[https://i.imgur.com/VGCFMQy.png]
The disaster had only taken a minute, maybe less. Nia had run through the streets of the city towards the gate and towards where Reffy had been and the cloud of debris.
The first terrible explosion had only marked the beginning of the calamity. The city had been filled with explosions, the shrill screams of magical attacks, the sound of buildings tumbling, and the cries of panicked crowds.
Then with a suddenness, whatever had been rampaging through the city stopped.
Nia had been to cities before, in her home country and during her travel here. The superficial things changed from city to city, the architecture, the clothes, the language, the colour of skin, but underneath all that, a city was a city. Underneath it, all cities were the same creature. They only wore different pelts.
The silence that had come in the minutes after the attack would stay with her for a long time. There was something darkly primal about it, like some primitive instinct, the sound silence made when a city's population of people cowered away, like small, terrified creatures hiding away from a predator that stalked them in a dark forest.
The silence had slowly broken down as the minutes passed. The sound of a woman wailing in the distance. The sound of a man yelling for a bucket chain to put out a fire.
She'd dared move then. She'd dared to break the silence in her own small way.
[https://i.imgur.com/oMrGBK6.png]
The path she had followed to get here was impassible, the street blocked with the rubble of a fallen building.
She walked through the narrow streets and alleys of the wounded city, trying to find her way to the gate. The air was dry and grainy, between the dust and smoke. From what she could see, survivors were already out in force, stopping the fires that had started from devouring the city whole.
As two men passed, talking loudly in their language, she wondered if they knew what had attacked the city and why. She passed a house in ruins, two men frantically digging at its rubble. A girl of no more than twelve ran past two empty buckets in hand, clearly going to join a bucket chain. A young beggar with a deformed leg was hunched over a richly dressed fallen old man, though she was uncertain if he was helping or robbing him.
[https://i.imgur.com/oMrGBK6.png]
She ignored it all, finally reaching sight of the gates and seeing the devastation that lay beyond. Huge furrows had been gouged through the ground, dirt, or road, nothing had slowed it. Huge craters pockmarked the land. Whatever had happened, the city hadn't been the focus. That had been just outside its walls.
She ran forwards, through the dark portal of the gateway and into the ruinous land beyond
It was like a nightmare, smashed and broken wagons sat scattered at drunken angles, the shattered ground littered with the debris of lives ripped without mercy from their owner's hands. The silent dead lay beside the screaming living, who were just starting to be tended to by those who could walk.
She searched the never-ending faces of both the living and the dead. She saw many faces she recognized. She didn't know their names, but she'd seen them in the caravan, living their life day in and day out for weeks.
She couldn't focus on that now. She had to find Reffy and Nox.
She kept looking as she walked around. She noticed a face she recognized vaguely as Matrill's son, though she didn't know his name. He looked about the same age as her, maybe a little older. He was caught, his leg pinned under an upturned wagon.
She considered leaving him and continuing her search but couldn't bring herself to do it.
She walked over two him, giving a wave of greeting. He turned to look at her, the stains of tears clearly visible on his cheeks, even though he wasn't crying now. He spoke, but she didn't understand a word of it.
She came over and knelt beside him and the wagon. She tried to pull it, but she couldn't budge it even slightly.
She looked around for help, and she saw a man sitting flat on the ground. She recognized him as a guard from the caravan, one of the ones who'd joined them in the village.
She'd often seen him giving her dirty looks as she passed, she'd started to get used to the stares of people like him, so she had a pretty good guess as to why.
"I'll get help." She said to Matrill's son, hoping if even the words didn't translate, the meaning would.
She ran over to the guard. He was looking down at his hands, slowly opening and closing them, lost deep within his own mind.
"Hello?" she said, but he didn't seem to notice her.
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"Hello?" Still no response.
She gently touched his shoulder, and the guard jumped and scrambled away before looking back at Nia with terror.
He stared for a moment, wide-eyed, before seeming to realize who she was and visibly calming.
She pointed to Matrills son. The guard stared at her for a long moment before his eyes moved to where she was pointing.
He nodded dully and spoke in a hoarse voice before he stood and walked over towards the upturned wagon.
A woman in dirt-smeared clothes that was also searching nearby glanced over and then ran to help them.
The three lifted, and between them, the wagon lifted up slightly, and Matrill's son pulled his leg free with a sharp intake of breath.
Nia looked down at his leg, it was difficult to tell how badly he was hurt with his boot on, but it at least wasn't bent at an unnatural angle.
She looked around, unsure what she should do next. She noticed that a group of walking survivors were beginning to form on a large patch of ground near the gate. A few people were already tending their wounds.
The guard had sat down again, staring vacantly. She looked at the woman and pointed to both men and then the group. "Yes?" she said to the woman in one of the few words of Frullian she knew.
"Yes." the woman replied.
They got Matrill's son to his feet together, then had him lean on Nia for support so he could limp with one leg. The woman gently got the man's attention and coaxed him softly into following.
They soon reached the makeshift gathering. There were only a couple dozen standing and already twice as many that weren't or at least clearly shouldn't, a few among the crowd looking worse off than the person they were tending.
The woman gently spoke to the guard, and he sat back down heavily. Nia helped Matrill's son gently down onto the grass before looking back at the field of suffering around her.
She needed to find Reffy. She would find Reffy, Nox too. But she couldn't just turn a blind eye. She would look for them but help any she found in need.
[https://i.imgur.com/oMrGBK6.png]
She began walking through the devastation, helping whomever she could. There were others like her doing the same, and soon she saw more people coming out from the city to help. Many were just in ones and twos, but a large group of men and women came out and began setting up tents for the wounded and an improvised kitchen.
Each person in the group wore a large circular broach over their heart, in the same style as Helus. She kept half expecting to see the always smiling man amongst them, but an hour after she'd started searching and helping, she found his head, rolled under one of the caravans.
She'd had to stop for a while and cry after that. She didn't allow herself long, though, and soon was back to searching and helping.
More and more people kept coming, and soon, soldiers arrived in bright livery that sat in jarring contrast to the sombre air. They helped search for the injured and began piling the dead.
It wasn't long before the first looter was found, a man cutting the finger off of one of the dead to steal a ring. She watched as he kicked and screamed with such force it took six soldiers to drag him back to the gathering spot. He begged, cried and pleaded the whole way there.
The soldiers spoke loudly so everyone could hear before executing the man with a knife to the throat, their message to potential looters clear. No one stopped them or spoke up for the man.
He wasn't the last they found. Looters took the opportunity of so many people here in need of help to slip among the crowd.
A young woman with pliers stealing teeth. An older man who had gone among the wounded, offering them water while stealing from the dead. A young street girl stealing boots off a body.
After the last one was dragged away, she stopped watching and tried the block it out of her thoughts.
Soon the last of those who lived and could be moved had been moved at least as far as the tents, if not back into the city proper. The handful remaining were of the rare combination of being too wounded to move but having lived this long.
The task began to focus solely on the recovery of the dead. She hadn't found Reffy and Nox amongst the living despite her constant work. The constant stress of uncertainty kept her going long after she would have given up. Looking amongst the dead was much harder, especially with the language barrier, as men arrived with wagons and carts to begin hauling the dead away on mass.
Dusk began to fall. The bodies that were left were only those that were in some way difficult to recover. The work was made worse by the crows and other carrion that now gathered looking to loot their own share of the tragedy.
[https://i.imgur.com/oMrGBK6.png]
After helping a man with hauling one, she turned back to look over the ruined land and took a step towards it but felt a gentle hand on her shoulder.
She turned and saw an old lady standing there, slightly plump and stooped with age, with a bowl of soup and a spoon in her hand. A circular symbol, the symbol of the Systemic Order, worn as a broach.
She said something to Nia, but she didn't understand the words.
"I don't speak Frullian." She said, hoping she'd got the phrasing right. The woman nodded in seeming understanding and took Nia's hand, pulling her towards one of the tents. Nia went along uncertainly.
The tent's flap was tied back, warm light shining out. She could see benches inside and people on them eating, many she'd seen today helping with the grisly work. A large Iron circle, the symbol of the Order, hung from the back of the tent.
The woman pulled her into the tent before gesturing for Nia to sit on one of the benches. Nia stood torn, feeling she needed to do more to find Reffy and Nox.
The woman frowned and said something. When that didn't work, she began pushing down on Nia's shoulder to make her sit. The old woman's frail body was something Nia could easily resist, but something about the woman's determination made Nia sit.
The woman then handed Nia the bowl and soup, then began miming eating to make it clear what she expected Nia to do.
Nia glanced back at the tent flap uncertainly, but the woman stood watching her with quiet determination.
Nia relented and took a spoonful of the soup. It wasn't the best she'd tasted. It was under-seasoned, lacked meat and was watery, but it was warm and comforting.
Only once she had had, several spoonfuls did the old woman seem to finally trust her enough to leave Nia to eat in peace. The old woman stayed in the tent, though and kept glancing back at Nia, and for once, this was a stare she didn't mind.
Nia stood once she'd finished, a man with the Systemic Order's symbol on it took the bowl with a stiff smile, and she walked to the tent's door, looking out at the now dark night, the distant hills silhouetted against the stary night sky.
Had she missed them somehow, were their bodies there, and she missed them? The question ate away at her, and despite that, a small sliver of hope remained. Maybe they'd survived. Not finding them at all at least left the possibility of hope.
As she stood there, she saw a crow land on a nearby broken wagon wheel. It looked at her with beady curiosity.
She shuddered, remembering both the stories of her homeland and the connection to Reffy.
K-kaw.
Nia looked at the bird, then pulled back slightly as it began to retch. After several seconds a small note was regurgitated by the bird.
She stared at the strange sight for several moments before carefully picking up the note. She slowly sounded out the words as she read the message.
Refenial lives.
-Griselda, the Crow Queen
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