The Withered Land: Dragons and Marauders

Dragons and Marauders, Part Eleven

A small crowd of people, most of whom had traveled from neighboring district communities called 'adjacencies', had gathered at the edges of the rubble-strewn battlezone and they watched with solemn attentiveness. They pointed and muttered darkly, eyes flitting back and forth between the arrival of police and emergency responders and then casting hard glances towards the strangers in armored uniforms who stood near the center of the devastated area. They did not like what they were seeing... The aftermath of more violence, more destructiveness. They looked upon yet more madness visiting tragedy on their city.

They were not happy.

A very aggravated Kolag Y'phree had arrived at the location of the battle with a team of forensic engineers and scientists in tow. He'd stared in silent disbelief at the damage done to the already ravaged buildings in the area as he listened to both Adam Wilder and D'Spayr's reports on what had transpired. Eleven bystanders had been injured, five of them seriously, but luckily no one had been killed. Y'phree was caught seriously off-guard by the assault, unprepared for questions from his own urban crisis security forces about terrorist activity from the revolutionary underground. He gathered his management officials and then verbally berated the quintet of district police constables assigned street-level patrol of the decaying industrial area and he unceremoniously demoted the municipal precinct captain of the tiny police security force. The flustered and discomposed Warlord then slowly and carefully walked the forensic grid laid out on-scene with his scientists and engineers while he digested the information he'd been given.

"These weren't mercenaries nor were they some nomadic, unaffiliated band of outlaws. This was an incursion," he said aloud after many minutes had passed. "An incursion. A probe of our defenses. A precursor to an invasion. This was a test of our security preparedness and our protective capabilities. Someone somewhere is looking at The City and they are seriously thinking of taking it for their own."

"Perhaps," D'Spayr said, doubt coloring his tone. He stepped away from his companions and walked nearer The City's de facto post-Wound ruler. Meanwhile, Lumynn had, amid the confusion following the arrival of Y'phree's urban response forces, taken the opportunity to hastily spirit away Vandessha'Jai and Geh'wan Shryke to the dingy and sunless interior of a nearby ramshackle streetside café. He and Nygeia had agreed that it was probably not a good idea to introduce the Peravendathian privateers to the Warlord or his security forces.

The Warlord peered at him askance. "What do you mean?"

"Are you sure you want to hear this?"

Y'phree growled deep in his wide chest. "Just get to the point. I have precious little patience for this as it is."

"They weren't after your precious City. Why would they be? Planetary real estate has no meaning to them and neither does territorial politics on our dying backwater planet of deserts and storms. These were Otherworlders, true alien beings from outside this solar system, likely from outside ANY solar system we know of. They're trying to cover their presence amongst us. They were after individuals who have knowledge that they are here. They were trying to kill these messengers before their message could be delivered to anyone who would listen."

"From the Upworlds?" Y'phree asked, frowning.

D'Spayr shook his head negatively. "From another universe. From the other side of The Wound itself."

Kolag Y'phree noisily blew a thick stream of air from between his pursed lips and then cast his eyes to the ground. He didn't deride or laugh at D'Spayr's hypothesis. He didn't immediately attempt denying its validity. His reaction was actually what D'Spayr had been looking for...

The man wasn't at all surprised. The Warlord knew far more about this series of events than he was telling anyone.

"An interesting theory, but not much to support it at this time, wouldn't you say? And if it were true, then why here, in this place? I mean, look around you... Surely it would not have been chosen for any strategic military value. Besides, Sir Knight, what was it exactly that you, your lovely Princess-friend and the Traveler, were doing here?"