Roots - Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen: First Blood

Ash rained down over the fields and plains of Town, ghosting over everything in a choking fog. A steady mist of charred wood filtered through the reeds and coated the ground in a soft, cushy layer of dust. The falling ‘snow’ drifted lazily over the earth on the rolling winds, spinning and twirling on the invisible currents. The small eddies swirled the gray matter like a deathly frost dancing round a campfire. The haze of the sky corrupted a scornful black as the billowing smoke poured forth into the heavens. The horizon showed the sun just rising in the east, a blood red eye watching through the dark veil.
Smog blew in sheets and plastered Aldon clothes flat against his skin, sticky and perspired. He coughed and wheezed the scent of death from his lungs and batted it away from his face. A small halo emerged in the smoke about his head as he waved it away before moving. He ran as fast as he dared unable to see more than a few yards ahead. His footsteps fell soft and silent on the cinders, leaving small clouds behind him as he progressed into the unseen.
His instincts sharp and ears tuned to the slightest sound around him, he closed his mind’s faculty to his eyes and replaced his vision with emphasis on his spatial awareness. He felt the air pull against him from the left, tugging on his hair and tunic. The cool breeze grew steadily warmer as he neared the edge of the tall grass. The wind rebounded off the trees ahead of him and ducking past them, he came to the cultivated food plots of his childhood. The wind ceased to caress his cheek as he passed an old barn that the children had used as a clubhouse.
Even though he couldn’t see it the image appeared in his mind as sharp as if he had just left it. Single story made of light wood and warped from years of exposure. The inside was drafty and dark save for the cracks between the boards. They had excluded Aldon from taking fort with them but he had snuck in and buried his change along with theirs for their treasure to find.
A faint smile twitched to his lips.
* * *
All the muttering and planning ceased instantly. A hand raised in signal, a closed fist, and the room fell silent. The hands first two fingers passed each other like scissors then held up a single finger.
One person on foot.
The hand held out all five fingers, then after a few moments began to drop them.
Five yards, four yards, three..
The hand disappeared from view then reemerged with an arrow.
* * *
Aldon walked forward slowly, beginning to feel little breeze at all as buildings began to multiply and cluster together. He must have come out further down in the woods than he had come into them.
I must already be near Brynn’s Pass, should be a bridge nearby..Ah, there it is. Now onward through a few more leagues of houses then on to Town.
Aldon silence seemed to thicken around him and become tangible. His fear grew as his neck began to prickle like he was being watched, a nervous twitch in his right eyebrow. He tried to shake it off for being paranoid but it only increased the further he went.
His hands began to shake and as if expecting something. Slowly the anticipation grew until he could stand it no longer. He stopped and opened his eyes. A slight tremor of air trickled ahead of him like water, growing stronger like the flow of a cracking dam. Aldon bent his knees and leaned his head back like avoiding a punch. A high pitched whistling passed his ear, something soft lining his cheek. He rolled to the side into the smog and waited, back against the wall of the clubhouse.
His heart hammered in his chest, shaking his head with every throb of his constricted neck and throat.
What is going on here! This can’t have been an accident, this..this was an attack. Is an attack, something barely missed me. I have to find Muren, I have to let him know I’m okay.
He slipped his knife from its sheath and for once was glad it was no longer shiny and would not glint. He crept around the corner, low to the ground with his arms out for protection. Each second he padded through the darkness seemed a thousand years. Sweat coated his arms and clung to his tunic.
The haze showed no sign of lifting and instead began to swirl like coils of pipe smoke. The pollution began to shimmer with a sparkling orange tint border. A heavy scent of cinder breathed past Aldon. He sucked it in and coughed against his will a spluttering choke. The stink of death swelled in his nostrils and made his eyes water, scorching down the back of his throat which had swollen into a hard lump.
“Dead, they..they’re all..” He whispered shakily. Shivers racked his body like a blizzard until he could walk no more. He tripped on something soft and fell to his hands and knees. He quivered and looked over at the object, leaning inches from it to see it clearly.
Two eyes stared back at him.
Aldon recoiled like he had been struck, winded and gasping for air; he turned and vomited the contents of his stomach. Tears flowed down his face as he dry heaved several times after. He inched away from the corpse until he backed against what he hoped was a building. He felt the side and noted a wheel, guessing it be a wagon. He grasped it with fumbling fingers, numb and blank-minded. He steadied himself against it and stood before collapsing.