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By Root 1580 0

to a heartfelt appeal—but because the Patriarch had been right, damn him. The clarity of faith which had once been Damien Vryce’s hallmark was gone now, and what had taken its place might be made to serve the Church in a thousand ways, but it wasn’t appropriate for a priest. There were other things he could do, of course, such as bodyguarding couriers and explorers or taking on such commissions himself. For all that the fae was “tame” now, there were enough demons left over from the time before that it would be quite a few generations before anyone felt safe traveling alone. In token of which ... he half rose out of his seat as something dark and winged swept down from the smoke-filled sky, swinging his springbolt up as he thumbed off the safety—but it pulled up sharply into the thin winds and was lost behind a cloud before he could track it and fire. Lucky beastie. Between his own sure aim and the handful of trigger-happy tourists who fished for demons in the smoke-filled valleys, damn few things made it through. He had shot down over a dozen himself this week, and collected a fair bounty on each from the tavern’s owner. A good deal, all around. That and the free ale made it possible for him to put off certain decisions that he would rather not make ... like what he was going to do with himself when this was all over. Like when the hell he was going to acknowledge that it was all over, and get his shit together and start living again.

With a sigh he emptied the mug of ale, and waved away the server who offered to bring him another. Black Ridge Tavern. He looked about it in amazement, at walls and chairs and beer-taps that would have been unthinkable mere weeks before. The place was crowded as always, and the rough space was filled with the smell of fire, sweat, and sawdust as tourists and tabloid artists and self-appointed ambassadors to the Iezu made their best attempt at conversation. Overhead roof beams were being nailed in place even now, and the sounds of saw and hammer added to the overall din. With a sigh he finally rose up from his seat, and made his way out of the crowded common room. Onto the deck which wound over and about the mountain’s crest, offering men a firm path where once even horses feared to tread.

Black Ridge Pass. Once it had been a windswept corridor from one world into the next, known only to those who cared about such desolate places. Now it was a veritable hothouse of human activity. On the northern flank of the ridge there were already three inns finished and two more under construction, and never mind that the walls weren’t painted yet and the indoor toilets weren’t working. How many people got to hike past a live volcano on their way to the outhouse? On the south side there was little permanent construction, for the most interesting part of the view wouldn’t last more than a few months at best, but a narrow wooden deck had been constructed that led half a mile along the sloping mountainside, so that tourists could drink their fill of the spectacle at hand before it died down forever.

The Forest was burning. Its enemies had waited until the dry season prepared it properly, then set fire to it in a dozen places along its border, so that the purifying conflagration would work its way inward from all sides at once. That way only, they explained, could man be certain that all the degenerate life-forms within the Forest died forever, rather than fleeing to adjacent regions. It was a good plan, and it would almost certainly succeed, and if Damien Vryce took a moment to mourn the loss of the Hunter’s prize horses, or the fact that no man would ever again wield the kind of power that would make it possible to evolve new ones ... well, that was his own human weakness speaking. Progress had its price. In the long run mankind would benefit from this act of destruction, and that was what mattered.

Wasn’t it?

He walked to where the narrow deck began and leaned against its railing, watching as the great fire miles away lit up the land with roaring brilliance, clouds of ash whipping about its head with