Lords of Shadow

Train Station

He had kept the ATV behind an abandoned clinic, in the grotto farther down that he was sure no one ever visited. Even then, he had made sure to tuck it into the trees and plate it with bark and leaves.

Now, as he returned under the cover of night he had left, all that he was was a patch of crumpled grass, and boot marks from footwear too expensive to be about sixty percent of the populace.

As of then and there, it didn't matter who had taken it. He needed to get back to the forest, and he couldn't do it without an ATV. But more importantly, he needed to get out of there immediately.

Whoever had taken the vehicle knew he'd come back to look for it, and was probably already waiting, so Loki couldn't go the way he had come.

Lucky for him, another path existed through the trees, although it would send him far from his usual environs.

He took his chances.

Less than a minute after his departure, the grotto began to glow with a dull, flickering orange. One torch, two torches, three torches.

They were looking for him.

"Rats..." Loki cursed.

This meant they knew, knew that the expedition had gone wrong, but everybody didn't die. But this also meant that he wasn't the only survivor, because if he was, it was have been easier to publicly get him. For what crime? For surviving.

Maybe the engineer who had screamed to run had survived, then it would mean cowardice had its reward. Maybe a split jaw wasn't enough to retire Husk, or maybe it was Joan.

But it couldn't be just one other. That was why they were confused. Why he wasn't before an affiliate now, explaining why soldiers died and he didn't.

This turn of events made his aspiration not just ambition anymore, but necessity. If he didn't get stronger, he was going to become a victim of weakness.

It sounded senseless, but that was how the affiliates managed not to get consumed by the disgruntlement of the masses.

The approaching glow of fire forced Loki's steps to quicken, and his bee shadow to buzz like he owed it rent. It was a warning.

He was in a bind now. The hunters were close enough to hear him if he scampered, and fast enough to catch him if they made haste, or so he thought. So he couldn't run, and he couldn't wait for them, or couldn't he?

The cover of night was enough, the distance between them was just a bonus. He stepped out of the path and into a bush by its side, then crouched.

Loki didn't need to be too smart with it, because he knew, knew that his hunters weren't too keen on finding him, because they were just as afraid as he was of what the dark nested.

Half a minute later they passed by, crossbows in one hand, and torch in the other. Their faces were apprehensive, and their steps quick, but as silent as possible.

They were a team of three soldiers, or as the military called it, a Halo. A halo didn't necessarily need to be just three, as many as possible was fine, but this was baseline.

Loki watched them disappear from view, still searching for the unknown.

---

The tracks were some of the most guarded places in the country, excluding where the country lord and his affiliates lived.

Here, a plethora of circumstances came together to keep it safe. The tracks themselves and their offices had personnel dedicated to keeping it orderly; merchants had cargo imported and exported all year round, so they kept their private hands around to see to the safety of their wares. The capital city, Yharnem, also benefited greatly from taxes, so they made sure that business wouldn't stall.

Lastly, the army had a sort of unofficial docks for ATVs here, as well as other materials meant for soldiers in and out of Yharnem, automatically meaning they couldn't let their eyes off it for even a second. They had a war to fight.

For every square metre, at least two people manned it. And despite all, Loki still intended to infiltrate the tracks, steal an ATV and be in the forest before the first rays of sun washed over the earth.

A delivery of six metric tons of fowl feed had come in yesterday; since winter was approaching, people had to have livestock to keep the food economy moving. The metal crate, which cost more than everything he owned, was kept on the south side of the perimeter. And Loki had found his mark.

He scurried across the withering grasses, careful not to surface above their swaying figures. He might be immortal, but an arrow in the back of the neck was more than his pain receptors could handle.

He was already out of breath by the time he reached the crate. He peeped out the side, and saw them, four men spread across the distance between him and his next cover.

To pass, he would need two things: patience and timing. Similar, but a mixup would get him caught.

The tracks, or train station, didn't have complete walls, so he couldn't circle the perimeter until he got to were he needed before crawling in.

"Can't wait for tomorrow, it's been long since I've seen my family, you know," started one of the guards.

The one nearest to his left turned to him. "You're just swapped already? I thought rotations last six months."

The first one spoke back. "It does, it does. But I can't wait that long; I haven't even seen my newborn daughter."

"So you just appealed, and they let you off? Didn't know the executives had hearts."

"Well, it comes with a payment deduction, but I'm okay with that. I'll be on the next train to go to Belmont."

"Well, congrats," a third said. "You need to spend time with your family, life's not just about the money."

Their chit-chat went on like this for nearly an hour, and somehow managed to make Loki wish not to become an adult.

But eventually, it ended. The happy father excused himself to the restroom, and one of the guards had fallen asleep. Still, two was a problem.

Loki turned round to the other side of the crate, took a deep breath, then jumped, and plunked himself into the ground, face first. It had drizzled earlier that day, so he didn't stir up dust as he landed.

One of them heard his face plant, but wasn't so sure. He turned to the crate, but saw nothing. Only around the buildings were there torches, making soldiers here more of scarecrows than guards.

He waited for a while, for the soldier to turn back, and then started worming, sliding on his belly to move forward, one inch at a time.

It was painstaking, but he eventually reached the next cover; a shed housing the unwanted things that the train station did away with regularly. Due to the nature of this place, it didn't have a lot of traffic, so he didn't need as much caution.

Through a tear in the grass wall, Loki saw the interior and wondered if it was meant to cosplay a landfill.

'Do they throw away everything that comes in?"

One guard manned here, but it was easy to avoid him back circling anticlockwise when he came around to check the back.

The next cover point was a brewery drop. Hundreds and hundreds of crates of beer lay stacked in a small field. No doubt, like forty percent of this was going to the lord's court, because those rich and powerful demons loved beer.

Six men where here. It was a bit discouraging, but not impossible to maneuver since there was more space to work with, and the guards couldn't even see all sides at all times. It was a maze for playing hide and seek.

Loki filed in from one of the entrances, ducking as he moved through the seven-foot walls of beer.

It was high octane in the calmest way possible. He had to guess where led to a dead end and avoid it; he had to listen to the steps that dragged all around him. He had to keep his blood from boiling as the bee hungered for something he didn't want to know.

Loki found it quite difficult to exit the maze because after he had cracked the code and found the end, he couldn't leave because just right after, was the post office.

And apart from the mediations department, where people and cargo were arranged to go from place to place, the post office was the centre of logistics.

Information concerning anything and everything came in here, including the secretive stuff 99% of people didn't need to know about, so if not there, where would it be protected?

There were lots of torches, more men, and an army of crossbows.

Loki spent the hours until the midnight bell beating round the bush, considering his chances at every given moment, and battling with sleep that he had refused for two days now.

He gave it thought, whether he should go back, get a good night's sleep and come back the next day, after all, the beasts in the Trojan forest weren't going anywhere.

But tomorrow might be too late. By tomorrow, they would have narrowed the survivor possibilities down to an imp without a name.

El sin nombre.

The thought weighed down on him almost as much as the mountains pressing down on his eyes. And after a while, he began to grow irritated with it. Just watching, no action.

Then suddenly, the bee buzzed, pulled on that familiarity between them, and he suddenly felt more awake.

'It absorbs sleep too?!'

Well, it did make sense. The lack of sleep was painful to fight against, so his companion had kicked into action. It made him wonder what other kinds of pain it could absorb?

Spiritual? If the soul was hurt. Emotional? If the mind was broken. But wouldn't it take his humanity too? It took the wound along with the pain, so what good would it be if he came to peace with something because of it, and then forgot that thing even existed?

"Ahh...to hell with it."

In the moment he thought the coast was clear, he blitzed out of the maze and towards the back wall of the post office.

He felt a bit faster, his breath a bit freer, and his blood pumping better. Slightly, ly though, just as slightly as the bee had grown when it took his sleep.

He reached the back,k yes, but not unnoticed. Someone saw something rush past, he was too sure, so he didn't alert the others. Well, not directly.

"Um, I'll be back. Mark, watch my station."

"O–kay," Mark replied.

The man walked towards the back with strides, unafraid, as he was one of many. Loki could probably deal with him, but not here. Not with twenty-eight other people ready to spring into action.

Loki heard the steps coming, and backed up towards the wall. The capture would be stupid; he refused to walk right into their hands. The wall behind him stretched for over a hundred metres, ensuring the post office was protected adequately.

He couldn't run that distance without being noticed. Desperation flushed into him, down to his legs. And wait, the bee did too. Then it settled at the sole of his boot, and pushed up while flapping.

Loki caught wind of what was happening and ran for the six-metre-tall wall and jumped. Gravity shuddered, relinquishing hold for just a moment.

The bee pushed up from only one leg, so it wasn't balanced, twisting and turning Loki as he ascended the wall slowly, like sunrise in fast forward.

As he approached the summit of the wall, physics began working again; his weight came back, and the floor sought to embrace him. The bee had given up, but it had done enough. Loki threw his hands up, catching onto the top base before he slipped down.

Without hesitation, he pushed himself over and jumped. Loki must have been expecting something from the bee as he free-fell, but got no response as he pulled on familiarity.

Like the remnants of Elvis' dinner, he landed on the ground with a dull thud. Concussions of different magnitudes boarded his brain, but before losing it, the bee buzzed.

And he felt alright.

"I can fly. I can fly. Elvis is going to freak out, I can fly. Ski, I can fly... wait, who am I talking to. Guess the bee doesn't cure brain damage."

He stood up and waited for a few minutes, for the man to search around to his heart's content and return to his post. The coast was clear again when he overheard:

" Oh, Mark, watch my station," what a nice excuse, you know, commendation for the acting," Mark said with a sneer.

"Sorry, I thought I saw something. Could have sworn so."

Loki ran across the hundred-metre fence and emerged at the other side. The ATVs were kept at the front, just after the clothes room. But to pass there, he would get boxed in again by walls, and he doubted the bee was ready for another test flight.

But his chances of making it past were quite high. No one guarded the clothes room, to give all those who went in to change the privacy they needed.

He ran back into the compound, dashing for the room like his life depended on it, maybe because it did.

He reached, but once again, had someone on his tail. Although this time it was by pure coincidence, and not because the guard had seen anything.

Loki didn't panic, he opened the back door of the clothes room and moved in, aiming to come out from the side window. But he had been careless with his movements.

As soon as he entered, he spotted someone in there, and they spotted him too. At least so they thought.

"Um, anyone there?... I'm not going to invade your space, just holler to let me know you're there. Hello? You hearing me?"

Loki flinched for every word the man said as he walked closer, a lamp in hand.

There was no wall to scale here, no maze to hide in, no darkness to walk through. If he let the guy see him, he would alert the others and end his story before it began. But what could he do? Someone was out the back, so he couldn't run.

But he wasn't out of options, and the bee knew it. He could use the poison glove to kill the man and save his mission from failure.

But why? Why should he kill the man? He wasn't approaching with a knife or crossbow, just a friendly voice and a towel in hand. Was he to die because he was unlucky to be there?

Loki didn't want to become like the lords, at least not now; he didn't even have a human shadow yet.

The bee buzzed harder as proximity tightened. Loki couldn't do it. If he killed from the lord's army, a different kind of heat would be on him, one that didn't know what appeal was.

Still, he had to prioritize himself, and not his morals. With grit, he took the shadow off the walls, and floating towards him.

With a touch, his hand turned dark purple, ready to murder, waiting for the intent. Loki winced, jumped out of his corner and thrust his hand.

The soldier didn't have a second to scream before he could no longer scream. He fell to the ground, but Loki caught him to avoid any loud sounds.

"... sorry," he said with solemnity.

Just as he headed for the window, he noticed something. The man was still breathing. He was just unconscious.

"What? That was it. That was the intent I felt; I can choose; my hand mustn't be forced."

He didn't dwell on it too much, though; there were places for that. He moved to the window and jumped out, finally taking sight of the ATVs.

He ran, curving round the corner to avoid the guards at the front, then he reached. Most of the ATVs had their keys stored away somewhere, but Loki could bet someone had been careless.

And he was right. The fourteenth vehicle he peeped into had its key still in the ignition. It was his ride.

He waited for the guard near it to move, taking point to oversee a larger portion, as one of his colleagues had gone to sleep.

Then Loki hopped in and set the car in motion like it was a speed run challenge. Then he turned the ignition on and hit the pedal in the same movement.

The vehicle reeved on, and boomed...for a metre and a half before stuttering and stopping.

"Oh, shit!"

Loki's words hadn't completely fallen when the footsteps showed the humans making them, and the soldiers aimed.

And fired!