The smell of burned wood was hanging thick in the air, and something even more sickening was there, something abnormal. Ash danced gloomily, like the restless ghosts through the rubble of what had been once a busy city. Blackening ruins of houses stuck out of the ground like sharp teeth of some rotten beast and the ground was crunching under the boots of the mercenaries in a morbid choir of death.
The boss of the black thorn company, Calros, raised a hand and his men began to fan out. He looked with dim, watchful eyes over the desolation, and rested his right hand on the pommel of his sword. His problem was the silence and not the destruction. No chirp of flies, no circle of carrion birds, not even that general murmur of nature, not a rustling of the leaves, not the twitter of a cricket in the distance. Nothing but stifling silence.
And then the bodies.
They lay, as if asleep, burned by no fire, smitten by no blade. They were naked, they had not been touched, each one of the corpses was untouched by any oblivion or any violence, but all the faces were frozen with a mask of suffering. The same expression was on the animals. The trees even took part in fearful startlements, all the branches caggily trying to turn toward the city and uproot themselves to escape. It was as though everything the people, the beasts, the plants, all were locked mid flight and held back by something unspeakable.
The mercenaries muttered quiet prayers as they passed. The deeper they went, the stranger it became. The bodies grew younger toward the city's center children, infants. Even though the ruins bore the mark of intense fire, the scorch marks halted inches before touching any flesh or foliage. The destruction itself had respected a boundary. Even stranger, the plants were bending out, as though in retreat, but the human and animal bodies were bending in, as though they were attracted toward whatever was in the center of the city.
Serik, the company scout, knelt beside a child who still held a hoe that appeared too large to be picked up by a child, and in a low voice said to the captain. "This... this isn't natural."
Calros didn't answer at first. His instincts agreed. He'd seen massacres, plagues, and magical calamities in his thirty years, but never anything like this. This wasn't just a destroyed city, it was violated.
"Keep your eyes open," he ordered, his voice calm but low. "Whatever did this might still be here."
They moved cautiously, ash muffling their footsteps. The burned skeletons of market stalls surrounded them. A fountain still was dribbling in the town square, its stone goddess blackened, but not yet broken. The dissonance between utter ruin and preserved fragments tightened every nerve.
The Blackthorn Company had been sent to confirm the impossible an entire city, wiped out overnight. No survivors, no witnesses, the Empire demanded answers. Calros had expected ruins.This was not what he had anticipated. On his knees, before a fallen beam, he was examining with a gloved finger the curious scorch marks. They throbbed a little under his fingers, not really warm, but living.
"Magic," he muttered, standing. He turned to call for the his collagues then froze.
A sound. Thin, distant, a child's cry, barely louder than a whisper. Not the wind.
"Form up!" he shouted, and drew his sword. The mercenaries managed to gather rapidly, and they formed a close circle.
The sobbing led them to the ruins of what had been a mansion. The ceiling had fallen in, and there were shards of colored glass sparkling on the ground. Inside, the sound grew clearer, thin, weak, but alive. Stepping over rubble, Calros led them into what remained of a bedroom and stopped cold. They found a corpse, but this corpse looked extremely different from everything they have been found out so far. This corpse was different. Mangled, disfigured, blood soaked the bedding and floor. It had been torn apart, reduced to something barely human. Its skin was blackened, oozing corruption. And in the corner, nestled in a bundle of scorched blankets, lay a baby. No older than a few weeks. Pale, lips blue, but breathing. Calros knelt, sheathing his sword. He hesitated, then lifted the child into his arms. The infant stirred, letting out another weak wail.
"Captain..." Serik said, voice tight. "How the hell did he survive this?"
"I don't know," Calros replied. "But he's coming with us."
The men exchanged uneasy glances but didn't argue. Arguing with Calros was a wasted breath. They searched a while longer, finding more signs of unnatural disruption, twisted geometry, scorched symbols, shattered buildings, but no clear answers. As dusk fell, they turned back. A few hundred paces from the city's edge, a formation of knights waited. At their head, a tall officer dismounted and approached, face unreadable beneath his helm.
"Captain Calros," he said curtly. "You've completed your investigation?"
"Yes." Calros gestured behind him. "The reports were accurate. No survivors, no visible cause, nothing natural."
He recounted everything from the pristine corpses, the strange markings, the untouched center and then held up the baby. "We found this." His voice darkened. "The only living soul left."
The officer's gaze sharpened. He approached, inspecting the child. For a moment, something flickered across his features unease, or recognition. "You'll hand him over," he said flatly. "The Empire will determine his fate."
Calros's grip tightened. "With respect, sir, he's just a baby. He's no threat."
"A baby found at the epicenter of a magical disaster," the officer replied. "That makes him an anomaly. Anomalies belong to the Empire."
The mercenaries stiffened. Hands drifted toward hilts. Calros raised a hand. They stood down. They were mercenaries, not fools. He stepped forward and carefully handed over the infant. The officer cradled the child with surprising gentleness.
"You've done your duty, Captain," he said. "Return to your camp and await further orders."
Calros nodded stiffly. The knights disappeared into the ash and dusk and long after they were gone the child was crying. And a black foreboding grew in the guts of Calros, that they had blundered upon something much larger than they had been contracted to deal with.
—
The imperial officer watched the mercenaries disappear into the haze. He looked down at the child.
"For what was once a noble and powerful lineage," he murmured, "their end is quite pitiful indeed."
He handed the baby to a subordinate. "Take him to the orphanage in Rubsleum. It's better for him to grow up away from the Empire's eyes."
"Yes, sir!" The knight saluted, cloaking himself in light before vanishing.
The officer looked skyward. Stars gleamed faintly through the veil of smoke. He smiled, just a little.
"Now let's see... among Death, the World, and the Tower. Who will choose wisely? Or perhaps the right choice is something else entirely."
He turned, voice soft and musing.
"Whatever the answer, it will be a spectacle. Because those ignorant and sinful, will finally meet their fate."