Escape from Uthorrad

 

    Uthorrad, Inner City; Public Lightning Road Terminus 22:20

(2♠︎)The streets outside the Lightning Road terminus were empty… at least, as far as the men could tell. Thick fog settled in, obscuring everything more than a few strides away. Fighting could be heard, but between the muffling effect of the mists, and echoes off the buildings…. It was hard to tell if it was down the next block, or halfway across the city.

    “Protius’ puckered—” The corporal bit back on his words before the rest of them came out. “How in the hells are we supposed to find our way through this pea soup?”
    “Quietly,” the sergeant hissed. “Which way, Doc?”
    “The lev-line station is across the street… I’m assuming we’ll just follow the footway along below the track?”
    “Good cover, those,” the sergeant nodded. “And pretty regular.”

Uthorrad, Inner City, The Southern Tangle 22:35

(9♥︎) The sound of toil, and deep voices came to them out of the mists some blocks later. Another few paces, and they could see low walls of sandbags erected between the multitude of lev-line support struts. Two of the lines criss-crossed high above, arcing flyways allowing for levtrains to merge from all four directions.
    The fog lit up, turning pearly white under the harsh glare of a focused glowstone. Five long-arm barrels pointed in the direction of the three men, as well as one much larger, mounted on a crude but functional pintle on the back of a flatbed hauler.
    “Boss, these aren’t beasties!” one of the men behind the sandbag barricade shouted up at his fellow behind the flatbed-mounted weapon.
    “Why aren’t you boys off further north, fighting off that pack of beasties that got through the shield doors?” the man on the flatbed shouted.
    “What are you lot doing here pointing those things at us instead of following the evacuation orders?” the sergeant shouted back.
    “My grandfather bled and died retaking this city. I’m not going to be chased out of it by some mangy pack of beast men!”
    The man’s bravado was echoed by a couple of the others.
    The barrel of the enhanced long-arm on the pintle did not waver.
    “Throw down your weapons and gear and we’ll let you evacuate,” the man behind it spat.
    The sergeant shrugged, but made no move to surrender his own long-arm. “You can bleed and die and meet up with your father’s father in Limbo, but we’d like not do that, so we’ll hold on to ours, thanks just the same.”
    “I said—”
    “Friend,” the dark-haired man said, stepping forward, his hands up, “these soldiers have but two long-arms. By my count, you have three times that many. Now, if you waste your rounds shooting at us, and these men return fire, that’s that many fewer you would stand to gain in this endeavor. And that many fewer either of us will have to throw at the true enemy.”
    “They’re using Imperial arms,” one of the men behind the sandbags said.
    Another spoke up. “Smaller chamber size, and they need different charge-pins than what we’ve got.”
    “And—”
    “Enough!” the man on the flatbed shouted. The fog swallowed any echo that might have resulted from his outburst. “Is it true? That the Lightning Road has gone dark?”
    The sergeant nodded. “It is.”
    “And you’re just going to abandon the defense of the city?”
    “The city’s already fallen. We aim to head east. Maybe make it to one of the ports in Frosthaven.”
    The man on the flatbed laughed. None of the other men laughed with him, though. “You’ll die out there.”
    The sergeant shrugged again. “Less chance out there than walled up in here.” He slung his long-arm, hitched his duffel a little higher on his shoulder. “Ixion light your way to Limbo,” he said. “Best of luck to you.”
    The man behind the enhanced long-arm spat, and turned the weapon away from the soldiers, more in the general direction of where the fighting might be.
    “Once and Always,” he said, over his shoulder, as the sergeant, corporal and dark-haired man continued on into the fog.
    “Once, Always, and Everafter,” the dark-haired man said, with a nod.