Kared's Children - Chapter 5

Nodding, Karec shrugged. "What we know is what’s been said. The city was destroyed. No one survived. Reports are that a Kagatje, a red, destroyed it all in moments."

"Didn’t Rowan have defenses?" Shaerden asked.

"None that would have been able to stop such a creature," Withegood said.

"In times past," one of the men said, a pudgy one next to Morgan, "All the major cities of Kared had defenses they could use against the Kagatje." His hair was black as jet, but laced with grey, oiled. Like the others, he wore a robe, tan, with a cursive black T stitched on its left breast.

"That’s true, Oscar," Morgan said. "How effective they were was another story."

"As Historian, you’d know," Karec said. "But at least they had them."

"Catapults, mostly," Morgan said.

"The Kagatje restraint," Benjamin said. "Their combat rituals-these, probably more than anything else, are what kept your cities safe."

Morgan assented. "I wouldn’t know about their rituals. My studies showed them to be a vicious, brutal opponent. They attacked where they wanted and when they wanted, seemingly without order, without pattern."

"They had patterns," Benjamin said. "The Kagatje always act in patterns. They may just be too complex for us to understand."

"That could be," Morgan said. "I remember thinking once-"

"Perhaps you two could save that conversation for another time," Karec interrupted. "Unless this one attack would give you insight into where they’d strike next?"

"If there is to be a next time," Earl said.

"I don’t see why there wouldn’t be," Archibald said.

"Unfortunately," Morgan said. "There are only a few targets left-"

He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to.

They all considered somberly what he hadn’t said.

"You’d know better than any of us," Karec said to Morgan at last. "Perhaps after our meeting here concludes, you and Benjamin can discuss your studies."

"The point is," Withegood said, "We don’t know if these Kagatje really attacked the city or not. Until today most of us probably didn’t even think they existed any longer."

"They exist," Claire said.

They all looked at her. She didn’t elaborate.

After a moment, a sad, wide-faced Council-member spoke. "The devastation that Karec described could hardly have been caused by anything less than a procession of catapults."

"That’s true, Tairp," Archibald said.

"Since no one reported seeing that procession, I’m inclined to believe the stories we’re being told," Tairp said.

"The city had tens of thousands of people," said the member next to Tairp. He was bald and his head shone red in the chamber’s light. "Stone buildings five stories tall. The walls themselves, three stories. All of that reduced to rubble? With no survivors? In moments? That was either a highly-trained army with fantastic weapons-or a monster! Or several monsters!"

"The reports say only one, Jenker," Karec said.

"But why would that one have attacked us?" Oscar asked. He ran a hand through his hair. "After all this time?"