Faerunners

Ashes

The world was shattered. Rubbled filled the streets, lying in blackened heaps. Tallis lost his hold on the spell and pulled himself to his feet, brushing the dust and ash from his clothes, and stumbling on the loose rubble at his feet. A grim haze hung over the city, turning midday to grey twilight. The city had been beaten flat, like it had been hammered by a vengeful giant. The jagged skyline had been replaced by a looming black mushroom cloud.

A dry cough rolled through him, sending sharp stabs of pain jabbing through his ribs. The air in the city was like trying to breathe sand. He took a step. A jolt of searing pain lanced up his leg, spilling him to the ground. He coughed again and crawled down the side of the burnt pile of masonry. Jagged stones tore at him but he didn’t care. The pain barely registered as a dull buzz compared to the searing agony in his leg. He fell to the street with a groan and rolled to his back. This was it. He was going to die here under this dead grey sky.

That was fine.

He’d been dead before.

There was no pain in the land of death.

That would be nice.

The pile of debris next to him moaned. It sounded like it was begging for help. One more job to do. He sighed and stood up, doing his best to keep his weight off his injured leg, and dug through the sharp stone. It was hot and still smoldering. Wincing, he tore through the heap. Gods, nothing made sense. His mind felt as shattered and disjointed as his body. He’d put his brain back together later. Just as soon as he was finished taking this heap of debris apart.

Why was he doing that again?

It didn’t matter. He moved like a machine, lifting shards of stone, wood and glass tirelessly. His hands tore to bloody shreds. His muscles cramped. He shifted his weight. A lance of white fire tore through him and he fell again. A hand dug its way out of the rubble and grabbed his. There was one brief moment of sweet, tender contact. Warm and comforting. And then the hand fell limp.

Dead.

He shoved himself away from the burning heap, the shattered corpse, and crawled down the dust choked street.

Where was he going?

Did it even matter?

A changeling fought their way out of the broken corpse of a bank. They were pinned beneath a slab of steel. Tallis found the strength to stand again. He pulled a length of charred wood from a tangle of blackened steel and wedged it under the slab. He bore down on it, levering the slab off of the changeling. They crawled free.

He wobbled, his leg threatening to give out again. The changeling slipped under his arm and held him up, carrying him through the devastation. They wandered aimlessly, drifting deeper into the ruined city. The changeling gave one last shuddering cough, spat a thick wad of blood onto the soot smeared cobblestones and fell.

Dead.

Tallis slipped through the dead city. The closer he drew to the center of the blast the worse it got. The ground here was flat. Not studded with the jagged crags of shattered buildings, not dotted with ash painted chunks of broken stone, just flat. Black and flat and dead. Blasted clean of all life and hope by a terrible fury. He trudged onwards, sinking to his ankles in the ash.Something rolled under his ankle and a row of teeth broke the grainy surface of the ashfield.

He’d tripped on a jawbone.

Gods, had anything survived? If the city was dead, why had he lived?

His legs refused to carry him any further and he sank into the black earth, lying down amongst the dead and waiting for the end. A bird circled overhead.