The destruction of Comalan was nearly complete, buried under the weight of hordes of sai'mul warriors. Most of Resta, all of Midania and Tanis, and half of Galeon had been overrun by this numberless undead army. Only Heron, with its less than navigable landscape had managed to stay safe from the sai'mul, but the mortal survivors knew it was only a manner of time before there was nowhere for them to turn their attention. Life in the north had never been pleasant, so it came as little surprise that tension had become an inescapable fixture in the lives of everyone who still breathed.
It was in this climate that Kaleth Marle found himself, one among countless orphans created by this onslaught of death. He had only managed to escape his parents fate when the sai'mul ravaged his school in Tanis. His family were Restan, but he had been drawn to the druidic arts that the elves had cultivated from a young age. Perhaps it was his desire to get in touch with his elven heritage or a desire to stand apart from his parents' roles in the clergy that had compelled him to move to Orion for his education. The boy had spent many weeks since the calamity began trying to work out why he had left his family to die because there was nothing else to sustain him.
When the undead attacked Orion, Kaleth was at a loss at how he was going to survive even the destruction of this city. He was staggering exhaustively to his apartment after a particularly gruesome beast-taming lesson when a brute he would later come to know as Mordecai had barged onto Silver Street. For a sai'mul, this man was massive and his strength was enough for him to pick up one of the city guards who had jumped into his path by his skull and toss him like a rag doll. He let out a feral roar as dozens of elves began to flee in terror.
Kaleth, however, remained rooted in place as dozens more sai'mul arrived to join the hulking terror that led them. He was simultaneously too tired to run and too terrified to process the idea to do so. The sai'mul advanced through Silver Street at a deliberate pace, snickers filling the air as they drew closer to the paralyzed boy. Kaleth had recovered his wits just in time to realize that he didn't have time to escape Mordecai, who scowled as he realized that his next prey wouldn't be fleeing.
That was when he felt the hand on his shoulder. It whipped him away from the sai'mul and brought a tall, slender man with spiked red hair. He wore a scowl as well, but was already tugging Kaleth into action.
"Move or die, idiot!"
These words were all Kaleth needed to shock him into running as fast as he could. The other elf who followed him kept pace rather easily, but it was already too late. The sai'mul were close and gaining on the exhausted boy and his sudden savior.
"You should have decided you were going to flee sooner, coward!" Mordecai spat as he ran.
Kaleth's heart seemed to explode at that moment, not with exertion, but desperation. So severe was his need to escape that his will seemed to exert to slow down everything around him. While he and the other elf had been running at the same pace the whole time, he started to notice that he and his companion were handily passing other people in their path. He did not dare to look back, but he could no longer feel Mordecai's hands looming over him.
When they reached a set of stairs leading to the surface, both of the elves sighed and chanced a look back. The sai'mul had stopped pursuing them to slaughter the other people they had passed. The stranger looked back and smirked.
"I guess they were slower than they looked!" He exclaimed with a roar of laughter. "Well, now comes the hard part. You're on your own, kid."
The man began to ascend the stairs with all of the agility of an acrobat, skipping whole pairs of steps with fleet, leaping paces. Kaleth watched him move with amazement before looking back toward the undead attackers. Everyone else behind him appeared to be either dead or undead and they had resumed their pursuit of the two who had escaped. Kaleth figured at that moment that the other man had planned for everyone else on the street to distract the marauders and enable his escape.
"Well, you can just distract them for me," Kaleth mumbled to himself.
Then, with the last bit of strength he could muster, he called some magic to his core and felt himself began to shrink. His arms folded in on themselves, his lips began to stretch outward, his nose shrinked into those growing lips, and bronze feathers began to grow rapidly from his skin. Mordecai was nearly caught up when the falcon Kaleth had become flapped his wings rapidly, gaining height over his pursuers as quickly.
He enjoyed a moments' relief with the thought that the gargantuan zombie could no longer. This relief faded quickly for two reasons. The first was that he had yet to escape and, worse still, he had limited energy with which to do so. The second reason came when the army of the dead raised their rifles. With a screech, Kaleth flapped even harder to ascend past Silver Street and leave it behind for good.
When he reached Queen's Square, it was only to discover that the surface level of the city was overrun by the undead as well. This shouldn't have come as any surprise to him, since the Queen's Square was the only entrance or exit to the entire city. They were trapped.
Kaleth scanned the ground for possible escape routes and quickly found the man from before nearing the south gate. Far from fleeing as he did before, he appeared to be fighting the sai'mul who stood in his way. He seemed to be holding them off well with only a knife in each hand. He was flanked by a trio of tall, black creatures who stood on two legs and jabbed at the sai'mul with barbed tails. Maulans!
The falcon decided to swoop toward the south gate, taking advantage of this peculiar diversion. He was only yards away from open sky when a bullet from below struck his right wing. The other man looked up as Kaleth spiraled into the ground close by. His momentary distraction prevented him from blocking a swift hammer blow from the enemy to his core, which knocked the wind out of him. The maulans jumped protectively in front of him.
Kaleth's magic wore off when crashed into the ground, leaving a broken and even more tired oni gazing up at the raiders he had recently been looking down on. The elf stumbled backward and knelt over Kaleth, a pained smirk on his face.
"If I had known you could be so useful..." he winced before concluding, "I'd have waited for you."
Kaleth couldn't find the energy to respond in such a hopeless situation.
The elf patted the boy's head and smiled reassuringly. "We're both getting out of here. Try not to die in the next few minutes."
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