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Moonrise



“Well?” asked the pale-faced woman in the armor of hardened leather. “Does it not worry you?”
“I don’t know what would,” remarked the man beside her, clutching his iron sword like an insolent throat. The two figures were sitting on two pillars of glass, peering quietly over the wall of the city Reun. The woman was pensive, her eyes narrowed inscrutably, but detesting the small city all the same. The man was arrogantly laid-back, as if he was relishing the thought of spitting on the city and scoffing at its ruler.
“Reun is not to be underestimated. Its walls are thick; I think they have something inside them. And the city itself…well, a high-ranking Constructor such as you would see the number of surprises that place could hold.” The woman’s expression didn’t twitch, but she seemed to grow slightly paler.
“Sarrial, you have a keen eye, but you think too much. Don’t look at the fortifications; just take one glance at the inhabitants. Do you suggest that the Moonrise would be halted by such simple folk?”
The woman known as Sarrial scoffed. “You speak harshly of simple folk, Lucus, while you would apparently have yourself to be no better.”
There was a long silence. The man, Lucus, glared at Sarrial for her tone, then sniffed heavily and drew back. Just as Sarrial was turning back toward the city Reun, Lucus lashed forward so fast he became but a smudge of gray, his sword biting into Sarrial’s side. Her leather tunic was ripped in half, and a streak of red appeared in Sarrial’s side.
“Remember who the power is here,” spat Lucus. “And remember what I am, when stood next to any man or woman in the city Reun.”
Sarrial almost fell off of her glass pillar. A wave of pink rushed over her pale face. “Fine,” she said at last, disgusted.

“Still...” Lucus pondered, “...there is one who hesitates me.” Lucus pointed at a small house. A boy lived there, barely sixteen, lying motionless in the comfort of his bed.
Sarrial nodded. “Yes...I believe his name is Stig.” She may have been worried about him herself; she didn’t remember. Sarrial wasn’t sure whether she was truly worried or if she simply didn’t want to cross Lucus again.
“He is very gifted in Construction,” said Lucus. “I don’t know whether it’s something the city Reun may use against us...but still, it disturbs me.”
“Then we will have to take preemptive action,” said Sarrial. Lucus nodded.
“You may have some truth in your argument, Sarrial. But we must make sure that Stig dies quickly--a suitable time frame for my patience.”
“Agreed,” said Sarrial. They looked at each other for a long while, trying to decode each other. Then they began to break the glass beneath them, letting themselves down to ground level. They heard a guard run across the wall; he must have glimpsed one of them. Sarrial allowed a smile to dribble across her lips and she drew her bow. Just like that, the guard cried out in surprise and fell off the wall to his death. The small “thump” barely blocked out the sound of Sarrial and Lucus running quietly into the forest.
“Lucus’s time will end,” Sarrial thought to herself. “I pray I’ll have the wisdom to sustain Moonrise.”


The “Welcome” mat outside Stig’s home triggered, causing an ironically joyful tune to permeate Stig’s sleep. He groaned and sat up, not at all pleased to be up so early. He realized that his face was imprinted in his red bed sheets. Stig sat up and immediately wanted to lie back down, but the incessant chiming all around him made it apparent that someone was tapping his foot on the “Welcome” mat. Stig groaned and slammed his fist on the button beside his bed, then reached up to catch the bread and stew dispensed from the ceiling. He motioned for the person outside to come in.
In walked a sturdy man with pitch black hair, who strutted quickly across the room and straight up to Stig’s bed, scowling.
“You shouldn’t keep me waiting,” he said sternly. “You’ll be an official Constructor soon, so you’d best act like it.” Stig nodded wearily.
“And another thing,” the man continued, “you shouldn’t be building these sorts of things at your age. There are many ways that doormat out front could have gone awry.”
“Well, it’s not as if I’m being unsafe,” said Stig, taking a bite out of his bread.
“Your incessant insolence will be the death of you yet. Come, you’ll be late for...” The man looked contemptuous. “...your ceremony.” The man strutted out of the bedroom and prepared to leave. On his way out, he said, “Also, try not to eat dispenser food every morning like that. It’ll make you sick.”

As soon as Stig walked out the door, he was assaulted by another teenager.
“Hey Stig!” she said. “‘Bout time you woke up! Your ceremony starts at midday!”
She was a girl a little younger than Stig, a blonde holding a spade and a wide smile.
“I see Wes has already been on your back this morning,” she remarked.
“Yeah...” Stig replied.
Her name was Hylda. She was Stig’s friend, and had been for a long time, but she wouldn’t be a Constructor for a month yet.
“Anyway, you’d best be off! Becoming a Constructor is definitely not a ceremony to be late for,” she remarked.
Stig nodded and the two of them ran for the town center. Once they were there, they could see that the whole center was full of people. Stig had seen this, but now that it was his turn to step up to become a Constructor, he became grasped by a sudden fear. He was about to back away, but Hylda laughed and shoved him up onto the podium. Once the crowd was silent, the monarch of the city Reun approached Stig. The monarch was as ancient as his odor, and Stig resisted the urge to step backward. The monarch was closely accompanied by Wes, the man who woke up Stig.
“People of Reun,” the monarch spoke loudly. “We are here to celebrate one of our own being promoted to the rank of Constructor. He has proven his worth and he has come of age, and I think we are all proud to have him officially join the ranks of Reun.” Applause sounded.
“Now, a more personal note,” the monarch continued. “Stig has often proven himself to be gifted and creative. He is resourceful, helpful and intelligent, creating complex, yet wonderful things. He can be rebellious, but he helps Reun and himself through his rare creativity.” Stig could feel Wes’s eyes burning into Stig’s forehead.
The monarch held a book. “This book was specially created for you. Not only does it contain useful knowledge, it will allow you to be recognized as a Constructor. Protect this book, and you will protect your rank.” Stig was handed the book, and he nodded in gratitude. The crowd broke into applause, the sound of which was only broken by a mysterious explosion.

Everyone stopped and turned toward the sound of the explosion. A block of TNT soared over the wall, straight at Stig. Hylda leapt onto the podium and shoved Stig out of the way just as the podium exploded from the TNT. Hylda covered her face with her arm and backed away from the wreckage.
“What...?” the monarch exclaimed.
“I can see them! They’re up there!” Wes shouted. Several figures were standing on a mountain outside the city Reun.
“The Moonrise Cult...” Stig whispered. A chill ran down his spine; he had heard of them, but never seen them with his own eyes. And they were after him.


Stig was panting heavily. He wasn’t sure if it was from fear, the force of the explosion, or Hylda’s elbow landing painfully on his stomach.
“Oops, sorry,” said Hylda, getting up.
Just as Stig was getting up after her, another explosive was shot over the wall. Stig tried to run, but his arm was suddenly caught in what felt like a vice. Wes yanked him down the street, running into an alley as several more explosions shot behind them. Once they reached Stig’s house, one more explosion sounded, destroying half of the alley, and Wes threw him into the house.
“Now you stay here until all this is sorted out,” said Wes. “I don’t know who did this, or why they’d be after YOU, but until those questions are answered, you will stay right here.”
Stig started to open his mouth, but the door slammed shut.

The next morning, Stig woke up to the smell of sulfur. It took him awhile to remember what had happened yesterday. He sighed and got out of bed, not bothering to get breakfast. He walked into the middle of the room and looked around. So here he was; stuck, useless, while an unknown danger out to get him was bombarding the city Reun and there was nothing he could do. He looked out the window; it was still night out. Stig had woken up early. “Fine,” he resolved. “I’m leaving the house.”
He didn’t know what he would do after that. Probably search for the people who tried to kill him. And then...what? Stig didn’t care anymore. The first step would be to get out of this house. Stig walked quickly to the front door and yanked it open. Then he gasped in horror.

The door led to nothing but a brick wall. Someone--probably Wes--had done it while he was asleep. They were keeping him by force. Stig looked at the sign on the bricks. “We’ll know if you break anything”.
Stig was furious. His home had been turned into his prison, just so he couldn’t interfere with matters he “wasn’t ready for”. He never believed that excuse; Wes always wanted him out of the way. Stig knew that Wes was the real power behind Reun, but still wanted it to be an official position. But Stig had already decided to flat-out disobey orders, so he would have to follow through. He looked up his chimney; it was completely sealed up. He tried opening his window; but the pistons used to pull the glass apart had been smashed. There wasn’t even any wood or dirt that he could smash through and then replace.
Then...they had taken his satchel. All his circuitry, anything he could have used to fill a gap; they had taken it and either hidden it or--Stig winced at the thought--burned it. Stig fell into bed and stared at the ceiling, pushing back tears. His imprisonment began to make him claustrophobic, but there was nowhere he could get air. He could be stuck for months...
But a thought occurred to him. There was a way he could get out; he just hadn’t thought of it yet! It would disobey all safety protocol, but they couldn’t trace it. Stig stuck his head through the gap in his broken pistons and whistled as loudly as he could. Just as he had hoped, a creeper turned toward the window. Stig whistled again. The creeper perked up and began to hop toward the house. As it reached the window, a small hissing sound came into the house. As Stig jumped out of the way, the side of his home exploded.
“Perfect”, Stig said. Everyone would think that the mysterious attackers had bombed Stig’s house. Stig walked out of the hole, and got a breath of fresh air.

Stig snuck through the city Reun and checked the moon. The TNT had been fired from northward; he headed in that direction. Once he reached the wall, Stig looked back at the city Reun. Nobody was awake, and Reun looked a lot less thriving and a lot more ghostly. Maybe it was just Stig’s anger that made it look that way, but the city looked a bit evil. Stig shook his head and turned back toward the wall. The topology of Reun was simple; the city itself, the strip of land around it where Stig had found the creeper, and the wall. Stig was two-thirds out.
Just as Stig was about to climb the ladder to the top of the wall, an arrow whizzed past his head. Two skeletons had ambushed him. Stig frantically climbed the ladder, but the second skeleton shot him in the foot and he toppled off. Stig scrambled to his feet to see two arrows pointed at his head. He reached for his satchel, and then remembered that it had been taken. Instead, he had been left unarmed against two of the smartest and most powerful type of wandering monster. He lashed forward and punched one of the skeletons in the ribs, and took an arrow to the shoulder. Plucking out both arrows, Stig tried the ladder again and the skeletons fired more arrows after him. Stig reached the top of the wall and jumped off, not caring about the painful fall. The skeletons were climbing the ladder after him. Stig knew better than to run into the woods, so he ran around the outer wall of the city Reun, with the skeletons in pursuit. An arrow ripped across Stig’s arm, and he fell over. The skeletons caught up to him and surrounded him again, preparing to fire into Stig’s head. But just as they loaded their arrows, a voice called out:
“Enough! That boy is mine.”
The skeletons whirled around toward the voice and started to fire, but there was a whizzing slash and they were both knocked against the wall. Stig lifted his head up to see what was going on; a battle was about to begin.


Another flash of light, and a sword shot through one of the skeleton’s skulls and stabbed right into the wall of the city Reun. The other skeleton fired an arrow, but the mysterious figure stepped to the side and bolted, snapping each rib in succession with one powerful sweep. Stig tried to stagger up and back at the same time as an iron sword flashed over and over, as its wielder dodged and dodged. Finally, the figure twirled around, shattering the assailants’ skulls. Then the person turned toward Stig.
For the first time, Stig could catch a good look at the person. He could see nothing but a face and the person’s black cloak and sword. “Who are you?” he demanded, though his voice broke halfway through.
Stig could barely make out a grin. The person threw off her cloak to reveal a pale-faced woman. She had the emblem of a crescent on her tunic, and she had long black hair and eerie red eyes. Everything about her looked off.
“I am known as Sarrial,” said the woman before Stig could get out any words. “I have come to kill you, and collect your remains. Those idiotic skeletons would probably have just eaten them.”
“What…?” Stig managed. Sarrial rolled her eyes.
“I have to take your body to Lucus. The Moonrise will invade the city Reun in four days, and you will have to be taken care of before then.” With a sarcastic note, she added, “I’m sure you’ll understand.”
Stig didn’t understand. “So...who’s this ‘Lucus’?”
For some reason, this made Sarrial wince. “He’s...” she paused. “He’s our leader, but...it’s only because he’s under a spell...we’re forced to follow him...” Stig blinked in confusion, but Sarrial continued. “A warlock by the name of Nemus turned him against Reun, and we have no choice but to obey.” Sarrial suddenly fell onto her knees. “Please...try to break the spell. Lucus is innocent.”
“I--...” Stig wasn’t sure what to say. “I’ll try to.”
“Thank you...” said Sarrial. “Go back to your city. You won’t be able to enter the Lunar Citadel, so you’ll have to confront Lucus during the invasion. The Cult will attack Reun in four days, and that’s when you’ll have to break the spell. Don’t tell your city ANYTHING.”
“I won’t,” said Stig. Sarrial placed a ladder on the wall, and Stig climbed up, preparing to go back home. He turned back to Sarrial. “I’ll help. I promise.” Then he left.

Sarrial watched him leave, waiting until he was out of earshot. Then she grinned like she hadn’t been pleading just minutes ago. “Such an idiot boy,” she said to herself. “Keeping his own city in the dark...this will be better than killing him.” Then Sarrial turned on her heel and walked back into the forest, her sword dangling from her hand, covered in marrow.


Stig limped toward his home; he was still tired and hurt, and could barely walk. He was also hungry. Stig walked over to one of Reun’s towers, and climbed down, entering the city. He looked around for guards, and then began to head toward his house. He found the hole in the side and climbed through, only to see Wes scowling in the foyer.
“You took us for fools,” Wes said. “That’s a mistake I’m sure you won’t make again.”
Stig tried to run, but he had lost so much blood that he collapsed to his knees. The last thing he remembered before he passed out was the force of being dragged backward by his feet, the rubble stinging painfully on his stomach.

He woke up on a bed. Stig still wasn’t sure if he was awake; it was dreadfully dark. He could only see a bit of light coming from what looked like an iron door. He decided to lay there for a while; he wasn’t sure how hurt he was, but whatever his status, he definitely hadn’t been treated yet. After a while, he heard a knock on the door.
“What?” he muttered; his voice barely audible and even less comprehensible. The door opened, and in walked Wes.
“Finally awake, I see,” he said. Stig didn’t respond, although his mind was swimming with questions…and dizziness.
“So, you’ve been having a little ‘chat’ with the Moonrise?” Wes said accusingly.
“I was attacked…” Stig said. There was no point denying he was out that night.
Wes glared. “You’re really in for it now, Stig. You’re in for breaking out of confinement, breaking safety protocol, causing property damage by means of a creeper…and suspected allegiance with a known cult. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ll never live to become a Constructor.”
Stig didn’t know what to say; he had done those things. And when he made a deal with Sarrial, even his allegiance charge was legit. Instead, he said,
“So my Constructor status is repealed, then?”
“Oh, it was never there to begin with. Your ceremony was interrupted, remember?”
“I want my book.”
Stig was talking about the book he was given at the ceremony. It was the mark of his Constructor status; if he could just see it…
“Your book was burned.”
“What?” Stig exclaimed. He wasn’t sure that was even allowed.
“But stop distracting us. Tell me everything you know. What did you hear about the Cult? What are they planning next? You’d better spill or else things won’t end well for you.”
Stig’s stomach churned painfully. “I’m wounded,” he said. “Do you—”
“You’ll receive treatment only if you tell us everything. Pretty convenient, isn’t it? You’re not a Constructor and can’t be given full rights, but you’re still qualified enough to serve prison terms.”
Stig glared. “The cult is commanded by someone called Lucus. He’s not really evil, he’s under a spell and the rest of the Cult has to follow him. Also, I’m not part of that cult. Beyond that, I swore not to tell.”
Wes’s eyes narrowed. His face was dreadfully close to Stig’s, and his breath stank up the air around him. He was obviously taking some sort of sick pleasure in seeing Stig get what was coming to him. “So if you’re not part of this Cult, why did you swear secrecy on what we need to know?”
Stig grinned. “Because you’re all a bunch of warmongers that are going to ruin everything that Sarrial’s trying to do to make peace.”
Wes raised his fist in fury, and then dropped it. He looked disgusted. “We’ll find out. We’ll find out where this ‘Lucus’ is. And we’ll win this war, no matter how much you try to corrupt this city.” Wes left, shut the door, and everything was dark again.
Stig lay on his back, having no idea what to do. He would either break his promise or stay here for the rest of his life. He wouldn’t even get to become a Constructor. He always wanted to build…to engineer…but that was over now. He had nothing to work with, nobody to let him work. After a long rest, he finally fell asleep.

Stig woke up to Hylda peering over the bed at him. He woke with a jump, and then suddenly realized he wasn’t wounded anymore.
“What were you thinking?!” she exclaimed.
Stig groaned. “Oh come on, you would have wanted to escape too.”
“I’m not talking about that!” said Hylda. “I’m talking about you swearing to secrecy with a cultist. That person may have been on our side after all, but now you’re officially a criminal!”
“Look, it was stupid, all right?” said Stig. “I just—”
“And to go and break that promise?” Hylda interrupted. “The way I heard it, getting Reun involved is the worst thing you could do, and now Wes is leading a huge army to the cultists’ base right now!”
“Wait, what…? I didn’t break my promise, what are you talking about?” Then Stig realized it. While he was asleep, he had a nightmare. He was in a black cloak, running up the mountain, into the Lunar Citadel. He saw a dark figure sitting in a throne, and a great shadow weaving behind him. The shadow was saying, “I am Nemus”. He tried to run, but the floor broke and he fell into a dark pit, waking up suddenly. Now he knew why Wes went to the Lunar Citadel…Stig was talking in his sleep. He had told them about the invasion, and they went to launch a preemptive attack. He had broken his promise.
“Hylda, I’m sorry, there was a nightmare, and…I must have talked in my sleep…” Stig said. Hylda nodded.
“Take some food,” she said, handing him a loaf of bread. “You’ll need it.”
“Why?” asked Stig. Hylda paused.
“Um…you should probably come outside and see.”
“Where is the Lord?”
“He’s going to the Citadel with Wes. About four fifths of Reun’s guard is out there. Now hurry!”
Stig ran up a flight of stairs and into sunlight; it was almost blinding. As soon as Stig reached the wall, Hylda beckoned him to the gate. Once Stig walked through, he saw something that sent a chill up his spine.
Hundreds of cultists were lined up on the horizon. They were bristling with weapons.
“But…Sarrial said the attack was in four days!” Stig gasped.
Hylda looked at him with a mix of hardness and pity. “Stig…Sarrial suckered you. It was a ploy for a sneak attack. I’m sorry, Stig…but she’s tricked you into removing all our defenses while they attack.”
Stig couldn’t believe how gullible he felt. Not only had he destroyed his chance at becoming a Constructor, but it was all so he could get tricked. And now, an army was approaching Reun, and he would have to fight.


“This is it?” Stig asked, exasperated. “This is the army we have at Reun?”
Stig was looking at two hundred—three hundred, tops—soldiers, most of them privates with simple leather armor. Many were barely nineteen years of age.
“There was a call to arms for storming the Lunar Citadel,” Hylda said. “Almost everyone chose to go.”
“So that’s it then? We’re here with this sparse, weak army facing a legion of fanatical cultists? I hope we have something that can help,” Stig said.
“But we do,” said Hylda. “All of these people, the ones who stayed behind…why do you think they stayed behind?”
Stig shrugged. “Because they didn’t know what they’d have to deal with…”
“No, Stig. They stayed behind because they agreed with you. If we’re going to stand a chance, it’s because you got us there. Stig…you’re going to help us win.”
Stig couldn’t speak. It was as if the weight of the world was being pressed upon him all at once. Not only were they all doing to die; now it would be his responsibility if they did. Some of the other soldiers sensed his fear.
“Who is this kid?” scoffed one of the soldiers. As Stig was opening his mouth, Hylda stepped in.
“Excuse me, but he’s going to be your leader in this fight, so you’d better show some respect. I don’t think any of you are going to last a minute without a miracle. And as far as Reun is concerned, a prodigy is a miracle. Sure he’s classified as a criminal; but everyone who disagreed with his motives is on a wild goose chase at the Citadel right now! This ‘kid’ is going to be the one to save your hides, because no one else will.”
Stig thought about what Hylda had said; he would be the one to save those hundreds of people? Stig wasn’t sure if Hylda was helping them or pressuring him. Either way, he turned to Hylda and said, “Thanks.”
Hylda grinned. “Just don’t make them regret trusting me.”
Stig gulped.

“We don’t have much time!” Stig told the soldiers. “Grab the items from the chests, especially redstone, dispensers and TNT! We’ll set up cannons on the walls, so that they can shoot across and down if we need it. And head to the dungeons; grab every pressure plate you can find!”
The soldiers ran off. Stig turned to Hylda.
“Let’s get some glass. We need to mark where we set the heavy weapons.”
“Wouldn’t Reun already have those?”
“Nah,” Stig smiled. “These are just a little thing I made up.” A soldier ran in and threw a heap of supplies in front of them. “Here, try assembling this one. Just do what I do.”
“I’ve never seen TNT cannons like this before.”
“The ones on the wall have too little force for too much space. These are carpet spreads; for maximum coverage, we’ll put them in this street and aim high.”

It had been three hours. The cultists had moved alarmingly close, but the city Reun was full of the most advanced traps and weapons Hylda had ever seen. At the moment, Stig was wiring up a piston machine behind the wall that could repair it if it’s damaged and even protrude a cactus trap when activated in reverse. He was in a sort of…Zen. His mind dropped everything else when he was just working, doing the thing he loved. It may have been the first time that Stig could do something at this scale. Hylda was gathering blocks of iron from the houses to make improved armor and swords, but she just decided to stop, simply watching Stig work. Stig sprinkled the last bit of redstone over the control switch and looked up.
“Oh, uh, hi there, Hylda,” Stig said, slightly startled by her sudden appearance. Hylda was a good friend of his, but she was still somewhat intimidating.
“Hi Stig,” Hylda said. “Hey, during the battle, I think I’d do well as a soldier.”
Stig stood up. “Sounds like a good idea. You could lead the charge, if you want.”
Hylda’s face brightened. “You really want me to, Stig? That’s great! I’ll…I’d better get armored up!”
“Definitely,” Stig said. “But be sure to wear full armor! Remember that the leader has to trigger—”
“Right, right, I get it. I’d better go get ready!” Hylda said as she ran off.

Meanwhile, the cultists’ camps were restless. Large, brawny soldiers with iron swords, clad in leather tunics, were brandishing their weapons and checking the crescent symbols on their tunics, ready to fight. Two generals stood in the center of the camp: one timid, one angry.
“Sir, Sarrial had informed me straight from the top that Reun would be almost completely unprotected. It was not my—”
“You are the one who informed me; do not shamelessly shaft the blame to a superior! You told me we’d be against a handful of weaklings…does this look like a handful of weaklings to you?”
A mass of confident, young men and women were standing at the gate, led by a young girl with a constitute look on her face. Siege weapons, the likes of which they had never seen before, surrounded and guarded the walls.
The timid general stared. “I…I was misinformed, I swear…”
It was too late. The angry general whirled around, clutching his sword so hard his hand was red. The timid general was cleanly decapitated, causing all the other soldiers to look at the commotion.
“We’re beginning the assault,” the general said. “Ready the assassins.”


The Moonrise Cult began to charge. Hylda yelled back to Stig, “Now?”
“Not yet,” Stig said. “Get ready to activate the splitter!”
“What’s that?” asked Hylda.
“You’ll see.”
The Cult was getting closer. They were such a dense mass, it seemed as though they could just run right over Stig’s sparse army.
They were getting closer…closer…
Stig could already hear the clanking of metal, the shouting of war cries.
Closer…closer…
“Use the splitter now!” Stig yelled behind him. Another man threw a lever and the entire cult gasped in shock. The ground was yanked open by a field of pistons. The cultists in front were thrown forward; the ones in back, backward.
“They’re split into two groups!” said Stig. It was just like ripping open a phone book; instead of tearing it as a block, one has to separate it into pages, secretly only splitting one at a time. The Cult was impenetrable…unless it was divided into layers.
The cultists in the front stopped short and ran back toward the slower ones, trying to regroup.
“They’re hesitating!” Stig said. “Focus fire!”
Several soldiers in the back of Stig’s army fired bows, and a shower of TNT fell into the stumbling cultists with terrible accuracy. After the arrows and TNT hit, the cultists realized that they were in danger and decided to charge raggedly, keeping space between them, not waiting for those that were trapped.
“Everyone charge!” Stig yelled. He looked up to see Hylda running at top speed, clutching her sword hard, swinging it strongly at the cultists. Just as she made it to the army, she stepped on a pressure plate.
The ground exploded; the cultists were blown back by the TNT, their tunics ripping. Hylda was launched back to the wall, into the city, and into a pool of water by Stig.
“What…?” Hylda began.
“Great job,” said Stig. “You were able to trigger that trap before the cultists could destroy it! You’d better get some iron armor on; the leather was just for surviving the blast.”
“So I was just a…trigger?” Hylda said, hurt. “I thought that—”
“Hylda, didn’t you know what the charge leader had to do? I thought you wanted to go in front and hit the trap!”
“No! Of course I didn’t! I actually wanted to fight, and…you just made me a scapegoat!”
“Hylda, I’m sorry, I didn’t know—”
“Just give me the armor.”
Stig knew he’d messed up. There was nothing else for it now. He silently handed Hylda the armor, and she took it angrily. She picked up her sword and ran back toward the fight; Stig just stood and watched, alone.

Hylda was running back toward the gate, hoping there’d still be some cultists to fight. Suddenly, she looked to the right and saw a small hole in the city wall…just big enough for a person to get through. She turned into the alley and checked out the hole, pulling out some cobblestone to patch it up. She almost didn’t notice the sound of a sword swinging at her from behind.
She whirled around, barely ducking the assassin’s stone blade. In surprise, she dropped her own sword; the assassin kicked it away.
“It’s just a little girl?” the assassin said, startled. Then he smirked. “This’ll be easier than I thought.”
For some reason, Hylda thought of Stig…how he used her just like one of his traps. She glared at the assassin. “Now is not a good time to be calling me a little girl!”
The assassin tried to swing his sword, but she brought her foot up painfully into him, causing him to stop mid-swing. He tried to grab her ankle, but she yanked her foot into his face, backing him against the back of a house. She grabbed his head and slammed it into the bricks. Another assassin heard the commotion and ran around the house, but Hylda had taken the sword from the first foe and leapt at her assailant, bringing the butt of her sword into his forehead. He staggered blindly, his pupils dilating, but Hylda saw him ready his sword. She brought her own sword around quickly and stabbed him through the stomach. Hylda’s arms went limp as the assassin’s eyes rolled up as he gasped in surprise and pain. She had no idea how hard it would be to kill someone…now that she’d done it, it felt like she was dirty, stained. Hylda was so afraid of what she’d done that she didn’t notice the third assassin sneaking up behind her. A white flash struck across Hylda’s back, and as she felt her spine tingle from the blow, everything went dark.

At the Lunar Citadel, an army was storming through the halls. In the front was Wes, brandishing his sword, cutting down the meager squads of cultist guards. The monarch of Reun stood just behind him, holding a bow defensively. They had finally made it to the central spire, and it was guarded by only an iron door. A cultist inside locked it. Wes took out a pic and smashed through the wall next to the door, and Reun’s army stormed in to find a long hallway, lit softly with glassed torches. The room was huge, but fairly empty, and pillars formed a circular pattern around the edge. A pale-faced woman stood at the end of the room.
“You’re too late,” said Sarrial. “Our true army is already crushing Reun.”
“What?!” shouted Wes furiously. Then he somehow retained his composure. “Once we’re done here…this place will be Reun.” He drew his sword; Sarrial drew hers carelessly.
“You really aren’t a bright folk. You’re just brutal,” Sarrial said, looking away slightly. “Tell me, how would you deflect a battering ram? Would you stick out your palms and hope for the best? Or would you chip it away…bit by bit…before they even notice? You look like a fairly solid army, but I can give you a bet. I can make your whole army fall apart with just one sweep…of this sword.” Sarrial pointed her sword at Wes, who gritted his teeth, obviously angry at her disparaging of his tactics.
Suddenly, Sarrial sprinted at him. Wes hunkered down, ready to lunge forward and stab her through the heart. But Sarrial leapt, right over Wes, and with one clean cut, she impaled her sword into the chest of the monarch of Reun.
“No!” several soldiers cried and Sarrial landed in their midst. One of the soldiers stabbed blindly, but Sarrial threw his comrade into the soldier’s sword. Another soldier came up from behind, but she grabbed his wrist so hard he dropped his sword. She twisted his arm hard, and then slit his throat. The other soldiers pretended to want to fight, but they were putting more and more distance between themselves and Sarrial. They were collapsing.
Wes was looking around wildly, with a mix of fury and fear, and saw a shadowy figure sitting on a block of gold across the room.
“Goodbye spawns of Reun,” Lucus whispered. Then he let out a battle cry that disturbed the soldiers’ very souls, and caused even Wes to step backward, his heart racing. Cultists leapt out from behind every pillar, bows readied. The sound of pistons was heard underneath the ground, and dispensers shot out of the once stone floor. The dispensers began to shoot arrows, everywhere, filling the room, as the cultists fired into the crowd of confused soldiers. The soldiers dropped as if affected by plague, as Wes and only a hundred other men ran from the Citadel, attempting to retain dignity.


The cultists must have numbered in the thousands. They swarmed all around the walls, and even when large groups of them were massacred by explosions, they just seemed to keep coming. Many only had wooden pickaxes, but they were still hacking at the walls so fast that it almost couldn’t be repaired at the same rate. Stig reversed the wall repair, and the cultists around the wall jumped back, clutching their feet, which were full of cactus needles. Stig hadn’t seen Hylda in a long time; that was unusual.
Stig heard a noise behind him; one of the TNT cannons was being re-aimed. Stig turned around to find an assassin blocking the top of the explosives. Before Stig could run forward, the assassin activated it and TNT shot past Stig. It slammed into the gates of the city Reun and exploded, leaving a gaping hole right in the middle of the front gate.
Cultists began pouring in, colliding heavily with the guards inside the city. Stig ran at the assassin, who drew a sword. But Stig wasn’t holding a weapon; he was holding a red glowing torch. He stuck it into the cannon and ran as the cannon exploded, taking the life of the assassin. Stig looked back at his corpse and shuddered; it was gruesome, and he couldn’t escape the feeling that he had done that. Hylda wouldn’t have had trouble with this at all, Stig thought.
The cultists were pushing forward. Stig circumvented the battle and climbed up onto the wall; if he could activate the system above the gate, he could blockade the opening with sand. Stig ran across the wall, toward the gate, but a cultist shot an arrow and caught him in the side. Stig toppled over the wall and barely hooked a ladder to the wall, hanging onto the bottom rung with all his strength. On the other side, a cultist took several planks of wood and began building his way over the wall. Stig reached the top and blocked off the cultist with a quickly placed cobblestone overhang, heading toward the wall. As he let the sand fall, many cultists were crushed by the avalanche, and the others tried to break through, only causing more to fall. Stig climbed back down the wall, drawing a sword and preparing to fight…but he needed to find Hylda.
Stig ran through the town, calling Hylda’s name. She didn’t respond. Stig knew that she’d never ditch a battle, no matter how mad at him she was; Stig was getting worried.
Then he heard a groaning from the alley behind his house. Stig ran over to find Hylda, slumped against the wall, bleeding heavily.
“Hylda, what happened?” Stig said. “Are you okay?”
“Can’t…move…” Hylda coughed out. She opened her mouth to say something else, but her voice game out and she fell sideways, unconscious. Stig grabbed Hylda’s arm and began to drag her out of the alley, but the wall was detonated right before them and four cultists ran through. Stig stabbed at the nearest one, who was pierced through the chest as Stig was hit in the shoulder. Holding his shoulder to stop the blood, Stig hacked through the other three cultists at the cost of long gashes across his face and left leg. As more cultists headed toward the breach, Stig sheathed his sword and dragged Hylda around and into his house as a TNT charge exploded, much closer to them. Stig grabbed an axe and hacked down his wooden door, replacing it with hard cobblestone. He got Hylda into his bed; she was barely breathing, and Stig grabbed some mushroom stew and poured it down her throat. With Hylda recovering, though still unconscious, Stig was only then aware of his gaping wounds.
“We’ve done all we can,” said Stig. “Just rest.”
Stig sat next to the bed, watching Hylda vigilantly, and waiting for a sign that the outside world would be safe again.

The hours that followed were terrifying. Completely isolated, Stig could hear the sounds of metal clanking and men dying outside, and even the sound of fire burning. Stig wanted dreadfully to look outside, wondering if there would be a Reun to walk out to, or maybe it would be full of dangerous cultists. Stig’s wounds weren’t getting worse, but he was using everything he had to help Hylda heal. In his state, he definitely couldn’t overpower even one cultist, so all he could do was sit in this isolated field, waiting for whatever was outside to stop; it reminded Stig of being blocked in his house once before, after the Cult tried to assassinate him.
The sounds outside lasted two hours, three hours, four hours; it became dark. Stig was getting tired, but he forced himself to keep watching the walls. After six hours, Stig heard a knocking on the wall and a voice calling, “Stig? Stig…?”
Stig ran to the wall and hacked it open. He saw a boy, barely his age, bearing a sword and a lot of scars.
“Did we win…?” asked Stig.
The boy paused, which Stig did not take as a good sign. But then he said, “…yes, we won.”
Stig began to smile in relief, but the boy said, “You might want to see this, though.”
Stig limped out into the battlefield and saw hundreds of corpses, all of them from Reun.
“We already cremated the cultists’ bodies,” said the boy. “But we thought…everyone should know the sacrifices. Looking at your scars, I guess you probably understand.” Stig slowly nodded, horrified by the sheer number of bodies.
“I received word that Wes will be back soon. I guess he probably doesn’t need to see this…I’ll get a burial started.”
“Okay,” Stig whispered, walking back into the house. After taking down the defenses around it, Stig went back to Hylda, who was still unconscious.
“If I hadn’t done any of this,” Stig asked her, though he knew she wouldn’t respond. “Would all those people still be alive?”
Silence.
“What about you? If I had said something different…would you still be healthy?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said the boy who called Stig from his house. “Sorry I’ve been eavesdropping. But you could’ve made much worse choices. You did the right thing based on what you knew then, not what you know now.”
Stig turned to the boy. “I guess so…thanks.” Stig was alone again; he continued to stay with Hylda, waiting for her to show signs of feeling better. Stig was relaxing a bit; Hylda’s wounds were healing well, and Stig was then certain she would make it. But all his optimism was shattered when his door opened and revealed the broad-shouldered figure of Wes. The next thing Stig knew, he was yanked out of the house and down, down deep, into the dungeon of Reun.


Stig was thrown into a cell. As the door slammed shut, Stig struggled his way out of the mass of cobweb he had landed in. Wes glared at him through the door.
“I heard you were a bit of a leader in this…massacre. It looks like you’ll finally get executed after all…you knew it was coming too, didn’t you?”
Stig glared back, but he knew that nothing he could say would get him out of that cell.
“Where’s Hylda?” Stig said.
“She’s still in your bed. She’ll be interrogated as soon as she wakes up. It’s odd…I really thought you liked her. And yet you caused this to happen.”
“Shut up!” Stig suddenly exclaimed. “I would never do that to Hylda! I waited in there for hours for her to get better…your filthy goons had better keep your hands off her!”
Wes didn’t flinch. He took a potion from his satchel and threw it through the door.
“Your execution is in a few minutes,” he said. “Drink the potion; you’ll need to look good on your deathbed.”
Stig suspiciously sniffed the potion; he smelled sugar and mushroom.
“It’s a weakening potion,” Stig said.
“Just in case you have any thoughts about escaping once you’re healed. Now drink it.”
Stig uncorked the bottle and drank the potion; he felt his wounds sealing up, but his arms began numbing.
“So…” Stig said, wanting to get as many shots in at Wes as possible before he died, “That attack you pulled on the Lunar Citadel didn’t work out so well…did it?” Wes’ nostrils flared.
“You tricked us, Stig. You caused us to lose so many of our men…I wouldn’t be surprised if a score of cultists could take our city right now!”
“And what does our Lord think of all this?”
Wes grinned darkly. “You’re looking at him.”

A minute after Wes had gone, Hylda entered; she looked much healthier.
“So they’re going to kill you?” Hylda said.
“Yeah, not much of a surprise though.”
“Are you going to escape?”
“Of course I am. I’m not going to let this be the result of my actions, and I guess the only way to do that is to make some new ones.”
“Then where are you going to go?”
“I’ll probably go straight to the Lunar Citadel. I’m pretty sure this ‘Nemus’ guy doesn’t exist now…so I’m going to fight Lucus.”
“You’ll die!” Hylda suddenly burst out. “At least let me help!”
“No,” said Stig. “I don’t want to get you any more involved than you already are.”
“Why? You think I’m weak?”
Stig wanted to say no, and he believed with all his heart that Hylda was the strongest person he knew…but he hesitated; it was a difficult question for him to answer, and he wished that he could answer honestly.
“So that’s how it is,” Hylda said. “I thought you would have trusted my more by now.” Hylda turned to leave.
“Hylda, wait—”
“No! I’m not waiting for you any longer. I left your cell door open, but I’m not going to be any more involved with you than that. Goodbye, Stig.”
Hylda left the dungeon and things seemed unbearably quiet. Stig sighed, got up, and snuck out of his cell. He should have been happy about being out of prison, but all he felt was alone. He lost his home, his rights, his life’s work, and now his best and only friend. As he snuck around the wall of Reun until he reached and opened the gate, he became certain that he would face Lucus. He was ready to die.

Hylda was almost back at her house when she felt someone tap her shoulder from behind her. She turned around; it was the same young boy who had announced the end of the war. She didn’t recognize him, but she knew he looked worried.
“I’m not in the mood right now,” she said, turning around.
“Aren’t you going to help Stig?” the boy asked, ignoring her.
“He doesn’t need me,” she said. “And I don’t need to see him again. He barely cares about me at all…I’m just another pawn to him. What’s one less pawn, right?”
The boy lowered his head. “Hylda…I don’t know what Wes told you, but please trust me. Stig…he cares about you more than anyone else he knows. He found you when you were injured, and the whole time the war threatened to tear this city apart…he just stayed with you, protected you. I saw Wes come to take him to the dungeon…he fought every step of the way. He loves you, Hylda. Please…help him.”
Hylda was silent. She felt like she just couldn’t comprehend his words. She had decided for herself that Stig didn’t care at all about her. But this…?
“He didn’t do that.”
“I saw him!” the boy said. “You would’ve died in that bed if he hadn’t been helping you heal every step of the way. You’ve known Stig a long time…do you really think I’m lying?”
“He…Stig did that?”
“Wes made Stig drink a weakening potion before his execution,” the boy continued. “He won’t last against a silverfish, let alone the Moonrise leader himself. You have to help him, Hylda.”
“Th—th—” Hylda stammered. “Thank you.”
“Hurry, we don’t have much time!”
“So what are we going to do?”
“Oh, I have an idea.”
The boy led Hylda into the main road of Reun, into an alley, around a patch of sugar canes, and behind the rostrum. He handed Hylda a shovel and they started to dig. Once they had gone some distance, the boy shoved his shovel into the ceiling, knocking down a flood of musty gravel. He and Hylda climbed out, to find something that made Hylda’s eyes water from the light.
Piles of gold and clusters of glowstone littered the floor. A brewing stand and an enchanting table sat on the diamond desk, and a chest sat on the floor, full of supplies the magnitude of which Hylda had never seen.
“All this…was under Reun this whole time?”
“I’m sure Wes won’t mind if we take a few things,” the boy said, sarcastically but with a beaming smile.”
Hylda looked at the bounty of supplies, then back at the boy. She suddenly thought about Stig, the awful things she said to him, and that he was about to die.
“Let’s get crafting.”

The boy passed a stack of books and some planks to Hylda, who began to feed the contents into the enchanting table. The boy put some gunpowder and a fermented spider eye into a sickly-looking potion, which began to bubble. Hylda smashed open the diamond desk and began to forge it into a pair of breastplates and a pair of boots.
About ten minutes later, the boy looked up from the potions stand and maps. “I think you’re ready.”
Hylda fit the armor over herself and nodded.
“Thanks again.”
“No problem. I hope I—” The boy became stiff, his eyes rolling up. A splotch of red and a small piece of flint appeared in his neck. A guard was standing in the shadows, clutching a bow.
“Intruders! Wes, intruders! They’re in the safe room!”
Hylda took her own bow and shot the guard through the head. She ran to catch the boy before he fell.
“Leave me…run,” the boy said. “No,” Hylda replied. The boy smiled sadly, apologetically, before he took his own sword and stabbed himself through the heart. Hands shaking, Hylda got up and ran through the tunnel as she heard Wes’s outraged voice.
“Potions out? The desk and half the supplies gone? Who did this?!”
Hylda scrambled back out the tunnel and didn’t look back until she was a hundred meters from Reun. She couldn’t stop her hands from shaking, still horrified about the innocent boy’s death. I never asked his name.


Stig sprinted across the plain as another zombie swiped at him. He leapt off a plateau and over the zombie, but was knocked sideways by a spider. He slipped and almost fell into a lava pit, but he stumbled forward. A group of monsters was cornering him against the pit.
No…it can’t end like this. I have to get to Lucus.
Suddenly, Hylda burst through the wall of monsters, her diamond sword slashing through the throat of a zombie. She threw a potion at Stig, which shattered as the liquid inside was saturated by Stig’s body and began to heal him. Hylda killed two more zombies and a skeleton as she helped Stig up.
“I’m sorry,” Hylda said. “I’m helping you fight Lucus…I got a huge load of supplies from Wes’s secret storage. What’s wrong?”
Stig was making a weird face between happiness and pain.
“Um…there’s a silverfish on my ankle. It…really hurts.”
Hylda smiled at Stig, happy to have her friend back. She grabbed the silverfish by the tail and tossed it into the lava pit. Then she turned around and hugged Stig.
“H-Hylda?” Stig said.
“I heard what you did for me,” Hylda said. “But even if you hadn’t…I wasn’t fair to you. I owe you an apology.”
“Me too, for dragging you into this,” said Stig. “We fight Lucus together?”
“Together.”

They reached the Lunar Citadel; the moon was full and directly overhead.
“This place…” Stig said, looking around. “It’s beautiful.”
The Lunar Citadel was amazing. Spires stretched incredibly high, but they seemed like they were part of the surrounding mountains. Skyward bridges connected the spires, and the architecture made the place look almost celestial. Stig and Hylda looked around; the place looked very quiet. There were a couple guards guarding the bridge to the main spire, but everyone else seemed to be asleep.
“I’ll take the guards,” Hylda whispered. She drank a potion and snuck toward them. With a magically empowered jump, she launched herself high over them, slamming each of her feet into their heads. Stig dug a hole to hide the unconscious defenders.
“We don’t have many of those short-lasting potions,” said Hylda. “We have to save most of them for Lucus. Hold on…I think I hear someone coming.”
Stig and Hylda drew their weapons as they waited on the bridge as a small silhouette began to approach them. It drew closer, starting to swagger a bit. It was a figure wearing the cloak of Moonrise, but it looked like it was missing its insignia.
“Who are you?” Hylda said as the figure reached them. Without speaking, she took off her cloak.
“Sarrial…!” Stig exclaimed.
“Not anymore,” Sarrial replied.

“Who is she?” Hylda asked.
“She’s the one who tricked me into helping them in the war.”
“I assure you,” said Sarrial, “I come purely in diplomacy.”
“How can we trust you?” Hylda demanded.
“The worst dishonor for a citizen of Moonrise is the loss of her insignia. I am no longer in Moonrise…I have been exiled.”
“What?” Stig asked, surprised. “Why?”
“My exile is the same as yours,” Sarrial replied. “Lucus banished me for failing to kill you in the battle last week. I planned the entire thing…so I received the entire blame, all because I was different. You can understand, can’t you?”
“No, I can’t,” Stig said. Sarrial raised an eyebrow.
“You think that being a little smarter makes an excuse to separate yourself,” Stig said. “However separated I’ve become, I’m still from Reun, so I defend it…and you’re still a cultist.”
Sarrial looked down and grinned, drawing a bright blue sword. She waved it in front of her, the air hissing as she pierced it. Stig drew his own sword; Hylda stepped forward too. “Sorry, Hylda,” Stig said. “I have to do this myself.” Stig’s own sword glinted purple, and as he held it in front of him, it became sharp as a needle. Stig drank a jumping potion; Sarrial reached out expectantly, and Stig tossed her one. They both leapt across the bridge. Sarrial swept sideways, and Stig pushed her sword upward with his own, launching himself back to the ground. But Sarrial flipped backward, impossibly fast, and repeatedly hacked toward Stig. Stig fell over backward as Sarrial leapt again. Stig’s mind raced as Sarrial slowly came down. He couldn’t possibly beat her physically, but she seemed to be expecting to lose. Then he felt the ground. He couldn’t explain it, but it felt thin…like paper. Just before Sarrial’s sword went through his head, he pushed himself forward as Sarrial landed on the bridge. Stig grabbed his pickaxe and slashed it through the ground, and Sarrial fell through the crevasse in the bridge, barely catching the rim.
“Well done,” Sarrial said, groaning from the exertion of holding on. “Lucus is powerful, but not as clever as you. Stig…you will kill him.”
“I will. But I won’t do it for you,” Stig said as he walked over to Sarrial. He reached his hand down to pull her up.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Sarrial said, suddenly frowning. “It’s like I said, my exile is on my own hands. There is nothing left here for me.” Sarrial’s hand began to loosen.
“No!” Stig ran forward to grasp her hand, but she pulled her hand away and tumbled down into the cobblestones below. A sickening crunch was all that was left.

Stig and Hylda continued across the bridge, both incensed and saddened by the death of Sarrial, even though she was a hated enemy. At the end of the bridge, they exchanged potions and weapons.
“Once we go through here, we can’t come back until all of this is over,” said Hylda. “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” Stig said. “Are you?”
“No,” Hylda said. “But it won’t get any easier than this. Stig…be clever.”
“I will.”
Stig and Hylda walked up to the iron doors, and smashed through.


Lucus was at the other side of the room. He was standing in front of his throne, as if expecting them. There were arrows and holes in the pillars encircling the room.
Lucus walked forward, holding two swords made of diamond. He was switching between them. They must be enchanted differently, Stig thought.
Lucus stopped. He was within Stig’s striking range, but it didn’t seem to matter.
“You’ve come to kill me,” Lucus said.
“If it has to be that way,” Stig replied.
“Tell me,” said Lucus, looking at a point in the distance and not even paying attention to Stig’s sword being raised. “We call ourselves Moonrise. You call us the Moonrise Cult. Do you even know what a cult is?”
“It’s a collection of people sharing a religious concept…that harms others.”
Lucus laughed, sending a chill up Stig’s spine. “Moonrise is nothing more than a separatist nation! Neither Reun nor we have any concept of religion. But is even that true? For Reun, their power is their religion…and we are the ones who deny that power. Hence, we are a cult.”
“Why are you telling us this?” said Hylda.
“I tell you this because there’s no point in killing me. Reun is the true enemy! It is what killed your friends, what got you imprisoned, what ruined your life! And yet you come after me. Tell me…are you siding with your enemies?”
Hylda clutched her sword, preparing to slash Lucus across the throat. “You’re trying to distract us.”
“Wait, Hylda,” said Stig. “I think I understand. If he convinces us that killing him is pointless…we won’t be able to. Lucus…I can answer your question.”
Lucus sheathed his sword and stepped backward, looking straight into Stig’s eyes.
“Yes, Reun ruined my life. Wes got me imprisoned, my friends killed, and my dignity taken. But as much as I hate it, I’m still a part of it. You’re the catalyst for all this, and you’ll keep turning my home city against Hylda and me. You’re still a part of Moonrise, no matter what you think of some of the others there. So banishing Sarrial…wasn’t that a bit hypocritical of you?”
Lucus grinned, drawing four potions from his satchel and drinking them. “I underestimated your will. But knowing why you must kill me is one thing; actually doing so will be completely different.”
Before Stig could even draw his sword, Lucus shot forward and a huge red streak appeared in Stig’s side. Stig ducked the other sword and then swung wildly, but Lucus leapt over him and shot an arrow into Hylda’s heart, barely missing her flesh through her armor. Stig and Hylda attacked over and over, surrounding Lucus, throwing potions, and attacking with enchanted weapons, but Lucus was too fast. He took maybe three hits, before he whirled around and knocked both of them into opposite sides of the room. He walked up to Stig, stabbed him through the stomach, and threw him into Hylda. Stig lay on the ground, clutching his wounds, and Hylda couldn’t seem to get up.
“Maybe I didn’t underestimate you at all,” Lucus said, approaching them with nothing but a gash on his shoulder. “You didn’t even make an effort.”
“We have one healing potion left,” gasped Stig through gritted teeth. “Hylda…use it.” He reached out to Hylda.
Hylda almost took the potion, but she sighed and withdrew her hand. “No,” she said. “Thanks for finally trusting me. But…if anyone can beat him, it’s you. Remember what Sarrial said, Stig. Lucus seems impossible, but he’s not smart. You are.”
Stig looked at the potion, and then slowly drank it. “You’ll be okay?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Go kick his butt.”

“Still trying?” Lucus said. “I would have thought you’d have given up by now.”
“Of course you’d think that.” Stig was reaching in his satchel, looking for something that he could work with. Then he found it; he’d paid it no attention before, it was near-worthless; but he could use it. Lucus loaded an arrow, and Stig readied his item.
Lucus heard his arrow hit something, but when he looked, he didn’t see Stig. All he could see was a little tower of dirt. Lucus slashed the dirt away and saw Stig’s sword shooting forward, catching him in the shoulder and causing Lucus to stumble back. Stig walked forward.
“You really needed Sarrial’s help, didn’t you?”
Lucus’s eyes narrowed furiously. He leapt at Stig, who quickly protected his head with an arch of dirt. As soon as Lucus slashed through it, Stig hit him with the butt of his sword and backed up. Lucus slashed wildly through wall after wall of dirt, and Stig continued to sidestep and back up. Then Stig put one foot behind the other, stumbled, and fell sideways. Lucus grinned madly and started to slash down at Stig, but with her last bit of strength, Hylda fired an arrow into Lucus’s side. Lucus yanked the arrow out as Stig ran for the door.
“Trying to escape?” Lucus said as he shot at Stig, but Stig grabbed a load of fence posts and began sticking them in the walls, jumping up toward the top of the spire.
Lucus was jumping up behind him. Stig shot at him, but Lucus had empowered jumping and dodged the arrows. Once Stig reached the top, he continued to shoot, as Lucus tried to reach him. But Stig could only get a single shot on Lucus before they both were at the top, hacking at each other with their swords. Stig still couldn’t beat Lucus; he ran to the window and out onto the ledge around the top of the spire. He got a sudden sense of vertigo as he inched around the edge, trying to find a way out. Lucus was running around the edge after him, blocking Stig’s attempts to knock him of.
“It’s the end of the line, Stig,” Lucus said. “There’s nowhere you can run.”
“No…there’s always a way…”
Stig was gasping from fear; he was so high that a tiny slip would mean death. Then he saw a way out; there was another spire, connected on a mountain. There was a fountain on top. Stig held his breath, closed his eyes, and leapt. The fall was so intense that he couldn’t even scream. He fell into the fountain, and almost drowned scrambling to the surface of the water. He heard Lucus’s gasp of surprise, but then Stig saw him jumping after him. Stig crawled out of the fountain, begging his legs to work, as Lucus sped toward where Stig had landed. Thinking fast, Stig turned around and threw a huge clump of dirt into the fountain. As Lucus landed on the dirt, Stig could hear his boots shattering.

Lucus was lying in the fountain. Stig slowly got to his feet, looking over the edge. There was nothing under them but grass and a pit of lava. Stig walked over to the lava, still gasping, wondering what would have happened if he had jumped there. It’ll be okay, Stig said to himself. I beat Lucus. It’s all over.
Just then, Stig felt a sword hit him in the back. His armor broke. Lucus was standing behind him, clutching his stomach and laughing.
“I’m not dead yet,” he said, before shoving Stig off the spire, straight toward the lava.
This fall was even worse than the last. Stig could barely breathe, let alone see Lucus at the edge of the spire. The contents of Stig’s satchel were spilling out. Stig saw his swords, his potions, and his bow slip out—there was no hope left.
Time seemed to have slowed down as Stig realized what he had to do. He reached out for his anti-fire potion, and just as he was drinking it, he splashed into the lava.

It burned like nothing Stig had ever felt, but he focused all his strength on finishing the potion. Suddenly, he felt nothing. He put his hand to his heart to see if he was dead; he wasn’t.
Stig was holding his breath at the bottom of the lava lake, a red aura protecting him from burning to death. Stig was alive, but unfortunately, so was Lucus. He still needed a way to win…
Stig grabbed his fishing rod from his nearly-empty satchel, wading just on the surface so Lucus couldn’t see him through the embers. Stig cast his fishing rod with all his strength; it went up, up, onto the spire…and the line wrapped around Lucus’s throat. Stig yanked, and Lucus fell, gasping, grasping the choking line, before falling into the pool with a nauseating sizzle. Stig felt his fire protection fading, so he crawled out of the lava. As he looked back, he saw Lucus’s blackened, dead body floating in the deadly lake.
He stumbled back into the spire to see Hylda still on the ground.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go home.”
Hylda didn’t need to ask if Lucus was dead. She got up, and they supported each other on the long walk back to Reun. The sun was just rising, but they still weren’t safe.


Two guards stood outside the city Reun, as they loitered at the gate with their swords sheathed. The faint noise of two voices was heard in the distance.
“I can’t believe we did it…”
“Yeah, after all of this, it’s finally over.”
“Reun’s just up ahead, we’ll be safe there.”
“Yeah, we just need to get Lucus’s crest over there and we’re done.”
“Ha ha…”
“What’s so funny?”
“I just—I just can’t believe we made it this far.”
“You seemed a little more confident when we were on the way.”
“Oh, shut up…”
The guards straightened up, drawing their swords and watching the direction of the voices. Stig and Hylda slowly limped into view, holding each other up. They both had huge gashes across their bodies and through their armor, and Stig’s skin was badly burned.
“It’s Hylda…and Stig!” one guard said to the other. “Wait…is that the crest of the Moonrise Cult?!”
The guard was loud enough that Stig could hear. He grinned. “We did it.” But what he heard next sent a chill up his spine.
“It doesn’t matter,” the other guard said. “Orders are, we kill Stig and his accomplice no matter what. Let’s go.”
Stig couldn’t believe what he heard. He had won…he had killed Lucus…but he still couldn’t have a place to call home. “Do we run?” Hylda asked, grabbing her sword.
“Yeah,” said Stig. “I’m not fighting for this.” Stig threw a potion at the guards, causing them to slow to a crawl.
“A…potion…of…slowing!” the angry one said. “Get…back…here!”
Stig and Hylda ran as fast as they could, still to hungry to sprint. “There’s a cave!” Stig said, and they dived in. Hylda sealed off the entrance, while Stig twisted torches into the walls and lit them. Hylda drew her bow and shot through the skull of a skeleton deeper in, and then they sealed that off too. Stig sat down on a rock, gasping from exertion and anemia.
“So…Wes is still after us…even when we killed Lucus.” Hylda said.
“Yeah…we really didn’t win, did we?”
“Not yet, anyway,” said Hylda. She was trying to stand, but a tear ran down her cheek and she clutched her stomach, eventually sitting down opposite Stig.
“We’re out of potions…and our arrows and enchanted swords won’t hold up much longer. We’re trapped.”
“What do we do now, Hylda?”
Hylda opened her mouth, and then closed it. She didn’t know. She thought there was always a way, but she didn’t know. “…I’m sorry,” Hylda said.
Stig slowly got up and walked over, sitting next to Hylda. “We’ll start over. We’ll build on our own terms. We’ll just keep hiding, and we’ll build in this cave until we’re safe. And then…eventually…maybe we can save the people in Reun.”
Hylda looked at Stig; he was dead serious. She smiled and looked away. “Sure. Let’s do it…on one condition.”
“What is it?”
“I get to steal from Reun.”
Stig laughed. “Fine…just don’t get caught.”
They both got up.
“Well, we should get started,” Hylda said. “What first?”
“Well, I am kind of hungry…”

Moonrise - Book Two

Chapter 1 - Unsettled

The door to the palace slammed shut behind Wes, stomping into the hall, clutching his forehead. Things had not been going well in Reun; rumor spread about supposed “traitors” Stig and Hylda going to the Citadel, and Lucus’s absence only confirmed so. Strings of uprisings, theft, and ghost stories seemed to turn up constantly, and Wes was running out of resources.
Wes turned around, halfway down the hall, looking tiredly at the sound coming through the door. It was a sort of clanking; Wes inched toward the door, as a splinter of iron broke out the back. Wes gasped and ran toward the door, ducking next to it; someone was axing it down. Drawing his sword, Wes waited by the door, ready to strike at whoever came. With an ear-splitting crash, the door fell through, clanging on the ground. By the time Wes had wiped the dust from his eyes, another figure was marching in.
“Who are you?” Wes demanded, pointing his sword at the slim figure of a man with odd brown-and-black hair, and a purple robe. He was dressed regally, apparently not expecting a fight. Many guards marched in the door after him. Wes wondered why they weren’t arresting the intruder.
“Who are you?” Wes repeated, his hand tightening around the sword.
“Excuse me,” the man said, “but I don’t think that is the proper way to address me.”
“What are you talking about? I am the monarch here!” Wes was backing up, turning his sword toward each of the guards in turn.
“Ah, there’s a bit of complication there, isn’t it?” the man said. “But as long as you feel that way, I may as well allow you to address me as Oren. I am the true lord of Reun.”
Wes’s eyes widened. Oren smirked, not bothering to draw a sword, despite Wes’s own extended toward him.
Wes took another step back, and the guards—the guards who had once defended him—took a step forward.
“Let’s not make this too complicated,” Oren yawned. “Just pack your things and leave. Impersonating the monarch of Reun is enough for a banishment sentence.”
Wes took another step back, but he didn’t keep his eyes on Oren. Instead, they flicked toward a certain point in the ceiling. The guards saw, and also looked there. One of them whispered to Oren.
“Ah,” Oren said, nodding. “So that’s how it is. Get him.”
The guards rushed forward. Wes grabbed the first guard by the wrist, and slammed his knee into the man’s chest. He threw his sword at Oren, but Oren leapt to the ground with a cry of shock and the sword flew into the opposite wall. Wes ran to the stairs and blocked off the guards with a layer of cobblestones. As the guards began axing the stones away, Wes ran up the stairs and into a small room, the room he had glanced at before the guards attacked. Wes burst through the door, and found a boy inside, sitting on his bed, tossing a stone to himself.
“Dad?” the boy said, turning around. His voice was high; he was still twelve years old.
“North,” Wes said, grabbing North’s shoulder. “You need to get out of here. Something has happened…and you need to get out. Do you remember the survival tactics I’ve taught you?”
North nodded, uncertain of what exactly Wes was saying. Wes handed him a stack of wooden planks and a pick.
“Go out the wall behind you,” Wes said. “Survive, and hide. Don’t trust anyone. There’s a boy and a girl hidden somewhere near the city; if I can’t reach you soon, hopefully they will.”
“Dad, I don’t understand…what’s going on?” The sound of footsteps grew behind them.
“There’s no time! Just go!” Wes grabbed the pickaxe from North and slashed open the wall. North stood shaking, then clumsily grabbed the pick and ran out the hole. Wes turned around, sword in hand. A guard appeared in the doorway, and was slashed through the stomach. More guards came, and swords pierced Wes in the shoulder and side. Oren stood over Wes as he fell to the ground.
“Well, get up!” Oren said. “It’s off to the dungeon with you!” The guards grabbed Wes’s arms and hoisted him up, carrying him out. The guard in back hurried to Wes’s side.
“Sorry, Wes,” he whispered. “Things aren’t going to be easy from now on.” The guard pulled a pickaxe from his belt and slipped the handle into Wes’s boot. Feeling the weight of the pick, Wes let himself be dragged to the prison, turning his thoughts to escape.

North was gasping as he ran through the upper hall of the palace, stumbling over every loose stone. Whatever made Wes tell him those things must have been very bad, North thought. The sound of running feet filled North with dread. North saw the shadow of a guard around the corner; he grabbed his pick and hacked into the ground, then jumped into the fountain in the hall below. But more guards were coming; and a thin, wicked-looking man in the middle. Behind him was…Wes? North let out a small gasp, losing precious air. As the guards passed, North continued to hold his breath. He began to see blotches, but he attempted to keep his consciousness, forcing the blotches to fade. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the front door slam shut. North pulled his head from the choking water, gasping in relief and fear. Wes was being dragged away by guards; in a jolt of terror, North ran back upstairs and began to place several planks of wood out the back window, inching over the wall of Reun.

Chapter 2 - Survival

(Three weeks earlier)
Stig shoveled out a clump of dirt from the ceiling of the cave, laying cobblestones in its place. Eating a stolen slice of melon, Stig went over to the blocked-off part of the cave where undead and oversized insects were probably already crawling. He broke open a hole and quickly installed a door, trapping a disgruntled-looking creeper outside. There was a loud clumping above him, and Hylda dug into the cave above him.
“Hey Hylda,” said Stig. “Where were you?” Stig noticed Hylda’s bloody arm. “What happened?”
“Some guard tagged me outside the city,” Hylda said. “I don’t think he saw my face, or where I went.”
“Was the hunt at least successful?”
“It sure was!” Hylda laid some stairs to the hole, and helped four cows down into the cave, holding a bundle of wheat behind her.
“We can breed them,” Hylda said. “We can have a renewable leather and food source. I didn’t bother getting any sheep; we can use spider silk to weave our own wool.”
“Hylda, I’d be dead in a week without you,” Stig replied, fencing in the cows. “We should probably hollow out this cave some.”
The animal pen took up most of the cave. All they had was a little hollow, barely three meters tall, that they entered through a patch of dirt on the surface with a dandelion on top. A well-lit tree was in the corner, which they had planted for a source of wood and more trees. They weren’t nearly ready to take the fight back to Reun. Stig and Hylda each grabbed a pickaxe and shovel and started digging at the hovel’s walls.

After several hours of digging, there was an explosion overhead. Climbing out of the cave, Stig saw a large hole in the wall of the city Reun. He called Hylda up.
“What do you think happened?” Hylda asked. Stig pointed; a cloaked figure was standing in the whole, jumping up and down.
“This is what we think of your government!” the figure was saying. He was quickly driven from the hole by two guards.
“What the heck was that all about?” Stig asked.
“I don’t know…but Reun’s seemed a lot less organized lately,” Hylda replied. “Something’s going wrong under Wes’s rule.”
Stig nodded and they went back down into the cave. “That explosion was too close for comfort,” he said. “We should start mining; hopefully we can get some iron soon.
Stig took a pickaxe and a bundle of torches from the chest and began digging out a stairwell. Stig had grown surprisingly broad-shouldered from their time in the cave, even though it had only been a couple weeks. Most of their time had been spent keeping the cave secret and safe, so they rarely had the time to harvest.

Ten days passed, then twenty, and Stig and Hylda still hadn’t found any iron. Every time they dug farther down, the underground was caked in cobblestone.
“This is hopeless,” Hylda said, tossing her pickaxe to the ground. “Reun’s been here for decades; all the iron nearby has been swept clean and the tunnels have been blocked up.”
“They can’t have taken all of it,” Stig sighed, cutting another lump of coal from the side of the wall. “There’s too much space. We’ll have to get farther away from Reun if we want to find anything.
“It’s too risky,” said Hylda. “Reun is surrounded by its newest tunnels. Even if they don’t find us, how will we find our way back?”
Stig sat down, thinking hard. “There’s no way to get iron besides mining it and taking it once it’s already been mined. And since the minable area has been swept clean, we’ll have to steal some. But Reun guards minerals heavily; we’ll never be able to reach them…”
“Excuse me,” said Hylda. “But once you’re done talking to yourself, I think I have a plan you might like.”
“Huh?” Stig lifted his head.
“You’re assuming Reun is the only place with iron. But there’s another place…a place we know is rich in materials, and that doesn’t even have any guards.”
Stig gasped, realizing what Hylda was saying. “We’re going back to the Lunar Citadel.”

Stig peeked out of the cave. The Citadel was a small cluster of broken spires in the distance. Stig measured; from a distance, the tallest spire was about half a meter tall.
“How tall is the central spire?” Stig asked Hylda.
“Hmm…I think about a hundred and fifty meters.”
Stig scribbled some notes onto a paper, and then drew his pickaxe.
“All right, we’ll dig toward the Citadel, but we’ll have to measure our distance well. Hopefully, we can come up just under Lucus’s throne.”
Stig and Hylda started digging, slowly, painfully…their picks continued to snap in half, and they continued to replace them.
“How much longer do we have to dig?” Hylda panted.
Stig was silently counting his steps. “We’re almost there,” he said. Finally, Hylda broke open the ceiling above them, and the tunnel was flooded with light.
Stig and Hylda climbed up into the spire. It was still as beautiful as ever, but the walls and floor were damaged from their battle with Lucus, which seemed a lifetime ago.
His hand over his eyes to block the brightness of daytime, Stig climbed out after Hylda. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s see if we can’t find some iron.” But as they were opening the spire door, they heard the clumping of feet from under the bridge, and carts with treasure chests being rolled back and forth.
“Scavengers,” Hylda hissed, “…from Reun.”

Chapter 3 - Remains of Moonrise

“How much do we got?” one of the scavengers rasped, loading up a cartful of stone bricks, glow-stone, and…iron!
Another scavenger looked in the cart. “Uh, twenty diamonds, a bunch of bricks, a few hundred iron ingots…and some iron bars.”
“We’ve been here a week! Tell me this big city has at least a little more for us!”
“Well, it’s all very well hidden…maybe we should ‘ask’ them.”

Hylda turned to Stig. “What do they mean by ‘them’?”
“I don’t know, but it can’t be anything good,” said Stig. “Whoever they are, the scavengers think that they know something about the Citadel; in particular, where its valuables are.”
Stig crept across the bridge, practically crawling so as not to be seen over the rail. He peeked over the rim to see where the scavengers were going.
The scavengers were traveling along a little canyon between two mountains. It was obviously hollowed out, because the ground was stone smudged with dirt, and dust swirled around in the air. All around, men were shouting orders, talking to each other, and pushing carts up and down the canyon. A few of them were walking down to the end of the scavenging site.
“I can see the rim of a cage over there,” Stig whispered. “But I don’t see who’s there. I’ll go scout ahead; could you stay here and guard?”
“Fine,” said Hylda, slightly jarred at being left behind again. “Come back as soon as you see them.”
Stig nodded and took some gravel from his satchel. Placing the gravel as a wall, he skimmed the ridge, trying to find where the cages were. He could see more of the cages now; there were at least eight, bounded in by iron doors, with at least two people in each one. Just as Stig was getting closer, the gravel he tried to place toppled over the wall, and Stig fell down with it, barely clasping the edge. Some of the scavengers heard the sound, and looked up at Stig, dangling from one hand.
“Hey, there’s a kid up there!” one of the scavengers exclaimed, pointing.
“It must be another Lunar! Get him! Quick!”
Stig was trying to climb up, but several arrows whizzed past his head, lodging into the wall around him. The scavengers were shooting at him; Stig frantically tried to scale the side of the wall, get away from the scavenging site, but he was hit in the leg and toppled off the cliff. Stig fell down several layers of rock and onto an iron rail, where the scavengers were immediately upon him.
“Take his stuff,” one scavenger said as he emptied Stig’s satchel on the ground.
“What? No metal at all? Well, this is a total waste. Still, we need to make sure he doesn’t escape and tell anyone about our loot.”
Stig gasped as two strong arms lifted him up.
“If we use more iron on imprisoning him, we won’t even turn a profit,” another man said, walking up. He was probably the foreman.
“Fine,” the first one responded. “These Lunars are useless, anyway; we should just turn them in to Oren.”
The scavengers threw Stig into a minecart and began lining up more carts in front and behind him. People were let out of their prisons and placed into the carts. Stig looked around; a lot of the prisoners were children, no more than seventeen. A thirteen-year-old sat behind Stig, his demeanor firm, one hand over the edge of the minecart. He was obviously used to the scavengers’ prison. A woman sat in front of him, with long hair; some black, some gray. She was very thin, and obviously wasn’t coping well. A guard sat in every five carts, watching the prisoners closely. Once the scavengers set the little caravan going, the many carts squealed against the tracks as the prisoners were slowly brought down the canyon.

Stig couldn’t believe he had been captured again. He desperately hoped he could figure out a way to escape. As the cart hit a golden track, it blasted forward, then suddenly went underground, coasting through a narrow tunnel.
“These people don’t want to share their spoils with anyone,” the small boy behind Stig said. “I’ve seen them use this tunnel. They sneak into Reun without going through the gate so they can keep all their winnings.”
Stig turned around. The boy had a soft, high voice, and he was looking thoughtfully at the quickly receding wall. Stig jumped to see the crest of Moonrise on his shirt.
“You’re not from here, are you?” the boy asked, turning to Stig. “What are you doing here?”
“I—I was looking for…” Stig didn’t want to say he had come to the boy’s home to loot its minerals. He would just think Stig was another scavenger. But he wasn’t…was he?
“Don’t worry,” the boy said. “I can tell you’re not one of them. After Lucus died, all of us—the scavengers call us ‘Lunars’—were mostly forgotten. That’s why I’ve been imprisoned…so these people can use me to find our city’s riches.”
“That’s…terrible,” Stig said. “How long have you been here?”
“I’ve lost track. Maybe a few weeks, maybe a year; I don’t know.”
Stig lowered his head. “What’s wrong?” the boy said.
“I…” I might as well tell the truth, Stig thought. “I’m from Reun. My friend and I…we killed Lucus.”
The boy looked surprised for a moment. He started to look a bit angry. Then he sighed. “None of that matters now, anyway. You could never have seen this coming when you confronted him.”
Stig was very surprised at the boy’s reaction. “Thanks,” he said.
“Don’t thank me yet,” the boy laughed grimly. “There are a lot of people here who won’t be too understanding…like her,” the boy pointed to the frail woman in front of Stig. “I’d steer clear of her if I were you. A lot of us think she’s insane.”
“Who is she?”
Just as the boy was about to respond, an explosion shattered the track in front of them. Many of the Moonrise captives jumped in shock, and the scavenger in front toppled out of his cart and fell into the hole made by the explosive. Several guards rushed past Stig and looked in the hole. As they jumped down, Stig heard shouts of alarm and cries of pain. Everyone ran to see what was happening, except for the strange woman in front of Stig, who just sat there. Just as Stig was reaching the front, Hylda climbed out of the hole.
“I believe I told you to come right back, Stig,” Hylda said accusingly. “Who’s this?”
“My name’s Talis,” the boy responded. “I met your friend ‘Stig’ on the carts. Are you…uh…?”
Stig and Hylda looked at each other. “Oh, no,” they both said suddenly. “No, we’re just friends.”
The three of them laughed.
“So…if you two are from Reun, why did they capture you?”
“It’s a long story,” said Stig.

After Talis was filled in about Stig and Hylda’s journey, he responded, “Seems like you’ve had trouble with both cities.”
“We sure have,” said Stig. “Actually…do you want to come to our hideout? We’re eventually going to confront Reun, but for now, you could be safe there.”
“Thanks,” Talis said, “but I can only stay a while. I’m going to try to rebuild Moonrise…properly, this time. The Lunar Citadel can be a source of good, not evil.”
“Sounds ambitious,” Stig grinned. “I hope we can help.”
“Guards are coming!” Hylda suddenly exclaimed, looking through the small square of sky made by the explosion. “Guards from Reun heard the explosion! We need to go back up the tunnel!”
Stig nodded. He grabbed Talis’s arm and ran back up the tunnel. “Wait,” Talis said. “What about her?”
The thin woman was still in the cart. It seemed like she was grinning slightly.
“We’d better take her with us,” said Stig.
Talis nodded. “Actually, she knows a lot about where the Lunar Citadel’s valuables are hidden. If I’m to continue my quest, I’ll need her help.”
Stig and Hylda helped the woman out of the cart, and the four of them ran down the tunnel, away from the heavy footsteps.

Chapter 4 - For Freedom

As Stig, Hylda, Talis and the strange woman fled, Stig saw several guards drop down the hole. Half of them grabbed the unconscious scavengers and dragged them out of the hole, while the others looked down the tunnel. It wouldn’t be long before they caught up.
Stig turned around and tore off the rail underneath him, replacing it with a mound of dirt. Then he drew his pick and broke a small hole in the wall.
“Everyone, get in here!” Stig called to the others, who ran into the hole. Stig blocked it up.
Standing in complete darkness, the footsteps grew louder and louder…
“So this is where those criminals were bringing in their loot,” one of the guards said.
“This is a lot of minecart rails…I guess we confiscate them, fill up the tunnel and call it a day?”
“Wait…the tunnel’s blocked up here. Someone’s trying to escape!”
Stig, Hylda and Talis held their breath as the guards broke through the dirt.
“It’s just the rest of the tunnel.”
“All right then…let’s just go and take the scavengers’ base.”
Stig broke out of the hole once the guards left. “Let’s go back to the Lunar Citadel; Hylda and I made a tunnel into the center that will get us back to safety.
“Sounds good,” said Talis. “I’ve always wanted to see Lucus’s throne room.”
The four of them continued down the tunnel, back into the ravine. Avoiding the guards, they began making their way to the spire.

North waded through the swamp water, his satchel full of logs. At the middle of the lake, North held his breath and dove under, into a small tunnel, leading into a dank cave. North gasped as he pulled his head out of the water, entering the cave in which he survived. He had been scared of leaving the cave for weeks now, but he would have to get food and supplies if he was going to be there a while. Where was his father? Who were the “boy and girl” Wes told him to find? North hadn’t thought about those questions until now, mostly thinking about avoiding the guards and coming up with a place to hide. Once that was over, all his other worries came back.
North had been suddenly told to flee his own home, saw his father wounded by the guards who were supposed to protect him, and had to flee his own city. All North could feel was fear.
The swamp was a dank, wet area, and the abundance of water in the cave made the place cold and smelly. North had gotten used to it. He also noticed his hands; they were much harder. He was growing up faster than he had thought. Then North remembered; his thirteenth birthday was yesterday. He sighed unhappily and went back out of the cave, holding a wooden sword and pickaxe, but as soon as he took his head out of the water, he heard the clanking of iron boots.
“Hey, I thought I saw someone over there!” a Reun guard said. North couldn’t dive back under; they would find him…and his hiding place…immediately. Instead, North scrambled out of the water and sprinted away, looking for a tree to duck behind. There were none in sight.
North continued running, toward Reun, into the blind spot of the watch towers. Hopefully, nobody else had seen him yet. The sound of footsteps continued, and then faded.
North couldn’t hear the guards anymore. They probably hadn’t gotten a good enough glimpse of him. North had made it into the plains; they were very dry, but much greener than the muddy color of the swamp. North inched back around the wall, back toward his base, until he was at the swamp again…but there was no lake. There was only a plug of dirt and guards walking out, holding wooden tools. They had found his hideout…he could not return there.
Gasping with the strain of running, North slumped over against the wall, catching his breath. He had nowhere to go; he had used up his energy to sprint, and the guards would be able to catch him by attrition anyway. Clutching his stomach, North waited by the wall, just hoping…
Suddenly, four figures came around the wall, whispering to each other.
“I think we got all the redstone we need.”
“Good, I don’t want to have to break into Wes’s study again. It’s probably heavily guarded now.”
“I see the marker; our hideout is just down there.”
“You’re sure nobody saw us?”
“I’m positive. Wait…”
North gasped in fear as the figure in front saw him. He seemed to be only five or so years older than North. He was accompanied by a girl, and a smaller boy closer to North’s age. Why had they mentioned his father? Did they know him?
“There’s someone there!” the girl half-whispered, half-exclaimed. Just as North was opening his mouth, his head was slammed against the wall, and everything went dark.

“Why did you do that?” Stig exclaimed, lifting the boy up.
“Sorry,” Hylda grimaced. “I thought he was a guard. I guess I’m just a bit uptight.”
“Yeah, a bit,” Stig scoffed. “I wonder what he’s doing here.”
“It looked like he was hiding,” said Talis.
“Maybe we should take him with us, then?” Hylda asked. “If he was hiding, he probably isn’t safe here.”
The boy was very skinny, dressed in a simple blue shirt and baggy brown shorts. His hair was short and dark, and his jaw was rigid…Stig thought he had seen him before.
Stig and Hylda lifted up the unconscious boy and headed toward the cave, with Talis and the odd woman walking behind them.

“What?” Oren said, staring at the guard in front of him. “There are savages outside the city?”
The guard stammered for a moment, then held up some wood and a workbench.
“We found these in a nearby cave under a lake. There were sticks on the floor…they weren’t damp. They had been dropped there recently.”
Oren clutched his forehead and sighed. “Oh, this is not good at all,” he muttered. “We have to find them before they get too powerful.”
“Yes, sir,” said the guard. “Will you be overseeing the first patrol?
“No,” Oren waved him away. “I have a visit to make.”
Oren and the guard walked out of the palace; the guard turned to the right, Oren to the left. Oren opened the door to the dungeon, covering his nose as he stepped inside.
“Is anyone in there?” Oren asked mockingly, peering through the bars of a large corner cell. Wes was there, sitting in the back, his hair grown long over his face.
“What do you want?” Wes asked menacingly.
“I want something you still haven’t given to me,” Oren said. “I have just been informed of a savage being sighted near Reun, and his hideout located. I think that you know of this.”
Wes looked up. If it was a hideout for just one person, then it couldn’t have been Stig and Hylda. Was it North? If it was…then North was still alive.
“I don’t have all day,” Oren said, tapping his foot.
“I would never let savages near our borders,” Wes growled back.
“You’re lying!” Oren’s strange, high-pitched voice grew intense as he grabbed the bars. “I know it.”
“Believe what you want,” Wes said. “It won’t matter anyway. You are no monarch.”
Oren glared at Wes, grinning darkly in the corner.
“I will find these savages,” Oren hissed through gritted teeth. “When I do, I will bring them to you. Then we’ll see what you know.”
Oren walked quickly out of the dungeon just as Wes stood up. He now knew that his son was still alive…that Stig and Hylda were still hidden…everything was slowly coming together. Wes drew the pickaxe from the corner, having hidden it from Oren’s view ever since the guard still loyal to him had slipped it into his satchel. He turned to face the wall, keeping him from the outside world, raising the pickaxe toward it. It was time for Wes to make his move.

Chapter 5 - United

With a dizzying swirl of lights clouding his vision, North tried to get up. He was in a bed, he knew that for sure, but he wasn’t sure where he was. Rubbing his eyes, he saw the dim light of a torch. He was in a cave.
North staggered to his feet, his head throbbing. He could remember that his hideout had been found. Was he in a prison? North walked slowly toward the door, when suddenly the wall behind him burst open and a girl walked in, holding a pickaxe.
“Oh, hi,” she said, widening out the tunnel she had dug into the room. “You’re awake.”
North realized that she was the girl who had knocked him out earlier. Noticing his shock, the girl dropped her pickaxe.
“It’s okay, you’re safe here,” she said. “My name’s Hylda. Who are you?”
North stammered for a moment. “My name’s North…where are we?”
“We’re in a hidden cave near Reun. My friend and I…well, you could say we’re fugitives. Where are you from?”
“I’m a fugitive from Reun as well. I don’t even know why, though…I think my father’s in trouble. He just told be to run and hide, and…well, here I am.
“But…when I had to leave, he told me to find someone. A boy and a girl…hidden near Reun. Are you…are you the people he wanted me to go to?
“Well, we haven’t heard about any of this,” said Stig, walking up behind them. “But it is possible.”
North pulled himself off the bed, standing up and looking around at the cave, now having been dug very large. “Is there anyone else with you?”
“Two others,” said Stig. “Talis is about your age, but he’s been helping out a lot around here. There’s another—an old woman—but she mostly just sits around staring. Talis says he needs her help, but I can’t imagine why. Hey, you wouldn’t know about the Lunar Citadel by chance, would you?”
“Of course,” North replied. “They’re that evil sect bent on destroying Reun.”
Stig grimaced at Hylda. It sounded exactly like something Wes might have said. North and Talis may not get along well.
“Wait, I remember you…” North continued. “You’re Stig, right? They tried to kill you at your ceremony! And, Hylda…I remember you pushing him out of the way. So you two are fugitives now?”
Stig nodded, and then turned toward the door. “What’s that sound?” he asked.
North felt a familiar ringing in his ears…one that had haunted him for days.
“Guards,” he whispered.
“Stig! Hylda!” Talis came sprinting into the room. “I’m so sorry…it’s all my fault…”
“What? What happened?” North said, turning around.
“I was just digging out a wall…I wasn’t looking where I was going, and…a big pile of sand fell in.”
Stig felt a chill run down his spine. “So that means…”
Talis nodded, his eyes wide with fear and guilt. “We’re underneath Reun.”

The four of them ran toward the hole. Hylda grabbed a sword on the way out.
“We’ve got sand! Plug it up!”
“We can’t! It’ll just fall back down again!”
The guard was getting closer. Stig, Hylda and Talis backed up against the walls, gesturing for North to do the same. Talis had left his emblem of the Citadel in storage, but North still thought he didn’t look like someone from Reun. North wasn’t quite sure who he was.
The guard dropped into the hole, staring at the massive cave. Before he could open his mouth, Hylda stabbed him through the back. Wounded through his armor, the guard turned around, but Stig and Talis pulled his feet out from under him and Hylda plunged her sword into his head.
“I think I need to throw up,” North muttered as he ran from the hole. Stig and Hylda dragged the guard out of sight, while Talis tried filling the hole with sandstone. Suddenly the plug broke.
“Retreat!” Talis whispered. “There are five of them!”
The three of them ran into separate rooms, giving themselves a little more space before ambushing the guards. As the guards began piling into the room, all three of them attacked from different sides. Stig leapt off a loose stone and slashed his sword through two of the guards. Talis whirled around blindingly fast and kicked one of the guards into the ground, and Hylda tripped another, felling him onto her sword. Soon, all the guards were killed.
“Nice fighting,” Stig said to Talis.
“I was trained to be an assassin, so I had to learn their fighting style. It looks like you two picked it up as well.”
“It isn’t safe here,” said Hylda suddenly, running into the storage room. “Let’s grab whatever we need and run.”
“Where to?” Talis asked.
“The Lunar Citadel, of course! Those scavengers were taken to prison, so it’ll be a safe spot for a while.”
“You head for the tunnel,” said Stig. “I’ll go get North.”

Hylda and Talis went back to the strange woman, now grinning again, and the three of them ran down the tunnel. Stig found North in the small room with the cows fenced in.
“North, come on, we have to leave.”
North staggered to his feet. “What…what happened to the guards?”
“They’re gone now, but more will come if we don’t move. Come on!”
Stig grabbed North’s arm and hurried toward the tunnel. Once they reached the end, Stig looked around for the other three. Just as Stig was climbing out of the hole, he was bashed on the back of the head, and fell unconscious.

Chapter 6 - The Next Step

Stig woke in a small cave with an iron door. Despite the cramped feel, it was a lot like the cave they had just escaped from. He could hear someone calling to him in the distance, and then realized it was not from a distance at all. Hylda was standing over him, calling his name to wake him up.
Stig got up and looked around. “Where are the others?”
“I don’t know. North’s disappeared, and I saw Talis and that woman get marched off to another room.”
The door behind them opened, and a broad-shouldered man walked in.
“Wes…” Hylda whispered under her breath. “So…Reun knew we were headed for the Citadel.”
Stig felt inside his satchel, looking for a sword. It was empty.
“Don’t try anything,” said Wes. “You want Reun overthrown, don’t you?”
Stig gaped. “Wait…what are you talking about?”
Wes stepped into the room. “This is a secret cave on the north side of Reun. The throne has been taken by a wicked man named Oren; I later found out he was the son of the monarch of Reun, who was lying in wait until the common folk grew restless before forcing his way into power. I escaped…and now I want to take the city back.”
Stig took a step back. They hadn’t been captured by Reun…they had been captured by a resistance movement. “So why did you capture us? How did you capture us?”
Wes’s brow furrowed, but he maintained his calm. “Oren knows there are insurgents hiding near the city. A group of scavengers were found near the Lunar Citadel, and then six guards were killed; it wasn’t hard to figure out where you would go next.”
It was Hylda’s turn to speak. “When we came into the Citadel, there were five of us. Where are the others?”
Wes nodded. “North is safe, deeper in the cave. As for the other two…I don’t think you’ll see them for a while.”
“What?” Hylda exclaimed. “Why won’t we?”
Wes’s voice lowered to a growl. “They’re Lunars. Don’t tell me you couldn’t have figured it out.”
“We know who they are!” Hylda shouted back. “That doesn’t put them underneath us. You can’t just kidnap children!”
Wes drew his sword. “I wouldn’t ally with them if I was you, or else we might not have bothered letting you regain consciousness. The boy is a trained assassin, and the woman…I would have recognized that regicidal witch anywhere.”
Stig gasped. “You mean…”
“It shouldn’t matter to you anymore,” Wes interrupted. “We only brought you here to see if North was with you; now we have more pressing matters to attend to.”
“What?”
“Every guard Oren has sent against you or us has been killed easily. Apparently you two are more skilled with swords than I thought. Unfortunately, Oren believes he knows where to find something which would give him incredible magic power. He could use such a power to enchant a deadly blade that would crush any foe…which would mean the end of all of us.”
Stig crossed his arms. “So you’re asking for our help?”
“This is my offer,” replied Wes. “Help us get to what Oren’s seeking before he does, and I may just lift the charges against you once Reun is restored.”
“Thanks, but we’ll pass,” said Stig.
“Stig!” Hylda exclaimed. “We may need to do this if we’re going to get anywhere!”
“I’ll give you an hour to think about it,” said Wes, leaving the room.

“Absolutely not,” said Stig, sitting down on the bed. “Even if he did lift our ‘charges’, would it even be a Reun we’d want to live in?”
“Maybe not,” Hylda replied, getting annoyed, “but no one says we have to stay there. We can just go back to hiding. We really have no choice.”
“There’s always a choice. There has to be some other way…”
Hylda grabbed Stig’s arm. “There isn’t. Throughout everything we’ve done, you’ve always just wanted to do everything yourself. But this time…you have to admit that you can’t do it alone. You need help.”
“I don’t need his help.”
“Yes you do! Who else is there? North’s disappeared, and Talis may be dead. I’ll always help as much as I can, but two people aren’t enough to overthrow a city. You’re going to have to accept that this is beyond your control.”
Stig looked at the door of the cave, then back at Hylda. He felt like she thought of him as a child…but he could do it himself. He just needed to figure out how…
He looked at the door again. Wes was outside, waiting. Everything seemed suddenly impossible, like he would fail no matter what he did. Maybe that’s what Hylda was trying to tell him…his task would be impossible, at least, if he tried it alone.
“Okay,” Stig sighed. “I’ll do it.”
Stig and Hylda walked to the door and Stig knocked. Wes opened it up.
“We accept…on one condition,” Stig said.
Wes’s jaw twitched. “What are your terms?”
“There were five of us when we arrived.”
“I assure you, North is safe. The other two are Lunars, and will stay here.”
“Are they alive?”
“You need not concern yourself with the likes of—“
“Are they alive?”
Wes looked down at Stig, who was staring back, strong and direct.
“Their execution will not be for some time.”
“One of them is a young boy. I want him released. Take his weapons if you have to, but don’t have him executed or incarcerated. He’s a good person, and he may be able to help us.”
Wes paused, thinking over the request. “Fine. Do you have any other terms?”
“The other prisoner, the woman…I want to pay a short visit.”
“You would not bargain for her freedom?”
Stig shook his head slowly.
“Very well,” said Wes. “I will summon a guard to show you both to where they are being held. You and the Lunar boy will meet up with me at the main cave. You will see North there.”
Hylda nodded as Wes walked away and they were escorted down a flight of stairs. “So how many people are in this hideout?” Hylda asked the guard.
“About twenty. Wes has been looking for others to recruit, but it’s dangerous business.”
“And what’s the deal with North?” Stig interjected. “We haven’t heard much of him yet.”
“Well, we’re just glad to have him back. He’s Wes’s son, you know?”
“Really?” Stig turned to the guard, nearly tripping down the stairs.
“Wow, so when North had to leave Reun, Wes gave him specific instructions to look for us?” Hylda grinned. “He may think more of us than he’s letting on.”
The stairwell ended, spreading into a large room. An iron door lay on the wall, the only noticeable part of the cave. Stig walked up to the bars.
“Talis! Are you in there?”
Stig saw a dark figure get up and walk toward the bars. It was Talis. He looked quite disheveled.
“Stig? Is that you?” he whispered.
“We’re getting you out of there, Talis. We’re in an underground fort working to overthrow Reun. Hylda and I know the leader personally, and we got you officially released in exchange for our help.”
The guard opened the door. Talis’s face disappeared from behind the bars, as he walked through the door and appeared next to them.
“Where’s North?”
“The guard by the door will show you to him. Sorry we got you into all of this.”
“Aren’t you coming along?”
“I still have some things to do here.”
Hylda broke in. “You mean, ‘we’.”
Stig paused, looking at Hylda. Hylda gave him an ‘I’m staying whether you like it or not’ look. “Right. We’re going to stay here for a while. I’ll see you later.”
Talis nodded, and then the guard brought him back up the stairs. “Thanks, guys,” he said over his shoulder.

Once they were alone, Stig looked through the bars. The woman was grinning again. He and Hylda slowly walked through the door, Stig holding it open with a redstone torch. The woman looked up, and her face became completely recognizable.
“Every time you disappear, you just keep coming back,” whispered Stig, “Sarrial.”

Chapter 7 - The Eye

Sarrial smirked. “I thought you would never figure it out.”
“But…how did you…” Hylda walked up. “We thought you were dead!”
The last time Stig and Hylda had seen Sarrial, she had fought Stig, only to be defeated. She had told them to kill Lucus, then renounced her faith in Moonrise and dropped from the bridge to her death. So how was it that she was here, right now…?
“I had every intention of my life ending on that night,” said Sarrial. “There was a waterfall…it barely cushioned a fatal blow. I couldn’t move; walking would kill me. Two days later, a group of scavengers found me, with no armor and a near-broken sword. I killed three of them before I was beaten and imprisoned. They knew who I was; I was the strategist of Moonrise, and the one who hid all its valuables. They tortured me for information until I had nearly lost my mind…then you came along.”
“Then why have you just been sitting around silently?” Stig asked, trying to ignore Sarrial’s ominous aura. “Are you just looking for another opportunity to kill yourself?”
Sarrial shook her head, her hair falling over her eyes. “My torture has opened my eyes. There is still much to do.”
“Stig…let’s go.” Hylda whispered from behind. Stig moved toward the door, glancing confusedly at Sarrial.
“I apologize,” Sarrial muttered, though she seemed slightly more invigorated.
“What’re you sorry for?” Stig turned back toward her. He wasn’t sure exactly what Sarrial was referring to.
Sarrial grinned evilly. “I do not apologize for what I’ve done…I only apologize for what will happen in the future…something that will happen very soon.”
Stig stared for a while, trying to decode her, and then he and Hylda left the room, Hylda locking the door behind them.

Wes was waiting for them in a large cave, with North grinning excitedly behind him. Talis was in a corner, tossing a blob of clay to himself. Stig walked up to Wes. “I’m ready,” he said.
Soon afterward, Stig, Hylda, Talis, Wes and a couple of soldiers were standing around a table. Wes had decided against putting North in more danger, much to North’s dismay and irritation. Wes placed a green orb on the table.
“These Eyes of Ender will lead us to a portal, behind which the weapon is hidden. We had to craft several of these orbs using some ingredients that Oren’s soldiers are still looking for. We should make it to the portal a good six hours before they do.”
A soldier interjected. “How do we use these Eyes?”
“If we throw them into the air, they will fly toward the portal. Unfortunately…this means we’ll have to go aboveground.”
Everyone looked worried. Going out of hiding seemed equivalent to death.
“Our soldiers on the inside of Reun have blocked off a surrounding tunnel and allowed us to dig through unnoticed. That should bring us far enough from Reun to cast the Eyes of Ender unnoticed. We’ll have to be fast, though. Stig, it’s your job to cover our tracks as best you can. Make sure we circumvent Reun as much as possible.”
Stig nodded. Wes directed them to a storage room full of equipment, mostly stone and iron. Stig got his redstone and cobblestone back. The next morning, having been fully equipped by dawn, the party set out. Wes was in the front, then six soldiers, followed by Stig, Hylda and Talis.

Stig took the first Eye and threw it into the air as hard as he could. It began to fall, then stopped and went flying into the distance. Wes and the soldiers chased after it, only to find it had stopped and fallen to the ground. Stig grabbed another and threw it, leading them farther out. Soon, they were in a dense taiga they had never seen before. Stig threw another and looked up, but it didn’t shoot off. It plummeted straight down, digging through the ground. “We’re here,” Wes whispered. “We’ll dig straight down. Oren won’t be able to use our tunnel, and we’ll hopefully have more than enough time to come back up later.”
Stig took a pickaxe and shovel and dug into the ground. The sky was just a small square of light above them, and the tunnel was cramped with so many people in it…when suddenly Stig fill through the ground and into a large, half-destroyed room. Stig held onto a ledge halfway down, catching his breath. “Is everyone all right down there?”
“Drop down!” Wes called up to him. “It’s only a few meters!” Stig dropped off the ledge and landed on the ground, an ancient floor made of stone bricks.
“It’s a stronghold,” Wes said. “Look, the portal is over there.”
There was a ring of white stone, with twelve green sockets on the top. But there was no portal; underneath was only lava.
“Stig, you have the Eyes of Ender. Place them in the portal frame.”
Stig stepped carefully around the portal, trying not to fall. He fit an Eye into one of the sockets; it fit perfectly. He continued with the others. Suddenly, they heard a voice coming from up above.
“It’s Oren! He’s here, with hundreds of soldiers!”
Wes cursed under his breath and shouted to the guard on the surface to fill up their tunnel, and then make a fake one to redirect them toward a different part of the stronghold. “Not too far,” Wes said. “Otherwise they can just use another Eye to tell it’s fake. Hopefully we can keep them away from the portal.”
Stig inserted the last Eye. Black smoke filled the frame, until it was a dark starry portal.
Wes turned to the soldiers. “You three,” he pointed, “jump into the portal. Try to get the weapon as soon as you can. We’ll buy you as much time as possible before Oren’s guards show up.”
The guards stepped in, one by one, and were enveloped in the dark smoke. Wes turned to Stig. “Now…this is where you come in. Set up as many traps in this stronghold as you can. Weaken Oren’s strike force to the point where we can defeat it.”
Stig was already reaching in his satchel. “I’m surprised you actually trust me this much.”
Wes’s mouth tightened, as if admitting something difficult. “You led an army of Reun and defeated twice as many Lunars. I don’t know how, but…we can’t let that go to waste.”
Stig pulled out a bag of redstone, sand and explosives. “I’ll do my best.”
Hylda drew her sword. “Anything I should do?”
Stig replied, “I’ll need you and Talis to watch my back. I may not finish the traps in time, and well…you’re the best fighters I know.”
Hylda blushed, then drew a second sword and holstered a bow on her back. “Let’s do it.”
Talis drew his sword and ran off behind them. Wes turned to the remaining soldiers.
“We’ll be providing backup. Block as much as you can, but keep them away from that portal!” Wes looked down the doorway of the stronghold, at the ruined rooms and stairwells. “Whoever used to live here…we will not follow the same course as them on this day.” Wes said to himself. “We will win.”

Stig, Hylda and Talis followed the fake tunnel to the point where Oren and his guards would emerge. Suddenly, Talis’s eyes widened.
“There’s someone following us.”
A guard, one of Wes’s, was running up the stairs. “What are you doing here?” demanded Hylda. The guard reached them, panting, as he took off his helmet. “Man, it was stuffy in there,” North said.
“North?!” Stig and Hylda exclaimed at once. North grinned through his sweaty hair.
“I didn’t want to just leave you,” he said. “I want to help you fight.”
Stig sighed. “Okay…I guess there’s no going back for you now. Here, help me load this trap.” North was bending down to help when he caught Talis’s eye. Talis was stepping backward slowly.
“What’s he doing here?”
“He’s here to help us,” Stig responded nervously.
“I’m going to fight Oren alongside you,” Talis said tensely. “Isn’t that what you want, prince of Reun?”
“Talis!” Hylda exclaimed.
North reached for his sword, and Talis took a step back when Stig intervened. “That’s enough, North!” he said. “Disputes between factions shouldn’t even matter anymore. We can trust Talis, so you should too.”
North took his hand off his sword slowly, then helped Stig set his trap, glancing occasionally toward Talis’s holstered blade.

Chapter 8 - Unrelenting

The traps were set. Stig, Hylda, Talis and North stood at the entrance of the stronghold. North and Talis were standing on opposite sides of the room. Stig had his hand on a lever, and Hylda readied a sword from her considerable ensemble of weaponry. The first guard dropped down.
“Now!” Stig said as Hylda shot forward. The guard gasped as he was disarmed and Hylda pinned his shoulder to the wall with her sword. Gasping in pain, the guard tried to wrench himself free, as the others were waiting behind him.
“Good; that should slow them down,” Stig said. “Talis, get some arrows ready.”
A second guard tried to work his way down in front of the first one. Talis shot him twice and he fell over dead.
“Is that it?” Hylda asked. Then a potion fell down the hole and exploded, vaporizing the two guards.
“Oren disintegrated his own guards with a potion!” Talis exclaimed. New guards were dropping rapidly into the hole. Hylda grabbed another sword and slashed at them, as more tried to surround her. Talis was backing up and shooting arrows into the horde.
“North, trigger the frontal trap!” Stig shouted, running out of the room. “I’m getting a fire charge ready, so everyone watch out!”
North pulled the lever. The ground the guards were dropping onto opened up, revealing a pit of lava. Several guards fell in before one of them dropped some sand into the hole, filling it up. With a great sweeping motion, Hylda sliced through the three guards in front of her.
“Move!” Stig yelled. Hylda jumped to the side as Stig hit a button, launching a fireball into the mass of soldiers, exploding and conflagrating the area in front of them. The fire was quickly stamped out.
Hylda and Talis backed up out of the room, the guards pouring out. Stig was running to another lever when a guard yelled, “Hey, there are explosives in the ceiling!” Stig frantically tried to drop the TNT as the guards began breaking it. The resulting explosion wasn’t fatal, but it slowed them down.
“Talis, go to where the explosives were. Try to snipe the guards from above,” Stig said. “Hylda, let’s hold them off in this room for as long as we can. There’s a split-off here, so you guard the real path while I attack them from the fake one.”
Talis ran up a staircase and blocked the way behind him while Hylda blocked two swords, shoving them backward. She stabbed one of them, but the other slashed her across the side, causing her to cry out in pain. Stig killed the guard before he could strike again. They couldn’t hold out against so many opponents for long.
Talis was shooting the guards through their helmets, felling them with his deadly aim. There were a few soldiers in the middle of the cramped room with leather tunics and bows; they were archers, aiming at Talis. Talis leapt onto a ledge as the arrows shot into the wall behind him. The ledges had been placed beforehand, allowing Talis to dodge, jump and shoot from a safe place. He leapt around the room, firing arrows into the archers’ heads. Finally, Talis’s foot slipped and he toppled into the mass of guards. Talis swept his bow across the guards and drew his sword, shooting through them and stabbing them through the heart before they could react. They were closing in around him, blocking him from air. Talis held his breath, gasping sharply as a sword caught him in the side, then dug through the ground, landing in a shallow cave. As the soldiers dropped in, he shot one of them and ran to the end of the cave, breaking through to a point behind Stig and Hylda.
“What are you doing here?!” Hylda exclaimed. “You opened up another entrance for the guards!”
“Don’t worry,” said Talis, grabbing some potions. “I took these from some of the soldiers.” He tossed one into the tunnel and a dozen guards cried out in pain. He threw another one and they withdrew.

North was running back as the guards pushed forward. He had triggered Stig’s traps too fast; he ran down a tunnel, being sure to lead the soldiers away from the portal. North entered a library full of cobwebs. All the bookcases were beneath him; he was on a second-story bridge. North jumped down and hid between two bookcases, holding his breath as guards piled onto the bridge. North jumped as he heard the hiss of a giant spider crawling out of the cobwebs next to him. North looked back at the guards, not daring to make a sound. He quietly tried to kick the spider away, but it wouldn’t move back into the cobwebs. North took his sword and stabbed it until it stopped coming after him, falling dead into the cobwebs. There was shouting above him; the guards were coming.
North ran through the bookcases as the guards jumped down. North muffled a cry of shock as a younger guard looked between two bookshelves and saw him. North froze, holding his sword in front of him. The man looked at him for a moment, and then sighed.
“I didn’t join this assault to murder kids,” he said. Then he took a bow and ran into the open, firing at the other guards. North shook off his fear and ran panting from the library. The young guard continued to shoot as a sword pierced him in the stomach, then a second, then a third, until he could no longer keep himself upright, his bow clattering to the floor.

Stig looked for a trap, but there were none left. They had killed half the guards and wounded most of the others, but Stig, Hylda and Talis were backed up to the last room before the portal. Talis was wounded and out of arrows, Hylda’s armor was torn, and Stig had nothing else to work with.
“Out of the way!” a voice called from behind them. Wes was charging at the guards, his own soldier behind him. Wes slashed through two foes, and they fell instantly.
“How did they fall so quickly?” Wes said, astonished.
“You’re welcome,” Stig said as he ran into the portal room.
North was standing there, gasping for air. “Look out,” he said. “The ground is full of silverfish.”
Sure enough, they were squirming out of the rock. Stig slashed through them. “Where’s Oren?” he asked North.
“I don’t know; I haven’t seen him this whole battle. Wait…is it possible he found our entrance?”
“We’d better head there. Talis, can you hold off the entrance?”
“Of course,” Talis grinned, drawing two swords, not even seeming to notice the blood on his face. His assassin training must have been very rigorous.
“Hylda, we may need you if Oren has broken through up here. Make sure you have suitable weaponry.” Hylda threw away her cracked stone sword and took out an iron one. The three of them ran up a stairwell, to the top of the ruined room. It was even sparser than before, with the crawling silverfish having deteriorated the walls and floor. Hylda was jumping up behind them, straight over the portal, when the stone underneath the broke, sending her falling into the portal.
“No!” Stig and North cried out in unison as the stone crumbled, leaving nothing but a silverfish squirming out of the rock. They could see the rising black smoke under them, but they couldn’t see Hylda, only the tip of her hand showing, clinging to the frame. As she was climbing away from the portal, North gasped in shock as he heard footsteps above.
“He’s here!” North whispered, tugging Stig’s sleeve. Stig looked up and his eyes widened; he took his ladders from his satchel and climbed down the ledge, North following close behind.
Before they made it to the bottom, they saw Oren, with at least twenty soldiers behind him. But he didn’t seem to notice them; his eyes were fixed on the portal below, casting a flickering indigo over his face.
“Whatever is down there will turn the tables in this war,” Oren said, almost in a whisper. “The magic it contains will crush the insurgents…for good.” He signaled the soldiers, and they jumped into the portal, one by one, drawing their swords and shooting past Hylda.
“We can’t let them reach whatever’s in there!” Hylda yelled to Stig, barely heard through the portal. Stig knew what she was about to do; as he ran forward, Hylda loosened her grip and dropped down after Oren. North glanced at Stig, and they slowly inched toward the portal; it was like staring into space. And then, just after Hylda had entered, the screech of a dragon was heard.

Chapter 9 - The True Weapon

Stig and North stood on a dark plate. It was hard obsidian. Looking around, Stig saw an entirely new world; a huge white floating island, with obsidian pillars of all sizes stretching to the sky. The sky was a dark, misty gray. Stig looked down; they were just above the ground. This must be the other side of the portal.
Stig noticed a waterfall leading off of the pillar. Someone must have placed it there. Stig could see a group of soldiers running across the ground under them; they were Oren’s guards. Stig grabbed North’s hand and jumped down.
There were three corpses in front of them, making Stig jump. Two of them were deathly pale; Stig suddenly noticed a huge amount of Endermen around them…powerful beings who would teleport at their victims is they were so much as looked at. The guards Wes had sent into the portal must have tried to confront them, and been killed.
“Don’t look!” Stig cautioned North. “If you look at their eyes, they’ll attack you.”
The third dead guard didn’t seem to have been killed by an Enderman; he had giant claw marks through his armor. There was another screech, much like the one they heard outside the portal. Stig turned to it, then gasped, shoving North out of the way as a huge, black dragon shot past them.
“What the heck was THAT?” North exclaimed as he pulled himself off the ground. The dragon was turning around; it was pitch-black, but its eyes and mouth gave an eerie purple light as it screeched and dived again. North ran, but Stig leapt at the dragon and slashed it across its head. Stig tumbled to the ground as the dragon swept away. But by then, the guards had noticed them.
“Kill them, before they find the weapon!” Oren shouted.
Stig readied his sword, watching the guards get closer. “So they still haven’t figured it out, huh?”
“What do you mean?” North said, walking behind him and shielding his eyes from the Endermen around them.
“The weapon is an immense enchanting power to create an epic sword, right?” Stig said. “But enchanting magic can only be obtained from insentient beings…or stolen from others.”
North looked up at the Enderdragon, flying in lazy circles. “So…”
“That’s right,” Stig said. “The dragon is the weapon.”

The Enderdragon swooped down again. A razor-sharp wing caught a guard and flung him into the air, but the dragon showed no signs of stopping. This time, North shot at it twice and Stig ducked, thrusting his sword into its stomach. It screeched and swerved away. By that time, the guards were coming all around them. Oren approached in the back.
“So, you two are the insurgents,” he said, grinning. “Playtime’s over.”
“Three, actually,” said a voice behind them. Hylda leapt through the mass of guards and plunged her sword into Oren’s back.
“AAAARGH!” Oren screamed as he fell to his knees. Hylda left her sword in Oren and took off, the guards following. “I’ll hold them off,” she said. “Kill that dragon!”
Stig and North ran toward the dragon as it swooped around a pillar. There were odd prisms floating over each pillar, which Stig had never seen before. The Enderdragon closed in on a pillar and one of the prisms shot the dragon with a beam of energy. “What is that?” asked North.
The dragon swooped at them again, beating its wings furiously as Stig and north stabbed and shot at it again.
“Wasn’t it more wounded when we last fought it?” Stig asked. The Enderdragon didn’t seem to be harmed at all. It just swooped back toward…the pillars!
“The prisms must be healing the dragon!” Stig exclaimed. “We’ll have to destroy those first.”
Stig found a prism clearly visible over the platform and ran to it, drawing his bow. A guard approached behind him, but North bashed him with the butt of his sword from behind.
“Nice one,” said Stig.
Firing an arrow, Stig hit the prism, exploding in a shower of light and smoke.
“Yikes,” Stig looked around at all the other prisms. “We’ll have to be careful when we’re near these; they explode pretty violently. Come on, let’s see how many we’re able to shoot, then we’ll start climbing the pillars.”

Hylda ducked behind a pillar and drew another sword. The guards were chasing after her. They appeared on both sides of the pillar, but Hylda had already placed a ladder on the side and gone halfway up. Leaping down, she stabbed one of the guards and began fighting the others. They backed her up to the end of the floating platform when the dragon shot at them. Hylda jumped back as a razor-sharp wing shot through the ground.
“Can somebody please pay attention to the stupid dragon?” Hylda said indignantly as she backed up more. She was almost at the end. She tossed a small pearl over the mass of guards, holding her ground until…Hylda disappeared.
Reappearing behind the guards, Hylda gasped from the strain of using an Ender Pearl to teleport. With a powerful kick, she sent two guards tumbling off the platform as she continued fighting.
There were only a few opponents left. Many of them had gone off after Stig and North. Hylda leapt off a pillar and landed behind them, slashing through their armor. Hylda grabbed their weapons and went after Stig and North. She found them climbing a pillar; North was almost at the top, and Stig was shooting at the guards below. Hylda helped defeat them. Then an explosion sounded from above; North had triggered the prism and was launched off the pillar. Stig quickly stopped his fall with a ledge.
“How’s it going with the dragon?” Hylda asked, quickly looking away as an Enderman drifted by.
“We can’t scratch it,” Stig replied. “We need to destroy these prisms first or it will just regenerate. What’s going on with the guards?”
“There are only maybe ten left,” said Hylda. “Hopefully Wes can hold off the rest.”
North jumped down to them, with ash covering his face. “I can take that short pillar over there to speed things up.”
“North, wait!” Hylda called, but North was already gone. “I hope he’ll be alright by himself.”
The Enderdragon swooped down again, and Hylda jumped and blocked its wing with her sword. “We’d better go get the other prisms,” said Stig.

North ran across the field toward the pillar. It was just under the platform they had entered on, but there was no portal. It looked like they were trapped. North walked up to the pillar and got ready to climb, when suddenly a guard leapt out from behind, stabbing North through the shoulder. Pinned to the ground, North gritted his teeth in pain as he tried to dislodge the guard’s sword. The dragon had noticed him and was getting closer. The guard was pinning him down, waiting for the dragon to end North’s life.
Just before the dragon reached them, the guard was shot through the throat and slumped over, losing his grip on the sword. Talis was leaping off the platform as the dragon shot toward North. Talis jumped and stabbed through the Enderdragon; screeching, the dragon swerved away as Talis held on tight to his sword. The dragon had turned away from North when it lashed its tail and knocked Talis off its side. The platform above Talis was suddenly full of soldiers, with Wes in front. Wes stared at the giant dragon Talis had just fallen off of. “So, this is what Oren was after all along…” Wes said, leaping off the platform. “Let’s go.”
Talis walked over to North, clutching his wounds. “Are you all right?”
North looked up at him, the assassin of Moonrise he had once hated. “I…I am.”
Talis tossed him a healing potion. “Here; I found this on one of Oren’s soldiers. Let’s go finish off this fight.”

Chapter 10 - Resolution

Destroying the prisms took quite a long time, even with the help of Wes’s squad. Meanwhile, the Enderdragon was intervening whenever it could. Talis was almost knocked off of one of the pillars.
“I think that’s the last one,” he said.
“Great,” Stig walked up to the pillar he was standing on. “I’m pretty much out of weapons. I’ll try to build some traps and the like.”
With the dragon defenseless, Wes and his soldiers began chasing it down while Stig prepared a cannon. The dragon prepared to charge at Wes, when it suddenly dug into the ground.
“Where did it go?” Wes whirled around to see the Enderdragon right behind them, throwing guards out of its path with its massive wings. Wes jumped over its charge and prepared to attack again when he heard footsteps behind him. It was the last of Oren’s guards.
The dragon had turned toward Stig, who finished the cannon. The Enderdragon swerved around the cannon, behind it, and then slashed through it. As Stig ducked, the TNT cannon had been blown to bits. Nothing remained of it.
Stig cursed under his breath; he was useless against the dragon, especially when everything he could build would just be torn down. Stig had really needed help after all.
As the dragon went for Hylda, she slashed it across the head, rolled under it, and shot it in the hind leg. The dragon was getting weakened. Stig left the dragon slaying to her and went to find where Oren and his guards went. They were all surrounding Wes, who was slashing through them with incredible force. Wes had blood coming from several parts of his body, and the last few guards were closing in for the kill.
“Excuse me,” said Stig, tapping one of their shoulders. The guard whirled around to find that he was staring into the nozzle of a dispenser. The flame of a fire charge gleamed through it. Stig activated it, and the three guards were blasted with a fireball. Conflagrated and dazed, the two remaining soldiers were both beheaded by Wes.
Wes looked around at the seared bodies. “You really shouldn’t be killing at your age, Stig,” he said, not with irritation, but with sorrow.
“There isn’t much of a choice anymore,” Stig responded, running off, back toward the dragon.
Wes went around a pillar to see Oren, slumped over on his stomach, Hylda’s sword still in his back. Wes yanked the sword out.
“If you don’t move, your wound shouldn’t be fatal,” Wes said, his brow furrowed.
Oren groaned as he tried to lift his head. “And then…you’ll kill me?” he hissed through gritted teeth.
“You’re nothing more than a bad-mouthed child,” Wes responded. “So I am not going to kill you.” Oren breathed a sigh of relief.
“However,” Wes snarled. “If you like living so much, you should not have stolen the life of my son. Once we leave this place, I will not take you with us back to Reun. You will be banished, and then we’ll see how much you like to live…as you have made us live these past months.”
The sound of coursing lightning pierced the sky. The Enderdragon had gone for Talis when North had leapt in from the side, driving his sword into its neck. The dragon was floating toward the sky, its skin breaking into beams of light, slowly disintegrating, until it exploded in a shower of sparks. Standing under it, Stig, Hylda, Talis and North felt its energy seeping into their bodies, the weapon Oren had so wanted. Wes ripped Oren’s satchel from him and pulled out an enchanting table, with a book floating over its red tabletop.
“So…the magic energy from the creature was split between the four of you,” Wes said. “That means each of you will be responsible for one fourth of the weapon’s power.” Wes moved several bookshelves around the enchanting table, causing archaic letters to pour into the book.
“Hylda,” Wes said. “You have proven to be a great fighter. Take this sword and, if you desire, become a free-willed defender of Reun.” Wes handed her a diamond sword, which she stared at for a long while before walking to the table and flipping through the pages of the book. Her sword began to glow in a bright purple aura.
“Talis,” Wes said. “I never trusted you with a weapon. I believed that a Lunar on our side would just be a spy. However, in this recent battle, you have earned my trust.” Wes handed him a bow. “You know how to use this very well, do you not?” Talis thanked him and ran to the table. Coming back, he gave all but one of his arrows to Hylda. “I don’t need these anymore,” he said. “With this bow, my arrows will never deplete.”
“North…” Wes paused, looking at his son. “I never wanted you to be in any danger…but I’ll have to accept that that won’t happen for a while. Take this, for your safety.” North received a suit of diamond armor, which he took slowly before going to the enchanting table.
Wes went to Stig, who looked up expectantly, but patiently. Wes was silent for a moment, then he spoke. “Stig, I have always valued my power. I thought I was the best there could be in terms of battle. But you have done things I could not dream of accomplishing. I give you this to help you do what you love.” Wes gave him a diamond pickaxe, which Stig took with both hands. It seemed like a childish thing to think, but Stig couldn’t wait to try it out.
“Come on,” Wes said, back to his usual gruffness. “The portal is here.”
Wes picked up Oren and threw him in. “He’ll be banished as soon as he enters.” Wes leapt in the portal after him, followed by North, then Talis. Hylda stepped onto the rim and turned to Stig. “So, everything really worked out, didn’t it?” She grinned at him, tightly holding her powerful sword.
“Yeah,” Stig smiled back. Hylda jumped into the portal. Stig climbed up, took one last look at the strange dimension, and stepped into the darkness.

Stig landed in the grass, with a headache. The sun was blinding after the dark grey sky he had been under, and he got up, squinting. Was he in Reun? He could hear people exclaiming around him; it looked like he was in a sparse plain.
“What’s going on? Where are we?” a voice said. Stig recognized it to be North’s. Stig realized he was in the middle of nowhere, on a plain with nothing recognizable around it. Everyone else was there too, trying to figure out what happened. Then Stig realized it.
“Wait, the portal is supposed to take us back to where we were, right? That place must have been marked or something. So what if someone from this side of the portal blocked that point? That would mean we couldn’t return!”
Hylda brightened for a moment when she saw Stig. “I’ll bet anything it was Sarrial.”
Talis sighed. “Looks like she’ll never help now.” Stig quickly explained to Wes how Talis needed the Lunar Citadel’s valuables to rebuild Moonrise as a force of good.
“Wait, I think I see something over there!” Wes exclaimed. There was a little town in the distance, or so it looked. The party rushed toward it; it was a small group of houses, most of them destroyed. Going inside, Stig found the storage chests empty. A sign in the front said “Reun”.
“This can’t be Reun,” Stig said. “It’s so small.”
“Oh no…” Wes muttered. Everyone turned to him.
“If our way back to our world was blocked…” Wes reasoned. “We may have just gone to the very first point at which humans appeared. I remember Reun’s history…they tried several times to make a functioning city and spent years traveling until they founded the Reun we know today.”
Stig gasped. “So that means…”
“We’re about a three-year travel away from Reun.”

“Do we have to go back?” Hylda asked. “I mean, we could just try to start over here.”
“There are hundreds of people in Reun,” Wes responded. “I left Oren back in the plain, and without a monarch, Reun will crumble before finding a new form of government. It would be a huge social depression.”
“So what do we do now?” Talis asked.
Wes sighed, looking into the distance. If they continued in the same direction in which they had found the town, they would find Reun. “We walk.”

* * *

Stig was twenty years old. He had found some mushrooms in a nearby swamp, and was making some stew for the party. Wes had gotten somewhat slower by the age of forty-two, but he still marched in front, guarding the party against any creepers stalking them. Stig had always been counting the days without fail; their journey was almost over. The powerful pickaxe Stig had obtained from the power of the Enderdragon had not yet been used. Hylda’s sword and Talis’s bow proved very useful, but they mostly kept them holstered to keep them durable for the long journey. It was Talis’s seventeenth birthday.
Walking with slightly lifted spirits from the celebration of Talis’s birthday, the five of them continued walking until they saw a large black shape in the distance.
“What is that…?” Stig muttered, his voice having grown considerably deeper. As they approached, they found a very familiar plain, the one Reun stood on. But Reun wasn’t there; there were dark buildings and faintly-visible houses between them. As the party stepped into the shadows, the entire sky was blotted out by a material Stig couldn’t make out in the darkness. As the party approached slowly, they found a row of signs on the ground. Chilled to the bone by the transformation of Reun, Stig sprinted forward to the signs. They were not a long message; every sign said one thing. “Reun is dead.”
“No…” Wes said, looking up at the dark spires. In the shadows, the ground was covered in undead, even in daylight.
Completely frozen, Stig realized what happened over the years they had been gone. “She’s insane…after all these years…this is what she’s been doing?”
Stig, Hylda, Talis, North and Wes were all staring at the result of Sarrial’s revenge.

To be continued…