Stanis walked towards the village with his head angled straight. He was occupied by his own conscience: had he done the right thing? Could he have dealt with it differently and gained a better result? He knew he would only reach an answer he disliked but he also knew he wouldn’t heed the answer anyway, and yet he still thought, bearing weight on his nerves.

He had no feelings for Sil, or at least he thought so. But neither did he have a grudge against her, jealously perhaps but not hatred. Yes, maybe what he had done was for her benefit; it would have been crueller to let her live once again, instead of breaking her awful nightmare.

He told himself this as he walked through the village gate, nodding at how he had done a service for her. And for no charge at that.

The guards at the gate let him pass with no trouble. While the leaders of the village were disgruntled with Stanis, the common folk still saw him as a lamp in the dark, dark sky. After all, they took the brunt of the damage during fights and wars; they knew how to be grateful for someone who saved so many of their lives.

Up in the sky, the sun was shy and hid behind several looming clouds. The clouds were thick and grey, warning the Earth of the battering it was soon going to get. The wind too seemed to join in on this assault as it howled mindlessly, blowing dust and rubbish into eyes and clothes. Especially eyes.

Before, all he had wanted to do was get equipped and rush into battle against Jen. Now, however, after hearing his suspicions confirmed by Sil, he knew there was a better way to do this. He didn’t know whether Jen would join forces with the village or not, after all, despite being awfully brutal and narcissistic, he didn’t know whether they could successfully bribe her in. Anyway, what he did know was that she wanted to kill him as much as he wanted to kill her, and that she acknowledged his power as much as he did her’s. This meant that she would attack amid war, with plenty of corpses to fuel her necrophilic desires.

Unfortunately, wars were commonplace here in the village. Different forces of Aliens attacked daily, meaning Jen could approach at any time and find herself drowning with a plethora of cadavers. However, at the same time, what forced him to fight on the frontlines? Nothing, now that the band of whoresons and wenches had revealed their true colours, he felt no desire whatsoever to fight and hurt for them. No, what he would do instead was wait patiently until the Queen Wench revealed herself, during which time he would sneak past her army of soul-shackled slaves and attack her directly, hopefully rubbing her existence away from even the bowels of history in a single strike.

Stanis caught himself grinning at this thought and realised he had gotten ahead of himself. This was all in the distant future, right now he had more immediate things to get to such as equipping himself. He strode through the wide, blood-speckled roads, eventually reaching the Forges. The guards earnestly bowed and allowed him through, from which he received a melancholic feeling. He had built up the whole village to what it was today, only to have it ruined by the crows at the top of the chain shitting onto everyone else.

He walked into Rikkey’s smithy and was greeted by the usual crowd. He saw Kevin helping Rikkey in the corner by holding down a senselessly large sheet of metal. These were two people he had once trusted, people he had once laughed and drunk with. The two of them turned around to face him and he finally identified the glint he had seen in Rikkey’s eyes last time: it was pity and regret, perhaps even some compassion.

He spat at her sympathy in his head; they had betrayed him all the same, what was the point of acting sorry after such an act?

“I need a sword,” he declared loudly, suppressing the distant clangs, “The strongest one you have.”

“That’s fine but I can custom make you better one,” Rikkey said while smiling warmly.

Stanis wished he could take her smug expression and drag it through the dirt. He snorted at her suggestion and shook his head; she was probably planning to create internal cracks along the blade so that it would snap during the heat of battle.

Rikkey looked withdrawn by his response but kept her smile up. She nodded to Kevin and told him to get the sword from the back.

“And a set of armour,” Stanis called out after Kevin.

An awkward silence followed as Stanis scrutinised Rikkey.

“Is anything wrong Stanny?” she asked, hoping to shed some of the gravel he was staring her way. “You look tired, man,”

He glared at her for a moment before answering. “Yeah, I guess I’m tired. Tired of all your shit that is,”

She gulped down her words and looked away, re-ensuing the awkwardness. Kevin arrived with a sword and a set of leather armour. “Sorry mate, none metal left,” He then looked at Rikkey’s expression and realised that things had taken a turn for the worse whilst he had been out.

“That’s fine,” Stanis answered. He rode his finger on the sword’s edge. He then looked at his finger and saw that his skin had been indented, and so grunted. This was probably not their best sword but it was good enough to cut Jen’s flesh. It was a hand shorter than a normal longsword and had black burn marks across its blade.

He nodded to Kevin and then made for the door. As he left, he turned around and gave the two a confident and friendly smile, or at least as friendly as he could make it. “I’ll see you guys in hell,” he uttered under his breath.

Kevin cocked his head to Rikkey after Stanis had left. “Does he know?”

She scrunched her face at the man with irritation and worry. “Course he fucking knows, why else would he act like that?”

“Then why didn’t you tell him that you stood up for him?”

“Well. what fucking good is that going to do when we’ve now turned sides?”

The energy sapped from Kevin’s body and he fell into a chair, dropping his head past its rest.

****

Stanis found a fairly private spot and stripped himself, putting on the leather armour. It provided sufficient defence to block maybe 10 strikes but that was it - not that he was looking to be hit anyway. They hadn’t given him a sheath with the sword so he put it into his trousers, the stone-cold pommel squeezing into his stomach.

He then walked the way he had come, gaining a few additional stares as people took notice of where his sword was. He walked towards the marketplace and stole a backpack and plenty of food and drink while there. After this grand heist, he ambled out of the village towards the river, over the bridge, and into the forest.

He saw several Jaguars on the way who joined his trip and made small talk. They reached Serb’s cave and waited for him to make an entrance. Quicker than Stanis had arrived, the area began to fill up as more and more Jaguars rushed to the spot, the word that Stanis had come spreading faster than a disease.

After some time, Serb tread out with Niss by his side, as always.

“You should spend some time out in the sun,” Stanis said, “The dark will eventually make you gloomy, y’know?”

Niss approvingly nudged Serb, causing the weathered Jaguar to softly smile. Serb deeply sighed the next second before catching Stanis’s eyes and staring into his soul.

“Stanis, old dog,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“We’re… We’re going to leave this place. Leave you humans behind.”

“Why?” Stanis asked. “Is it the recent stuff?”

Niss nodded her head and Serb raised an eyebrow. “So you know, eh?” He wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, that’s the main thing,”

“So where are---”

“No, wait.” Serb cut through. “Let me at least explain, old dog,”

Stanis put on a resigned expression and weakly nodded.

“You done us good, far better than a human would ever do by our side. But the rest of them, they hate you, old dog. I’m no fool and neither is Niss. We know what happens when a group fractures: infighting. Staying by an infighting group is like sleeping while a wildfire invades the cave,”

Stanis raised his palms and moved them in an arc towards his sides. “It’s fine, man. Just tell me, when are you going and where to? I’ve got one last ghost to deal with here and then I’ll come with you guys.”

Serb finally smiled wholeheartedly, showing all his fist-sized teeth. “Great. We’ll go west of the mountain and follow the slope, and we’ll go tonight,”

“Then let’s forget all this doom and gloom for an afternoon then,” Stanis said, opening up his backpack. “Get the supplies out, let’s get drunk here one last time, for old time’s sake,”

Stanis didn’t even have to look up to know Serb’s excited expression, or Niss’s annoyed one.

One last night. His last day…