[The Twining] 35. Exodus (Patreon)

[ I think I will start changing the fiction title in future posts going forward, so 'Severed Divinity' instead of 'The Twining'. ]

They left an hour after dawn.

Allezin was evacuating the town because of the extent of the damage inflicted by the drayavin raid, and because he would be unable to stay within Shevenar to ensure everyone’s safety.

People hadn’t taken well to the news. Many hadn’t realized they’d be leaving Shevenar for an extended period. They had left behind valuables and keepsakes and were confused why Allezin was leaving, rather than staying in his appointed town to salvage and rebuild.

Allezin hadn’t left room for discussion, though. He’d apparently made use of the communication relay in the guard tower to inform the nearest settlement that Shevenar had been attacked and that its survivors needed shelter.

As soon as the announcement ended, they immediately set out, Allezin bounding to the front of the miserable procession.

Isen sympathized with the common people—he didn’t fully understand Allezin’s reasoning, either.

“He’s evacuating them because that is the way it has always been done when deaths and destruction of property reach the level seen in Shevenar,” Lumina Eldrassin explained.

Isen was surprised by the queen’s unsolicited explanation. “But… why?”

“Civilization is a fragile thing,” she said. “Shevenar is relatively isolated. It’s one of the largest settlements in Eldrassin, but that isn’t saying much since over eighty percent of the populace lives in the capital. With over half of Shevenar’s people missing, and much of the city damaged, it is more economical to relocate them to other settlements.”

“But Allezin could keep the city safe while it rebuilds,” Isen reasoned. He knew that in this instance, the warrior had another aim in escorting Lumina to Eldrassin City. But he thought the queen was talking in more general, hypothetical terms.

“A town of four thousand doesn’t warrant the protection of a tier three,” the queen retorted. “He would be appointed elsewhere, if he even stayed at all.”

Isen blinked. He hadn’t thought of it from that angle. He’d just assumed Eldrassin had tons of tier threes to spare.

Even though the people of Shevenar were cultivators, the walk was slow and boring. The caravan merchants weren’t the only ones lugging heavy wagons and luggage without beasts of burden, and while many children rode on the backs of their parents, most of the elderly found the slower pace all they could handle.

They were such a large group that Allezin had asked Isen, Druinala, and Talis to join the Shevenar guards in holding the outer ring, keeping a watch for monsters and drayavin. There was also an unspoken assumption that they would keep peace among the refugees, breaking up any arguments.

Lumina Eldrassin kept close to Druinala because she had no other option, leaving Isen on his own, about fifty feet further down the line. He hoped wearing the looted helmet made him look older than he was.

Tensions were high and everyone was exhausted, so it wasn’t long before he had to step in. Two groups of half elves were screaming in elvish and Isen had no idea why.

His first instinct was to emulate Druinala. The severe huntress radiated an unapproachable aura. Just a few minutes ago, he’d seen her walk over to elves in the midst of an argument. She hadn’t even said anything—staring them down was enough to shut them up.

When he walked up to the arguing parties, rather than shut up, they argued even more fiercely at him, as though trying to convince him to take their respective side.

He exhaled sharply. “What is it?” he said in common.

They all froze for a second—with his helmet on, it was impossible to tell he was human—before regaling him in words he could finally understand.

The crux of the matter soon became clear—they were hungry. One group of elves had taken food with them when they evacuated, and the other group hadn’t, but argued that the food should be shared under the current circumstances.

It all sounded ridiculous to Isen. Tier ones should be fine for over a day without food. Children who weren’t yet cultivators would be an obvious exception, but neither group had any young kids among them.

“We’ll stop to eat when we make camp in a few hours,” he assured them. He didn’t actually know what Allezin planned, but they would have to stop eventually. Nobody here had slept at all the previous night.

“What’s a human doing telling us what we should and shouldn’t do?” one unsavory individual asked, a tall half elf wearing leather armor. He couldn’t be much of a fighter, otherwise Allezin would have invited him to help guard the refugees.

“I’m doing what I was told,” Isen snapped, more than slightly peeved. “Learn from my example.”

That was apparently the wrong thing to say, for the surly half elf charged forward. He didn’t have any weapons—just his fists—but he was still fast. Isen realized that the man must be one of the rare civilian tier twos.

Isen ducked under the swing and pushed the elf’s arm aside, then swept his leg around the man’s foot, putting him off balance. Finally, Isen thrust his palm into the man’s back, sending him sprawling on the ground.

The tier two coughed, clutching at his chest. He turned his face to Isen, revealing a hateful glare, the same kind of expression so often worn by monsters. Isen flinched, then kicked the man down, slamming his face into the earth. He heard stunned gasps but ignored them. The tier two wouldn’t be hurt by something as minor as eating dirt.

Isen kept his new boot pressed to the man’s back and spoke again. “There’s been enough fighting and bloodshed in the past day. If certain individuals insist on causing problems, they won’t be dealing with me, but Allezin, and Allezin isn’t in a good mood. Don’t make it worse.”

Isen didn’t know if that was true, but thought it sounded good. He pushed his foot down again, eliciting a groan from the elven aggressor, then stepped back and returned to the periphery to watch for dangers.

Things were quieter after that.

While they walked, Isen continued to cycle. Cycling was much easier when he could sit down and tune out all distractions. Eventually, the slow, rhythmic pace and the low chattering of the refugees faded into the background. They’d been walking for an hour without seeing anything, and Druinala was little more than a stone’s throw away, so he didn’t feel particularly negligent in focusing on his own advancement. If a threat got close enough to be a problem, he’d notice it.

After a few hours of walking, he finally felt his fourth ring solidify in his hollow core. He grinned and looked to the side, expecting to see the companion who had witnessed every other moment of growth on Isen’s cultivation journey.

But Ros wasn’t there.

Melancholy fell over him and he suddenly realized how inept his treatment of the situation had been earlier. Every single person in their procession had lost someone they knew except for Isen. The sheer number of people dead had left Isen numb to the emotional toll the dead left on the survivors.

People weren’t causing trouble because they were hungry, or because Isen was a human. It was deeper than that.

What’s done is done, Isen thought bitterly.

***

The procession stopped two hours before sundown. Allezin had chosen to make camp in an open field of grass, where any approaching enemies would be sighted from afar. He’d used some technique to shear the grass before the others arrived, making it easier for the civilians to move around.

Talis translated Allezin’s short speech:

“It has been an exceptionally long day for all of us. To help in breaking camp, I tasked the guards with gathering bed linens and food before we left.” He gestured to four uncovered wagons behind him. One was filled with folded textiles, the others with cloth sacks, wood crates, and dark barrels.

It wouldn’t be enough for the thousands of evacuees.

“We’re sending out parties of hunters to gather meat. Dinner should be ready in a few hours. Make yourselves comfortable while you wait.”

Isen followed Druinala, Talis, and Lumina Eldrassin to the water barrels at the center of camp. Though Isen’s tempered body no longer sweated, standing out in the sun while wearing leather armor had still made him thirsty.

Six water barrels weren’t enough to service four thousand people, but the barrels weren’t mundane. Like the tub in the merchant caravan’s wagon, the barrels refilled themselves faster than they could be depleted. The long lines behind each barrel moved quickly as elves refilled water flasks. Those without could use wax-lined paper cups stacked next to the barrels.

One of the Shevenar guards, recognizing Isen’s group, directed them to the front of the line. If the others felt bad about the special treatment, none of them indicated it. As Isen drank deeply from his paper cup—his flask was still in the bundle of books with Ros—a pair of guards approached and brought them to Allezin.

The tier three waited for them on top of a boulder that gave him an excellent vantage point of the surrounding area. It was a quarter mile away from the camp, so they were far from potential eavesdroppers.

As Lumina approached, Allezin bowed his head respectfully.

As before, the queen sent the translation into Isen’s mind. “Thank you for leading them,” Lumina said.

“It is the least I could do. It’ll be five more days of this before we can drop the first group off. We don’t have enough supplies, even if we hunt along the way.”

“They will survive,” the queen said. She glanced at Druinala. “I need you to stay here with Allezin while we talk. Talis and Isen should go and join the hunt for sustenance.”

Not long after, Isen and Talis were alone for the second time that day. Isen had never hunted normal game before, so he followed Talis’s actions with interest as the half elf left the surrounding area of the encampment for the fir forest that abutted the mountains.

Talis didn’t have a dedicated ranged weapon like Druinala’s bow, but he did have a throwing axe hooked to his belt. He settled into a gap between two bushes. Isen hid next to him… and soon became impossibly bored.

It was completely unlike when he hunted monsters. Those were plentiful in the depths—he just had to walk down a tunnel long enough and he’d run into them. But out in the forest, they had to wait for animals to pass through.

“Can’t we go after game animals, rather than waiting in place?” Isen whispered.

“I didn’t choose this spot randomly,” Talis admonished. “You can go off looking on your own if you want. There’s really no need for us both to wait here.”

“Okay.” Isen paused. “Talis, what are your plans?”

He sighed. “At the next town, the surviving merchants are going to look into purchasing a workhorse to pull the wagons, so they don’t exhaust themselves lugging them around. Then… Well, they’re going to keep going with the queen. They refuse to leave Mira.”

“And you’re sticking with them?”

“It’s the right thing to do.”

Isen just stared at him.

The half elf coughed. “Honestly… how could I turn down witnessing the conclusion of this adventure?”

They both laughed softly. Isen then stood up and stalked into the forest on his own. It was time to see if his experience hunting in the dark would serve him on the surface.

Alone, he focused on each of his senses, padding over the loamy soil. Since escaping the depths, he’d grown steadily used to walking quietly in forested areas. He didn’t know much about how humans normally hunted, but it was common sense that making noise or disturbing the environment would spook the local fauna.

After thirty minutes of stalking with nothing to show for it, Isen gave up on his goal of catching a larger game animal, like a deer, and focused on the prolific population of rabbits.

One rabbit wasn’t much food, but he could catch several.

The rabbits were quick as some tier one monsters and their senses were astute. Getting close enough to stab a rabbit with his shortsword was a trial. He wished for a ranged implement like Druinala’s bow.

As darkness descended, he had five rabbits to show for his efforts. The real limit to his hunt was carrying capacity—he had to hold the rabbits in his off hand. He had barely managed to pinch four limp corpses together with his left hand, but five was impossible one-handed. He sheathed his blade and redistributed the bodies, then headed back.

Next time, he’d bring a sack.