Stormhaze

Chapter 26: Brodd's book

Edras looked out of the cockpit with wide and terrified eyes. Night had fallen with Stamatios reflecting a magenta glow, and the Thoron tower—the old cybernetics facility—their own hideout... was smoking like a burnt-out pyre. It seemed Dardûm had finally found it. Found Lorin. The gunship circled around the pyramidal tower, seeing its entire body consumed in flames and black smoke. Edras could already feel his body boil from within.

Thirty Rykes had joined the rescue of Zenobia and Gillien from the palace. Edras quickly realized these thirty could well be the last survivors of Lorin's company. The gunship landed on the shore beside the smoking building, throwing up dust and sand in a violent cloud. Edras, Gillien, Zenobia, and Xianwei each clad themselves in stormsuits and put on their masks. It wasn't perfect, but it would shield them from the brunt of heat and poisonous particles.

Edras charged outside, securing his helmet just as the doors opened to a blazing heat of dust and ash. A man sat halfway in the water, covered in sot—having just escaped the fires. "Where's Lorin?" Edras asked. The man's face said it all.

"How many are dead?" Gillien asked, coming up from behind.

"I don't know," the man coughed, "the Etherions stormed the building and killed everyone there, just as Xianwei's gunship took off. They also took something... moved something big out from the basement. Then they torched the place."

Edras wasted no time. Before Gillien could object, he had already stormed inside the building. The atrium was a complete bloodbath. Dozens of Rykic soldiers lay dead on the floor, seeming utterly overwhelmed by the attacking Etherions. Lorin's soldiers had managed to kill a fair few in their defense, and Edras counted roughly an equal number of corpses from both sides of the fight... but their defiance had been to no avail in the end.

Twenty Rykes, and eighteen Etherions. Blood poured like a river. A stream of red flowed down the stairs to the basement. Treading carefully between the bodies, he made his way across the room towards it.

"Edras!" Gillien shouted, following his son through the atrium.

There was barely anything left to burn in the building, only smoke, ash, and blood. There were no lights, but Gillien had been quick in retrieving a flashlight from the gunship before entering. With a thin, pale beam of light they walked down into the basement. The black sludge was knee deep now, having let in even more rainwater, ash, and blood since last.

Edras' helmet began to fog. He could barely see anything but the pale beam of light. The air reeked of death. He treaded lightly. But as his foot touched the sludge, it didn't meet the hard concrete like he had expected. Rather, it was squishy and soft like a sponge... or a body. That's why the water is knee deep. The basement was littered with bodies.

"Lorin brought one hundred Rykes with her," Edras said coldly, "if there was twenty upstairs... unless some managed to escape, there may be fifty bodies down here."

Shivers ran down his spine. Was Lorin one of them? He didn't even want to know or begin looking. They had all been shot open and submerged in the muck. He did not wish to see their faces. This whole godforsaken place was best left alone, left to decay and be forgotten—its technology destroyed forever.

"They took it," Gillien said, his voice darker than Edras had ever heard him. "They took the crescent."

The crescent? Edras had almost forgotten about it. Then he remembered what was missing. A large crescent-shaped structure had been in the center of the room, with robotic arms jotting out from its rear. The robotic arms stuck out like wings, folded inwards to the middle of it. It had looked like some alien throne—its host seeking to ascend above the rest by cheating death and decay itself—replacing flesh with metal.