The road forked, and Charlot dawdled for a moment at the confluence, holding his hand out to try and feel which way the boy might have gone. If the orphan truly had the finger of Audera upon him, perhaps she would favor them with a sign. But all Charlot felt was increasingly foolish and, instead, he turned to reason.

If the boy knew the way, he would surely head south for Quarterlee, then southwest to Barion, and then perhaps try to filch another canoe to seek passage on a trader’s ship in Bellicove Bay. The northern path went to Billibee. It was a larger town and had a sizable militia, and stealing a boat would be harder there. Yet, Charlot suspected the boy knew none of this.

He was a stranger in this land—strange in every land to be sure. The southern path sloped gently upward, and the boy was a thief. Thieves were by nature lazy, wishing to acquire what they had not earned. But by the same token, the boy had walked all the way from Terhaljatan. The effort of climbing Quarterlee hill might not even register to him. A snatch of song came to Charlot:

“On Quarterlee Hill two almond trees grew, sunset bloomed bitter and sunrise came true.”

Charlot sang out, thinking his voice was still rather fine for all the terrible things it had said over the years. Korak leaned his head backward, his eyes rolling up to look at Charlot upside down.

“Can you do better?” Charlot challenged. The bear could only huff in reply, and Charlot made up his mind to follow the song to those almond trees. How long had it been since he’d seen Quarterlee? At least fifty years and likely more.

It was nothing much back then, a dozen farms built around a craggy hill surrounded by a forest of tall white pines. At the top of the hill there were two ancient almond trees from the song. Between them had once been an altar so old not even Charlot could do more than guess who’d erected it. Pragmatism had overcome superstition, and the farmers had used the wide stone base as the foundation for a tall stone watchtower.

Quarterlee had minor fame as the hometown of Bobandy the Bard, a prolific songsmith who’d penned many of Norta’s most beloved songs. When he grew too old for the taxing tavern circuit that wound from Yarslbeth to Ten, Bobandy retired to his hometown with a small wealth of coins and a fabulous hoard of stories. Nearly every night he would play his battered mandolin and tell his tales at the Speaking Stones Tavern, where the back opened to the hill and each patron had their favorite rock to sit upon in a very comfortable natural amphitheater.

Charlot had always liked the rotund bard. Bobandy was a middling mandolin player and a worse singer, but he never pretended otherwise, and he never glossed over his own faults in his tales. His enthusiasm was boundless and infectious, and he had the knack for writing songs that stuck in people and came up unbidden, time and time again.

How fine it would be to hear him again! And how foolish to even consider it, for Bobandy was surely long gone. Charlot shook his head at his senseless daydreaming. Everyone he’d known would be long gone, and likely their children as well. It was just as well. Talent tended to skip a generation. Perhaps one of Bobandy’s grandchildren had taken up the mantle.

Charlot recalled they had brewed a beer at Speaking Stones that had bitter almonds in the mash, just enough to give you a taste of your own mortality, and his mouth grew wet thinking of the taste. His stomach rumbled at the memory of the spiced pork and pickled acorn goulash he’d savored there.

That, too, was likely a relic. Who knew how many times the tavern might have changed hands in so many years? The quaint little hamlet he remembered could have easily swelled into a squalid burg like Billibee in the north, mud-choked streets and rickety buildings crowding on top of each other.

As if to highlight the dark thought, a brace of clouds stole the sun, and Charlot frowned at the theft. The twists on the winding path through the white pines were just as he remembered them, but the higher Korak climbed the more unsettled the archmage felt.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The birds were wrong. They were too at-ease, too numerous. When Charlot heard the tumbling trill of a ravine wren echoing at him from the rocks, he knew something was terribly wrong. Ravine wrens could not abide humans anywhere within their range.

Blast that he could not see the town to know if he was walking into a trap! Charlot squinted at the indistinct outlines in the distance. How dreadful it was to sense calamity ahead but not to see it! He fingered Nemonullus in his pocket. Even the normally heedless bear slowed a step, sweeping his great snout about as he sniffed at the air.

There was no ambush waiting, for there was no Quarterlee any longer. The houses had all been burned to their foundations many years ago. Charred timbers had lain so long in the sun they had bleached to gray, and now the overgrowth was trying to claw those shadows back into the earth.

Charlot dismounted and stepped through the shattered homes, finding scattered bones and signs of struggle that years had not erased. He could not help but guess at how the homes had been laid out; this must have been the hearth, they would have slept over here, and so on.

Within the homes, the dirt was still too alkaline from ash for anything to grow. His toe caught a flat stone half-buried in the rubble, and Charlot lifted it.

Underneath, partially preserved in the ash, were the bones of a small hand. Craning low to inspect it, Charlot could see it had been split in two by the strike of a sword or an axe that had cleaved through the carpal bones. It was a child’s hand, likely no older than ten.

Overcome by a sudden feeling like cement hardening in his throat, Charlot replaced the stone and stalked out of the house, marching up the hill toward the watchtower with Korak’s heavy footpads shaking the ground behind him.

With every step he grew angrier. Already, he knew who the culprits were. There were no skulls to be found anywhere in the ruins of Quarterlee.

At the top of the hill, the tower still stood. All that was left of the door were hinges rusted to the color of dried blood. Inside, Charlot could see the remains of a bonfire. Had the legionnaires set it to try and burn the tower down? He walked around the tower for answers, and found them, the remains of a ribcage, hidden beneath a blackberry bramble. He looked to the top of the tower, calculating the angle.

Someone had sought refuge in the watchtower. In their heavy armor, the legionnaires could have easily marched up and killed them. But there was no sport in that. Instead, they had set this bonfire and waited, like hounds who had treed a raccoon. Eventually, the stones grew hot enough that the unfortunate had jumped. Charlot hoped they had the presence of mind to go headfirst, to spoil their skull and prevent further torture, but there was no way to tell.

How many Quarterlees had burned while Charlot hid in his tower reading smut and squandering years? How many ravaged homes and headless corpses? How many children’s hands split like cordwood? With a bitter twinge, Charlot was certain Fraughten would follow. If the legion found them with their garrison depleted, it would all go up in flames.

A great fury overtook Charlot and, suddenly, his vision came into perfect focus. He glared westward in the direction of Urth’Wyrth and clenched his fist. Charlot could feel Vitserpadag thrumming in its sheath, quivering with the thrill of his hate. He wished the blade was big enough to cut the entire wretched city out of the earth, and that he was a titan who could fling the accursed land into the sea to drown them all. Charlot could feel the pull of sorcery. Were the comet in the air tonight he would call it down, calculations be damned!

A whimper broke his frenzied thoughts. Korak backed away from him, unmistakable fright in those slightly-askew eyes. Charlot was scaring his friend. With a long exhalation, Charlot released his grip, and fog overtook the world again. He was no giant. He was a blind old man.

“What a fool I’ve been,” Charlot sighed.

He held out a hand and let Korak find his courage. When the bear came close, Charlotte patted his snout and scratched behind his ear. Korak grunted with satisfaction, his fear was swiftly forgotten. Charlot’s regret was not. For a jape, he’d sent a child to try and steal from the monsters who’d done this. He was certain he’d chosen the wrong path. The boy had not come this way.

They could follow the road west another league, and then take the spur back to the northern path. As Charlot considered it, he realized something else was missing. There were no almond trees on the hilltop.

Searching for them, he found the stump of the western tree that had once borne bitter fruit. There was a depressing thoroughness to the Wyrth’s handiwork, it was not enough to raze the town and murder every man, woman, and child. They despoiled fields, poisoned wells, and chopped down trees as well.

Charlot stared at the ragged stump, the trunk had rotted away long ago. He could not resist counting the rings. The bitter almond tree had stood for five hundred and five years until the Wyrth felled it.

With heavy steps, he climbed down the hill, headed for the western path.