Episode 11: Marshal Thallion Returns

  Chapter 034 - For the Child

  A few hours earlier, when the sun was still on the rise, the slave district was only just waking. Booths and stalls remained sealed and quiet. Snores and shuffling whispered through the walls. Out in the streets were those who couldn’t afford to live under a shelter or were too broken to move a muscle. But then there was one child.

  He walked mindlessly, grogginess still clinging to him. Passing by many homes, he made his way to the central board to see if any notices or price shifts were worth looking at.

  “So much for spilling Mom’s chili oil…” he sighed, rubbing his eyes. “Where’s the board…”

  He entered the heart of the district, a vast circular space where people might gather and whatnot. At the center stood a board with pinned papers, etched inscriptions, and prices meant to draw anyone in. Being the first there, he took his time going to the board early in the morning as punishment.

  As he reached it, he pressed his hand to the wooden pillar holding the large board and lifted his head. He mumbled as he skimmed the pages. “Bunch of textile stuff… some expired inquiries… They need to remove those—”

  A fly buzzed past his ear.

  He swatted at the air and missed. He thought nothing of it and kept reading. Torches had burned brightly throughout the night, keeping the streets lit. Some had been replaced by night guards wandering around. But none had bothered to check the central board. The boy truly was the first.

  Then another fly landed on him.

  He hissed and backed away. As his sleepiness faded, wakefulness sharpened his senses. A dozen flies were buzzing all around him.

  “What the—” he blurted, startled. He looked around, trying to step back. As he turned his head, he saw it: a dark, unmoving figure beside the board. The sight punched through him. A breathless gasp escaped as his legs gave, and he collapsed to the ground, sitting with a quickening breath. His eyes shook.

  In all his life as a slave helping his mother cook, he never thought the board could be corrupted by anything other than numbers and words. It was, in a way, a safe haven. Like a place to read and learn a bit of vocabulary at such a young age. He would never have expected a man to be hanging from a pole that hadn’t been there before.

  From that wooden pole hung a noose, cinched tight around a man’s neck. Flies circled the corpse and feasted on the torn flesh there. Light barely reached the central region, but as the sun climbed, the boy noticed a sign hanging above the pole. It had a lot to say, but the biggest words—a name—read: JORRIN NATAL.

  …

  By morning, animals were making noise. In the Armiton HQ, maids and servants woke and readied for work. They slipped into dresses and uniforms, feet scurrying to wash, being fed meager portions, and hurrying to their roles. As the women rushed through the private rooms, Lefaulta walked alone down the main corridor.

  Her hands were clasped, not that she could do much with the chains anyway. She moved modestly and in silence, head low, eyes downcast, until she reached the far edge. About to choose a balcony for a breath of air, she noticed the Housekeeper standing there in her maiden dress.

  Lefaulta stepped out, opening the door to the balcony. Wind and the warm breath of the morning sun brushed against her. As the door fell shut, she walked forward and stared out at the open view. Two silent women, looking over the slave district, each holding her own scarred memories.

  “What do you think?” the Housekeeper asked. “Is it better to look at your hometown, or at the sun?”

  Lefaulta said nothing, taking in the breeze. No response came.

  The Housekeeper continued, “Mornings were constant wake-ups and servitude. What an unpleasant memory. But I love the sun. My love confessed himself from an uglier balcony than this—more like a field of dirt—and I was wearing this exact dress. And I thought, ‘The morning wasn’t really all that unpleasant anymore.’ The morning sun is the only remembrance of the man who allowed me to appreciate it.”

  She turned to Lefaulta and added, “Tell me, darling. Do you think his sacrifice meant anything?”

  Lefaulta’s thoughts were elsewhere. The Housekeeper fell silent, her face making clear she expected no answer. But Lefaulta eventually replied, “If one does not sacrifice, what is there to love? You love one’s heart and beauty, but they mean nothing when they are gone. In every sacrifice they give, they leave what is worthy of love.”

  The Housekeeper chuckled. “I didn’t expect to hear that from you, Miss Lan.”

  Lefaulta closed her eyes and lowered her head.

  She looked back at the growing sun and continued, “We all have something to remember. One is no more wrong than the other. But if what you believe in is corrupt, then your love for it is corrupt. My love taught me that, but his sacrifice proved the corruption. Her Majesty is always receiving us with open arms, and you, too. Your former master is gone. How much has she sacrificed that you are willing to accept Marshal Thallion?”

  As they kept gazing at the horizon—one facing the sun, the other the town—Lefaulta noticed two guards appear from the far corners of the district streets. They ran through the gates and courtyards. Other posted soldiers shouted, confused, but the two men didn’t slow. Their feet were frantic.

  The Housekeeper noticed, too. Maids and servants froze. Soldiers in the corridors spun toward the rushing messengers. Duxe and the other elites flung open their chamber doors. Donnor stepped forward to receive the report, his heart pounding.

  The two women lifted her skirts and left the balcony, shoving the door open and dashing inside. Shouts erupted within. Even from above, they could hear the echo of the two men howling news that left everyone speechless. Everyone in the HQ stood transfixed, knowing something would change—that it already had:

  Marshal Thallion had returned.

  …

  The stirred crowd in the slave district roared louder than it had in years. Panic and awe ruthlessly. In the central courtyard, makeshift boards were plastered with new papers. Propaganda and fear were pinned side by side. The rumors of the child swelled louder with every breath, traded in whispers, then chants, then shouts.

  In narrow kitchens, people stirred their pans feverishly, feeding whoever they could. Men and women raced through the streets, past festive rows of food stalls and rattling chimes. They dashed toward the board, eyes drawn to the bold, unfamiliar handwriting.

  But above the paper was something worse.

  A vertical wooden beam hooked forward like a shepherd’s crook. And from its tip, a noose swayed gently. A man hung from it, his neck broken clean. His bare feet dangled above a low wooden plank. Carved into the wood, in jagged strokes:

  JORRIN NATAL

  “FOR THE CHILD. STAY YOUR HAND. MARSHAL THALLION HAS RETURNED.”

  Children cowered behind shacks and market stalls. Mothers pressed them close, shielding their eyes, their ears, their questions. But the world roared on. Because out on the roads, there was a stampede that no one was meant to be in.

  A surge of men stormed the streets toward Armiton, a living tide of fury. Torches blazed even in full daylight, and steel glinted in the hands of slaves and merchants alike. Pitchforks. Cleavers. Swords stolen or hidden for this day. Their voices rose like war drums. The land of the rich hid themselves in their homes, as the poor stormed the first gate and infiltrated the inner lands. What the soldiers had suppressed a few days ago had erupted once more, and it came louder and more furious than ever.

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  “Glory to the liberator, who is to come!”

  “All hail the one who will set us free!”

  “Five years destruction, five years silence, five years end!” said a messenger.

  Then came the response.

  Explosions cracked across the intersections. Loud, blinding, and immediate bursts echoed. Soldiers cast spells into the air like thunderbolts, flaring light that drowned the sun. Smoke surged across the district. Buildings trembled under the force of magic and marching boots.

  Screams rose. Then more blasts. Then silence, broken by the sound of splintered wood and heavy steel.

  Donnor and his elites stormed out of the HQ, armor and magic ready. Ernol, the Commander of the Nights, refused to assist. As dozens of boots trampled down the corridors, the man was curled up on a wall. He hugged his knee and buried his face in his knee, his skin pale. A few men who marched past could hear him whimper and mumble incoherent words. But they had no time to check up on him. As ordered by the kings, they left.

  A hundred soldiers deployed, breaking formation and scattering like controlled fire through the city’s veins. They vaulted over roofs and fences. Their systems flared, boots slamming into the stone with such force that the ground quaked.

  Swords were drawn. Whips were raised. Faces were unreadable.

  Soldiers and the people collided on the second border between the land of the rich and Armiton.

  A slave lunged with a rusted cleaver. One soldier sidestepped fluidly, drove his blade through the man’s chest, lifted him on its edge, and hurled the body over a nearby railing. The man splashed into the river below. The soldier turned, voice cold and demanding, “Move any closer, and I’ll send the rest of you after him!”

  Up ahead, other soldiers raised their arms, palms glowing. They chanted in unison. Sparks formed in the air. And in the air, flames burst open like shells blowing into clouds. Then, fire rained down.

  Civilians screamed as fire clung to their clothes. They got caught in flames, the scorch spreading through their skin and consuming them. They crumbled to the ground, growing lifeless. Some, desperate, reached out for help, causing others to get caught in the same flames.

  Others fled. Others fought back. Smoke surged forward in waves. Angry magic exploded from desperate hands. Soldiers staggered, shields cracking. But they were ready. The Commander of the Chains entered the scene, unleashing his brutal whip and quickly dispersing the crowd.

  From behind the crowd came the flank. Another line of soldiers marched in perfect step, palms raised. Their voices rose in a single, toneless chant.

  Then—

  Blast!

  Blast!

  Blast!

  High-pressure magic struck the masses. The crowd buckled. People scattered. Resistance dissolved into chaos. And the district burned without relent.

  Amidst the chaos, beneath all the screams, fire, and fury—shadows moved.

  They slithered across the ground at impossible speeds, unbothered by terrain or obstruction. Dozens of them rippled underfoot, gliding like shadows without bearing an object. They passed beneath soldiers and slaves alike, ignored by those too focused on battle, too slow to react. They weaved through legs, past torches, over bloodied corpses, and toppled carts. Over cries and chants and magic-flared air. And one lingering echo remained for all to speak of:

  “Marshal Thallion has returned.”

  The voice rang flat, cold, and mechanical. A Groggin whispered those words as he looked out at the nation of RrodKa atop a tree. He glanced over the smoke, people shouting and raging, soldiers marching and killing, children running and hiding, livestock roaring and retreating, air exploding and blinding, and streets suffocating and mourning. Then his body collapsed, sinking through the cracks in the stone like ink through parchment.

  He fell, falling in a spiraling descent, deep into the world of the unseen from the surface.Then the ground rumbled… far below. Down deep into the underground, deep beneath the nation of RrodKa and beneath the nations beyond it, beneath cities, temples, bloodlines, and time—

  Grogga stirred.

  He sank hundreds of meters into the dark, through strata and stone, bypassing the crust of nations as though called by name.

  Then he dropped.

  The world opened.

  A vast cavity yawned in all directions. A city without a ceiling. A hollow space larger than a mountain’s roots. It was larger than what a nation could hold. And within it:

  Grogga.

  The Groggin struck one of the winding roads like a raindrop. His form flattened, stretched, then reassembled into a shadowy shape. He was one among hundreds, each moving in perfect rhythm.

  The roads twisted like webs strung between nothing. No pillars kept them up, leaving them stretching beyond what could be seen with the naked eye. No suspension supported them. Nothing. Just impossible bridges curled through a choking abyss of fog. Each road shimmered with embedded runes. They bore no signs of wear. There was no dust or debris. Not even a faint residue of dirt particles rested on these platforms.

  Below? Nothing. No visible ground. Only fog kept anyone from seeing the actual ground.

  Above? Thicker fog. The ceiling where the Groggin dropped from was nowhere to be seen.

  The air choked with a blend of brown and lime green, heavy with an acrid sting that coated the throat just to imagine it. It looked like sickness. It tasted like one. It smelled like suppressed gas of toxic fumes from the depths of the earth.

  The Groggin moved.

  He glided along the path beside hundreds of others who followed. Their shapes folded in and out of vision. Some flowed, others stepped, but none spoke.

  Beside the roads, stretching like spines, were conduits, thick, pipe-like veins carved from alloy that pulsed faintly. Some were no wider than a finger. Others were large enough to crawl through.

  And inside them was light.

  Thin, sharp beams coursed down the lines like electric stars dragged through tunnels. They seemed like messages, perhaps, or commands, or memories being rewritten. Whatever it was, they were moving everywhere. And hundreds traveled in this huge, vast cavity of nothing but movement.

  Every so often, a spark leapt from one conduit to another, briefly illuminating a shape in the fog—a shadow, a structure, something moving.

  The further he traveled, the deeper it seemed to go. There were screams in the metal. The somber tone of grinding loomed over the whole underground, feeling alien and vast. Screeches. Groans. System churn. They were echoes that ricocheted through the abyss like memories.

  He passed zones of sudden heat, where the temperature rose in waves. Magma pulsed far below, visible only through fleeting slits in the stone. It boiled, but it was caged, pressed into channels, suppressed under layers of runic metal.

  Still he moved—over, under, around coils of wire and silent machines.

  Then came the tunnel. It was a spiral made of black and gold, etched in sacred script. He entered it, and his path rose, curving upward, climbing toward something fresher.

  The sound returned. He ascended until the fog turned to mist, the mist to air, the air to the open breeze. Grass brushed beneath him.

  He rose and took form—shape coalescing, arms, legs, and head. His face remained neutral and lifeless. Ahead of him, the forest parted into a clearing. Soldiers moved cautiously within it, tense and almost exhausted. One of them dragged a child in his hand.

  Then, from the trees, they emerged. Shadow after shadow stepped into view, rising from the forest floor like living smoke. Cloaks dark as obsidian. Movements were silent and controlled. One by one, runes flickered into existence beside them.

  Incantation Magic ? Lv. 12

  Incantation Magic ? Lv. 20

  Incantation Magic ? Lv. 13

  … and more.

  Dozens of Groggins whispered in unison. Words spoken low with a will to bind and shut.

  Their hands glowed with dim, pale light. This light was not as bright as Armiton’s spells. Instead, they were deep as if they were drawing from a quieter, older source. Each extended a hand toward a soldier. Before a single command could be shouted, silence fell.

  Hands covered the soldiers’ mouths. Their bodies stiffened, then slackened. One by one, they slumped into unconsciousness. The Groggins moved forward, catching them mid-fall. Every descent was soft. Every motion was deliberate. They laid the men down gently in the grass. Then they stepped back.

  All eyes turned toward a single figure still standing on the far side of the clearing: Xollor.

  He was focusing on a burnt man on the floor, seemingly unaware of what just happened behind him. The Groggins didn’t approach him. They stood in still rows, then bowed their heads in ritual obedience. Because on the other side of the clearing stood two more figures. One of them was cloaked in a large, draping cloak. Its head was crowned in black spikes. Its face was nowhere to be seen.

  And the other figure… was Luminar.

  When Xollor spun around, his eyes stared at the stunning woman. He lowered his head and whispered, “Marshal Thallion.”