The world rang with a hissing echo. 

I blinked. Was it me?

I opened my mouth to say something but no word came out. The world was covered in white soot. A gaunt figure crawled on all fours. Its face was all wrong, like seen through a wet glass. It opened its maw, filled to the brim with needle-like teeth. 

I tried to stand up, fell on my side, stood up again, and then my ears came back working right at that moment: the creature howled and extended its arms towards me. I raised my hand to protect myself, but it was too fast, it was-

“Hnghchk-” it croaked as something very fast and very angry kicked it onto the nearest wall. It exploded in a burst of wet white matter and powder. Kishirra stood in front of me, covered head to toe with soot, staining her beautiful leaf dress. She seemed to be fine. 

“Lugana!” She shouted, helping me stand up. “Are you alright? Please answer!” 

“I’m fine. I-I think. What was that? Chal… Chalkers?” I asked, remembering what she told me about. These were the things she fought against all alone for all this time…

And as my ears and eyes really began to work again I heard the screams and growls and howls coming from all around us. 

“Get the market square empty! I can’t fight them all on my own, call out for archers and polemen,” she instructed. “Their body is weak at the joints and behind the neck. Take your people away from the streets. Can you do that?” Her eyes were now grey as steel. 

I nodded.

I don’t want to lose you.

Please don’t go.

Don’t leave me here.

“Yes.”

“Dawn will come,” she whispered, setting a kiss on my forehead. “Now go.”

“Y-Yes.”

She gave me one last quick hug and disappeared into the chaos, grabbing the leg of a broken table and using it as a makeshift club to attack another of the monsters. The blow was strong enough to burst the wood in a thousand pieces. The Chalker shouted in pain, stumbled forward and away from the couple it had been targeting.

“Away!” Kishirra shouted, helping them stand up. “Get to a safe place!”

Air smelled like fear and powder. 

“T-This way!” I shouted. Our workshop was sturdy. The pavements were covered with that black glass, and the Chalkers wouldn’t be able to dig through it. 

Ah – Kishirra’s weapon. It was back there.

My parents were back there. 

“This way!” I shouted again, grabbing an iron poke that had stumbled away from one of the braziers. 

What was I doing? It felt like a dream. Like a hidden Lugana, who had been asleep up until this time, had sat in the empty space that was my brain, and pulling the strings. 

Damn if I did appreciate the help.

One by one the townspeople turned towards me. I took one step back, then another one – and they started to follow. Maybe because I was the only one who seemed to call onto them above the chaos – or was it something like the dog and sheep?

Whatever. Maybe they also had autopilot selves sitting in their brain. 

I was sure I had read something about it back on Earth. 

“Come here! To the workshop! It will shield you!”

Or so I hoped. Did these people had time to sit down and have a nice chat about the theoretical sturdiness of Kiengiri ruins? 

Doubted it.

But they did seem to have the time to pick up some weapon. At least, most of the men did – pokes or pieces of iron left scattered by the explosion. I led them away from the market square as I caught a few glimpses of Kishirra jumping and kicking around. Each of her blows was powerful enough to send the Chalkers flying.

But more and more were coming, streaming out of the ground like a broken faucet. 

One Chalker grazed her back with its claws and drew a few drops of golden blood. I shuddered.

She had to win.

“Come on! To the workshop!”

Between screams and shouts, and the Chalkers Kishirra couldn’t contain snapping at our heels, the retreat commenced. 

+++

Once again she had failed. 

Failed to protect. 

Failed to foresee this.

Kishirra turned, grasping the first thing she could – it felt hard enough, she did not even stop to check – and smashed the misshapen face of the monster into a pulp with a heavy brick.

“Dawn will come!” She shouted, and turned to kick another into the ribs, sending it flying. She was panting. Pain from where the other one had wounded her side spreading like a venomous bite. 

Another two assaulted her from both sides, she ducked and rolled on the ground. 

I cannot do it alone. Please. Please, Lady. 

She tried to reach out for the one light that shines above – and found only dead silence around her. A spike of fear pierced her heart. 

Lady!

No answer came. 

She was alone. 

“Dawn will come,” she panted, grasping at a still-lit brazier and tossing heated coal all about. The searing metal scalded even her resistant skin, but she cared not. She had faced then Trial of Fire! When the crown of gold placed upon her head had melted and ran down her face like oil, and her skin had been left unmarred by Providence, did she shudder?

Was she afraid then?

She wouldn’t be afraid now.

She wouldn’t.

She pierced the next Chalker with the brazier’s base and used the metal head to bash the skull of another.

Her arms were starting to feel heavy. 

At least Lugana would be safe. 

She had probably led the survivors to the workshop. 

Kishirra did not want to look at the ground. Where the Chalkers streamed out, and where some gathered to feast on the strewn corpses, the ones that were too slow, too dismayed, too old. 

Those that had cared too much, like a mother shielding her child.

Kishirra shrieked, and her fury echoed like a bell on the destroyed marketplace, among the rising fires and the powder that was coming like a blanket to cloud the sky and the silver strewn of the planetary ring. She jumped and crashed like a maul of vengeance on the Chalkers gathered to devour the mother’s body, her bones already licked-clean. 

She turned on herself, crashing the bent remnants of the brazier onto the bodies of the monsters, sending them stumbling. 

“A-way!” She said, and her voice was already breaking. She dashed towards one of the holes where more were clawing their way out, grabbing a piece of terracotta vase as a cleaving shield. She impacted against the first one, swung her arm and picked the head of another straight off its neck. 

The fury of battle danced in her veins and her body knew what to do before she asked it to – training and the inherent might of her race. 

They had been pets, once. Little more than animals, beings cultivated and bred as amusement. 

She had believed she could become something else.

That she could lead the way towards a better future for all of them.
A future, at least.

Share it with someone, perhaps…

Once again, she had been uselessly arrogant. 

“Dawn will… come,” she groaned, heaving.

Something itched. She looked down – an entire Chalker arm stuck out of her stomach. 

How did it end up there?

No idea.

She reached for it and pulled it out. Golden ichor sprayed like a shower of fluttering stars. 

At least Lugana would be safe. 

With her new life. 

She could give her time. 

This was her Test.

Tried and failed.

Kishirra coughed and fell on one knee.

 

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