The Wanderer stopped running, turned facing Luna.
“Move!” Kuma yelled, grabbing at the Wanderer’s arm. “What are you waiting for?”
“There is no escape,” the Wanderer replied, his voice calm. He began to circle his hands in violent motion, pulling at the space between his palms. A rift of absolute blackness tore open. The Void.
The air began to howl as the vacuum screamed into existence. It tore the nearby wooden houses from their foundations, the timber splintering as it was sucked into the nothingness. One of the Crescentian horrors drifted too close, her ethereal form stretching like pulled wax as the gravity of the void anchored her. With a final, distorted shriek, she was swallowed whole.
“No!” Valak bellowed, rushing forward. He slammed his shoulder into the Wanderer, breaking his concentration and collapsing the channel. “Stop! We can't kill them!”
The Wanderer hit the ground hard, his breath leaving him in a wheeze. He looked up at Valak. “Then what? We stay still and let ourselves become moon dew?”
Valak replied. “We are dead either way! Find another solution.”
Luna’s scream cut through the chaos. “My child! Give her back!”
She raised her hands to the bloated moon, drawing down a torrent of silver energy. With a violent thrust, she unleashed an invisible wall of force that sent the entire squad tumbling through the air. They crashed into the dirt and stone, the crack of breaking bone echoing through the street.
Kuma groaned, pushing himself up from the wreckage of a cart. His face was streaked with blood. “I have an idea.”
“Save it for the run!” Valak gasped, clutching his side as he struggled to stand. “Move!”
The squad scrambled to their feet, but two soldiers remained on the ground, their legs smashed in the assault. “Wait!” they screamed, reaching out. “Don’t leave us! We can’t move!”
Toran spun around, his face contorting with grief as he moved to help them. The Wanderer’s hand clamped onto his shoulder like a vice.
“Don’t,” the Wanderer hissed. “We can’t save them.”
“We can’t just leave them!” Toran sobbed, but the Wanderer shoved him forward with brutal force.
As they fled, the screams of their comrades rose behind them, short bursts of terror that ended in the wet sound of mercury hitting the floor.
“I don't think we’re in the village anymore,” Kuma panted as they sprinted between shifting walls. “This is a domain. A barrier. She casted it over the village.”
“If it is, how do we break it?” Valak demanded.
“The moon,” Kuma pointed up. “That’s her source. We focus everything on the moon.”
“We can’t hit it while we’re running for our lives,” the Wanderer noted.
“We need a distraction,” Kuma said.
The Wanderer without hesitation. “I’ll do it.”
He drifted off, breaking away from the group. He leapt onto the roof of a surviving house, the old wood squeaking under his weight. Once again, he began to churn the air, manifesting the black swirl of the Void.
“Hey!” he roared at Luna, his voice carrying over the shrieks of the night. “I liked how that one felt as she died. Send me another daughter!”
Luna’s head snapped toward him, her jaw unhinging. “No! Die, wretched Zen! All men are cursed!”
She hurled a wave of kinetic force at the roof. The Wanderer jumped just as the building was reduced to splinters beneath him. He hit the ground running, zigzagging through the alleys and firing light beams back at her to keep her rage focused solely on him.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the rest of the squad gathering. Kuma was conjuring piles of fine sand while Valak poured concentrated fire into it. The heat was immense, turning the silica into crude, shimmering sheets of glass.
“Hurry up!” the Wanderer shouted, sliding under a lunging silver figure. “I can’t keep this up forever!”
Luna heard him. She turned her head, realizing the distraction, and abandoned her pursuit of the Wanderer to rush the squad.
“You aren't going anywhere!” the Wanderer yelled.
He closed the gap, blasting her with rapid-fire beams that slowed her momentum. In a final, desperate gambit, he threw himself through the air, before reaching her back. He exploded his mana in a blinding light-form burst.
Luna shrieked as her flickering form began to destabilize. With a snarl, she threw him off, the force of her shove leveling three nearby houses as the Wanderer skipped across the ground like a stone.
He coughed, blood bubbling at his lips, but he screamed with everything he had left: “Now, Kuma! NOW!”
The soldiers stood their ground, holding the glass sheets, angling them toward the sky. Kuma and Valak stepped behind them, pouring every remaining drop of their mana into the glass. The crude mirrors acted as a lens, focusing the beams into a single thin light of condensed brilliance.
The beam lanced upward, striking the center of the moon.
For a second, there was total silence. Then, the sky cracked. The moon shattered like a dropped porcelain, the silver shards dissolving into mist.
Blinding midday sun slammed back into the world.
The screams of the silver women erupted from every corner of the village as they were caught in the toxic glare. They scrambled like insects, dissolving into shadows or fleeing into the dark interiors of the homes.
Luna hit the dirt, her ethereal power stripped away, her form shrinking back into the frail, trembling shape of an old woman as the truth of the sun returned to Avaris.
The squad pulled the Wanderer to his feet, his weight heavy between them. He coughed, spitting a mixture of dirt and dark blood, his eyes never leaving the crumpled form of Luna. She laid in the expanding shade of a ruined wall, her breathing ragged and wet.
“Let’s get out of here,” Valak rasped, his voice a mixture of exhaustion and disgust.
“This isn't over, Valak!” Luna’s voice followed them, no longer echoing. ““You broke the night, Valak… but the sun rots faster than the dark. Tell your General Moon Dew does not flow for those who betray the pact.”
Valak paused for a moment, his back still turned. “If you refuse to deliver the Moon Dew, we won't be merciful next time. Consider that your final warning.”
They marched out of the village and into the open valley. The silence of the march was broken only by the sound of Toran’s hitching breaths. He was still sobbing, his hands shaking to his side.
Without warning, one of the veteran soldiers spun around and leveled a brutal punch into Toran’s jaw. The man hit the dirt hard.
“You almost killed us all just to get laid!” the soldier roared, standing over him with clenched fists.
“I didn't know!” Toran wailed from the ground, clutching his face. “I must have been charmed... she must have cast something on me!”
Kuma looked down at him, his expression devoid of its usual warmth. “She wanted to feed on you idiot. No one else felt it, Toran. Not the Wanderer, not the Sergeant. It was just you. It was all you.”
Valak stopped and turned around. The sunlight caught the steel of his armor, making him look like a statue of cold judgment. “We lost three good men today,” he said quietly.
He drew his sword. The rasp of the steel was the only sound in the valley.
Toran looked up, tears streaming into the dirt. Valak looked at his sad face. Then with one clean swipe, he took the man’s head.
The Sergeant wiped his blade in Toran’s uniform and sheathed it. “Our comrade Toran was the fourth casualty of the bandit raid,” he said in a flat voice. “Understood?”
No one argued. They followed Valak in a grim, silent line.
By the time the iron-bound gates of the Draemir barracks rose before them, the real moon had reached the sky. It was a pale, natural orb, yet every man in the squad felt a shiver of unease as its light touched their skin. They bypassed the mess hall and headed straight for the infirmary.
The ward was a scene of controlled chaos. Healers moved between cots, stitching flesh and resetting bone with efficiency. Just as a medic began to inspect the Wanderer’s ribs, the heavy doors at the end of the hall swung open.
A group of guards marched in. They were encased in black steel, their long red capes trailing behind them. The leader scanned the room, his eyes locking onto Valak.
“Sergeant Valak,” the guard projected. “Your presence is required by General Skida. Immediately.”
Valak let out a long sigh. He looked at his hands, then at the floor. “That’s what I was afraid of. Fine. Let’s go.”
He started to move, but the guard raised a gauntleted hand, blocking his path. “The order was specific. Your entire squad from today’s mission must report.”
Valak’s brow furrowed. “They follow my orders. If there’s a failure to account for, the blame is mine alone.”
“That is the order, Sergeant,” the man replied. “All of them.”
The Wanderer stood up from the infirmary bench, wincing as his ribs protested. He looked at Valak and gave a short, sharp nod.
“It’s alright, Sergeant,” the Wanderer said, his voice steady. “We weren't going to let you go in there alone anyway.”
As the rest of the hounds stood up to join.