The Willbreaker (Book 1) (7 page)

              “Ah good, we are just about out of snacks,” he said, smiling at Edward. Edward returned the smile as he mounted up on Firecracker. Firecracker neighed, releasing a steaming wisp of breath into the air. Before he mounted, Brandon took a branch he found that feathered into leafy fingers and swept the campground with it. The memories of their footsteps disappeared with each pass of the branch. He walked backwards as he cleared the remaining marks of their prints.

              “It won’t clear our horses prints, but horses by themselves won’t give a good indication of how many men they are accompanied by,” he said, as he mounted, and tossed the branch off into the woods. “Let’s ride friend, we have a beautiful day of travel before us. Let us pray to the Gods that no ill will shall become us." Baby reared up on her hind legs with an intimidating neigh as he finished. Brandon held on as a large smile split his face. “Yaw, Baby, yaw!” he yelled. Baby bolted for the road. Edward let out a small chuckle as he squeezed Firecracker’s ribs with his feet, urging him forward. He did not wait for any more command; Firecracker ran after Baby excitedly.

              The two of them made good time; keeping their stops short and downtime minimal. The horses would eat as they walked, and Brandon and Edward snacked out of Brandon’s backpack so they could keep riding towards Darrow’s Hold. As morning past, the weather grew more beautiful, except for a few dark clouds coming at them from the north. The warmth of the air blew gently across their faces. It seemed a perfect day for horseback travel.

              As they rode, the trees grew thicker together. The woods became more dense and harder to see into. The massive peaks of the Tusk Mountain range stood towering off in the distance over the tops of the trees, off to the left. The farther they rode, the thicker the black clouds grew in front of them. Brandon paid close attention to them, and the look on Edward’s face told him that he also noticed the strangeness of the clouds. Brandon stopped Edward with his commanding voice.

              “Edward, those aren’t clouds up ahead, that is smoke, from fire.”

              Edward stared up ahead with squinted eyes, when all of a sudden they went wide with realization. The amount of smoke rising from up ahead did not indicate the smoke of a campfire or even a farmer cleansing his crops for summer’s next growth. The fire putting off that smoke had to be huge. The fire came from Darrow’s Hold.

              “Ride!” Brandon yelled out in a driving and urgent voice. Baby bolted forward as Brandon spurred her and whipped her hindquarters with his hand. Firecracker shot forward when Edward jolted his side with his feet. His little arms had trouble holding on to the reigns as the massive horse leaped forward with sickening power. A trail of dust exploded behind the horses as they raced with eruptive energy towards Darrow’s Hold.

              As the road twisted to the left, the view of the city became clearer through the barricading trees on both sides of the riders. The city gates were crumbling and on fire. One of the two guard towers on each side of the gate lay in shambles, the other one riddled with large holes. Past the gates, the destroyed city smoked and burned. Rage built up within Brandon as his eyes told him what his mind had thought. Smoke billowed up in monstrous stacks of turmoil from blackened buildings as they rode closer. The thick smell of smoke filled their nostrils with choking strength.

              “Edward, stop here, we’ll tie the horses up and walk in. I don’t want the horse’s lungs filled with that amount of smoke; they need to be strong for our ride out of here." Brandon hopped off Baby as she walked off the side of the road where he had guided her. He tied her reigns to a tree, alongside Firecracker, about a hundred paces outside of the city entrance. Smoke grew in thickness here, but it did not affect their breathing. Brandon reached into his pack and pulled out the thick white cloth that had covered the sausage he had brought from home. With a quick pull, he tore the cloth in half. He handed one half to Edward, as he pulled his piece around his face and tied it on the back of his neck. He looked like a bandit; his eyes were the only part of his face visible now, held tight between the bottom of his leather skullcap and the top of his new smoke mask. Edward followed his lead, and his white mask now hung as Brandon’s did, just below his eyes.

              As they walked up on the road, Brandon drew his swords.

              “In the name of the Gods,” Edward mumbled under his breath. The sight, terrifying and incredible, made Edward’s stomach clench. Darrow’s Hold had been a soldier’s town; basic, with purpose, and lacking in luxuries. Brick and rock made up the buildings of the city. The roads were uncobbled and uneven, treacherous in heavy rain. They had a general store, a trader’s market, a blacksmith, and a few other necessary businesses, but no schools or craft stores. This town had a reputation for being ‘rough’, full of people who had no time for children or the luxuries of the common folk. Many of Reinhold’s best soldiers came from Darrow’s Hold.

              The ground, blackened and charred, still crackled and smoked. Huge cracks made traversing the soil chaotic. Solid rock buildings hung over themselves like melted wax structures. As far as the eye could see, singed buildings lay toppled and deformed, heaving wafts of smoke from their burning forms. The grossly burned bodies of the townsfolk were scattered and buried under many of the buildings. The dead were littered throughout the road, almost unrecognizable as humanoid, covered in cracked and blistered skin, the color of tar. Some of the people, who died in panicked scatter, had no flesh at all; even their bones burned to peppered ash. Brandon saw an armored body off to the side of the road. His skeletal hand clutched the hilt of a melted blade. The sickening smell of broiled death made Edward lurch. He tore off his mask and puked as he fell to his knees. Tears streamed down his face as he heaved again.

              Brandon hooked his hands underneath the old man and helped him to his feet. Edward wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He pulled his smoke mask up to his watering eyes. The entire town had been destroyed. It looked as if a flame hurricane swept through the streets with godlike intensity. Brandon gripped his swords tightly.

              “Is there anyone alive here, old man?” Brandon asked with angered breath. Edward stared forward with tearful eyes. He did not answer.

              “Edward! Is there anyone left here alive?” Brandon grabbed Edward’s shoulders and shook him. Edward’s eyes refocused and stared at Brandon momentarily, regaining his whereabouts.

              “No, all that is here is death.”

              “Hey, pay attention and stay on your feet. Who knows what else we may run into.”

              The air smelled of smoke, sulphur, and the increasing pungent stink of death. As they continued, Brandon’s head rose and his hands dropped from guard position to his sides. He stared at something and walked ahead slowly. Edward peered from behind at what Brandon saw; they were in town center. There in front of them, on and surrounding a once beautiful pool and fountain, were hundreds of bodies, burned and disfigured like the others. Bodies piled on top of each other in horrendous poses of terror and fright. From the looks of it, Brandon assumed they had been herded here like cattle, from both sides of town. Piled in the fountain were bodies on top of other bodies where water once flowed. They seemed to be concentrated there to escape the fire, but the hard ring of water deposits around the edge of the blackened pool suggested the water had been flash boiled and evaporated quickly. Brandon stared at the horrors before him. He did not move. Edward walked up beside him and rested his hand on Brandon’s shoulder. Brandon’s eyes quivered with rage and sadness. His lower eyelids held back the wall of water building in his eyes. He had never seen anything so monstrous and vile.

              Edward stared at him, concerned. Brandon closed his eyes, forcing the tears down his cheeks to his chin, and down again to the ground. He dropped to one knee and put his right fist to the ground to hold him up. The dried and scorched earth eagerly soaked up the tears that fell.

              Edward spoke gently. “This is Aurora’s work. I would bet this is the doing of her Flame Legion, those gifted in the manipulation and control of fire." The crackling of fire-lit buildings popped around them through their silence. Crying, Brandon shook his head from left to right.

              “This is unreal. How could someone do this and sleep at night?”

              “Aurora has no care for the means, she only sees the end picture. She wants to rid the world of men, and doing
this
is what it takes for her. She will not stop until she has control of all the lands outside of her kingdom. I told you, she is crazy, and devoted. She will continue to kill innocent people until she has what she seeks. She will not stop, Brandon.”

              “Yes, she will. I don’t know how, but I will stop her, or I will die trying." The solidity in his voice told Edward that Brandon meant it. He made himself a vow to stop Empress Aurora. Edward gave a slight nod, acknowledging to himself that Brandon accepted his part in his destiny, a destiny foretold a thousand years ago by prophets from the Age of Creation.

              “Brandon! Move! Someone is coming!" Edward whispered with violent urgency. Brandon shot to his feet as they ran off to one of the dilapidated buildings in town center. They moved behind a half crushed wall, toppled by its own weight, and looked down the road, opposite the way they came.

              A tall woman, dressed in long, elegant, crimson red robes, strolled down the center of the road with her head held high. Yellow runic symbols stitched down her arms and around the base of her robes, by her feet, made focus points on her clothing. She had hard facial features, accented by the soft and flowing black hair that graced down her shoulders. A few feet behind her and to her left walked another woman with long, straight blond hair that shimmered in the light. She walked with her head held down to the ground. Her plain, grey robes seemed a drab contrast to the vibrant red of the woman in front of her. Although she did not bare chains or restraints, she walked as a prisoner would behind her master.

              “She’s a fire elementalist, Class three,” Edward whispered, not taking his gaze off of the two women. “The one in the back, she’s Class three transformation.”

              “What’s that mean?” Brandon asked.

              “She’s a shape shifter,” Edward replied. “And the elementalist is gifted in fire. She can create, alter, and manipulate flame and heat. Some of
this
is undoubtedly her work.”

              The two women walked up to the center fountain. The elementalist looked around with her hands on her hips, examining the destruction. A small smile of satisfaction graced her thin lips. Brandon and Edward stared at the women, keeping their voices to light whispers.

              “How in the shadows of hell would you fight someone like that?" As if it were clockwork, Brandon finished his question, and the partial stone wall he leaned against buckled and collapsed to the ground with an earth shaking crash. The fire elementalist’s eyes locked on the two men as a lion locks on to its prey.

              “Oh shit,” came unheard from Brandon’s mouth.

              The woman in red whipped her head around to her follower and slammed her open palm into her chest, knocking her flat on her behind so she could not escape. Her head snapped back to the two men. She raised her outstretched left hand to them, as her right hand moved behind her thigh, clenched in a half-fist, as if holding an imaginary ball. Fire ignited around the hand held behind her, flames engulfing it. Her face lit with hatred.

              “Run!” Edward screeched, as he grabbed Brandon’s arm and bolted back through the collapsed building. A blistering wall of living fire shot forth from the outstretched fingers of the woman standing wide-legged in the street. The flame smashed into the building, stopping where it collided with material and continuing through holes and openings throughout the walls. Fire singed Brandon's skullcap as a wisp of hot death flashed by his head. Brandon yelled out in startled shock as he ducked his head from the instant barbeque.

              Reaching the back of the building, Edward glanced around, trying to figure out a way to go. Brandon rubbed his cap where the flame had burned. With quick decision, Edward scuttled off to the left, following the wall, where there looked to be better coverage from the street. Nearing the edge of the building, Edward snuck up to the corner and popped his head out and back, making sure he could not see anyone.

              “It’s clear, go!” he yelled.             

              Stepping forward to run to the next building, a roaring growl of flame lit behind them, chasing them like a raging dragon. Brandon shoved Edward to the ground and leapt to the side as the funnel of flame engulfed his lower legs. He screamed out in pain. The smell of burnt hair and leather grew in a puff of smoke. Edward flipped to his back and saw the flame elementalist rearing her hands back to unleash another wave of fiery death. With the whip of his hand, a cantaloupe sized rock, flipped up in the air, hitting her square in the side of the head. She fell to the ground hard, but she was not out. She lifted her hand towards Edward, flame engulfing it. Edward once again scrambled to grab Brandon. With a half pull, they crashed into the alleyway as another wall of blistering heat flashed by them.

              “I can’t get her to stop shooting at us long enough to take her over!” Edward screamed in frustration. They hobbled down the alleyway towards the street. When they reached the street, the alleyway filled with fire. “Rubbish!” Edward said, running from the alleyway with Brandon’s arm over his shoulders. They could not move fast enough. Although she had been knocked on the head, the elementalist could run faster than the two of them; Brandon’s burned legs left him with a considerable limp, and he moaned as he hobbled through the alley.