“How are our odds, Kizmatic?” the first elf asked.

Kizmatic was leaning over the lip of the roof. “Not great. There are a lot more than we thought.”

“Don’t downplay the problem,” Delrunis said as he got back up to the roof. Rory noticed that his entire left leg was covered in dark blood. His limp confirmed it wasn’t monstrous blood. “We’re going to be annihilated in moments if we try to fight that entire horde at once. Heads torn off, limbs knotted together, entrails used to hang us to—”

“Yes, yes.” The first elf interrupted the gory description, looking nervously at Rory and his group. “Apologies. Delrunis likes to doom speak. I am Esrahir. Proper introductions might have been difficult before, but now that we have some time before imminent death, I thought I would get it out of the way.” He looked over them all. “I hope none of you are hurt.”

“Doesn’t matter if we are or aren’t if we’re all going to die soon anyway, does it?” Allen asked.

“I like this one,” Delrunis said. “Can I keep it?”

Allen stared at the old elf.

“No one’s dying, Allen,” Rory said. “We’ll find a way out of this mess.”

“Where are so many of them coming from?” Trish asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” the first elf said. “All that we need to decide upon now is where we go from here. This position is not defensible.”

Viv pointed over the array of corpses in the parking lot. “Our home lies in the other direction.”

“To the west? That direction is impossible.”

“Why impossible?”

“They came from the west. It wouldn’t be incorrect to assume they have buried the roads from here to your base with monsters upon monsters. Travelling in that direction now would be suicidal.”

As if to prove his point, the first of the monsters burst into the parking lot. Viv and Trish did their best to protect the pickup, and as the Otherworlders caught on that it was their main mode of transportation, they joined in as well. Dreadraptors fell, Emberteeth flames sputtered out, and the few Wilders in the midst were torn apart by their combined might.

But they had made little to no progress against the main horde of the monsters. They were continuing to send more and more against Rory’s group and the Otherworlders, unheeding of how many of them fell in the attempt.

Even worse, the monsters were bearing down on them. One of the elves fell to an Emberteeth that jumped right on top of him. He cried out as he was crushed and then burned, though he was able to take out the Emberteeth with him. The dwarf with the explosive-shot crossbow had fallen unconscious at the rear. Kizmatic had suffered several minor wounds from a Dreadraptor gaggle.

“What do you suggest, then?” Viv asked after blasting a Rockback with a bolt of lightning.

Esrahir looked around as he took the rest of his party in. Kizmatic killed another Dreadraptor—dwarf seemed to have a vendetta against the birds—and stepped forward.

“We can head over to Cloud Eight,” he said. “That will be our best option now.”

“Are you sure they’ll accept us?” Esrahir asked.

“I didn’t say our best option was something to look forward to.”

Someone screamed. Rory’s head was jerked to Trish where she was attempting to free another dwarf who had been thrown to the ground by a serpent biting down on his leg. Even with Allen’s help, she couldn’t pull the serpent off. Her axe swings weren’t doing enough damage.

Rory was about to rush forward to help, as was Viv who had nearly disappeared with her teleportation, but then Arie and her group rushed forward. They hacked into the serpent with their claws and teeth, no less savage than the monsters attacking them.

But it worked. They freed the dwarf and pulled him farther into the roof. He might have been severely injured, but he was alive. That’s what really mattered.

“We need to go,” Esrahir said. “Can your vehicle hold some of us?”

Rory nodded. “We’ll have to. There’s no choice.” He turned to the others. “Alright, we’re heading out. Follow the Otherworlders’ lead.”

It was perhaps a bit of a troubling decision to follow people who could just as easily turn on them, but the Otherworlders had been trustworthy so far. They had saved Rory’s group. Besides, it wasn’t like Rory’s group had too much of a choice.

They made it downstairs without much mishap. Hauling in the injured, including one unconscious dwarf, proved to be less troublesome than they had expected.

As soon as they disappeared from the roof, the noises outside faded. The monsters might have been confused. Rory was hoping they’d remain that way until they had reached the truck and had taken off, but their assailants attacked as soon as they made it to the ground floor.

Rory wasn’t one for fighting in the dark, and he did his best to ignore the chaos as he made his way to the truck. Dreadraptors burst through the windows only to be shot down. Rockbacks besieged the walls, making the whole place shudder. Fires burst in as Emberteeth attacked from a distance.

Thankfully, the others were fine with the madness. In fact, some of the Otherworlders seemed to thrive on the chaos. Several different Sigils flashed, their different lights bursting and popping everywhere. A multicoloured pandemonium had taken over the area.

“Get on,” Rory shouted as soon as he saw the truck. “Just pile in how you can, but make sure whoever gets the wheel knows how to drive.”

He had no idea how much of that any of them heard over the chaos. Oh well. As long as they got the truck started, they’d be fine.

Rory’s idea of using the Frozen Lightning traps to keep the pickup safe had worked. He had already seen proof of its efficacy from the roof, but now that he had reached up close, he could see that the various monsters caught in the ice and paralyzed by the lightning. He was thankful he had retained enough of his wits in the midst of the chaos to arrange the traps in such a way that they still had space to drive the truck out.

They bundled into the truck, not caring who ended up where. The only thing they took care of was making sure the injured were given some space on the back of the truck. It was a tight squeeze all told, but at least the elves said they’d be fine running alongside it.

Well, running was being generous. They’d be letting their mechanical suits do the running.

Of course, the monsters weren’t simply waiting patiently for them to load themselves onto the truck. Most of the others were quite busy fending them off while the rest of them go on the truck. After throwing a few hopefully helpful icy bolts, Rory was squeezed between Arie and Trish.

“Go, go, go,” Viv yelled when most of them were in, almost into Allen’s ear.

He grimaced, then thumped his foot on the accelerator. The truck’s engine rumbled loudly like a monster was trying to burst out from under the bonnet. Then, with a sudden jerk, it shot forward.

“Which way?” Allen shrieked. “I don’t know the direction!”

There was a thud above their heads. Kizmatic’s head popped up from above, upside down as he stared at them through the windshield. “I know the way.” His voice was muffled. “It’s not far from here. Just follow my lead.”

He started yelling directions while chopping at any monsters that got within the range of his axe swings. Allen looked stressed out of his mind. Rory figured none of them looked any better. The entire situation was nuts.

Thankfully, Allen drove the truck fast enough to start leaving the monsters behind. It wasn’t a smooth ride by any means. The truck trundled over the road, occasionally scratching past walls and colliding with lampposts, but their forward journey was never impeded. The slower Dreadraptors and Emberteeth screeched in frustration in their wake.

“We’re not far now,” Kizmatic called after about fifteen minutes of frantic driving.

“Is that it?” Trish asked.

She had thrown her head forward nearly against the windshield hands pressed down on the dashboard. Her positioning was less borne off curiosity and more because there was next to no space inside the pickup. Rory could barely breathe with everyone they had stuffed in.

But he did manage to spot what Trish was staring at. The sight made whim momentarily forget that he was going to be crushed to suffocating death if the truck kept jostling too much.

He had been wondering why the dwarf had called their destination Cloud Eight. It was apparent, now, that it was literally a cloud. A misshapen, mountainous blob of fluffy grey-white towered over the nearby buildings. Occasional rumbles of thunder pealed from the mass, and flashes of lightning lit up sections here and there at random.

“Why is there a cloud on the ground?” Rory gasped out from his squeezed position.

“We mine it.” A shriek sounded behind them as Kizmatic got yet another Dreadraptor, then yelled in triumph. “Anyway, we’ll find more dwarves there. They should be able to help.”

“Why didn’t you go there yet?” Viv asked.

“The situation is complicated,” Esrahir said. “More fraught than you realize.”

“Oh, I think we know our fair share of fraught.”

Esrahir continued as though he hadn’t heard Viv’s mutter, which was entirely possible considering he was outside the van. “Military can’t simply show up at a civic camp’s doorstep and beg for help, though I think this situation qualifies as an exceptional emergency. Besides, we didn’t have a vehicle to transport our injured.”

Kizmatic thumped his fist on the truck’s roof. “Don’t imply us dwarves are injured.”

“That wasn’t what I meant.”

“But to be fair,” Trish said. “You don’t have mech suits that can help you travel faster than this truck.”

“Shut it you,” Kizmatic said with a thump.

They reached the cloud before long. Allen took several more twists and turns, some that seemed entirely meaningless. He complained about it too, but Kizmatic said it was all part of shaking the monsters off their tail. Apparently, the dwarves would appreciate it if they kept their monstrous company to a minimum.

“Who goes there?” a loud voice boomed out from the gloom of the night.

“Slow down the truck and allow me to handle this,” Kizmatic told the rest of them.

He stepped forward so that the tips of his boots could be seen just past the lip of the truck’s roof. While he got ready to negotiate and Allen decreased the truck’s speed for the first time since starting on the journey—apart from the insane twists and turns—the elves continued to safeguard them against any monsters stupid enough to come too close.

“We’re with the Coalition,” Kizmatic yelled out. He had raised his voice as well, its boom thrumming across Rory’s eardrums. “Third Company, Fifth Battalion, Twelfth Squad. Led by Captain Esrahir. We posit Code Lifelong.”

“Code Lifelong?” Viv asked.

“It’s to allow us any assistance we require immediately and ask questions afterwards,” another dwarf said. “Helps to not get caught up in bureaucracy.”

“What do you seek?” the same booming voice asked.

“Entry to Cloud Eight,” Kizmatic replied. “We are being pursued by a vicious troop of monsters and we need a safe haven from them.”

“Approach then, but be wary of consequences if your cause proves false and your intention is harmful.”

“Speed up, truck-herder,” Kizmatic said.

“Did he really just call me a truck-herder?” Allen asked, then pressed down on the pickup’s accelerator.

“He did.” Trish laughed. “It’s your official title now, right, Rory?”

“Sure,” Rory gasped out from where he was being slowly suffocated between her and Arie.

In the madness of the chase and the rush of the drive, Rory hadn’t realized that their pursuit had finally fallen off. There were no more monsters behind them. At least, they weren’t close enough to see or hear.

Relieved as Rory was to have successfully escaped, it was soon drowned out by the awe of seeing a cloud so close. It had really come down to settle on the town itself, covering the buildings in its path. There was a hole at the bottom, a tunnel that Allen was instructed to drive through.

Soon enough, they had passed into an actual cloud, the darkness momentarily closing in around them.