"What are we going to do now, Kane?"

"The mission stands, we have to find a safe place to settle, everyone has their lightkeepers?" said Kane

Almost all of them showed their fingerlike pendants of glass, round at the bottom and closed at the top with a stopper connected to a chain. They all glowed to different degrees.

"Good, we'll camp here for now, I'm sure everyone needs some time to deal with what happened, what it means leaving Arness, to mentally prepare for what's ahead of us, especially the children. I won't lie, it's not going to get easier from now on, but I'm sure we can survive, each one of you is the bravest and strongest warrior I've ever met," he said, look at each of them, "don't ever doubt that."

"All right," he continued, "Zanir and Sum, your lightkeepers are the strongest, keep watch with Lami and Nag, If your light gets too dim, change with the next strongest, it's bright enough around here but it's important to keep track of time. The others should get some rest, we'll need everyone sharp."

The group was composed of eleven women, fifteen men, and five children, one boy and four girls. Some of them were indeed the strongest humans in the kingdom of Arness, the children excepted, so surviving in those tunnels should not be impossible to them.

They were camping in one of the safest and brightest areas, with plenty of flora and fauna, brimming with life. The more dangerous "sectioneds", as they called it, did not stay in those lower levels because the food wasn't enough, rather, they outgrew the available resources. So they went for the darker, larger caves, to fight and consume stronger creatures, where humanity's monsters gathered.

Both pairs walked away from the group in either direction of the tunnel. I followed the ones called Zanir and Sum.

"We can still go back, ask for the king's forgiveness. It's not too late," said Sum, when they were out of earshot.

Zanir just looked at the woman, a concerned expression on his face, disappointed. It wasn't the first time she showed to be against their parting from Arness.

"What!? Don't you think this is crazy? We have children with us! All we had to do was end the Cleave," continued Sum.

"It is too late, and even if it wasn't, I wouldn't betray my family and what I believe. That man is no king, not mine," said Zanir.

"I didn—"

"Shh."

"What?" asked Sum, whispering.

"Listen."

Every human that ventured off the kingdom knew that sound all too well, it varied, some being almost inaudible or too fast in its rhythm, but they all had the same characteristics. The sound of long and strong legs walking through roots and rocks, like dull blades hitting the ground, the walk of humanity's enemy. The fire soldiers in particular made a very low sound while walking, but Zanir was an experienced warrior, his hearing was particularly good towards danger.

The creature wasn't big, barely reaching the waist of an average adult human. Its exoskeleton was of a metallic brown color, the body visibly divided in head, thorax and abdomen, respectively. Six legs in total, one pair of very strong mandibles, a pair of antennae on its head and a stinger on its round abdomen.

"What is that?" asked Sum.

"A fire soldier," said Zanir, slowly drawing his swords from their scabbards.

"That is the sectioned you infused your swords with? Doesn't look like 'one of the strongest sectioned ever' to me."

He laughed softly, saying, "I guess they don't."

The creature was far, roughly thirty meters away from them. Slowly approaching.

"Do you know why we don't have a name for sectioned stronger than Ardas?" he said. "Because we can't measure their power, we can't define a specific category to fit them all in, except that they can all destroy humanity."

"That?" repeated Sum, gesturing towards the creature.

"It's only a scout, searching for a source of food. Like the kingdom," continued Zanir. "The colony sends thousands of scouts at a time, as far as we know."

"Thousands?"

"Some of the researchers say that their colony have hundreds of thousands. Believe me, they may seem weak, but one is already not so easy to fight against, and a hundred is very hard, one thousand is impossible. Unlike the arda, their power lay in numbers."

Twenty meters.

"What do we do, then? That one is alone, so it's fine, right?"

"Not exactly, fire soldiers are very intelligent, If it reaches the camp it will send a signal to any other scout nearby that a source of food was found, the colony would be attacking us in no time," said Zanir.

"Then—"

"But they leave a trail undetectable to humans, if a scout doesn't come back, they send more to check," said Zanir.

"What if we kill those too?"

He didn't answer.

"So this will be our life now, huh? Running from these monsters, having to be carefull every step of the way," she said. "Won't you reconsider, Zanir, going back to Arness? Please, I'm sure Kane would listen to you."

Zanir turned to her, and with a slightly sad tone in his voice, said, "I know you're scared, we all are, but as long as we're together, we'll get through this."

"But if we just—"

"Sum!" he said, with more impatience than anger, but startling her and himself.

"Enough," he continued, back to his usual calm manner, "the decision is made, they don't want us there, they don't want to strive for a life beyond crawling in the dirt of their own misery, blinded by the constant fear of the dark. I want more, everyone in the Cleave does."

"So there really isn't another way?" she said, looking down. Defeat in her voice.

"Don't worry, when we find a better place, maybe we can go back to Arness and convince some of them to leave that nightmare with us, make ourselves stronger."

"Em..."

"Ok then, let's focus on taking care of that," he said, looking at the fire soldier, "I'll go try killing it as fast as possible, before it gets the chance to warn others, you go back and tell everyone to move the camp. We have to get out of here as fast as—"

A swift move, the spear went through Zanir's left side of the stomach, an attack from behind. The spear was Sum's specialty.

"Sum, you..." said Zanir, falling to his knees, blood staining his clothes, "W-why?"

"I-I'm sorry, Zanir. I truly am, but if we keep going this way we'll die all the same!" said Sum, pulling the spear out, bathed in blood, "don't try moving too much, I don't want you to suffer. I never told you guys this fact about Lao, but the rock maker's toxin works in a way that it's more painful if the victim tries to move."

She did seem genuine about her feelings, with shaky hands and tears threatening to flow out of her eyes, despite them contradicting her actions.

"D-don't..." said Zanir, the veins prominent in his arm and neck, straining to reach for her.

"I... I don't expect you to forgive me, no, I know you won't, but I hope you understand why I'm doing this. Don't worry about your son, I'll bring the kids back with me, I'll keep them safe," said Sum, hiding between a few higher roots

Soon after, the fire soldier reached Zanir, cautiously. When it deemed safe, stung him and carried his body with its strong mandibles. Zanir passed out from the fire soldier's toxin in no time, on the way back to the creature's colony.

"I had no choice, this is for the best... yes. No going back, now," she mumbled, following a few meters behind them.

"Are you guys hearing that or is it just me?" said one of the warriors.

"Now that you said it, I can hear it too," said another.

"Are we close, Sum?" asked Kane.

"Yeah... there were arond thirty hoppers, in this direction," she said.

A clever lie, hoppers were enemies strong enough that required they send their strongest warriors to rescue Zanir, and weak enough that they thought that that might be possible. Twenty one of them came, leaving one man and four women with the children.

They were on the darker parts of the caves, now, with only the weak light of their lightkeepers to illuminate the way, barely enough to allow them to see each other. It was a large place, not many roots or smaller life forms, a dangerous place.

"Strange, hoppers don't usually travel in such large groups," said one of the warriors.

"Or this far, how long has it been?" asked another.

"Em..." agreed Kane, "Let's do this right, I don't want anybody getting hurt."

"The sound," said one of them.

"What?"

"It stopped."

They collectively paid attention to the silence.

"We should be close enough, Sum, light the flash crystal sand," ordered Kane, looking back.

"Sum?"

Nobody answered.

"Everybody stop moving," said Kane, speaking low and serious, "Lami, light your flash crystal sand."

"I can only use it once or twice before it stops working," she warned him.

"Do it."

Lami obeyed. The flash crystal sand was made of the highest grade crystals, when mixed with the root's tendril essence, it produced a strong flash of light capable of illuminating the darkest of places, but it could only be used a couple of times, and it only lasted a few seconds.

It was enough for Kane to realize what had happened.

"Sash! Nag! Muna! Run back to camp! Sum betrayed us," shouted Kane. They were all shocked for a moment, but only a moment, following Kane's order without questioning.

"I see Zanir!" one of them shouted, pointing to a pile of flowers and carcases of various sectioneds

The light from the flash went out, but it didn't matter, the place was now illuminated by the flames of thousands of fire soldier, unmoving until Kane started shouting.

"You nine, open a path for them to leave. The rest come with me," Kane said, brandishing his two hammers, "we'll save Zanir."

"Sum? Where's everyone?" asked the man.

"They didn't make it," she said, panting and sweating. "Kane told me to run back and tell you guys we should go back, that the mission can't carry on, that we should try asking the king to accept us back inside."

"It can't be," said one of the women, sounding sad and surprised at the same time.

"What are you talking about, how could they all have lost to a bunch of hoppers? We should go help them," continued the man.

Sum seemed desperate and annoyed for a moment, but resolve came back to her.

"What are we waiting for?" the man said, with urgency, "Let's go!"

"You're right... but someone should stay with the kids," said Sum.

"Right. Rami, Lar, can you guys handle it?"

"Of course, may your flame burn longer," said Rami, or Lar.

It was a small margin, but Sum was the strongest among them, all she needed was an opportunity, so she created one. When the man and two women passed by her, she pierced his heart using Lao and quickly pulled the spear out, barely taking a instant before cutting the throat of one of the women, and impaling the other before she could pull an arrow to shoot at her.

The other two were the weakest of the five, so they should knew their victory was unlikely, but they fought nonetheless, and lost.

The children all started to cry, except the boy, he didn't move a muscle or expressed any kind of emotion. Not out of courage, but maybe shock, or something else altogether.

"We're going back to Arness, don't worry, it'll be all right," said Sum, displaying a misplaced smile among the bodies, "you just have to follow me if you want to live."

"Stop right there!" shouted a guard.

"Tell the king that I did it, as promised. I can go back inside!" shouted Sum.

Sum and the children stood where they called the "Throat", a wide tunnel filled with sectioned corpses that led to the gates of Arness. A few guards stood on platforms in front of the massive doors that protected humanity from their supposed doom, bows in hand. The wooden structure was fifteen meters tall and almost one meter thick.

"Wait a moment," said one of guards.

He went inside, through a small passage on the door, and came back a few moments later with another guard, dressed slightly different. Probably their leader. He looked down at her for a couple of seconds then whispered something to the guard and went back inside.

"Opening the gates is dangerous, no matter how little, we'll give you a few drops so you better get close," the guard said, "we won't take another risk, so this will be your only chance."

"Ah, yes, give me a moment" she shouted, turning to the children and smiling. "See? We can go back now, it's safer inside, come kids."

"I want my moommyyy," said one of the girls, bawling. Followed by the other girls crying harder.

"Shh! It's okay, they're fine, they'll come back when we go inside, okay?" she said, extending a hand.

Still crying, the children hesitantly started moving, but the boy stopped them.

"What?! Don't you wanna be safe? Do you want the monsters out there to fucking eat you?!" she said, yelling at him.

He just stared at her, not answering.

"Fine then, stay here and die! I don't care, Just don't come back crying, they won't let you in," she said, turning towards the gate.

"W-wait," one of the girls said, her head low, tears dripping. "Will... will mom come back?"

"Maybe, if you behave and wait for her inside the gates," said Sum.

"I-I'll go... I'll be good."

The boy didn't seem to want to stop her, only watching.

"At leat one of you doesn't want to die, come," said Sum, relieved, perhaps telling herself it made all worth it, that what she did was justified if she saved at least one of them.

As Sum and the girl walked towards the gate, the boy and the three other girls stood where they were. Some of the girls still seemed uncertain about what to do, but the boy stood resolute, watching.

"You can open now!" shouted Sum, at the base of the gate.

The guard looked at her from above, then shouted, "Aim!".

Most of the guards pointed their bows down at them.

"Nonononono, he promised! You piece of fucking shit, the king promised, let me fucking in!" Sum yelled, banging at the door, the girl crying at her side.

"What about the girl, sir?" asked one of the guards.

"What about her?"

"She... could be hit," he said, uncertain.

"And?" the man repeated, firmer.

"B-but, it's just a kid," he said.

"No, it's a threat to Arness," the man said, grabbing the bow from one of the guards on his platform, "so are you and your insubordination."

"Wai—"

The man shoot the arrow straight into the guard's eye, his body falling limp from the platform and hitting the ground, lifeless.

"Aaaim!" the man ordered again.

"Stop, fucking stop! I killed them! It's over, please! You fucking piece of shi—"

"Shooot!"

Dozens of arrows fell on Sum and the girl, most hitting the target. Two arrows in the head were enough to kill the girl, Sum took three to the shoulders, followed by six in her back and one to her neck. She fell, body kneeling, hunched over, blood flowing out of the various puncture wounds.

Zanir's son stood still a few meter away from the door, where they told them to stop. Not a single tear had flowed out of his eyes. The nine years old boy was looking unwavering at the woman's body.

The guards watched in silence as he walked over to her body, which was slightly moving up and down, barely breathing. With fluid movements, of someone who knew what was doing, the boy pulled one of the arrows from her back, and put through her ear. She stopped moving.

"A-aaaim," shouted the guard, his voice cracking.

Most of the guards pointed, in a reluctant movement.

The boy ran, holding three arrows he took from her body, and Lao, her spear.

"Shooot!"

They let their strings loose, movements out of sync, not a single arrow hit the small boy, perhaps the single person they should have killed with their schemes. For revenge is a powerful drive, and hate is a lasting fuel.