The Webbing Blade

VILLAGES OF ASHES

NOT MUCH transpired in the course of the night. At least, Lou was glad that no packs of cursed wolves, or bears, for that matter, cropped up to cause them grief. Although he had half-expected it.

As he sat there, slumped up against a burned piece of timber with his sword fixed in his fist, he’d thought long and hard about the wolves or bears coming and wondered whether he’d have had the strength to even fight. Even looking to his fellow skullers, to Rut, Murch and Sully, he saw that they were weary, that they’d lost several friends in the fire, not to mention most everyone they knew.

Lou felt the chill of the dawn on his cheeks, and the dew creeping up the leg of his trousers, making the material damp. He zoned in on every sound. Every so often there was a creak followed by a thud as more wood fell back at Endmere, as the fire beat itself into a steady, cool death.

He breathed in that wood smoke on the breeze, and wondered if he could smell human flesh there too.

And just the thought of it turned his stomach yet again.

Like all the others, he mutely went about collecting up the camp, folding the tarpaulins, and getting ready to move out. They had rounded up six horses from the village, including the two he and Sully had ridden to the outpost. The survivors numbered about thirty. Everyone had lost several family members in the fire, not to mention all their possessions. All anyone had now was the ashen clothes on their backs. And, thinking about it, Lou thought that the only clothes he had anymore was the skuller’s uniform he wore.

Murch took charge of the party, leading them across the plains, between the now burned-out torches. No one had been to light them the night before. There simply hadn’t been the manpower to do so. And it might be that they’d never be lit again. Endmere was gone so there was no need for them to keep the darkness back at night any longer.

As they reached the summit of the hill which overlooked Endmere, Lou risked a final glance back over his shoulder. It was a sorry sight. Just a pit of ashes, still smoking away ever so lightly. He thought he could make out the last remnants of The Mocker’s Pit, but who was to know for sure? He would say that much for fire—that it was a great leveller, it sent everything back to its element.

He led the horse with the reins, and looked up to Syre sitting there, on the saddle, holding tightly. Her face was sallow, her eyes almost struck with jaundice, and her skin was forever stained with ash. She didn’t look back over her shoulder. She just kept staring forwards. Still completely and totally transfixed. And she still had that book clutched to her chest. He tried to read the title but had no luck. It was obscured by her fingers. It looked like one of his ma’s old books. She was probably just holding onto it out of shock.

An hour or so later they reached the next village along, Quagsmile. And Lou felt a familiar lurch in his chest as he saw that, just like Endmere, it’d been reduced to a pile of smoking ashes.

Lou watched as Rut rushed away from their party, rampaging down the valley and towards the town of Quagsmile. He remembered him saying that it was his home town. And the same fate had befallen it. As he peeled back his gaze, checked back on Syre to see if she’d been affected, he caught Sully’s eye.

Sully looked to have a new emptiness to his gaze. And he kept his hand hovering over the hilt of his sword, as if they might be on the point of being jumped by cursed animals at any second. His shoulders were rigid, and his cheeks pitted.

Lou found himself struck dumb by the intensity of his appearance.

And then, just like that, Sully gazed back down into the valley. Like the rest of the group staring off after Rut, who was crying out into the early morning sun, screaming out the names of people who could only be his family. Lou felt his heart wrench and he squeezed the reins in his fist.