A few days before Raya and her companions reached Ellakar they began to see smoke on the horizon, and on one morning, ash fell on their makeshift camp. They awoke under a dusting of the horrid stuff and began coughing and trying to clean themselves off to little avail. Smudged and tired, they continued on their way. Lotha said, “This isn’t good,” and they all knew it in their sinking stomachs to be true.
There was no Ellakar, they soon realized. They travelled through lands of blasted down trees and the remnants sites of fire. They saw a farm in the distance, still pouring its own trail of smoke heavenward while in the distance ahead loomed an expanse of barren grey. They sought out the farm to see if anyone needed their help, but found only one human, a man who had died to the fire. Chilled, they were forced to camp near that farm until the morning came, but only a little of the sun could breach the ashen skies that continued depositing a bleak snow upon them.
On the 22nd, they reached the crater. That morning, they passed a few farms and outlying properties that had survived the cataclysm, though most of the structures unprotected by the curves of the land and jutting hills of rock had been completely flattened by the intensity of the explosion. They found families huddled together, soothing crying babes or coughing from all the filth they had inhaled, causing their loved ones to weep more.
“Why are you here?” asked Hemsten. “Head west, out of this! You will find inns along the Eremes River or homes in Vagren.”
“There are slavers in Vagren,” said one woman, with only half of her hair unburned. “Which is better, living in cinders or in servitude so harsh?”
“Surely the latter,” Lotha said.
Raya shook her head. “Go to Olston,” she said, “A village beyond Vagren. Refugees already settle there and so may you.” Her companions gave her a raised eyebrow, Lotha especially. Olston was only surviving on the goodwill donations of her magician’s guild and sending further refugees would cost them more. But Raya saw only the scorched lands around Ellakar, the fiery trails through the once beautiful woodland, and the dying people trying to survive here.
They stopped to eat a small lunch, no more than a snack, in what appeared to be an evaporated and de-roofed bathhouse. “There used to be towers here, and mansions four storeys tall,” Lotha told them, with red rimmed eyes. “I remember it well.” They must have entered the city of Ellakar proper, a sprawling ruin with ash a foot deep and grotesque human remnants that Raya was forced to look away from. Benn lost his stomach—thankfully before they had stopped to eat fresh food. The wind picked up and, as they set off from the abandoned bathhouse, their group at last glimpsed the heart of the disaster.
A dark grey mount loomed above the decimated city, billowing out more black smoke than Raya had ever seen. Its slopes were smooth and cold looking, despite the harsh climate it had created. The volcano shadowed the remnants of Ellakar with its cloud of embers. Then the clouds of smoke and dust blocked out the deathly hill from view once more. Lotha commented once more: “There was no mountain there,” she said. “That volcano rose where there should have been none. Someone summoned it here.”
“What?” Hemsten demanded, stopping the group. “Summoned it?” Raya’s friend seemed tense.
Lotha nodded. “Those refugees earlier called it Mount Lukar, named after a seer who predicted it some hundred years ago. There has never been a Lukar Mountain before. I think it was caused, incited, by magic.”
Dondar put his hand on his sword and got a stare from Sten. “Magic like the magician’s guild?” he asked quietly. It was surprising to Raya how strong his soft words carried in the midst of the eerie chaos that surrounded them.
“No,” Lotha said, looking Dondar in the eye. “This requires much more powerful magic than anyone in my circles… I’d have to think about who. And what possible reason could there be for a why?”
“I’ve never trusted people like—”
“Dondar, enough,” Hemsten said, and Dondar released his sword, ashamed of his actions.
Another voice called out of the fog: “Deliver your packs to the withered tree and we’ll let you leave with your lives!”
As suddenly as Dondar had released its blade, Sten had drawn his. Erek followed, and Dondar last. Belatedly, Benn drew a long knife from his belt. Raya stood in the midst of a lot of weapons—what was happening?
Four men appeared out of the fog ahead of them, one leaning against the remaining bark of a burned willow tree in the middle of a crossroad street and brandishing a rusty silver sword. The others wielded clubs or knives, while the largest of them simply clamped his fists into hefty hammers and set his bearded jaw with a grunt. Erek muttered, “More behind,” and they turned to look back. Two more, both wielding proper swords, were approaching at a cautious pace.
“Back into your streets, bandits,” Hemsten called, “Or we’ll fight you. No one is leaving here with our packs, save us.”
“Wrong answer,” sneered the man by the tree, a half-bald brigand with a patchy black beard. “Get ‘em.”
“Raya, arrows,” Lotha snapped, and Raya’s bow slid off her shoulder with her scarcely realizing what she was doing. She wouldn’t kill humans, but she wouldn’t let these men take their food or hurt her friends.
With a wordless roar, the largest man charged forward and slammed bodily into Dondar, the largest of Raya’s companions, the two stumbled back as the swordsman spun to catch his balance and face his burly attacker. The bandit leader clashed swords with Hemsten, while Erek slashed back and forth at the two other criminals that had approached from behind.
“Shoot at one of those two,” Lotha said, pointing at the knife-wielders on either side of the tree ahead of them, “I’ll do the rest.”
Raya nodded and drew back an arrow. With the aim of a master marksman, she released the shaft at one man’s shin. As soon as the shot sprung from her bow, a torrential wind blasted back at her, and the arrow speared through the man’s leg. He screamed and fell on his shoulder as Raya stared in shock and mild horror. He could live, but he might not walk.
The bandit captain stumbled back from Hemsten, blood flowing from his shoulder as he stared at Raya with her own emotions reflected back. Hemsten stabbed the man in the side, but found his opponent’s blade ready for a similar attack. The two stumbled to the side, grunting in pain as they wounded one another.
“The other, quick,” Lotha said. The second knife wielding man was almost upon them, so Raya took aim, quickly, and released. Again, Lotha’s magic sent the arrow at uncanny speed, and the shaft broke as it passed through the man’s shoulder. He lost his balance in an attempt to avoid it, and slid to the ground, clutching his bleeding shoulder as he met the scorched cobblestones with a thud.
Erek cried out, and Raya spun to look. Apparently, having disarmed one of his attackers, the guard had managed to finish off the other one. Now, the unarmed one had a hold of his arm, and Erek’s blade clattered to the cobblestones. Benn charged away from Raya, raising his knife. “Benn!” cried out Raya, raising her bow. She couldn’t do anything, for he blocked her line of sight. Her friend sunk his knife into the bandits exposed back, and together, Erek and he dragged the man away. It was Erek who finished it, raising his sword from the ashen street to run the bandit through the ribs. Raya looked away.
“We’re good,” Dondar said, panting for breath. He had slashed the big man’s face, leaving the brigand lying against the nearby building. “Oh no.” He pointed.
Hemsten and the enemy leader had sunken to their knees nearby, still locked in their deathly embrace. The bandit’s sword protruded from Sten’s back, dripping dark blood into the ashes, while the criminal himself was already dead from Hemsten’s stab. “Sten,” gasped Erek, charged across the space with a pained grimace and his right hand dangling at his side. Raya reached her friend’s side at the same time, falling to her knees on the dirty cobblestones.
Hemsten looked at them with a grey face and smiled weakly. His blood had spilled down his front and was already dry in the ashes around his knees and feet. He opened his mouth to speak, but coughed and red splattered down his chin. The sword he was tangled around had missed his heart from the look of it, but that likely meant it went through his lung.
“I can’t save him,” Lotha whispered, and stepped back from the horrific sight. Raya, with tears in her eyes, found Hemsten’s hand and held it tightly. He had died protecting them.
“Raya—” her old friend gasped. “Find what happened here.” He sucked in breath and it gurgled as it went in. With his whole frame shuddering, he continued. “If someone was behind this suffering… make them pa—” His voice caught, and he blinked his eyes quickly. Then they closed, and his breath stopped. She held his hand as he left their world behind, and then she let go.
Dondar had finished off the other bandits, piercing them with his sword while they lay nursing their wounds or scrambled to escape them. The warrior looked pale, and was clutching his side in pain. Lotha approached him to see what was the matter, while Erek and Benn made a sling for the former’s arm. Raya sat there beside Sten’s body and waited for the stunned echoing in her head to subside and the noise of the world to come crashing back in.