The Webbing Blade

ENDMERE ABLAZE

SULLY CLACKED his heels, and clicked his tongue, and his horse jostled off down the hill.

Lou just stood there, feeling his fury grow inside him as he watched his hometown, all he’d ever known of comfort and safety, slowly crackling into ash.

Thick black smoke coiled up into the morning sky, dirtying the otherwise cloudless day. He snapped to his senses and kicked his own horse on down the slope, after Sully.

As they got closer, within about fifty yards, Lou felt the heat up against his cheek, the burning warmth there. They drew nearer still and found themselves covered in a billowing cloud of ash.

Lou brought the neck of his tunic up to cover his mouth and nose, and closed his eyes, feeling them tear up in the relentless heat. For some reason he thought of his ma’s kitchen, her cooking there, burning some bread or something else.

He caught ash in his mouth, on his tongue, and he felt his mind get caught in a spin.

Next thing he knew he was tumbling through the air, tossed off the back of his horse. He listened to the hooves pounding against the earth as it fled the smoke, not willing to go with its rider into the inferno.

Lou’s heart pulsed in his mouth, and his tongue tasted thick with blood. His back tingled from where he’d fallen, and a blinding pain struck his leg.

He could hear shouting and screaming nearby, cutting through the crackle of the flames and the crumbling of the wooden structures.

He forced himself up to his feet, and barrelled forward, heading into the heat of the fire, determined that he wouldn’t be afraid.

Not now.

The smoke got even thicker. He held his tunic right up to his eyes, only allowing himself a narrow slit to look out from. He could just about make out the forms of the buildings through the thick smoke. It was impossible to tell where the fire was coming from, just that it had seemingly spread everywhere, ignited everything in its path.

Lou reached out and touched a brick wall. He felt the bricks all warmed up there, beneath his touch, and he used it to guide him.

Up ahead he saw a break in the smoke, and he headed for it. Seconds later he realised that it was the town square. The eye of the firestorm. He stumbled over the cobblestones, feeling the warmth coming up through the soles of his boots.

He saw several bundled figures in the spot, in the middle here. He trudged up to them, his leg still biting with pain. He looked them over, a dozen or so of them, all their faces painted black with ash, their features obscured.

Unreadable.

And then he saw her.

His sis.

Syre.

She sat at the edge of the group, her clothes and exposed skin just as black with ash as the rest of them, her knees tucked up to her chest.

Lou lurched forward, suddenly feeling drunk with all the smoke layering his lungs. He picked his way through the others, checking out their faces. He saw a couple of his neighbours, people he recognised.

But they didn’t seem to see him.

They just stared on ahead, as if hypnotised by the rising smoke. And he knew they’d given up. That they could see no way out of here, no way to escape Endmere. Right now, though, they were the least of Lou’s concern, and he strode up to Syre, crouched down, and then embraced her.

Slowly, he felt her take hold of him in her grip. She squeezed him tight, and then, as Lou rose up from the ground, he took her with him, got her back onto her feet. He stared into her blackened face, feeling his chest almost splitting in two. “Ma? Pa?” Lou said.