Chapter 38: DD2 Chapter 032 – Priorities

Rhelea was lost. It wasn’t a thought that Arilla wanted to dwell on, but it was becoming increasingly apparent to her that the fight was already over. The horrors were everywhere in the city centre. The horde of inky black forms spread out from the market square like a cancer, and as time ticked by, the carnivorous aberrations grew closer and closer to the periphery of the city where the majority of Rhelea’s citizens lived. While fierce fighting was still ongoing in some parts of the city—usually where steel and iron ranks refused to give ground to the unending waves of monsters—the vast majority of the streets had featured unimpressive routs, rather than valiant last stands. 

People clutched their loved ones and belongings close while they ran for the safety promised by the city’s warded gates. There had been some semblance of order at first, when Traylan soldiers held the barricades and guided women and children through first, but once the horrors caught up with the streams of refugees things had rapidly devolved into chaos. Typh had provided some measure of security during that time—the golden dragon flying low to the ground and burning away the tentacled abominations by the dozen. She had saved hundreds, if not thousands of lives in the process, but once she had fallen from the sky, things had gone from bad to worse. 

Whatever passed for a defensive line had collapsed once the Monster in the square turned its full attention to the mere mortals on the ground. Mana bolts and lances of dark energy had rained from above wherever there was resistance, and now like everyone else, Arilla ran through the city. But while others were more concerned with escaping the walled settlement, the warrior had business to attend to.

“We need to get out of the city!” Liam urged desperately. 

The healer’s voice was becoming increasingly unsteady after witnessing so much destruction. His breathing was laboured from running with Tamlin’s dead weight slung across his back, but he hadn’t abandoned them yet, which was what really counted. 

“No,” Arilla said plainly, directing the three of them down a quiet looking side street, and hopefully away from the multitude of horrors that plagued the busier roads. She adjusted her heavy burden, wincing when her precious cargo clinked from within its skill-stitched leather sack before the warrior marched down the road with her zweihander bared.

“I don’t see what we can do here. The necroma—the boy is out cold, we should leave him for the monsters and flee!”

“Liam, calm down. We’re following the plan, just one more stop and we can leave.”

“The plan is fucked! The dragon—Typh even—you saw it—her—fall. We need to get out while we still can!”

“You’re welcome to make a break for it by yourself, but I’ve already told you. I’m sticking to the plan,” Arilla said calmly. “And stop suggesting we leave Tamlin for dead.”

“The boy is a necromancer; I understand not wanting to kill a child, but we can’t take him with us. There’s an Inquisitor in this city for Gods’ sake!”

“If the Inquisitor is still alive, I think she has bigger priorities. Now come on, I don’t want to keep Typh waiting.”

Her tone was far more relaxed than she felt. She had always known there was a possibility that Typh would be injured, but the wound the dragon had taken was a killing blow. The warrior tried to take her mind off it, to focus on what she had already achieved, but Liam’s complaints weren’t making it easy.

“You’re cracked! Typh fell out of the sky and didn’t get back up. She’s dead. Whatever that thing in the square is, it’s strong enough to take on a peak-iron dragon and a stage full of steel ranks. That makes it at least silver, which means we need to run!” the healer pleaded.

“Shut up,” Arilla barked. “Typh is fine. I’d know it if she wasn’t, but meeting up with her inside Rhelea was always a long shot. We’ll finish this without her and regroup outside. We have just one more stop to make and then we’re out of here.”

“This is insanity. You’re talking like we’re going to pick up groceries...” Liam trailed off.

“Then run. I’m not keeping you hostage any longer, but if you do go, you’ll do it without me. See how long you last without my shadow to hide behind,” Arilla offered. 

Before the healer could respond she quickly raised her sword horizontally and blocked a horror dripping with some unfortunate soul’s blood. It had leapt from an open window across the street straight at her, where it collided with her blade and sprayed her with droplets of crimson.

The monstrosity was heavy, but Arilla was strong. Her knees bent slightly under its massive weight, while its fanged tentacles scrabbled uselessly against the burnished steel of her ‘recovered’ templar armour. She felt the mana draw increase, pulling automatically on her deep reserves as the rune-etched alloy rebuffed the creature’s frenzied attacks. The warrior pushed stamina through her skills and threw it off of her, batting it away with the flat of her blade which sizzled on contact with the aberration’s flesh. It zipped back through the air and collided with the front of the house it had leapt from. It smashed through bricks and mortar, burying itself under a fresh pile of rubble while the whole house groaned ominously.

“Watch Tamlin,” the warrior instructed, setting her heavy burden on the ground.

“Of course,” Liam muttered, suddenly deferential as he waited in the alley with her bag while Arilla marched out across the open street with her heavy sword held high.

She made it half-way across the road before she had to abruptly tuck and roll, when another monster dropped down from a rooftop and tried to grapple her. While she avoided the brunt of its attack, a thick tentacle still managed to wrap around her sword arm. It then used its superior bulk to lift her from her feet. She rose up into the air and switched hands, dropping her sword from one and catching it in the other before slashing down aggressively with a pulse of stamina. 

Her zweihander blurred and the creature's flesh parted with unnatural ease. The runes on her sword pulsed with stolen mana, causing the wound to blister open. The monstrosity appeared to deflate around the wound. Black ichor spurted and Arilla’s blade flashed again. Tentacles fell, each one hewn away from the horror’s almost spherical centre, and suddenly Arilla was falling too. She landed on her feet and with another swipe from her heavy sword a large section of the horror in front of her was suddenly just missing, or more accurately, it was writhing on the floor while it sizzled loudly. Its crystalline core, a red gem no larger than a thumb, was exposed to the air and the warrior was quick to plunge her six-foot-long sword straight through it. 

The core crumbled into dust the moment it was penetrated, and the horror melted into black goo a heartbeat later, except rather than trying to crawl away along the ground like those slain by other, more mundane blades, this one boiled beneath her feet.

Arilla rolled her stiff shoulders and groaned, stepping away from the noxious fumes wafting up from her fallen prey just in time to see the rubble in the damaged house shift. The injured horror, now completely recovered, burst forth, and with a tired sigh, Arilla raced forwards to meet it. Her sword cleaved through fanged tentacles that failed to penetrate her armour, even if the drain on her mana supply was starting to become concerning. Moments later it was dead, and she was not, although she was covered in so much ichor that she felt like she was in danger of dying from the unpleasant smell alone.

“Well, are we parting ways here, or are you going to shut up and do as you are told?” Arilla asked, turning around to face Liam.

“I’ll be quiet,” the healer said quickly.

“Good. Now we need to keep moving before more show up.”

“Uhm… about that,” Liam answered, raising a shaking finger towards the southern end of the street where three more monsters appeared at a sprint chasing after a lone guardsman in faded Traylan colours.

“Okay, three of them, I can handle that many,” the warrior said. 

She stretched out the sore muscles in her arms and slowly advanced on the pursuing trio. Another five monsters emerged from around a corner, and a heartbeat later ten more crested over the rooftops halfway down the street, cutting off the fleeing guard’s escape. Liam promptly began to run in the opposite direction, and Arilla sucked her teeth in disgust. She slung her sword over her back, retrieved her abandoned cargo from the ground and began running to catch up with the healer carrying her charge.

She tried not to listen to the guard’s terrified screams as they faded into the distance. It was an act that she found disconcertingly easy, but then again, this hellish day had already given her a lot of practice.

***

The rest of her flight through western Rhelea was just about as bloody and chaotic, but soon enough she emerged at her destination with her healer and unconscious necromancer in tow.

The orphanage was exactly as she remembered it: a squat, ugly warehouse someone had attempted to make palatable by adding a few plants and a nice hedge. As if a little splash of greenery could trick you into believing the children who lived there were anything but unwanted. That the Merchant’s Council could never be bothered to build them a proper building, and had instead converted a disused storage facility to house Rhelea’s orphans, had told Arilla everything she needed to know about how society saw her from a young age.

While the building remained the same, the atmosphere around it had noticeably changed for the worse. The horrors that spilled out through central Rhelea had yet to make their way so far west in any real numbers, but that was not to say that there was no violence. In the panic and the chaos, fights broke out with frightening regularity. Valuables, food, people—anything, and anyone seemed to be up for grabs to the looters and worse who were willing to risk their lives for it. Humanity had once again disappointed Arilla by showing its very worst during this time of crisis. Fortunately, Typh had predicted this level of depravity, and thanks to her forethought the orphanage had been spared the destruction that seemed to have affected large parts of the Crafters Village.

“You’re late,” Caeber said.

“I got held up,” Arilla replied.

The two warriors stood facing one another in the snow. The Shining Swords—minus their absent rogue—were arrayed defensively around the orphanage's main entrance. A curved line behind them marked the edge of a barrier spell that shimmered in the air and encapsulated the large building which remained in pristine condition. The ground immediately on the adventurer’s side of the arcane boundary was splattered in blood, ash and traces of black ichor. Between that and the disturbed earth and snow, it was abundantly clear to Arilla that at least one significant fight had taken place. 

Caeber, the iron-rank legend glowered across the short distance that separated him from Arilla. The higher-level warrior wasn’t wearing a helmet—unlike the Noble Slayer—and it was thanks to that reckless decision that she could tell he was thoroughly pissed off.

“You knew this was going to happen,” he accused.

“I did,” she admitted. “Why do you think I hired you?”

The big man took a deep breath and with Arilla’s [Slayer’s Sight] she could have sworn that for a moment something strange happened to his shadow. She wasn’t sure if he was flexing his skills while he worked himself up to kill her, but she didn’t have time for them to stand around and measure each other's metaphorical dicks.

“Where’s Riyoul? I paid for all of you,” she said, attempting to forestall his anger.

“You paid us to babysit some orphans for the day. You said nothing about whatever this is,” he replied sternly.

“The job is still the same. There are children in that building behind you who I want kept safe.”

“The job is not the fucking same. If you knew this was going to happen, you should have warned us.”

“We thought about doing that, but we couldn’t figure out a way to get people to take me seriously. So we prepared for the inevitable instead,” she explained.

“We? Surely you’re not telling me that clay-rank healer cowering behind you played a part in this?” Caeber sneered.

Arilla had to suppress a snort of laughter at that. 

“No, Liam’s just along for the ride, the boy too. And I resent the implication that I could have stopped this. I tried and it bought me a week and a half along with a severed spine.”

“You…” Mara said, speaking for the first time.

“You know this templar?” Caeber asked, turning his head to address his companion.

“Not really, but I recall fixing the spine in a warrior with the same level towards the beginning of the riots,” the older woman offered. “If that was you, you really shouldn’t be up and about so soon. New nerves need longer than a week to settle.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” Arilla smiled, before once again addressing the leader of the Shining Swords. “Are you ready to move? We need to escort the children out of here.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. After the shit you’ve pulled, you’re lucky I don’t ram my sword through your chest. We’re leaving. That we stayed so long in the first place was down to the helplessness of our charges, but now that you’re here, you can take care of them. I have people in Rhelea who I care about, we all do, and we’re going to see to them—now,” Caeber declared.

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“The fuck you are. I paid you an exorbitant sum to protect those children for a full day, and the sun is still high in the sky. Now that the job is actually getting hard you want to cut and run? The Shining Swords are supposed to be heroes and you want to abandon an orphanage crammed far past capacity to the abominations currently eating this city alive?”

“I told you, I have to go. I have someone who needs me,” the iron-rank warrior said, suddenly seeming so vulnerable.

“Tell me it’s more important. That whoever it is you care about is worth more than all of those children. Rhelea, and anyone who stays inside it, is done for. We won’t make it without you. They’re crammed more than five to a bed inside, and it’s a long way to the western gates—too long for one warrior and some nuns.” Arilla said.

“Its sad, but it's not my—”

“Caeber, Julian will be fine. The templar is right, the children need us more than anyone else does. Besides, we did take her money.” Myorik said with an awkward smile.

“Speaking of, considering the circumstances I think it would be best if we collected the rest of our payment now. Just in case,” Enora added. The slender mage’s mercenary attitude earned herself a series of disbelieving looks from all present and Arilla’s mind was immediately drawn back to Father Mihalis’s words about adventurers thinking only with their wallets. Fortunately she had prepared for that.

“Forget about her, we can settle up afterwards. Let’s just see the children to safety,” Mara offered.

“No, it’s okay. If it makes her fight any harder then I’ll gladly pay her now. Besides, this sack is heavy and I won’t pass up an opportunity to lighten the load,” Arilla said, shrugging the leather sack from her armoured shoulders and setting it down in the snow. She opened the neck of the drawstring bag and revealed the contents to all who cared to look. Golden talents practically spilled out onto the ground, and the warrior deftly plucked an even dozen from the top and tossed them one at a time to Enora.

“Gods above, that’s a lot of gold,” Myorik commented, his eyes wide with disbelief. “What did you do? Rob a Tolisian moneylender or something?”

“Something like that,” Arilla mumbled. She quickly decided not to further acknowledge how close the shorter warrior’s guess had come to the mark. “Are we good, Enora?”

“Very good,” the mage grunted happily.

Arilla hefted her marginally-less-heavy sack back up onto her shoulders, and hoped that the rest of her exchanges would be as easy as this one. She turned and looked towards the eastern horizon, where fires burned and screams could still be heard echoing out from the centre of Rhelea. She shifted her attention back to the busy street where panicked people fled past her—although some eyes now lingered on her sack—and the stand-offish adventurers.

“Great. Then let’s get the fuck out of this town,” she said, taking a step forward towards the orphanage.

“Wait.”

Caeber’s word stopped her dead and she had to resist the urge to raise a hand to her blade. She had killed a steel rank before, but she was smart enough to recognise the extenuating circumstances, and she had no desire to try her luck against a party of high-level irons. Besides, if that wasn’t enough reasons to avoid violence, she still needed their help.

“What?” Arilla asked.

“Take off your helmet,“ he ordered.

“I’d rather not, I have no desire to take an arrow through the eye.”

“No one is firing arrows around here. Now take it off.”

Once again thoughts of resistance flashed through Arilla’s mind, but she was fairly confident in her safety. Mara had already seen her face, but without the context of her name, or Typh’s presence the high-level healer hadn’t recognised her. She didn’t know if it was all the changes that had happened to her over the past few months, or simply the adventurers never caring enough to bother memorising her face, but the effect was the same. 

The bronze-rank warrior took her helmet off and stared Caeber down. Her hazel eyes met his dazzling green ones and searched for any signs of recognition. The man's brow furrowed before it eventually relaxed. He gave her a nod and she placed her helm back on her head, feeling a comfortable tingle of mana when the runic script linking her armour to her helmet was reestablished. 

“Are you satisfied?” Arilla asked.

“Yes. Sorry, I thought you sounded familiar for a second,” Caeber apologised.

“Well, I can assure you that we’ve never met, prior to me contacting you about this job,” she lied, walking past the adventurers.

Enora dismissed her barrier spell, and in no time at all, Arilla’s mailed fist was hammering on the orphanage's front door. It opened a crack and the wizened face of Sister Hortensia appeared between the gap. 

“Sister, gather your colleagues and collect the children. We need to evacuate the city immediately,” Arilla declared in what she hoped sounded like an official tone. Her armour marked her as a templar, and the nuns were used to doing as they were told by church officials, and in the religious hierarchy a templar was firmly above a nun. 

“I’m the only one left, I'm afraid. Just me and the children,” the old woman beamed. “But if you say we need to leave, then I’ll gather them quickly.”

“Thank you, Sister,” Arilla sighed, glad that this at least was going smoothly.

“Anything for you, Arilla, I always knew you’d do great things!” the nun said cheerfully.

Arilla’s heart dropped into her stomach, but she had no time to panic. She spun on her heels and checked Caeber’s sword blow with her zweihander which sent her crashing back through the wooden walls of the orphanage.

Sister Hortensia screamed, children cried and the whole building shook. Arilla scrambled to her feet, shoving chunks of wall and lumber off of her, just in time to dodge out of the way when a lance of fire screamed through the air and vaporised the spot she had been lying on.

“Dragonrider!” Caeber roared. “I should have known it was you! The dragon got past me, but you certainly won’t!”

“There’s fucking children in here, be careful with your spells!” she yelled back through the wreckage and an instant later the beam of fire guttered out.

Arilla was standing in what passed for the orphanage’s reception. There was a brand new woman-sized-hole in the front wall next to the front door where Sister Hortensia still stood screaming. Caeber and Myorik followed her path, stepping over the loose wood and crossing the floor as the two iron-rank warriors levelled their weapons at her.

Myorik swung his warhammer and Arilla dodged. Caeber slashed with his sword which she parried, straining her skills to the max as she held her ground. Despite the steel reinforcing her body and her strength score in the mid-one-hundreds, just connecting blades sent tremors of pain running through her arms. Arilla ignored the pain, she had both the skills and the will for that. She was able to avoid dying for a handful of rapidfire exchanges by the skin of her teeth, but when Myorik was ready to strike her again and she hadn’t recovered from Caeber’s most recent strike, things got dicey. 

She stepped inside Myorik’s reach. The wooden shaft of his hammer clipped her on the shoulder and very nearly shattered it, forcing her down to one knee. Fortunately she was tall, and he was not. She lunged upwards and headbutted him, the brow of her helmet smashing into his unprotected nose which crunched amidst a fountain of blood and cartilage. Stars swam in her vision, but she still saw Caeber’s sword coming at her, and desperate to evade, but too slow to parry, Arilla jumped.

She shot up into the air, intent on tearing her way through the ceiling, where she might find the space to fight, but an armoured hand grabbed her by the ankle and slammed her back down into the ground. Her bones rattled and her entire right side felt bruised, but the hand didn’t let go and with a vice-like-grip she was effortlessly lifted into the air only to be smacked back down again into the earth. Again and again she was raised and then violently lowered until spitting blood, she lost her grip on her sword. 

Once she was disarmed, she was allowed to rest on her back, albeit with Caeber’s longsword pressed firmly over her throat while the adventurers towered over her.

“That was cute, but not nearly good enough,” the iron-rank warrior commented.

“It wasn’t fucking cute,” Myorik complained, trying unsuccesfully to straighten out his broken nose.

“Do you have to be such a condescending asshole? I looked up to you once,” Arilla admitted.

“That’s nice. Now can you give me one good reason why I shouldn’t cut off your head and offer it as a gift to Lord Traylan?” Caeber asked.

“Besides the fact this is largely his fault, how about this: I knew Rhelea was going to fall. I’ve been busy preparing for it while you were pouting in a tavern because you got fooled by Typh,” she spat, and she knew she’d hit a sore spot from how his eyes widened. “Now, if you want to know what happens next. If you actually want to win against the Monster that is destroying our home, then you better shut up, put your sword away and do as I fucking tell you.”

The iron-rankers glared at Arilla, Caeber’s sword still pressed down against her throat, but in the end he relented and sheathed his weapon. They both did.

“What happens next?” Caeber asked.

“First you help me up, and then we get the children out of the city,” she grinned from behind her helmet, extending an open hand to the iron-ranker who clasped it and dragged her to her feet.

“Then what happens?”

“Then—then we get our revenge.”

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