Chapter 30: Heaven’s Way (4)

“Hurry! Get moving!”

Poe, the commander of the Noxian guards, hurried his men along to shut the castle gates. His throat had already gone raw from shouting, and his eyes flitted about uneasily. All present understood the gravity of the situation, but all of Poe’s mind and body exuded anxiety and concern.

He was known by all to be kind and brave, trusted by the citizens. He had only been commander for two years, but he had served in the guard for eight years prior to his promotions. As a veteran, he knew at first glance that there was something unsettling about this herd of scrofa. It wasn’t just about the odd timing, the deviation from their usual late autumn activities. It was the sheer size of the dust cloud they were forming as they approached the plains in front of the city.

“How… There’s so many of them…” The vice-commander muttered exactly what Poe had been thinking. Though they’d observed scrofa herds for the last eight years, they had never seen them move in such alarming numbers before.

“Sir!” A guard shouted, “There are people down there!”

His fingers were pointing west of the castle gates, right at the rushing herd. And surely enough, there were people running in front of the scrofa. More accurately, they were running away from the monsters. Though they were too far to be identified, one thing was certain: their numbers were dropping rapidly. One glace at the dust clouds, gaining speed towards the gates, was enough to understand that the monsters were catching up.

“Your orders, sir!” The vice-commander pressed. However, Poe knew that there was little that could be done at this point. The preparations to pull the drawbridge had been completed, so if they were to keep the gates open to let the people in, there was a chance to save them all. However, that meant that the herd could make its way into the city as well. If they were to just close the gates, the scrofa could easily break through the doors, given how fast and aggressively they were running. Nox had first built the moat and drawbridge as a safer way to keep the monsters out, but pulling the drawbridge up required time. Poe needed to make a decision, fast.

The people running away were undoubtedly also citizens of Nox, and as the commander of the guards, sworn to protect them, he couldn’t turn a blind eye to them. And yet, helping them would come at great cost. Behind him, inside the walls, were hundreds of other citizens.

Had it been anyone else, they would have closed the gates without second thought. There had been a precedent, and precedents were meant to be followed. But not Poe. Poe hesitated. There was a deeper, more personal trauma there related to scrofa stampedes.

Word that people were being chased by scrofa quickly spread through the city, and the main street was engulfed in chaos as everyone got hold of the news. And Lucid…

“I have to go.”

Lucid got up and left the store. Shapiro stood after him to stop him, but it was too late: the boy was already running down the main street towards the gates.

As he ran, Lucid prayed for Mosla’s safety. It had been half a year since his arrival to Nox, and he had spent most of that time with the hunter. Contrary to his first impression of him, mainly due to their awkward encounter, Mosla had always been kind and compassionate towards Lucid. Perhaps it was to compensate for his lost son, as Mosla had once said, or perhaps it was a sort of bond between two people who had lost their families. Either way, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that Lucid had been happy while living with Mosla. It was as if he had met a new father, and he wanted to keep things the way they were so much that he sometimes even felt guilty about it. Mosla had already become a crucial part of Lucid’s life. But now…

The boy arrived at the western gate, and he had all intentions of going atop the walls, if only he hadn’t been stopped by the guards. For now, all he could do was explain himself to them.

“You have to save them! Please, open the gate! Please!!”

Of course, he wasn’t the only one explaining and pleading to them. Many had gathered at the gate, crying and shouting at the guards, who were awaiting orders, and at the commander, who had yet to give an order.

“My father! That’s my father, please! You have to save him!”

“My husband isn’t back yet! Open the gates!”

Though the guards were sympathetic of the crowd, there was nothing they could do unless by direct orders from the commander. And said commander continued to think and think things through, regardless of the commotion.

“We cannot stall any longer. You have to make a choice, now.”

At the vice-commander’s words, Poe turned around. He could hear the meaning behind them. They were telling him to close the gates, that that was the right thing to do. But all Poe could see was his brother, Poleff, being chased by scrofa in front of the gates, and how his body had flown up and up in the air.

The vice-commander wasn’t willing to wait any longer for Poe, and he shook the commander in an attempt to get him back to his senses.

“Commander!”

“Hey! Stop!”

The voices rang out at the same time, and the sharp noise made Poe look down the wall. A boy had made it past the gates, still ajar, and was running to the other side of the drawbridge. That boy, he thought. That boy will die.

“Close… Close the gates.” At last, an order. Poe’s conscience had been the biggest obstacle in his fight to overcome his trauma. His brother had died right at the castle gates. If only the commander at the time had waited with open gates, he could have lived, no matter the consequences of an open gate. Even now, he knew he could save those people outside. After all, he was in a position to make such decisions. But with that position also came a choice he had never had to think about before. Saving the many, or the few. An ageless, outdated dilemma, but it haunted him, nonetheless.

This wasn’t a philosophical debate over the importance of all individuals or sacrificing the few for the good of the many. No, this was just about Poe’s conscience. If one life had to be sacrificed to save one life, he could deal with the aftermath of his decision. But the situation he was faced with was more than he could handle, the sacrifice was too great to bear alone. How much was he willing to sacrifice to save others? How much could his conscience bear? Where could he draw the line?

And that’s when he understood. That boy, running down the drawbridge. That was the most he could bear. Just the idea of having to sacrifice more people, on top of that boy, was enough to turn his blood cold.

“I’m sorry.”

An apology murmured to the boy’s back. There was no way that it reached Lucid, but even if it had, the boy would have hardly minded it. He looked on as he ran, and saw the dust cloud approach, fast as a wave crashing down a rock, but he was still too far to be able to tell people apart.

“Zoom.” And as soon as the words left his mouth, his field of vision changed.

Lucid had been quite diligent in keeping up with his magic research, even while working in Shapiro’s storage room. He recorded every idea that came to him, concentrating, thinking. And one of the results of this training was “zoom.” It had been a rather casual discovery. Lucid had been comparing two herbs, very similar in appearance, when he remembered a magnifying glass he once saw at school. It would be easier, he had thought, if I could “zoom” in on these herbs like with a magnifying glass. And with that small thought, he had worked towards recreating this magic.

The first thing he saw was the herd of scrofa. Covered in dirt, the menacing eyes of the scrofa came into his sight. They were much too big to be called boars, and their tusks, protruding sharply from their mouths, were uncharacteristically black. As such, they were classified as monsters, rather than simple wild beasts.

Then he found the people running in front of them, and among them, Mosla with his leather jacket. He appeared to have already been hurt, as one half of his face was covered in blood.

No! Lucid screamed in his head as he kept running. He didn’t think about what might happen. He couldn’t. He couldn’t bear the idea of losing someone again.

The distance between them closed in. The people, running so frantically, could now see Lucid, sprinting towards them. Mosla, especially, recognized the boy, and his heart stopped in his chest.

“Don’t!” He shouted. “Get away!!”

He had no idea why the boy was here, or why he was running straight towards them, but he had to run away. The open field, stretching from the foot of the mountain to the city walls, was now covered in scrofa. There was no were else to run but the castle. It had always been this way, and that was why Nox had always been more than careful in repairing the walls and deepening the moat every year.

But this time, the herd was bigger than ever seen before, enough to scare the commander of the guards, a seasoned veteran. Even within the castle walls, safety was not guaranteed. So what could possibly prompt the child to leave and come towards the danger?

“Go back! Run!”

Yet Mosla’s words were lost in the monstrous howls of the scrofa behind him and the rumbling of the ground beneath him.

<Heaven’s Way (4)> End