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Chapter Sixteen
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2022-01-01 15:43:31Just like the previous day, Alex found himself out in the cold, wintertime wilderness as the sun began to rise. The Runners had been through many expeditions much like this one, tracking down the Domineers, and he was certain that they were already catching on to their tactics. He knew this had to be true, given the surprise the insane Domineer had waiting for them the morning before. It made Alex all the more nervous to be out here again with depleted power among his ranks, and he was not sure if having Rowan along this time was reassuring or just made him feel increasingly uncomfortable.
It took a couple of hours to retrace their footsteps. Even in the dark, Rowan was a natural at following the day-old trails marked in the snow. At first, she led them back to the spot where the Runners fought the Domineer scouts just the day before. Alex could hardly stand to look around at the bodies sprawled upon the s
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As they drew closer to the walls of the camp, they were quickly spotted by the Domineers patrolling the borders. Rowan lowered her head casually. The Domineers sent a small party out to greet them. As they approached, one of them stepped up to Kota and gave him a prying stare.“Who the hell are you?” the man uttered curiously.Kota hesitated briefly as he glanced past their confronter and noticed that the others accompanying him were placing cautious hands on the weapons at their sides. He swallowed nervously as he tried to work his disguise as well as possible. “We were separated from our scouting party,” he said, trying to think of what an Outsider might say. “We followed their footsteps back here.”For a second, it seemed as though this man was not about to buy his story one bi
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Outside the outpost, Alex and the rest of the Runners had separated in their efforts to close in on the site unseen. While Kota’s team was infiltrating the camp, Alex had scaled as far up the adjacent slope as he could. From his height, he would have been able to take a glance over the walls of the outpost, but it was not yet bright enough for him to see what was going on inside. He froze when a commotion rang up from within the walls followed by the cry of a familiar voice.“Rowan!” Alex gasped in horror. Without thinking, he hurried his way down the slope and toward the walls of the Domineers’ outpost, sliding on the snow most of the way. He could only hope that the rest of his team had taken up their own positions around the camp, and that the guards perched atop the walls would not see him coming.Rowan resisted futilely as the Domin
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As the sun rose over the hills of the Dark Zone, the sky still appeared to be darkened by the deep, red overcast. Atop the tower lookout at the Citadel, Delmar stood as he gazed out at the sky with an expression of concern. The mornings had been greeting the mountains with the crimson precursor of the anticipated storm for the past several days, but things were quickly becoming more and more severe; the temperature was reaching a dangerous low that had even Delmar shivering, and the cold gales were beginning to pick up. They were blowing away the strip of hair covering the haunting scar along the side of his face. Something was terribly wrong, Delmar could feel it, and he was more concerned now than ever because not all of the Ravennites had returned to the Citadel yet. He was thinking particularly of his sister.“Delmar?” a voice called over the sound of the winds. Delmar turned around to see
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Rowan did not hesitate to leap to her feet and attack when the Runners sprang into action. In a rather grisly action, she grabbed hold of the head of the nearest Domineer and snapped his neck with all her strength. She picked up his sword and dove right into the fight with Kota and the others by her side.By themselves, the Domineers did not stand a chance against Rowan, let alone the rest of the Runners. They knew it, too, and Rowan intended to exploit their weaknesses. She took them one by one, fighting with the ferocity she learned from Alex as well as using her natural harmonious movements to confuse her adversaries. The Runners had completely breached the outpost, and now it seemed they had taken control of it with ease. Rowan killed several opponents who had foolishly engaged her before she heard a threatening voice behind her.“YOU BITCH!” th
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Many voices were echoing throughout the depths of Alex’s mind. They were uttering the same thing over and over; a name. They were speaking a name, and Alex could feel himself shuddering as he recognized it very distinctly.“Winter’s Bane.”Alex did not know the meaning of these mysterious visions, and why they continued to haunt his subconscious. He lied still in his current, dream-like state as the voices around him began to fade away until only one was left; a young woman’s voice he had heard before. He remembered it from his last unnerving vision when he saw the woman in the shattered remains of the Citadel, standing before what appeared to be a strange, white tomb.“Winter’s Bane,” he he
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Rowan was not the only one preparing herself for the terrible weather to come. When Caine had taken his team of Domineers deep into the mountains, the first thing he had them do was construct a shelter near the edge of the clear-cut in anticipation of the storm. Most of the Domineers were skeptical of the severity of such an event, oftentimes laughing and shrugging it off as hardly anything to be worried about. It took a great deal of scrutiny from Caine, and sometimes threatening, for the Domineers to create a shelter large enough to house them all when the storm struck the Dark Zone and sturdy enough to withstand its powerful winds.Later that evening, the Domineers had all gathered inside the tight-knit walls of their shelter. Their jeering about Caine’s warning of the storm had all but ceased after the precursor event that morning. They had moved all their firewood inside, which they were already
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Rowan knew the clay mines were always prepared for situations such as this. She and her Domineer prisoner walked through the mine for almost an hour. The darkness of the tunnels did not bother Rowan in the least, but with her captive’s arm around her shoulders again, she could feel him breathing and trembling in fear, and frankly, it did nothing but annoy her.Eventually, Rowan stopped and set the Domineer down onto the cold floor of the mine. Listening intently, she could hear that the winds of the terrible storm had already begun engulfing the mountains once more. In no time at all these mines could become nothing short of a frozen tomb. Rowan felt around the walls until her hand came across an object suspended there.At this point, she finally felt relieved as she stripped herself of the Outsider’s filthy clothes she had thrown over her own
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Miles away, Alex and Kota managed to find shelter of their own shortly before the storm resumed. They had hiked along the riverside for the majority of the day, until at last, Kota spotted a large tree growing into the rocky side of the cliff. Due to its interrupted growth pattern, the tree’s roots had been pulled upward from the ground for several feet. The two of them realized that if they could quickly secure it into a small sanctuary, then there was a chance they might be able to survive the night.As the sun slowly began its descent in the sky, and the winds picked up again, Alex and Kota finished fixing their shelter beneath the roots of the great tree, which was made of little more than branches and sticks they had anchored into the ground surrounding the tree. It was the best they could do, and both of them knew it would be nothing short of a miracle if it survived the incredible force of the
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Seven years laterFor seven years, the Ravennites worked to rebuild their lives after the devastating war with the Domineers, maintaining their distance from the world beyond their borders. No Outsider had entered the Dark Zone in all that time, until now.The Ravennites had all but abandoned the Citadel. Despite that, few Ravennite sentries remained posted atop the plateau at all times, as though they were guarding something.The sun was making its descent on a cool spring evening. After all this time, the walls of the Citadel remained standing, as well as the tower, but it was not enough to stop the dark figure ascending the steep plateau toward the fortress above. The Ravennites had long boasted of the impenetrability of the Citadel on all sides. The Domineers had been able to breach their walls only once, and near
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Alex was panting and sweating profusely in no time, but he could not let the exhaustion get to him. Walking beside the long road leading away from the mountains, he stopped periodically to rest for a moment and sip what water was left in his canteen. Every time he tasted the spring water, he felt instantly reinvigorated. Very few vehicles passed him along the way. He tried to flag a few of them down to ask for a ride, but nobody would stop for someone so ragged-looking. As Alex watched them go, it was almost as if he was on an alien planet. He had not seen one in so long, and he knew that readjusting to his old life was definitely going to take some time.Many miles later, Alex stopped to rest under the shade of a small cluster of trees along the side of the road. To his disdain, he emptied the last contents of his canteen into his dry mouth. His legs were aching and he was starting to become dehydrated, a
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Alex’s mind was made up. He had decided he would spend a final three days among the people of Ravenna before setting out for the Outside. This he felt would give him more than enough time to prepare himself to leave and, as a personal matter, a chance to spend the last of these days with his closest friend.Alex kindly requested of Delmar that word of his intentions to leave this time did not get out to the rest of the Ravennites, at least until he had gone. He thought it would be best for him to simply slip away as quietly as possible. The people had lessened their habits lately of referring to him by the name of Winter’s Bane, but their behavior around him never changed. They would salute him every time he stepped foot outside the cottage. Many of them seemed too nervous to make eye contact with him, and they almost always moved out of the way whenever they saw him coming. Alex was used
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Even Delmar knew it was not over yet. Despite the fall of Ramon Morenno and the total collapse of the Domineers, there were few who managed to escape the valley and had presumably gone into hiding. Delmar was not willing to let his guard down until he was certain that the mountains were safe once again.For the next few weeks following the battle in Ravenna, Delmar mobilized as many scouting parties as he could to comb the mountains and root out any and all Domineer stragglers. In time, many, if not all the Outsiders, were either found and captured or gave themselves up in fear, but Delmar ordered that they be brought back to the valley before exiling them back to the world from which they came.As Rowan observed her brother’s merciful actions toward them, she herself felt an unusual notion of pity. Thanks to Alex, she had more than enough faith to
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The cool gusts of wind flowed all around him as Alex slowly regained consciousness. As the light returned to his eyes, he found himself gazing up at the beautiful, green canvas of the springtime trees and the calming sound of flowing water filled his ears. He recognized the feeling of pure and intangible tranquility - he was lying in the Oasis.“This is not real,” he muttered quietly as he lay still upon the damp stone between the two flowing streams.“Of course it’s real. Why would you think that?”Alex sat up at the sound of her familiar voice. There, sitting on the edge of the cliff looking out at the mountains in the distance, was the young woman he had seen in his visions of the abandoned Citadel. Her hand was resting lightly in the stream as it flowe
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Amidst the massive skirmish, Alex whipped around at the sound of the breaking catapult. Not only him, but the Domineers had been swayed by the commotion as well, and Alex noticed the Ravennites rushing to assault the last one standing.Alex took this brief opportunity to scan the battlefield. It seemed that the Ravennites were inadvertently dividing their efforts. The majority of the chaos was spread out across the center of the valley; those around him were engaging all enemies left and right with no intentions except to kill. Delmar and Ramon were locked in a hand to hand duel as they moved blindly around the field, all while the rest of the Ravennites were pushing their way toward the Domineers’ catapults with little resistance. Alex tensed himself as he realized the tide of the battle would almost certainly shift in favor of one of them at any moment, and it all depended on who made the daring mo
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At Delmar’s command, the Ravennites retreating immediately released a series of battle cries before returning to the fight. Alex turned his head to see them charging forth. He could feel his head burning intensely amidst the raging ferocity of the battle. He glanced back around as the enemy was upon them. Their numbers were still too great.Malachai stood by his side as the Ravennites gathered. “Are you with me?” Alex said quietly. Malachai looked him in the eye with a serious expression. He said nothing, but gave a slight head nod as he seemed to understand what Alex was thinking. Without saying another word, Alex broke from the weak formation, with Malachai by his side, crying out as they charged and the Ravennites followed right behind them.There was no time between them anymore. The last of the two armies were upon each other immediately,
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Rowan had been running through the woods and hills for hours. She stopped only to catch her breath, but as she made her way deeper into the northern territories of the mountains, she was all but exhausted. She could feel the cold sweat in her hair and the sting of the winter air in her throat with every breath she took.Rowan was not sure if this was fate or irony. She knew the path she was taking up the mountainside well, for she had been through it years ago when the last of her family escaped the onslaught in Ravenna. Now she was heading back the same way to fight beside her brother and her people in the battle that would end where it all began.As Rowan climbed to the peak of the snowy hills, she could not help but collapse to her hands and knees in exhaustion, dropping her spear into the snow. She could barely breathe; tears were forced out of her eyes by
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Back at the edge of the valley, Ramon shook his head in frustration. The battle continued to proceed indecisively, but it was clear that the Ravennites were beginning to push his people back. The trees around him had soon been brought down, clearing the way for the Domineers to push the catapults into the valley. Ramon glanced back and forth between them and the battle ahead, his mind racing to come to a decision.He suddenly turned back to the Domineer by his side. “Send them in,” he commanded, gesturing to the catapults, “and run them down.”“Wait, what?” the man responded in curiosity. “But what about our men engaging the Ravennites?”Ramon only looked at him with anger growing in his eyes. “I said,” he growled viciously, “send in the catapults!&rd
