Children clustered together among what remained of the civilians. Some as young as may a couple summers, some on the cusp of adulthood. The girls tall and willowy, the boys just coming into their strength, wispy beards covering still unshaven cheeks. Each one, to the last, carried something. Sacks of flour. Water jugs. Dried rations. Those too young to carry large loads were cradling their even younger siblings.

Some weren't even siblings at all, but they found a comforting hug regardless.

Sil noted there was no crying. No screaming. Tears streaked their faces, but none broke under the pressure. If anything, the children were even more grim-faced than their parents or the adventurers making up the inner guard.

Fighting inside the fortress had stalled. Not for lack of trying on the daemons' part, but more for the efficient brutality of Tallah's horde of blood copies. Whatever had escaped their wrath was hunted down and destroyed by what remained of the soldiers.

The old woman—Liosse, Tallah had called her—organised the force ready to head past the gate. She barked orders. Kicked arses back into a semblance of fighting prowess. Cursed and swore worse than a dockworker called in on their whoring day. She was crass and crude, but wherever she walked men stood up straighter, gripped their weapons tighter, steeled their gazes. Tallah, on her better days, was a little like that one and it wasn't hard to guess who taught whom and what.

The night was still young. It would be a long time, a long march, and a sea of blood until dawn. Expectations were grim. But the steel of these people of the Rock held strong.

Sil had organised her own meagre troupe of healers. Aside from Kor, she was the only other Iluna and the others looked to her for support and guidance. She did what she could. Spoke meaningless words of encouragement. Gave lying assurances. Ordered people in position among the civilians. Gave what indication she could.

She wasn't a battle cleric. She had never been in a large scale battle, never responsible for more than Tallah and Vergil's hides. Death did not frighten her nearly a fraction as much as ordering the others and failing to meet their expectations. For some reason, they looked to her.

The gates couldn't go up soon enough. The more she lingered in this place of death, the brittler her resolve grew, and heavier the burden of all she'd learned. Few had seen Panacea in their midst, and none had understood what the ghostly apparition had been. The goddess did not travel in her church's form. Sil was reminded of her own shock, way back in Grefe, when the goddess had first channelled through her.

Panacea was nothing of what her Church preached. Of that, at least, Sil was convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Even now, many of her colleagues were speaking the mantra of centring, trying to draw strength from its words and its mission. Sil couldn't find it in herself to join in the meaningless prayer. She gripped her mace tighter and hoped her strength would not desert her in the proving moment.

"Shift yer grip, lass. Yer not choking a chicken," a voice boomed in her ear. She jumped in surprise and nearly tripped over her own feet.

Liosse stood next to her, hands on hips, eyes shining beneath a wispy clump of ashen hair. Up close, the top of the woman's head barely reached up to Sil's chest. Liosse's presence, however, could dwarf a dragon's.

"Pardon?" Sil asked, too stupefied to think.

"On yer morning star, lass. Yer gripping it too high. No strength like that." Liosse's strong hands gripped Sil's own. The palms carried rock-hard callouses. Sil's own fingers felt frail and soft by comparison as the old battle maiden rearranged her hands. "See? Like this. More oomph t' yer swing."

As sudden as she'd laid her advice on Sil, the woman left to harry some other unfortunate. Vilfor followed in her wake, almost pitiful in how grateful and relieved he looked for the woman's presence. Sil understood that feeling well, acutely aware of her own reliance on Tallah.

Like Sil would shatter if Tallah fell, so would the soldiers following Liosse. Vilfor was a poor replacement and carried little of the same respect the woman seemed to command. Sil did not envy him his lot in life.

Where was the witch?

And where was the blasted boy?

Arin was already at the muster, together with some of his squad—those that had survived the breach—and looked as worried as Sil felt. He scanned the groups joining them, eyes searching above their heads just as hers did, looking for that horned helmet. The courtyard fires were guttering out, their fuel spent, the buildings hollowed out of anything that could burn.

Darkness descended inside the Rock.

Outside, the dragon roared and the monsters screamed in agony. Inside, voices muttered, joining in a strange mixture of hope and incredulity, of brave defiance and foolish boasts. The dragon was with them. They could not fall. They would all escape the Cauldron and head into Ria. The empire would crush the monsters back into the pits from whence they came.

Nobody really believed it. Few hoped to see the sunrise. Fewer still expected it.

None cowered. None were resigned. Every single adult held a weapon in hand and looked ready to use them.

So Sil stood straight as well, watching the inner courtyard, waiting for Tallah and her signal.

At the next roar from the dragon, Tallah landed among them as if fallen from the sky. Her hair was slick with sweat, plastered to her head in a dismayed mess. Vergil had cut it earlier when he'd rescued the sorceress from the daemon's grip. It made her look wilder than usual. Without the silver Ikosmenia, Sil could only wonder how terrible the expression on her friend's face.

"Nettle dust," Tallah demanded without even looking her way.

Sil threw the sorceress the last packet she held.

"We're out," she said. "Make it last."

Tallah's ghosts would be as tired as she after having exerted themselves far more than Sil had ever seen them do. If anyone survived this blasted place, Tallah's exploits of the day would grow into legend. If there was even a smidgen of justice in the world, they would all be alive to hear the tales grown of their deeds.

She didn't really believe in justice. Not anymore. But she did believe in the strength of her arm and the courage of the people that surrounded her. And she believed in Tallah. If her friends stood tall, she would stand as well, come whatever may.

Vergil emerged from the gathering gloom of the Rock, leading a final group of battered soldiers. He was limping, exhaustion evident in his every movement.

Sil rushed to his side, already muttering the chant to heal him. The words were alien on her tongue, their taste foul, but she did it anyway.

"Thank you," the boy whispered. "I'm out of juice. Horvath can't squeeze more out of it."

Sil didn't know what it was, but she cast her tether on him. The helmet latched on to her illum and drank it down greedily. Vergil stood upright, back straight, sword held firmly in hand. He gave her a grateful nod.

"Where do you need me?" he asked.

Sil had no idea. Tallah was speaking with Liosse and Vilfor, gesturing her plans in quick, sharp motions. Some of the veterans were already moving away from the gathering, shouting orders, forming squads, arranging the marching order. The civilians tightened into a ball of humanity in the centre of the convoy. Adventurers moved to the edges, all of them as resolute as any other soldier.

When she took so long to answer, Vergil moved towards Arin. They greeted one another in a tight hug, then they laughed as if the day meant nothing. Sil felt a pang of envy at that, and a crease of worry at what the soldier's fate may be. Vergil could survive the march. She held little hope for most of the soldiers.

Camille led a group of healers imparting the blessing of Cassandra to everyone who hadn't yet received it.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

This is it. Sil didn't feel the chill of the night or the terror in her chest. She wanted the gate to go up and the column to move out. She wanted to be out there and not in here.

Her hand gripped tight the mace. She hadn't named it, not yet, not until it was baptised properly. That could only be done with rose wine she would share with Mertle. Nothing else would be appropriate.

"Get ready!" Liosse's voice shouted over the horrible noises pelting them from outside. Her words rang out like thunder. "We have no gods watching over us. We have no empire protecting us. We are here on our own, and that's fine. The Twins have always only had each other, so today will be no different." She raised a fist in the air and a few soldiers hooted. "We will sell our lives at a price they will never forget. Be ready, men and women of the Twins! Now we prove how hard our hearts are, how heavy our arms, how righteous our courage. Move out!"

The gates roared to life and began rising with infernal noise.

Caragill was next to Sil, his sword still tied to his hand, the blade broken halfway. He didn't seem to mind.

"Lady healer," he said simply.

"Scout master," she answered his greeting. He had only two others left of his group, and they would run ahead.

"May we live through this night," he said.

"May we do just that." She craved to say something richer, more uplifting, less terrified, but hadn't the words.

They moved out, Tallah leading the march, fireballs floating in the air above them. She was wreathed in a storm of fireflies. Sil braced for fighting, awaiting the masses outside the walls to rush them before they even set foot out.

It didn't happen. What greeted them was a field of charred bones and mauled, dying daemons. Fires dotted the killing plain from the wall to the edges of the forest. Somewhere far into the smoke-choked distance the dragon spat flames onto a great mass of monsters that howled in searing agony.

Above, the sky bled. Grim red light smeared itself across the clouds, its origin shining far into the Cauldron, as if a pit had opened into the world and it was vomiting out that miasma of death. Sil turned her eyes from it and focused on the march.

They were headed towards the ravine on the northern edge of the Cauldron, the only real way out. It was reasonably close to the Rock, a few bells' worth of hard marching through open terrain. Sil had never understood Vergil and Luna's reluctance about the sky better than just then.

The Rock was situated in the very shadow of the mountain through which lay the path out of the Cauldron. Any daemon host that tried to break for the outside world would always find itself rammed in the flank, crushed against the might of the Anvil coming from the other direction. That had been the tactic keeping humanity's realm safe for more than a century.

Now, it was humanity's turn to try and escape this dead place. Sil wasn't keen on the irony of it all.

Soldiers fanned out from the core of civilians, forming a perimeter of weapon steel and armour as the march began. Nothing threatened their advance. The dragon in the far distance took to the air with an indignant roar, flapping mighty wings to gain altitude.

Sil couldn't shake the unwelcome feeling that it was running from something. She didn't dare imagine what chased it off.

This is too easy. It can't be this easy. We are heading into a trap.

Step by step, the trap failed to spring. Monsters did not rise from the ashen dunes. They did not charge out of the encroaching woods. They didn't even fall from the sky as before. It was as if the daemons had all taken leave of the battle and vanished into smoke and ash. The dragon couldn't have killed that many. Not that quickly. But the evidence surrounded them.

Sil marched by the left flank of the army, unwilling to seek protection in the crowd. She was going to do what her goddess had demanded she did not, be a bulwark for the remaining humans, unwilling to take even a step back. The desperate voice inside that begged her to find sense again was far too small, far too insignificant to listen to anymore.

Vergil walked several steps away from her, flanked by Arin with his shield, and Violet, sporting two swords. They were ranging far from the main body of the rout, checking the dunes of ash and the mountains of bones.

"Where are the daemons?" she heard herself ask as the Rock remained far behind. Tallah had dropped the heavy gate once they'd cleared the walls. If daemons got in, they may as well remain inside.

The same muttering rose from the rest. Nerves frayed. Hands shook on weapons. The waiting was worse out here, in the open, than it had been inside, where they all knew where the monsters were. Here, there were no monsters at all… and that was wrong.

Only the children did not grumble or complain. They marched just as hard as the adults, with eyes downcast, shifting their burdens but never dropping them.

A bell passed. They stopped and rested.

Another bell passed in deafening silence. The smear of blood across the sky shattered as the clouds began clearing without delivering the promised rain. Screams filled the night, as if a thousand voices called out in concert.

The Rock lay far behind, a smudge of darkness at the base of the mountain.

The Mother Moon broke through the high cloud cover and added her light to the ominous colour of the night. It was almost as bright as early morning, though they all knew dawn was still far away.

Sil's back tightened painfully as she marched. Her feet ached. Her calves burned. She had to refresh the blessing on herself.

Still, there were no monsters in the night. The forest loomed close now. It had claimed the short stretch of road that had been cleared for passage towards the ravine. Even the Mother's light couldn't crack through the dense cover atop the forest.

Tallah had said nothing. Liosse was at her side, Vilfor at her back. They were not perturbed, or at least they didn't show it.

Sharp stabs of moonlight flitted across the field of burnt bones. The shadow of the dragon in flight passed overhead, darkening rays in its flight. It roared. It might've been Sil's imagination that added a note of confusion to that noise.

"Where are the daemons?" Camille came to walk by Sil's side, her eyes scanning the night."We heard them fighting, but they're just gone? It can't be."

"And yet, here we are and they aren't," Sil said, staring only ahead. "We'll get hit sooner or later. Best you remain vigilant. When it comes, everything will start happening fast." She shooed the younger healer away. "Stay at your duty. Don't wander."

Camille grumbled something and returned into the fold, back to where she'd been close to the children, making sure they were cared for. Sil trusted her for the moment when things would fall apart. Camille had that aura about her, of a corallin who'd protect her young by tooth and nail.

Sil turned her gaze to Vergil. The boy was still nearby, weapons in hand, moonlight glinting off the naked blades. He and Arin were quiet, looking at the approaching forest.

Caragill had gone ahead. He returned with his scouts now as the convoy rested before the trees. Wind rustled the leaves. Sil barely felt it.

The night still howled, far in the distance, but it was subdued now, as if what was brewing there had passed into a new stage of its being. She shivered with unfelt cold.

Whatever Caragill had seen in the forest had Tallah's fires burning brighter and her fireflies in a tizzy. Then she stilled and signalled for them to move again. Sil walked on, not feeling herself anymore.

Moonlight disappeared. Darkness came. Then the flash of sprites going up. Torches. Tallah's fireballs fanning out.

Had the trees been this thick on the night of their arrival? So tall? Their leaves so loud?

Shadows danced in the forest as the procession of quiet humans kept marching. They lengthened and compacted, shifted and merged. Up to the high canopies there were only withered branches.

Sil wanted to spot movement. She wanted to see the glint of red eyes inside the clusters of needle-like leaves. This quiet and stillness was a betrayal of everything she'd faced so far, of every challenge they'd survived, of every fear that had woken her from fitful sleep.

Why was it so bloody quiet?

Her hand shook. The mace felt heavy. Fear found its way into her chest, cold fingers grasping as her heart. It couldn't be this easy. Not after all they'd gone through. Not after all they'd endured.

Even her teeth chattered. Among the trees the air was warm, but she trembled. Many others did too. She wasn't alone in crumbling under the weight of her own terrors.

"Healer," a voice spoke by her side, come deep from her nightmares.

Sil swallowed loudly as the child-sized blood doll emerged next to her. Anna.

"Y-yes?" she asked, not looking down at the figure.

"We are being stalked. We will be attacked soon. Be on your guard."

She resisted the urge to look around and peer into the impenetrable dark of the forest. Her imagination could provide a whole bestiary to fill the shadows.

"Won't you tell the others?" she asked instead.

"Tallah's got it in hand. She wants you warned because you carry your goddess's power." The doll reached out and gripped a fold of Sil's trousers, slowing her. "You will not waste your time with barriers. The moment Tallah engages, you are to be ready to smite the biggest threat."

Sil felt a prickle like a thorn's pinch through her trousers. The doll melted into the fabric, staining her leg red.

"I am still here, healer," Anna's voice said, speaking with the same detached confidence she had in the depths of her sanctum. "Do not worry about wounding yourself. I was instructed to heal you."

"Why?"

"Because Tallah's worries for your well being and expects you might do something foolish." A sound like the clicking of a tongue followed. "I believe, however, that you are made of sterner stuff than she gives you credit. Know you have my appreciation. It does not come cheaply."

Sil laughed and drew all eyes. It was impossible not to. Here she was about to piss herself in abject terror of what the silence held, and one of the voices from her worst nightmares… had just complimented her. The night could not get any stranger if the dragon fell on them.

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