The God Reborn

Chapter 14

"Where are the 22nd Guards?" Fabian demanded of the frightened intermediary he'd accosted on the wide avenue. Fabian had climbed the first staircase out of the dungeon he'd come across and used the keys he'd taken from the fallen Household Guard to unlock the stairway's iron gate.

When he'd emerged, he'd seen that smoke was rising from the Divine Residence, and explosions shook the ground every few moments. There were flying objects crossing the sky faster than his eyes could track them, and plumes of fire marked their passage.

Fabian had quickly oriented himself and sprinted the distance towards the 22nd Guards' courtyard. But when he arrived, he found the facility empty. He searched madly, screaming names and kicking in doors. But even the newborns and the infirm were gone.

Now he was back in the streets. There were acolytes running in all directions. Some were other Shields, running in formation to man the walls. Others were Hammers carrying buckets of water to douse the many fires that burned in the city. Even with his urgent need to find his family, Fabian was reluctant to interfere with these acolytes' important tasks.

But then he saw the intermediary, running towards the Divine Residence. This was a man with no contribution to make to Sanctuary's defense, a man Fabian could waylay without guilt. He wrapped his arms around the holy man, pushed him roughly against the nearest wall, and demanded to know where the 22nd was.

The intermediary looked to be about Fabian's age. His white and green robes were dusted with a layer of ash and he was bleeding from a cut above his hairline. He looked at the smoke coming from the Divine Residence and then back at Fabian. His mouth working but no words coming out.

"The 22nd Guards!" Fabian repeated more loudly, shaking the man as he yelled. "Where are they?"

"They marched yesterday morning," the man stammered. "To the western mountains."

Fabian let the man pull away.

He heard a massive crashing sound from the direction of Sanctuary's Bay Gate and turned to see it collapsing in a cloud of smoke and dust. His duty as a Shield was to head to the breach and defend the city. He took a step.

But then a wave of nausea and vertigo overcome him and he fell to his knees. He panted and heaved and wept and realized he would not defend Sanctuary. Why serve the city's masters if they had rewarded his years of loyal service by falsely imprisoning him in their dungeon?

They had charged him with cowardice. Cowardice!

But the charge was true. He had been a coward for all these years. He had secretly held doubts, yet he had been too afraid to voice them. Instead, he had tried to rise within the city's corrupt system, had sacrificed his soldiers' lives to earn an engraving on a dusty metal plaque. He had perversely reasoned that his warriors' willingness to follow his orders proved that those orders were just.

He wiped his tears away. All those years of service had been wasted. The city's venal rulers hadn't deserved his loyalty. And with its gates breached, the city was already doomed. But he hadn't lost what was most important to him. The 22nd had left the city long before this attack. With luck, the company had not confronted the incoming attackers. There was a chance his family had escaped unharmed.

He could find them! And lead them away from Sanctuary, and found a new settlement far away from the madness of gods and their priests.

He glanced down at himself. He was clad in a thin tunic and light sandals. He had no weapons, no food or water, no warm clothes. Even if he slipped past Sanctuary's walls and through the pickets of the attacking force, he would not last long in the wilds outside the city.