I wasn't cold anymore. The moment Abby and I saw the horizon we shared a glance and bolted back toward town, all pretense of stealth and reverie forgotten. Sprinting down the narrow forest path and trying not to panic, I could feel everything but the tip of my nose warming as I spent all the energy I had to run.
A glow that big had to be a fire, and a serious one at that. My thoughts swirled in a chaotic maelstrom.
Was it caused by the demon the Church was hunting back in Linthel? Was there some kind of cult around it that had set fire to all or part of the city?
Abby kept pace with me, but stayed a couple meters back so we wouldn't run into each other down the narrow trail. Although I had a longer stride, she was the more athletic of the two of us and we pretty much evened out. I didn't turn to see her face, but I have no doubt it was as serious and as shocked as mine.
Two kilometers. That's how far south the old fort was. The small half of that distance was dense mixed forest, and the rest was farms we were now running through. We jumped the first fence and skirted a herd of sleeping cattle. Across this field was the main road back. Coming around the farm's barn, we got our first look back at Linthel, which lay down the hill from us.
The orange glow seemed to light the edges of the taller buildings, but we couldn't yet see the fire. Lord Carvalon's castle sat atop its hill to the west. The massive stone complex was dotted with pricks of light and silent in the night. The color from the fire reflected off the snow and bathed the whole side of the barn and nearby field in an eerie light.
If we couldn't see the fire from here, that meant it was on the north side of the city. Our side. My heart sank in my chest. Linthel was a big city with tens of thousands of people, but I had a terrible feeling wash over me. I skidded to a stop in the snow-slicked grass and stared out at the city lit up in orange. This close, we could both see the smoke billowing up into the sky, staining the starry tapestry as black as ink.
Abby ran up next to me not a moment later. Wordlessly, she put her arm around my shoulders. To my surprise, my hand reached out and grabbed her free hand. I looked down at her and she up at me. She started to speak and I could see her lips start to form the words that I knew would be 'It'll be alright', but she stopped herself. No doubt she had the same feeling as me.
"We need to keep going." Abby's voice sounded detached.
I nodded numbly at her words and we broke the embrace more slowly than I think either of us intended to before we sprinted the rest of the field and hopped the outer fence onto the road back to town. I don't think I'd ever moved as quickly as I did just then, and soon both of us were weaving through the streets toward Linthel's north side. People in nightwear stared out open windows as we passed, the chill night air forgotten in the moment. More people had even come out into the street, and a few were on the streets moving north. Some were in a daze, and others, like us, ran through the night with panic-stricken faces.
When we reached the river, we could finally see flames in the distance, flickering between buildings and roaring high into the night sky. Below us, the Linthel River's dark water reflected the demented lightshow. My legs burned in agony and from the ragged breathing behind me, Abby wasn't faring much better. Like it or not, we had to slow down for both the mass of people ahead and our bodies.
The market square across the bridge was a chaotic mass of people, kept roughly in check by a mixture of guards and church folk, if the dull armor and white and red robes were any indication. On the other side of the market were hastily erected barricades. Bucket brigades ran from the river north across the square to carts loaded with barrels. The fire was nearly invisible behind the buildings on the north side of the market, meaning it was further north still. Closer to home. The smoke, however, was visible in the air and I tasted ash.
Like sensation from a numb limb, sound slowly filtered back in as we both dashed across the square. Shouts from people keeping order and of others' panic rang out around us. From further north echoed the dull whoomphing noise of a building giving up.
I spotted a familiar shock of red hair standing a head above the crowd. Bourick stood helping at the front of a nearby bucket brigade. I called out to him, voice strained and breath coming in gasps. "Bourick!"
The brawny smith turned to us, "Zach! Abigail! Thank Dhias you're okay!" He lifted a full bucket and emptied it into a barrel on the cart.
Before he could continue, Abby took the lead. "Mr. Gadson, where's the fire burning? Do you know how it started? Is there a demon rampaging around?"
Okay, maybe she was also as dazed as I was.
Bourick looked over our exhausted forms before replying, "Call of fire went up about an hour ago. Got out of control--something to do with a demon or a cult. Church is handling it."
"Shit," I replied. "Our neighborhood?"
He thought for a moment. "Shoot, it might be. I'm sorry you two."
"Then what are we doing standing here! Zach, let's go!" Abby dashed off toward the blockade.
"Thanks, Bourick!" I turned and ran off after my best friend.
Bourick waved after me. "The Church has the place blocked off! Oh, and Zach, Abigail's grandmother stopped by earlier and…"
Behind me I could hear my teacher say something about Abby's nan, but I couldn't wait and hear him out. Abby was already racing for the waist-high barricade which she hopped with a practiced ease.
"Hey, you can't go in there!" a robed Church man guarding the blockade shouted after us.
I didn't stop and managed to jump over a sideways cart being used as a barricade. The robed man grabbed after me, but missed. I landed on the other side, my ankle rolling painfully under me. Somehow, I ignored the pain and kept running. There may have been shouts behind me, but I couldn't tell over the din of the crowds and the rushing pulse in my ears. We passed a crew coming back with an empty cart. Others of all sorts were dousing the walls of a store: Church folk, guards, and civilians. If they tried to stop us, they didn't move quickly and if they shouted, I was beyond hearing.
Abby slowed around the first corner where we needed to turn. I caught up to her and we paused. The buildings around us were dark, but undamaged. Just ahead of us we could hear the fire, and its light flickered orange over the rooftops.
We shared a look and started to run again. After another block we could feel the heat and see the flames roaring around the next corner. It never crossed my mind how dangerous this was. We had to do something. We had to at least know. As we ran, I noticed dark lines down the street and across some of the buildings. Soot? Maybe, but I wasn't of a mind to go look.
Abby's house was slightly closer, so I knew we'd go there first. Rounding the next corner, we entered the burning city. The once wide street had been reduced to an alley. Flames and burning heat reached toward us from the sides. A window shattered as we ran by, raining glass down and narrowly missing both of us. My ankle was throbbing now, but I couldn't slow down. Not when seconds could matter.
Could they matter? The fire started at least an hour ago and the buildings to my sides were engulfed. No one could be alive in that heat, even if the first floors of the nicer structures were mostly stone and wouldn't burn completely. The densely packed wooden upper stories must have caught like tinder as the flames rushed from roof to roof. No, I thought. Seconds could matter. Seconds had to matter.
The still night was a blessing that kept the smoke moving up and away from the town, but the fire created air currents all its own. My eyes started to tear up and the taste of ash stung my tongue. Against all odds, we made it out through the inferno and into a small plaza with a familiar well. More dark lines converged near the center. The well was all that was familiar here anymore; the houses were burned out and still burning. Unrecognizable if not for their relative position and a few personal touches to the stone walls.
Abby was already running toward the remains of her own home and I hurried to follow her. The charred remains of the door laid on the floor just inside. The upper story was burned away and hotspots and small flames flared around the ground floor. Ahead of me and only a couple meters into the front room Abby stopped.
"No… Nan. Mom, Dad…" Abby trailed off. I could see tears forming in her eyes, but her face was numb with shock. I know mine was the same.
Before us were two bodies near the center of the room, charred and blackened. A third, slumped against the rear wall, wasn't completely burned. I could see the lifeless eyes of Abby's nan staring straight ahead, her gray hair wild and tangled, loose from its trademark bun. I could also see the vicious slash across her chest and the blood, some of which had burnt, pooled on the stone floor.
I put an arm around Abby, unable to form any words. Sobbing, we walked carefully around her parents' charred remains. My best friend knelt down in front of her nan and wept. Abby's show of emotion snapped me out of my fugue state; my knees fell out from under my and my own tears soon followed.
Abby was the first to regain the ability to speak. She sounded vulnerable, scared. I was too, but I'd never seen her look so fragile before. Her green eyes stared at me but most of their luster was gone. Dead. But something flickered there still, some resolve I don't think I would be able to have.
"They killed her, Zach."
I looked at Abby and then at the slash. A sword wound. I think.
"Look." Abby pointed to the door. The frame was mostly gone, but the bottom hinge was twisted open and it sat some notable distance inside the front room.
"The Church. They did it," Abby said, her voice wavering.
"The Church?" My voice came out hoarse.
"The fucking Church!" Abby roared. "Do you see the door? Nan must have fought back. They planned all this. Did you see? All the doors on our block were gone. Kicked in! Someone with a sword killed her—a person killed her. She bled out before the fire even fucking started. And those lines, I bet they mean something!"
"The soot lines?"
"Do you think people dragged burnt shit along the fucking walls for fun?" Abby's voice was getting stronger and louder. Her eyes were lit by fire, but they still seemed hollow.
"The Church? How? Why? Abby, you're not making sense!"
"It makes perfect fucking sense! You! How can you sit there and ignore it?"
My face stung. I realized after a second that Abby had slapped me. I turned back and the fire was gone from Abby's eyes. She looked scared and hurt and when I tried to meet her gaze she looked away.