Olimpia

The road laid out before me was marked by two ruts in the earth. The sides were overgrown with tall grass scraping at anyone who dared to draw near to the road's edge. Down the center of the road was a smaller, almost wilted line of grass, struggling to survive in the slightly less compact dirt.

I knew the landscape would remain the same even if I closed my eyes for an hour and continued walking because it hadn't changed in the last two days. Well, that's not entirely true.

The Twins had become shallow and was over a mile wide at the moment. It made sense, as we were currently in the center of the fords. And if we continued traveling down it for a week or so, we would start to see the banks of the river rise and become narrower as the ground became rockier.

Not to mention that we were now at the intersection of the banks of the Twins and what would typically be a decent-sized river, but compared to the Twins, the Little Brook looked more like a stream.

Turning towards the Broken Peaks, I looked at the backs of the rest of my traveling companions. There was Kanieta, her cousin, the bearkin, and Franklin.

What surprised me was that Kanieta was coming with us. I experienced her skills firsthand when we traveled through the forest, so I didn't doubt them.

But Kanieta was the leader of her faction, chieftain of her clan, and seemed to be one of the central figures of the new coalition leading the Kin. It would seem like she had better things to do than wander around the wilderness.

Finding and killing Derg was important.

If nothing else, the days of travel had taught him that.

There weren't many farms lining the road leading into the Cradle, but off to the side, usually closer to the river, you would see a cluster of buildings.

That is, you would have seen a cluster of buildings if you walked this road in the past.

Now they were nothing but charred stumps surrounded by burned fields. They hadn't even encountered any bands of Kin, a fact that Kanieta was worried about.

Because there were supposed to be warbands, they were sent out to pacify and control the area.

She hadn't outright said it, but with how she looked at every scorched field we came across, I could guess why she sent out the warbands to subdue the Cradle.

They needed the food.

You can only carry so much while fleeing your home, and given the numbers they were dealing with, a single mistake could spell the deaths of thousands by starvation.

True, the Kin seemed to be an all-around more hardy lot than humans or elves, but everything needed to eat.

With every day that passed where we encountered only destruction and isolation, I was getting more on edge. It wasn't natural, and I could see that everyone else was feeling the same.

It was like death was in the air.

I knew a warband was coming up behind us, but with how they now had to defend their new city after losing a significant number of their warriors, it would take some time to reorganize.

Scouting is what I do, so this was nothing new. I just never thought it would be scouting for the beastkin. Or that I would be covering this much distance.

With my absurd level of mental energy recovery, I could keep up a pace that I doubted even the strongest casters in Olimpia could match. So long as they were running on land alone. With their raw power, they could fly and cover more distance in minutes than I could in a day. But forty miles a day was pretty great as far as I was concerned. And it was great practice.

"Why isn't there a legion out here protecting the Crafters." Asked Franklin as I caught up to him again. To everyone's surprise, I was not the one we had to wait for.

The title of slowest in the group belonged to Franklin and the Bear.

“It’s… complicated," I said with a sigh.

"That you would abandon your own people to be sacrificed because you are afraid of death?" Franklin asked with a definite edge to his voice.

"No, more like they aren't technically part of the Republic."

"Care to explain that?" Kanieta asked, looking over at him with interest.

"I guess it's a way to pass the time," I said indifferently. "The Cradle was first colonized by the 18th Legion about five hundred years ago. It was unlucky timing because as soon as they were established, a beastwave fell upon the Northern Line. They couldn't make it through the hoards of beastkin for support, but they didn't need to. During the years they spent up here, there had a small but steady supply of beastkin attacking their forts. Apparently, the Cradle has few passages through the Broken Peaks for the beastkin to travel through."

"I can confirm that," Kanieta said, "As I scouted for a path south, I did notice how hard it was to get into the eastern side of this mountain range. If there was a path, it would have made everything so much easier."

"Not as much as you would think," I commented, getting a surprised look from her. "After the wave, the legion was practically untouched, but it was the only one as it was a particularly harsh wave. Right after the beastwave, the Imperials saw weakness and assaulted Pantia. The Republic had to pull the 18th to support the city. After everything settled down a decade later, many of the surviving legionaries of the 18th decided they were tired of taking orders and wanted to govern themselves like the Isles. So they moved back to the old forts they built years ago with their families. Over the years, more legionaries have moved up there."

"Your Republic never tried to regain control?" Kanieta asked.

"They did, several times. But the Cradlers ended up building fortresses. Every old village is a massive single complex below and above ground surrounded by farms and watch towers. When they grew too large, the inhabitance split and formed another fortress. With the constant stream of beastkin, they found it was the best way to live."

"What? I haven't had any reports of such structures."

"Really?" I asked in surprise, "I thought you scouted us for years and even raided us on occasion."

"Only from the Northern Forest to the Great Lake." Answered Kanieta, "Some tribes went into the Weeping Mountains to the far east past the Twins, but it is a long trip hardly worth the journey. But like I said before, the passages through the Cradle’s section of mountains are treacherous at best, even for us. Any path along the mountain’s sides are narrow, and the valleys below them were filled with the Lost."

"Hmm," I said in thought, "I've been meaning to ask, what are the Lost? No one has quite explained it to me."

She looked slightly conflicted and hesitated to answer, but Franklin had no such qualms. "They are the ones who act solely on base instinct, what you call beastkin. In many ways, that statement isn't wrong, but it only conveys a fraction of our history." Franklin sounded oddly serious, and his eyes were glazed over as if he wasn't looking at our surroundings.

Then he blinked, and the look of contemplation was gone, replaced by his usual easy-going optimism. "Every Kin is capable of rational thought, but a Lost's mana is uncontrolled. There is no distinction between the Losts mana and the worlds, and their minds are overwhelmed by feeling it all at once. On rare occasions, one of the Lost will bear or develop the ability to separate their mind from the world and gain the ability to have more than a single thought in a moment. We have developed a spell that will force the change on the Lost, though they are still driven by their instincts more than those Kin born to a mother who passes on her control of mana."

"Is that what the Enlightenment Spell is?" I asked.

"Yep."

“Huh…" I grunted, "That's interesting."

"So, why isn't the Cradle part of your Republic?" Kanieta asked, cutting into my train of thought and putting me back onto the original topic. "And the fortresses?"

"Ahh? Oh. Well, the Cradlers didn't want to be ruled, so they moved north to nearly the base of the Broken Peaks. In the early days, there was a shadow war where if anyone tried to build a bridge, it would be destroyed. Because everyone living there was in a harsh environment with constant struggle, they would basically be fighting a legion cohort to take every fort. Some small attempts were made, but they were all failures. By the time the Republic had the resources to make the push of multiple legions to take them, everyone had realized it wasn't worth it."

Taking a sip of water as I looked around, I continued, "The Northern Line had become all but forgotten and a relic of the past. Beastwaves were multiple decades apart, and it was clear they were decreasing in intensity. The war with the Imperium was intensifying, and no one wanted to spend the resources to take a territory that didn't want to be held. An area that was taxed when they sold their grains and fruit at a market and needed no protection. Over the years, those who wanted to escape the Republic came up here, creating their own farms farther south of the fortresses of the first settlers, but whenever anything threatened the Cradle, they would all flee to the strongholds to the north. Most of their youth also join the legion for a term of service."

Giving a shrug of indifference, I said, "At this point, most legions have a portion of their numbers as Cradlers who won't stand for their home to be conquered, especially when some are even strong enough to be comparable to City Lords. And the Republic doesn't want to exert the effort to push into the mountains full of beastkin, so there was no reason to try. And historically, few beastkins continue east after arriving at the fords past the Triad, so those of the Cradle don't care about trying to get the Republic to protect them. But now…" I trailed off, unsure of what to say.

"But with us changing everything, that might not be the case any longer." Stated Kanieta.

I nodded at her comment, and we fell into silence. It wasn't quite a companionable silence, but it was close, and no one felt the need to break it as we traveled.

A few hours later, I caught sight of our destination. At first, all there was to see was a dip in the plains. Like someone walked up with a bowl the size of a mountain and scooped out a portion of the plains.

My steps slowed as I approached the edge of the basin. I knew, without any doubt in my mind, what lay below, and I didn't want to see it. So long as I could prevent myself from seeing the sight, I could convince myself I might be wrong.

At the same time, I couldn't turn away. I was like a bolder, creeping to a stop at the bottom of a hill, my steps never faltering until I arrived at my destination. But it didn't mean I had to see, as my eyes remained unfocused. Minutes passed, and I finally confronted what was before me.

I was numb as I stood at the edge of the basin, looking down.

Ash and blood were all I saw.

I didn't know these people, and I wasn't even supposed to protect them, but I wouldn't stand here and do nothing while the blood golems dotting the valley and charred buildings desecrated their memory.