The generals came to Solkh and found the entire province put to fire and sword. There was nothing left but the scorched earth. Every man's creation was destroyed or burned down. Even the blooming gardens were burned, and the tilled fields trampled down. Only the villages farthest from the GreatForest were spared, but utterly deserted. The villagers fled every which way. There was plenty of those wretched souls with bundles of their poor belongings on the road to Solkh. They could explain nothing, only cried and moaned,
"Demons! God's wrath! Forest ghosts!"
"Could it be a sorcerer at work, or even a whole band of them?" Matholwy mused.
Ashurran shook her head.
"Nay, they kill with cold steel, not with sorcery. Those are creatures of flesh and blood. It means I will make them pay when I see them within a bowshot."
The deeper they rode into the ravaged land, the darker the soldiers' faces became. They had seen a great deal of bloodshed in their lifetime, yet a slaughter of such scale was unheard of. It was the custom of every civilized land to wage war far from human dwellings, however humble, in an open field. Soldiers had never harmed civilians, no more than stealing a chicken, seducing young folks or talking them into joining the army. And many of the Kiarany soldiers had relatives and friends in Solkh. God only knew, what had happened to them!
Everywhere they looked they saw ashes and corpses, like in the Neesga villages.
"No human could do it," the soldiers said.
"True, no human hand has forged those blades," Ashurran said, looking at the corpses. "They cut wood like paper, and steel and stone, like wood. Their arrows strike the shield and its bearer through and through. Has anyone ever seen an arrow like that?" She cut an arrowhead in the likeness of a willow leaf out of the wall. It was made of shimmering metal resembling silver, but a great deal firmer.
Matholwy just frowned silently, for he had no answers.
The soldiers rummaged through the ruins looking for survivors, but found none. The attackers seemed to sense their victims, even if those tried to hide. They never failed to deliver the final blow. Those who hadn't been killed with weapons, died in a fire.
There were many among the citizens of Solkh who had weapons and skill to wield them. They fought the attackers fiercely, defending their homes to their last breath. Apparently there should have been casualties among the attackers. Yet if they were, the attackers took their dead with them.
From afar Ashurran saw the smoking ruins of The Drunken Bear inn. As if in mockery, its sign was still intact, squeaking pitifully under the bursts of hot wind.
She felt as if her heart was squeezed by a heavy steel gauntlet with spikes. There was no hope, yet she still hoped. Maybe Keanmair and Elatha had time to run away. Or even better, they decided to close the inn and go visit some relatives long before the attack...
She dismounted slowly and came closer. Under the charred remnants of the collapsed roof she saw one lock of the golden hair threaded with silver. It was the only thing by which Keanmair's body could be identified, and by her shield and javelin also. Elatha lay beside her, still holding his bow and quiver.
Ashurran's gaze became so dark and deadly, her countenance so terrible, no one dared to approach her. She stood there for a long time, looking at the bodies.
At length Ashurran whispered,
"I swear to avenge you, my beloved, my golden lioness of a woman. Until my last breath I will remember your smile, which was brighter and warmer than the sun itself."
She mounted and rode further in grief and silence.
Suddenly a quiet moan was heard from a burnt-out ruin of a house. As it turned out, there was a boy hiding in the cellar under the floor. He was covered with burns, barely alive from thirst, but alive.
"Make him able to talk," Ashurran ordered the army surgeon and threw a purse of gold to him.
When the boy started talking, his speech was delirious and incoherent. He raved about his murdered father and brothers, about ghosts covered with green scales. The ghosts' faces were painted black and brown, they were quick and strong like beasts and equally merciless.
"They are everywhere, everywhere! They hide in the fog, spring out of the ground! They are quicker than a flash, quicker than anything!"
"Tell me where they came from!" Ashurran demanded.
"From the GreatForest..." the boy whispered and lost consciousness.
Ashurran ordered to take him someplace safe and tend to him. Also she was to be notified immediately if he were to say anything more.
The soldiers searched the ruins and found the whole family dead. They were all armed, including the boy's eldest sister, his mother and his sisters-in-law. They all fought valiantly and were able to draw the attackers' attention away from the boy.
"They are heroes, and we have no time even to bury them!" Matholwy said with bitter regret.
The eldest brother had a heavy axe in his hand, and its blade bore the traces of blood.
"No doubt it's the enemy's blood!" Ashurran said. "They can be wounded. They are not ghosts!"
She picked a severed hand off the ground. The hand still had a glove on which was made of strangest fabric: fine and delicate like silk, with intricate patterns and silver threads no thicker than gossamer woven into them. The hand itself was narrow and pale, with long delicate fingers. It resembled the hand of a very slender youth. Its skin was white and smooth, without a single hair or birthmark. It seemed to glow slightly.
"How strange," Ashurran observed. "The hand appears to be human and inhuman at the same time. Yet this is proof that those forest demons can be maimed and probably even killed. We should decide what to do next. I'm of a mind to cut off more hands, or rather heads!"
Matholwy asked the opinions of his officers. Few of them mentioned sending for reinforcements. Most of them were inflamed with desire to fight.
"We should teach those demons a lesson in steel!" they said as one man.
And the army prepared for marching into the GreatForest.
YOU ARE READING
Gates to Glory: Epic Fantasy Adventure Tale (Ashurran #1)
Adventure[FINISHED]She was born in a tribe of fierce female warriors. Swords and spears have been her toys from the cradle. She has the only path before her, to become the tribe chief after her mother. Yet Ashurran dreams of strange lands, of bigger battles...
