Total pages in book: 204
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
All at once, we round a curve and the forest gives way to a meadowed valley that seems big as Anathos itself. The terrain change is so abrupt, I wonder if I’m dreaming as I look out over the fields that unfurl like carpet to the base of a mountain range far to the southwest. In the moonlight, the long grasses are cast in shades of palest blue, and I know it’s not just because of my veil. In the autumnal daytime, the thread-thin stalks are yellow instead of green, the seasonal change having come upon them. The lunar light, however, is an artist who paints with platinum and steel rays, and along with those delicate blades, the road ahead, and even ourselves, glow in the cool palette of the night sky.
“There.”
Merc points with his broadsword to a settlement cluster halfway between where we are and the first of the snowcapped summits. The farmhouses are too small in number to count as a village, too many to be a single homesteader, and I’m hoping the inhabitants have it in their hearts to welcome strangers.
Given the tenor of things, I doubt it—so I don’t bother to ask if it’s safe to approach. The answer is no.
It’s a better shot than risking demons in the forest, however.
Merc stays at the ready as he urges our tired horse on. He doesn’t ask for a trotting, just as he’s stopped twice at streams to make sure that the chestnut is offered a drink. We all need a rest and some food.
“I don’t want to steal anything else,” I warn.
“We’ll see.”
The farther along we go, the more exposed I feel out in the open. And yet when we were surrounded by trees, I was surely stalked.
Spoiled for choice.
Merc scans the fields, and here in the open, the moon does give the eye something to work with. After I measure that bright star that nearly throws its own shadows, I vacillate between jerking my head over my shoulder to make sure there’s nothing coming up behind us, and fixating on the outcropping of buildings as it grows larger and larger.
And then I only look at what’s coming.
There’s something wrong with the settlement, and as I narrow my eyes to tease out what it is, a chill of warning tickles the back of my neck. And then a strange scent blows our way, the acrid sting in the air making me sneeze.
It’s not until we are halfway across the meadows that I realize it is a proper town. But most of the structures … they’ve been—
“Quite a fire,” Merc remarks.
“Oh … dearest fates…”
So many of the homes and stables have been burned to the ground, only a couple of surviving structures remaining at the far edge of what turns out to be quite a large community. And then it dawns on me.
“Is this Fielkirk?” I whisper. “How can this be?”
“You know the town?”
“I do—I mean, I’ve never been here. But they would come to us on market days with grains and hay on offer. Crafts and clothing, too. What happened?”
I try to recall what the men and women looked like, but of course, I didn’t spend much time on their faces. I do remember thinking that their clothes were just like our own, and so were their accents, and now I wish they’d had a wall to protect them, even if its mortar was breaking down in places.
And a moat. And balas.
Soon enough, our horse’s hooves cross over onto scorched earth, the flames having spread out from the core to the grazing fields on the perimeter. Yet the stink of ash and smoke is not too overpowering. This happened a week ago at least, and there has been plenty of cold rain since. Fates, though, the fire must have been an inferno. The burned carcasses of cattle and sheeplings break my heart, their charred ribs still retaining shape, the ghostly spaces where internal organs had once been like the rafters and chimneys that are the remains of the homes in the distance.
“Who did this?”
Merc offers no answer, but as if he’d have any? He pulls up on the reins, and the chestnut docilely halts. Then, for the first time since we started out, he twists in the saddle, and I’m forced to turn with him or risk getting pushed off by the breadth of his shoulders. In a slow swivel, he pivots all the way back around, like an owl.
“We have to stop, but I don’t like this.”
“Has any part of this journey been enjoyable,” I mutter.
“Oh, I can think of one.”
As I flush under my blue veil, he sets us off once more, and soon we are passing by the first of the burned-out homes. The stony foundation remains in place, charred, but otherwise solid, and the same is true for the hearth and its spine of bricks. Some boards and rafters have survived, although they are burned into ragged points. Personal belongings, however, are almost exclusively reduced to ash, although a cluster of overturned kettles and pots around the fireplace undulate beneath the blanket of soot, the table they were on no match for the inferno they were able to withstand.