Some wag called them the "dogs of war", but the dogs were really the green gods. The red gods, who’s hands shot fire, were the more terrible of the two.

They aren’t real gods, of course — they are just creatures controlled by the overlords, which are more like real gods. But they might as well be gods.

I remember the last run. I was 18, a thoughtless urban child living in slums built on the ruins of a city that stretched for many miles, dreaming of being a fighter, and wondering what team I would be on.

Everyone was homeless. You slept where the night found you, in whatever shelter you could find. We trapped small mammals and birds, but mostly lived on the fruits of the food trees which grew everywhere in the ruins — the food trees were why people stayed in the city, actually, because for some reason they wouldn’t grow very far outside the city. Old trees could be enormous — trunks up to 5 meters in diameter, and 50 meters high, thickly covered with dense brush-like branches.

The North edge of the city ended in cliffs no one could climb; to the west and south was the Edge, a vertical embankment of dirt and rock, 50 feet down at least. No one went east — that’s where the dogs came from. Below the southern scarp was a large river, flowing west to the distant sea.

By chance I was near the southern scarp when the dogs were released. I remember first noticing smoke coming from the east, then panicked people running, running west through the ruins looking for a place to hide.

I started running, too, chasing someone who knew the streets and buildings very well. Looking back I could see flickers of flame and green, as the tireless dogs and their firegod masters chased us, killing everyone they got close to. Some people were fried by a long finger of flame, but most were simply run down and ripped apart by the green dogs.

I veered to the southern scarp, death close behind, in an area marked by many old food trees, with roots and branches extending into space over a tangled brushy riverbank 50 feet below, looking for a possible hiding place. Perhaps I could crawl out over low moss covered giant roots, and work my way back under the edge in a tangled mass of roots.

But I was seen. The dogs couldn’t reach me as I scrambled frantically through the roots, but a finger of flame burned through above me, and the roots gave way. I fell down into the brush below.

It was a long fall, and I was unconscious for a time. When I woke it was dark. I was scratched and bruised, my leg hurt terribly, and my head hurt as well. But I was alive.

TBC