Emeris and I make our way back to our armor, a bit more apathetic to noise now. If anything was even remotely nearby, they would have come at the sound of combat. A small grumble escapes my throat.

“I don’t know about you, but we can’t keep getting into combat. I’m going to pull something soon if this keeps up.” Emeris sighs and hangs his head.

“Then we gotta stay in the darker parts of the city. There’s too much fire on this side so...hope you like skulking.”

“Only when I'm following your sister…” I say sarcastically. He chuckles and shakes his head as he keeps getting suited up.

I look down and cautiously step between pieces of brick and glass. We continue for five minutes then hide in an abandoned shack to see if we were being followed. There’s a small staircase that leads up to another floor. The walls are burnt black with every window completely shattered. Railing that line the stairs, have numerous slash marks in them. Each step groans pitifully, but luckily nothing caves in. Peaking just enough over the last step, I scan the room making sure there was nothing ready to pounce on me.

There’s five large clumps barely illuminated by a distant fire dancing through the window. It’s a family and they all lay motionless with weapons by their sides. Sadly, there’s no dead Og Nag nearby. The parents were the closest to the stairs, with three smaller bodies near the back. I step over them and stick my head through the window that leads outside. There’s one last corpse on the ground that probably was up here with them.

Emeris’ voice calls quietly from downstairs.

“Raiden, they got a Zukafera up there? We could really use it.” I check the stair entrance for signs of a hidden crossbow beneath the floorboards but don’t find any.

“No, I don’t think this family was enlisted.” I quickly creep down the stairs and rejoin Emeris who looks at be bewildered.

“They’re not an enlisted family, but they live in the Main District?! I know unenlisted Taraskans are rare, but you’d think they’d be harassed until they moved.”

The pure blackness outside makes peaking between the holes in the wall almost pointless. It’s nothing but stone, wood and brick piled randomly.

“Emeris, when the Og Nag finally broke through our main gate, where were you stationed?”

Emeris hums to himself in thought. “When they first broke through? Okay that was like...three days ago so I was on the Northeastern wall stopping them from climbing over. Why?”

Sweat slowly crawls down my face, mixing with the dirt and ash on my skin.

“I was on the Southern gate. Hurrand was actually loading his gold onto a wagon that was meant for the Verin Shore. He was actually more concerned with wealth than the defensive. He ordered myself and another unit to block the path to the castle. Of course if he had bothered to pay attention to the defensive at all, he’d know we were surrounded. I let him find out the hard way.”

Emeris snorts condescendingly.

“There was no plan in place for any of this. You know what our orders were? Stay in your squads and keep killing. If we had artillery support, we could have let them in the main gate and thinned them out hard. We coulda slammed the front with shredder rounds from our trebuchets and they would have acted like lethal barricades once they stopped rolling.”

With one last peek, I take careful steps through where the front door once was. Emeris follows me out and we continue making our way towards the gloomy stone nightmare that sat at the heart of Taraska.

Emeris and I were just five hundred meters from the castle when we stop and survey the area. We both groan quietly after moving from cover to cover for so long. Several groups of Og Nag were behind us, searching through debris for survivors to finish off, then eventually eat. We watched for a bit, waiting to see if the castle was still held or not. While the small break was nice, we had a sense of duty to meet back up and receive new orders. A small hole is the closest thing we have to cover, where we could peer out between wooden beams. Half an hour ticks by and there’s still no explosion.

We snap at the slightest sound or glimmer. Emeris taps me on the shoulder, making me jump. “Okay this is just wrong. If the Og Nag had sacked the castle, the gates would be open and obliterated, but they’re closed. However if they had been successfully fought off, wouldn’t there be bodies all over the street?”

The area between the rubble and the castle was completely clear of everything for a good hundred feet. There weren’t any houses, so the lack of debris made sense, but nothing else did. I scan the environment cautiously and get my answer. I gently bump Emeris’ arm with my elbow and point down the road.

“Og walls.”

Emeris scoffs with a hint of bedazzlement.

“Making walls out of dead Og Nag to funnel more Og Nag...to kill and make more walls out of. Gotta hand it to us, we may not be the best trained fighters in the land, but do we sure know how to make do.” Down the street, dead Og Nag were piled ontop of each other, with large pikes driven down through the corpses to stop them from sliding off. There was one small opening every thirty feet big enough for only one or two foes at a time. The real question was why is it still clear? It’s not like the Og Nag just give up.

I turned to Emeris, whose eyes are wide and alert.

“You ready?” I ask hesitantly, secretly hoping he had a reason not to. Emeris stares at me for a few seconds before slowly nodding; he didn’t like this anymore than I did. As if things couldn’t get any worse, we had no idea what would happen if we tried for the castle. We could get swarmed, accidentally killed by our own soldiers, anything was on the table at this point.

We take one last meticulous look around, and see nothing. Something isn’t right. Even if we were holding this spot, there shouldn’t be so much silence. I grab a small piece of wood, and hurl it near the main gate. A small shuffle to our right snags our attention and we see an Og Nag head peak over some rubble, then shrink back down. They couldn’t currently take the castle, so they waited for survivors to show up. They were monsters inside and out.

My heart sinks. If we try for the gate, we’ll be ambushed before they can get it open. There are small holes on each side of the gate for spying outwards, but I can’t tell if anyone is inside. We sit patiently, wondering what to do. Was there some way of signaling them before we rush? What could we do to possibly get them to open the gate before we get there? Emeris slumps against me, making me jump. I look over at his hung head.

I do my best to hold onto his armor as he falls to the ground. He lays there, barely breathing. My eyes bulge as my hands start to shake. I tap his cheeks with my fingertips repeatedly.

"Emeris! Wake up! What's going on?!" My voice stays quiet but frantic. There's no fresh blood coming from under his armor. His neck still has a strong pulse to it, but his breathing is light and slow. I ball my hands and try to remain silent. My armor shakes briefly, but it sounds like a symphony amongst all the silence. I hear a few rocks shift in the distance as a few figures start lurking around in the shadows. My eyes bulge and I carefully flatten myself to the ground.

There was no way for me to carry him while wearing my armor. If I try to take off his armor, the noise will get us spotted for sure. The list of what I know and what my options were, repeats over and over in my head. They could possibly see me and were ready for us. The Og Nag were waiting with an ambush party. I also couldn’t carry Emeris by myself with enough time to get him inside. My head shakes in small rapid movements that I can't control. Leaving him here wasn't an option. Not now, not ever.

The only real plan was to distract the Og Nag long enough to get Emeris inside. I had dead bodies and rubble...dead bodies and rubble. My teeth clench in frustration. Emeris still lays there, but his breathing is so slow, I can't even tell he's alive. All I can do is camouflage him with debris, then creep back the way we came. I hated leaving him, but we’re dead men if I don’t come up with something fast. My eyes do their best to study my surroundings, and I finally find what I need.

A single charred wall that was still upright. It wasn’t terribly high, only around three feet or so. It was literally the last thing standing of an old brick house. The plan was to try and set up something to knock it over to create a whole bunch of noise. I have to rely on touch as I’m too low for the fires to help illuminate anything. We had intentionally stuck to the blackness so our eyes would adjust. It may not be fun, but we were still alive so we had to be doing something right. My hands rattle as I feel the floor for what I need. Some glass and metal scraps are exactly what I need so I set them behind the wall. When it falls over, I want it hitting as many items as possible.

I find one long and one short piece of wood, along with some rope. My hands tremble so bad, my metal gauntlets almost cause a commotion. I take a knee, close my eyes and do slow counts of breathing. My eyes open and I carefully lean the longer wood against the smaller piece, tilting towards the wall. I tie the rope to the shorter wood, hoping I don’t knock it over prematurely. The plan was to yank on the rope and cause the long wood beam to hit the wall, knocking it over and colliding with the glass and metal behind it, making just the right distraction hopefully. Everything was set up, but my stomach still rolls over in place.

As I turn around, my foot bumps into some glass. My blood turned to ice. As if I was made of stone, I stand there like a statue. I hear my own heart pounding so loud, I’m worried it might give me away. A few seconds takes hours to pass. As luck would have it, there's shuffling off to my right, as a few Og Nag come to investigate. I lower myself to the ground as quietly as possible. I’m completely still, hoping to pass for a dead soldier. If they’re not sure, they might just stab me to see though.

My odds were terrible. They probably searched the entire surrounding area already. Then a slight change of plan hits me. I prop myself up against some rocks, and act dead. If I time it right, and with some luck, I might be able to kill them both. Three of them come creeping around. One to my left, and two straight ahead; fantastic.