The Crowd

Shiv grinned, placed her on her wolf mount, and made sure she was situated well before beginning to walk forward. "Say… why'd you call me father? You always used to call me dad or daddy."

She looked at him with a condescending expression. "Big Brother told me that big girls call their daddys father, so I'm going to call you that from now on."

Shiv glanced at the aloof wolf riding comfortably on his shoulder with a confused expression, then shrugged. "But when did you become a big girl? You do know you're still a baby, right?"

She laughed at him. "It's your attitude that decides how 'big' you are to others."

Shiv laughed at her use of air quotations. "Did 'big brother' tell you that, too?" He shook his head at her nod. "Well, your attitude still says you're a baby."

She frowned in deep thought for several seconds before looking up with a question. "When will it not?"

"For me? Never. You'll always always always be a baby to me." Shiv informed her with a wink.

The horrified look she gave him was priceless. "Well, I'm still going to call you father, anyway. You'll just have to accept that I'm not a baby." She stuck her tongue out at him, and he grinned.

***

"That's… that's the man who was blessed by the Hero!" A dirty man spotted Shiv, and surprisingly ignored the flaming wolf bearing a one-legged girl to stare at the passing man instead.

"Do you think he knows why the castle fell? Maybe… maybe he brought it down!" A second voice spoke, this one belonging to a woman.

"My family died from the castle falling! How could he!?" A crowd began gathering around him, watching him and grumbling, but not getting in his way.

Suddenly, a familiar voice could be heard: "He was up there trying to stop the evil nobles from dropping the castle on us! He's a hero!" Shiv resisted the urge to look at the man who sounded suspiciously like Duncan as he paced forward with a somber expression.

"He tried to save us!" A new voice came from another direction, and the crowd's feel became less menacing.

"Look, he's as dirty and scratched up as the rest of us. Maybe he really was trying to save us…" A new voice was heard.

"Thank you!" The familiar voice yelled again.

The crowd's reaction was instantaneous. They began thanking Shiv and yelling that he was a hero. And then… "Save us! Save us from the nobles above!"

The crowd began to get a little wild, and began pressing in on Shiv. They stopped abruptly when he looked at them darkly. He slowly spun in a full circle, making eye contact with those closest to him. "You want me… to save you?" He took a deep breath. "Alright. But you're going to have to help me out. I'm not a god…" He scowled at the hole in the ceiling. "Not yet."

***

The news of his call for help spread like wildfire through the ruins of the city. Many people continued making a dash for the exit, but it seemed that even more were heading toward the center of the city, where Shiv decided to sit down and wait. He waited for several hours in which he was joined by his two companions and the remaining survivors of Revenge and Mirror. In all, there were a total of twenty of them, including the trio and Blaze.

Around them, however, gathered hundreds… and then thousands… and then tens of thousands of people who were all looking at one thing: Shiv, sitting up on a broken bell.

He, in turn, was watching the people with a dark look. Despite joking around with Blaze, he was shaken up from almost losing her yet again. He was filled with a dark determination to finish his business in the city as soon as possible.

And it showed.

There was a dark aura surrounding him that Duncan and Briggs both took note of, as they silently took seats lower and on either side of him. They too, simply sat there and watched the people gathering in front of them. There were so many. Men and women, young and old, able and feeble.

Eventually, Shiv shook his head and stood up. "Let's kill them all." He didn't yell, but with the help of Duncan, his voice was heard by everyone. He turned around and jumped down from his perch, then knelt and placed his fist on the ground. In front of him grew a bridge of massive proportions that stretched upward, toward a large platform sticking out of the cavern wall, upon which rested several buildings belonging to wealthy individuals.

He looked up at his handiwork for a long moment, then glanced over his shoulder at the crowd of wide-eyed peasants. "Well? What are you waiting for? Destroy them."

The crowd surged past him, parting around him and then joining up again a few paces ahead of him, all of them heading toward the unsuspecting people above with rabid eyes and murder in their hearts.

The crowd seemed to go on forever as Shiv stood there, staring at the sky.

Eventually, the last of the rabble had passed him, and he was left standing alone, aside from his companions, who stood at a respectful distance away watching him. He stayed still until Duncan cleared his throat, at which point he shook himself and took a deep breath. "Let's blow that wall up. Drown this place in lava."

"The lava won't reach all the way up there, where you sent everyone."

"It doesn't need to. It just needs to trap them in here with each other long enough for them to kill each other off. We'll come in later and take care of the survivors. Now let's go." Shiv began walking toward the exit, and Blaze quickly rode her wolf after him.

"Shiv, I need your help to blow that wall up." Duncan said.

Shiv scowled. "Fine. Come on, Blaze. You guys go to the entrance. Get ready to bring it down after we pass through. And send the survivors of your armies to hunt down some of those that escaped. At least make sure they go into the woods. They won't survive long there."

Duncan looked like he wanted to protest for some reason, but Briggs grabbed his arm and pulled the talkative man along, signaling for the rest of the soldiers to accompany them. "We'll take care of it." Briggs called over his shoulder, sounding a bit sad, but solid.

"Want to hop on Destroyer?" Blaze patted the wolf behind where she was sitting. Shiv grinned and hopped on with a surprised look at how real the wolf felt, and how it grew to accommodate him better.

"His name is Destroyer?"

"Her. And that's part of her name." Blaze corrected. "Her full name is Fiery Wolfy Destroyer."

"She destroyed fiery wolfys?"

"No, she destroys what I tell her to."

"I see."

They prattled on with more nonsensical conversation until they reached the wall of the cavern. If Shiv was surprised when he first sat on the wolf, he was completely astounded now, both at the speed and the agility of the manifestation.

"Can Destroyer swim? Good. Get her ready. We're about to be swimming in a lot of lava." With that, Shiv downed a bowl of soup and placed his hands upon the wall. With a deep breath and a look of intense conversation, a pillar lifted him and Blaze several times his height into the air. Then, the wall below them opened up, and a flood of lava drowned the city behind them.

They stood on their pillar, watching the fiery lake cover up the destruction and the few remaining people, then hopped on Destroyer and rode to the switchback stone paths leading to the exit. Just as Shiv had ordered, when he passed through the opening, the entrance collapsed behind him.

Ignoring the dead bodies lying everywhere, Shiv approached his comrades and made sure he wasn't needed for anything, then moved toward Briggs and Duncan, who were questioning the captain of the guard who had lent them his daughter as a guide.

When he reached them, Briggs looked at him with a mixed expression. "There are many openings farther up the mountain through which people can escape. There's no easy solution to their deaths."

Shiv nodded thoughtfully, his face still bearing remnants of darkness, and turned to Duncan. "Any ideas?"

Duncan hesitated. "I think we should leave them be for now. Maybe come back for them when we've leveled up and gathered some new troops."

"So the same plan we've decided upon for the small villages and towns that are out of our way." Briggs clarified.

Shiv thought about it, then shook his head. "I don't like the idea of having such a large group of people at my back… but I guess I don't have a choice." He looked at the sky. "We'll move on and come back for them later."

The other two men nodded in agreement while Blaze watched with perceptive eyes.

"On we go. On to the next city." Shiv growled.