Reaching their destination would take a few hours; the day before, they had made it three-quarters of the way between Bastionette, a village close-to-dead-centre of Luxurum, to their destination in the space of three days. There was no road linking the two villages, since people hardly travelled between them; had the builders of the kingdom known that it would have served well during the Third Chaos Outbreak, they would have made one. Instead of marching on an even road, the war-band had to traverse the highlands. The region was high above sea level, but also relatively flat. There were only a few places where the carts were forced to take a detour around a ditch or steep hill. While it slowed down the war-band, it was faster than following the road that went west to Prosperia and then travel east to their destination.
Flann had been conversing with a fellow legionnaire for the last hour. Her interlocutor was Ragnhild of Vitalus, a vanguard; she was an able and strong-bodied woman who stood taller than most men and almost as tall as the shorter Maledicti. She, unlike most vanguards, was given a full set of Luxurite plate armour, and she was the only person Flann had ever seen wearing the armour with such ease – most would not travel on foot with it for very long, nor would they wear it unless headed to battle. Ragnhild wore her legionnaire tabard over it to ensure to be properly distinguished from the few among the soldiers of Luxurum who were wealthy enough to have the same armour. She carried her great helm in hand and a shield, upturned-tear-shaped and 45-inches tall, strapped to her back. Her only weapon was a longsword, tucked in its scabbard hanging on her belt. She had short black hair and rugged features. She was once a beautiful woman, some would say, while others would claim that she still is, but now, she has many scars from the war against the demons.
Together, they were speaking of the fate of their home towns.
"My hometown's the furthes' village east, along Axius River," said Ragnhild, "Was torn down and built again many times during the war against Valand."
"Is that why you became a warrior? To defend your village?" asked Flann.
"Yes. Then I joined the legion, as a guardian. Was the only way to get any armour in my village," she explained. "Our village was never attack, so I became a vanguard, and went to war."
She looked at Flann, hesitant. For a moment, she looked every which way, silent, before asking: "What about your village, Flann?"
"Mine was destroyed many years ago. All were killed or cursed."
"It's true you were saved from the Realm of Chaos?"
"It is."
"What about the rest of the village... your family?"
"Most of my family is in the Sea of Flames, eternally suffering. One of my brothers is dead, so I was told. He was one of the few bodies that could be recognized in my home village."
"Sorry to hear..."
"Thanks to the noble knight Chaosbane Akarin, I was rescued along with Walgen and Caron. That is why I decided to join the fight."
"The High Priest? He's also from little Mirthenhelm?"
Flann nodded.
"But it is not because we were all from Mirthenhelm that we were rescued. We tried to flee, which resulted in us being separated from the rest of the curse victims of Mirthenhelm. We were lucky to be put where Chaosbane would appear. It was all luck."
They continued discussing about their native villages for a half-hour, until Walgen and some fellow vanguards came along from the rear of the formation.
"There she is, with Raging Ragnhild," said one of the vanguards.
"Don't call her that," shushed another. "You don't want her raging against you. Trust me."
Ragnhild had overheard them. She looked back, frowning slightly. The three vanguards accompanying Walgen exchanged worried glances, and the one who had spoken first was rebuked with a punch on the shoulder.
Ragnhild burst into laughter.
"Didn't know I had that reputation," she chuckled. "You afraid, little man?"
That roused the pride of the one who had spoken of her. He marched up and declared, head
high and chest pumped, "I am afraid of nothing!"
"Easy, little man," said Ragnhild while putting her arm around his head, "Don't get reckless.We wouldn't want you dead."
He struggled to break free. All were laughing. Before letting him go, Ragnhild kissed the top of his head and said: "Take care, little man."
The confused vanguard stayed back from then on. The others engaged Ragnhild in conversation. Around them, Luxurite soldiers and legionnaires alike watched, some laughing along, others with disbelief or scorn.
The mood was quickly lessened by the sight of the Kriesgrab. The war-band came into sight of the village atop a shallow, but high, hill. The horses drawing the carts huffed, puffed and strained against the weight of their charges. Once at the top, the formation slowed as all took in the sight of the village.
The many buildings of the village stood, or in most cases, had stood, all around the circumference of a lake, the Graver's Depths. The majority of the buildings had been burnt to the ground days ago, as the fires of war no longer raged; nothing remained but ashes and a few stone remnants. Everything around the lake was gray with ash. The incinerated remains of buildings were no more than piles of charcoal.
When the band approached the village, they beheld what they had thought were smaller destroyed structures, but that were in fact piles of corpses. Having witnessed the healing skills of priests and priestesses of the Legion, the war-band knew that it must have been a horrible battle for that many to have gone unsaved.
There was only one street in the city, the central road which enclosed the lake, flanked on both sides by destroyed buildings and corpse piles. Many of the corpses had charred armour, either the standard luxurite plate-and-mail, or legionnaire mail armour, while others once had nothing but clothing. The road was speckled with splashes of drying blood and dark-grey mounds of bones. The bones were not bone, but ashbone; these were corpses of the freakishly tall Maledicti, but also the cyclone-like demons, the stormborn, which, in the core of their beings, have a small atrophic skeleton resembling that of a child.
The procession was headed east on the central road. which would then turn north at the river crossing. They moved without making any sound other than footsteps and shuffling. Flann said nothing, even when she was revolted by the faintly familiar smell of burnt corpses. She wrinkled her nose. She was near the outside of the column of people and horse-drawn carts, and she could see the results of the carnage quite well. She noticed a young boy, perhaps no more than ten, who was sitting before a pile of burnt bodies. Flann broke out of the formation and approached him.
He did not notice her approach, nor did it seem he would care if he had. Flann knelt next to him. The boy's eyes were baggy and bloodshot, his skin was dirty and scraped and his clothing ragged, muddy and torn. He was staring at a hand in the pile of bodies. Flann took the child in her arms. He did not struggle, but he kept looking at the hand, which had a tarnished silver ring on its ring finger. A shadow loomed over Flann and the child. Looking back, she saw Cadleder Kemp, standing behind her. He had removed his great helm and now stared intently at Flann.
"Cadleder, this poor boy must have lost everyone dear to him," she surmised.
"Haven't we all lost many to this war," responded Kemp. It was not a question. "The band has gone ahead to the buildings at the front. You must join them. Go."
"Understood," she said.
She took the boy in her arms and brought him along. She looked back a moment. Kemp was looking at the hand in the pile, the limb that seemed the least ravaged by fire. He took the ring. The finger broke off. He tore it to bits to remove the ring. He caught up to Flann and gave the ring to the child, who took it, emotionless, staring at the piece of jewellery.
Flann continued down the street and past a stone bridge arching over a river, the Tearing Beck, which originated from the Ashen Peaks, somewhere in the east. It was one of the two rivers that fed the lake, the other being the Red River from the north; the lake flowed into another body of water to the west, near Prosperia, through the Mourner's Tributary.
This village was the most used crossing point of the two rivers, making it a key location to stop the demons coming from the north. The bridges over the Red River and the Tearing Beck both had many stone barricades on them, which were currently unguarded, since most troops had been moved to recently-built fortifications around the outer side of the village.
The demons could not cross the rivers, so the Luxurite army found it best to funnel them at the northeast quarter of Kriesgrab. Unfortunately, the town had already been taken by the time that Luxurum could respond to the attacks, and recovering the town had been difficult due to the large number of demons coming from the north. Kriesgrab had been destroyed and rebuilt several times during the Outbreak so far, and had recently been destroyed again. The northwest was the first place to be rebuilt, as it was closest to the fortifications, and were needed by the town's defenders. It was also the first place to be destroyed. Flann didn't question the reasoning of the Luxurite army, as long as they stopped the demons from reaching helpless innocent people.
Flann headed for the only building that she knew had a place for the child she held in her arms: the church. Like every village, town and city in Luxurum, Kriesgrab had a church of the legionnaires of Light. It was one of the few stone buildings in sight. She found it towering above the militia's barracks further down the street, and she entered. Inside, a few villagers were praying before the altar and the statue of the Bleeding Maiden, an effigy of a kneeling woman wrapped in a thick cloak, hands cupped on her lap beneath her bowed head. Beside the altar stood an old priestess of light, watching the local legionnaires, soldiers and militia praying.
The old woman bore no sign of happiness; her face was straight, eyes downcast. She looked at Flann who entered, recognizing her as a fellow legionnaire by her warrobe.
She came forth and asked: "What have you there, priestess?"
She took the child in Flann's arms and brushed some dirt and ash off the boy's face. She examined him.
"Looks like the child of the Franks. He even has Cicely's ring. I thought he had died with his family. Good masons, they were"
"I found him in the south of the village. He must have hidden somewhere."
"Thank you for brining him. He will be taken care of."
Flann returned to the war-band, which were setting up between the fortifications and the town. They had begun erecting tents and had done good progress. She found her tent and her possessions set up near the back of a building. Walgen emerged from it as she came near.
"There you are," he exclaimed, "I was wondering where you had gone. Did you find something?"
"I did," she responded, "a small boy with no parents."
"I see. It's about time this war is over."
"It was time it ended since it started."
They remained silent, gazing into each other's eyes, wondering what their lives would have been like had this war not happened.
They sighed, and Walgen said: "We have worked to do. We need to help repair the fortifications; last time, the demons were so numerous that they destroyed part of the stone wall."
They met the only surviving village official who was coordinating workers and soldiers alike with the help of Kemp, Caron and other important members of the Luxurite army and the legionnaires of Light. Flann and Walgen were given their instructions and were sent to the northernmost part of the wall to help carry stone. Stone had been brought from Prosperia's quarries, and had to be unloaded from carts and carried half-way up the wall, where repairs were being made. Night had fallen before they went to sleep, exhausted.