Story: Cynthia Grey - After Dark

9th of Frostfade, 1212 AW.

Night fell over the Highlands of Death, though the battle never stopped – its intensity only lessened. A figure slipped out of the Wyrsian fortifications and into the wastelands below. On the hill ahead of her was Sloethorn Castle, or at least what was left of it. The Fühlgartians had taken it three days ago and converted the rubble into an artillery position that rained hell down on the Wyrsian lines or the lands between. Every now and then, a flash came out of Sloethorn and the ground would shake as it made its impact.

While night had fallen, the battlefield wasn't dark. Trappike and his pyromancers turned the Highlands into a scorching nightmare during the day, and the flames would continue to burn throughout the night. On both sides, soldiers lay in the dark. They were the best marksmen of both armies, looking and waiting. Cynthia had seen foolish scouts step into the light of the fires before, only for shots to ring out and for them to die on the spot. Such was the way of life in the Highlands of Death.

It wasn't the first time she walked this route. She planned them out during the day when the area was visible from above. It had much cover, and none of Trappike's fires was close enough to illuminate her. She had to navigate the burnt wasteland by grim landmarks alone. Piles of bodies, specific crates, scorched trees that looked like little more than black toothpicks in the land, or large ponds of mud that formed when it rained.

It took her an hour to travel to her stash near a specific fallen tree. At a normal walking pace it would have taken five minutes at most, yet moving too fast would lead to mistakes; to certain death. Cynthia dragged a sack out of the tree stump, pulling out a Fühlgartian conscript's uniform. It had been looted off a mostly intact corpse a few days ago. She changed slowly, closed her eyes, and listened to the south of sparse musket fire ringing throughout the night. What she had planned was a suicidal mission that might not even work. There were many risks, yet the war was turning against Wyrsia. Cyrus Grey... her father, he was too stubborn in his old chivalric ways. Now was a time for fighting dirty, for sabotage. If the choice was between that and losing her native Matthysia to invaders, the choice was easily made.

Saying a small prayer to Vixos, Cynthia moved once more. Now she had to be wary of her own allies, who could hardly tell her apart in the darkness from this far away. Yet, a paranoid and war-weary Fühlgartian could also kill on sight when he saw a silhouette moving in the darkness. Her plan was relatively simple, walk into Sloethorn Castle, light up the gunpowder store, and disappear into the night as the castle exploded behind her. Thousands of things could go wrong, and each of them burned in the back of her mind as she moved closer and closer to the Fühlgartian lines.

An hour later, she could hear the chatter of Fühlgartian troops over the background musket fire. Some of them were probably drunk, and some of them were simply laughing with their friends. All of them were awake and alert as she crept towards them. The sound of crying echoed in the distance, the cries coming from one of the improvised sleeping barracks. Perhaps he was homesick, or he had lost a friend, or maybe he was just tired. All soldiers were tired. He deserved a good rest after what would come next.

She crouched low and snuck into the Fühlgartian garrison. She immediately stood up and blended in, as she made her way towards Sloethorn Castle's ruined keep. She walked past dozens of soldiers, expecting any of them to stop her, yet none did. They were all too tired or too caught up in their own problems to even register her presence. Before long, she made her way to the ruined keep. What was left of the structure acted as cover for the cannons that had been positioned there, where a small crew kept firing throughout the night. All castles in the Highlands of Death had been built to the same blueprints; she knew how to navigate perfectly around the complex.

The keep's roof had collapsed over the entrance to the underground sections of the castle, which – from the look of things – had been hastily dug out by the Fühlgartians occupying Sloethorn. Cynthia made her way down the stairs into the bowels of the castle. These rooms had been made to serve multiple purposes when they were originally constructed: storerooms, dungeons, barracks, armouries, kitchens, and more. Now, however, they had been transformed into one messy armoury. Ammunition, cannonballs, gunpowder, explosives, and more outdated weaponry littered the halls unceremoniously. She only ran into one guard on a small wooden chair, who had taken the opportunity to finally get some sleep. She softly mumbled a small prayer for him as she walked past.

Occasionally some soldiers would come down to pick up some more cannonballs and go back up the stairs. Cynthia was surprised at how deserted these storerooms were, as she slipped into a small room littered with even more explosives. The Wyrsian stuck a small fuse in a barrel of gunpowder, took out the lone match she had brought, and lit it. The fuse began to glow slowly and spark. It would take fifteen – maybe twenty, if she was lucky – minutes for Sloethorn to go up in flames. The possibility of getting caught and having to blow herself up alongside the keep was a realistic possibility to her beforehand, so the carelessly light security came as a pleasant surprise.

She began her ascent to the surface, up the stairs. She still had to walk normally, though there was more pace in her step. Her stolen uniform had belonged to a dead scout, so nobody bat an eye as she hopped over the Fühlgartian barricades and out into the darkness. A shot rang out from the other side, flying overhead, as a Wyrsian sharpshooter had spotted her when she came out of the Sloethorn encampment. However, she had already become invisible in the night.

Cynthia retreated across the same route much faster than she usually had. While it was reckless to do so, the debris and the rubble would go everywhere and would still kill her if she stood too close. She made her way over to the tree stump and threw off her Fühlgartian disguise. putting on her regular ash-coloured uniform that was perfect for blending in with the landscape. She could not have taken more than five steps from the tree when the night sky erupted behind her.

Sloethorn – and the hill it stood upon – exploded into a million pieces, catapulting rocks of all sizes across every corner of the Highlands of Death. A gigantic fireball illuminated the sky and the battlefield became as clearly visible as it would during the day. With no other choice, Cynthia sprinted, making sure to zig-zag between various objects that could act as cover. Both sides awakened and the battlefield erupted, as musket fire and explosions intensified. Celebrations could be heard from the Wyrsian lines as they witnessed the firestorm that had destroyed Sloethorn, whereas panicked and pained cries of anguish echoed through the night from countless injured Fühlgartian soldiers.

Her run back to Wyrsian lines took minutes but felt like hours. She expected to be killed at any moment, yet death never came. Bullets frequently landed near her, but none hit their mark. Only when she frantically climbed over the Wyrsian fortifications and reached safety did she finally allow herself to collapse from exhaustion.