“Sadly, you are likely…correct, Nathaniel,” Anima told me, sympathy and measure of…guilt in her tone? “There are oceans of enmity between Fynneas-nay. The gods as a whole, and the Great Spirits, and yet I cannot help but feel as if we have…abdicated our responsibility regarding the creature he became. In the aftermath of the War in Heaven, there was, perhaps, a window in which we could have banded together to cull the newly born ‘Mad God’. Perhaps. And yet…we were so tired. Orus and Neris retreated into their mourning, while even in that era, Elys and Tarus did the same, if not into the comfort of their relationship. While I was…left adrift, to manage my domain. I cannot help but feel a great measure of responsibility for the suffering that had befallen the people of Vereden. Now, I can do little but advise you in this task.”

  I raised my head, but my gaze was unfocused as I gazed out at the shadowed landscape of the valley before me. “Is there…anything that can be done to free you?”

  “…perhaps,” Anima replied, in a strangely reluctant tone. “I’ve…considered the matter, and there are…options. Some better than others. But, Nathan? My imprisonment is likely to remain a Spirit matter. For obvious reasons, it’s quite impossible for you to reach me, and the paths to do so lie within the Concord.”

  “Which the whole of Vereden has been cut off from,” I sighed.

  “Sadly, I believe so,” Anima confirmed. “This is likely one of the ways I’ve been trapped in this place. The most likely way to secure my freedom is with the assistance of the last remaining siblings I can trust.”

  “Tarus and Elys.” I frowned. “But…you said that was just one of the ways? What are the others?”

  She was silent for a moment. “Even at my lowest depths, I have no desire to reach out to that…that person. Only in the most dire of circumstances, including the impending death of all life on Vereden, will I do so.”

  I cocked my head at the sheer vitriol in Anima’s voice then. I’d never heard her like that before. Which, admittedly…it’s not like I was well acquainted with the Great Spirit, but still. I hadn’t expected it. And I also…didn’t really want to touch the matter with a ten-foot pole. Something about her enmity sounded deeply, deeply personal.

  I put it aside, standing up from the chair.

  “Alright then. I…have work to do, after everything you’ve told me,” I said instead, crossing my arms and furrowing my brow. I idly started tapping my foot as I considered the matter. “I’m going to need to do a lot if I’m going to put together an expedition into the Barren Forest. Volunteers, supplies, a ton of APD’s, weapons-”

  Abruptly, I stopped talking, every muscle in my body tensing. The transition was sudden enough that I think I startled Anima. “Nathaniel? Is everything alright?”

  I ignored her. There was something far, far more important catching my attention.

  Far off into the distance, at the mouth of the valley that stretched up along the depression between the Brothers, I saw something.

  A glint of some kind. It came from the apex of the hill that led downwards, only barely visible over the tens of miles that lay between us. I couldn’t even see what was causing it; the span was so great. And yet… its mere existence was enough to astonish me.

  A reflection meant people. Who could be out there that could survive long enough to make it to Blutstein? The distance between Blutstein and its valley, and the next largest settlement, was large enough that only dedicated, dexterity-specialized Scouts could make the journey without guaranteed death.

  God, I wish I had a far-eye right about now. I didn’t keep mine on me at all times, and I was kind of wishing I did.

  I soon got my answer as to who it was.

  Slowly rolling over the lip of the hill was an impossibly long line of carts, and wagons, and carriages, and coaches and every other possible form of overland travel that existed. It was like a true wall of wood was growing upon the upper slope, and then they crested it.

  And it only grew from there.

  They rolled over the hill and down the slope, and it was like a wave of trundling timbers was flowing down it. Ever expanding, the number of them only grew and grew until the incline was nothing more an endless expanse of…

  Of people.

  Led by that same glint.

  My mouth opened as I realized what this had to be. There had been…some speculation about them, and their fate following the Skyfall. Nobody had really known, because they were notoriously cagey about their capabilities. But…I suppose they had weathered the initial storm of the Skyfall well enough.

  The Throng of the Gnolls was coming to Blutstein.

  Apparently, I wasn’t the only one to spot them. Even in the depths of the crisis, the watch towers along the outer wall of the city were still manned. Already, bells were ringing all along it above, as shouts echoed out from the towers. I saw soldiers burst into action, racing up and down the walls as they realized what was happening. Others rapidly descended the ladders and sprinted off down the streets, likely carrying messages for their higher-ups about the approaching mega-caravan. No doubt Lord Vessingen himself was being informed, much less Wenzel.

  “Anima, I have to go,” I said quickly, before abruptly turning around and dashing back through the wards. I immediately lost the sensation of connection I’d had with her, running up to a very surprised-looking Itzelan. Before she could speak, I unwound the rope around my waist and shoved it into her stomach. “Can you do me a favor?” I asked her quickly. At her cocked head, I did my best to smile at her. “Go back to the Bastion and tell Captain’s Maria and Renauld that the Throng is approaching the city. Commander Isolde, too, if she's there. We don’t know if the Gnolls need assistance. Tell them I’m ordering our people to the gates in preparation.”

  Meia considered me for a moment before looking over my head and through the wards. “So that’s the Throng,” She mused, ignoring me for a moment to my impatience. After a moment, she met my eyes and nodded. “I’ve never actually seen it before. Alright. I can see that the APD’s are working anyway. My job is done here, so I’ll relay your message. You, though, can deal with our testing station. We didn’t even end up needing it.”

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “Gee, thanks,” I muttered to myself as she turned and left the gate. I shook my head, though, disregarding her. The half-orc woman’s prickly nature wasn’t important right now.

  What was, were our fellow survivors.

  But…how had they weathered the storm of the Skyfall?

  I guess I’d figure out before long.

  …………………………………

  It took the absolutely gigantic procession of the Throng quite a while to trundle to a stop before the gates of Blutstein. In that time, I was given plenty of opportunity to see just how large it was. In the hours before the slow-moving caravan reached us, I wasn’t even able to count all of the mingled forms of transportation. They appeared like nothing so much as a large, ruddy brown wave as they crept ever so closer to the city. There had to be thousands of them, and I had no doubt that each and every one of them was packed with families.

  From what I understood…this procession held the bulk of all Gnolls on the face of Vereden. Sure, there were Gnolls who chose not to live in Throng, and there were people like Renauld and Liora who chose service and education elsewhere. But I’d learned that this was actually a relatively small number, and generally, they all had ultimate loyalties to the Throng itself.

  Liora was a bit of an outlier.

  I ignored the pang I felt at the thought of my friend, lost somewhere out in the countryside. I couldn’t do anything for her right now. All I could do was hope that the Order forces were getting by somehow.

  We still hadn’t found any trace of them, with our limited search capabilities.

  But that wasn’t important right now.

  What was, was the massive cloud of dirt that the Throng was kicking up right outside the gates of Blutstein, as they came to a stop before the wards.

  And I do mean right outside. The absolutely massive lead vehicle was parked closely and precisely enough that the tip of that monster was literally brushing up against the pane of protective Aether. I had trouble even calling such a thing a wagon, it was so large. In size, and frankly, shape as well, it was more akin to the front of a train more than anything. It was completely enclosed, for one, with no opening to the sky or the outside on its surface visible. I couldn’t see any particular manner in which it was propelled, either. There were no animals, horse or otherwise, attached to black iron paneled surface of the gigantic thing, pulling or pushing. It…did have wheels, I suppose, but that was the only thing I saw on it that adhered to what I thought of as a conveyance.

  While the sheer size of the thing was intimidating, its appearance was a bit softened by the many, many paintings I could see on the surface. All of them were done in conspicuous, bright yellow paint, though none seemed to depict anything in particular. At least, not to my eyes. It was just…flowing lines, and spirals, and geometric shapes of all kinds, all of them artistically designed to be pleasing to the eye. The contrast between the almost monstrous appearance of the dull iron surface and the bright, almost sunny yellow of the paint was stark indeed.

  It was far from the only vehicle out there, of course. But there was a common theme.

  I think…maybe the color yellow had some special importance to the Gnolls, because it was absolutely everywhere in the Throng. Yellow flags, yellow designs, and yellow paintings were the only commonalities to be found among their many, many different mobile homes. Otherwise, they were wildly different in construction. All shapes and sizes were evident among the few that I could closely see beyond the monstrous main one.

  In the time it had taken for the Throng to arrive and come to a stop before the gates, I had quickly been outnumbered by new arrivals from inside the city. Soldiers by the dozen had come to stand upon the battlements of the walls, while scores more waited in the plaza behind. Curious citizens had initially tried to come up to the gates to watch the oncoming procession, only to be blockaded off by the arriving soldiers and told to mind their own business. My own Order members were among the soldiers as well, though there were far fewer of them in comparison. We were a smaller force in general, and despite my wishes, there just weren’t that many people available to be here for the arrival.

  But Maria, and more importantly, Renauld had made it.

  I…think both of us were a little concerned for the Gnoll. He wasn’t reacting like I would have thought he would. I’d expected a measure of, I don’t know, relief? That his people hadn’t been wiped out in the catastrophe that had struck Vereden. But instead, there was a tenseness to his shoulders and a frown on his face as he stared at the monstrous lead vehicle.

  Come to think of it…

  “You never seemed all that worried about the Throng this last week,” I said to him quietly, observing him. “You knew they were fine, didn’t you?”

  Renauld’s orange eyes flickered my way briefly, and he nodded. “Once we found out it was settlement wards that keep the corruption out, I did,” He confirmed grimly. “After all…the Gigant-” He cut himself off for a moment, a visible war being fought on his furry face. His expression finally settled into a hard cast. “Screw it. I don’t care about the secrecy rules. The Gigant has some kind of special ward stone, from the age of the gods. It can project a ward field large enough to cover the entire Throng.” A brief smirk flickered over his lips at my visible astonishment on my face. “How else do you think we survived out in the wilds? Gnoll Aether tastes just as good to monsters as a Human’s does.”

  He…had a point. I guess I had just never considered the matter before.

  But, something from the age of the gods? Was it a Netherim Ward Stone? Was it something the betrayers had fashioned after they had conquered the known planets?

  I was suddenly intensely curious, but the base idea wasn’t new to me.

  After all…my own Astray had a moving ward field.

  And that gave me ideas.

  A murmur from in front of us caught my attention, and I looked over to where the royals and the few High Lords who could be assembled on such notice were standing. Something had caught their attention, but I couldn’t see it from where I was standing with my two Captains. Isolde was up there, and honestly, I doubted if they would mind if we joined them. We’d just hung back to direct our subordinates at first, but they were all sorted for now. I exchanged nods with them before the three of us moved forward.

  By the time I had come to stand next to Isolde, who greeted me with a nod, I could see what the commotion was about.

  A massive section of the vehicle apparently known as the ‘Gigant’ opened upward, revealing that the entire leftmost flank of it was on a hinge. I was honestly pretty impressed by the engineering, considering I had never seen anything quite like it on Vereden. I think it was operated magically, but the construction of it was still very precise and mechanical seeming.

  But that was the last idle observation I had the focus for.

  I was struck numb by what happened next.

  Hundreds and hundreds of Gnolls began to pour out of the Gigant, as an iron ramp slid out from underneath it to thump into the dirt. There were so, so many of them that looked to have been crammed in there that it was astonishing.

  None of that, though, mattered to me.

  Among the masses of the Gnolls, there was a familiar glint. Something that, when I saw the gleam of it, nearly caused me to slump to my knees and start weeping on the cobblestones of Blutstein…

  In sheer, mind-bending relief.

  But I was made of sterner stuff these days, so instead, I broke out into an abrupt sprint. My movement was so sudden that I heard an audible yelp escape the throat of Isolde, but I paid no attention to her. In moments, I had cleared the bounds of the wards and passed through into a much weaker set of them just on the other side, likely generated by the Gigant.

  The object of my attention had been looking around in an exhausted manner among the crowds of Gnolls, but my sprint was enough to cause yelps of surprise from them. They noticed me only moments after I had started to push through the mass of furry bodies to reach them, and began to copy me.

  It took only moments for the two of us to meet in the middle of the press…

  In a desperate hug.

  I wrapped my arms around Sylvia and buried my face in her golden hair as she did the same to me. I couldn’t stop silent tears of relief from escaping my eyes, as we forgot the world around us. She couldn’t cry like I could, but she could sob, and I felt the nearly imperceptible shuddering of her own as she buried her face in my chest.

  Somehow, someway…Sylvia had been among the Throng of all people.

  “Thank God…” I breathed, tightening my grip on her.

  “Thank God…”