129th of Nemulum, 313 EA
Peyr Myarsa
The underbearing streets were thrown into chaos and tumult.
Muck rained down all around Leça. Water ruptured up through cracked and rotted foundations, and in that water was an intent to drown. Mephits, demons vile and impish, set upon them. They tore at homes with impunity, and in their masses they drug the people of the district below and into the heart of the swamp.
“We have to find them! We have to find them!” Leça registered Marek’s hysterics just long enough to feel it’s panic graze them. Alisja was with them, though she suffered a deadening focus that kept the fear off of her. They all ran through those streets at a sprint, shielding each other as they did.
Lines of conservator’s streamed down from above, cold-wrought iron axes in hand. They slashed wildly, and where they connected the mossformed creatures burst in grime that spattered out to coat the district’s streets.
Leça’s feet slipped out from under them, cracking their skull hard against the railing of a staircase. Their head rung as pain throbbed between their temples.
Marek hesitated, stuttering back a step towards their prone form as his wife kept on their track. Leça waved a hand away from him, the urgency and the ringing between their temple making the word ‘go’ feel unnecessary.
Marek took the cue with a look of contrition, continuing on towards his children and inso doing leaving Leça behind.
From the ground, they could see a hovel nestled into a corner of the district’s overhang. On its stoop, an elder figure, hunched, failing to bat away a tide of mud demons.
Leça saw a cadre of conservators, splattered in filth and peppered by their own blood, thundering through between their bouts of demon slaying. Leça saw one of the guards, a man not much older than herself, start towards the cries. Leça saw another guard, shrewd looking with a sense of recognition towards who was calling out, press her hand into the chest of the first.
The whole troop stuttered for a moment.
“Heretic” was the only word that was said between them, and then as one they moved on past Marek as though he were not drowning.
Leça stumbled forwards on shaken feet, but by the time they reached the home the wise man could speak no more.
The Etra Anthology 