PreCursive

  I hit the water of the al with a clumsy spsh, followed shortly thereafter by Liora. In trast to her smooth dive into the artificial stream, I was much less elegant. We were lucky that none of the Revenants were paying attention then, as they were preoccupied with Baldric’s…decision.

  Because I made a ton of noise.

  Still, that didn’t end up being a problem.

  What did, was I discovered that trying to swim with only one arm and one eye was difficult.

  I started to sink, and when I did, a world of ued horror opeself to me.

  The al was filled with bodies.

  I…wasn’t expeg that, but in a way, it almost made sense. I didn’t see as many Orcs down here as I did Humans, and there were…a lot of them, to say the least. The water was stained red from the blood of those who seemed to have jumped in the al in a desperate attempt to escape the hordes of Revenants pguing the twin cities. In the darkness and crimson that the Godbound had cast the sky in, I hadn't been able to see that before I dived over the railing. Elderwyck wasn’t structed in the same way as Ttec, after all, so I guess it was hitting the cities differently. The alleyways and spaces between buildings weren’t quite as narrow in Elderwyck, and I only imagine how difficult it was to find a hiding spot in the madness.

  I didn’t bme them for hoping that the water would see them a measure of safety. Only…

  It didn’t look like it had. I tried not to look at the despairing faces of the freshly sin victims I could see all around me, and it was surprisingly easy for me.

  Because I had other problems.

  I filed ier for a moment, caught off guard by…everything before the sleek form of Liora caught me. I had started to sink, but she dragged me back to the surface, where we tread water for a moment. I tried to thank her before something from above caught my attention that she didn’t seem to notice. With only moments to spare, I gulped down a deep breath and yahe both of us back dowh the waters.

  We only barely dodged the form of a diving Revenant that tried to snatch the two of us right out of the water. Strangely, it balked away from even dipping its talons into the al, shying away and rising bato the air on monstrous wings.

  I had startled Liora with my move, but she recovered quickly. I think she caught the tail end of the Revenant’s dive and exged a nod with me uer.

  We had discovered what had killed the people in the al, I suppose. If you were stu here and were unwilling to get ba nd in fear of the Revenants, you were either going to die to exhaustion or the mohemselves.

  Most weren’t crazy enough to want to approach the tral isnd where Fort Duality oood, now the throne of the Godbound.

  Not like us.

  Having caught our bearings, Liora and I slowly started to swim through the bloody waters of the al in the dire of the ruined Fort, supp each other the eime. Every on a while we had to surface to catch our breath, before hurriedly divih the surface to escape the attentions of the cirg Revenants above us.

  It was…beyond exhausting. I don’t know if I would have been able to do this if I didn’t have someoo lean on, during the long swim. I don’t even know if Liora would have been able to do this, not after everything.

  Not after all we had been through.

  Eventually, however, beh the water and in the distahe lower shores of the isnd came into view. It was reinforced with massive stone ns, so it wasn’t difficult to see through the murk. We picked up our pace, foing another breech to the surface for breath in order to hurry. The entire lower do the isnd was covered by the upper ptform that the Fort resided on, and might just be safer from the hungry Revenants above.

  We reached it and scrambled onto the carefully maintained docks at the lower portion of Fort Duality. They were empty, with none of the possible military vessels that might find birth here normally. My c spared a thought, w if they had tried to flee from the horror the twin cities had bee, but that didn’t matter.

  The only thing that did, was that we were safe from the flying Revenants.

  For now.

  But the Godbound, oher hand….

  As Liora and I y gasping on the docks, ft on our backs, I gradually became aware of something.

  The air here…it felt wrong.

  It was thicker, somehow, aainted with an awareness. It was like I stood at the foot of a mountain with the mind of a god. I was so far beh the presence as to be unworthy of aowledgment, as if my existence was worth less than that of a si. The Aether all around me was strangely still, seemingly held by what felt like an iron will that demanded subservience.

  This…it had to be the Godbound. Even though we were separated from it by hundreds of feet of solid stone, just being this close to it was crushing.

  I felt so impossibly small. But…it was, for now, bearable.

  With a grunt, I leveraged myself to my feet before looking down at Liora. There was a disquieting despair etched on her furred face. She hadn’t gotten up from her water-logged position on the docks, and was instead staring dully in the dire we had swam from.

  In the dire of Baldric.

  I heaved a sigh and held my one hand down at her. Her eye moved slowly to look at it before one hand rose limply to grasp mine. I heaved the Gnoll woman to her feet before shifting my grip.

  Instead of her hand, I instead grasped her forearm tightly. At her visible fusion, I smiled tiredly a her gaze.

  Singur eye, to singur eye.

  “Together,” I said firmly.

  Her eye closed for a moment before she nodded aurhe tight grip I had on her. “Together,” She whispered.

  The both of us turo face the distarao the fort proper. As we did so, I noticed that this far down, it wasn’t quite as ruined as the upper reaches were, where the Godbound reed like a King in waiting. Still, that didn’t mean it wasn’t damaged, as a damructure wasn’t meant to fun as a chair. There were fresh, visible cracks all up and down the fa?ade of the outpost, and some of the blocks prising the ns of the keep itself had brokeirely. All in all, the structure looked a bit unstable.

  But we had no choice. We had to brave the depths of this pce, to reach the surface where the Godboued. Where I was supposed to do…something, in order to kill the damn thing. There was no way that we could climb the outside of the structure to reach the upper ptform, and even if we could, the flying Revenants would pick us off easily.

  And so, Liora and I carefully picked our way across the crumbling and eerily deserted docks to reach the lower entrance of Fort Duality. Once we had arrived, the two of us stared into the dark and silehs of the portal. Somewhere deep inside of the ruined fort, a warbling, high-pitched howl echoed, reag us like the wail of a banshee.

  Great.

  Not only had all the lights go inside, but it was ied with Revenants. I was reminded unfortably of the trek through the Tcte mausoleum, where we had entered wild undead above Tzo’s b.

  I would prefer the zombies, holy. Hell, at this stage, they probably would be on our side.

  Liora held out one hand and summoned a familiar-looking light Skill, thten our path. I stared at it dully for a moment, as it occurred to me that I still didn’t have one of my own. Somehow, someway, it had just kept falling to the wayside for literal months.

  “If I survive this,” I said slowly. “I’m going to foreoo sit me down and teach me how to get one of those.”

  A breath exhale of extremely mild amusemeed Liora’s snout, but she immediately sobered up. “We 't risk getting bogged down with bat,” She said. “Attempt stealth as much as possible, but prioritize haste. We must hurry if we are to prevent the doom of this world.”

  I nodded shallowly, and when the Gnoll stepped forward into the darkness, I followed behind her.

  ………………………………..

  I had never been inside of Fort Duality, but Liuided me through the halls like she was born here. Which was impressive, because entire ses of the keep had colpsed in on themselves. Multiple times, the senient was given pause when we reached a rubble-strewn hallway. But she always knew where we had to double back from, to tinue our upward trajectory.

  Despite the howl we heard before, and even after asding several floors, we still hadn’t entered any of the Revenants that I suspected dwelled within these wide, crumbling halls.

  But we sure as hell found the evidence of their passing. It looked to me like packs of the damn things had rampaged through the inside of the Fort and sughtered all of the Loyalist soldiers, Elderwy guards, and Tte Orcs to be found. Blood and gore coated the stones of the building, and evidence of battle was found on nearly every surface.

  It looked like it had been a total rout. I’m not sure anyone had survived in here.

  But still, none of the Revenants themselves were to be found. Maybe sihey had already found their meals in these halls, they had abahem to crowd the streets outside? Maybe…the Revenants that Baldric had chosen to engage had been the doom of this fort?

  I didn’t know.

  I needed something to take my mind off of the oppressive silence of this ruin. Luckily, I had a somewhat useless question I could ask Liora, that would hopefully take her mind off the impossibility of our task as well.

  “How do you know this pce so well?” I asked her in a whisper, the ime we came to a crossroads. We were before two separate halls, ohat stretched out to our left, and the other forward. Liora was examining them, but shifted her eyes my way at the question.

  “This is where I osted,” She ghosted bae, lupine lips barely shifting. “I had infiltrated as part of the ing staff, and was learning what could. But…it’s also where I found evidence of ‘Rhiannon’s’ true nature. She left traces on the Portal Stohat I was taught to detect, from when I suspect she tried to attu to Azul herself.” She shook her head abruptly. “But that doesn’t matter. The stairs upward are this way.”

  Liora silently walked down the left-hand path, and I followed her. Not far along, we entered another colpsed pile of rubble that blocked off the path, but that didn’t stop Liora. Instead, she carefully eyed the door tht, set into the stone of the hallway. “This…is Longstripe’s room,” She said lowly. “If I remember correctly, there should be another exit ihat will allow us to bypass this.”

  I started to nod, before abruptly pausing. Hadn’t Longstripe said something about Fort Duality, before Nerexxa had torn him apart?

  Hope filling my breast, I eased open the door to the deceased General’s room before Liora could and peeked i looked deserted to me, and thankfully free of the corpses that filled the rest of the keep. I guess nobody had tried to shelter inside of it when the Revenants came.

  But I did find what I was hoping for.

  Resting right o a bloodstained Loyalist uniform on the sheets of a rge, four-poster bed were two things I had doubted I would ever see again.

  My hand-fed Oninite bdes.

  A smile crossed my lips, and I quickly stepped ihe room with Liora on my heels, as the Gnoll woman carefully shut the door behind us. When I reached the bed, I let my remaining hand drift over my on's cool surfad breathed a sigh of relief.

  At least something at least halfway good had happeoday.

  I shook it off after a moment and picked them up.

  I think I surprised Liora, though, when I handed one of them to her. I smiled at her fused fad held up the stump of my left arm. “’t exactly use twht now, and I bet that’s better than Tzo’s bone crap.” My smile faded after a moment, and I fixed her with a mock-serious look. “But I’m going to want that back ter, you hear? Think you remember how to use it?”

  Liora took the Oninite bde and held it upright, before depressing the activation switch. She nodded in satisfa when it exteo its mid-spear length with a swish of air. Depressing the switch again, she me. “I believe so. I will…endeavor to return it to you.” She abruptly shook her head, discarded the rough bone sword she had taken from Tzo’s b, a rattle to a stop in the er of the deceased General's room. Liora then a door on the far side of the room. “There. That door should lead to a private stairwell which leads to the surface.”

  I sobered up and nodded. “Where the Godbound waits,” I said quietly, to Liora’s apanying nod.

  Silently, the two of us approached the door and ope, revealing a well-maintained spiral stairwell that seemed to have dodged most of the structural damage. We entered and started to climb the steps.

  After a few minutes of upward travel in silence, lit only by the light of Liora’s Skill, we came to a door. We didn’t step through though, because I think we had finally found the missing Revenants.

  Oher side, we could hear the snuffling and growling of what must be dozens and dozens of the things.

  Liora snuffed her light Skill, sending us into otal darkness. The only reason I could see at all was because of a faint light creeping through the bottom of the door.

  “Full stealth,” She whispered to me. “We do our best to avoid them a outside. Ohere…you…” She trailed off, which I didn’t bme her for.

  Not even I kneas supposed to sy the Godbound. Elys, in all her wisdom, hadn’t shared that fact with me.

  Still, I the makeshift pn. But before we could a it, there was a tremendous boom somewhere from outside of the keep, beyond whatever room was oher side of this door. It shook the eform that Fort Duality rested upon, causing Liora and I to bump into each other.

  But more importantly, it riled up the Revenants. They snarled and howled, and moving almost like a single mass from the sound of things, rushed away. In moments, it sounded like there wasn’t even a single Revenant waiting for us oher side.

  Which was good, because it felt like that impact had caused our stairwell to start crumbling. We had to scramble to open the door and slide out of it to avoid being crushed, activating our respective stealth Skills in the meantime.

  Just in case.

  We have bothered, as like I had suspected, there wasn’t anyone or anything io hide from. The room we had entered looked like the main receiving hall of the keep, but none of that mattered to us.

  Something far, far more important was happening just outside the shattered gates of Fort Duality.

  In the courtyard, surrounded on all sides by snarling Revenants, and seemingly ung about either them or the Godbound itself, stood a familiar figure.

  Tzo.

  And in his skeletal right hand, he held the battered and bloody form of Nerexxa, suspended in mid-air.

  He’d caught her.