Five days. It had been five days of sweat, of running non-stop with stolen, quick snatches of rest between hours of movement. Jeria stopped and wiped sweat from his forehead, sweat that flowed down his face and stung his eyes even in the cool weather. The trees loomed large around him; their tops shrouded in the early morning mist. He moved forward, stumbling in exhaustion, five days of travel taking their toll. Is body was wearing out, exhaustion tearing him down when he stumbled out of the forest and looked up at the mountain before him. He sank to his knees, home and the protection of the deep caverns, almost within reach.

Jeria walked through the maze, dazed, his parched mouth dry from having only a few sips of water when he could find some on his journey. The path down to the city gate passed in a blur, he didn't know how long it took, he didn’t know when he got there, he just felt himself sinking, falling into the arms of a guard, whispering "Delire, get Delire."

Jeria awoke in a simple room. The light from the floaters shone through the window whose lace curtains were open to the outside. At his bed sat Delire, her face stoic, eyes sunken deep and surrounded by black rings. She looked at Jeria and noted the time he moved from asleep to awake. She leaned forward, her small childlike hands coming to cover his.

"Gruzz is dead, isn't he?" Her voice was soft, lifeless. "Tell me what happened, how it happened." Her face turned to look at Jeria with dull eyes, an expression on her face that froze Jeria's blood. He stared, not truly comprehending, wondering at her grief.

Gruzz and Delire? How?!! She is a halfling; he was a half-ogre. Jeria stared at the halfling, fearing her expression, recalling the stories of her legendary martial prowess, lethality hidden in a body whose childlike appearance disarmed a foe who did not know better.

"They're coming Delire. The fiends are coming." His voice was low, intense. He tried to keep it unemotional; he did not want to start a spiral into depression that would prevent both of them from being effective. "Gyv. She was controlled. They saw through her eyes, heard as we spoke. We led them straight to the House of Souls safe house from which Gyv had operated." He stopped, seeing the look of horror in Delire's eyes.

"How did they do it? Mekior examined her, declared her clean, free of taint". She stood up, pacing, "How long, how long before they get here?" She came to an abrupt halt, looking straight at Jeria, "and how did you get away?"

Jeria closed his eyes, knowing that he was going to have to tell her all of it, tell her of his father. "General Hiron was the mastermind behind the whole thing. It was he that controlled Gyv, set us up." He stopped, looked at Delire, took a deep breathe, blurting the last bit out. "He's my father, Delire. In the end it was how we got away. It seems he had plans for his son. He was grooming me, trying to get me to defect to their side. My whole life I always wondered what fiend, what monster, was my father. Now I know, and the truth is far worse than I could have imagined. The monster that is renowned for his genocidal rampages, his excesses, the one who started the slave farms for meat, the..."

Unexpectedly, his head exploded in pain; he had not seen the fist coming, could not believe the power, and speed in that small fist.

"Shut up!" Delire's face was almost as red as his, her mouth bent into a snarl. "More than any the halflings have suffered at Hiron’s accursed hand! You don't know much about me; I wasn't born into this city. I was one of those rescued from the farms by the House of Souls. I have seen brothers, sisters, cousins and friends gutted and treated like cattle, placed on the table to satisfy the accursed hunger of the fiends and their minions. I have never seen Hiron, though many of the powerful fiends have copied his camps of meat slaves, seen his ways as being worthy of emulation."

She walked away, her back turned. "Come to my office as soon as you can. I have to go tell the others, tell the powers-that-be to start evacuating. Maybe we can save some of our people, who knows how far away they are? We’ll send out some scouts, hopefully we will have some warning before they arrive to annihilate us all." She walked out, not seeing how Jeria sank back into the cushions, covered his face with an arm, hiding his face from the world around him.

***

Gyv woke to sunlight streaming down onto her face. She looked around and saw the forest edge behind and the cliff, with waves crashing below, in front. She sat up, pulling the ravaged edges of her shirt together. She stopped, her hand exploring her shoulder. It bit me, I felt it eating me! Is Mekior a healer as well as warrior? He has never hinted at such powers. She looked to her other side, to the sleeping form of Mekior. What are you hiding, Mekior? What are you? Who are you?

They moved on, sticking to the ocean's edge and staying near to the eaves of the forest. They travelled on, Gyv taking the lead, her knowledge of the outdoors, of how to move through the wilds essential. Slowly they turned to the north, their travels a massive arc that would slowly take them back towards the city.

They sat together at night, huddled next to each other, trying to warm each other in clothing inadequate for the weather that was turning, from the cool freshness of autumn, to the true cold of the winter winds. Gyv seemed to feel the bite of the cold worse than Mekior and shuffled her body closer to Mekior, feeling the heat of his body against hers.

"Why are we heading to Weald Hall? We have no hope of reaching there before Hiron's army." She turned; her face against his where they huddled under a tree. "It will be gone; abandoned if Jeria got there in time, a charnel house if he did not. We can continue along the coast. It will take time, but we could make our way to Fort Livian, seek refuge with the dwarfs."

"I must know, Gyv. I need to know if Jeria was successful, if the people I loved are still living. Are they enslaved, dead or worse? And there is a promise to be filled, a duty I cannot deny or abandon." His fingers reached out, stroking her cheeks, pulling her face towards his. They came together, two lone humans beneath a tree seeking comfort; the tension, the stress, the close proximity of the last few weeks enough to dissolve the barriers between the two. The kiss was sweet, the actions afterwards frenetic, almost desperate. That night, they slept soundly, the night passing peaceably around them. It was a moment of idyllic peace, the world seeming to stop, to let nothing come to destroy the perfect moment, a momentary pause in the pain of existence for those caught in the world created by Kirest.

The morning sun woke them, and they moved forward. The silence between them a connection as meaningful as a full conversation could have been. The days of travel had created a familiarity, an understanding, between the two. It took them close to a month to get home, to traverse the long, indirect route they followed. To get to the entrance beneath the mountain from which they had emerged so long ago.

Mekior stood before the entrance. The ground showed signs of battle, stained with blood that had been soaked deep into the loose soil. Skeletons had been pecked clean by the vultures and other scavengers, , some of them lying dead from the poisoned meat they ate, lay scattered about. He wandered through the remains and identified the remains of both human and fiend littered the ground.

"What do you make of it Gyv? To me it seems that a battle must have been fought, and if so, the city must have had time to prepare, the number of dead here is too many for a rushed deployment."

Gyv wandered through the area, up the sides of the mountain, finding bodies, burned and blackened, behind any shred of cover. The remains of a massive catapult, its remnants charcoal from the fierce blaze that had engulfed it. A short distance away its operators lay dead next to a large pile of massive rocks, made her mind up.

"They knew the devils were coming. This ambush was exceptionally well planned and organized. I would say they lost anyway, the bodies go all the way to the entrance, and only a few fiendish bones are mixed in with the human ones." She clambered down, coming to stand by Mekior. "I think the battle is still raging inside. They didn't come out to clear away their dead since they obviously cannot spare the manpower." She looked at Mekior, her face triumphant. "The city is fighting, they must be!" Gyv headed for the entrance. "Come on, maybe we can do something from behind to aid the city.

The two entered the cavern, which would lead them back to the city, to find the stalactite and stalagmite maze destroyed before them. Piles of bodies lay scattered amongst the fragments of rocks, rats and other cave dwellers scurrying for cover as they entered. They walked through, holding their noses, the smell of decaying flesh still strong within the cavern though the bodies had been stripped clean by cavern dwelling scavengers. They started down the pathway to the city, picking their way carefully, until they came to a dead end. Overhead the roof had collapsed; piles of rock lay across their path, cutting off any travel.

"This is why they did not come back this way. The city must have activated this trap as their last defence. Come, I know another way in, though it is not a route I would have chosen or used." Mekior laughed at the end, attracting a curious glance from Gyv. "It is nothing, really. I was just thinking of my initial fear, worrying about the enemies out there and Ifaced far worse than I thought I would. It seems I forgot my fear, and I wonder if this is the reason the other entrance is abandoned, too open, the outside too close and painful for many."

Mekior turned, headed back up the passage, leaving the massive pile of rocks and the bodies of uncounted devils and their minions to rot behind them. He wondered how many, if any, of the more powerful fiends lay within, trapped or destroyed beneath tons of rubble. He grieved for those who had defended the city; fighting, falling slowly back, making the trap look too good to resist, giving their lives to make sure the bait would be taken. Behind, Gyv followed, her thoughts in the same pattern as Mekior's, her guilt gnawing at her, almost a physical pain as she looked at the effects her betrayal had wrought. She knew that the General was not there. Somehow, she felt connected to him, that if he were to die, she would know it. One day there would be a reckoning. I will face you again you slimy, fiendish bastard. Face you and kill you. But not yet! That day will only come when destroying you will be eternal, not just an empty act rectified by some coddled mageling who can summon you back.