The war was over. Oath City still stood, but it was utterly changed.
The great fires across the city had been extinguished by the rain. The streets were piled with rubble and broken timber, collapsed beams lying crisscross over the ruins, dotted everywhere with the corpses of both sides.
Two soldiers were pushing a handcart along the shattered street, the cart piled high with human corpses.
They stopped beside one body.
The corpse lay face-down in a heap of Demon Race remains, his armor shattered in several places, the blood long since dried.
The two turned him over, revealing a face still frozen in anger.
"Ah, it's the captain of Squad Seven."
"That foul-mouthed guy?" The other soldier lowered his head, looking at the ring of Demon Race corpses around them. "Guess he volunteered to cover the retreat into the inner city… Hell of a guy."
Neither of their voices rose much. On the way here they had already lifted several bodies like this; they'd gone numb.
