She'd made the three hour walk to Hod many times before. On a sunny afternoon it was a pleasant break from the grind of the days, when sunbeams filtered through the green leaves on the grey trees. However, in the night, with things stalking the darkness, she felt like there were a hundred red eyes on her, and she hurried as quickly as she could.
She kept as close to the edge of the path as she could so that she could duck into the trees if she needed to. Above her, the flames streaked through the sky, brilliant white lines suddenly scored across the night, coming every few seconds.
She couldn't run the whole distance, and she knew that if she tried it would exhaust her; so she walked as quickly as she could, putting one foot in front of another the only thing she could do. While she walked, she practised the names and the sounds of the runes, imagined carving a message to Tira when she got back to the mainland, and tried to forget Holly and how she had heard her screams cut short in the night.
At one point a star fell close to her, maybe a mile away in the grey forest. She caught a glimpse of a ball of light plunging down, and then there was a distant roar, and the darkness briefly lit up, hard shadows cast from the tree trunks. In better times that would be a bounty; the men of the village would find the fallen star, now a ball of rock and metal, and bring it back to smelt into precious metals to sell or hoard.
But now they were all dead.
Nothing else happened to her, despite the hundred torments that her imagination sprang on her. Eventually, at around eleven by her guess, the road arrived at the clearing that held the town of Hod.
She stopped in amazement at what she saw.
YOU ARE READING
Devils on Starfall Isle
Fantasy'Death is coming in the Autumn.' That's what Tira tells Verity. But Verity is stuck in her life, and doesn't understand just what's at stake, until it's much too late... A novella written for ONC23. Guidance: mild horror, sex references.
