Well behind schedule, the column reached the city of Kodor early in the morning, with frost still on the grass. The dead city looked far different than it had when Keir had last visited it over three hundred years ago.

The first thing he noticed was how much bigger it was. In his day it had had over sixty-thousand inhabitants. From the size of the ruins it had grown to well into the hundreds of thousand. The outskirts of the city stretched for miles, all of it smashed flat, leaving only rubble, bones and basement. Remnants of barricades, some well built of dirt, rock and metal, other hastily thrown together using burnt timber, overturned wagons, dead horses, and demons, and furniture, littered the ruined streets.

Stunted plants grew out of the shell holes and from bare dirt where cobble stones had been torn up. Rats, crows, and other vermin watched them from the safety of the ruins. They'd grown fat from the dead, even months after the fall of the city, it still smelled of rot and death.

They were able to make good time, the dead had been sent forward to scout out the area and had cleared a way through the streets. The injured in the wagons moaned and yelled in pain at the rough ride, there wasn't much that could be done for them except to give them more alcohol to numb their minds and their pain. Keir was happy that he'd recovered enough to ride his horse. It made the journey a bit easier.

Reaching the city proper, they had come to a stop.

The desperate defenders of Kodor had razed everything for several blocks, the rubble used to form a thick wall.

The entire area looked like the gods had sent fire from the skies to punish the guilty. Holes ten, twenty meters deep and a hundred meters across formed small ponds. The stone which had once been roads and the foundations of buildings had turned to powdery gravel mixed with shards of bone. In places, fires had burned so intensely that the sand and rock had turned to glass.

Gunfire rang out, soldiers shouted and officers ran to see what was going on.

Keir trotted over, not very worried, his ghosts had told him the city was dead. Then he saw the problem.

Ghostly demons were running over a shell hole. They silently shrieked, dropping from bullets that tore bloodless holes in their bodies. There was a sensation of an explosion, felt in the soul rather than the body, and the ghosts were torn apart. A moment later they reappeared, going through the last seconds of their life once more.

“They can't hurt you,” he said. “They're fragments of magic, built around the energy of life, death and desperation. The city will be full of them.”

“You heard Mage Keira,” a captain shouted. “Keep an eye out for the living, ignore the dead.”

Riding up to the front of the column, where the barrier was slowly being torn down, Keir opened his eyes to the magic that surrounded him.

Half seen figures appeared, desperate apparitions fired from the buildings and wall as fire raged around them. Demons fell from the sky, others climbed the wall of rubble, still more fought a never ending battle against faceless soldiers. All around him the screams and wails of the dead filled his ears.

The city had died hard and brutally, leaving a scar in the soul of the world. Only in the worst battlefields had he felt anything like this. Even then it hadn't been on this scale, a few patches of intense death and emotion, where the fighting had been hardest, where you could taste death in the air. This was so far beyond it, it was like comparing a pond to the ocean.

In the mix of present and past, living and dead, a figure caught his attention. A pair of children, a brother and sister by the looks of them, bloody and crying, clutching each other for comfort silently staggered along the broken ground, hunched down, jerking away from unseen monsters.

Keir followed the ghosts, wanting to know what would happen. A group of soldiers followed along behind, making sure he'd be protected.

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The ghost children were joined by more figures, women, children, old folks who could barely walk, a few men, most of whom were wounded. They surrounded Keir, their eyes lost and defeated. The figures sapped the warmth from the air, every breath formed a cloud despite the warm sun. A growing sense of depression and doom weighed down on him.

The apparitions covered the land so thickly he couldn't tell who was real and who was dead. They came to a spot where the shell holes weren't quite as thick. The ghosts were forced by unseen foes to huddle together. Then a handful were separated from the mass of humanity.

Ignoring the ghosts he was riding through, Keir wove his horse through the uneven ground, to see what was happening.

The separated humans were moved to a clear spot of ground. They were screaming, a few hunched down trying to protect the children, some attacked their invisible attackers. Others stood there, broken, waiting for death. Wounds opened up along their chests and necks, they fell to the ground and vanished.

More groups were brought forward.

Cutting off his magic sight, Keir shuddered at what he had seen. The soldiers who had come with him hadn't seen what he had. They could see a few ghostly figures walking along, dying from unseen blows, but it was nothing like the mass butchering he had seen. Still they knew that something evil had happened there.

“Mage Keira,” a lieutenant said softly, his face pale and damp from sweat, “I believe it's time we return to the column.”

“Yes. Sorry, I needed to see,” he said.

Turning away from the sight, Keir saw the brother and sister once more walking to their deaths. He looked away, unwilling to see it again.

***

Colonel Moreno pointed at a map of the city. “The scouts have reported back, it looks like the demons have completely abandoned the city. We're lucky we don't have to fight them in that rats nest. In a blessing from The Mother and The Father, they also left the granaries and armouries virtually untouched. We don't know how much is left in them, but there seems to only be minimal damage to the buildings so it's a good sign.”

Keir listened carefully along with the officers, as the Colonel laid out the plan for the next few days, which mostly involved clearing paths for the wagons to get to where they were needed. While they could move the grain, weapons, shells and other equipment by hand to the wagons, even with his dead it would be a hopelessly slow process. It was more efficient to clear the roads.

“I'll need a small group of men to come with me after we reach the granaries,” Keir said.

“What for? Even with the demons gone, the city isn't safe,” the Colonel said.

He had to admit the man was right. Many of the buildings had been destroyed by fire, leaving empty shells waiting to collapse, others merely been weakened by fire, bombs, and fighting. Still he had his own tasks to accomplish.

“I had a workshop near the council buildings. It has several papers and notes that will help us,” he explained.

The Colonel frowned, the council buildings were in the center of the city. While there was an armoury near to it, it was one of the oldest ones in the city. Due to its small size it was only going to be looked at if the other larger and newer armouries were empty. Still after a moment he nodded. “Very well Mage Keira. I'll have scouts look for the safest route, and you'll have twenty men plus at least a hundred of your dead, go with you. Is that sufficient?”

Nodding, Keir smiled. “That's perfect.” He'd had a rough start with Colonel Moreno at the first battle over two weeks ago, and hadn't interacted with him very much afterwards, but his opinion of the man was improving.

“Your ghosts haven't reported any signs of major demon activity, is that still the case?”

“It is. There are individual and small groups of demons watching us from a distance, to conserve energy the ghosts are keeping them well back but letting them live. If we're attacked again we'll need all of our remaining dead to beat them back.”

It was the Colonels turn to nod. “Very good. I'd rather avoid a fight while we're here. The men aren't mentally in any shape for one, too many are ready to break down or fly into a rage seeing their city dead along with their families and friends.”

“How soon do you think it will be until we can head back?”

“With having to clear the streets, at least a week. Two days to get to the granaries, another day to reach all the armouries, at least a day to load everything up, probably more. Then we need to join up again and leave with the wagons near breaking. And that's if everything goes well.”

“Very well. I'll leave you to your work and rest. Tomorrow I'll be able to create more ghosts to make sure nothing surprises us.”

The Colonel nodded his goodbye. “Of course, that will be most helpful.”

Leaving the command tent, Keir headed for the wagons. He saw Von sitting propped up by a fire, sweat dripping down his face. The mage had the far away look that was a sign he was looking at the magical energies. The mans remaining hand was moving in a smooth pattern weaving magic together, a flame sputtered to life. The magic was clumsy, being worked with just a single hand, but the fact Von could do it at all after training with both hands was impressive.

Entering a large tent, Keir took a clean rag and filled a bowl with water. Taking a seat beside Lieutenant Floria, who was sleeping restlessly on a well padded bed roll, he wove a quick spell heating the water. Dipping the rag, he carefully and gently wiped away the dust from the young woman's face.