Some of the soldiers tried to defend themselves with the bind, but being able to control only one stone at a time was useless if fifty slaves jumped on you all at once, and were immediately lynched.

Oldrick took matters into his own hands, and having regrouped all the survivors, he immediately commanded the retreat, managing to close the gates just in time before Lori and the others could overwhelm them.

When the guards had gone, silence returned. Daemon meanwhile had always remained close to me, holding my hand, and constantly calling me by name.

"Will you stop yelling in my ear?" I told him as soon as I was able to speak again.

"Scalia!? Are you okay!?"

"Of course I'm okay. It takes more than this scratch to take me out."

In fact, I had never told him about my healing abilities, and when I removed the sword still stuck in his body he was speechless to see the wound starting to heal in a few seconds.

"Thank goodness. I was afraid I'd lost you."

"Then you know how to cry after all."

My sarcasm melted like snow when I found myself tightly wrapped in his embrace, which in addition to leaving me dismayed filled me with such a beautiful warmth that I almost lost myself.

Meanwhile the anger among our friends had subsided, and the sight of the slain bodies of Beek and some of his soldiers filled many of them with dread.

Something like that had never happened before in Ende. But we knew that there had been other similar episodes in other ghettos, and in some cases actual riots, just as we knew how they ended up.

"What have we done?"

"I'm sorry, father. It was my fault. If I hadn't provoked him like that..."

"You don't have to apologize for anything. That animal got what he deserved."

"However, Scalia..."

"What we do now?" asked Jack. "They will certainly return. And I've seen with my own eyes what they do to those who rebel."

"I say we fight!"

Those words came out of my mouth almost without me realizing it. But then I could feel that fire that for all those years I had managed to keep burning inside me like never before.

"Scalia, what are you saying?"

"Jack said that too. They have no mercy for those who raise their heads. In that case, why should we sit here waiting to face decimation or worse? And if we must die, then we will do it on our terms! Fighting! To defend our right to live! That right they have always denied us!"

"Be reasonable, Scalia. What you're proposing is insane."

"I know why you say this father. And I understand you when you say that perhaps monsters partly deserve the punishment that has been inflicted on them. But don't you think that five hundred years of slavery was more than enough punishment to pay off what you and our ancestors did fighting for the Dark Lord?"

"Scalia is right! It's time to fight!"

"Passe..."

"Now enough to suffer in silence! Let them pay for everything they've done to us and our friends!"

"Grog..."

"I've really had enough. I won't let them hurt those I love. And I certainly won't let them hurt my baby!"

"Lori, you too?"

"Now stop talking nonsense!"

"Daemon!"

"Our father is right, Scalia! You would just get yourself killed! Now I go down to the village and surrender myself to Oldrick. Perhaps by talking to him I can keep you out of this story."

"You are no longer a child, Daemon! So stop playing the hero who protects us all!"

"And anyway, at the point where we are, do you really think that offering yourself to them as a sacrificial victim will be enough to save us?"

"Lori's right, boy," Passe said. "We killed some militia men. Next time they come back here, it will be to slaughter us all. It doesn't matter if they need us; a slave who rebels becomes just a threat."

"So, you want to fight? Let's assume you manage to drive away the patrol that will be sent here to retaliate. Then what will you do? Next time they would send the army. And then you will have no escape. Even Bojack said it, these rebellions can only end one way."

"Then, you show us the way to follow!" I exclaimed almost without thinking.

If I just thought about it, it seemed incredible to me – I was asking a human being, however different from the others, to be our guide.

But who else but him could have done it?

"You made me read those books, Daemon. All those words about freedom, about equality. You can't expect me to forget it all – not now that I'm starting to really believe it's possible."

Daemon looked down, as if crushed by the weight that not only me (but also all the others, judging by the way they looked at him) were asking him to carry on his shoulders.

"Can this really happen?" Lori asked. "Can you help us be free?"

"Nonsense. I turned over half of Erthea as a slave on ships. And I tell you what – no matter where you go, there isn't a single place where monsters like us are truly free."

"You're right, Jack. There is no such place in this world."

"See? Even he says so."

"But you can still create it."

"What do you mean!?" Zorech asked.

"Exactly what I said. If a world in which monsters can consider themselves free does not yet exist, then you have no choice but to build a new one with your own hands."

"And where should we build it?" Jack asked.

"Right here."

"Here?! You mean Eirinn?"

"This land is drenched in your sweat and the blood your friends have shed. What better place to give life to a world in which to be free than the one that you have made prosperous with your efforts?"

"You said yourself that we are hopeless against the Empire and its army," my father said resignedly, even cynically. "How could we ever hope to conquer this province?"

"In fact, our strength alone would never be enough. Not only to gain control of Eirinn, but above all to defend it. To do that, you need allies."

It took a moment to figure out what Daemon meant by allies, and the idea alone was enough to make many of us cringe, myself included.

"Should we ally with the humans? I hope you're joking!"

"And what would you like to do? Subdue them? Exterminate them? If so, get ready to see history repeat itself. Whether you like it or not, this world is populated entirely by humans. Either you accept the idea that only from coexistence can a new world be born in which you can be free, or your freedom will be just a dream."

"And will they accept it? Humans kept us in chains! They put the stones in our bodies! To them we are nothing but animals!"

"By now I thought you understood that. Not all humans are like this. I was there too when Septimus and his men defended you from that beast you see there. And I swear to you, by all that I hold most dear, that they didn't do it because it was their duty, but because they really thought what you were being forced to suffer was wrong. You are free not to believe me, but the people of this province suffered and still suffer almost as much as you do because they are forced to live under the rule of incompetent officials. You, Scalia mentioned the sages I told you about, but they too are humans."

Faced with that reality, I didn't know what to answer, and I admit that I felt a sense of shame for how I let myself be carried away by emotions and anger.

"Even assuming some humans agree to side with us. What about the others?" asked Jack. "What will they do?"

"To expect the whole world to follow a single thought is utopian. But you certainly won't win the trust of humans who don't yet know what to think about you by behaving exactly as they fear you might. Therefore, if you really want me to lead you in creating a world where you can be free, here's my first order. No personal vengeances. No retaliation. You have my word that anyone who has committed crimes against you will be brought to justice. For everyone else, everything that has happened since today is no more. All humans who will agree to follow us in the creation of the new world, or who simply will not be hostile to our work, will be welcome. Prejudice and intolerance will not be tolerated on either side, and anyone who forgets this you can be sure will regret it."

We were forced to admit that his words were true, even if the mere idea of having to live and probably fight side by side with the same ones who had kept us in slavery for centuries disgusted many of us. And I was definitely among them.

But after all, how could a thousand starving and emaciated slaves alone hope to challenge an entire army?

"Before we go any further, however, you must answer this." Daemon said again, looking at us gloomily to the point of scaring us. "Are you really ready to fight and die to get what you want? Building a world that doesn't exist from scratch is the most difficult goal that a living being can aspire to achieve. Many will have to sacrifice themselves to make this happen. If you're willing to risk your life, or watch your friends die, to pursue this near-impossible dream, then take up arms and prepare to fight. But if you think you're not capable of it, or if you even have a doubt, then sit in the mud and wait for your fate, which will still be much less painful than what awaits you beyond that wall."

A voice I didn't recognize rose behind me almost immediately.

"To arms!"

At that point, a roar like I had never heard before made the houses, the walls, even the mountains all around tremble.

"To arms! For freedom!"

What no one could have ever imagined had happened: a human was elected by popular acclaim as leader of a revolt of monsters that had seemed unthinkable only a short time before.

Sometimes even the impossible can happen.



I had once heard that the first riots in Paris in 1789 broke out when a trigger-happy idiot from the German regiments shot a little boy at a protest in the Tuilerries Gardens.

Whether it was true or not, everyone knows that while hunger, abuses and inept rulers are the wood that fuels revolutions, blood has always been the oil that sets them on fire.

Facing that mass of poor wretches who all together raised their heads to the cry of freedom and equality, I could not help but feel a great disgust for myself.

I had always known that Scalia could never die from such a minor wound for how great her regenerative abilities were, but the fact remains that I had still put her in danger.

Thankfully, I had begun researching the bind long before I received that star and its servant stone, coming to discover things that the common soldiers who used those devices only as a kind of supernatural whip could not even imagine.

In this way, I had managed to develop a particular spell which I had called with very little imagination mot de commande. All I had to do was instill in Scalia's stone the order to protect me if my life was in danger – this directive had therefore remained latent until the conditions for its awakening had arisen, an event of which she naturally could not have been aware because it was happened in a condition of real hypnosis.

Pitiful that the magical effort required to withstand such a complex spell was more than those low-alloy stones could handle – allowing only a single use – and that instilling it into the stone required both several minutes and direct contact.

But what mattered most was that I had finally gotten what I wanted.

Now there was no turning back, and I was aware that we had little time.

Oldrick and his men certainly wouldn't risk setting foot again in the ghetto, but it was only a matter of two, at most three days before a punitive expedition was sent from the Castle.

Before that happened, it was necessary to have taken control of the region and cemented the alliance between the slaves and the locals.

Once we had selected the most reliable and most ready to fight monsters and had opened the gates of the ghetto without difficulty, we headed straight for the labor camps, reaching them before the news of the revolt could spread.

The few guards assigned to their defense surrendered without even trying to fight, terrified of having to face a band of slaves armed with stones and sticks but still very angry, allowing us to get our hands on work tools, leather clothes from the forge, horses, and even some weapons.

So, it was time to aim for the main target.

"To Dundee!"



It had been a long time since I could no longer be myself.

Jorn's death, as sudden as it was paradoxical, had hit me hard.

It had happened the morning after the party at the tavern.

Mayor Rutte had thrown me off the cot, telling me that they had taken him out of the bottom of a well just outside the walls, along the road to the fort.

An accident, it was said. They had found a bag with his last pay untouched and his father's silver brooch still pinned to the tunic, with no apparent sign of an assault.

A distraught Daemon had told me that he had taken him to the village square, where Jorn had however convinced him to let him return alone by promising him that he would immediately return to the fort.

Curse him and his pride – he sure didn't want anyone to see him go back to his cot soaking drunk and being carried on the shoulder by the sheriff.

Damn Jorn! I've always told you that you are a worthless drinker!

I kept telling myself that if I had been more careful, if I hadn't let myself go, it certainly wouldn't have ended like this.

Such thoughts only distracted me from my duties, and it so happened that when the storm came upon us, I was unaware of it until it was too late.

That afternoon I was sitting on the edge of the lake, looking in the distance at the mountains of Khoral looming before me with my head lost in a sea of thoughts.

"An insurrection?!" I exclaimed to the messenger who came to bring me the news. "And where are the rioters now?"

"They drove off a handful of militiamen and killed Commander Beek, and it seems like they're headed for Dundee!"

"Run to the village at once! Order the militia and city guard to get ready to push them back! I will join you as soon as possible with the rest of the garrison!"

"Yes, Decurion!"

As I galloped my way back bursting my horse's lungs, I realized how much the situation was getting worse by the minute. The more isolated houses and farms were already deserted, and the road to the north so clogged that many had abandoned wagons to continue on foot.

One could clearly feel the terror of the people. The rebels were coming to present the bill, and it would be very steep.

When I arrived, the garrison was in chaos.

"Why are we so few? Where is everybody?"

"Draxler, Mascius, and Corren are gone. For the others, we have no idea."

"And the Centurion Costanzio?"

"He jumped on a horse with his personal escort as soon as the news broke. He said he was going to get reinforcements, but unless they moved the Castle across the river, I wouldn't bet on his return."

If that sounded like bad news, it was nothing compared to what the messenger I'd sent to the village had to say.

"So?"

"I've just come from the barracks. The place is deserted. The militiamen have all already fled."

"And the city guard?"

"They didn't even let me speak. But coming back here I saw them open the doors by order of the Mayor."

"Curse!" I snapped kicking the chair. "We can't even defend this fort, let alone the village!"

"Decurion! They're here! They're at the base of the hill and they're going up!"

So it was fate that my dream of becoming a great hero was destined to accompany me to my grave. But I certainly wasn't going to sit around waiting to be slaughtered.

If not for the men under my command, I had to try to do something at least for those I wanted to protect – every minute we were able to gain would be one more minute given to the fugitives to safety.

"At this point, just make them work for it!"

No one hesitated because the cowards had already all fled. It was the thought of fighting for our loved ones that gave us strength in what we knew were our last minutes of life.

We collected all the bows, arrows, and javelins we had available and climbed to the top of the low wall that bordered the courtyard of the fort, ready to fight to the last.

From there I could see them slowly making their way up the slope, so numerous that they covered the earth beneath their feet.

I expected to see them swarming at us like a pack of wolves ready to devour our corpses. Instead, they suddenly stopped the advance, stopping at the right distance to be out of range of our arrows.

Somehow, we understood their reasons. And even though we didn't really want to hurt them, we knew that in their eyes we were anything but mere soldiers sworn by an oath to do our duty.

"We've already called for reinforcements!" I said, trying to appear as convincing as possible. "Lay down your weapons, withdraw peacefully, and I swear no harm will come to you!"

No one replied, nor was a voice raised.

Then, suddenly, the mass neatly parted, and a very familiar figure advanced up to the head of that sort of army, leaving us speechless.

"No... It can't be... Why you, of all people?"