Messy woke to a sound like the world ending.

  Her first instinct was to grab for Ana, but Ana wasn’t there. She was alone, and she almost panicked before the adrenaline hit and reason and memory kicked in with a vengeance. Right. Of course she was alone. Ana had gone to hunt down the escapees. As for Messy herself, Touanne had sent her home that afternoon, declaring her wounds healed enough to not need supervision. The potent combination of Ana’s bonuses, Touanne’s healing and recovery aura, a general healing potion, a potion for blood replenishment, and healing poultices had done wonders, though she’d been given strict orders to use the thumb of her healing left hand as little as possible.

  The little visual itch of new notifications nagged for her attention. She had two of them, listing a whole host of defeated revenants and people. Of course, she hadn’t been in those fights herself, so all she got for them was Shards, but she’d received over twenty of those and wasn’t going to complain about free Crystals.

  She felt a pang of sadness about the fact that some of the people Ana and her Party had killed must have been acquaintances of hers, but she forced it down. They’d made their choice. They’d sided with the monster responsible for all the Stolen, and for all the death and misery of the last three months. She’d mourn them, but she refused to feel bad about their deaths.

  In any case, this was no time to linger on such things. The noise that had woken her, a tearing, crashing cacophony louder than anything, was still echoing outside. Now it was joined by screams and shouts of alarm, of people on her own street calling through their windows, asking what was going on, and of doors opening and slamming shut as people poured into the street.

  As Messy pulled on a loose rose tunic and undyed linen trousers, she could only imagine one cause: attack. But where, and how? The Waystone? That shouldn’t be possible; Thair and the mages supporting her had finished sealing it hours ago. That left enemies within the outpost, either invaders who’d hid and evaded the search parties or fresh traitors, or enemies from outside the wall.

  She dressed for combat, throwing on her leather chest piece and opting for boots over sandals, then buckled on her sword-belt. Her old, familiar sword was a reassuring weight on her hip; the one she’d taken when she and Tor fought to bring Ana to Touanne had been too short and broad for her liking. Then she was through the door, down the stairs, and outside, heading for Main Street with only the waxing crescent moon to light her way.

  Once there it quickly became clear from where the noise had come. There was a noticeable commotion to the north, toward the gate, so she headed that way, keeping to the shadows rather than the moonlit side of the street.

  At the northern end of the street was chaos.

  The gate was gone. Just gone. The earth had opened up and swallowed it before closing over the remains. A jumble of the trunk-like palisade posts lay fallen to the sides of the scar, leaving a gaping wound in the wooden wall at least fifty feet wide. Messy approached cautiously, but she needn’t have bothered. There was no fighting going on, only shouting and frantic labor as the people already there rushed to presumably try to save others trapped under the wreckage.

  Or, Messy thought with a shudder, in the earth.

  “What’s going on?” she shouted, running to help lift free an unconscious woman from the stack of posts pinning her lower body to the ground. Her new Class came with bonuses to Strength and Endurance among others, and she put both to good use now. “What happened here?”

  “The earth cracked!” said Sira, who’d been released from Touanne’s at the same time as Messy and had promptly gone back to her job as a guard. Messy suspected it was her entire life. She was one of the two Peacekeepers already there and struggling with the heavy posts, alongside a man who’d also been at Touanne’s but whose name Messy didn’t know. “Just like at the goddamn stockade! Didn’t see the fucking Earthbreaker this time, though. Pell, on the gate, didn’t see anyone approach, either. Don’t know how the hell they snuck up on us.”

  “So you don’t know where they are?!” Messy’s words came out with a grunt as she heaved together with the unnamed guard, the final post rising just enough for Sira to pull the unconscious — not dead, thank the gods — woman’s mangled legs free.

  “No clue,” the man said, then, “Three, two, one, drop!” The post crashed to the ground as they both released it. “They may be inside the outpost. Likely, even, so be on your guard.”

  “Why would they come back? This must be the most dangerous place in the Splinter for them?” Messy asked. She desperately wanted to make sense of what was happening, but it seemed like suicide for any of the invaders to return to the outpost.

  “To finish the job, maybe?” Sira suggested. “They could—”

  Messy’s eyes flew wide open. “Touanne!”

  She barely heard Sira’s cursing behind her as she took off down the street. She had no way of knowing if the attackers were inside the outpost, or if they were, if they’d go after Touanne. But Messy was only one woman. She could only be in one place, could only help in one place at any given time. If she had to choose — and she did — then the outpost’s only specialized Healer, a woman who’d become her friend over the last few months, was her first choice.

  Messy was halfway to the square when a noise to put the one that had woken her to shame, a crack and rumble loud enough to drown out her own breathing and the sound of her boots on the cobbles, came from somewhere duskward. At the same time as the sound reached her she realized that not only couldn’t she hear her own footsteps; she’d missed two steps, her legs wheeling without her feet touching the ground. Signs rattled on their chains, shingles crashed from roofs and flowerpots fell from windows to spread their contents on the stone cobbles as the world shook hard enough to send Messy a foot into the air between one step and the next.

  Messy’s Agility couldn’t compare to Ana’s, but she’d invested in her Multiplier, and at 18 points she was no slouch. She came down running, Instinct and Reflex helping her right herself and Flair and Style making her look good as she regained her balance and picked up speed again, continuing on her mission. She was paradoxically relieved at the apocalyptic noise that continued to crash and grind. She didn’t know what had just happened and she wasn’t sure that she wanted to, but the noise coming from duskward at least meant that whoever caused it hadn’t gone south to Touanne.

  She entered the square. A few people carrying lanterns or torches or, in one case, using a Light Shaping called out questions to her, and she slowed, quickly telling them what she knew and urging them to go see if anyone to duskward needed help, but to be careful. Then she sped up again, her steps carrying her quickly past the Waystone and out the other side down south Main Street and to Touanne’s.

  Dim light came through the windows, and to Messy’s immense relief Jisha opened the door when she knocked. It struck Messy for a moment, as it had several times over the past day, that this slip of a girl, who must be at least twenty years her junior and maybe more, was now a higher level than herself. More useful to Ana, a small, jealous part of her mind whispered.

  But this was no time for her own insecurities; the girl was half hysterical. First Jisha fired off a rapid succession of words in one of the two incomprehensible languages she often used with Ana, but thankfully she caught herself and asked, “What happen? There was huge noise, and then again. Touanne want to go, I ask her not to. What happen?!”

  “An attack,” Messy replied quickly. “The invaders, their strongest mage, I think he’s back.”

  “Ana?” the girl asked, her eyes bright and huge in the low light.

  “She’s fine,” Messy reassured her. “Not even hurt on my Party interface.” Which wasn’t entirely true. Though Messy didn’t like to consider it, Ana might very well be hurt, just not incapacitated. But while Jisha was slowly getting comfortable with using what Inter-guild she knew, her vocabulary was still rather limited, and Messy didn’t think that they should be spending time on teaching the girl what incapacitated meant. And with the way Jisha relaxed, Messy knew she’d made the right choice.

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  At that point Rayni and Touanne arrived from the back room, and after Messy explained what little she knew to them as well she wondered for a moment if she’d have to physically restrain the Healer.

  “I have to go out there!” Touanne exclaimed when Messy mentioned that people were hurt at the northern gate. “I have to help!”

  When Touanne said I have to she didn’t do so lightly. It was practically a compulsion for someone as deep into the Craft of Healing as she was. Messy knew that. But she stayed where she was, barring the door, and said, “Touanne, we don’t know why they’re here, but killing you and the other mages who know the curing ritual was one of their goals to start with! We need to keep you safe until this is over!”

  “In that case we should absolutely take her out of here,” Rayni countered.

  “What?”

  “You said the Earthbreaker guy’s here. If he’s after Touanne… I mean, everyone knows where her house is. The guy can break the earth. He turned the stockade to kindling. I can’t imagine anywhere that’s less safe than a building right now.”

  “Oh.” Messy stared at Rayni for about a heartbeat as the truth of those words rang like an alarm bell in her mind. “Oh, goddess, you’re right! We have to go!”

  Messy was stepping out of the door when Touanne suddenly changed her mind entirely. “We can’t leave!” she insisted suddenly. “If they attack the building… I still have patients! I can’t leave them!”

  “Then we’ll take them with us,” Messy replied. “How many?”

  “Two.”

  “There’s four of us. Let’s put them on stretchers and take them somewhere nearby.”

  “There’s the courtyard down the street,” Rayni suggested. “Where the Water-mages set up after the battle at the gate. We can go there. Far enough away that it should be safe, close enough that we’ll hear if anyone comes shouting for a Healer.”

  Messy looked at Touanne, who nodded. “Great. Let’s get your patients and move.”

  Jisha, who’d been listening to the rapid exchange with the look of someone who only barely understood what was going on, asked simply, “We go?”

  “With the patients,” Touanne told her, slowly and clearly.

  The girl nodded, and with a “D’acc,” she quickly followed Touanne to the back, Messy and Rayni close behind.

  By the time the world ended for the third time, Messy and the others were on their way.

  “How the hells can he keep doing this?!” Rayni swore as the earsplitting sound of tearing stone and splintering wood came from duskward.

  “Tor said he had mages feeding him mana at the stockade,” Messy replied as they turned into the courtyard that was their destination. “Must be the same now.”

  “Gods, that’s terrifying. Down on three. One, two…”

  The fourth and final terrible noise came ten minutes later.

  Rayni, with her heavy investment in Perception, ran to the mouth of the short alley that connected the courtyard to the street. Returning to the others she said, “That sounded like it came from the square. My Danger Sense is screaming at me not to go that way, too.”

  Messy’s brow knit. “The square? You think they went after Administration? The guardhouse? Or, goddess, the temple?”

  “Those are all stone buildings,” Rayni mused. “Seems like there should be more, you know, collapsing, like before. But there was just that loud, grinding noise, and then… nothing. I don’t know what to make of it.”

  Messy could have sworn she felt her mouth go dry. “The Waystone?”

  Rayni turned to face her fully, eyes wide. “Oh, gods. You think they’d…”

  “Goddess only knows what they might try,” Messy snapped, the stress of the night and her anxiety over not knowing how these invaders could have gotten away from Ana overwhelming her for a moment. Then she clenched her jaw shut, took a deep breath through her nose, and said, “Sorry. We should… we should go check.”

  “We should,” Rayni agreed, looking past Messy to Touanne, Jisha, and the two patients who lay unconscious on their stretchers. “But—”

  “Go!” When Touanne spoke, her tone brooked no argument. “We’ll be safe here. We’re hidden around the corner, and I have Jisha. Go see what’s happening.”

  “You’re sure?” Messy asked.

  “If they do something to the Waystone, none of us will be safe,” Touanne said softly. “Go.”

  Rather than going up Main Street, Messy and Rayni took the opposite exit from the courtyard to Second, which was narrower and in deeper shadow.

  “I don't get it,” Rayni hissed as they turned north onto the street. “They'd be killing themselves. They must know that!”

  “I’m sure they do,” Messy said grimly. “Ana… she’s had some really dark moments ever since we learned about the Sentinel. She's told me about some of the things people in her world have done in the name of their gods. It's sickening.”

  “Like what?” Rayni asked, her voice thin, like she wasn't sure she wanted an answer.

  “You're better off not knowing. But I don't see why the same things couldn't happen here if these people are fanatical enough. They think they’re saving the world, Ray!”

  Rayni took point after that, staying several doors ahead of Messy with her far higher Perception, Agility, and Stealth. But nothing happened; the distant sounds of shouting continued. They made it to the end of the street without incident — and then no further.

  “What in all the hells are they doing?” Messy asked as she joined Rayni at the place where First Duskward Street should have opened onto the square. They stood between the Exchange and the training yard and took in the confusing scene. “What am I even seeing?”

  The street had been blocked, the cobbles thrown every which way by tall, smooth pillars of stone that had seemingly erupted from beneath. The stones stood so close and tall that they formed what was in essence an impenetrable, twenty foot high wall.

  “They’ve blocked it off!” the Huntress whispered in outrage. “And it sounds like…” she listened carefully for a moment. “There are people talking.”

  “Can you hear?”

  “Can’t distinguish words, no,” Rayni said thoughtfully. She looked first at the gate to the training yard, which lay down the street and was closed but never locked, and then at Messy, who took her meaning immediately and nodded.

  There was no discussion. They opened the gate just enough to slip through, then ran along the wall, passing the stones that had partially collapsed the wall inward, until they hit the main building of the guardhouse.

  The wall between the yard and the square was no more than eight feet tall. Messy knelt, making a stirrup of her hands, and Rayni wasted no time in letting herself be boosted so that she could put her head over the wall.

  “What’s going on, Ray?” Messy asked, her new Strength from Duelist and the Endurance from Ana and the Class making it trivial to hold Rayni up.

  “They’ve walled up all the streets. Doors, too. No way in or out of the square. Waystone’s fine. Four— six— no, seven people. One’s an elf. I think it must be Karti. And me without my damn bow! Now hush, I’m trying to hear!” A moment later, Rayni started to narrate what she heard. “‘...do not intend to let my people die in some backwater shithole of a Splinter belonging to some fourth rate three-city guild’ — yeah, fuck you too, guy! Speaker’s the Earthbreaker, I guess. Male, average height, whole head’s clean shaven. He’s talking to Karti,” she added quickly before continuing to relay what she heard. “‘I don’t care that you’re having trouble, and I don’t care that your god will be unhappy with us.’ Not Sentinel worshippers, then? ‘We’ve held to our end of the contract. Judging by the number of mages and combat-Classers that were pursuing us and by the state of this place, I very much doubt that Summerland will be able to hold to his. I don’t know how, but the man’s dead. You had best open that Waystone unless you wish to join him!’”

  Messy gasped softly. “They’re trying to escape!” she said, not knowing what to feel. They’d killed people! They’d blown holes in the palisade, destroyed goddess only knew what as a damn distraction, and now they were just trying to leave?

  Having them gone would be a huge relief. No more fighting. No more death and destruction. Peace at last. But that wasn’t what Messy wanted. She wanted payback. She wanted revenge for all the stress, for all the wasted time and resources, and for all the suffering. And she was going to get it, because Karti, the Earthbreaker, and the people with them weren’t going anywhere. Thair and her assistants had seen to that when they locked down the Waystone.

  The invaders were stuck. And someone was going to make them pay.

  and read 8 chapters ahead of both Splinter Angel and Draka! You also get to read anything else I’m trying out — which is how Splinter Angel got started.

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