The Warden's beam sliced away indiscriminately, searing a scar into the earth where Tomas had stood moments before. His raw scream, cut off mid-breath, still rang in Roddick's ears as the youth staggered back, horror replacing the adrenaline that had fueled him thus far.

"Griff, what have you done?" Roddick's voice cracked, but the mad guard was already moving deeper into the ruins, torches blazing in each hand.

"If I can't win this," Griff snarled, limping on his injured ankle as he set fire to everything within reach, "then nobody does!" His bitter laughter echoed through the acrid smoke.

Darren supported the wounded Roddick as they retreated toward the treeline. "He's totally lost his mind," the Greyhold guard gasped through the smoky haze. "We'll burn if we follow him. We're not dying here!"

But they couldn't tear their eyes away from Griff. "This isn't what we signed up for," Darren whispered. "I'd rather haul pig slop. I'm done."

The remaining Greyhold men scattered in every direction, their hunger for payback replaced by primal terror. Behind them, the Warden scoured furrows in the earth, herding them away from its domain with indifferent carnage.

Vazko emerged from the smoke, his armor battered and bloodied. The Deepguard commander's trained eye swept the battlefield, cataloging the chaos: Greyhold guards fleeing in panic, the Warden free of its restraints and methodically clearing the ruins, and Griff, mad with rage and spite, setting fire to everything within reach.

Vazko's training screamed at him to find order and assess the tactical situation, to ascertain exits, chokepoints, and defensive positions. But the blazing ruins defied every lesson he'd learned. This wasn't straightforward combat. The battlefield kept shifting as flames and smoke obscured their paths.

He watched a pair of kobolds dart between and knock down obstacles, helping guide more trapped Shy toward safety.

A section of burning timber crashed down nearby, sending sparks cascading through the air. Sunna rushed in, quickly helping clear out the debris with her spear.

Vazko spotted a young Shy pinned beneath a branch. "Hold fast," he directed, pulling her free and pointing her toward Sunna's group. "Stay close. We'll find a way out together." His calm command cut through her panic, and she ran to the others.

"Let's make a steady retreat to the riverbank," Vazko called out to the Sunbrave, on whom the wounded Shy were leaning on to navigate out of the rubble. "Use the water as a firebreak."

Sunna nodded, her face streaked with soot and determination. "How do we get everyone safely to the water, Commander?"

"We need to carve routes through where the fire has exhausted itself or is about to. Then pull the line back to the river," he said, already turning. "Get the injured ones floating downstream away from this inferno."

"You'll need a lot of help," Sunna warned.

He met her eyes. "I know. That's why you're staying with me."

Around them, the ancient stones of the settlement began to crack from the heat. What had been originally set up to keep the humans away, had turned into a death trap for everyone caught within. The very air seemed tainted, fuming with malice.

The smoke wasn't behaving like that of any fire Veyran had experienced. Its caustic bite suggested something beyond mere wood burning.

"The flames… They're feeding on something," Menna observed, her arclith instruments flashing warnings as she and Veyran retreated. "The shard residue!" She grabbed Veyran's arm. "Every arclith fragment is fuel."

Veyran's face was pale with understanding. "The entire site is saturated with violent energies."

Above them, the Warden turned its faceted head toward the spreading conflagration. For a moment, its beam paused, as if the ancient construct were calculating new tactics. Then, with unerring accuracy, it began systematically targeting the worst of the fires. Not to extinguish them, but to contain them within already scorched boundaries on which they could no longer feed.

"It's trying to restore the status it's used to," Veyran breathed. "But that state might not include any of us."

Rhiannon broke through the smoke, coughing as she crouched to talk to the Shy. "Can we work with it instead of against it?" she proposed. "If it wants balance, maybe we can help it recalibrate."

Working quickly, the four began to coordinate their approach, identifying how their combined efforts could be the most effective.

"The anchor points are gone," Menna reported, "but the underlying framework is still there. If we can tap into it..."

"Vikka, we need your help!" Veyran called to the kobold, who was helping salvage items from what they could grab out of the ruins. "Your… friend. Mirys? The kobold who lives here in the woods. We think her connection to the forest could turn the tide. Please ask her if we can… work with the arcane currents flowing through the woods and the ruins?"

Mirys approached cautiously, her staff glowing with soft light. She spoke rapidly in the kobold tongue, her words urgent and questioning.

Vikka darted between them, serving as translator. "She asks if you mean the deep-song, the music that runs under all growing things. She says it's been disturbed by the violence, but she can still hear it."

"Yes, exactly!" Menna's eyes lit with understanding. "Veyran, can you map the energy patterns while Mirys taps into the Veilwoods' harmonics?"

Veyran sprawled over Rhiannon's instruments. He needed both his hands to manipulate the giant knobs and toggles. Their ear-splitting whirs and clicks, on top of all the fumes, made his head hurt as he scanned the Warden's fluctuating aura. "There. I can just make out its key frequency. It's trying to match the forest's natural register but can't find the baseline through all the chaos."

"We… can use our voices to bridge the gaps in the tones…" Vikka tried to explain, but the older kobold, having already grasped the gist of the issue, realized that a demonstration would serve them better.

Mirys closed her eyes and began to sing. Not the lullabies of the cradle, but something far older, more universal. A melody she had learned from the breeze blowing through the trees, the waters flowing through the streams. The notes of a tune threading the deep connections that linked every living spark and spirit in the Veilwoods.

Vikka listened intently, her own tentative voice beginning to harmonize with Mirys' deeper pitch. As she sang, she felt something new awakening in her mind, a deeper awareness of the bonds that connected not just kobold to cradle, but nest to forest, root to river, air to sky. The sensation was overwhelming, like discovering she had a new sense she'd never known existed.

This is what I was meant to learn, she realized, her mental voice filled with wonder as she shared the experience with Mirys through their bond. This is the knowledge that queens carry. Even those who were not kin could feel the power, sense the change.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Menna," Rhiannon continued, "with the connection stabilized, can you establish a buffer between its system restrictions and what it considers active threats?"

Menna nodded, already adjusting her equipment. "I can try opening up its feedback loops, give it time to process properly instead of reacting to everything at once."

Keeping the arclith scholars' intentions in mind, Mirys continued leading the kobold choir, her staff and tail conducting the symphony of unpracticed voices with calm authority. Even a few Shy joined in, having picked up the basic chords, with some playing along on reeds and bows.

"Keep singing," she urged, her voice carrying over the chaos. "Our song will help lead the others to the river. Let them know where to go."

Vikka appeared at her side. "The bad humans have scattered, but a few may be regrouping. Griff isn't done. He's still trying to drive us into the Warden's path."

Mirys felt the pulse of fear and determination running through all the kobolds huddled around, while the Veilwoods' pain reached her through every root and branch, a cry of distress that made her heart ache.

They marched along the river's bend, where the water curved through the thick underbrush. The flames had yet to reach that point, but the scent of scorched resin wafted downstream like a warning.

Mirys dipped a claw into the current, as if letting it soothe her. "We follow," she declared upon rising. "Where the music guides us."

At the riverbank, the retreat had become a careful dance between species. Sunbraves with mounts swam or waded carefully across, while the taller kobolds helped create a living bridge for the smaller Shy to traverse the flowing water. Jerrik, perched on his patient catfish and still recovering from his encounter with Griff, circled on high alert while Sela provided overwatch from Warby.

The escape route for those still navigating through the ruins had become a gauntlet of fire and falling stones. Through the maze of perils, Sunna led a group of injured Sunshy, leaning on each other to keep going.

"Not much further," Sunna encouraged them, though she could see the flames had spread to block two of their three remaining paths. "The water's just ahead."

She was trying to carve out a wider trail through the narrow exit point still left open, partially blocked by a fallen tree. Her spear slashed through glowing twigs and brambles, giving them barely enough room to safely squeeze through.

That's when Darren stumbled out of the smoke. Blindly swinging his sword, he barely registered the shapes at his feet as he rushed past.

He looked nothing like the confident guard who had swaggered into the ruins hours before. His armor was blackened and cracked, his arm bleeding from a deep gash, and his eyes held the wild look of a man who had watched his world collapse. Stuck in his mind was the memory of Tomas's scream, cut short by the Warden's beam.

"Let us go!" Sunna stood up to the human, stepping between him and the others. "You don't want to do this."

Darren's sword trembled in his hands. Behind him, the Warden scored another glowing furrow across the ruins. "Everything's gone to hell. At least I can—"

"You can what?" Sunna's voice was gentle but firm. "Burn the forest? Follow Griff into madness? Look around you. Your friends are dead or running. What are you fighting for now?"

Darren laughed, cracking under the strain of keeping things together. "That monster's loose, and we're all going to burn!" He raised his sword with shaking hands. "At least I can take some of you freaks with me!"

"Get to the water. Quickly," Sunna goaded the others.

For a heartbeat, Darren wavered, his gaze flickering to the fleeing Shy. Then the weight of his losses, his fears, his desperate need to blame something for the catastrophe, catalyzed into action. His sword swept down in a killing arc.

Sunna could have dodged. Instead, she lunged, desperately aiming to nick his ankle and cut short his pursuit. The flat of the human's blade caught her square across the chest, throwing her backward into the muddy bank.

She didn't cry out, biting down on the pain. Even as her life ebbed away, she kept her eyes on the others trying to reach the river's edge, Vazko already there to help them across.

Darren's eyes widened as he realized what she'd done. "Why?" he cried, blinking like a man just waking up, before turning away back into the smoke.

Vazko found Sunna moments later, her battered body barely feeling anything. He cradled her head as flames closed in around them. Her breathing was shallow, but her eyes still shone with purpose.

"Did they make it?" she asked.

Vazko looked back toward the river, where the last of the Shy were disappearing into the safety of deeper water. "All of them. Every single one."

Sunna's smile was peaceful. "Good. That's..."

"Sunna… save your energy for the crossing, Sunbrave," the Deepshy pleaded.

"Promise to tell my family…" she whispered. "That I stood with heroes… and fought for what mattered."

"On my oath…" Vazko vowed.

Her last breath was a sigh of contentment. As the heat forced him to retreat, Vazko bore both her body and the weight of her sacrifice.

The Veilwoods had otherwise been patient, tolerant of the violence playing out in the ruins. But now, with its ancient groves threatened by unnatural fire and its waterways choked with debris and ash, the great forest began to respond.

Mirys waded into the water until it reached her neck. Then, something shifted in her tone. A new rhythm arose from the currents as the river responded to their chorus. Through Vikka's translation, the others began to understand what the kobolds were attempting.

Springs that had been dry and dormant began to flow. Beaver dams released their stored water right where the overflow would flood the fires. Root systems pierced bedrock to create new channels, and the very stones of the riverbed rearranged themselves to divert water where it was needed most.

But every change rippled outward through the mysterious currents of magic that flowed beneath the Veilwoods, and the Warden began to react. Its crystalline form resonated with the new harmonics, its guidance systems attuning to the forest's all-embracing orchestration instead of fighting against it.

"It's working," Veyran breathed, watching his readings stabilize. "The Warden is beginning to recognize the forest's inhabitants as elements to be protected, not threats to be purged."

Vikka's translation became increasingly fluid as she learned to bridge not just languages but entire ways of perceiving the world. Through her, collective kobold wisdom flowed to the arclith scholars, while their technical understanding helped focus the kobolds' instinctive talents.

"Mirys says the Veilwoods remembers when the Warden was first built," Vikka explained. "It was meant to be a guardian, not a weapon. Its creators worked with the forest, not against it."

The Warden's eyes dimmed from blazing intensity to a watchful amber glow. Its overflowing buffer having finally stabilized, it no longer saw every random movement as a potential peril.

For the first time in centuries, the ancient guardian was truly free. And it was not pleased with what it had awoken to.

The forest burned. The ruins crumbled. Chaos reigned where order should have prevailed. Its crystalline mind processed the variables with meticulous rigor: eliminate the sources of disruption, restore balance, preserve the greater system.

Its beam swept across the battlefield with newfound purpose, no longer the haphazard swipes of a derelict construct but the calculated strikes of a semi-sentient intelligence. It carved through the worst of the conflagration, creating firebreaks with surgical precision. It also sought to aim at the largest of the 'chaotic elements' still present. Unfortunately, these included most of the living creatures in the vicinity, none of which matched the parameters for exclusion set by its masters.

But an additional variable was interfering with its programming. The deep-song that the kobolds were weaving into the magical currents was overriding its protocols. Its logic was being rewritten to consider components to be preserved instead of just aberrations to be eliminated. The Warden once again paused as it processed these contradictions.

In the resulting lull, another agent of chaos seized the opportunity to make her move.

Vikka raised the alarm. Her expanded awareness, still thrumming with the forest's profound revelations, picked up on the disturbance like a discordant note in the bridge they'd been building.

"Something's wrong," she warned Mirys. "The balance is shifting again, but not because of us, or the Warden, or the humans who've fled. It's from somewhere else."

Mirys's eyes snapped open, and for a beat, their song faltered. Through Vikka's translation, she shared what she'd sensed. "The little ones. Someone threatens the little ones."

They all rushed to the clearing as fast as Ashwind could gallop. Rhiannon pushed the mare like she never had before, even while burdened with one human, two kobolds, and a dozen Shy hanging on to her mane. They almost didn't notice the Warden following them at its own measured, but surprisingly speedy, pace.

Focusing on their hoofprints, Ruth had been tracking the various groups' movements. There was one set in particular that grabbed her attention—the donkey's.

She followed the trail, leading her to the isolated clearing by the river. She quickly spotted Greyhold's old donkey Gertie grazing nearby. And bundled up on her back were Eryl and the youngest Shy children, waiting for word on whether they should move.

"Well now…" Ruth said, stepping into the firelight. "Fancy meeting you all here."

Eryl was on her feet instantly, placing herself between the human and the littlest Shy. She knew she had no recourse but to beg. "Please, spare us. You'll have little use for us in Greyhold."

"Now, why would the others leave you all alone out here without a big, strong guardian?" Ruth's smile was sharp as broken glass, and just as eager to cut. "I assume all your protectors are rather busy at the moment? Meanwhile, I'm here. Ready to take care of you and my wee workers-to-be."

"What do you want with us?" Eryl sighed, defeated.

"You left quite a mess at Greyhold. And it looks like things aren't faring any better for you out here in the woods." Ruth gestured toward the distant glow of the forest fire. "Won't it be much nicer for the children to be all cozy, warm, and well-fed back in the workshop? Besides, it'll be good to start them young, before all this dangerous freedom spoils them."

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