You know, there are some men in history you need to find and shake their hand. The first guy who decided to squeeze a cow’s tit and have himself a drink, the first guy or gal who said, “I fucked up,” and the person who decided to immediately eviserate a freshly slain saurian, take their core and awaken. Can you imagine the amount of insanity involved in that feat? I can’t, and that leaves me with a nasty feeling.
— Excerpt from Notes For Newstar
Day 1091, 12:50 PM
The town was littered with dessicated corpses, but had suffered little damage. I looked around, aware that the cultists had used the knowledge from my previous loop to massacre the border region.
The dead men, women, and children were dead because of me, because of my meddling with the timeline.
They would’ve died to saurians in two weeks. The thought didn’t justify what had happened, but it helped me reach another conclusion. They will send stronger forces here and in the other towns that had survived the attacks if I redo again.
The entire part of town surrounding the gate was devoid of the living. The cultists had used every scrap of blood they could find to empower themselves for the important battle. Fortunately, we started encountering the living soon enough as we made our way towards the keep and the central square. In the middle of the square, the cultists had drawn a strange magical circle, different from any seal I knew. Not just because it was drawn in blood and entrails, and had impaled corpses as nodes, but the runes themselves were alien.
“We need to inform the heresy hunters,” Ruby’s master said as I recognized my former men used as the focal points, while the bloodless corpses strewn about were those of the refugees and townsfolk.
Blackbush Blackfist’s still-bleeding body hung impaled from what I could only describe as a serrated pole. I could tell the runes went from perfect to rushed at some point, and the bloody footprints revealed someone had moved Blackbush into the center, from another node.
“There’s surprisingly little blood,” I muttered.
“Used up in the ritual. I stopped it before they could finish.” He pointed at a charred node. “Now, I need an answer to one question before we can move on to the others - how?”
I looked at him and shrugged. “The daughter of the seventeenth imperial prince gave me a tonic to test my worth, and both she and her father were very pleased with the results.”
Ruby’s master straightened like a mast, pushing his slouched shoulders back when he heard that. The mention of the imperials had startled the old bastard.
“I apologize. I didn’t know you were in imperial employ.”
“Nothing official, Sir.”
He just nodded, and that was the end of the urgent conversation, leaving us open for more inessential topics. Such as what to do with the populace, with the vile seal in the town square, how to handle the dead, and such other, trivial matters.
With the townlord and every other awakened save for the three of us dead, we had become de facto leaders, and Ruby’s master had little intention of being a leader or even thinking about what to do with the non-awakened population.
“What do you think we should do now?” he asked with sudden respect in his voice, which totally had nothing to do with what he had just learned about my faint connection to the imperial family.
“I would suggest we evacuate the town before another wave of cultists attacks. Ruby and I can lead the non-awakened while you go to Thunderbluff, report the incident and tell them a large wave of refugees is coming.”
While there were corpses everywhere, it was under twenty percent of the population. Perhaps even less, since I had lost track of how many people were in Hailstown with all the refugees and others fleeing deeper still towards Thunderbluff.
“The Citylord might object. We could just leave them in any other frontier town.”
I stared blankly at the man for a moment, but he still wasn’t getting it, so I said it aloud.
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“With all due respect, Sir, I don’t believe this was an isolated incident. The cultist I fought sounded like he was a long way from home, and if they had a dedicated task force for Hailstown, it would’ve been more than just several fifth realm mageknights and fifty-odd others.”
“Wait.” He stared at me in horror. “You think they’ve done this all across the border?”
“Yes, Sir.” I nodded. “What’s more, I believe this isn’t the first time they are doing this. For all we know, the cultists may have been attacking border settlements for imperial cycles, and the dragons flying around gave them the courage to attack towns and not just prey on stray serfs.”
“I need to go. Now. The heresy hunters need to know.”
And you need to keep your ass safe. I bet the central stake was originally reserved for you.
“Yes, Sir.” I naturally didn’t voice my thoughts, and the sixth realm mageknight, a distinguished imperial servant, fled.
“What now?” Ruby asked, no less terrified than when she caught sight of the soaring dragon.
“Now, we rally whoever wants to leave this place and depart within one hour.”
Gathering the people and evacuating the town took around three hours, with around one in seven survivors staying behind for various reasons. Some because they had lost their will to live, others because they didn’t want to abandon their property.
Several honorable folks wanted to stay because they were too sick to move on their own and would prove a liability to the group. Those I could, I healed. For those I couldn’t, I paid the people with carts to carry them.
Days passed on the road, and it was a torture, driving and protecting a column of civilians twenty miles a day. It was nowhere near fast enough. Worse, the first town we hit along the way was destroyed.
The town square was turned into a massive ritual circle, decorated with dessicated corpses. That one was neither damaged, nor rushed, and Ruby could only watch in horror as she recognized the other librarian impaled on a serrated stake.
“That could’ve been me.”
I squeezed her shoulder, and she flashed me an absent, hollow smile before turning away from the carnage and heaps of dried bodies in the center of the circle. A glance told us the cultists had gathered everyone and sacrificed them.
A part of me told me I should move the bodies and learn the seal for future reference, but another, more moral and more sensible part told me I had seen it already back at Hailstown, and that I need to keep the normal people away, lest the scene scar their souls until they forgot everything and reincarnated.
On the fifth day, we witnessed the second town’s destruction. The fact told me the cultists knew those towns would get destroyed, meaning our column would get destroyed.
Gazing at the pile of dessicated corpses, I reached a decision. I rushed back to the caravan and clapped my hands.
“Everyone! May I have your attention please!” I infused mana into my voice to make it carry further. “Write your full name on your things and bring them over. I’ll collect them into a spatial pouch. We need to hurry, otherwise monsters or worse, humans, might catch us.”
And if I redo again, all of you are dead. I would get Ruby out of the town under the guise of scouting, and we would stay away from Hailstown until the attack was over, but everyone else would die. Worse, the towns that repelled the cultists would all suffer the same fate.
“We need to cover twice as much ground every day to make it to safety in time.”
We would probably be a day or two late, but I hoped the saurians would take their time to level the towns, rest, and hopefully roam around the countryside a bit. That should give us plenty of time to escape.
Arguments broke out immediately. Who would be first? Who stole what from whom? Where was grandma’s prized vase? How could you forget the vase worth two hundred gold coins?
What kind of lower middle class idiot pays two hundred gold coins for a vase? The answer to that one was unfortunately clear - someone with a grandson capable of forgetting the vase in question.
We were stopping for the day, so we had time, but the people terrified of awakened, worse, terrified of Blackfist the bandit, argued over the most trivial matters, the bandit ringleader, the cultists, and the saurians, all forgotten in the face of some granny’s amphora.
“Strange world we live in, eh?” I said to Ruby, who had been sticking with me.
“Master ran away in fear, didn’t he?”
“Well, in part,” I admitted something she had taken a while to figure out.
“And he left me behind, didn’t he?”
“Well, you would’ve slowed him down, even if you might prove a good distraction should any cultists hound him.”
“Is that why you brought this many people with us?” She didn’t mean it. The words escaped her mouth in anger and resignation.
“No,” I said calmly. “You should know I’m not that kind of man.”
“Then why did he abandon me?” She screamed at me.
“I have a theory.” I approached her, and she looked at me in confusion as I held two fingers before her eyes as if holding an invisible pea. “I think he’s got teeny-tiny pea-sized balls.”
She slapped my arm, but not my face, angry, and yet I managed to cheer her up a bit.
“I’m serious. What do we do?”
“What we must,” I said, just as serious. “We reach Thunderbluff together if we can. If not, you’re more important to me than all these strangers. I would like to save at least the children, but they are the weakest and the hardest to save.”
She stared at me with wide eyes, but things were what they were.
“I sincerely hope it doesn’t come to that, though.”
