intruders from the outside. The gate itself appeared normal enough, but it was when his eyes ventured out into the city beyond the portal that he felt a chill run down his spine.
Clearly it was not long ago that this area was the richest part of the city. There was still a feeling of wealth that pervaded the design and decorations on the buildings, and yet everything had fallen into ruin. Despite the cheerful and bright adornments around windows and doorways, all of them were faded and tattered. The place looked little better than a slum. D'Arden guessed that the slums might, in fact, look nicer than this place.
'It's a horrid place,' Mikel said with a shudder. 'Not many go in and out of here anymore. Even the soldiers avoid it. For some reason, most of the beasts stay inside… none of us are quite sure why. When one does get out, it's always at night – and we always have guards posted outside at night to keep them in.'
D'Arden knew exactly why the fel beasts stayed inside the gate.
There was already plenty to feed on.
'They won't stay in there forever,' D'Arden said solemnly. 'Once the food supply runs out in there, they'll be coming out, searching for sustenance.'
'The food supply?' Mikel said. 'There hasn't been any supplies going into there in months.'
D'Arden simply looked at the boy, his manna-blue eyes searching for the light of understanding. After a moment, it seemed to dawn on Mikel, and he looked horrified. 'You… you can't mean…'
'I'm afraid I do,' the Arbiter said.
'We have to do something! You mean there are still people in there?'
'Most likely,' D'Arden said grimly. 'Although I would imagine that not many are left, if this has been going on for months. It's likely that any we were to rescue now would be long lost from the reaches of sanity.'
Mikel’s complexion had taken on a bit of a green tint, but D'Arden found that he had little sympathy for the boy. They lived in a horrid place, in terrible times, and it confounded him how this young soldier could have clung to his innocence for so long. D'Arden had no choice but to give the parents some credit… to raise a child so naive in a place like this would have taken devoted parenting.
'What did you expect, boy?' D'Arden asked, finding his voice harsher than he'd intended. 'That we would simply ride in there and save the day? That it would be simple, straightforward, that we could enter this living hell and rescue those who might be left alive, and they would be perfectly fine and grateful for our help?' He shook his head. 'Those are tales for children. Things don't happen like that in this world. We'll be lucky if we find anyone beyond this gate who isn't dead or already turned into one of those horrid beasts, but if we do, it's a near certainty that they'll be stark raving mad at best.'
'Then… why do we want to go in there at all?' Mikel said. 'If there's no one left to rescue…'
'We go in there not to rescue, not to save the lives that are already lost,' D'Arden said. 'We proceed beyond this gate only because a concentration of fel beasts so high likely means that this will be either the demon's hiding place, or his source of energy. Either way, we stand to discover valuable clues regarding its whereabouts, and that is the most important task right now.'
Mikel swallowed hard and drew his sword. The steel rung loudly in the still air as the shining blade came forth from its resting place. He held it a bit unsteadily, as though he were well trained but only in drills. D'Arden doubted if he'd even taken a life before in his short time.
'Have you ever used that blade?' the Arbiter asked.
'Only in drills,' the boy answered, confirming his suspicions.
'Are you ready to use it today?'
Only for a moment did Mikel hesitate. 'I am.'
'Good,' D'Arden said. 'Because you're going to need it.'
Together, they took the first step across the threshold into Calessa Heights.
**
The streets were desolate and lonely in the high quarter of the city. Dust blew in the wind, stirring up into small devils and then quickly settling again before picking up once more a few feet away. There were no sounds except for the rustling of their cloth and the sounds of their feet against the cobblestones. The ornately designed buildings were dusty and bedraggled, seeming almost to be relics of a lost age. In a way, D'Arden thought, perhaps they were.
Here and there could be seen a bloodstain – on the ground, perhaps across a doorway, or smeared on the side of a building. They were always long dried, and never fresh. He wondered how it was that there seemed to be no life here at all, and yet there clearly had been only a few months previous. He could almost imagine the children playing in the streets, mothers calling out from the houses for their precious babes and they would come running home just in time for dinner. Instead, the only sounds that seemed to echo in these streets were the cries and screams of the damned, and though he heard nothing, he could swear that the agony of death was palpable everywhere he looked.
'It's so quiet,' Mikel whispered. 'Where is everyone?'
'Either dead,' D'Arden said in a low tone, 'Or perhaps contributing to the body count. We must find where the fel beasts are hiding. This may be difficult for you, boy – I know none of the folk here, but you do. There may be faces that you recognize. Know that they are no longer the people you knew, but simply monsters wearing their image. You must cut them down quickly and decisively, because if you do not, they will feast on your flesh and dig out your eyes with their bare hands.'
'How will I know who is dangerous and who is not?' Mikel said.
'Demons are clever and cunning, but fel beasts are not. They know nothing except the hunger to kill and destroy. If any one of them speaks so much as a word to you that is not a black curse or a cry of hunger, then stay your hand. Otherwise, be sure that you strike first.' D'Arden kept his voice level. He could feel that the strain on the young man was beginning to take its toll on his mind.
'Can't the manna tell you where they're hiding?' Mikel asked.
D'Arden shook his head. 'It's too far gone. The corruption is too great here. I cannot read the manna right now, no more than you could read information by staring directly into the sun. All it would do is cause you agony and burn your eyes so they could no longer see.'
Across the street, D'Arden spotted what looked like a corpse. 'Stay close, boy. Follow me and keep an eye out for anything that might be on the prowl.'
Mikel nodded grimly, and they crossed together. D'Arden was right – it was the corpse of a small girl child, no more than seven winters old when she'd died. The kill was not fresh, but it was recent. No smell of decay marked the flesh, nor had it begun to swell in the light of the sun. The flesh was cold and hard, and the eyes stared sightlessly upward, as though they were unwilling to gaze upon the horrific gash that had torn open her throat and stained the pretty green dress she wore dark with her own blood. It was almost as though someone with a particularly dark sense of humor had sculpted a porcelain doll and left it lying thoughtlessly in the street, so pale was the child's graying flesh.
D'Arden stole a glance at the boy, who was staring studiously away from the body. The Arbiter guessed that Mikel had seen his fair share of death, but he understood how difficult it could be to see such a horrific fate come to a child. He reached out one hand to close the girl's eyes.
The dead girl seemed to come suddenly to life as her teeth closed on his wrist. He gave a sharp cry as the child's sharp incisors drew blood, and as he yanked his hand away, his flesh tore apart, dripping scarlet across the road and adding to the darkness on the child's dress.
'Mikel!' D'Arden shouted.
The steel blade flashed in the sunlight and connected with the child's corpse as it leapt into the air toward the Arbiter's throat. There was no spray of blood as there might have been if the blade had cut living flesh, but instead it simply cut a heavy gash at the corpse's midsection. The body no longer had the support to keep itself upright and collapsed onto the cobblestones, but still it clawed towards them even as they took a large step backwards.
'Stand back, boy,' D'Arden said, holding his injured wrist close to his body. With his other hand, he collected the manna around it – dangerous, with so much corruption around – drawing the power from within him rather than
