they're so young, he kept repeating in his mind, it had never happened in all the accounts he'd learned of their kind. They establish territory and nest, hunting as needed while they acclimate to their new bodies and their minds changing to be more visceral and animalistic.
The effects on reality that these creatures have are only temporary on non-sentient materials, so it was definitely in the realm of possibility that the destruction would seem standard.
Maybe she saw his frantic analysis, or maybe she had simply reached the conclusion on her own, but Gemma had let go of Azael and was looking on the town with fire in her eyes as she said, "The Sirens."
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