Author's Notes:
Each episode in the "An Inhuman Love" series will be a stand-alone novelette, meant to be read and enjoyed in a single sitting. Expect a monster/human pairing in each episode, with all the juicy details included.
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Jonathan stared down at the chaos, the death, the flames and shadows, and felt the tears trickle down his cheeks and into his beard.
"I... I don't understand," Samantha said, reigning in her steed beside him. She pulled off her helmet as well, and hooked the silver-colored platemail underneath her arm. "How did they... how did they get over the wall?"
"What in Janavere's name..." Mark rode up beside them, and further, until his horse had to stop itself from walking off the edge of the cliff. "How?"
The city was in flames.
Jonathan and his twelve knights sat upon their mounts, and each reined in at the edge of the cliff, high and above the Valley of the Blessed Sisters. The grand waterfall of Madam Tovere poured over the Great Mountain of Constaner, and washed into the valley. Lush, green land, filled with forests and meadows. Fifty miles in diameter, the valley was surrounded by other mountains, each jagged and steep, and the valley roads between them were blocked by massive walls, built of stone and metal. The Wall Knights of Tanderous guarded those walls, the entrance to the South, and the entrance to the East. The Valley was their home, and it was beautiful.
It burned.
Jonathan pulled off his helmet, and set it against his hip, held in place with one hand. The platemail was heavy, and the slits it had for eye slots did not let him absorb the atrocity before him well. With the helmet at his side in his gauntlet, he was free to stare upon the death of his home, as the sun began to crest over the horizon behind them. The shadow of the cliff they stood upon sank away, hiding from the sun that rose behind them, and with each slither of land the sun lit, the death and mayhem was exposed.
The land still hidden in shadow was plenty visible though, as the flames roared and lit it in its own sinister light. The Humming Bird fields and Iron Wood, were nothing but cinders, and the Selile River ran red, reflecting the flame, or running with blood. Or both.
The City of Madam Vandar sat in the center. A hundred thousand people, the only city on the Death's Watch frontier, buildings of wood and metal, of brick and glass. The work of a hundred years of sweat, blood, and tears. Beautiful churches and cathedrals, sprawling stables, decorated black smiths with glorious forges, schools for children, a meeting hall where the council gathered, and cozy, comfortable homes surrounded it all, hundreds upon hundreds of them. All in flames.
"How?" Vivienne forced her mount over to his, and hit the back of her armored hand against his armor. "You said the city would be safe!"
"It... it was safe." Jonathan pointed to the dips in the mountains to the South, their goal, and a dip in the mountains to the East. Each had high rising black smoke, the lifting sun cutting their souls apart as the fading shadows revealed the remains of their world. "The... Beizites... they—"
"They got past the wall!" Eric pushed Vivienne's horse aside with his own, and screamed out to the valley far beneath them. "Maybe some of them are alive? The Beizites don't always find everyone. We can—"
Jonathan snapped his hand up. Everyone went silent, and sat straighter upon their mounts, each with their helmet under their arm; half attention.
"The Beizites have taken the South Wall Gate, and the East Wall Gate. They have... taken the Valley. They—"
"There could still be survivors!" Again, Eric gestured to the valley, voice raised to a near yell.
Jonathan turned to look at the man, and glared. Eric shut up, and lowered his head, grinding his teeth. No words needed to be said. The man was being loud and was risking their lives, on an empty hope.
"The Beizites have overrun the valley," Jonathan said, voice solid and low. "We know what the Beizites do, and that they leave no survivors. They will track any living human down within hours through smell alone. All we can do is pray that our soldiers and city guard managed to kill as many as we did last night, Janavere willing." He wanted to scream, to cry, to let his voice waver, but his knights needed him. Cry later, be a beacon of steel and resolution now.
The Knights of Tanderous needed little leadership on the front line, little leadership in battle, little leadership when they had to face the oncoming tide of claws and fangs. They were all battle hardened, had each killed hundreds of Beizites, and had all faced death dozens of times. They were all God-fearing knights of the White Order, served under the Tanderous banner, and vowed to protect the Valley of the Blessed Sisters, each of them without hesitation.
To come home, and find it all for naught? If there was a single evil the world could throw at his knights that could destroy them, it was this. They needed him now.
"Sir," Samantha said, "do... do you think the other squadrons...?"
He shook his head. "If the city is overrun, then... then my fellow captains, and their squadrons, are gone." His fellow Knights of Tanderous would have died to the last man and woman, guarding those gates. And his squadron knew that. Like him, they were hoping against hope, that someone might have survived, that fellow knights Millineue or Gummer or Peterson survived at the wall. He knew they didn't. They hoped that Samantha's husband on the farm survived, or that Eric's sister at the Darrer's Smithy survived. They didn't.
Jonathan's parents didn't survive, either.
He clenched his jaw until he felt the bone threaten to break. Jonathan was no child, almost forty years of age, and with enough scars to tell more than a few tales. His house was next to his parents', at his request. After trips beyond the Valley wall, he'd come home, and sit with them outside, where they had tables for them and their neighbors; close friends. They'd drink wine, have pig or fowl, with lettuce and other leaves from old Nancy Tamadan, who would, of course, insist on joining them.
Jonathan shook his head, and put his helmet back on. Inside its metal encasement, no flesh was exposed except for the slits for eyes. He was protected, nothing could harm him, and he could hide his tears better.
"We ride."
"Sir?" Eric and Samantha said.
"We can't stay here. The Beizites will find us eventually." Beizites could never catch knights on horses, but they were relentless. It'd only be a matter of time before their claws swarmed over the paths winding along the great Wall. The monsters had to have come from the East Wall, overwhelmed it, attacked the city, and sent other forces to the South Wall, where Jonathan and his team were headed after their excursion. It was many miles through the winding paths to the reach the South Wall though, the only entrance available to them that led into the Valley, that didn't involve a thousand-foot drop.
To get to the Blessed Valley, his team would have to fight through the horde, a deadly battle liable to get many of his squadron killed. And even if they succeeded, all that waited for them was the horde's main force, and the remains of their beloved city. They had no choice but to turn around.
He turned Puteesha back the way they came, and began at a faster pace, something that would gain him distance at a reasonable speed without tiring the horse. They needed to put distance between themselves and the city, and a lot of it.
