Salvage Union: Floodplain Part Three

The star was a small box with a handle to hold or anchor for a latch. Falling from the stars scorched its casing; they had to wait until it cooled before they could dig it out of the hillside. Nia would glance at in the back of the cart and flinch away.

It reminded her of a child's casket.

The strider plodded along through the forest, her goddess at the reins. Within the dawning of the next day, they were out of the woods and onto the Grand Roads of Djartola.

It was slow going. The Roden soldiers traveled the paths, and Argenta had to respond accordingly. They shied away from large detachments and stuck to the lesser-known roads; Nia's experience studying maps was finally paying off. But it was inevitable. The pilgrims needed places to rest and sleep, as did the soldiers. Argenta looked for homesteads, farms, towns where the least soldiers were occupying and steered the strider towards those lands. She would leave Nia at the cart with the gun.

The Bullet of Justice had her own guns, one for each hand. Heavy things wrought of metal and stone, small enough to use two at once and not knock yourself over. Nia could hear them roar and echo through battlefields like the rumblings of brass lions. When Argenta was finished and Nia would bring the cart closer, the places her goddess blessed looked as if a storm had fallen upon them and torn the world to shreds.

She was precise enough to leave intact shelter and resources. They left what remained of the bodies where they lay.

This was the path by which judgment crawled to Roden and arrived two and a half months later.

https://thecoffin.club