Chapter 18: 18 – Ambush

The two young humans sat there for a moment, breathing heavily as night fully descended upon them. 

“Alright…we should get out of Idrulia before daytime. Who knows if there will be more of these Voidborne coming…” Vaeri said.

Ruith agreed. He was exhausted, but they needed to get to somewhere safe. The two of them stood, and were about to leave before Ruith remembered something.

“Oh right, let’s check their packs first.” He said, looking towards three backpacks laying on the ground.

The three of them had dropped their packs right when they reached the duo, and they seemed full of supplies.

Ruith and Vaeri walked over and knelt down, opening the packs. Ruith threw out clothes from inside onto the ground.

‘Must be something useful in here…’

He checked one of the other pockets, this one seemed to be full of food. Ruith pulled out some kind of dried meat, he had no idea what it was. There were also a few small green fruits, but nothing else.

‘At least a bit of food, I guess.’

Not finding anything else of note, he moved on to the next pack while Vaeri was still searching though the one she picked.

Ruith opened up the next backpack, and found canteens of water.

‘Perfect!’

“Vaeri, I found water and food in these. What’s in that one?” He questioned Vaeri while he transferred all the food and water into their own packs.

“Just some clothes and a bit of food and water,” Vaeri said, continuing to search.

Ruith finished storing all the food and water away in their own backpacks, waiting for the girl to finish.

“Hm? Look at this Ruith,” Vaeri said, holding out a piece of stained paper.

He took it from her hands, squinting as there was now only moonlight. It looked like a rough map of the Fallen Bastion, a few landmarks obvious. In the middle there was the massive tower, and in one of the corners there was the cathedral, shown as a building with vines covering it.

There was also a statue marked on the map, near the massive tower. 

“Interesting, but what about it?” Ruith questioned, not noticing anything strange.

“Look there,” Vaeri said, putting her finger on a seemingly random spot on the map.

However, there was a tiny door drawn with an ‘X’ above it. 

“Oh, a marking for some sort of entrance maybe?”

Vaeri nodded. “That’s what I thought, it’s pretty far away though.”

The marking was located on the opposite side of Bastion Idrulia from where they were currently standing, at least fifteen miles.

“You think we should go and see what it is? We could make it there tonight.”

The girl shook her head. “We should get out of the Bastion first, we don’t have enough food and water to last here.”

“Hm, alright. Let’s get moving then, we can come back another day.” Ruith responded, looking towards the massive destroyed portion of the wall a few miles away.

The duo began to make their way towards the gap, weaving through the ruins of the fallen buildings. The amount of rubble made their small journey take longer than it should have, the roads closer to the wall were completely covered with broken stone and there wasn’t a single standing building.

Finally, after almost an hour, they reached the wall.

A massive pile of stone wreckage covered the area for hundreds of feet, overgrown with moss and smaller plants.

‘Just what kind of monster could have done this…’

Ruith and Vaeri made their way across huge chunks of the wall that had fallen, slowly growing nearer to the outside of the Fallen Bastion.

When they eventually did, the sight made them freeze in their tracks.

Bastion Idrulia was situated atop a massive hill that was more like a mountain,  allowing Ruith and Vaeri to see across the landscape. Past the forest that surrounded Idrulia and a few miles of the land at the base of the hill were rolling plains. Thanks to the cloudless sky and bright moon, they  could see for tens of miles across the moonlit expanse, covered in green grass. It seemed winter had not reached this place.

That would all be normal…if not for the massive city that lay around ten miles off into the distance. The sheer size of the city rivaled even the Final Bastion, and was a bit larger than Bastion Idrulia.

The city had no walls surrounding it, and the buildings were not particularly tall, save for a few towers scattered about. However, in the center was a small yet majestic castle, built out of white stone. Every structure in the city was built out of the same stone, except for the outskirts where wooden houses created a ring around the entire inner city.

It seemed to be relatively dark currently, a few flickering lights could be seen here and there.

It was extremely different from the depressing gray buildings and massive fortress of the Final Bastion. This entire city was simply built to look beautiful, rather than withstand attacks. It was as if the inhabitants had no fear of attacks…

“Voidborne, it must be!” Ruith said with wide eyes and raised eyebrows.

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Vaeri had a similar look on her face. The two of them had never expected for Voidborne to actually be this advanced as to build an entire city.

“An entire city full of Voidborne…” Vaeri’s voice trembled a bit as she stared at it. “It should not be allowed to stand here, in the shadow of Idrulia…”

Ruith looked at her with an incredulous look on his face. “Are you suggesting we…destroy the entire city?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. We need to become much more powerful, what better way to do that than destroying an entire city of Voidborne?”

“Uh, Vaeri. I don’t know if you knew this but we’re a red and brown core…I don’t think that will work out well.”

“Well, of course we won’t just rush in there. We can start out small, on the outskirts. Also…I think we should avoid simply killing all of the Voidborne we see. Let’s focus on just bringing down this city.”

Ruith nodded in agreement. He had seen these intelligent Voidborne, and there must be some of them who were not evil like the less intelligent monsters.

Vaeri spoke again. “But anyway, we need to find more food and water first. What we have now will only last us a few more days.”

“Alright, let’s go down and see what we can find then.” Ruith responded.

The two of them quickly descended down the hill and into the forest that surrounded it, searching for water or something they could hunt. They found nothing on the side of the hill, and eventually reached flat ground.

Ruith sniffed the air.

“Huh, do you smell that?” He asked Vaeri.

She also sniffed, frowning in confusion.

“Cooking meat?”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Probably more Voidborne…how about we go ahead and find them?”

The two began their hunt. The creatures had food, and the two young humans wanted it from them. It took them a little while to locate the direction that the smell came from, but eventually they found which way they should move. 

They trekked through the forest, a task not made any easier by the thick shrubbery that seemed to cover every inch of the place.

The smell was coming from closer to the edge of the forest, towards the city. Soon, the aroma of cooking meat grew stronger, and some distant voices could be heard.

There was no sound of animals as the two crept closer, the voices growing louder. Boisterous laughter rang out from a man, raised voices echoing throughout the trees.

Ruith and Vaeri reached where the commotion was coming from. Luckily the ground was covered in thick bushes, providing them cover. They snuck even closer, coming to a bush that opened up into a clearing.

The trees in a fifty foot radius had been chopped down, and a sort of camp had been built.

Large tents lined the clearing, and in the center was a raging bonfire with the body of what looked like a massive hog roasting over it.

‘Ten Voidborne, nine of them have brown cores and only one has a gray core. Possibly more within the tents…’ 

Ruith analyzed the situation in his mind, weighing their chances.

He came to the conclusion that if they launched an ambush, they could easily win.

The Voidborne all looked only a few years older than Ruith and Vaeri. The familiar black scales peeked out from their collars, it seemed that every single one of these intelligent Voidborne had them.

Ruith turned to Vaeri, mouthing words to her.

Attack them?

Yes, try to get as many of them as you can with your roots.

The boy nodded, and sent his mana into the trees surrounding the clearing. The two of them had long regenerated their mana, and were back in prime condition. Ruith’s forearms were still a bit burnt, but healing them could wait.

Fifteen trees fell under the control of his ability. He then took control of their roots, slowly moving nearly two hundred roots of varying sizes deep under the ground so as to not alert the Voidborne to their presence.

He decided to target the Voidborne with brown cores first, a single gray core warrior would be much easier to deal with than the other nine combined.

Ruith’s heart started to race, the adrenaline once again pumping through his veins. The odds were stacked against them, ten to two. However, it was an exhilarating and nigh addictive feeling.

He turned to Vaeri again, mouthing the words ‘You ready?’ to her.

She nodded.

The two of them quietly dropped their packs onto the ground, they would need to move unhindered for this fight.

And then the ambush commenced.

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