Kadin charged out of the remains of the house and quickly untied his horse that was still sleeping having obviously not felt the flare of magic and it whined in protest as Kadin tugged on the reigns waking it but he quickly coxed it to its feet and back on the road . the moons had moved across the sky a fair bit but were still not close to setting so Kadin had slept longer than he thought, he brought his horse to a gallop after warming it up and pouring in as much magical energies as it could handle, by his measure he should reach Lynwood in the early afternoon – but after the events at Ashvale He knew he would need to keep energy in reserve as he wondered how much of the village would be turned against him. But he still had to push the horse and himself harder than he would have likes as he didn’t know where in the blasted lands he was heading so he would need to find tracks to follow after Lynwood and the fresher the tracks the easier they will be to follow. He also needed to take care on the path he was on as it was littler more than a winding dirt road and his quarry had already used a way of removing Kadin’s horse to gain a larger lead, and without his horse he would take almost another full day to get there. So he spent his time between using long sense to check the road ahead of him for hazards or trips, and scanning the area around him for any threats, the barren land after the boulder fields held little in the way of cover for ambushes, even though it was said that the spear tribes in the desert to the east of the mountains could hide anywhere and the one person in the guild from there had demonstrated by somehow managing to hide himself in a green grazing field even though the grass was only to his ankles.

But as the moons set and the sun rose there had been nothing .. the road was easier to see in the morning light and the land around him was still stony and relatively flat. Just as he was thinking of stopping for a quick break for food and a small rest for the horse his detect magic sense picked up something he tried to focus on it but he couldn’t see anything. He slowed his horse and readied a throwing knife that he had enchanted to help an electrical charge as even if he missed the charge should still arc and connect to anything close enough. He senses focused on what looked like a small green bush resting to one side of two larger stone .. but there was still nothing.

As he passed by and still nothing happened he was about to start focusing on the road ahead when an errant dry gust of wind whipped passed and a few second after that, he finally saw it. The head of a wolf popped out of where one of the rocks were, then another one. Two desert wolfs having caught the scent of the horse and stuck their head out to investigate a possible hunting target for them. One of them fully emerged and stood on the rock in front of its burrow, where it casually stretched its body before having a look around when it was able to see the horse and the rider it took a few steps forwards and began sniffing the air. Fortunately they had passed by the burrow and the it was behind him and still low to the ground so Kadin didn’t think the horse had seen it. Then after a few moments of sniffing the air the wolf apparently thought better of it and casually walked back to its burrow. After that had passed Kadin took that to be his brake and so pushed on again, deciding to quickly eat something as he was still in the saddle.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

For the rest of the morning Kadin would catch something on the edges of his senses and range but nothing approached, as he was getting closer to Lynwood the road he was on started to get a little wider, it was still little more than a dirt track but it was worn smooth and steady by use, he had also noticed a farm far off to his left a simple house like the one he spent the previous night in, only this one still had its roof that was thatched looking like yellow hay and there was a thin trail of smoke coming from its chimney. The small fence around it was still in good repair and all looked well he could also make out a small vegetable garden in front of the home though he didn’t see any inhabitants. But as he was getting closer to the village he would note the occasional farm far off the road to the left of the right, and he noticeably felt better when a farm off to his right he noticed a person in their field hoeing the ground – things almost started to feel normal. When he passed by another far where he could see a small flock of goats surrounded by a heavy fenced area attached to the house – he also saw a man carrying a sack of feed for the animals who lifted his hand and waved when he saw Kadin passing by.. no one rushing him with a pitchfork, no one picking up discarded limbs to use as a club, no green fire!

Until, at last he could see the village ahead , the light walls in the distance and an arched gateway into the settlement the walls themselves would be more accurately described as a large fence, as the wooden planks had been driven into the ground and had supporting horizontal planks holding them together but there was large gaps and even spaces between each plank so it as easy to see past the wall –these were not defences that could keep out bandits … more along the lines of they are there to deter local wildlife. But he had finally gotten to Lynwood the last settlement before the blasted lands, and settlement was a generous word for it, it was a small village- that survived on fur trappers and the scout patrols of the blasted lands they also traded with Ashvale and the ice elf settlement to the north to sustain themselves. The land around it was not completely baron but the magical energies the passed the north and east boundary’s walls meant that little grew there and so the farms that were there was sparse and small as he had seen on his approach.

But as he got closer to the village he wondered what was in store for him, the necromancer seemed to be getting substantially stronger as he got closer to the blasted lands, the first farm was just a few farmers, the second it had been half the town – Kadin debated circling the village as he didn’t want to have to kill the entire population. But it was probably too late now as he was in sight of it, But as he slowly nudged his horse forwards something was off – he knew something would be here waiting for him but he didn’t know what and so he looked around there was a single two story building close to the centre of the village the rest of the buildings were a single story made from stone or wood the roofing a mix of thatch, tiles and wooden, most of the buildings had been painted likely with essence crystals in them to help insulate and preserve the homes – but the village itself had less than a dozen buildings, one of the ones at the other side of the village was the biggest which could hold about forty of the soldiers and scouts that were stationed there the rest of the buildings would all told leave the village a population of less the a hundred – and that’s when Kadin noticed the oddity. He couldn’t see anyone. There was no guards at the gates, no people walking the streets, no smoke coming from chimneys the village looked empty.