DAY THREE—SEVEN DAYS UNTIL EXECUTION

48 HOURS BEFORE THE INVASION

Ezzie said the next morning,

We were waiting for the ring of light to spawn so I could get dropped off back on the grounds as soon as possible.

I said.

what?>

Ezzie gagged through the link.

Ezzie said.

Ezzie said.

Just as she had said, the circle of light warmed into existence, and I headed over and allowed the cloud to pick me up, sitting down immediately to keep from being thrown around.

Ezzie said,

know they’re NPCs, and you’d be hard pressed to tell them apart from actual humans if you couldn’t examine them. My guess is that the person who fed you surprised you by just how real they were.>

I thought of Faye, of just how human she’d acted. It seemed impossible, really, that she could be nothing more than code.

Ezzie said.

I said.

Ezzie said.

I braced myself against the wall and my stomach dropped out as the cloud dipped lower. The cloud dropped me off at the altar again, on the hill overlooking the town, so I made my way down and in.

Ezzie said, just as I rounded a bend and the town came into view.

I swallowed, hard.

Ezzie said.

I looked around, and she wasn’t wrong; all of the defenses were in the same half-finished state. Not a single gap in the wall had been filled, no work had been done on the catapults. Nothing.

Ezzie said, didn’t happen?>

I spotted a pair of women working on one of the gaps in the wall and headed over.

“What’s going on?” I said.

They glared at me, then turned away as one, mumbling obscenities that were obviously directed at me.

Ezzie laughed through the link.

I said, my ears burning.

“Sorry,” I said to the workers, “I was just wondering if there’s a reason the construction’s going so slow? I would’ve thought there’d be a lot more workers out here trying to finish this up, after that guy rolled in half-dead on his horse.”

The workers shared a glance. The nearer one shrugged and simply said: “Not enough wood. No wood, no wall.”

Ezzie said.

“Huh,” I said. “Thank you.” I headed deeper into the town, toward the town square.

Ezzie said.

I wandered through the mostly empty streets until I found the NPC in question, a thin man with a thinner face, his skin pale where it wasn’t sunburned. “Are you Marcus?” I said.

He jumped at the mention of his name, his eyes sweeping over me, as if assessing whether or not I was a threat. He stood behind a wooden trading booth, shifting from foot to foot. “Yeah that’s me what of it?”

“I’m interested in picking up some wood for the walls. Somebody told me you were the guy to talk to.”

Marcus looked left, right, left. He ran a finger beneath the collar of his shirt and tugged, trying to loosen it. “Don’t got any wood, sorry. Try again tomorrow.”

“Any idea where I could get some?”

“Black Forest,” Marcus said. He was scanning the crowd; as far as he was concerned, I’d already been dismissed.

“Thanks,” I said.

Ezzie said.

I said.

Someone shouted over by the north gate, then another, and another, until a dozen voices were all ringing out and mingling together, and it wasn’t long before the whole town was filtering over to see what the commotion was about.

When I arrived at the east gate, there were so many people packing the gatehouse that getting through it looked impossible, so I hauled myself up an unfinished section of the wall to get a better view.

Hundreds of filthy people were streaming over the nearby hills, their rags fluttering in the breeze.

Ezzie said.

Someone in the crowd beneath me shouted something, probably having recognized one of the approaching figures, and it was like a dam had broken; the townsfolk flooded forward, swarming across the hills to meet the oncoming rush with open arms.

But one woman stayed behind, her small figure swaying beneath the gatehouse.

I said.

Ezzie said.

Faye was incandescent with hope as she scanned the faces of the nearest miners, who were beginning to filter into the town, their loved ones by their sides.

I said.

I waved a hand at the flow of miners.

Ezzie said.

rescue them; that doesn’t mean they’re dead. Maybe you set off a chain of events that meant that they no longer needed to be rescued.>

Ezzie said.

I blew out a puff of air, sat atop of the wall, swung my feet over the edge.

Five long minutes went by without any sign of Faye’s family, but she just kept scanning the crowd, over and over. Once twenty minutes had passed, most of the captured miners had already entered the town, though a number of stragglers were still working their way up the nearest hill. Finally, the last group approached the gatehouse.

Faye looked on, desperate now, glancing from face to face, her shoulders slumping with every passing moment. It hurt to watch, to see her hopes gradually choked out, to watch Faye wither there in front of me.

Ezzie said.

The two stragglers matched the profile, given what little information we had; their disparate heights made it possible that they were father and son. I looked to Faye, though, and she didn’t share Ezzie’s excitement.

Faye hung her head as the last two miners—a father and his daughter—walked right by her. She covered her face with both hands, her shoulders shaking. Once she’d collected herself, she walked back through the gate, spotting me as she went. She gave me a small, bitter smile, then cocked her head ever so slightly. “Did you do this?”

I nodded. “I’m sorry, I looked, but…they weren’t there. I cleaned out the whole mine. I was hoping they’d come back with the rest of them.”

“Thank you for trying,” she said. “At least I know they aren’t rotting down in the dark.” She walked beneath the gate and disappeared into the raucous crowd beyond.

Ezzie said.