Theron trudged down the main street of the warehouse district, trying his best to dodge the street traffic and not choke on all the dust kicked up by the crowds. Behind him, his porter Gerald towed a covered cart filled with cargo, muscling aside passerby that crowded in too close.

  To Theron's left rose the forty-foot tall walls of Bastion Whitecliff, an imposing reminder of the dangers that lurked outside the city. Illegally built warehouses lined the bottom of the wall, but the council would never do anything about it as long as the owners continued to pay property taxes, including his own family, on the most valuable commodity in the city.

  Old ramshackle row houses lined the street to his right, many with meandering and hodge-podge extensions built onto the older original construction without a care for structural integrity or aesthetics. The whole row looked like it would collapse at the slightest breeze. Hidden behind the row houses were the gradually stepped avenues and neighborhoods that eventually led to the inner city of Bastion Whitecliff.

  Theron walked face first through a thick cloud of dust. He stopped and stifled a cough and peered over his shoulder to check on Gerald who continued to pull the cart through a fit of sneezing and wheezing. Mentally cursing his mother for sending him to the lower city on short notice, he brushed the accumulated dust off his tailored tunic and trousers. He didn’t even bother looking at his poor shoes, no doubt dust had infiltrated every little fold and crease.

  A passing porter, one dressed appropriately in workman’s clothes and not at all out of place in the lower city, laughed and called out,"You’re in the wrong part of town, rich boy."

  Theron opened his mouth to respond, stumbling over the words he wanted to shout, but the man didn’t slow his pace and disappeared into the crowded streets before Theron could get his mouth to cooperate. He sighed and glanced around at other passerby only to realize that everyone who passed gave him some sort of look, curious, skeptical, or otherwise.

  Gerald stopped next to Theron and set the cart down. He took out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat, dust, and tears from his face, then tucked it away in a back pocket. "Don't pay him any mind, young sir. Most of these fools never leave the rows and wouldn't recognize anyone from a proper House."

  "I thought I asked you not to call me that. We don't live in the old days and I'm not my father or older brothers."

  Gerald's eyes crinkled as he smiled. "As you wish."

  Theron sighed as he looked around, trying to find a path through the chaotic crowd. "Let's just find our way out of this dust bowl. The sooner we return home, the sooner we can wash off the grime."

  Gerald only nodded and lifted the cart by the handles. They weaved their way to the side of the road where the lighter foot traffic made it easier to pull the cart through. After what felt like hours, he arrived at the intersection that led up into the inner city. Theron stared up at the brutal switchback road that sliced through the small escarpment that separated the lower city from the upper city.

  He dreaded the climb ahead, but it would be ten times worse for poor Gerald, who stared up the slope with a look of resignation.

  His stomach rumbled. Hunger struck like a hammer, not because he wanted to avoid climbing up into the city, but because his morning had been spent with Gerald lifting and sorting crates just so he could find and deliver his mother’s particular cargo. There wasn't any particular reason to rush back, so he looked around for any promising street vendors and spotted a stall a few buildings away from the intersection.

  "How about we take a break and find something to eat before we make the climb?" Theron asked.

  A look of relief washed over Gerald's face. "That would be excellent."

  Theron grabbed a cart handle and helped Gerald drag it around in the direction of the stall he'd spotted.

  “Hey kid! Get out of the way, I’m walking here!” a man yelled as they dragged the cart crosswise through traffic. Instead of just walking around, the man bumped into the cart dramatically.

  "Kid? Get your eyes checked old man. Your legs work, don’t they? Use them to walk around!" Theron yelled back.

  While the man wasn’t so busy that he couldn't stop to put on some theatrics, he was apparently too busy to stick around and argue. They parted with a few grumbles and general curses.

  Theron smirked at his own retort while navigating the cart across the rest of the road. While his words hadn’t come out exactly as he’d thought them in his head, he at least got them out when the perpetrator was within hearing range this time.

  "Excellent rebuttal, young sir. I'm sure he'll be thinking about all the things he could have said for the rest of the day."

  Theron grinned, letting the 'young sir' pass. The tantalizing smells of grilled meat drew him the rest of the way to the stall, which sat crammed up against an old row house under a large wooden awning that had seen better days. A girl around his own age, dressed like a boy in trousers and tucked in tunic, attended a charcoal grill covered in skewers of glistening chunks of meat and vegetables. Behind her, an older woman in a plain dress bustled about on a wooden counter prepping more skewers.

  "Skewers!" the girl shouted. "Come get your fresh meat skewers! Guaranteed real meat!"

  The girl's powerful voice swept over Theron and he flinched as he stood directly in front of the stall. She noticed him standing there and looked up with a big smile on her face.

  "First customer! How many you want? Five? I can do five. More?"

  Theron scanned the grill, mouth watering at just the smell alone. There didn't seem to be a variety, just a single type of skewer, but there were a lot and by the looks of it, more on the way.

  "What kind of meat is it?" he asked, reaching for a small purse in his pocket. Not that it mattered. Fresh meat was rare enough that nobody could afford to be picky.

  "Who knows? Who cares? The Wardens must have killed something big because they sold off a ton of it this morning. And I can tell you for sure that whatever it is, it's delicious!"

  Theron nodded along, sure that she would say the same thing even if it wasn't true. "I'll take five please."

  "Five? That's it? You look like you could use a few more than that," she said, eyeballing his thin frame. Despite her words, her hands flew over the grill, plucking five likely candidates from the bunch with a pair of short tongs. She dumped them onto a little paper tray and held out her other hand.

  "One silver, if you please."

  He raised an eyebrow. Those weren't lower city prices. For a silver penny he could likely find a restaurant in the upper city that would serve a meal and maybe a side to go along with it. Maybe not a meal with fresh meat though.

  Theron withdrew a silver penny from his purse and plopped it into her outstretched hand with a little more force than was necessary and took the tray. "Thank you, I'm sure these are worth the fee."

  "You won't regret it, and I'll be here when you come back begging for more."

  "Yeah, sure." He dipped his head and gave a short wave, then turned and found where Gerald had chosen a likely spot to sit and eat before making the trek to the upper city.

  Gerald had parked the cart in front of an old stone block under a large wooden awning that might have once been part of a patio in front of the neighboring row house. He sat down next to Gerald, setting the little tray down between them, and brushed the dust out of his tied back long dark brown hair.

  Theron plucked two of the skewers from the tray. "Those three are for you."

  "I couldn't possibly take that many, young sir. I'll just ta-"

  "Don't argue with me. Just take them and enjoy the meat."

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  Unable to resist the smell anymore, Theron plucked off a chunk of meat with his teeth. He bit down and almost moaned out loud in pleasure. Savory juice gushed out of the tender meat and flowed around his mouth with each bite. The slightly charred edges mixed in with the juicy center elevated the experience to a whole new level.

  "Wow," he said, holding the skewer up for closer inspection. "This is amazing."

  Gerald made noises of agreement around a bite of his own. Theron glanced over at the girl, still shouting into the crowd trying to attract customers. She had definitely undercharged, but the given price was probably her limit in the lower city. The clientele weren't particularly willing to spend hand over fist for street vendor food, even if it did include meat.

  The vegetables weren't anything special, just the typical root vegetable mass-produced in the terrace farms along the cliffs behind the city. He finished it off quickly and took another piece of meat. Sighing in contentment, he looked back to the girl trying to convince a new customer that the price was worth it.

  While not physically large, she had a strong presence about her. She waved her hands in confident, if wild, gestures as the argument about the price escalated. Her black hair was tied up in a man's fashion, similar to the clothes she wore. Theron wasn't particularly put off by women wearing men's clothes, not like his traditionalist grandparent's generation and the first generation after The Collapse. Especially not now that there were so many Wardens who were women and dressed similarly. Nobody would try to tell a Warden they couldn't, that wasn't a real choice.

  Theron's attention snapped back to the street vendor as she gesticulated wildly in his direction, the customer following to see Theron and Gerald munching happily on their skewers. Theron gave an enthusiastic thumbs up to the man and the girl returned it with a bright smile. The customer turned back with a resigned look and handed over his pennies.

  Well into his second skewer, Theron almost bit his tongue as bells rang out along the wall. Theron clamped down on his gut reaction to jump up and scan the top of the wall. Instead, he stood and said to Gerald, "Let's find a place to take shelter. If something actually comes over the wall I don't want to be caught in the open."

  Gerald nodded and set aside his skewers, still chewing on the previous bite. Together they looked around at the nearby row houses, but they didn't see any promising alcoves or convenient open doorways. The crowded street, which was already chaotic, now churned with people rushing to find their own shelter, effectively blocking any access to the warehouses across the street.

  "Young sir, we should take the cart and start our ascent now. We'll find nothing here and if we linger the risk only increases."

  Theron sighed in frustration, but nodded. Together they once again wrestled the cart in the correct direction.

  A dull thud echoed throughout the street as something enormous impacted the outside of the wall, followed closely by a sharp crack so loud that he flinched and covered his ears. He looked up at the wall, but didn't see the source of the noise. The traffic in the street exploded as people scrambled to get away from the sound, trampling each other in their flight to whatever shelter they could find. Gerald, reliable as ever, blocked the cart with his own body to keep people from knocking it over.

  "What are you doing?" yelled the young food stall vendor.

  Theron looked around to see who she was yelling at, only to realize she looked directly at him. The girl collected a few items from the counter and, along with the woman in the dress, rushed toward the steps to the row house behind the stall.

  "Come on! Get under cover," she yelled over her shoulder before disappearing through the door.

  Theron stood frozen, staring at the cart, wondering what to do with it. Mother would probably kill him if something happened to it, but he couldn't drag it inside with him. Another impact boomed through the wall and he flinched. A harsh scraping sound followed. He shifted his gaze to the top of the wall where an enormous black spear the size of a grown man emerged and plunged into the top of the wall, tearing through brick and stone. He broke out into a cold sweat as he realized it wasn't a spear, but a giant chitinous claw.

  "Young sir, come with me," Gerald yelled as he ran toward the open doorway through which the young vendor had disappeared.

  Movement out of the corner of Theron's eye caught his attention. He focused further along the top of the wall to see two people running toward whatever monster climbed the wall's exterior, each bounding impossibly long distances at speeds that should have been impossible.

  Another figure blew past him down the street, moving even faster than those approaching along the wall. With long black hair streaming behind her, she leapt from the street directly to the roof of the nearest warehouse, making a beeline straight for the wall.

  Theron coughed as her dust cloud wake overtook him, clouding his vision. He finally decided to abandon the cart and looked around, trying to regain his sense of direction to follow Gerald and the street vendor girl inside.

  A loud buzz filled the air, followed by the loudest whip crack he'd ever heard and a flash of blue light that lit up the entire street even through the dust cloud. Theron stumbled back, shaking his head to rid himself of the ringing in his ears. He tripped over the stone block that had been his bench just a short time ago and tumbled over the other side, landing under the wooden awning.

  A piercing screech battered his aching eardrums, followed by two thuds, the source of which he couldn't see. A second later, something enormous crashed into the row house above where he attempted to regain his feet. Debris rained down and bounced off the planks of the awning that sheltered him, at first only small chunks, but large pieces of the building soon followed as the aged timbers gave way.

  The front of the awning collapsed from the weight of the debris, squeezing Theron into the shallow recess of the door frame. He pushed against the planking to try to keep it from crushing him, but only partially succeeded. Panicked, he pressed his hand against the door behind him, searching for a door handle or latch. The door didn't budge when he lifted the latch, so he pounded on the door with what little leverage he had while his other hand continued to keep the awning from suffocating him.

  After several harrowing moments of battling suffocation and constriction, a flicker of realization knocked the tight grip of panic from his chest. He sucked in slow, deliberate breaths, slowing his heartbeat from a frantic gallop to a more sedate trot. If there had been room to sit he would have collapsed on the spot, but he had to satisfy himself with leaning back against the door instead.

  ***

  The sounds of battle continued to filter through the pile of rubble confining him to his door. On the one hand, Theron was glad he was walled off because he didn't want to be anywhere near the battle, but on the other he'd never seen a Warden use their abilities before. Of course, he'd met Wardens through his family's business interest, but they mostly just looked like normal people. Very fit, but normal.

  As he sat there in the dark leaning against the wall, powerful thuds occasionally knocked loose a cloud of dust that sent Theron into another coughing fit, but otherwise nothing changed in his uncomfortable debris prison.

  Another impact shook the ground, followed by a screech that hurt his ears even through the wall of fallen materials, then silence. The silence continued for minutes and Theron assumed that the battle was over. His first priority was to figure out how to get out from behind the barrier, but he was afraid to collapse whatever structure kept the pile stable. Weighed against the fact that he didn't know if anybody knew he was behind said pile, he decided it was worth the risk.

  Theron reached out to feel the edge of the awning, hands still shaking from the aftermath of events. The rubble had pinned the wood to the door frame, but there were places where he could snake his hand through. He pushed and pulled on what he could reach, which seemed to be splintered pieces of wood and plaster dust. A piece of wood came loose and he dragged it through the opening, only to realize he had nowhere to put it. If he were to dig himself out, he'd bury himself before he would breach the pile.

  After debating what to do with the chunk of wood in his hand, he tossed it at his feet to take up what little room there was. Theron reached out through the gap again and pushed with all the strength he could muster, with no result. There just wasn't enough room to move, and the tightly packed debris wouldn't shift.

  Panic threatened to surface once more, but he made an effort to take long measured breaths and focus on the fact that he was fine.

  "Is there anybody out there? If you can hear me, I'm stuck back here!" he yelled.

  The only thing he could hear was his own breathing, so he held his breath and strained his hearing. Indistinct bits of sound made it through, but he couldn't tell if anybody had heard him or not, so he yelled again.

  This time, he heard something, but not from the direction he expected. From the other side of the door he heard footsteps approach, followed by some fumbling of whatever mechanism kept the door barred from the inside.

  Between his weight pushing against the door and someone pulling it from the inside, the door flew open and Theron tumbled out in a cloud of dust. He landed on his back and he groaned as the impact knocked the wind out of him. A familiar face stared down at him, the street vendor girl, with an expression that alternated between amusement and worry.

  "You're pretty lucky, you know that?" she asked.

  Gerald rushed around the girl to help Theron sit up. "Young sir! I thought for sure you'd been crushed. I was almost beside myself until this lovely young lady led me through that terribly cluttered room. Imagine what your mother would have done to me if I had returned with just a broken body..." He continued to chatter under his breath as he brushed off and straightened Theron's clothes.

  Theron patted Gerald on the shoulder and smiled in thanks. He took a moment to regain the ability to breathe and to stabilize his shaky legs, before turning to the street vendor who had apparently saved his life. "Lucky I wasn't crushed. Unlucky that a mana beast attacked just as we were passing by? I'm not sure that I want this kind of luck."

  "Lucky that my family rents this building and I heard you yelling when I came to check that the door hadn't collapsed under that mess," she said, pointing at the planks of the awning jammed up against the now empty door frame. "Otherwise you'd have probably bit the dust."

  She laughed at her own joke and despite his labored breathing Theron couldn't help but laugh along.

  "I'm Theron," he said, shaking the hand he still held.

  "Come on, let's get you out of here." She led him further into the building while Gerald continued to fuss, through a room filled with closed crates stacked in orderly rows. Near the back wall, a door had been cut in the wall between the two row houses, and not cleanly.

  Passing through the door didn't lead to more crates, but to a chaotic living space covered in unfinished projects and what looked like a preparation area for packaging. Of course, a layer of the ever-present dust of the lower city covered anything that hadn't been touched recently. The light streaming in from the distant front door made apparent the obstacle course they'd have to overcome to reach it.