Broken Lands

“How do you know the tunnel’s safe to use?” Dav leaned forward to look at the damaged door. “I think we can be sure nothing got in from this side, but what about the other end?”

“There were people at the other end,” Sophia reminded Dav. “That means it was clear when they went through. They didn’t say anything about danger near the road, only at the village.”

“There should be a guard at the end of the passage to draw the monsters away,” the woman carrying the baby added. “Probably Lucas; he’s a Hunter, but he’s always been happy to help out the Town Guard and his Abilities are more suited to the woods. If he couldn’t deal with the beavers himself, he’d lead them to the Road where the guards can handle them. If we can get in, the tunnel will be safe.”

“As long as nothing enters from this side.”

Sophia’s eyes flashed to Revina. She clearly wasn’t trying to be reassuring with that statement.

Revina stared intently at the melted metal, then called out “Shahi-ka!” with a wave of her wand. A distortion in the air followed from the tip of her want and struck the door at the point where the metal joined the wood. It took Revina several Slices to break the melted metal away enough to “unlock” the door. “I will guard the door, the way your hunter does on the other side. I am more suited for that; I can hide and run but I do not strike as hard as you two do.”

Sophia wasn’t sure that splitting up was the best choice, but she realistically couldn’t see a better one that let them both rescue people from the shelters and kept the escape route safe. Sure, it was possible that nothing would come out here - but it was obvious that a beaver had been at the escape route long enough to damage the outer door. It probably followed escaping townsfolk, but that didn’t mean there were no other beavers in the area. Neither Sophia nor Dav had a spell to slow things down as they ran, but Revina did. Dav or Sophia would probably have to kill whatever they encountered. “Fine, but be sure you run if you need to. And don’t be afraid to yell for help; we’ll be coming this way anyway.”

“Leave a trail if you can if you have to run,” Dav added. “We’ll come for you.”

“Go on,” Revina told them. “There’s no need for you to stay, go get more people out.”

Sophia paused, then turned to the talkative woman. “Where are the other shelters? We found yours by following the outer wall; is that where they all are?”

The woman shook her head. “There are also some in the middle of the town. They’re in the larger buildings, usually, because that’s where people are more likely to be when an attack happens.” She glanced back at the town and sighed. “I don’t think I can give you directions. Not to all of them. Just look for the big buildings; safe places that aren’t in the wall usually have a door like this one.”

Sophia nodded, even though she didn’t think they’d actually have much luck without directions. The town wasn’t laid out on a grid system or any obvious plan; the only semblance of a plan she could see was that there was space between the buildings. They didn’t even face a consistent direction. The odds that she’d be able to find any specific building, especially with half of them on fire, was insane. “I assume the bigger ones, the ones with safe spots, will be closer to the center of town?”

That was her first guess, because it didn’t make sense to build too many hideyholes next to each other. It might be worth looking if they got everyone on the fringe out first. It depended on what things looked like; Sophia wasn’t about to head into an inferno to try to get people out. They’d be safer where they were holed up than trying to head through active fire, at least if the air held out. With the flame beavers, it probably would; the risk was more from the buildings than the beavers at that point.

“Mostly,” the woman agreed. “I think the Mayor’s residence has a saferoom they use as a cellar. It’s on the far side of town, not far from the wall. You can’t miss it; it’s twice the size of everything around it.”

That actually made some sense, at least if the Mayor’s residence had staff that spent a lot of time there. Sophia nodded. “We’ll look if we can.”

The woman nodded. “If you find Glenn, tell him I got out with Kess.” She turned and disappeared into the tunnel before Sophia could ask for her name or what Glenn looked like.

Sophia shrugged internally. If she happened to hear someone named Glenn ask about a baby named Kess, she’d know what to say. Otherwise, she’d just have to tell everyone to look for each other at the Road.

Before Sophia and Dav reached the town, they could hear the sounds of fighting. They hadn’t been nearly as obvious when they left through the gate with the citizens, but as they returned it was clear both that Arryn had found something to fight and that Sophia didn’t want to be anywhere near that fight. The quieter noises included the crackle and pop of a large fire; the louder ones were more like explosions, gunshots, or even lightning. A roar that had to be from Peaches echoed through the air, easily audible over everything except the thunder.

Dav set off down the wall to the left. Sophia frowned, since that was sort of the direction the fighting was in, but he was probably right; they should try to get people out of the way. They reached the saferoom before they were actually within easy sight of the fighting, though it sounded closer than Sophia liked.

It was a bit more difficult to get the cowering townspeople to open the door, but once they heard there were Called there to escort them to the tunnel and it was open and guarded, they were willing to not just walk but run, carrying the few children that happened to be in the group. The one good thing about the nearby fight was that it seemed to have drawn all the beavers away; Dav and Sophia didn’t have to fight anything on the way out.

When Sophia and Dav returned to the town once again, one of the buildings between the gate and that saferoom looked demolished; something or possibly someone had gone right through it. They didn’t even have to consult with each other before they headed the other way, towards the first saferoom.

The third saferoom door was badly scorched. It still held, but it was clear that seasoned wood wasn’t the best possible material to use against monsters that exuded fire. The terrified people inside the saferoom were easily convinced that they needed to follow Dav and Sophia to safety, but they moved far slower than the second group. Sophia was able to gather that a beaver larger than the ones they’d fought had attacked the door until something distracted it. The people hidden inside the room had no idea what. Sophia suspected the answer was Peaches.

Over the next hour and a bit, the sounds of fighting grew and ebbed repeatedly. It was clear that Arryn and Peaches were cleaning beavers out of the town, but there must have been a lot of beavers. Sophia and Dav only had to fight three more times, once while they were escorting a group that had more children than parents and twice while they were searching for more saferooms and fell across beavers.

None of the fights were as large as the first, but by the time Sophia was pretty certain they’d cleaned out all of the saferooms in the part of the wall they could actually access, along with the Mayor’s cellar (which contained the Mayor’s wife and several servants), both she and Dav were exhausted. At the same time, they’d managed to escort over a hundred people to the tunnel, possibly several hundred; Sophia had completely lost count.

However many it was, it was a lot. Most of them would probably have been safe inside their hiding places, but not all of them. More than once, Sophia and Dav passed a cleared-out bunker and found that the door was damaged or destroyed.

They only found one saferoom that the beavers got inside before they did. Sophia carefully did not look closely. Even so, she was not going to forget the charcoal they found inside any time soon.

Sophia leaned against the wall, exhausted. She’d always expected that she’d run out of mana first in an extended fight, but her mana was nearly full. It was everything else that she was nearly out of, starting with any idea of where to go next. “Do you think we can find the other saferooms?”

Dav shook his head. “In this mess? Do you remember that one in the wall that we walked by four times before we saw it?”

Sophia sighed, then nodded. Some debris from the fighting had somehow ended up partially in front of the door, which hid it from casual view and forced them to walk a long way around that particular entrance. It was probably the safest of the bunkers they’d cleaned out because the beavers would also have been unlikely to notice it. That didn’t protect it from the fighting, however, so they got people out and headed to the Road by the tunnel anyway. “Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. This town is probably only easy to navigate for locals.”

Dav snorted. “Have you seen how much trouble they’re having? The fires have made the place impossible for them too.”

Sophia nodded glumly. “I don’t want to think about how many people we can’t find.” They were the most endangered, too. The closest to the fighting and the fires. There simply wasn’t a good way to find them.

Another crack of thunder made both Dav and Sophia glance towards the center of town. Dav then glanced up at the clouds that had gathered over the last few hours; they’d threatened rain since before they got to the town but somehow it never seemed to come. “You don’t have a spell to make the clouds rain, do you?”

Sophia shook her head. “I’m not good with water magic. I can move it around, but I don’t think I can make a storm system rain. You’d need a water mage for that. Or maybe wind. The best I can do with water is move it around. If there was a big enough water source - wait. The stream.”

“The stream? The one next to the second gate?” Dav gave Sophia a funny look. “How does it help? Didn’t you just say you didn’t have a spell for rain?”

“I don’t,” Sophia said with a toothy grin. “I do, however, know a ritual for telekinesis. It’s short range and horribly inaccurate so it’s generally not very useful, but for moving water from a stream to above a city? It’s perfect. I just need an energy source.” It wasn’t as bad as it could be, since she could manage telekinesis with her Arcane affinity with magic itself, but water was heavy and she was going to have to move a lot of it. “I really hope the stream’s running quickly. If it is, I can probably make this work. If it’s slow, I can’t.”