Chapter 11

Still frightened for his sister and frustrated over his powerlessness, Vic took a walk in the burnt-out streets in the late afternoon.

He had no real idea where he was going. He didn’t even know what he was supposed to do at that point. Should he go home? Part of him was too ashamed of going home empty-handed and telling his family that his sister had been taken too. He felt in his heart that if he did that, his father and siblings would never forgive him for that. That would only cement his status as useless and good-for-nothing in the eyes of his family.

But what? Just what could he do to get his sister back? He knew that pirates sometimes accepted ransom to return someone they had just kidnapped. Unfortunately, he had no money to speak of and had no idea where he could get the kind of money that pirates might even consider looking over. It was obvious that Admiral Sebastian was no ordinary pirate and the few copper coins he had would not interest the lich pirate in the least bit.

As Vic continued to think things over, he failed to notice where he was going. He had no idea just how deep he had gotten into the burnt-out parts of Cormalen. He didn’t see just how far away from the lights in the intact parts of the city he was getting. He walked even deeper, still trying to force his mind to come up with something.

It wasn’t until he came to notice the deep darkness of everything around him that he realized that he had now gotten himself lost.

He was about to head back into the livelier parts of the city when he heard the sound of voices coming his way, one male and one female.

“Ah,” said the male voice. “The Servants of the Burnt King did well, haven’t they?”

“Perhaps,” replied the female voice. “But if it were up to the Children of the Pox, the destruction would’ve been more thorough.”

When Vic fully understood what the two people were actually talking about, he quickly hid behind a burnt wall among the remains of buildings on the side of the streets. He heard the approach of the two, their soft footsteps accompanied by loud thudding footfalls which Vic assumed belonged to either kiloraptors or monoceratops. Vic was worried that the two might hear his furtive movements or perhaps even his breathing or the beating of his heart. He kept himself as well-hidden as he could, hoping against hope that none of the newcomers would even notice him.

“What?” asked the male. “You mean, this isn’t enough for you?”

“Indeed,” the female voice said. “Cormalen needed to be destroyed. All of it. The whole city needed to be burnt to ash. But as you can see, the city of Cormalen lives on. Buildings are still standing, people continue their lives and, most of all, the city still has hope. A hope that, if the Servants of the Burnt King had been more competent, would have been crushed by now.”

“You are a terrifying woman,” said the male voice. “Biomage Hilaria.”

Vic’s eyes widened.

“But you conspire with me, making you equally terrifying,” said the female voice. “Cardinal Aquinas.”

This was when Vic found himself around the corner of the burnt wall to confirm the voices he just heard.

And, much to his shock and horror, it was indeed Cardinal Aquinas the toad of the Golden Church and Biomage Hilaria the wolf of the Zorali Magocracy. Not only that, but the two of them were accompanied by the five battle chimeras that were present during the governor’s speech. They were still more than a hundred paces away from him but now he got a better view of the dreaded beasts of war and saw just how terrible they were.

They were very large, at least thirteen hands tall and around seven hands wide. They had six limbs with the first two serving as chicken-like legs that ended in heavy claws, the second two being viciously clawed hands and the last were five-hand-long scythe-like blades. Their bodies were like that of armadillos, possessing natural armor, but their backs were decorated with razor-sharp spines like that of hedgehogs. Their heads could be best described as being similar to that of crocodiles or monitor lizards, their mouths being filled with countless, razor-sharp teeth and also had six eyes with two facing front, two on either side of the head and another two pointed backwards.

In his horror, Vic darted back behind the wall but accidentally kicked a burnt plank of wood, causing an entire pile of charred wood to thud and tremble.

Vic froze as the Cardinal, the Biomage and the five battle chimera turned towards the source of the noise.

Vic put a hand over his mouth in sheer terror, hoping against hope that the group would just assume that it was some vermin among the charred wood and move on.

Hilaria looked over and sniffed the air.

“There’s someone here,” Hilaria said. “And whoever it is, I can smell their fear.”

One of the battle chimeras howled loudly into the night, chilling Vic to the bone, and immediately ran towards Vic.

The lemming, realizing that the battle chimeras were now on him, turned and ran, jumping over burnt wood and sooty stone as the living engines of war gave chase to him.

They ran through many burnt buildings since Vic realized that his only advantage against the battle chimeras would be the terrain. He even jumped through the small window of one burnt wall that the battle chimeras couldn’t fit through. The chimeras simple responded by breaking through the wall with their enormous bulk, intent on brutally slaughtering the fleeing lemming.

He did not stop running no matter how far he thought he had gotten because he knew that stopping now or even just slowing down to look over his shoulder would mean his certain doom.

On they went through the burned-out streets and structures of Cormalen in the darkness of night. Vic ran up one building that still looked intact and ran up its rickety staircase at full speed. The battle chimeras barreled forward in hot pursuit, knocking aside debris and other obstructions and mounted the steps as well. Due to their weight, the staircase collapsed, sending four of the beasts plummeting by about three floors down onto the cold, hard floor below but one managed to hold on with its scythe-arm and then heaved to its full height, much to Vic’s horror.

Vic continued running through the fourth floor, narrowly avoiding rickety floorboards and debris hanging from the ceiling. The battle chimera plowed through all this, barely slowing down at all after being struck by beams of burnt wood hanging from the ceiling or nearly falling through cracks in the gutted floor. The beast then howled in triumph when Vic found himself standing at a dead end, looking out a window with a three-floor drop below.

The battle chimera then began to move towards Vic at full speed and that was when Vic jumped out the window, realizing that it was better to fall to his death than to be torn limb from limb.

On his way down he hit a flagpole that hurt his rump and then went through a burnt canopy that tore as he fell through it.

He again fell on his butt when he struck the ground below, hurting but with no serious injuries.

It was then he noticed that there was someone in the street he was in.