In the aftermath of the attack on Winter's Edge, the survivors took stock of the damages and began to count their dead. It wasn't long before the brief wash of relief at their unexpected victory turned to grief. Their home - this beautiful marvel of artistry and nature and architecture - was in shambles. The very forest seemed to cry out in pain as the trunks of the massive conifers uttered soft, worn creaks. Severed branches and bits of wood and stone lay all over the ground. A wooden sculpture of a dragon near the center of town had been split in half. Some of the homes were on fire, and people scrambled to put them out by hosing them down with some kind of fine powder.
All told, probably about a third of the village's population had been wiped out. The survivors wept openly as they carried the bodies of their fallen loved ones and placed them near the roots of the great tree. There had been no discrimination among the attacks. This was a clinical extermination. Men, women, children and the elderly had all been hit.
Somehow, Lita and Sara had made it out alive, but Brandon was not so lucky. The two of them knelt over his body, leaning into each other as though they might fall. Sara whispered soft reassurances while tears ran down her cheeks.
Hestor was also among the dead, but she'd taken out one of the jets before she'd been cut down - firing a shot from her weapon that had broken through the cockpit and struck right into the pilot's brain. Later, the people would remember her for this. She'd always been their greatest hunter.
The Councilwoman yet lived, and she made her way through the bodies alongside an elderly woman who looked to be some kind of religious leader, offering support and sympathy where they could. Praying to whatever gods or spirits they prayed to.
And there was one more body among the dead whose face Patience and Grace would find all too recognizable.
Lena. Her body was torn and seared, but her face was untouched. She looked oddly peaceful like this. Accepting. She'd died saving the lives of five children. And later, those children would find her and offer prayers and thanks of their own.
There was no way to know if she was really dead. Logic seemed to dictate that she must not be. (After all, why would the programmers of this universe allow for the possibility of a true death? Perhaps it was like any other game - and Lena would wake up back home in her own body.) But everything else about this world was so impossibly real. And either way, wherever she was, she was no longer with them.
The dragons who'd come to help them did not fly away once the threat had been eliminated. Instead they remained, landing in the ruined fields and crops outside the forest's edge. And they lifted their voices in a low, ululating chorus of mourning.
All told, probably about a third of the village's population had been wiped out. The survivors wept openly as they carried the bodies of their fallen loved ones and placed them near the roots of the great tree. There had been no discrimination among the attacks. This was a clinical extermination. Men, women, children and the elderly had all been hit.
Somehow, Lita and Sara had made it out alive, but Brandon was not so lucky. The two of them knelt over his body, leaning into each other as though they might fall. Sara whispered soft reassurances while tears ran down her cheeks.
Hestor was also among the dead, but she'd taken out one of the jets before she'd been cut down - firing a shot from her weapon that had broken through the cockpit and struck right into the pilot's brain. Later, the people would remember her for this. She'd always been their greatest hunter.
The Councilwoman yet lived, and she made her way through the bodies alongside an elderly woman who looked to be some kind of religious leader, offering support and sympathy where they could. Praying to whatever gods or spirits they prayed to.
And there was one more body among the dead whose face Patience and Grace would find all too recognizable.
Lena. Her body was torn and seared, but her face was untouched. She looked oddly peaceful like this. Accepting. She'd died saving the lives of five children. And later, those children would find her and offer prayers and thanks of their own.
There was no way to know if she was really dead. Logic seemed to dictate that she must not be. (After all, why would the programmers of this universe allow for the possibility of a true death? Perhaps it was like any other game - and Lena would wake up back home in her own body.) But everything else about this world was so impossibly real. And either way, wherever she was, she was no longer with them.
The dragons who'd come to help them did not fly away once the threat had been eliminated. Instead they remained, landing in the ruined fields and crops outside the forest's edge. And they lifted their voices in a low, ululating chorus of mourning.
