Mortance: Summer's Snow

Lily Ⅱ

The village next to the river was not a large one, but it was a burning one. People were screaming and dying and trying to escape, but some dozen or so shapeshifters wouldn't let them. I saw someone start running, then I saw a hulk of a wolf pounce on him, and he was dead. It was a massacre.

Another woman started to run towards the river, throwing a burning cloak behind her. Suddenly there was a vir on her heels, and she shrieked like a desperate and dying woman should shriek. "Kyl!" I shouted. The spider told me that was the vir's name.

An arrow flew from my bow and into the beast's flank as he slowed. Kyl growled and turned on me. I loosed an arrow into his eye, and he fell, dead.

The woman I'd saved looked like she'd someone raised from the dead when I looked back at her. A half-naked elf just saved her from a vir in Northeast Sacreon, the spider pointed out. Of course she's surprised. I shrugged in response.

"Go!" I yelled at the woman. She was frozen. "Run!" She wouldn't move. "Or don't, your choice," I muttered and turned towards the fire. The air was hot, and thick with smoke, but this was what came to do, and so I marched into the flames.

I'd nothing to quench the fire, but I could direct the people to safety, and I could kill those who were killing them. Nobody deserves to die, Rose's voice echoed in my head. I frowned. If I could leave the vir alive, I would, but the villagers came first.

I lifted my head. "RUN TO THE WATERS!" I shouted. "FLEE FROM THE FIRE!" Perhaps that would entice the people to run, or perhaps it would only draw the vir to me. Both of those were things I wanted. I nocked an arrow into the bow that once belonged to Rose and turned a corner in the village. Half the houses were already collapsed. I could only hope their inhabitants had made it out.

Find the temple, the spider told me. Villagers will be hiding there, it's the center of town.

I nodded and kept moving. The air was thick and smoky, and I had to crouch low to breathe. My eyes watered, and I was glad not to be wearing my furs anymore, for the heat was sweltering. The sound of crackling flames and falling homes was loud, but not enough to drown out the screams.

The next corner I turned had life around it. There was a naked man standing threateningly before two children and what must've been their father. The two children cowered away, but the father buried his fear and faced the unshifted vir bravely.

"You must let us free, we've done you no harm," I heard the father say as I approached them.

"A fool believes death only takes those who deserve it," the vir said. "Death takes those who cannot ward it off. I'll enjoy to kill you."

He will not, the spider told me. I loosed an arrow into the vir's thigh. He did not scream, but his head snapped towards me. "You die first," he growled as he began to run towards me. I nocked another arrow calmly as I could as the man became a wolf before my own eyes, and I drew taut the bowstring.

My arrow pierced him through the eye, and the vir fell dead.

"Where's the temple?" I demanded of the villagers.

The father seemed startled, and only recovered when one of the children started to answer me. "Left ahead, then right at the next path," he gestured vaguely. I could hear in his tone that he had no respect for me.

"Good. Escape the flames at the river," I pushed them in the general direction and moved on. The last words came out a mutter. "I don't know that I'd save you a second time."

These vir are of Kanis, the spider told me.

"I barely know what that means," I coughed from the smoke. "Some city...?"