Six weeks later and Lloyd and I were back on the job. Sure, Valen, who had gotten much better once he started drinking again, was upset that we had let Mr. Crane get killed, but when we told him by what, he was just slightly skeptical. A testament from the townspeople ensured that it wasn’t our fault. Abraham Van Brunt and Katrina Van Tassel, who later got married, backed us up, sending us letters in our defense as personal eyewitnesses. Abraham had turned out alright. He would write to us every now and then, giving us updates on how the town was faring. Lloyd and I would write back, telling him how the clan leaders were taking it. Some of the more superstitious ones were the first of the believers, but also the ones to worry the most.
Something dark was on the horizon. That was something I had head them say every now and then. It worried them. But Lloyd and I would continue with our training. When it came to facing Degamux we applied what we had learned from our once-immortal adversary to our lessons. A predator eliminates his prey, often by surprise. Degamux wanted us to learn this part of the totem. He found it very important, because we were eventually going to be shipped out to the war. We needed to be ready to take the life of an enemy. While Lloyd and I may have not exactly been ready to commit that action, we believed we were much more ready than before we were going into the assignment.
It wasn’t until we were assigned to an investigation of a town that had been occupied by General Warwick, did the realization of war truly come to me. The three of us rode to Crossroads, my hometown and saw smoke rising up from the horizon. Surely, the people couldn’t have been still rioting all this time. Could they? I was intent on finding out, so I rode on. What I found would have ruined me.
I saw the town reduced to noting more than rubble. Mass graves were prepared alongside the road into town. It was worse than the condition I had last seen it in. I was mortified by the carnage that took place here. But I kept riding, moving further into town, until Valen stopped me.
“Stop, runt,” Valen ordered. “You can’t go any further.”
“But they did this, Valen!” I said in anger. I felt a desire of revenge growing inside of me. I wanted General Warwick to pay for what he did, even if I was just one ranger. “We have to see if there’s anyone alive.”
“They are all dead,” the veteran ranger said remorsefully. “Turn back now.”
“Valen, what does that symbol mean?” Lloyd asked, pointing to a marking made over the remains of a door.
“I said, turn back,” Valen said. But I wanted to know. Unfortunately, I was going to get what I wanted. “Its... a warning.”
“For what?” I asked, desperate to find out.
“The Siren’s Plague,” Valen said grimly. “The same on that wiped out the Ontiman Empire. It has returned to Nagesh.”
Death had returned.
