The women, children, and elderly trickled out of hiding. The sick and injured had already been healed by the earlier surge of my divine essence; their bodies glowed faintly green, their auras vibrant and whole.
Some of the women broke into a sprint, throwing themselves at their husbands in tearful relief. The men clutched them back, armour and weapons clattering, hurriedly explaining what they'd seen and heard my commandments, the golden light. The whole square was alive with reverence and awe. And then, as if carried by instinct, the entire crowd turned to my faceless statue and fell prostrate.
My heart thumped hard in my chest as more faith poured into me, raw and warm, filling me like wine. I smiled faintly and lifted a hand. Above the statue, a triangular golden halo spun into being.
Such behaviour needs to be encouraged.
I turned from them and walked toward the shattered gate. Past the walls, the ruined city stretched outward broken streets, crumbled stone, and in the distance, a thin coil of smoke snaked up into the sky.
I followed it.
The closer I got, the heavier the air became. Flies buzzed around swollen corpses, the stench of death choking the air. I had seen scenes like this only through glowing screens in my past life war zones, bombings, and villages burned out of existence. But here, it was real. My throat tightened. My eyes burned.
Children. Women. The elderly.
The worst was a mother, stiff and lifeless, clutching her child so tightly her arms locked even in death. The baby was still alive. Barely.
I knelt and carefully pried the corpse's arms open. The child wheezed faintly, face smeared with soot, lips dry. I gathered them into my arms, conjured water laced with divine essence, and let it run across their forehead. The droplets spread over their little body like threads of light, cleaning grime, and soothing bruises. Their tiny chest rose easier.
Their eyes opened. Cloudy, no doubt blind. I waved my hand across their face. No response. The eyes didn't follow. My chest twisted.
I carried the child back to the settlement gates and laid them gently in front. I tugged at Enoch's mind, ensuring he'd come, then turned and walked again toward the smoke.
When I arrived, the scene before me ignited a very different fire.
Around a great campfire, nearly a hundred men were drinking, laughing, and shouting. A woman clothes torn, lips cracked, eyes dead staggered in a forced dance while they jeered. Their cheers roared louder when one man yanked her by the hair and dragged her toward a tent.
I narrowed my eyes.
Beside the fire, wooden pikes jutted from the dirt. Heads adorned them, heads I recognized. The killers of my five believers.
Anger boiled in me, sharp. I slipped into the camp, veiled by my divine presence. No one noticed as I walked into the tent.
The noise inside made bile rise in my throat. The woman screamed, breaking, while the man bellowed obscenities.
"I said spread them, woman!" he snarled.
"No!" she cried.
He laughed and laughed and laughed.
That was enough.
Chains of divine light erupted from the ground, snapping around his wrists, neck, and ankles. He slammed backwards onto his knees, gasping.
"What who—"
A tendril sealed his mouth shut. His eyes bulged with terror as I revealed myself, still disguised but radiating murderous intent.
I stepped closer, my voice low, trembling with controlled fury.
"Why do you wallow in such filth?"
He made a muffled whimper. I raised a finger, and an earthen spike shot into his thigh. He convulsed. Another pierced his shoulder. Another his gut. I kept going, careful, deliberately missing his vital organs. By the time I stopped, he was more spike than man, his body trembling like a grotesque porcupine. His eyes stared past me, empty.
I turned. The woman was huddled against the tent wall, staring at me as though I were a nightmare.
I knelt before her and extended my hand. Her lips trembled. After a moment, she placed her small, trembling hand in mine.
I helped her up and guided her toward the entrance. She hesitated.
"Thank you for saving me, magi," she whispered hoarsely, "but… they have three magi with them. If you don't want to die, you should run. I can show you another way out."
My brows furrowed. "Don't you want to leave too?"
Her gaze dropped, heavy with despair. "They have my family. And the city's people. If I flee, they'll all be killed."
I touched her cheek gently, forcing her hollow eyes to meet mine. "Fear not. I'll get you and your family out. Everyone else too.."
Her breath caught. She looked at me as if I'd promised her the sun.
I chuckled softly. "Where are your folks?"
"At the edge of the camp," she whispered, eyes focusing with the first flicker of hope I'd seen.
I brushed my hand against her cheek one last time. "Stay inside. Don't move until I return."
I walked out of the tent.
The laughter around the fire died as the men saw me. Confusion rippled through them.
I raised my hand. A sword of jagged earth burst into being. With a flick of my wrist, it hurled forward and impaled a man through the neck. He dropped instantly, choking on his blood.
The camp froze. Silence gripped the whole place, then, a howl of rage. The mob surged toward me with weapons raised.
I smiled grimly.
The first man's head separated cleanly as my conjured pole shifted into a blade mid-swing. I drove the tip into another's chest, twisted, then ripped it free in a spray of red. Another lunged with an axe; I sidestepped, seized his arm, and forced his own weapon through his skull.
They kept coming.
I raised my hand, and the earth erupted beneath three men, jagged spikes skewering them mid-charge. One screamed, still twitching on the stone.
A boulder rose at my call, and I hurled it. It flattened five men in a crunch of bone.
One fool tried to run. I lashed a tendril of shadow and dragged him back, screaming, pulling him into the dirt until nothing but a mangled smear remained.
Another lunged with a spear. I caught the weapon, snapped it in half, and drove the jagged shaft into his eye.
The camp turned into a slaughterhouse. Blood slicked the dirt, pooling around twitching bodies. Screams tore through the night.
When the last fell, his body crumpling awkwardly, silence blanketed the field. I stood among the corpses, drenched in blood, chest heaving.
The scent of iron hung heavy. The survivors were none.
I stepped toward the far edge of the camp, and there it was.
A massive cage, crammed with hundreds of people. Wide, terrified eyes stared at me through the bars.
They made a cage this large just to hold all these people? Resourceful… but for the wrong purpose.
I raised my hand, preparing to unravel the locks when a fireball ripped through the air toward me. I leapt aside, the explosion scorching the ground where I'd stood.
My eyes narrowed as I looked toward the source. Three figures stood at the edge of the camp. Their robes were tattered, but the aura around them was unmistakable.
They must be the magi she spoke of.