Riven wasn’t sure who found who. He stumbled into Rio just as he was about to leave the area of Bartle’s house. Had Rio always been nearby, minding his own inscrutable business of hate with the demons while Riven got pummelled and a family got torn apart? Had Rio finally come around after finishing his business? Or had Riven walked farther than he had thought? Not at all an impossibility given the painfully delirious state his mind was in, still replaying that flash of lightning that had knocked out Darley, that time the demon had charged off with the girl in her grasp.

That moment Bartle had passed away, begging him to rescue his little daughter.

Either way, Rio didn’t look like he could have been of much help. His Essentier jacket was gone and his shirt was peppered with blood. That languid walk of his now seemed woozy, like he was barely able to keep himself upright. Blood sheathed one side of his head, and he was limping too.

“You don’t look too good,” Rio said.

Riven didn’t feel too good either. His chest was screaming, his shoulders had been reduced to putty, and his legs threatened to give out and collapse any heartbeat now. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”

Rio grinned. Lopsided, eyes half-lidded like he was sleepy with too much drink. “You’d know if I stole the words from your mouth, trust me.”

“Where were you?”

“Fighting. Helping.” He peered at Riven, his sudden humour vanishing like fog in a burning village. “Surviving.”

“Oh? And did everyone you try to help survive?”

“More or less.”

“More or—” Riven took a deep breath, trying to stave off the sudden onslaught of anger. What point was there letting his rage get the better of him? If he really looked into it, none of what had happened was Rio’s fault. No, it was only Riven who was weak. Powerless.

But Rio’s behaviour had been suspicious before too.

“You been killing demons?” Riven asked. “Having fun, I hope.”

Rio sighed, eyes on the broken house. On the broken body between all the rubble. “I’m sorry for what happened. I should have been there but it’s madness out here. Chaos.” He looked down at his blood-soaked shirt. “I’m lucky I even got this far, and don’t be surprised if I drop any moment. I wouldn’t be surprised if you fainted too.”

“No one is fainting. No one is allowed to faint. Not until we’ve got them back.”

Rio pursed his lips but didn’t argue. He walked off. Riven didn’t follow at first. Didn’t Bartle deserve some kind of grave, not just left out in the open with a house that might fall on him any moment? But then, digging a grave was well beyond Riven given his current condition. Rio wasn’t wrong that he might faint at any moment.

Besides, the villagers were waiting to be rescued.

He trudged to his fearless horse then rode after Rio, his legs protesting with every step. His whole body rebelled. It took every moment’s conscious effort not to cave into the pain and simply drop to the ground as Rio had said. So easy. So simple to just… let go. He shook his head hard. There were things yet to be done, and he couldn’t simply give into anything yet.

They found two forlorn Guards standing beside a woman. She was dead, her skull cracked and blood surrounding her hair in a crimson corona. Probably a fall.

None of them waited anymore. A brief conversation, and they were off, looking for everyone else. Riven didn’t recall any plans on where to rendezvous once the operation had succeeded, which said a lot about their chances in a way. Not intentionally fatalistic. They didn’t see any demons either. Couldn’t have been a defeat and a retreat. No, more likely the demons had found enough people to cart off and had now gone to wherever they turned their captives into Deathless. Wherever that stash of Sept was that Wilsall had mentioned.

By some strange shift of fate, they found each other at the destroyed tavern. Viriya was standing there as though she had never left, staring at the burning wreck, green eyes glittering like an expanding star.

She spotted them. “You two look like shit.”

“Look who’s talking,” Rio said.

Riven nodded in agreement. Viriya had seemed bad when Riven had seen her when he had first returned to Rattles with the Frontier Guards in tow, but she had worsened. One sleeve of her jacket had been ripped to form a makeshift bandage around the arm it had hid, soaked through in blood. There was an ugly bruise at her chin, one knee was exposed with a nasty burn as though some had tried to brand her, and her slightly swollen face a had a bluish tint to it. Scions, had she been nearly choked to death?

“Where are the others?” Riven asked. There was no sign of most of the Guards anywhere, though some were trundling in and plopping to the ground. A few had brought in wounded, both soldiers and civilians of the village, and were tending to them. But an oppressive atmosphere still clung to the parched, smoke-stained air. Defeat hung heavy as the hanged.

“Coming soon,” Viriya answered. “I’ve sent a messenger.”

She was right. Their conversation halted, but not for long. Wilsall rode in with the remainder of his company, much reduced now after the debacle.

“We all seem to be doing quite alright,” he said, his eyes performing a quick assessment of Riven and the other Essentiers, before travelling over the Guards who hadn’t come with him. He himself wasn’t much the worse for wear. Apart from a few scorch marks on his uniform and what looked like a black eye, he was unharmed. “I’m afraid I can’t say the same for the village.”

Viriya was staring at the wreck again. “Clearly.”

Wilsall took a deep breath and sighed. “The Battle of Rattles was a defeat—”

Rio sniggered loudly, then coughed up blood. He looked up, slightly apologetic. “Sorry, the rhyme is funny.”

“There’s nothing funny about any of this.” The viciousness in Riven’s voice took him by surprise as much as it did everyone else. But he didn’t hide it. Maybe anger wasn’t something to give into, but sometimes, it needed to leak out. Sometimes, rage needed to leave a mark. “We might have lost, but they aren’t dead. Not yet. Just kidnapped. All we need to do is find and rescue them.”

“I agree,” Wilsall said. “All my soldiers reported the same thing. The demons have taken most of the people captive. This certainly wasn’t a massacre, but I cannot fathom why…”

Riven, of course, could. But now wasn’t the time. “We need to get to the Frontier immediately. Before they start turning the villagers into more demons.”

“More demons?” someone whispered, and it carried.

The mutters went up everywhere at that. Tiny fluctuations of fear, pitter-patters of the many hearts that came out in their voices. It washed over Riven, pulling at the strings of his own anxiety. Any of them could be forced into a demonic form, forced to lose everything that they held dear in this life, forced to become a pawn in some enormous game that no one had any real clue about.

“Enough.” The Captain’s voice was quiet as the whisper, but like the whisper that had set the muttering off, it carried. The soldiers went silent. He looked at Riven, Viriya, and Rio in turn. “I suggest you wait till morning. Rest, recuperate, and then we can all carry out the operation together.”

Riven shook his head. “We don’t have time to wait. Every second we waste is another that they’re closing to becoming more Fiends.”

“He’s right,” Rio said. “I doubt the demons will wait till morning.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Viriya’s voice was quiet but firm.

Riven’s wasn’t. “Doesn’t matter? All those lives don’t matter?”

“Not if you can’t do a damn thing about them.”

They stared at each other. Hurt and swollen though her face was, it was still hard as ever, and her eyes had turned to emeralds lit by a raging fire. Maybe she had gone through something like Riven had. Maybe Viriya had tasted personal defeat as well.

Wilsall took their ensuing silence as assent. “We can rest at the garrison for the night.”

“What about the survivors?” Viriya asked.

“The other Guards are round them up. They’ll have to wait at the garrison too.”

The Captain nodded, then headed off, ordering the rest of his troops to get ready to leave. The soldiers pulled themselves up, getting the wounded onto mounts as they prepared to get out the burning ruin that Rattles had been reduced to. Rio glanced at Riven and Viriya before going around to get a horse.

“What were you doing back there, Dorvhaes?” Viriya asked.

Rio looked back. The fire made the blood on his face look glistening and raw, like exposed flesh. “Are you suspecting me of something?”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I was killing demons, all right. I found one, and I killed it. No hesitation. Every single one I found died by my hands. That’s it.”

“And yet I see no survivors with you. For all your killing demons, how many people did you save?”

“And did you really save anyone either?” He waved his hands around at the burning ruins of the village. Look at all this. How can anyone survive this?”

Riven didn’t look around. He didn’t have to. All this massacre and madness, all the death and destruction, they revolved in his head unprompted and uncalled for. Fathers dead, mothers stolen, children lost. Rio was right. The living were even worse off than the dead, for this calamity could never leave any sort of survivors.

When they were off, Viriya pulled up to him. “What happened back there?”

The galloping of their horses didn’t mute the sounds so Riven couldn’t pretend that he didn’t hear. He still saw it all—Bartle lying dead, Darley being kidnapped right in front of his eyes. Even if he had wanted to talk, the words refused to form. “You think I want to talk about it?”

“Why is that?”

“If I asked you, would you tell me?”

There was a pause then, and he felt her eyes on him. But when he turned to look at her, when he turned to see her reveal what had happened with her, their eyes met. In the darkness, far from the ruins of the village, her eyes were utterly dark.

Viriya pulled her reins and her horse veered away from Riven’s.

When they reached the garrison—a wide stone building with flat terraces made in a sandstone style Riven had never seen before, with smaller side buildings attached to the walls—Riven hardly paid attention to what went on. He found himself in the quarters he’d been assigned, where he fell onto his pallet and promptly passed out.

#

The meeting next morning was as brief as possible. No sharing of secrets, no exchanging truths, no displaying the vast amount of pointless knowledge Riven had gathered from Mhell. Certainly no parlaying of personal matters. No, they did a good job of sticking to what was most important and leaving it at that, in Riven’s opinion. The simple plan to rescue the villagers would have to do.

Rio greeted Riven on horseback with his customary dazzling smile. Last night’s traces had been eradicated. No sign of blood, no hint of any wounds, and no trace of any despondence either. All his little trinkets were shiny as ever. “Ready to kill some demons today?”

Riven mounted his horse, checking the saddlebags. He had forgotten about the crystal last night and the morning had been spent panicking while trying not to show he was panicking about anything. The few times he’d been asked pointed questions, he had passed it off as battle jitters. Only natural, after all. Thankfully, the crystal was still there when he had checked it earlier, just as it was now. “I’m ready to get those villagers back.”

Rio snorted. “Of course.”

“What’s so funny?”

“You thinking you can save any of them without needing to kill demons.”

“I never said anything of the sort.”

“Right, that’s why I said thinking instead of saying.”

Riven sighed. “I don’t think I have to worry about killing them while you’re there.”

Wilsall mounted up and went forward, silencing their little argument. As he passed, the rest of the Frontier Guards accompanying them got ready to leave as well, getting on horseback and forming up into a cavalcade. He was leaving a token force to defend the villagers, several of whom had volunteered for the mission and were turned down.

Riven took his spot to the right, well away from Rio. But it was still too close to Viriya. They hadn’t talked at all since last night, not even during the brief debriefing before the start of their expedition. Riven didn’t want the awkward silence to last. Especially now that the night’s sleep had cleared some of the fog in his head, enough for him to see again what was important. Enough to know that spitefully hiding anything wasn’t going to get any of them anywhere.

“Bartle died last night,” he said. “His daughter, Darley, was kidnapped.”

Viriya didn’t say anything until the Guards set off. Once the thunder of the hooves drummed in the air, she pulled her horse closer to Riven’s. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“How do you know?”

She wouldn’t look at him, but she didn’t have to. The twist on her face was evident in the half that he saw of it. “I checked on the survivors in the garrison after we arrived. Saw no sign of him or the girl. I assume you found her and left her in his house?”

“I did.” Riven hesitated, but only a for a second. “And I also found Mhell.”

“Mhell…” She looked at him then, eyes sharp in the bright morning light. “I feel like there’s a lot you haven’t said.”

True, he hadn’t said much. Or anything at all for that matter. The debriefing had been all about rescuing the captured villagers, and there had been no time to discuss the whys of anything. So Riven took a deep breath and told her the whole story.

Viriya tutted. “You did have a lot to say.” She shook her head. “This crack, you think it might be where they took the captives?”

“I don’t really know. I can’t tell. There didn’t seem to be anything terribly important about it.”

“You said a literal god was talking out of it, Riven.”

“See, the demons didn’t really care about it. Like you.” They had the same muted reaction to it as Viriya had as though it was of no consequence. For all he knew, he was the only one who had heard that god speak. But a god talking to him of all people? Not only that, but granting him his strange Essence? It seemed so fantastical. So wild.

“I am internally freaking out, don’t worry,” Viriya said.

Riven laughed. “One of us is, at least. But what happened with you last night?”

His heart thudded loud for some reason, though he had no idea why. It wasn’t like he had asked her something too personal. But there was still the sense that he was interacting with a fawn. One wrong move, and it would bolt, leaving him to rethink a new strategy, one that would have him restarting from square one. It nearly made him laugh again. A fawn was the last thing Viriya would ever be.

“I found Olrice.” Viriya’s voice grew tight, her body rigid as ice on the horse’s back. “Well, his corpse to be exact. Did you know the man had a family? I… didn’t either.”

She left it at that. That was enough. The “had” told the whole story. For just a second, Riven’s left arm twitched as though it wanted to reach out and… then what? Give her some friendly pats on the back? Or Scions forbid, hold her hand? Riven’s mouth twisted at the thought.

No, grief was sometimes best dealt alone. He was there if she needed. That would have to do.

They didn’t get a chance to converse for much longer. The first phase of their operation was complete, and now it was time to separate. Their plan involved spreading out over the ground in a wide web of riders on horseback, while still keeping each other in sight. As the ground was devoid of any trees, visibility was only blocked by the rises and hills making the land curve up and down. But none of those was sheer or too steep. They could spread out pretty far while still having a least one person in sight ahead, behind, to the left, and to the right as well.

Wilsall’s shrill whistle started the second phase. Riven nodded at Viriya, a little promise that they would carry on the conversation when this was over. A little promise that they would survive. Survive, and succeed.

Riven trotted forward, eyes fixed on the area to his right but occasionally keeping track of the soldiers behind, ahead, and to the left of his position. He was going to turn into a chameleon any moment now if he kept switching his gaze so quickly. His position in the netlike formation was at the far right-hand end. As an Essentier, he had command of the entire flank, under the Captain of course. Another funny thing. They actually thought he was some authority on fighting demons.

Another shrill whistle sounded. A shout came up, confirming Riven’s first thought.

“A demon!”

The shout carried, passing through each soldier of the network of spread out Guards, each of whom shouted it along as loud as they could. Riven jerked his head to his left, and turned his horse. Wilsall had given out strict orders to keep the net intact, but it was dissolving, soldiers and their horses charging into the fray past the hill on the left. No plan survived the first contact with the enemy after all.

Riven galloped to the top of the hill, then pulled the reins. His horse reared as it came to a stop, but all he saw was the skirmish at the bottom of the hill. Demons. Too many of them. A horde had charged in from the far left and the Frontier Guards had engaged in a fierce battle.

Flashes of gold erupted all over the battlefield, but Riven spied a glowing green star carving its way through the mess. Purple light illuminated another, more contested corner of the battle. Viriya and Rio.

Taking in a deep breath, Riven charged down the slope on his fearless. His gun was in his hand, Sept knife in the other. Even at this distance, he could see the soldiers moving into battle formation, spreading into two thick wings on either side to funnel the demon’s press into the centre where Viriya led a head-on counterattack. Riven headed straight for that centre. There had been no time to figure out he could properly use his Essence without blocking his own side, but he could help some other way.

The sounds of fighting and dying got louder and louder and he came closer, turning into deafening noise as he charged into the press. He snapped the reins to make the horse go faster, though it was already flying over the ground. But he needed more speed. The lines were breaking apart, the press of demons too strong for the soldiers of the Frontier Guard.

Riven stopped paying attention where his horse stepped. Too fast anyway, though still not fast enough. He growled in frustration as the lines broke and the battle dissolved into chaos. Fiends mauled men and women to the ground, while several soldiers broke through the demonic press and charged too far ahead. More demons waited for them, screaming in their faces with their silky voices, then attacked them. Madness. Pandemonium. Riven stopped paying attention to the overall picture when he came close.

Soldiers parted when he came. He had to pull his horse’s reins back when collision with the front line became imminent. The rearing horse stole all attention. Great. Just what Riven needed. He was now the target of every demon not otherwise occupied.

Way too many of them, if he was being honest.

A red demon laughed with insanity dripping from his voice. Then he jumped at Riven. His horse reared again, and Riven let himself be thrown from its back, colliding hard with the ground. Pain bloomed in all the injuries that still hadn’t healed properly from last night.

He couldn’t stay down, though his hammering heart clamoured for him to do so. Riven was on his feet, firing his gun at the demon before it could get off his fallen horse. His aim was true. The bullet lodged in the demon’s eye, and it staggered back, the other eye glaring hatred. No matter. Riven fired again. The next shot took the Fiend’s other eye.

Blinded, the demon staggered back. He screamed, swiping at nothing and everything as though just hitting was enough. Other demons tried avoiding him, but he caught them with his flailing arms. Several fell to his blind attacks, and the panic in the demon’s press made Riven laugh.

No time to gloat. Another demon screamed at him and charged at his back. His shield was there, the pressure coming without thought to rebuff the demon with the golden aura. Riven focused. Safe. He was safe. He knew it, believed it.

The shield disappeared and Riven fired. The shot took the Fiend in the throat. It clutched its neck, choking as it fell to the ground, struggling on the ground.

Riven stared around. He couldn’t feel his heart, was only distantly aware of his skin cold as a corpse’s, of the beads of sweat on his back and under his arms. Scions, how did they fight in his stifling jacket? It was a little surprising he hadn’t been buried under a pile of demons already, but the Frontier Guards were giving a good account of themselves, refusing to give a single inch without giving their all. Most of the demons were far too engaged with a Guard to pay Riven any mind.

Which gave him ample time to rush forward towards Viriya, who was being swamped by Fiends. That’s what happened when she took out more demons then everyone else combined. Riven had to vault over the larger demon corpses still leaking dying Sept. There were more. A lot more bodies, littering the ground everywhere. All broken and torn with innumerable holes. Chasm, Viriya was worse than any demon.

She was still in no good shape. Her jacket was torn, a corner of her mouth was bleeding. So was her injured arm. The bandages had soaked through with blood, and she was holding it gingerly despite being surrounded by half a dozen demons.

Riven shouted, but he was still too far off, having to push and swerve and fight through the press of demons and Guards. One of the Fiends charged at Viriya, and she deftly dodged them, brushing her green star against their flank. Another came soon after. She seemed to go under the assault, sending a spike of fear straight through Riven’s heart, but the demon blasted off, crashing to the demon who had charged earlier. The later demon’s chest was glowing green too. Viriya quickly fired her gun, and the golden-green bullet tore through the two demons until they were broken chunks of Sept like the rest of the corpses.

More Fiends screamed and rushed at her, but Riven’s attention was pulled to his own survival. A demon snapped a Guard’s neck and attacked, their whole body aflame. Riven ducked out of its way as it charged past. He got off a shot into its flank, but it didn’t faze the Fiend. Damn it. This one was like the one that had killed Bartle.

The one that had kidnapped Darley.

Riven growled, then turned and ran. The Fiend screamed behind him, shouting obscenities lost in the general roar of the battle. Riven charged into Viriya’s fray, shooting his gun at an unwary demon. The bullet took the Fiend in the head, and they crumpled to their knees on the ground.

Viriya jumped back, jerking her head to the side. “Behind you!”

“I know!”

She scowled, then shot the demon with her golden-green bullet. It staggered, the fires swirling all around. Then it flew off, crashing into the two dead demons torn apart moments ago, the ground still glowing green. They stuck there, struggling against the ground, flames rising up but going nowhere.

Riven reached her, but the onrushing demons cut off any opportunities to converse. Then they halted. A dozen Guards came charging in, and the demons turn to face them. But they weren’t reinforcements. The fear on their faces discounted that possibility.

Swallowing the growing lump in his throat, Riven looked past them. He nearly staggered back. More demons were coming. A whole army of them, a massive contingent sweeping in from the left-hand horizon that would surely wipe them all out.

“Fuck!” Viriya charged forward.

Riven called out to her to return, but she dashed into the mess of distracted demons just ahead too fast. Her gun and star flashed, felling demons left and right, but there were too many.

Cursing, Riven charged into the scuffle. He blew one demon’s face off. Another bounced off his shield, which disappeared immediately as he blew out its legs. The Fiend crumpled to the ground, lightning flickering over its form. Riven jumped back and pushed himself closer to the press.

Too many. There were too many. Viriya crushed another demon’s with a golden-green blast from her gun, but another sneaked up and swiped at her exposed side. She was thrown to the ground, gun clattering away.

Riven shot at the charging demon but it had no effect. He ran forward and placed himself between the Fiend and Viriya.

“Get the Chasm out of my way!” she shouted from behind.

Riven didn’t move. Just as the demon reached him, the pressure flashed out and his golden shield threw it back. “Now!”

He dived away, the shield evaporating to nothing. Viriya’s shot took the Fiend in the chest. She fired again, at the ground this time, a green glow sprouting like a voracious weed. The Fiend bent over and fell, chest sticking to the ground like it was a demonic lodestone.

By the time Riven was back on his feet, Viriya had already approached the demon. She was clutching the wound at her side, blood seeping down her trouser legs. “I need time.”

They both looked up. The demons had beaten some of the Guards and routed the rest. Time was one thing they didn’t have, especially considering the demonic reinforcements coming in faster and faster. The Fiends turned to face the two of them, and Riven hunched. Forget getting time, would he even survive this? Unlikely, given Viriya’s condition.

At their feet, the trapped down was struggling against the green glow that enveloped them whole now. What in the Chasm did Viriya need time for?

Purple lines bust in from their right. They wrapped over a shrieking demon and started pulling them apart piece by piece. More lines had pulled out chunks of the earth and stitched the clumps into a club, then swiping it into the gaggle of Fiends, throwing them into disarray.

“You got your time, Rorink,” Rio said. He was again wrapped by his violet lines, armoured in dead Sept, bits of earth and blood and more Riven didn’t want to identify. “Go!”

Viriya spared him a grateful glance before bending down to the demon. “Hey. I’m going to ask once and you’re going to answer immediately. Where are the captured villagers?”

“Screw off to the Chasm,” the demon spat, voice smooth as buttered ice.

Viriya jabbed two fingers of her glowing hand into the demons eyes, right up to the knuckles. Riven looked away before he could barf up what little he’d had for breakfast, but the demon’s piercing shriek drove nails right into his brain.

“Answer me,” Viriya repeated. “Where are the villagers?”

“At the Coral Fort.” The demon’s answer was a shriek too, nearly lost in his screams of agony. “To the north of here.”

Viriya pulled out her finger, and the Fiend’s screaming dissolved to soft whimpers. “Rio! Let’s go!”

Her shout made Riven turn to stare as it did Rio. She retreated to the back of the fray.

As Rio and the soldiers from their right-hand side disengaged from combat and began to retreat, Riven hesitated. He stared at the demon whimpering at his feet. So many more questions he had to ask—everything about how they transformed people into Deathless, if they knew about the god in the Pit, and so on—but time. Time was never a friend. If only he could drag the demon with him.

“Come on, Riven,” Rio shouted in his face. He flashed past too fast for Riven to register what he looked like.

Sighing, Riven ran with the others to the back of the battlefield.