"I might die…but my children will live! The time has come!"
A brief moment of silence followed the woman's words, and after that…all of those condemned to death nearby took up these chants, throwing them into the air with much more strength and vigor than that which had fuelled their desperate cries before.
They all echoed in Daneel's mind, but all of his attention was fixed on the lady who seemed to be almost withering in front of his eyes after speaking her message. It seemed like an illusion, at first, as he saw her skin age visibly in front of his eyes, then show the bones underneath while an hour of decay sprung up about her, turning her into an old woman in a second from the one in her prime that she had been until now. Her voice was even more hoarse, now, but she still used it to whisper one last thing.
"Go! If they come…you will die! They are always listening…so they'll be here soon! RUN!"
She shouted the last word so loudly that for a second, it drowned out everything around him. It spurred him into motion, making him take a few steps back as the message still reverberated in his mind, and then, as his eyes darted left and right, all of those on the stakes also bellowed that word, flung it at him, bellowed it as if they wished it to happen with all their might, and so, Daneel ran.
He looked back just before he was out of sight of the one who had spoken to him. She was dead, now, and he saw that his eyes hadn't been playing tricks on him before: she really was an old woman, which meant that she had used a spell or some other method to use up her age in return for the burst of strength that had allowed her to pass him the message.
'Of this world, but not? But…that fits me! No! I must have it wrong! I should get out of here, first, before whoever she was speaking about come down on me!'
A few were still chanting the message the woman had given, so everywhere he went, some would let everyone know why it was important for him to leave, and the others would keep urging him on, making him hasten as much as possible. He even toyed with the idea of absorbing a crystal or two, but as he saw no hint of anyone arriving, yet, he just kept running, adopting a steady, yet fast pace that he could maintain.
There were many more being punished than he had thought, at first. On the way, he passed a place where the stakes also had rows to them, where some had just skeletons hanging from them while others had people who looked like they had just been placed there. He wondered whether he would come face-to-face with whoever was putting all these people here, but no matter where he went, all that he was greeted by were more people being punished, and more desperate shouts that grew ever louder.
The aura of oppression also seemed to grow with each step that he took. He didn't know whether it was because he was being affected by all the death and suffering he was seeing, or whether the spell had a property where it would grow stronger the more one fought back against it. He had seen spells like that and even made a few similar ones, but he was unsure whether such sophistication was possible in outlying islands like these. Whatever the truth was, he found his mind constantly intruded by thoughts even darker than those that had come before, and he had to put in more and more effort to keep them at bay.
As he fought against them, he marveled at the hope that had come to life in all those he was passing. They didn't have the strength of his consciousness, which could be called his soul, that had been allowed to grow and be nourished by power and experience both, but still, they found the might to care for him and send him onward. It was commendable…but more and more, Daneel felt puzzled as to how so many could be on the fringe of the island, dying in this manner.
From his estimations, if the boundary of the entire place was the same, that the number of those dying or dead was easily the same as the population of the entire town of Graiton. From the system's estimates, the island wasn't even that much bigger than the one he had just left, so what was happening here?
It seemed that he would have to find the answer another day as he finally saw the top of a teleportation matrix peeking out behind a boulder a few hundred meters away from him. The terrain had all been as flat as that surrounding Graiton, but there had also been quite a few rock formations on the way onto which he had had to scramble as he hadn't wanted to slow down his pace. There was just one last obstruction remaining, and then, he would be able to leave…and think about what had happened here.
Only…as soon as Daneel passed the boulder, he lurched to a halt as forty men, women and children appeared in front of him all of a sudden, their legs and hands chained, their desultory eyes looking at the ground but a few already snapping up as the cries of those staked nearby began to reach them.
Daneel's eyes passed over them…and stopped when he found the vultures that the woman had been talking about.
They seemed to belong to a species that he had never seen before. They had large wings, each as big as a fully grown man, and they were each over 7 feet tall, with muscled bodies and spears at the ready. Their heads were that of vultures, with curved, pointed beaks and beady eyes that shone with cruelty. Only two of them were present; before Daneel passed the boulders, they had apparently been taking down the bodies hanging on the stakes in front of him, but now, they whirled in his direction and squawked something he didn't understand.
For a tense moment, Daneel glanced between them and the crystal formation. The good thing was that they were at least half a kilometer away, while the matrix was just a hundred meters to his left. He chose the latter, and at a mad dash, he flung himself toward it.
As soon as he did so, the sound of those mighty wings beating the air was heard, and Daneel wondered whether he would be impaled by those weapons before he could even think about doing anything. But then, in a twist that made mind go blank again, the forty slaves all screamed something unintelligible…and jumped at their captors, surprising even them with a ferocity that had appeared out of nowhere in their scrawny bodies.
They had been about to be put upon the stakes, themselves, so they had been quite close by. Even those that were a few meters away reached the vultures before they could go anywhere. They used each and every weapon at their disposal. They used their chains, their hands, their feet, and even their teeth to bite and claw at the feathered bodies of the two, and as their startled squawks emanated in the air, Daneel finally understood what they were shouting.
"He comes! He comes! Go! Spread the word!"
"Go!"
"All must know! Spread the word!"
It was by sheer instinct alone that Daneel still kept going towards the matrix, even though his mind was frozen while he watched so many give up their lives just so that someone they had never met in their life would leave and pass on a message. By the time he reached the matrix, the vultures had recovered and even begun to kill those assaulting them with the ease of a child stepping on ants, but even as they died one by one, wild smiles remained on their faces and they still mouthed the chants as their last breath left them.
He had to be pushed by the system to touch one of the crystals to the matrix. It glowed a pleasant emerald, this time, and as one of the vultures finally dislodged itself and began to fly in his direction, he reluctantly stepped forth.
His vision flashed once before descending into darkness.
Before the teleportation took him away, the last thing he saw was their bleeding bodies…and their dying shouts that rent the air one last time before they traveled into the great beyond.
"He comes.."
"He comes…"
"He comes…."
Before the teleportation took him away, the last thing he saw was their bleeding bodies…and their dying shouts that rent the air one last time before they traveled into the great beyond.
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