The Last Outpost

The heat is almost unbearable, dragging goose bumps to the surface of my skin as it caresses my flesh with its fiery fingers. Great plumes of dusky smoke reach towards the midday sun like serpents, winding lazily through the now ashen sky; the air is thick and choking as I strain to breathe it in. Everywhere I look there is destruction. Whole buildings destroyed, set aflame by a villain that is nowhere to be found; The Dragon, my favorite pub and the only place that seems to remember how to make a true honey mead, should have been standing to my left. The once sprawling structure, lovingly built from the best timber available, has been reduced to a few broken wood beams that lean against each other listlessly.

Gypsy paws the ground nervously beneath me, and I stroke the horse’s thick ebony neck automatically. We have seen our fair share of devastation together, my mount and I, but this is unlike anything we’ve seen before. Amidst the dying flames and acrid smoke, the bodies of my townspeople lay crumpled and scattered like so much debris. Stella, the baker’s daughter, stares at the sky through unseeing eyes not ten feet from Gypsy’s hooves, her limbs and hair askew. My stomach knots painfully, perhaps trying to coil in upon itself.

“Stay here,” I whisper to my horse as I dismount. I will not ask her to go any further.

My unfailingly rational mind tells me that there can be no one left, but my heart demands that I try anyway. Body to body I wander, telling myself sternly not to linger on the cruelty with which they were murdered; whoever or whatever has caused this destruction, the attack was well planned enough not to leave any survivors who might relay the tale. How long have they been this way? The smell of decaying flesh is putrid and repulsive in my nostrils, but this alone is no indicator of the time that has passed; we are – correction, were – a small outpost on the edges of the Enu desert, and known for the inhospitably of our summers. Putrefaction would not have taken long to set in.

My feet carry me through the carnage with little expenditure of thought or decision; I have walked this street many times, and could not be more familiar with it if it were a part of my body. Why has this happened? What evil has befallen my home, my friends and neighbors? We were not so rich as to excite any kind of jealousy, and even if we had been, what person would have made the effort to travel such a distance for anything short of a king’s ransom?

The blacksmith is dead, his limp body half hanging over his unlit forge. Although no surprise, the evidence of his death nearly staggers me; Brand was my father’s dearest friend whilst he was alive, the sword I still carry at my side some of the finest work he’d ever produced. My traitorous stomach has given out on me, heaving and rolling despite my best efforts to control it, and it’s all I can do not to discharge the contents of my stomach all over the blackened earth. I count to ten aloud, my surprisingly steady voice the only sound that falls here.

I force myself to turn away from the sight of Brand’s broken body, channeling the rage building in my breast into a usable plan of action. My people must have the rites performed for them, the vigil that is their due upon passing performed, and I am now the only person alive who can do those things. The work will be hard and grim, but it must and will be done before all else. There will be time for investigating and revenge later – and I will have my revenge, have no doubt, even if I have to tear this land apart looking for whoever is responsible. But first, before I can start even on this important task, I must have water for myself and Gypsy, and some shelter from the heat of the day for her.

I have retraced my steps and am nearly within reach of my horse’s bridle when my steps falter. Perhaps it is the mixture of the heat and the grief, but did I not just hear a voice? Low and rattling, yes, but a voice none the less. Surely I am still in command of my faculties enough to know when I have heard a voice?

For the span of several seconds I remain exactly where I am, barely breathing lest the sound of my own expelled breath overpower that of any other sound. Gypsy, still unnerved but always well mannered, stands watching me patiently. She shows no signs of having heard anything, and her ears are at least twice as perceptive as my own. If I had indeed heard a voice, wouldn’t Gypsy have heard it as well?

I visibly shook myself, allowing my lungs to fill to their capacity as I crossed the short distance separating me from my horse. She whickered softly at me, clearly reassured by my presence, and a small part of me felt grateful for the companionship.

“Water.”

Gypsy’s head shot up at the same time mine whipped around, my gaze aimed in the direction the voice had come from. There was no mistaking that sound, the word spoken clearly despite the hoarseness of the voice. My heart thundered loudly against my ribcage: someone was alive!

Caution and decency thrown to the wind, I ran pell-mell down an alley to my left, trusting my mount to remain where I had left her once more. The alley forked left, and I only narrowly avoided slamming shoulder first into what was left of a fence as my foot slipped in a pile of ash and I skidded around the corner.

“Hello?” I called out searchingly, hoping I’d gone the right way

“Water,” the voice begged again

I narrowed my eyes against the dryness of the air, squinting into the mottled gray clouds of ash that hung in the air. Not far from where I stood, his clothes so nearly the same gray as the soot heavy earth on which he sat, an elderly man had managed to prop himself against a fallen sign. Perfectly motionless, I had nearly dismissed his presence as being just another dead body, when the slight movement of his arm caught my eye.

I nearly threw myself to the ground next to him, careful not to jostle him as I did so. Fathomless hazel eyes locked onto my own brown ones, and beneath the haze of pain I saw … recognition?

“Treya?” He asked in his broken baritone voice

I was too shocked to answer immediately. This man knew my name, but I was almost certain that I had never seen him before. Except his eyes did seem a little familiar to me, and perhaps if the one corner of his mouth was turned up …

“Krell?” I asked in disbelief, “But how did you come to be here?”

“I was the one supposed to meet you, at The Dragon,” He rasped, “But all was chaos …”

For the first time since coming upon the horror that had become of my town, my thoughts flew to the scroll tucked neatly within my jerkin. I had all but forgotten the errand that had drawn me away from home with the promise of an exorbitant reward, money badly needed to get me through the year. The scroll I now had in my possession was what I had assumed was an answer to whatever questions the first scroll had proposed; I had read neither. Only now, as Krell lay before me, his simple tunic and leggings stained crimson with the blood that flowed from a gaping wound in his stomach, did it occur to me to wonder just what message I had agreed to convey.

“The scroll … do you have the scroll?”

“It’s here,” I answered, pulling it from its hiding spot and pressing it into his hand

“No ... you must keep it, Treya … keep it and do exactly as it instructs.”

My eyes are fixed on the bloody fingerprints, gruesome splashes of color against the leeched yellow parchment, as he hands the item in question back to me.

“You must … perform the rites for us, Treya. You must see us safely onward, and then turn all your energy to doing exactly as the scroll says. Promise me … promise me you will do as I say, daughter of my brother. If you do not … all is lost.”

“I promise,” I answer, but the words are thick in my throat and the thirst for revenge staggers me

“You are the last of us now. Remember … remember us well, kindred, daughter of our beloved people. We will have our vengeance …”

The air rattled audibly against his ribcage, one wizened old hand grasping mine in the last moments as his dying breath whooshed quietly out of his mouth.

The stench of death and decay has grown sickening under the merciless rays of the sun. Krell’s death settles upon my shoulders like an anvil, and the heat and intensity of my pain consumes my heart just as surely as the flames consumed my home. For perhaps the first time in my life, the path I must take is perfectly clear to me.
“I promise,” I vow, the air and the spirits of my people the only witnesses