Chapter 150

Pe Riyuro stood before his assembled warriors. These were mostly the older quagoa, five thousand strong, row upon row, they sat and waited for their leader to speak. Pride in his people kindled like a fire in his chest. 'They know they are going to die, and yet they don't cry, wail, or run. What a people we quagoa are.'

When he was ready, he addressed them. "There's not a lot of time, so I won't waste words. Brave as you are, you don't need many anyway." Pe Riyuro said and pointed to the largest path into or out of their holding position.

"We're moving, going toward the only possible source of help we can find. But if the demons know, they can cut us off and kill us all. Your job is twofold, keep them from finding out… and make sure the dragons escape. We'll need them in the battle ahead. They can't follow through the long narrow paths we can, so there is only one way out." He clenched his pointed hand into a fist.

"Straight through." He clenched his jaw, "They will fly past, and you will make sure they can. Hold the demons attention, for now at least there aren't many of them. But if Jaldabaoth gets what he's looking for, we'll have armies to deal with. You may be going to die, but you're not dying for nothing, and you will never be forgotten!"

The aged quagoan warriors pointed their claws up toward the stone above and roared their defiance to the mountain for several minutes before Pe Riyuro was able to speak again.

When he was able, he was brief. "Wait until the last of us have passed out of sight, and when we have, half of you head for the old dwarf capital to attack the demons. The other half will guard here and buy time, twenty-five hundred of you should be able to hold out against their small raids for at least a few days even without the dragons."

They rumbled their grim hatred for the demons which was already burning far hotter than it ever had against the dwarves.

"I wish you well…" Pe Riyuro said, and stepped down from the simple stone from which he spoke, and looked over his shoulder. The column of quagoa was already moving.

"Hail Pe Riyuro!" The call went up from someone at his back when he went to join the column of their great retreat. He didn't look back at them, but that did nothing to stop the call as it spread from mouth to mouth.

"Hail Pe Riyuro!" It echoed off the stone walls so often that it was like the mountain cheered him on as he retreated, little by little he was carried by his feet farther and farther from the others. Some would still be packing, somebody would help Quadwar in isolation at the end, and then the suicide unit would act.

The call faded as he moved farther and farther away, his own steps were a little faster than those of the rest of his gathered tribes, passing families and warriors whenever possible until he was at the front where he belonged.

The distant cheers hailing his name were reduced to whispers in the dark, and then they were gone.

There was only darkness.

Darkness and the sound of their trudging, desperate feet.

Hour after hour.

At least the dark proved no obstacle for them, but exhaustion was. Their animals had to be slaughtered en masse, save for the great numbers of lizards in small containers, and every scrap of vegetation they could eat had been harvested except for what had to be left behind for the All Sire unit to live on until they died.

Pe Riyuro did his best to keep their spirits up, chatting with his closest fellow leaders from various tribes and treating it like an outing, telling jokes they pretended to laugh at.

But it felt forced. Often their faces turned away from him.

So Pe Riyuro did what he always did.

He looked forward, straight ahead, and slowly fell more and more quiet, allowing time to slip past him like the faint breeze.

The one thing Pe Riyuro did not expect was just how hard it was to just 'move' some seventy thousand quagoa. The column could only go as fast as the slowest, the very young and very old both required more rest than all the others. The need to eat and drink was also increased, and though that could be done on the move, they also had to stop to relieve themselves. This made the column frequently bunch up as clumps got in the way of others, and there were few good places to relieve themselves anyway.

The wet slap of feet tramping through urine and feces was accompanied by a foul stench that he could only be glad was unable to follow after them entirely. When the breeze from the gaping hole in the mountainside died down, so did the stench.

But still, they carried on over the rocky hills, old mines that connected to other mines, and not all of them were easily traversed.

Under the mountain, there was no night or day, only darkness. And when you can see in the dark, what was darkness but eternal daylight?

And so with no set time or way to mark the passing hours, the quagoa went by the chief's time. When he slept, they slept. When his day began, theirs would also. All hours of all the tribes revolved around the time kept by the cycle of the chief's own life. If he was a vigorous leader with little need for sleep, the rest of the tribe kept the same hours and might complain that they were tired all the time.

If he was lazy, the tribe would often be envied by others, or in serious trouble if more hard work needed to be done. The chief under the mountain was the sun and moon alike, keeping setting the cycle of day and night where neither existed alone.

With Pe Riyuro at the head of them all, they had a vigorous and seemingly tireless chief, one who stepped forward one foot after the other without any sign that he needed or wanted rest.

It was that vigor, that unwillingness to let them falter, that kept them going.

"My Lord, we need to rest." His second in command said with hushed urgency.

It was whispered close to Pe Riyuro's face so that nobody else would hear, but still Pe Riyuro ignored him for another dozen steps before it was whispered again.

And again after another dozen steps.

"We can rest when we've reached something like safety." Pe Riyuro finally whispered back, "It's only been a few hours."

"It's been far more than that!" His second whispered a little rougher. "The elderly can't keep up, the mothers carrying their young can't keep up, and with the food and supplies being carried…"

Pe Riyuro snapped a look at him, "What good will it do if we're caught up to by demons? How long do you really think those we left behind can hold out? Two days? Three? Think about it, fool. They have no healers left, even if they hold out for two days, the demons will notice the lack of reinforcement soon and become suspicious. Demons aren't mere brutes. They'll wonder about the feeble attack, where the dragons were going, why we would sacrifice ourselves to let them escape. When they find our population gone, what do you think they will do?" Pe Riyuro hissed the withering question and glared at the warrior.

To his credit, the second in command did think about it. More importantly, they continued trudging. The weaker being helped by the stronger, until even Pe Riyuro could go no further and they finally collapsed in the largest sigh of relief the mountain stones had ever heard, and fell to a rest from which some hoped never to awaken.