PreCursive

  The dire that Hook had led us to the Duchy of Elderwyck hadn’t been on one of the main roads ial. rimarily been taking game trails, and when that didn’t woing over nd. He had deliberately kept us away from the more traveled paths, in order to minimize our profile.

  That was looking to have been a good decision, as the road we had exited onto acked.

  There must have been hundreds and hundreds of people occupying the road. Dozens of wagons loaded down with furniture and belongings stretched out as far as the eye could see, while cages filled with livestock trundled along behind them. Curious, a despo young eyes peeked out of wagons at everyohey could, but did not speak out. Individual travelers trudged along the road with heavy packs on their backs, looking to be carrying their entire lives. An air of misery and desperation hung heavy over the entire ghastly procession.

  This didn’t look like the flow of travelers I would have expected for a major trading hub in the Kingdom.

  No, this looked like a trail ees.

  Luckily, we blended right in with them after we had stowed our masks. Safely ensced within the masses, Hook gestured down. Sylvia and I got his message, sliding off of our horses in order to huddle closer to him.

  “I don’t think the barn was being watched,” He said to us, only barely loud enough to be heard over the murmur and rattle of the procession. “Which is sloppy, but good for us. But now we o find Dusk, which would have been impossible for you two. Thankfully, I’m here.”

  I rolled my eyes at him slightly, but I uood his reasoning. “Because you ask HQ to link her locater to yours, yeah I get it.”

  Hook gave me the evil eye. “Don’t spoil my fun, you brat. But yes, I already messaged Headquarters on the ride here. I already feel the dire it’s leading me in. Unfortunately, it leads in the dire we’re going.”

  “And this road leads into Elderwyck,” Sylvia picked up with a frown. Said frown turned into a grimace. “I dearly hope she’s not already withiy walls. That would…plicate matters.”

  Hook shook his head. “I don’t think she is. I know that girl, and she knows me. She wouldn’t have expedited her infiltration unless she was ireme danger. She kneere ing. She wouldn’t abandon us.”

  I frowned, ahought crossing my rings. “What about the rest of the Division? Are they fine? I thought that barn was supposed to be our meeting point?”

  “No, that was just my personal meeting point with Dusk,” Hook said. “Everyone else is either assessing their own way in, already within the walls, or not here yet. However, I think I know where Dusk is. Just follow me.”

  We elected not to climb back up onto our mounts for a variety of reasons, instead blending into the crowd on foot. The first was that, frankly, our horses were a bit exhausted after the breakneck pace ut them through in order to get away from the burning barn.

  I…could actually see a small wisp of smoke over the horizon, in the dire of the fire. It was the talk of the road, with multiple travelers pointing to it and murmuring to themselves. I didn’t like how fearful they sounded.

  Listening to the travelers was one of the other reasons we didn’t try and move faster. This seemed like a good opportunity to catch up on the regional news, which was something hard to get over the unicatiowork.

  As I had thought, a majority of the people on the road were refugees fleeing the horde. Despite the Order’s best efforts, they hadn’t mao keep the attention of the ey of it. From the fearful versations that were all around us, I discovered that there were now paonsters beyond the ones we had seen roving the tryside, drawn to each little vilge and town they could find like moths to a fme. Almost every settlement in Vereden had some form of monster repellent going on, whether it was a shabby wardstone, a fighting force, or some kind of alchemical solution.

  But none of them were good enough to keep out the hese people had been seeing. Almost universally, the towns and vilges that occupied tral Herztal were emptying out, and fleeing for the rger cities. There, they hoped to find safety within the much rger, much stronger, and far better-warded walls of pces like Elderwyck.

  Unfortunately…

  “It won’t work,” Hook sighed to himself, regretfully. “Elderwyck ’t support this many refugees. It would buckle uhe strain. I guarahat they’re being turned away at the gate.”

  “Is it going to be a problem for us getting inside?” I asked him, frowning.

  Hook shook his head. “No, Dusk and I have another entryway. Yoing to hate it, though.” With those ominous words, Hook cmmed up and refused to eborate.

  Goddamn cagey old dwarf.

  I guess I’d just have to find out ter.

  Hook’s predi turned out to be prest. As we got closer and closer to the massive walls I could see growing on the horizon, the crowd around us grew thicker. In fact, it got so bad that our progress pletely halted miles away from the actual city.

  Hook cursed. “Damnit all,” He said irritably, before turning to me. “Hangma up that tree, take a look around, a back. I want to know what’s going on.” The doie tree on the side of the road, which already seemed to be occupied by a number of curious children. They were hanging from and sitting on the branches of the tree, watg the milling crowds below them.

  I nodded sharply at his direct orders and started squirming my way through the mass of bodies between me and the tree. Once I reached it, I didn’t even bother with Thrapple. I just cmbered up the tree in a few well-practiced moves. I had done quite a bit of tree climbing by this point, in my scouting.

  When I reached the middle branches, one of the kids sitting on a much higher brand kig his legs called down to me. “Whatcha doin’, mister?”

  I cast an eye up at him and fshed a quick smile. “I’m trying to get a better look at what’s going on up ahead!” I answered up at him.

  One of the other kids that was hanging upside down on another branickered at me. This time, it articurly feisty looking little girl. “Ain’t nothin’ goin’ on, stoopid,” She mocked me, her pigtails swinging bad forth with her. “That’s why we’re up here.”

  I just rolled my eyes at the little brat and stood up on the branch I had reached. When I did, the view that greeted my eyes surprised me.

  For multiple reasons.

  In the distance, perhaps only a few miles away, I got my first look at the twin cities of Elderwyd Ttec.

  It wasn’t quite what I was expeg.

  From the position that I was at, it looked like the two cities were up farther on the hill, so the view of it them was being blocked by the absolutely massive wall that domihe sery. It must have been as big as Helstein’s, rising at least fifty feet into the sky. This was a surprise to me. Helstein had been a city meant to block off aire half of a ti, and here was what looked to be a coastal trading hub which had an equivalent.

  And the wall itself wasn’t even one uniform mass at that. I could see the clear dividing lihat marked the differeween Elderwyd Tte the left side from my position, the wall was built in the Herztalian style that I had seen several times by now, just thankfully not quite as bleak as Helstein’s had been. It seemed to be grey stoh etions dotting the battlements, from which I could see the tiny forms of Loyalist soldiers manning it. It seemed particurly well defended, with a surprising amount of siege onry all along it, from catapults to ballista to even wly rge pots on a swivel. The road led to an equally massive set of wooden doors, which had a rge metal portcullis dropped in front of it.

  The fact that the gate was doubly closed didn’t speak well of our ces of getting in that way.

  But far off to the left of the Elderwyck portion of the walls, I could see them curve off just out of sight and immediately ge style.

  It was decidedly not Herztalian, or even human to my eyes.

  That must be Ttec.

  I don’t think their portion of the wall was hewn from the same stone as the Elderwyck side. For o was airely different color. Instead of a unifrey, it was a reddish tan of some kind. And where the wall for Elderwyck was mostly unadorned except for its etions and armaments, the Orcish side was decidedly…not.

  It was far spikier, for one. Polished iron spikes ran not only all along the edge of the wall, but almost up and down the front as well, with some pointed downwards, as if to deter people from climbing it. Tall towers in an almost meso-Ameri style rose from the top of it, every hundred feet or so. Distant figures filled the towers, far enough away that I couldn't make them out. Curiously, I didn’t see any of the siege onry or armaments along its length that I did for the Herztalians. Probably had something to do with the massive fiery crystal orbs that I could see at the top of the towers along the wall. Even from a distance, I could almost feel the amount of Mana within them.

  It made my teeth itch.

  I couldn’t see a simir gate for the Tctec portion of the twin cities, as the bined wall curved far out of sight. But what I did see in front of the Elderwyck portion caused my heart to drop even more.

  There was a massive, sprawling shanty town just outside the gates of the city. It looked incredibly ramshackle, to my eyes, as if it had been thrown up in a small amount of time with little care about sting. It stretched out a pretty good distand even had its own fragile driftwood walls. I don’t think they’d even be able to stop a punch, though, much less a monster.

  Certainly not the horde.

  Ihe shanty town, I could see hundreds of people milling about, with a rge gathering of them right up against the closed gate to the city.

  I let a breath at the sight.

  God, I sure hope Hook wasn’t blowing smoke up our asses about being able to get in. I was certain the Loyalist guards would be on high alert with this many people crowding the gates.

  One of the children above me ughed at my dumbstruck exhation. “Yer gonna die out here, mister!” He said cheerfully. “We all are!”

  I blinked incredulously up at the morbid child, who seemed incredibly ung about his own potential death. I turned away from him to gaze back out at the y eyes narrowing. “We’ll see,” I said lowly. I shook my head, a thought crossing my minds. I looked back up at the children higher up the tree than I was. “Hey! Have any of you seen a Gnoll? A girl one, with white fur?”

  A few of the children looked at each for a moment, before shrugging and looking up a boy child. This one was higher up in the brahaher. I…guess he was their boss?

  Said child boss crossed his arms and shrugged nonittedly at me. “Dunno,” He said slyly, with a smirk. “Maybe, maybe not. ’t rightly say, wit’ the way me stomach is growlin’.”

  Yeah, yeah. I get it.

  I rolled my eyes at the…enterprising little ur, and reached into the pouch at the small of my back. Grabbing something, I took it out and ji at the child. “Two silvers, and that’s me being generous, mind,” I said warningly.

  The eyes of the pack of what I was suspeg were street rats (tree rats?) lit up. The pigtailed little girl scrambled dowree like a moo stand in front of me with an arm outstretched. I dutifully took out the two silver s and y them in her palm, to which she snatched them away as if I was going to take them back. She scurried a to her apparent leader and hahe move over to him. The little shit had the audacity to bite the s before making a satisfied little hum. He looked down at me, seeming much friendlier.

  “Yup, we saw yer girl,” He said, nodding along with his panions. “She came out o’ the trees yesterday just like you and yers did a bit ago, lookin’ a mite roughed up. Only saw her for a mo’, though. Faded away real quita the crowd.”

  So, Dusk had survived the assault on the barn. It was a relief to get firmation, even though Hook had seemed sure she had.

  “And you didn’t see where she went?” I called up.

  The ur shook his head. “Nah, but she probably disappeared inta the Stacks,” He said, jerking his head in the dire of the shantytown.

  I nodded. “All right. Thanks kid. See ya around, I guess.”

  The tree rat shrugged, a back to watg the crowd below us as I cmbered dowree.

  Hook was unsurprised about the news I reyed to him, but I still saw a little tension disappear from his shoulders. “Very well. Then she’s definitely in these ‘Stacks’. We just have to find her.”

  Wonderful.

  I’m sure it wouldn’t be a pain in the ass to navigate those ramshackle ‘streets’ at all.