Natural Magic

Chapter 27 - Aftermath

"No, I don't think-..."

Chicken dropped the cup and ran towards the village.

"Chicken, wait! What do we do?!"

He ignored Melrose's pleas like he ignored the ache in his legs. Sometimes these things don't matter.

When he arrived at the village, he was greeted by carbonic devastation. It was a familiar sight. He could recognize structures from memory. But reality twisted his recollection. Instead of inviting tents, there were merely remnants, charred black.

The air smelled like burned leather, with a hint of sulfur. Some of the village was still cooling, making small crackling noises among the rocks and charcoal. The black skeletons of tents now stood where his relatives had lived.

He noted only a smear where there had once been the tent he had earned his first knife. Finnian, the name appearing in his mind, had been the one who trained him as a scout.

The structure must have collapsed and then trampled as the people fled.

An ashen haze filled the air. Small fires still burned. These were proper orange fires, though. None of the blue fury he had justly rained upon-

He shook his head, freeing it of the thought even as it was building.

Walking like one asleep through the charcoal maze, he saw Auntie's tent. It was somehow unburned.

The padding of footsteps came from ahead, rapid. The sound of someone running.

A goblin turned a corner. Recognizing Chicken, it stopped, frozen in fear.

Chicken noted it carried a white something, streaked with grey from being handled with ash-covered hands. The goblin looked down at the white thing it was carrying, following Chicken's stare. Shouting something quick and angry in Gobbeldygook, the creature ran another way.

Chicken did not give chase.

He walked towards Auntie's tent, swayed by habit.

In front of the entrance was a pile of unburned material. He recognized it as Auntie, collapsed in a heap.

Now entirely numb, he looked at her dispassionately, organizing the facts.

Here was his Auntie, unconscious and lying on the ground. She was in front of her hut, which was no longer in the village he knew, but in a skeleton of a village.

His brain provided no course of action, so while he waited for it to assemble one he remained standing there, staring down at her.

****

Amerigo was tramping across the open area of the field, the result of much hard work at the hands of the kobolds and goblins. He had walked quite a distance following on foot.

"There's my village!" Chicken had shouted, reeling in excitement. And shortly after, Amerigo had been formally introduced to the ground. Luckily, they weren't too high, and Amerigo hadn't landed on anything highly resistant, like a boulder, or venomous creature.

He became worried when a column of smoke rose ahead of him.

Here, at the point where the plumes touched the horizon, he finally saw Chicken.

His friend was standing stock still amidst a charcoal landscape, staring down at what looked like another kobold. Or a pile of discarded rags, though there was a bit that seemed very much like a scaled snout.

Neither figure had moved as Amerigo ran to them, and there was still no response when he took his friend's arm and shook him.

Amerigo tended to the bundle on the ground.

It turned out to be a much older kobold. Female. She was very much unconscious. Amerigo's best guess was that she had received a blow to the back of the head.

The remains of a few bundles of dried plants and a small jar lay scattered around her, likely dropped in the attack. These he gathered quickly in one arm and, using his other hand, snapped in Chicken's face. Not waiting for a response, Amerigo shoved the items onto Chicken, snapping more, working the kobold's arms around them.

Chicken shook his head, coming to from his waking dream. He carried the materials instinctively, but said, "Auntie! Auntie, what happened?!"

Amerigo stopped him from dropping to his knees and instead turned him around bodily, a stern expression on his face.

"But what about Auntie?" Chicken asked lamely, half turning back around.

Amerigo was already bending to scoop the old kobold in his arms. He found she was incredibly light.

Amerigo gestured with a nod for Chicken to lead the way.

"I don't know what we're going to do," he lamented.

A voice from behind Chicken spoke up.

"What do you mean?"

It was Melrose. He was being followed by a gaggle of survivors, each investigating the mess.

"You're the one who saved us, Chicken," Melrose said. "We'll follow you."

Chicken watched the expressions on their faces. One of them touched a charred tent, causing it to collapse.

He saw, reflected in their faces, the despair he felt inside.

You can lead them.

The voice came from within. It wasn't the despair. It seethed with an undercurrent of familiar power. The power he felt overcome him at the sight of his village having been overrun by orcs.

You know a safe place for them already, the voice said. It was soothing, no longer frothing and red.

They will follow you anywhere.

He looked from the kobolds, to Amerigo, to his Auntie, sleeping in his friend's arms.

In his mind, he leaned against that power. It was stalwart. It was his.

He prepared to speak to his people.

He did know a place.

They would follow him anywhere.