They say that when the first stone is thrown it sets off a cycle of violence never ending. But it was different for us. The first stone would be next to the last in an ending conflict. Also the first stone that was thrown was big as a vehicle and the one who threw it, wasn’t human.
The Ancients were a group of primordial beings who only aimed to revitalize our world. Then they went into deep slumber once we took form. Us, the failed beings. Us, the meek. Us, the weak.
The stone that was thrown by the giant humanoid tree came from the stone wall we were mining. They were these huge beings made of barks and leaves and there were hundreds of them fighting squad upon squad of the Black Legion’s soldiers, squashing them underneath their gargantuan weight, flicking them as if they were toys, but they groaned like human beings do, they moaned in pain like human beings do.
There were also these smaller humanoid beings that came out from the enormous trees. They were humans with bark for skin and leaves for hair. They had spear like weapons that could penetrate through the Legion’s armor. They screamed with fury, but they too easily succumbed to the flames that the Legion carried with them.
Up above were these gargantuan eagles, taking control of the Black Legion’s air superiority. They took the Legion’s mechanical planes apart with their enormous beaks. But the eagles were few in number and it was clear that they too were about to get overwhelmed.
The Ancients fought on and the war raged on, but we knew they would lose without us. I felt a familiar feeling inside me. It fixed my broken body, almost curing it away from the aches and faults that it had. It was anger. It was fury. It was redemption. I held my pickaxe tight and rushed towards one of the soldiers. I whacked it into its metal head and blood spurted forth from it. The soldier screamed in agony. I had forgotten that they scream and bleed like we do. My people watched in horror at what I had done. They looked at me with fear.
“Don’t be scared. It’s now, or never!” I shouted as I pulled my pickaxe away from the soldier’s head and raised it into the sky. My throat hurt as I screamed, but I had never felt more alive.
Thousands of us charged with the Treemen. More of us followed to reinforce the lines that the The Ancients created for us. The battle lines were drawn, I felt the same exhilarating feeling when I was in war against the Legion, but this time there was no doubt in my head, I knew that we would win.
In the battlefield I saw a familiar stature. A man that I used to know from the past that was forgotten. It was the Alchemist. I shouted at him and he looked at me with a wistful smile. It was him and it wasn’t him at the same time. His skin had changed, he had the same skin as the treemen, and his eyes were turned green. He was carrying a peculiar pouch on the right side of his body. It was glowing.
He fought his way towards me, shoving any soldier that came to block his way. He had gained superior strength that one shove was enough to push a soldier a couple of meters away, enough to stagger them to the ground so that the treemen or my men could have a go at them.
The smile from the Alchemist didn’t fade when he reached me.
“Power of the gods,” he said, gesturing to what he had become.
“I could see that,” I said. He gave me a pat on the shoulder, telling me that after all that had happened, we were still friends. It’s almost funny to think that there is still friendship to be found in the end of it all. He took something from the pouch he was carrying. It was an orb partly growing green, partly growing sky blue. It reminded me of the color of the trees and the color of the seas we used to have.
“Heart of the oasis,” he remarked while we stared into the orb. It was like a world inside it, thriving and breathing. “We have to get inside the Harvester with this,” he said. “It’s our redemption.”
The battle heated around us and we couldn’t let on. Explosions and fire engulfed the grounds and we were losing men as much as the Legion was. But the Legion was endless in numbers compared to us. More of them kept coming and most of them were protecting the Harvester, as if they knew our intentions. We were low in numbers and we couldn’t keep fighting the battle for long. The eagles that used to be in the skies were now retreating. Air superiority was theirs again. A rain of fire once again came from the skies. Time was against us.
“We must go now!” the Alchemist shouted. The power of the gods does not render him or anyone invulnerable, after all.
I rallied what remaining men we had and the Alchemist gathered the remaining tree men and tree monstrosities he had. We both looked towards the hulking giant that was going to decimate our planet. It was a sea of black between us and it. We knew that we were going to dredge through that abyss even if it’s going to take everything from us.
