allendalepharm Chapter 256: THE SILENT TOWN
Chapter 256: THE SILENT TOWN
Dawn had fully broken by the time Rhea descended the remaining steps to the ground floor of The Slumbering Stag.
Pale orange light filtered through the small windows along the corridor, highlighting dancing dust motes and drying pools of crimson on the floorboards. The acrid scent of leftover steam-gunpowder still hung thick, mixing sickeningly with the metallic tang of rust from the lifeless bodies.
Behind the reception desk, the innkeeper remained at his post.
The elderly, crooked-horned Beast-kin—the same friendly man who had welcomed them with a warm smile yesterday afternoon—lay slumped over the counter. His head rested sideways on his arm, which lay on the worn wood polished smooth by years of use. A dark, thick pool of blood had spread beneath his chest, seeping into the old grain of the table. His dangling left hand still clutched the brass key to room number three.
Rhea paused before the desk.
She stared—perhaps for five seconds, perhaps longer—before turning away and stepping past him in silence.
Creak...
Arvid emerged from the stairs behind her, cradling Ana tightly. The infant whimpered softly, her chubby fingers clutching his rumpled shirt. Her eyes were still puffy from crying all night, but her whimpers had finally quieted into soft hiccups.
"He didn’t even have a chance to run," Arvid murmured, staring in horror at the old man’s corpse.
"No one did, Arvid," Rhea replied coldly.
Outside the inn, Spring Town lay engulfed in a suffocating silence.
The terraced cobblestone streets, which had been bustling with haggling merchants and running, laughing children yesterday afternoon, were now completely deserted. Doors stood wide open—most had been kicked in, their iron hinges shattered and hanging askew. In some homes, hearth fires still burned, sending thin wisps of smoke from stone chimneys. The smell of charred bread now mingled with the copper stench of blood that turned the stomach.
Beast-kin corpses littered the ground like fallen leaves.
Men, women, young, and old. There was almost no sign of struggle on the streets. They had been slaughtered in their sleep—or perhaps had only opened their eyes for a split second to see towering dark figures at the foot of their beds before everything went dark forever.
Near the village’s stone well, a cat-eared Beast-kin woman lay face down. Her wooden bucket had rolled to the side, its spilled water soaking the dusty ground. Tucked beneath her stiff left arm was a small bundle wrapped in a wool blanket.
Rhea immediately looked away. She had no need to look any longer. None at all.
Mira walked close at her left flank, her dagger still gripped tightly. Walking past the sea of corpses, Mira kept her mouth shut. She was recording everything in her visual memory: the casualty count, the positions of the bodies, the angles of the slashes, and the sheer efficiency of the kill. It was a mental record far more accurate than any paper.
"They didn’t differentiate targets," Mira reported, her voice as flat as a block of ice. "Everyone was killed."
"A strategic purge," Rhea replied softly. "A single village razed to the ground spreads far more terror than a hundred survivors telling their tales."
"Psychological."
"Yes."
They turned at a small intersection. The scene was much the same. More pools of blood. More shattered doors. More hearths burning in vain.
Near the town’s wooden gate, Rhea found an anomaly.
An Iron Empire soldier lay on his side behind a pile of wooden barrels—it seemed he had fallen from the roof when the unit withdrew and was left behind by his comrades. His black metal armor was heavily dented at the right shoulder. His full helmet was still securely fastened.
Rhea knelt on one knee. With a sharp yank, she tore off the metal visor.
Crack!
Beneath it lay the face of an ordinary human. A young man, barely in his mid-twenties. His dark hair was buzzed in a military cut. His eyes were wide, staring blankly at the brightening morning sky, seeing nothing.
"So they’re just ordinary humans," Mira murmured, slightly surprised. "I thought they were... another biological experiment."
"They are human. They simply possess weaponry far beyond this era."
Rhea ran her fingers over the armor’s surface. The material felt incredibly light, yet possessed a terrifying density—clearly not standard steel or iron. A sticky, steam-scented residue clung to the joints.
"Strip the armor," Rhea commanded.
Mira nodded. With practiced fingers, she began finding the latches, peeling away the plating piece by piece.
Back at the inn’s courtyard, Ren was tending to his wound.
The steam projectile that had grazed his left arm last night had torn deeper than he originally thought. Fresh blood still seeped out. He sat leaning against a stone bench near the ruined hot springs, biting down hard on the end of a clean bandage while his right hand pulled the cloth tight. His movements were rough and practiced—his body had clearly survived far too many wounds.
"Is the area clear?" Ren asked without releasing his bite as Rhea and Mira walked through the door.
"Clear. Everyone’s dead," Rhea replied. She stepped closer and snatched the bandage from Ren’s grip. "Hold still. Let me do it."
Ren complied immediately. Without a word, Rhea tied off the bandage with a tight, precise knot—far neater than anything Ren could have managed with one hand.
"Thank you, My Lady."
In another corner, Arvid sat on a wicker chair, gently rocking Ana. The baby had finally quieted; the sheer exhaustion of her long cries had numbed her fear. Her round eyes were closed tight, though her tiny fingers still refused to let go of Arvid’s shirt.
"This town... you mean... the entire population?" Arvid asked softly, as if afraid his voice would shatter the silence.
"Every last one, Arvid."
Arvid swallowed. Gulp. His gaze drifted down to the cover of The Oral History of the Plains Tribes resting on his lap—the rare book he had bought with a wide smile at the Crescent Moon Market just two days ago. Why did that moment feel like it belonged to two decades ago?
"They wiped out the entire town," Arvid analyzed, his voice trembling.
"A perfectly executed campaign of terror," Rhea agreed.
"This isn’t just random murder or a raid, Rhea. This is a military occupation." Arvid looked up to meet his wife’s eyes. "They intend to open a second front. And the Khanate is their target."
"Yes."
"But... why?" Arvid frowned, adjusting his glasses. "Why wouldn’t they concentrate their forces to strike Northreach directly? Why go to the trouble of infiltrating Beast-kin territory?"
Rhea didn’t have an immediate answer. She looked out the broken wooden window, staring at the canopy of pines where Katarina and her killers had vanished.
"Perhaps they realize Northreach’s current defenses are too formidable for a direct assault. Maybe they need a western land route to encircle us." Rhea exhaled slowly. "Or perhaps... and this is far more terrifying, they simply don’t care about factions. To the Iron Empire, anyone walking this continent who isn’t of their race is vermin. Humans, Beast-kin, ancient dragons... they are all just targets for extermination."
Arvid’s face grew paler. "Then... what is our next move?"
Rhea turned, her eyes landing on an old parchment map of the Khanate nailed to the inn’s wall. It was the only object in the room untouched by blood.
The map revealed the topography of the entire Khanate.
The vast grasslands to the west—Katarina’s landing point, where the vanished villages began, and where Spring Town had just become the latest slaughterhouse. The icy mountain ranges to the north. And far to the south, right in the heart of the barren savanna, was the symbol of a thick-maned male lion.
The capital of the Khanate. The throne where Khan Arslan ruled.
Rhea tapped her index finger directly on the lion symbol. "We head here."
Arvid stood up slowly, careful not to wake Ana, and stood beside Rhea. "You’re going to report this invasion to him personally?"
"Khan Arslan needs to know. And I need information from him on just how deep these iron bastards have dug their claws into his territory."
"But wouldn’t his patrols have found the ruins of the destroyed villages already?"
"Finding ruins and corpses is not the same as knowing who executed them, Arvid." Rhea’s eyes narrowed sharply. "They don’t know the enemy slaughtering their people. They don’t understand the Iron Empire’s technological level. Most importantly, they don’t know that the black armor is custom-made to neutralize mana." Rhea turned to her husband. "But we do."
Arvid nodded slowly, realizing the critical nature of the intelligence they carried. "How long is the journey?"
"Three days if we push the engine without stop. Maybe four if the roads are bad."
"It’s quite a trek."
"Better than turning back to Iron Hearth."
Ren, who had just finished buttoning his sleeve, approached. "Do you think the Iron Empire forces will double back to this town, My Lady?"
Rhea shook her head firmly. "They won’t. Their objective here is complete. This town was just a stepping stone. They must be moving east by now."
"Heading toward the next target population," Arvid muttered grimly.
"Exactly. The biggest question now is: how fast can those bastards march, and how many battalions are hiding in these forests?"
Half an hour later, they loaded their remaining gear into the trunk.
A rucksack of clothes. Arvid’s pile of old books. Ana’s thick fleece blanket. And one set of the Iron Empire’s black metal armor, securely bound with ropes—the undeniable evidence they would throw onto Khan Arslan’s table. They weren’t taking much back. In truth, there wasn’t much left alive to take.
Rhea was the last to step out of the inn.
She paused for a moment on the porch of The Slumbering Stag. Her eyes fell on the carved wooden sign of the sleeping stag hanging above the lintel—the same oak, the same curved smile of the stag, and the memory of the warm philosophy it carried. Sometimes you need to stop and rest just to have the strength to run further.
Only now, the owner of that story had fallen into an eternal slumber.
Rhea didn’t murmur a prayer or a farewell. It wasn’t her style.
She spun on her heel and walked straight toward the black steel SUV, its engine already humming low, waiting like a restrained beast. Ren sat tall behind the wheel, his left arm a bit stiff under the bandage, but the bleeding had stopped. Mira sat in the front passenger seat, her eyes alertly sweeping the surroundings. In the back, Arvid cradled Ana, who had finally fallen into a deep, undisturbed sleep.
Rhea opened the back door and slid inside.
Thud.
"Heading straight south?" Ren asked, breaking the silence as he glanced in the rearview mirror.
"Straight south," Rhea commanded tonelessly.
The SUV’s massive wheels crushed the gravel, accelerating away from Spring Town. In the rearview mirror, Rhea watched the gray smoke from the hearth fires of the houses still burning, slowly rising through the blue morning sky—acting as the sole headstone for a town that had once lived and laughed.