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Description
Small commission done for Canis, a scenic view of their steampunk world filled with lizards, and a hard case to be cracked. Want to learn more? Canis wrote this fantastic piece of literature to go alongside this piece:

Red. Xavier had never seen so much red. Blood and flames stained the streets of Lugstrum, the once-bright star of humanity. Fire leapt between factory roofs while blood swept down their metal walls. Arrows alight flew over buildings ablaze and struck the chests of torch-wielding guardsmen.

From their crumpled bodies came more red.

Red even seeped from the cracked scales of injured invaders, oozing like puss from a burst blister. Vile scalmere. Heartless lizards. A mockery of humanity. They bled, stood upright, shouted garbled words, swung spears coated in red, and worst of all, feigned the beauty of the stars; moonlight glinted from their multicoloured scales.

Human in all but appearance and soul.

Xavier dashed down alleyways, sticking to wherever fire did not burn, to wherever smoke and gunpowder did not clog his throat. He wasn’t the first to run down here. Humans and scalmere littered the darkness, flat and motionless, their blood pooling together in the street’s cobblestone cracks. From every direction, sirens were blaring and people were screaming. Not one scream seemed human.

Tasting bile on his tongue, Xavier looked to the sky to escape the carnage of the streets. The sky gave no pity. Plasma rained from the upper echelons of Lugstrum. Scalmere mounted atop wyverns—winged beasts clad in jagged scales—swooped like vultures, craving the blood of humanity’s defenders. Under the moonlight, their scales glowed like beacons

A plasma shot struck true. A scalmere clutched his chest, then tumbled off the side of his wyvern. The momentary hope—joy—that brought, was short. Too short. Once free from the control of its handler, wyverns screeched and dove into buildings, civilian and military alike. Dotted throughout the smouldering skyline, reinforced zeppelins fired on the beasts, but their hydrogen-filled hulls were little stronger than skin against their fury. The beasts shot through them like bullets, piercing the top and bursting forth from the bottom covered in flames. Their burning bodies looked like shooting stars plummeting to earth, balls of fire crashing into buildings and streets alike.

Xavier thought Lugstrum was winning. How long had these monsters been on her doorstep? The criers had said these sun-worshipping savages weren’t content to slink back to their disease-ridden jungles, their gimcrack temples and mud-filled huts. They wanted Lugstrum. But they shunned technology, and beasts little smarter than feral animals could pose no real threat to Lugstrum.

Or so they said. What had gone so wrong?

Xavier's foot caught something. He had no time to brace before his chin struck the pavement. He scampered to his feet and looked over his shoulder. A green, thorny tail curled across the street, meeting the hindquarters of a huge winged beast, but one with scales smoother than the ferocious types above. It slouched over a bleeding human, its folded wings pressed against his chest.

“Get away from him!”

The beast did not look up from the human's chest. But to Xavier’s shock, it spoke. “I cannot. This one will die.” Its voice was scratchy and inhuman. Cold.

Do the scalmere not have empathy? That human would die because of their act—their greed for Lugstrum.

“I said get away from him!” Xavier ran in and punched its horned head. The beast flinched, but so did Xavier. Pain coiled around his knuckles.

“It’s not safe, little one.” The beast raised a wing from the pinned human and thrust it at Xavier’s chest, shoving him away. “Get inside, away from the windows.”

Xavier growled, but what could he do against a monster that hurt to touch? He turned and ran, stumbling, clutching his bleeding hand. He stayed hidden in the shade of countless factories as silence guided his path through the backstreets. He turned to wherever carried the quietest gunfire. The softest screams.

Lugstrum was winning. It had to be winning. The city's criers, his teachers, even his parents had reminded him of Lugstrum's certain victory. Scale and spear could never hope to triumph over humanity.

Darkness gave way to a fiery glow, and the alley opened to a main street, where factories gave way to residential flats. Xavier crouched at the corner, taking in every landmark still standing.

Where was he? There was no street sign in sight. He couldn’t be far from home. He had walked these roads to and from school hundreds of times, wading through both snowstorms and the rowdy crowds of tourist season. He always mixed up his route, hoping to find every secret the city's streets tried to hide.

But in a single evening, Lugstrum had changed. Each flaming building was as unrecognisable as the last. Would Lugstrum ever be the same again?

An arrow whisked past his ear and splintered against the pavement. He had to keep moving.

Xavier rushed onto the street in a huddled run, hoping to stay hidden. Short lived. A patrol of scalmire guards marched out of the neighbouring alley, raising their spears as Xavier stumbled into their path. He froze, his muscles turning to jelly, but the invaders lowered their weapons after an unblinking glare at him.

The foremost guard snarled. "Stupid child! Do you yearn for death? Find shelter—"

A gunshot cracked. The guard's words died as blood sprayed from his head. He collapsed to the cobblestones, motionless.

For an agonising moment, nothing made sense. Xavier heard nothing but ringing in his ears. His eyes jumped from the now-snarling guards, to the one crumpled at his feet, to the blood trickling between the stony cracks, to the red trails weaving beneath his boots.

A scalmere bellowed, thrusting his spear at the second-storey window of the building across the street. There, a human silhouette reloaded a repeater, the weapon gleaming in the moonlight.

"Run, kid!"

He flicked down the bolt, took aim, and fired again. Even in the boom of the gunshot, Xavier heard the clunk of denting metal behind him.

The scalmere scattered. One reached into his tailbag and raised a glass vial—filled with an amber liquid that glowed bright—and hurled it through the open window. It shattered, splashing the interior in fire. Smoke and screams poured out as the flames spread.

As heat crept across his face, Xavier turned to run. A rough hand gripped his shoulder and yanked him back.

"No, let go!"

"Tell every soul you know," came a scratchy voice, "that this is what becomes of fools who defy order." The scalmere that threw the vial stood over Xavier, baring pointed teeth. "Only the innocent will receive the overkins' mercy."

"Let go of me! You stupid lizards will never take Lugstrum!"

The scalmere's eyes widened, but he threw his head back and sniggered, a mocking hiss of a laugh. "She's already ours. Hide under your bed and await the morn, the dawn of a glorious new era."

Xavier wrenched his arm free and fled down an alley. The gunslinger's screams still echoed in his ears, soon deafened by laughter and roaring flames.

* * *

Xavier sprinted through the winding backstreets, his heart pounding with every step. The scalmere had thrown the city into chaos, but he had to get home—mum and dad would know what to do. He rounded a corner, and his apartment came into view, its upper floors ablaze.

For a moment, Xavier hesitated. The flames licked the night sky, singeing the rafters of the neighbouring building. It would soon spread. How long until all the Nadir went up in flames?

But Xavier refused to let these monsters win. Like Lugstrum's defenders, he was no coward. With a deep breath, he charged forward, bursting through the door and into the smoke-filled lobby.

"Mum! Dad!" he called out, his voice muffled by the crackle of the flames. No response came.

He raced up the stairs, two at a time, the heat burrowing under his coat as he neared the source. The paint, once a sky-blue that warmly greeted his return every evening, had warped to a sickly brown, peeling off in strips. Xavier reached the second floor and found the door to his apartment ajar. He slammed it open with his shoulder, coughing as smoke choked his lungs.

"Mum?"

He sputtered, unable to draw in enough air to call for dad.

The living room was empty. A note lay alone on the coffee table, calling out with smudged blue ink. Xavier squinted to read the words in the flickering light.

East Gate.

Xavier flipped the note over several times, hoping for more words—some explanation, comfort, fresh air, anything.

But East Gate was all he had.

Who else could have left this note if not mum and dad? They were alive, alive and waiting for him.

Xavier stuffed the note into his pocket and dashed into his bedroom, covering his nose with his sleeve. He dropped to his knees—low enough beneath the smoke for a full breath—and reached under his bed, pulling out a small wooden box. Inside lay his most prized possession, a most incredible gift from dad for his tenth birthday.

Xavier prepared himself the sprint back with a deep breath. He jumped up and turned to leave, but his fluffy rat plush stared down at him from the top rung of his bookshelf. There came a pleading twinkle from his button eyes. Xavier hesitated; Blinky was a gift, too. He fumbled the box, trying to find room in his small hands for one more memento.

A huge crack sounded from above. Xavier hadn't time to look before a burning beam crashed through the ground. The floor gave way and swallowed him up; Xavier plummeted to the bedroom below. His shoulder struck the beam, and with a sudden pop, agony spread down his arm. He screamed, tears and smoke blurring his sight.

"Xavier!?"

Xavier, reeling and rolling on the ground, his mind consumed by pain, couldn't place that terrified squeak of a voice. His hand lurched out for a brace, something to grip, and it found the scorching steel of the beam. He howled, but the fresh pain jolted him onto his knees. There he saw the voice's source—a small, tear-streaked face peeking out from under a bed.

Xavier struggled to put a name to the face, and he struggled to force that name through grit teeth. "Jules?"

Jules was a few grades lower, among the shortest in his class. Xavier felt sorry for all the height jokes the younger years subjected him to—and regretted being the source of some himself.

But now wasn't the time for an apology. "What are you doing here?" asked Xavier. "The whole building is burning up!"

"I can't find mum." Jules’ voice croaked, choked by smoke.

"Well she's not here." Xavier braced his working shoulder against the wall and shifted himself upwards, getting back onto his feet. "Come on, you gotta get out. The roof's 'bout to come down."

"But what if mum comes home?"

"She won't be."

"Liar!" Jules pushed himself back under the bed. "You always lie—to me, the teachers, everyone."

Xavier looked through the hole in the ceiling. He knew Jules lived in the same building—but right beneath his own bedroom? In the fiery void above, another beam smouldered, preparing to finish Xavier off.

"Your mum went to the East Gate with my mum."

"What? How do you—"

"They left me a note. Come on—they can't wait forever." Xavier threw his working arm beneath the bed.

"But—"

"No buts! I don't want to tell your mum you died crying under your bed." Xavier thrust his arm further under the bed, and hoped.

After a horrible wait, a shaking hand grasped Xavier's wrist. Xavier yanked Jules out and scooped up his father's box. Together, they raced out of the apartment and into the ground floor lobby, both gasping for air, eyes watering from the smoke. With another shoulder slam of the entry door, they stumbled out onto the front steps. There, they drooped over and heaved, hands on knees, watching flames flicker and spread across the rooftops above.

"Xavier…" Jules took two heavy breaths. "Your… your arm."

Xavier didn't want to look at it; burning pain told him enough. "It's fine. Come on."

"Why is your shoulder—"

"I said come on!" Xavier grasped Jules' hand and pulled him down an alley. Xavier hadn't visited the East Gate since his grade three excursion along the city's walls—but as long as they kept running east, they would find it, surely.

They had to find it.

* * *

Avoiding the main streets, the pair weaved down winding alleyways. Xavier kept touching the lump in his coat, checking the box hadn't fallen out. Jules kept sniffling and stumbling, his short legs struggling to match Xavier's pace. The fire's glow dimmed the further they ran from the city's heart, yet a few brave souls ran back toward the fray, clad in red-speckled leather armour, their swords holstered, firearms poised at eye level, too focused to acknowledge them.

Xavier wanted to ask if they were winning. But he didn't need to. Lugstrum was winning.

He repeated that to himself, again and again. It helped. It distracted him from the agony spreading down his arm. His fingers had started going numb.

The alley opened to a main road, and a bent sign declared it Sessil Street. Xavier was familiar; a residential street boxed in on all sides by factories, housing their workers. Her cast-iron street lamps were all extinguished bar one.

"Xavier…" Jules sniffed. "I can't keep running."

"We're almost there. Sessil street will take us all the way to the gate, I'm sure of it."

A roar erupted from the side streets, coming from everywhere at once. Xavier and Jules both froze as the earth trembled beneath their feet.

"Don't… don't worry." Xavier tugged Jules. "That sound, it was far away."

Jules tugged back, the other way. "You're lying again."

"If I am, do you want to stick around to find out?"

"Can we stop, for one second, please?"

"No."

"Please, it hurts."

Ahead, the sole lamp dimmed. A hulking silhouette passed in front, stumbling into the main street from the alleyway, its scales glinting a lifeless grey. Xavier lifted a finger to his lips and pulled Jules under the shadow of an overhanging balcony.

He had seen photos of these creatures—monstrous brutes that should have remained in his nightmares. They looked worse in person. Dim scales resembled glass, shattered by hundreds of fissure-like cracks branching out from dozens of bullet holes. It let out an inhuman bellow as it dug a claw into one of those holes. Scale shards thinner than a mayfly's wings crumbled onto the pavement, flaking as though they were skin. The talons on its feet clenched into the stone, and with a violent tug, the beast ripped a bullet from its flesh. It trudged across the street, repeating the process for another wound, this time on its neck.

It was distracted. Xavier pulled Jules' arm to coax him forward. Jules pulled back, but with a scowl and a harder tug from Xavier, the younger boy relented. They crept forward, shaded by a line of apartments.

A glance down the alleyway the beast emerged from made Xavier's veins fill with hot lead. "Don't look." He couldn't lead Jules down there.

Jules whimpered, but nodded.

Xavier held his breath as the street lamp's glow crept up his legs. He glanced at the brute—still tearing its claws through its chest—and stepped into the spotlight.

Jules pulled back. "No, it'll see us."

"Come on, be quick." Xavier tugged, but Jules tugged back doubly hard. Xavier lost his footing, and Jules wrenched his hand free from Xavier's grip.

Then came a familiar whistle. Fire’s flicker. A deafening roar of pain. Xavier spun toward the brute, who slammed its fist into the concrete and twisted on the spot. It tore an arrow out of its belly, but snapped the one in its chest.

Hit by its own kind; only the tech-starved scalmere used arrows.

The beast's staggering—thrashing tail, jaws chomping at the air, claws digging into its chest around the lodged arrow—came to a sudden end when its fang-filled snout turned to face Xavier, who stood exposed under the street lamp. The beast's eyes shot wide, pupils dilating to paint its irises black.

Jules screamed from somewhere to the side. Then came frantic steps, running. Xavier couldn't look. He couldn't move. He couldn't break from the monster's bloodthirsty glare.

It leapt, claws reared. Xavier screamed and ducked. The crunch of snapping metal, then darkness.

Snarling. Ravenous snarling.

Xavier cradled in his head in his arms, unable to stop trembling. He felt nothing. Slowly, after several sucks of air, he lifted his head from his arms. The brute towered over him, those diluted eyes quivering in their sockets. The lamp post had caved in around its fist, the metal pole bent like a tree trunk about to snap.

“Leave. Now.”

Xavier fell onto his hands and crawled out from under the beast, whimpering as his knees scraped across concrete, wincing as his injured arm strained to support his weight. Once the rasp of its breaths grew distant, Xavier kicked himself upright and sprinted with all he had. He didn’t dare look back. He ran and ran, deafened by the sound of his own breaths, ignoring humans sprinting in the other direction, ignoring scalmere patrols flexing their spears at him, ignoring the fiery singe that stuck to his skin whenever he passed a building up in flames. Instinct alone guided his steps to the eastern gate.

Would mum and dad still be there—in one piece? Please, please. Dad would know what to do. Dad always knew what to do.

Exhaustion eventually wore Xavier down. The trembling ache in his legs didn't help. The mere unevenness of the cobblestones had never felt so challenging, and Xavier's balance was slipping. He ducked into an alleyway, slammed his back against a metal wall, and collapsed onto his bum, heaving.

His breaths hadn't a chance to slow before he jumped back to his feet.

"Jules?"

Xavier squinted down into the pitch-black alleyway. He peeked out from the corner and looked up and down whatever street his legs had carried him to.

Both were empty. Xavier had no one to guide. Mum and dad weren't there to guide him either. Not even fire kept him company.

* * *

Away from the fighting, Lugstrum was unnaturally quiet, even for the night.

Xavier limped from alley to alley, knowing not where he was headed. Was he still walking east? The flames that once lapped at his skin seemed so far, most of their glow now snuffed out by smoke. What little light pierced the smog formed an orange halo around the metal factories that dotted the Nadir's horizon.

The plasma and fire lightshow in the sky above had died out too. Wyvern-mounted invaders and humanity's defenders both vanished without a trace, along with the stars. All that remained was the debris of exploded zeppelins; scorched fabric twirling in the wind, drifting gently to earth. A scrap embroidered with a four-pronged star—the symbol of Lugstrum—found itself snagged on a roof's weathervane.

Had Lugstrum won? Was Jules okay? Would this horrible night finally come to an end?

Xavier heard a voice. It came from around a bend in the alley. Scalmere or human—he couldn't tell anymore. He paced closer, stepping slow to mask his approach.

"…deceitful cowards, skulking in the night, searching for an easy kill. You get what you deserve."

The scalmere deserved death. They deserved much worse than death. Xavier vaunted himself as a patriot to the older kids at school, but now he needed a stronger word, a word that truly captured his love for Lugstrum.

"What's that you have there? A ring?"

Xavier turned the corner. There, illuminated in the light of the moon, were black scales. Scales as black as the monster's heart. A slender scalmere—the type that looked most human—stood over a downed guardsman, tail swaying, its foot pressed into the man's chest.

“Oh, a gift from your mate?" it said. "How quaint.”

Xavier balled his fists. He clenched his jaw to keep his voice in.

“You needn’t fret. She’s not around to watch the life drain from your eyes.”

Xavier bit his lip and looked away, to his feet, to the discarded sword resting on the cobblestone street. Half-concealed by blood, the sapphire emblem on its hilt—the four-pronged star of Lugstrum—cast a glint into Xavier's eyes.

The scalmere swung its tail, striking the wall of the neighbouring factory. “Come sunrise, this city will be ours, as will its occupants. Your mate included.”

Xavier's knuckles went bone white as his hands squeezed the steel handle. It was heavy. He struggled to lift it with his busted shoulder. He wouldn't be able to swing it.

“Your poor mate… She will, no doubt, be saddened by your passing. Lonely, even.”

The guardsman started a curse, but it broke into a wet croak as the scalmere straightened upward, digging its talons deeper. Xavier held his sword as far forward as his arms could reach. He need not swing it. He need only plunge it into the monster's back.

"At least that ring of yours will give her closure. If I don't happen to misplace it, of course."

Xavier was but one patriot, a mere child. But if each man, woman and child ended just one invader, then Lugstrum would be free. Lugstrum would win.

“But again, you needn’t fret.” The scalmere’s chest was twitching. Its tail was curling. “Pass on with the knowledge that I will find her.” It was laughing. “I will help her forget you.”

That laughter broke Xavier. His voice bubbled up his throat like bile, and he screamed with a fury louder than gunfire.

“For Lugstrum!”

He dashed forward and thrust his sword at the monster’s back.

It happened in a blink. The scalmere twirled aside and swung its tail at Xavier’s legs. He stumbled, and there was a flash of black. Something immediately felt wrong. Xavier collapsed to his knees, facing the wall of a factory, reddened by rust. The sword clattered somewhere behind him.

Xavier felt nothing for several moments. He remembered to breathe. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t find air at all. A burn spread across his neck, a burn like pressing his hand against a lit burner. Except he couldn’t jolt away. No matter what direction he writhed and twisted, that burn grew hotter, gnawing away at his flesh.

He tried to speak—plead for help—but only a wet gurgle escaped his lips. His hands clutched at his throat, but it was too sticky to find grip. It burned everywhere, and that heat burrowed deeper down his chest with each failed breath. His lungs were alight, filled with fire and blood. Distant screams and gunfire faded, their sound replaced by his own gargling.

It took him too long to realise he was no longer staring at the wall. He had fallen onto his back. In the night sky, a full moon peeked from behind a flaming zeppelin. It was a verdant green. Dermitrus, the third moon of winter.

Xavier loved winter. It was around the time of Dermitrus’s grace that brilliant snow coated the rooftops of Lugstrum. Horse-drawn omnibuses left deep tracks to mark the cobblestone roads hidden beneath sheets of white, and Xavier made it a game to aim his steps into the indent of whoever walked in front. He loved following the tallest adult in the crowd, for he had to hop and skip to match their stride. That was his way of keeping the snow as untouched as possible. But even after thousands had trudged through the streets, reducing the snow to a mushy swell, another night of snowfall would return Lugstrum to its winter beauty.

The snow was late this year. And now he would never see it. Green wings eclipsed the moon for a moment, before black scales blotted out the sky. The scalmere raised its blur of an arm. Flexed its talons.

And then, Xavier saw it. It leaked from the talons' sharp tips. A glint of colour that spread across his dimming vision. A glint of colour that would soon consume all of Lugstrum.

Red. Xavier had never seen so much red.

Description
Small commission done for Canis, a scenic view of their steampunk world filled with lizards, and a hard case to be cracked. Want to learn more? Canis wrote this fantastic piece of literature to go alongside this piece:

Red. Xavier had never seen so much red. Blood and flames stained the streets of Lugstrum, the once-bright star of humanity. Fire leapt between factory roofs while blood swept down their metal walls. Arrows alight flew over buildings ablaze and struck the chests of torch-wielding guardsmen.

From their crumpled bodies came more red.

Red even seeped from the cracked scales of injured invaders, oozing like puss from a burst blister. Vile scalmere. Heartless lizards. A mockery of humanity. They bled, stood upright, shouted garbled words, swung spears coated in red, and worst of all, feigned the beauty of the stars; moonlight glinted from their multicoloured scales.

Human in all but appearance and soul.

Xavier dashed down alleyways, sticking to wherever fire did not burn, to wherever smoke and gunpowder did not clog his throat. He wasn’t the first to run down here. Humans and scalmere littered the darkness, flat and motionless, their blood pooling together in the street’s cobblestone cracks. From every direction, sirens were blaring and people were screaming. Not one scream seemed human.

Tasting bile on his tongue, Xavier looked to the sky to escape the carnage of the streets. The sky gave no pity. Plasma rained from the upper echelons of Lugstrum. Scalmere mounted atop wyverns—winged beasts clad in jagged scales—swooped like vultures, craving the blood of humanity’s defenders. Under the moonlight, their scales glowed like beacons

A plasma shot struck true. A scalmere clutched his chest, then tumbled off the side of his wyvern. The momentary hope—joy—that brought, was short. Too short. Once free from the control of its handler, wyverns screeched and dove into buildings, civilian and military alike. Dotted throughout the smouldering skyline, reinforced zeppelins fired on the beasts, but their hydrogen-filled hulls were little stronger than skin against their fury. The beasts shot through them like bullets, piercing the top and bursting forth from the bottom covered in flames. Their burning bodies looked like shooting stars plummeting to earth, balls of fire crashing into buildings and streets alike.

Xavier thought Lugstrum was winning. How long had these monsters been on her doorstep? The criers had said these sun-worshipping savages weren’t content to slink back to their disease-ridden jungles, their gimcrack temples and mud-filled huts. They wanted Lugstrum. But they shunned technology, and beasts little smarter than feral animals could pose no real threat to Lugstrum.

Or so they said. What had gone so wrong?

Xavier's foot caught something. He had no time to brace before his chin struck the pavement. He scampered to his feet and looked over his shoulder. A green, thorny tail curled across the street, meeting the hindquarters of a huge winged beast, but one with scales smoother than the ferocious types above. It slouched over a bleeding human, its folded wings pressed against his chest.

“Get away from him!”

The beast did not look up from the human's chest. But to Xavier’s shock, it spoke. “I cannot. This one will die.” Its voice was scratchy and inhuman. Cold.

Do the scalmere not have empathy? That human would die because of their act—their greed for Lugstrum.

“I said get away from him!” Xavier ran in and punched its horned head. The beast flinched, but so did Xavier. Pain coiled around his knuckles.

“It’s not safe, little one.” The beast raised a wing from the pinned human and thrust it at Xavier’s chest, shoving him away. “Get inside, away from the windows.”

Xavier growled, but what could he do against a monster that hurt to touch? He turned and ran, stumbling, clutching his bleeding hand. He stayed hidden in the shade of countless factories as silence guided his path through the backstreets. He turned to wherever carried the quietest gunfire. The softest screams.

Lugstrum was winning. It had to be winning. The city's criers, his teachers, even his parents had reminded him of Lugstrum's certain victory. Scale and spear could never hope to triumph over humanity.

Darkness gave way to a fiery glow, and the alley opened to a main street, where factories gave way to residential flats. Xavier crouched at the corner, taking in every landmark still standing.

Where was he? There was no street sign in sight. He couldn’t be far from home. He had walked these roads to and from school hundreds of times, wading through both snowstorms and the rowdy crowds of tourist season. He always mixed up his route, hoping to find every secret the city's streets tried to hide.

But in a single evening, Lugstrum had changed. Each flaming building was as unrecognisable as the last. Would Lugstrum ever be the same again?

An arrow whisked past his ear and splintered against the pavement. He had to keep moving.

Xavier rushed onto the street in a huddled run, hoping to stay hidden. Short lived. A patrol of scalmire guards marched out of the neighbouring alley, raising their spears as Xavier stumbled into their path. He froze, his muscles turning to jelly, but the invaders lowered their weapons after an unblinking glare at him.

The foremost guard snarled. "Stupid child! Do you yearn for death? Find shelter—"

A gunshot cracked. The guard's words died as blood sprayed from his head. He collapsed to the cobblestones, motionless.

For an agonising moment, nothing made sense. Xavier heard nothing but ringing in his ears. His eyes jumped from the now-snarling guards, to the one crumpled at his feet, to the blood trickling between the stony cracks, to the red trails weaving beneath his boots.

A scalmere bellowed, thrusting his spear at the second-storey window of the building across the street. There, a human silhouette reloaded a repeater, the weapon gleaming in the moonlight.

"Run, kid!"

He flicked down the bolt, took aim, and fired again. Even in the boom of the gunshot, Xavier heard the clunk of denting metal behind him.

The scalmere scattered. One reached into his tailbag and raised a glass vial—filled with an amber liquid that glowed bright—and hurled it through the open window. It shattered, splashing the interior in fire. Smoke and screams poured out as the flames spread.

As heat crept across his face, Xavier turned to run. A rough hand gripped his shoulder and yanked him back.

"No, let go!"

"Tell every soul you know," came a scratchy voice, "that this is what becomes of fools who defy order." The scalmere that threw the vial stood over Xavier, baring pointed teeth. "Only the innocent will receive the overkins' mercy."

"Let go of me! You stupid lizards will never take Lugstrum!"

The scalmere's eyes widened, but he threw his head back and sniggered, a mocking hiss of a laugh. "She's already ours. Hide under your bed and await the morn, the dawn of a glorious new era."

Xavier wrenched his arm free and fled down an alley. The gunslinger's screams still echoed in his ears, soon deafened by laughter and roaring flames.

* * *

Xavier sprinted through the winding backstreets, his heart pounding with every step. The scalmere had thrown the city into chaos, but he had to get home—mum and dad would know what to do. He rounded a corner, and his apartment came into view, its upper floors ablaze.

For a moment, Xavier hesitated. The flames licked the night sky, singeing the rafters of the neighbouring building. It would soon spread. How long until all the Nadir went up in flames?

But Xavier refused to let these monsters win. Like Lugstrum's defenders, he was no coward. With a deep breath, he charged forward, bursting through the door and into the smoke-filled lobby.

"Mum! Dad!" he called out, his voice muffled by the crackle of the flames. No response came.

He raced up the stairs, two at a time, the heat burrowing under his coat as he neared the source. The paint, once a sky-blue that warmly greeted his return every evening, had warped to a sickly brown, peeling off in strips. Xavier reached the second floor and found the door to his apartment ajar. He slammed it open with his shoulder, coughing as smoke choked his lungs.

"Mum?"

He sputtered, unable to draw in enough air to call for dad.

The living room was empty. A note lay alone on the coffee table, calling out with smudged blue ink. Xavier squinted to read the words in the flickering light.

East Gate.

Xavier flipped the note over several times, hoping for more words—some explanation, comfort, fresh air, anything.

But East Gate was all he had.

Who else could have left this note if not mum and dad? They were alive, alive and waiting for him.

Xavier stuffed the note into his pocket and dashed into his bedroom, covering his nose with his sleeve. He dropped to his knees—low enough beneath the smoke for a full breath—and reached under his bed, pulling out a small wooden box. Inside lay his most prized possession, a most incredible gift from dad for his tenth birthday.

Xavier prepared himself the sprint back with a deep breath. He jumped up and turned to leave, but his fluffy rat plush stared down at him from the top rung of his bookshelf. There came a pleading twinkle from his button eyes. Xavier hesitated; Blinky was a gift, too. He fumbled the box, trying to find room in his small hands for one more memento.

A huge crack sounded from above. Xavier hadn't time to look before a burning beam crashed through the ground. The floor gave way and swallowed him up; Xavier plummeted to the bedroom below. His shoulder struck the beam, and with a sudden pop, agony spread down his arm. He screamed, tears and smoke blurring his sight.

"Xavier!?"

Xavier, reeling and rolling on the ground, his mind consumed by pain, couldn't place that terrified squeak of a voice. His hand lurched out for a brace, something to grip, and it found the scorching steel of the beam. He howled, but the fresh pain jolted him onto his knees. There he saw the voice's source—a small, tear-streaked face peeking out from under a bed.

Xavier struggled to put a name to the face, and he struggled to force that name through grit teeth. "Jules?"

Jules was a few grades lower, among the shortest in his class. Xavier felt sorry for all the height jokes the younger years subjected him to—and regretted being the source of some himself.

But now wasn't the time for an apology. "What are you doing here?" asked Xavier. "The whole building is burning up!"

"I can't find mum." Jules’ voice croaked, choked by smoke.

"Well she's not here." Xavier braced his working shoulder against the wall and shifted himself upwards, getting back onto his feet. "Come on, you gotta get out. The roof's 'bout to come down."

"But what if mum comes home?"

"She won't be."

"Liar!" Jules pushed himself back under the bed. "You always lie—to me, the teachers, everyone."

Xavier looked through the hole in the ceiling. He knew Jules lived in the same building—but right beneath his own bedroom? In the fiery void above, another beam smouldered, preparing to finish Xavier off.

"Your mum went to the East Gate with my mum."

"What? How do you—"

"They left me a note. Come on—they can't wait forever." Xavier threw his working arm beneath the bed.

"But—"

"No buts! I don't want to tell your mum you died crying under your bed." Xavier thrust his arm further under the bed, and hoped.

After a horrible wait, a shaking hand grasped Xavier's wrist. Xavier yanked Jules out and scooped up his father's box. Together, they raced out of the apartment and into the ground floor lobby, both gasping for air, eyes watering from the smoke. With another shoulder slam of the entry door, they stumbled out onto the front steps. There, they drooped over and heaved, hands on knees, watching flames flicker and spread across the rooftops above.

"Xavier…" Jules took two heavy breaths. "Your… your arm."

Xavier didn't want to look at it; burning pain told him enough. "It's fine. Come on."

"Why is your shoulder—"

"I said come on!" Xavier grasped Jules' hand and pulled him down an alley. Xavier hadn't visited the East Gate since his grade three excursion along the city's walls—but as long as they kept running east, they would find it, surely.

They had to find it.

* * *

Avoiding the main streets, the pair weaved down winding alleyways. Xavier kept touching the lump in his coat, checking the box hadn't fallen out. Jules kept sniffling and stumbling, his short legs struggling to match Xavier's pace. The fire's glow dimmed the further they ran from the city's heart, yet a few brave souls ran back toward the fray, clad in red-speckled leather armour, their swords holstered, firearms poised at eye level, too focused to acknowledge them.

Xavier wanted to ask if they were winning. But he didn't need to. Lugstrum was winning.

He repeated that to himself, again and again. It helped. It distracted him from the agony spreading down his arm. His fingers had started going numb.

The alley opened to a main road, and a bent sign declared it Sessil Street. Xavier was familiar; a residential street boxed in on all sides by factories, housing their workers. Her cast-iron street lamps were all extinguished bar one.

"Xavier…" Jules sniffed. "I can't keep running."

"We're almost there. Sessil street will take us all the way to the gate, I'm sure of it."

A roar erupted from the side streets, coming from everywhere at once. Xavier and Jules both froze as the earth trembled beneath their feet.

"Don't… don't worry." Xavier tugged Jules. "That sound, it was far away."

Jules tugged back, the other way. "You're lying again."

"If I am, do you want to stick around to find out?"

"Can we stop, for one second, please?"

"No."

"Please, it hurts."

Ahead, the sole lamp dimmed. A hulking silhouette passed in front, stumbling into the main street from the alleyway, its scales glinting a lifeless grey. Xavier lifted a finger to his lips and pulled Jules under the shadow of an overhanging balcony.

He had seen photos of these creatures—monstrous brutes that should have remained in his nightmares. They looked worse in person. Dim scales resembled glass, shattered by hundreds of fissure-like cracks branching out from dozens of bullet holes. It let out an inhuman bellow as it dug a claw into one of those holes. Scale shards thinner than a mayfly's wings crumbled onto the pavement, flaking as though they were skin. The talons on its feet clenched into the stone, and with a violent tug, the beast ripped a bullet from its flesh. It trudged across the street, repeating the process for another wound, this time on its neck.

It was distracted. Xavier pulled Jules' arm to coax him forward. Jules pulled back, but with a scowl and a harder tug from Xavier, the younger boy relented. They crept forward, shaded by a line of apartments.

A glance down the alleyway the beast emerged from made Xavier's veins fill with hot lead. "Don't look." He couldn't lead Jules down there.

Jules whimpered, but nodded.

Xavier held his breath as the street lamp's glow crept up his legs. He glanced at the brute—still tearing its claws through its chest—and stepped into the spotlight.

Jules pulled back. "No, it'll see us."

"Come on, be quick." Xavier tugged, but Jules tugged back doubly hard. Xavier lost his footing, and Jules wrenched his hand free from Xavier's grip.

Then came a familiar whistle. Fire’s flicker. A deafening roar of pain. Xavier spun toward the brute, who slammed its fist into the concrete and twisted on the spot. It tore an arrow out of its belly, but snapped the one in its chest.

Hit by its own kind; only the tech-starved scalmere used arrows.

The beast's staggering—thrashing tail, jaws chomping at the air, claws digging into its chest around the lodged arrow—came to a sudden end when its fang-filled snout turned to face Xavier, who stood exposed under the street lamp. The beast's eyes shot wide, pupils dilating to paint its irises black.

Jules screamed from somewhere to the side. Then came frantic steps, running. Xavier couldn't look. He couldn't move. He couldn't break from the monster's bloodthirsty glare.

It leapt, claws reared. Xavier screamed and ducked. The crunch of snapping metal, then darkness.

Snarling. Ravenous snarling.

Xavier cradled in his head in his arms, unable to stop trembling. He felt nothing. Slowly, after several sucks of air, he lifted his head from his arms. The brute towered over him, those diluted eyes quivering in their sockets. The lamp post had caved in around its fist, the metal pole bent like a tree trunk about to snap.

“Leave. Now.”

Xavier fell onto his hands and crawled out from under the beast, whimpering as his knees scraped across concrete, wincing as his injured arm strained to support his weight. Once the rasp of its breaths grew distant, Xavier kicked himself upright and sprinted with all he had. He didn’t dare look back. He ran and ran, deafened by the sound of his own breaths, ignoring humans sprinting in the other direction, ignoring scalmere patrols flexing their spears at him, ignoring the fiery singe that stuck to his skin whenever he passed a building up in flames. Instinct alone guided his steps to the eastern gate.

Would mum and dad still be there—in one piece? Please, please. Dad would know what to do. Dad always knew what to do.

Exhaustion eventually wore Xavier down. The trembling ache in his legs didn't help. The mere unevenness of the cobblestones had never felt so challenging, and Xavier's balance was slipping. He ducked into an alleyway, slammed his back against a metal wall, and collapsed onto his bum, heaving.

His breaths hadn't a chance to slow before he jumped back to his feet.

"Jules?"

Xavier squinted down into the pitch-black alleyway. He peeked out from the corner and looked up and down whatever street his legs had carried him to.

Both were empty. Xavier had no one to guide. Mum and dad weren't there to guide him either. Not even fire kept him company.

* * *

Away from the fighting, Lugstrum was unnaturally quiet, even for the night.

Xavier limped from alley to alley, knowing not where he was headed. Was he still walking east? The flames that once lapped at his skin seemed so far, most of their glow now snuffed out by smoke. What little light pierced the smog formed an orange halo around the metal factories that dotted the Nadir's horizon.

The plasma and fire lightshow in the sky above had died out too. Wyvern-mounted invaders and humanity's defenders both vanished without a trace, along with the stars. All that remained was the debris of exploded zeppelins; scorched fabric twirling in the wind, drifting gently to earth. A scrap embroidered with a four-pronged star—the symbol of Lugstrum—found itself snagged on a roof's weathervane.

Had Lugstrum won? Was Jules okay? Would this horrible night finally come to an end?

Xavier heard a voice. It came from around a bend in the alley. Scalmere or human—he couldn't tell anymore. He paced closer, stepping slow to mask his approach.

"…deceitful cowards, skulking in the night, searching for an easy kill. You get what you deserve."

The scalmere deserved death. They deserved much worse than death. Xavier vaunted himself as a patriot to the older kids at school, but now he needed a stronger word, a word that truly captured his love for Lugstrum.

"What's that you have there? A ring?"

Xavier turned the corner. There, illuminated in the light of the moon, were black scales. Scales as black as the monster's heart. A slender scalmere—the type that looked most human—stood over a downed guardsman, tail swaying, its foot pressed into the man's chest.

“Oh, a gift from your mate?" it said. "How quaint.”

Xavier balled his fists. He clenched his jaw to keep his voice in.

“You needn’t fret. She’s not around to watch the life drain from your eyes.”

Xavier bit his lip and looked away, to his feet, to the discarded sword resting on the cobblestone street. Half-concealed by blood, the sapphire emblem on its hilt—the four-pronged star of Lugstrum—cast a glint into Xavier's eyes.

The scalmere swung its tail, striking the wall of the neighbouring factory. “Come sunrise, this city will be ours, as will its occupants. Your mate included.”

Xavier's knuckles went bone white as his hands squeezed the steel handle. It was heavy. He struggled to lift it with his busted shoulder. He wouldn't be able to swing it.

“Your poor mate… She will, no doubt, be saddened by your passing. Lonely, even.”

The guardsman started a curse, but it broke into a wet croak as the scalmere straightened upward, digging its talons deeper. Xavier held his sword as far forward as his arms could reach. He need not swing it. He need only plunge it into the monster's back.

"At least that ring of yours will give her closure. If I don't happen to misplace it, of course."

Xavier was but one patriot, a mere child. But if each man, woman and child ended just one invader, then Lugstrum would be free. Lugstrum would win.

“But again, you needn’t fret.” The scalmere’s chest was twitching. Its tail was curling. “Pass on with the knowledge that I will find her.” It was laughing. “I will help her forget you.”

That laughter broke Xavier. His voice bubbled up his throat like bile, and he screamed with a fury louder than gunfire.

“For Lugstrum!”

He dashed forward and thrust his sword at the monster’s back.

It happened in a blink. The scalmere twirled aside and swung its tail at Xavier’s legs. He stumbled, and there was a flash of black. Something immediately felt wrong. Xavier collapsed to his knees, facing the wall of a factory, reddened by rust. The sword clattered somewhere behind him.

Xavier felt nothing for several moments. He remembered to breathe. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t find air at all. A burn spread across his neck, a burn like pressing his hand against a lit burner. Except he couldn’t jolt away. No matter what direction he writhed and twisted, that burn grew hotter, gnawing away at his flesh.

He tried to speak—plead for help—but only a wet gurgle escaped his lips. His hands clutched at his throat, but it was too sticky to find grip. It burned everywhere, and that heat burrowed deeper down his chest with each failed breath. His lungs were alight, filled with fire and blood. Distant screams and gunfire faded, their sound replaced by his own gargling.

It took him too long to realise he was no longer staring at the wall. He had fallen onto his back. In the night sky, a full moon peeked from behind a flaming zeppelin. It was a verdant green. Dermitrus, the third moon of winter.

Xavier loved winter. It was around the time of Dermitrus’s grace that brilliant snow coated the rooftops of Lugstrum. Horse-drawn omnibuses left deep tracks to mark the cobblestone roads hidden beneath sheets of white, and Xavier made it a game to aim his steps into the indent of whoever walked in front. He loved following the tallest adult in the crowd, for he had to hop and skip to match their stride. That was his way of keeping the snow as untouched as possible. But even after thousands had trudged through the streets, reducing the snow to a mushy swell, another night of snowfall would return Lugstrum to its winter beauty.

The snow was late this year. And now he would never see it. Green wings eclipsed the moon for a moment, before black scales blotted out the sky. The scalmere raised its blur of an arm. Flexed its talons.

And then, Xavier saw it. It leaked from the talons' sharp tips. A glint of colour that spread across his dimming vision. A glint of colour that would soon consume all of Lugstrum.

Red. Xavier had never seen so much red.