Eleanor's boots crunched on the parched earth as she led her royal procession beyond the palace gates. The arid heat baked her skin, but she welcomed the discomfort - it helped ground her in this world rather than getting lost in the mind-bending madness overtaking everything around her.
Shane trailed slightly behind her, uncharacteristically quiet. For once he didn't have some cheeky quip or sarcastic aside. Maybe the gravity of their situation was finally sinking in for him too.
They passed the slums on the outskirts of the city first. Ramshackle huts clustered together like scabs against the looming palace walls. Hollow eyes peered out from the shadows as Eleanor's armed guards cleared a path.
A young girl, no more than six or seven, emerged tentatively. Her stringy hair was matted with filth and her protruding ribs showed through the rags she wore. A chunk of stale bread clutched in one tiny fist.
Eleanor reined in her horse, holding up a hand to pause the procession. She regarded the pitiful child, something twisting inside her chest. This...this was the reality her kingdom had deteriorated to while she was chasing after cosmic catastrophes. Her people were suffering and starving while she entertained deranged talk of "interdimensional even streams in techno competitions".
The girl stared back at her impassively. Eleanor open
ed her mouth, not sure what she could possibly say to make any of this right. Before she could speak, a bony arm shot out from a shadowed doorway, grabbing the child roughly.
"Get inside, you stupid brat!" A shrill female voice pierced the tense silence as the arm yanked the girl backwards. She gave a cry, dropping her meager bread to the dust.
Eleanor surged forward in her saddle, fury heating her face. She recognized that greedy tone, those gnarled fingers digging into the girl's flesh. Rhena, the despicable slum lord who skimmed the relief payments meant for the poor into her own pockets. Grinding her teeth, Eleanor spurred her horse into a gallop toward the doorway.
"Let go of her at once, you miserable leech!" Eleanor's shout rang out as her guards scrambled to keep up. A meaty fist shot out, striking the girl hard across the face. Eleanor saw red as her head snapped back, a tiny cry escaping her lips.
With a wordless roar, Eleanor leapt from her horse before it even stopped, sword clearing its sheath in a steely rasp. She kicked in the rickety wooden door, splinters exploding inward.
Rhena cowered in a cramped front room, shoving the crying girl behind her with one hand while grasping for a rusty blade with the other. Her piggy eyes went wide when she recognized the furious queen storming toward her.
"Y-Your Majesty! I was just disciplining the wretch! For her own good, of course!" The sniveling words contradicted the frantic way she brandished her pathetic weapon.
Eleanor didn't break stride, batting the blade aside with her Valyrian steel sword as easily as swatting a fly. She grabbed Rhena by the throat, slamming her against the crumbling wall hard enough to loosen stones from the mortar. Spittle flecked at Eleanor's face as the slum lord struggled feebly.
"I should gut you where you stand for the crimes you've committed against your own people," Eleanor hissed through clenched teeth. "But I need information from your worthless hide first."
She glanced at the girl trembling in the corner, eyes wide with terror and awe. Raising her voice, Eleanor addressed her guards filling the doorway behind her.
"See that this child is fed, clothed, and treated for any injuries. I want a healer attending her immediately. Go!"
The men rushed to obey as Eleanor turned back to Rhena, tightening her crushing grip. The slum lord's bulging eyes streamed tears, her feet kicking feebly off the floor.
"Now," Eleanor's tone was soft but laced with undisguised menace. "You're going to tell me everything you know about the conditions in the slums outside these walls..."
Eleanor's grip tightened around Rhena's throat as she pinned the wretched slum lord to the crumbling wall. Rhena's eyes bulged, face turning a mottled purple as she feebly kicked her feet.
"Talk," Eleanor snarled, her voice dripping with venom. "And if I sense you're lying, you'll wish I had gutted you already."
Rhena's mouth worked soundlessly for a moment. Then a wheezing croak escaped her lips. "Th-the slums...are starving..."
Eleanor eased up slightly, allowing the slightest trickle of air. Rhena gasped it in greedily.
"Food...stopped coming weeks ago. The relief shipments...never arrived." She hacked out a coughing fit, spots of spittle flecking Eleanor's face.
The queen's eyes narrowed dangerously. The food shipments were her top priority - how had this been allowed to happen right under her nose?
Rhena must have seen the thunderous look on Eleanor's face because she quickly sputtered on. "I swear...I tried sending runners...to request more...but they never returned!"
"You lying snake," Eleanor growled, giving her a vicious shake that made Rhena's head snap back. "My own people starving in the streets and you did nothing?"
"I did!" Rhena wheezed frantically. "Bandits...in the wastelands...must have waylaid them!"
A loud crunch from outside made them both start. Eleanor glanced over her shoulder to see Shane emerging from the shadowy alleys, his heavy boots crunching on scattered rubble. His face was grim.
"Your Majesty," he said quietly, jerking his chin back the way he'd come. "You'll want to see this for yourself."
Eleanor gave Rhena one final shake, then flung her away contemptuously. The slum lord collapsed in a heap, gasping and retching. Eleanor stormed out after Shane, fresh guards falling in behind them as she stalked down the narrow throughway between decrepit shanties.
The stench of death and decay hung thick in the air. Gargled cries echoed down the maze of alleyways. Filthy beggars reached out with grasping hands as they passed, desperate eyes pleading from sunken sockets.
Shane led them around a Corner and Eleanor pulled up short, bile rising in her throat. A sprawl of still forms - far too many to count - lay strewn across the hard-packed earth in contorted positions. Men, women, children...their emaciated bodies twisted in the final rictus of hunger-induced suffering.
Eleanor raised a trembling hand to her mouth, blinking back hot tears as she took in the nightmarish scene. An entire section of the slums...all dead. All abandoned to slow starvation mere miles away while she entertained alien dignitaries discussing "cosmic outrages."
Shane placed a gentle hand on her arm, his rough voice barely above a murmur. "It gets worse, I'm afraid. From what I could gather...this fate hasn't just befallen the capital." He gestured grimly outward. "It's happening everywhere. Throughout the entire kingdom."
Eleanor felt her legs weaken as the enormity of it threatened to crush her. How...how had she failed so utterly as a ruler? Let her people meet such a wretched end with not even a warning?
The snap of approaching hoof beats shook her from her daze. A battered courier rode hell-bent through the slums, his wild eyes finally landing on Eleanor. He dragged his lathered horse to a sliding stop, nearly colliding with the assembled guards.
"Your Majesty!" The man flung himself off his saddle in a clatter of gear, dropping to one knee. His words came out in a breathless rush.
"Famine grips the outer territories - the drought has laid waste to every crop from here to the Blue Mountains! Sickness and violence run rampant with no authority to stop them. And now...reports of strange beasts... unnatural ones... stalking the abandoned farmlands..."
The man trailed off, chest heaving. Eleanor stared at him, unable to process his words at first. Strange beasts? On top of everything else?
A faint sound reached her ears then. A bestial snarling...growing louder. Coming from somewhere terribly close by. The guards heard it too, suddenly tense and clutching their weapons.
Eleanor realized it was coming from the direction the rider had arrived. She turned slowly, fingers creeping toward the Valyrian steel sword at her hip.
A massive shadow detached itself from the dim alleyways. Eight feet tall, with a low-slung barrel chest pulled tight over mantled muscle. Thick scales glistened wetly, slitted pupis glaring from deep pits. Curved talons raked furrows from the hard ground as it stalked forward, each step shaking the earth.
The guards froze, terror etching their faces as the hulking beast emerged fully into the light. Its lipless maw stretched wide, fangs as long as daggers dripping ropes of viscous saliva. Eleanor's mind blanked - no natural beast looked like that. What sort of twisted phenomenon was this?