After being discovered on the battlefield, Dragon has to run for his life. He finds his old friend, Bear, and a new companion, Rat. With Bear's strength and Rat's brains, they decide to take up the course of freeing the beast people, better known as...
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The place was grim as we moved through the wreckage of what was once a happy town. The stink of burnt buildings and the squawk of birds fighting over something I didn't want to think of made me feel sick.
I know not all of them got away so... where are the bodies? I got my answer as the wind changed its direction and the smell hit us before we got too close to the source. It was the smell of burnt wood and bodies left for a few days under the sun.
We passed the first houses slowly and saw the true extent of the damage done. The horseshoes rang as they hit cobbles coated in a thick layer of soot. Everywhere you looked was a burnt husk or a collapsed building where the people had tried to stop the fire, but had no time to clear the remanence of the building away before being killed or chased off.
There was a larger building near the entrance of the town that looked almost untouched. The building rose above the others making it the only landmark left in the town. The side was scorched where the building next to it had burned but all in all looked fine. It was the only one that looked relatively untouched.
All the other buildings were either gone or damaged. Even the cobbles seemed broken and pulled up around some of the more devastated buildings. Everything that could have been nice about this place was now a brunt to the ground.
Our small party moved on in the unnatural silence of what was once a wealthy small town.
I heard birds up ahead and the soft clink of something metal. The sound made my anger rise like a fire in a dry forest. I knew it was going to grow out of control. The raging inferno of anger burning within me hotter than dragon fire made me sneer at the burnt buildings.
Reina kept covering her nose because even I could smell the death here. We rounded a corner and Reina stopped the waggon. Her eyes were wide as she took in the horror in front of her. There in the centre of town in a space where a market or event might have happened, was a pile of what was once people, now it was a mass of burnt, or rotting flesh and bones. It lay decomposing in a stinking pile of death.
The metal tinking sound I'd heard was a bird pecking at the chestplate of one of those bodies. They had no need to fight over their food and that in itself was sad.
Looking at the disrespect for people's lives made the ember of my anger spiral into a burning rage at humanity. These people deserved to live, and their lives were taken. For what was this town burned? For fun? For money?
"We can't leave them like this!" I shook my head at Eric's angry words.
"We don't have the time or manpower to do anything for them." Kyros said as Reina leaned over the side of the waggon and vomited.
I took the reins from her and turned the waggon east towards the road out of the town, rubbing her back.
Kyros did the same to Eric. The blackened road east was wide enough for the carts to move side by side. Kyros pulled his cart up next to ours. I could see he needed the comfort of us being close as much as Eric did. Eric was clinging to Kyros like he could protect him from the horror behind us. "We head for the meeting place and see if we can get some help to come back to bury them." Kyros said rubbing Eric's arm to comfort him.
