The cold night, sprinkled with specks of dust floating around the stumbling human that made his difficult way down the back road of Clinic Hill reserved for military transportation, begat a penetrating chill that muscled in on the harrowing sight that still burned in the human's eyes the same as the flesh and dust mixed skin had as it crumpled in pain underneath the chemical-enhanced flames that burned a jarringly beautiful color.

Only dark and rays of silver surrounded the human doctor dragging behind him the unconscious body of the Fourth Monster Mage that still drew breath, albeit with hollow and gasping inhales. Pain and horror trickled out as whimpers, with writhing and violent shakes kicking at the barely functioning sled made out of a legless hospital bed with a burnt tabletop underneath it for some form of glide down the gravel path leading to the military positioning at the bottom of Clinic Hill opposite of Clinic Village.

Each heavy step the human doctor took had him breathing in specks of dust which had been his colleagues but a few hours prior. Each coughed exhale to get rid of the specks had him tasting the telltale copper-stench of blood. Not his own, but which smell still clung in his throat, burnt and bitter. Sweat had begun to collect on his bushy eyebrows, dripping down into his eyes with their salty, irritating drops.

Through the irritated blinks he could barely make out the shape of the road which he had to follow, helped marginally by the silvery light of the full moon casting its cold, brilliant rays between the swaying treetops that flanked the zigzagging road featuring two parallel carvings from the heavy military carriages.

Behind him he heard, through the pained and scared whimpers of the Monster Mage who'd given up so that he could kill, another building which he had called home collapsing with a thunderous roar, shaking the hill he walked down. He did not look back, for if he did he'd see that he was not as far down the hill as he wanted to be. He had a long way to go.

Farther than he had ever imagined.

It wasn't until his hands were burnt by the thick rope he used to drag with him the Monster Mage that he began to hear something else than his own breath and heartbeat. Shouts. Orders. From further down the hill, torch-like flickers flared up, dotting the dark below him. He let go of the thick rope, holding back the makeshift sled by digging his heels into the gravel. His arms felt stiff like the trees around him as he waved them over his head. The cold stiffness of his arms blended poorly with the relief his hands felt being waved in the chilling night air.

"Help!" he shouted with great effort. "Up here!" In his tiredness his hands collided above him as he crossed them in his desperate waving. "Help!" It hurt, yet he kept waving. "We need help!"

We…

Sarbor surprised himself with 'we'.

But why?

Before he could fall into his own thoughts, a returning shout echoed up to him. "Sarbor!" He recognized the voice. "Reinforcements are here!" It was one of the soldiers he had tried to convince to follow him up to help with whatever it was that had magically rampaged the top of Clinic Hill.

"Find survivors!" Sarbor shouted back. "Establish triage so that...I..." He voice began to fail him.

"Sarbor! Repeat!"

His arms began to fail him.

"Sarbor!"

Then his legs.

"Sarbor! We're coming!"

Then his…

As his exhausted body collapsed, Sarbor last thoughts was that of his mentor and friend.

And how he'd failed him.

The same thought still lingered with him when his eyes blinked open to a candle-lit tent roof. As soon as his mind became aware the lingering thought of his failure jolted him up to an unstable sit. The rugged felt blanket on him folded in two over his legs, and he moved to stand up just before a heavy hand was placed on his shoulder, holding him down.

His head snapped up to whomever it was the hand belonged to, and found a rugged man dressed in the standard Xoff uniform of a long, flowing poncho meant to hide the arms of the soldier so that their style of attack would be a surprise for the enemy. The color of it showed that the rugged man was that of high rank, but with the weak candlelight and Sarbor's stinging eyes he couldn't discern exactly what rank the rugged man had.

The other heavy hand offered a cup that smelled strongly of alcohol. "Drink," he ordered rather than asked. "You've got explaining to do." There was more weight in his voice than on his hand on Sarbor's shoulder.

Sarbor looked around the tent which he had woken up in, but only found a wooden table with a chair and the aforementioned candlelight which danced and bent from the cold air seeping through the bottom of the tent flaps. There was sunlight outside.

But there was no–

"Where is–"

"The woman?" the rugged man quirked with a raised eyebrow. "The top rank of the Royal Guard of Monster Country found at the scene of a massacre on Xoff soil?" From his poncho he brought forth a half-empty bottle of alcohol which he placed next to Sarbor's foot on the dirt floor. "There's really no other way for me to talk to you besides direct and insisting," he explained almost as an apology. "I hope you understand why, as you both look and smell like you were in the middle of it. The Monster Mage I'm keeping behind two of my most veteran guards. If her health deteriorates worse than my field doctor can salvage then you'll be allowed to see her to treat her, but not before."

From the other side of his poncho the rugged man brought out a full bottle of the same alcohol he had given to Sarbor. After a pause for thought he traded it with the half-empty one he had placed at Sarbor's feet before pouring himself a cup which he slammed into his mouth. "Pray tell, doctor Sarbor." It didn't faze him in the slightest. "Pray tell everything."

Sarbor looked down into his cup. From the smell he could tell that it wasn't much weaker than the alcohol he used to disinfect.

And what he used to…

The liquor burned down his throat as harshly as the alcohol-infused flames had on the white, flesh-like dust. His teeth grit hard enough to shatter stone, but it woke him up. After a hard cough and uncouth, but necessary, spit full of mucus, smoke, and dust, he looked the Xoff officer directly in the eyes. "If there are any monsters in your command recall them immediately from the top of Clinic Hill. There is foul magic abound, and it affects monsters dangerously."

The officer's arm folded underneath his poncho meant to hide his movements. "In what way?"

"I don't know, but you have to recall them from Clinic Hill lest they become affected." Sarbor could feel his entire body begin to shake in preparation to roar should the officer not listen to him. "Have them travel to Clinic Village to take care of the children that are alone now, but give them humans as escort. Keep the monsters as far away from Clinic Hill as possible."

Sarbor and the officer held their eyes against the other for a couple of tense seconds before the officer broke it. "Anything else that would need immediate orders?" he asked as he stood up with a disciplined hurry. After Sarbor shook his head the officer took long steps towards the edge of the tent and unbuttoned the top one which he then opened up with one of his thick finger. Sarbor didn't hear the exact orders or names, but the tone of the officer's voice was that he understood that Sarbor was serious. The doctor drank more of the strong alcohol in the meanwhile, hardening himself with its strong surge of warmth throughout him.

The sound of running footsteps muffled through the tent followed the officer as he sat down again on the wooden chair. His black hair he angled to the side with a drag of his tan, thick hand over his forehead. The wind through the unbuttoned flap must have ruffed it, Sarbor concluded.

"We held off sending any monsters up to Clinic Hill after one of them expressed a very...panicked desire to climb up it a click or so away from here. She is usually a very reserved and hushed individual, which was why I brought her along." The officer leaned his elbow on the table, sinking its legs down into the dirt. As his cheek touched his balled fist his expression turned forlorn for a split second. "I put her on preparing this camp due to her uncharacteristic behavior and she...argued against me. Eventually I got through to her, but not without having to throw the weight of my rank at her with anger. If there is something up there that is affecting monsters then..." Relief was carried through his sigh. "Then it's not her fault."

It wasn't a relief Sarbor could let be though. "How were you informed that you were needed here?" He didn't manage to keep all of his suspicion out of his voice. "The ones I called for help earlier did naught but stare bewildered in fear at my request for their help." His voice became low and angered. "Had they followed me up we could have saved lives!" His hand clenched hard around his cup. "They didn't move an inch, so how were you–"

"I already told you, doctor," the officer interrupted with a lowered voice and his thick hand raised. His palm had gripped many weapons. At their grip, handle, and blade. A deep scar ran diagonally across it. "One of my soldiers expressed a panicked desire to diverge our way to Clinic Hill." While his fingers fell softly together his gray-adjacent eyes softened as well.

"A desire that had her whipping the horses that drove my carriage as if possessed, completely deaf to my orders for her to slow down and explain herself." He pointed down at the dirt where Sarbor could see a carving in the dirt made by a weighed-down wheel. "It was not until she arrived here that I managed to take a hold of her. The way she looked back at me..." The officer blinked, like the memory was stinging his eyes. "It was as if I was denying her water after weeks spent in the southern desert without anything to drink. She fought against me, yelling at me that it was something up there that she needed to see. Something that she needed to get to."

Sarbor saw that too! When he saw the Royal Guard stationed down at Clinic Village run over the crease of the hill he looked as if he was prepared to see something spectacular and wondrous. His hopeful expression Sarbor was able to see even through the dust-filled air and the blinding flames that raged in the ruined buildings he snuck into to try and find any survivors.

"Pray tell again though, doctor," said the officer while he topped up his cup from the half-empty bottle. "Why are you more concerned about how we got here and not about the state Clinic Hill is in?" He hid the suspicion in his voice better than Sarbor did, but his dense brow wasn't good for subtle emotions. "Why was that your first question after asking about the Monster Mage? You haven't even pressed me for the exact state she is in."

Was Sarbor disappointing the officer? Was it a game and Sarbor had played it wrongly? He couldn't let that slip by. "You asked me if there were any other immediate orders you needed to delegate," he began before putting his cup up to his lips and sipping it strongly. "You've no idea about the situation that preceded your arrival, and you've not found anything out that you're not assuming that I already know about."

All the while he talked he felt that he was making a mistake in being so confronting, but the way the officer had practically told Sarbor that he was only taking the well-being of his subordinates and nothing else into consideration, what with him hurriedly making sure that Sarbor's rather-straight-forward warning about not letting any monsters near Clinic Hill was true, but then seemingly ignoring the children at Clinic Village, had Sarbor filled with distrust that mixed poorly with the alcohol.

"You won't find any survivors, for I did not," the human doctor continued after hardening his gaze at the officer. "You won't figure out what it was that happened, for I did not. You need me to tell you what happened, and for that I need to see the Monster Mage. I want to confirm with my own eyes the condition she is in and be the doctor attending her."

Sarbor did not know anything either, but differently than the officer did. The two of them needed to know more from the other, and more-so, they both needed to know from the Monster Mage.

Only Cter knew what that...creature was. All that Sarbor knew of it was that Cter had given him magic to shield him from it, which had saved his life at the cost of the necklace from his little sister shattering in his hand. He also knew that he had taken the creature's head off when it was about to assimilate Cter into it. He knew how it smelt while burning, and the sounds it made while it writhed in agony underneath the colorful flames he lit upon its corpse.

All he knew of was its death. Cter knew about its birth. What it was? Why it was?

And why it spoke with Dr. Sallus voice along with another one's. A human's voice which Sarbor had not heard before. A human's voice which…

The full bottle at Sarbor's feet was kicked down as he flinched from realizing who the second voice had been. The scraps of both purple fabric and orange hair jutting out from the white of the creature he did not notice while up at Clinic Hill, but thinking back at it, through the terror, he knew that it was the other Monster Mage. The one who he and Dr. Sallus had tried to save from the plague, but failed to. The last failure of Dr. Sallus…

And the last request he gave to Sarbor.

But why though?

Why did he need those miasmatically sealed containers? Why was it that he had shuffled Sarbor out of the surgery room so quickly and desperate? Was it to clear it for Cter to have it on her own? Was he worried that Sarbor could have caught the plague? Was it…

Was it something he found?

Something that–

"You can tell us about all of that and still trust us that the Monster Mage is in good hands, doctor. You can do that, and not insult those who have just saved your life."

Sarbor blinked out of his own thoughts to find that the officer had folded his arms outside his poncho, making his large frame even larger. "I understand that you are shocked by it all, but this is a matter of an outside-military officer found at the center of a massacre while this country is on its knees, crippled by a deadly plague that has severed all forms of trade and prosperity.

To boot, this massacre has occurred at the location of the one place that might be found a cure for the plague." His fists hardened, flexing thick lines of sinew up his weathered arms. "It is because of this plague that I have lost men younger than you, doctor. Of young men who's only choice were to help in whatever way they could to contain this plague!"

That the table survived the officer's heavy fist slamming down on it was a miracle. That the guards outside the tent didn't burst in to take stock of the situation was a testament to their loyalty.

"All of those men now scrounge through death and debris to find anything that they can salvage, doctor. They know it, because they have lived it. They lived while the ones around them died, because they were strong for some, and because they weren't for others." The officer's chair sunk deep into the dirt as he angled his entire weight on its lip. "They know the plague in ways you do not, doctor," the rugged man stated with deep creases pulsating on his tanned forehead behind his short-cut fringe. "The plague came to them differently than it did to you. You've not seen it firsthand, you've only treated it at an arm's distance."

The officer paused for a moment to breathe, but it wasn't a breath that punctuated. It was one that prepared for more. "I have utmost respect for what you've done at Clinic Hill. For each one you and your colleagues saved up there, one less had to wake up to find that the one that provided for them laid motionless within a pile of their own sick and vile. Humans or monsters, it does not matter any the difference between the two species when hope if snuffed out. Death begets more death, and soon enough entire villages becomes empty, hollow as the cheeks of the humans underneath the specter of this plague."

The more and more the officer talked, the more and more of his voice became more...natural. As if he was masking something that had begun to fade from him. In the subsequent pause for breath that followed, it clicked for Sarbor. "You're not from this county." His eyes sought the officer's to search for any signs of him trying to excuse or explain away, but found none. "Your allegiance is that of another general's."

With a slight squint, the officer nodded. "I've led this company through three of Xoff counties, picking up those that have become forlorn by the plague." He motioned sweepingly around him, and despite the wind-tugged fabric of the tent, Sarbor could easily imagine what it looked from outside due to the sounds and smells that managed through the tent fabric.

He'd seen faint shadows move about behind the officer too. "We travel and help villages where we can to stop the spread of the plague. We've visited many villages, but saved only a few. Even with the skilled tradesmen we pick up who want to help prevent what had occurred to them we can only do so much." He sighed.

Then blinked at Sarbor.

"Which is why I implore you to keep trust in me, doctor. To keep trust in the men I've gathered, both human and monster, to take charge of this situation. Both in the matter of Clinic Hill, and in the matter of the Monster Mage." The officer grabbed his cup that stood angled dangerously at the corner of the dirt-sunk table. "For this country's survival. For Xoff until sunset, and throughout the night, doctor Fech."

Sarbor did not raise his cup high to meet the officer's. "In matters of Clinic Hill, what do you mean exactly?" He kept his low. "When you say that your men are scrounging through death and debris?" Low between his tight-gripped hands. "What are your men doing to Clinic Hill? What are your men doing to my home and family!"

"Salvaging," the officer repeated with disappointment in his voice. "Salvaging and investigating the events that have transpired. An investigation I plead with you to cooperate with. We need answers from the Monster Mage. We need answers as to why she was there at Clinic Hill, and what she did. She is a prisoner, doctor. She is a high-ranking officer of a foreign country with her robe stained with the dust and blood of our fellow countrymen. The one place that might have put an early end to this plague is in embers, both from physical and magical flames, and her magical power is the only explanation at hand."

"It's not."

The lack of any and all emotion in either Sarbor's voice or his distant stare had the officer flinch.

"Hers is not the only magical power capable of such destruction." Sarbor looked down into his cup, but it wouldn't help in the slightest. "There was...something else. Something that she fought against. A...creature, that even she could not defeat. It killed...everyone. Had she not saved me it would have killed me too. Had I not saved her it would have killer her too. She was powerless against it, and gave up so that I had a chance to kill it.

I spent hours making sure that it was dead. Your men won't find any useful chemicals because I used them all to make sure that the flames consumed the creature. It was...unholy. A being which looked sickly as a human on death's door, and kept-together as a monster knocking on the same door. Abhorrent is the image that's burnt onto my eyes the same as its flesh-like dust did underneath the flames."

Concern was painted on the officer's face, but not enough to hinder him nodding at the bed Sarbor sat on. "Rest some more, doctor," he implored gently as he stood up with the half-empty bottle held on its cork. Like an offering he placed it next to the full bottle.

"You've told enough for now."