"Lord…"

Kriss's deep voice was loud in this train station. But it shouldn't have been.

This place was the center of this city. Of this nation. This massive city, and its million residents, relied on this station. On this depot. It was from here that all the food grown miles away entered and was distributed. It was here that all the goods and freight came. It was here that all the residents were able to conduct their business, personal or otherwise.

It should be bustling to the point of annoyance. I should be walking shoulder to shoulder with thousands of people, workers and travelers alike. I should be hearing the sound of steam and engines, not just from the trains themselves but from the machines that loaded and unloaded the cargo. I should hear the nearby warehouses. I should hear the sounds of speakers and horns, alerting people of incoming and outgoing trains. I should be hearing all the world around me, and instead…

Instead…

I only heard betrayal.

Standing at the edge of one of the platforms, for one of the trains that dealt with people more than goods, I fumed as I stared at the empty tracks.

This track. The next one over. And the fifty more thereafter all had the same thing in common.

Not a train in sight.

Closing my eyes, I felt blood vessels surge to near bursting. My right temple was thumping like mad, to the point it was making my right eye twitch.

"Lord…" Kriss said again, his deep voice wrapped in worry.

"Tell me this is all a mistake," I begged.

I took a few breaths and then opened my eyes. I turned, to face the mighty bull. His head, and thus his huge black horns, were pointed downward and sullen.

"Tell me this isn't happening!" I shouted at him.

The platform shook, and I heard nearby rails creak. I heard the nails and beams that made up the train tracks stress, and maybe even snap and break. But it didn't matter. I didn't care. Why would I?

No point having train tracks with no trains.

"I'm… sorry, Sir. But…" Kriss spoke slowly, gently, but I didn't want to hear it.

I took a few steps to the left and sent out a kick. My leg went through the bench of wood and metal, sending pieces all over the place.

"Again!?" I shouted as I began to pace.

The bull said nothing. He only lowered his horns further.

Walking back and forth near the edge of the platform, I reached up and grabbed at the side of my head. I grabbed hair. Skin. Ear. I was half tempted to rip it all off.

I couldn't believe this. It just wasn't real. I had to be having a nightmare. This was all fantasy, fake, impossible!

"How did this happen!" I shouted as I looked again out at the many platforms. Again I saw nothing. Nothing but a stark reminder of how deep this failure cut.

This wasn't just a betrayal, this was an attack.

Without those trains, without the constant supply they provided, this entire city… no, this whole nation would come to a standstill.

Business would come to a halt. People would starve. Key infrastructure, such as the water supply, would ultimately fail. The important, but brittle, electrical grid would collapse. And with it, this nation's surety.

And with the fall of this city, of this nation, so too would our armies swiftly follow suit.

No soldier would march if they knew their families back home were starving to death. No sailors would sail if their home ports were succumbing to depopulation and might not even be there when they return.

No trains meant no more progress. No trains meant failure.

No trains, no army to help me slay the gods.

And this was not something I could fix with ease. Even if I got started immediately, here and now, I'd not be able to build new ones fast enough. Even with all the help I could now muster, it would still take decades to fully replace the hundreds of trains and all their cabooses and cargo holds. Not to say the least that there was now the threat of them being destroyed or stolen without protection. Which meant entire swaths of the armies would need to be positioned to protect them, and that was no easy feat. You were talking millions of miles of track!

And what of the stores…? Some of them had been emptied? Taken? Stolen? Not just did we lose the trains, we lost the very safety net they had been providing…?

"Lord Vim…"

Turning, I glared at the bull. His head was still lowered, but he had turned a little. To point at something behind us.

"She knows. Who did it," he said stiffly.

My eye twitched again as I looked past him. Far off in the distance, near one of the large warehouses, was a big crowd of people. In my fury I couldn't really make out any of their faces.

"Who…?" I asked.

Kriss huffed, breathing out so heavily his whole body shook. "I beg you, find reason and…"

"Who, Kriss!" I shouted as I stepped towards him. Upon doing so, a nearby covered roof collapsed and fell. Neither I nor Kriss flinched as we listened to the roof fall into itself, crunching and breaking over the platform and onto the track below.

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"Please, Lord Vim… if you don't calm down you will…" Kriss began to speak, raising one of his huge hands palm open as if to calm me, but I wasn't going to hear it. I was not in any mood for any games! I was about to step forward again, to push past him and go to the crowd myself.

If he'd not point her out, I'll just grab her myself.

Before I could though, she showed herself. Wings and all.

"I need not your protection, Kriss."

Upon seeing the adorable Nectar, I calmed a little. I breathed a small sigh of relief, glad to see one of my commanders.

She must have seen what had happened, or something. "Nectar…" Kriss said her name with his deep voice, and I couldn't help but notice something odd in his tone.

Had that just been fear…?

That man, this bull, feared nothing.

Not even me.

"Freski and Vlad took the trains. Took them and fled," Nectar said as she stepped up beside Kriss and nodded. Her huge bat-ears were pointed and straight.

What…? "What…?" I asked aloud, unable to believe what I'd just heard.

"They left. To deliver aid," Nectar said firmly.

My eyes blurred a little as I shifted. If something broke nearby, I didn't hear it. "Aid…? To who?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.

"One you will never know of, or find. One hidden from you, as they have been for…"

Nectar was no longer adorable, and she was no longer able to speak.

"Vim…!" Kriss yelled in shock, which made me blink as I realized what I was doing.

I had Nectar. By the face. In my hand. She was squirming, her wings flapping wildly, but wasn't able to free herself. I had grabbed her by the face, above her mouth, and…

"Lord Vim! Please!" Kriss was then upon us. His huge hands, bigger and wider than even my forearms, grabbed me. I felt his mighty strength as he went to trying to free the bat.

Not even he could free her. Even as he broke my bones.

I felt Nectar scream into my palm, a scream of utter pain. But still I didn't release her.

"You can't be serious. You cannot be doing this! None of you!" I shouted as Kriss grabbed my head.

"Lord Vim forgive me!" Kriss shouted, and then he twisted.

The world went dark and quiet. Then with a feeling of numb bones resetting into place, the world came back to me as I took in a breath.

I was on the ground. A broken ground. Of tiles. Above me was one of the train platform coverings. It looked… distant.

My neck then grew hot, and I groaned as I realized Kriss had broken my neck.

"Bastard…" It took several long heartbeats of tingly twitches before I regained control over the rest of my body. I slowly sat up, my neck popping as parts finished healing. Though I was able to sit up, and was regaining full control, my sight was blurry. I felt dizzy, as if I was on a boat in the middle of a raging sea.

"Hurry!" Kriss shouted.

I blinked a fuzzy head away, and wondered if Kriss had just ran away with everyone else. Did that mean he too had been a part of it…?

Impossible…

"Lord Vim…"

Ah. No. He was still here. I felt his mighty footstep as he drew closer.

"You broke my neck," I said with a grunt.

"I'm sorry, Lord… but I had to. You would have killed her. May still have," he said.

Yes. Maybe.

Probably.

Undoubtedly…

I reached up and rubbed my dizzy eyes, and suddenly felt tired. Exhausted. And not just because I had basically died.

What was I going to do…? If Nectar had been honest, which I didn't doubt at all, then we were screwed.

Not only had we lost the trains, and a lot of our stored resources, I just loss half my army. Or at least, half of the reliable commanders who led it.

Vlad was one thing, but Freski and Nectar…? I relied on those two deeply. As much as I did Kriss. Without them…

"What is going on…?" I groaned, and hated how close my voice sounded to sobbing. Was I about to cry? I felt like it.

I'd been betrayed. Terribly so. This was not just someone choosing the gods over me, this was worse than that. They had stolen from, and crippled, this nation. Likely condemned millions to death, at bare minimum starvation or at least terrible years of struggling as we rebuilt.

This was not just an attack on my loyalty and trust, it was an attack on every citizen of this nation. Of every soldier who they had fought alongside. Their brothers in arms. Their fellows.

And the worst part was I couldn't understand it.

How could you so willingly choose slavery…? And so readily for such creatures? For beings who saw you as nothing but tools. Disposable ones!

"Lord Vim…"

Lowering my hand, I took in a huge breath as I watched mighty Kriss kneel down next to me. Even when kneeling he was too tall, too big. I had to look up at him, as if looking up at the ceiling.

In the corner of my eye I saw a nearby group. People had hurried over to help. To take Nectar away. Likely to the healers, the saints. They weren't far. They'd be able to save her.

How badly had I hurt her, anyway…?

"I know, Lord Vim. I do. But this is who we are, have been, fighting. People who would doom all else for their false gods. Please, don't abandon us now. Not when we need you most," Kriss whispered down to me.

Abandon…? Why'd he think I was going to abandon them?

"I'm just angry, Kriss. I'm not about to do that, you need not worry," I said.

"You nearly just did Vim," he countered.

Hm…? "You mean Nectar…?" I asked. I couldn't imagine what else he'd meant.

His huge horns glistened in the sun as he nodded.

Hmph. "How can one abandon a traitor?" I asked.

"Is she really, Vim…? This is our cute little Nectar we're talking about," Kriss asked.

"Don't get all soft on me, you mountain of muscle. You heard what she had been saying! The same cultish-blabber the rest do!"

"Yet she had not gone with them, Vim. She had stayed. To stand and face you. To confront you and…"

"Enough! I'll not forgive such a betrayal, and neither should you! Look at what such soft-handed…" I waved my right hand, to gesture at the empty platforms, but felt something odd as I did so.

Frowning, I turned a little to see what I had smacked. But there was nothing there. I was near the edge of the platform, and parts of it was destroyed… likely my own doing and not Kriss or Nectar's. Yet…

Yes. I had felt something odd hadn't I? What had that…

Then I realized it. Something was in my hand. Or rather, stuck on it… like…

Lifting my right hand, my eyes that had been blurry became still. Clear. Precise.

"Mhm…" Kriss grunted, as if confirming what I couldn't believe.

I held Nectar's ear in my hand. One of them. With clumps of hair and flesh attached to it.

I had torn it off. In the scuffle.

That adorable bat. Who has served me loyally, just as her father had, for centuries.

Kriss had been right. As always. She had not run off with them. With those traitors. She had remained. To face me. To tell me.

And I…

I…

"What'd I just do…?"

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