The city shrank behind him, swallowed by the haze and the distance.
He was out. He had made it.
Reidar didn't look back. He kept the raven flying low, skimming the rough area of the badlands. The fear of being caught began to recede but was actually replaced by the more persistent anxiety of being stranded.
He had escaped the Ignis and the flying monster, but he was still on an alien planet, and his only way home was a woman who wanted him dead.
If he didn't reach her fast, she might complete the portal and leave him stranded on this planet.
Reidar looked down at the barren landscape below, noticing that the badlands stretched in every direction with no trees, no water, and no signs of life—just ash and stone and the plumes of smoke rising from fissures in the ground.
He had put about twenty miles between himself and the ruined city.
