Herding ourselves into the mass of panic-stricken fools surging toward the city gates. A human tide, not so much organized as it was dragged along by the current of pure, unadulterated terror. Rational? Not even close. Civilized? Don't make me laugh. It was the rawest, ugliest thing I'd ever seen—people stripped of everything but the desperate urge to live for just one more miserable moment. And here I was, swept up with the rest of them.
The city was tearing apart at the seams. Behind us, flames clawed at the sky, casting that hellish red glow reserved for true cataclysms. The empire's mages were putting on a show—great fireballs raining from the heavens, smashing into buildings with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. No precision, no elegance. Just raw destruction. It almost had a certain twisted artistry to it. Nothing reminds you of how small you are quite like watching your world turned to ash in a matter of minutes.
I used to believe magic was something to revere. The tales, the songs—how the great mages of old shifted the tides of war with a flick of their wrists. What a load of horseshit. Magic wasn't refined. It wasn't graceful. It was carnage, plain and simple—just another weapon, blunt as a butcher's cleaver, leaving a trail of blood and rubble in its wake.
People screamed, cried out for help that would never come. The air was thick with smoke and the stench of burning flesh. I caught glimpses of people I'd known, or thought I'd known, their faces twisted in fear or pain, or worse, that eerie calm that comes when all hope has abandoned you. It was strange, almost surreal, to see the baker who'd once slipped me an extra loaf now dragging his broken leg behind him, or the old beggar woman who'd cursed at me every morning, now as silent as the grave. Amazing how quickly life can reduce everything to nothing.
We surged through narrow streets, cattle pushing toward the gates ahead. The crowd grew denser, the press of bodies tighter, until we moved as one great beast—desperation clawing at the walls of its own cage. The city gates loomed like a bottleneck of despair, once symbols of pride and invincibility, now the only thing trapping us in this nightmare.
We squeezed through the narrowing space, the pressure of the crowd suffocating, relentless. I could feel my mother's grip tighten on me as she pushed forward, her breath coming in ragged gasps. The weak and the weary fell first, their cries silenced beneath the thundering feet of those who trampled over them without a second thought. It was survival at its most brutal, the very essence of human desperation laid bare.
Too many were crushed in the stampede, their bodies broken and forgotten. The air was thick with blood and fear, and the sound—the endless scream of panic, the pounding of feet—was deafening.
The sky darkened further as enemy mages cleaved wide swaths of destruction. Explosions rocked the ground, sending shockwaves through the crowd, but there was no turning back. Not now. Not when the only other option was to stay and burn with the city.
"Nearly out!" she shouted, her voice drowned by the chaos, but I understood. I clung to her, my muscles straining as if I could draw strength from her. Oh, how weak I was then. A Mundane, with no class. Without her, I'd have died ten times over.
The strong survived. They always do. I learned early I wasn't among them, clutching my mother's arm for dear life. Her strength was my shield, her resolve guiding me through the nightmare around us. Each step was a battle, each breath a fight against the crushing tide pushing us forward.
Crossing the gates brought no relief—just a different flavor of despair. Soldiers barked orders, struggling to impose control on the storm of people. The crowd was a living thing, wild, unstoppable. Nothing would stand in its way.
"Llyris, don't look back," my mother urged, her voice tight with exhaustion. "Just keep moving."
She needn't have worried. There was nothing worth looking back at. The city was dead, our home reduced to ashes. We were only running toward the next disaster, whatever shape it took. My legs burned, my lungs screamed, but I kept moving. What else could I do? Stop? Lie down and wait for death to scoop me up? Tempting, but no.
The riverbed stretched ahead, its dry, cracked earth offering the promise of some kind of cover. My mother and I darted toward it, aiming for the rock walls, hoping the crevices would shield us from what was coming.
Then I heard it. A sound that sliced through the chaos like a knife through flesh—the low, distant rumble of cavalry. It started small, like the first roll of thunder before a storm, but it didn't stay small. The rumble grew into a roar, louder, closer, until it swallowed every other noise. It was a tsunami of sound, drowning out the screams, the explosions, everything. Death was coming to collect its due.
"Cavalry!" someone shouted.
The crowd splintered instantly, like a herd of cattle spooked by a wolf. There was no plan, no direction—just blind, animal instinct. We ran. And if you weren't fast enough? God help you.
But panic is a funny thing. It doesn't make you smarter. It just makes you faster. So we ran—like idiots.
My mother yanked me toward the riverbed. I followed, as always. Always following. Always the weak one. She pressed us both against the cold stone, her breaths coming in ragged, desperate gasps.
"Maybe... maybe we can hide here," she whispered, her words shaky. But her eyes told the truth. She didn't believe it either.
The illusion of safety shattered with a single scream. From the cliffs above, they descended like vultures, soldiers with arrows trained on us like we were nothing more than targets. No escape. No fight left to give.
"No!" someone screamed, and the crowd erupted in panic once more. People scrambled, tripping over each other in their desperation to escape the inevitable. But there was nowhere to go. The soldiers had us surrounded.
I remember the fire in my mother's eye going out as she pulled me close, her arm wrapping around me in a last, futile attempt to shield me from what was coming. But even she knew it was over.
A harsh voice cut through the din, sharp and commanding. "Anyone who resists will be cut down where they stand!"
My mother's grip on me tightened. I could feel her hand trembling, could sense the fear she was struggling to suppress. "Stay calm" she whispered, though there was storm of anxiety raising inside of me.
One of the soldiers—a tall man with a face like carved granite—leaped down from the cliff, landing with a dull thud in the dust below. His armor clinked as he straightened, and he strode toward us with the casual menace of a predator that knows its prey has nowhere left to run.
"You there," he barked, pointing his sword at a group huddled nearby. "Get on your knees. Hands behind your heads. Now!"
They obeyed, dropping to the ground with shaky, terrified movements. Another soldier, younger, with a vicious grin plastered on his face, pushed through the crowd, yanking a man to his feet by his hair. The man cried out in pain, but the soldier only sneered.
"Didn't I tell you to kneel, you rat?" The young soldier slammed the man down to his knees, then turned his gaze to us, his eyes narrowing as they fell on my mother and me. "You two! Kneel!"
My mother hesitated for a heartbeat, but then she dropped to her knees, pulling me down with her. I could hear her heart pounding in her chest, could feel the tension in her body as she held me close.
The tall soldier's cold eyes swept over us, assessing, calculating. "No trouble from you, then?" he asked, his tone mocking. "Smart. The last thing you want is trouble with me."
I dared a glance at him, and his gaze met mine. For a moment, I saw something flicker in his expression—recognition, perhaps, or something more primal. Whatever it was, it passed quickly, and he moved on to the next cluster of captives.
Beside us, a woman began to sob, her shoulders shaking as she clutched a small, dirt-streaked child to her chest. "Please, don't hurt us," she whimpered, her voice cracking. "We have nothing, just let us go."
The young soldier—the one with the grin that made my skin crawl—sauntered over to her, his sword resting casually on his shoulder. "Nothing? Is that what you think?" His voice dripped with cruel amusement as he reached down and grabbed the child by the arm, pulling him away from the woman. "We'll see about that."
"No! Please, not my son!" The woman tried to lunge after him, but another soldier stepped in, shoving her back with the butt of his spear. She fell to the ground, sobbing uncontrollably as her child was dragged away, his cries mingling with the other sounds of despair that filled the night.
"Take them all," the tall soldier ordered, his voice flat, emotionless. "We'll sort them out later. Those.." He didn't need to finish the sentence. The implication hung in the air like a death sentence.
"Get up," the young soldier snapped, shoving a man to his feet. "Move, you lot!"
The soldiers herded us together like livestock, swords at our backs as they stripped us of whatever meager possessions we had left. They were efficient, practiced. I suppose they'd done this before—many times. There wasn't any gloating, no speeches or taunts. Just a cold, methodical process of separating the valuable from the worthless.
My mother and I were pushed along with the others, her arm still wrapped protectively around me. As we were herded toward the center of the camp, I caught a glimpse of the other prisoners—some battered and bleeding, others wide-eyed and silent, as if they'd already resigned themselves to whatever fate awaited us.
The tall soldier walked beside us, his gaze sweeping over the prisoners with a detached sort of interest. "You're a lucky bunch," he said, almost conversationally. "Could've been worse. Could've been dead in that city, burned to a crisp. But you're here now, alive. So keep moving."
"Alive for what?" someone muttered under their breath, but the soldier either didn't hear or didn't care.
As we reached the edge of the camp, my mother leaned down, whispering in my ear. "No matter what happens, Llyris, remember this: we survive. Do you understand? We survive."
I nodded, though I wasn't sure what surviving meant anymore. We were captured, stripped of everything except the clothes on our backs. But her words, her fierce determination, gave me something to hold onto in the darkness that surrounded us.