It was only on slow days that Raya thought about aiming her bow at an oryx. The tall gazelle like mammals looked so majestic to her, and though many of the hunters from Olston slung them around their shoulders and hauled them home, Raya had never chosen to kill one. She had once found an already slain oryx and it had fetched a decent enough price in the town market. She eyed a distant herd as she briskly trotted across the hilltop looking for distant birds or rodents. As Olston grew with refugee settlers, the lands around had become more and more scarce, and Raya had been forced to venture further and further out in search of the rabbits and pigeons she sought.
It had been two months since Benn’s visit, and she had contemplated visiting him in Vagren, just as a social call. As she had promised Viker, she hadn’t asked him about Novar in those two months, but she had shared lunch a few times with him and Lotha. The two continued their expansions on Olston, almost indefinitely. The trickle of refugees from Elpan had dwindled but there were always people trying to escape the monstrous city of Ith, and there were always a thousand jobs to do around Olston that the workers hired by the Vagren Magician’s Guild helped with.
So Raya continued hunting, as she always had. She crouched, to examine some tracks—probably those of a tancat. The dangerous feline predator was likely following the same herd of oryx that Raya followed, and scaring off all the rest of her prey as well.
Discouraged, she decided to head further east, away from the stream and the animals that followed it. Perhaps at the next savannah oasis, she’d find unguarded rodents. She climbed up a hill and paused. It was one of the higher ones, and she was able to turn and see most of the area around her. North of her, several miles distant loomed North Rock and Old Sun Rock, where Olston was hurriedly completing their business day. Standing there, the world felt so big, like the hills stretched on forever and the nagging sensation that there was a vast world beyond those hills sunk in.
She clambered down into the next valley, kicking up some grass as she strode down too quickly. For Raya, these hills had always been her home and were synonymous for her life. High points and low points, rise and fall. Bustling life and the still quiet of nature. She strode confidently up the next grassy hill with a small smile.
And then a light burst against the distant horizon. It was a cloudy day, but on the eastern horizon was painted a blossoming glow. It didn’t last long, but it wasn’t a quick flash either. The gust of light was not the sun or moon; it was slower than lightning but gone before she could decide what it was. Raya couldn’t determine how far away it was either, just a faint flash of light that was gone as vaguely as it had appeared. She was left to doubt what she had seen.
For a few moments, she stared in that direction. Would the horizon flicker again? It didn’t, and she descended the next slope. She heard a rustle through the tall grey grass and charged up the next hill to spot a rabbit dash toward the underbrush around a nearby cedar with a web of gnarled roots.
A rumble echoed the heavens, and she spun back to the east. There was no light this time, but for five minutes she heard a faint thunder. It was not as loud as the peal of a rainstorm’s strikes; its volume was more comparable to the barking of a distant dog. She could tell it was deafening wherever it had come from, but it had not come from near here. The boom faded more gradually than it had occurred, fading into an echo that reverberated in the bottom of her eardrums.
Raya let the rabbit scurry away and she made for Olston at once. She was further out than she had been most hunts, as the scarcity of her prey drew her further and further into the savannah frontier. The opening in the palisades was only guarded by one man, who told her, “We heard it too. Hemsten led a couple of the others to the market to calm the townsfolk and see what to do.”
“I saw a light too,” Raya said. “Probably fifteen minutes before the thunder.”
“Then I don’t think it was thunder,” the guard muttered.
Raya slung her bow around her shoulder and stepped quickly down the slope from the hilltop wall into the stairway streets of Olston. A lot of people were still at home, working on their trades, but she encountered a few of the townsmen and a few children that were going to see what the buzz was.
“…could be the breaking of a hurricane,” declared Cavthur, standing on a crate on the east side of the market. “We should secure windows and goods, clean up the streets.”
“What if it was an explosion?” asked one of the twenty townspeople gathered. “Something could have happened in Vagren!”
Benn lived in Vagren, Raya thought. As well as slavers, magicians, and plenty of civil unrest.
“An explosion,” Cavthur blurted, unimpressed. “The sound followed the sight by twenty minutes! No manmade blast could reach such a distance.”
“If that’s true, the distance could be over two hundred miles,” Lotha said. Her voice was calm, quiet, but with magic or the respect she commanded from the commoners, it carried over the crowd and was heard easily.
“I’ll go,” Raya offered. “I don’t care how far it was. People could be in need.”
Councillor Santhee was there too. Her black skirts were brushed by the wind, but she looked serene otherwise. She blinked and said, “We can’t have townspeople running off into a hurricane or a war, whatever happened.”
“Then organize a company for it,” Lotha said.
“I’ve got family in Vagren,” said one of the carpenters that had always lived down the street from Raya. “I want to know if they’re in danger.”
“That’s fair enough,” Santhee said. “The Council will meet at once to discuss how to proceed. We’ll need to organize a proper outing, I think. Cavthur, shall we?”
The old man shrugged and gently stepped down from the crate he had claimed. They brushed past Raya, then paused. “Everyone go home,” Cavthur barked. “We’ll call on those we need. Hemsten, get the other senior guards to join us.” Raya’s guard friend bowed, and strode in the opposite direction to comply with the order.
Raya shook her head. The sky was darker now, and she thought it might rain. Her parents must have been beside themselves, after both the strange spectacle on the horizon and the resulting commotion in the town. She hurried home, to present herself unharmed and tell them what she had seen.
Later, Hemsten arrived to ask Raya to join the group that the Council had selected. They wouldn’t be leaving until the next day, but they would seek out the source of the blast in the distance.