But as we fly closer, my heart sinks.
The stone wall has three gaping holes in it, each one a large, crumbling fissure with piles of rubble within it. Two of the gaps are on the north side. One is harder to see because it’s closer to the eastern gate, but it’s large enough that I’m not imagining it.
All of the gaps are wide enough that a monster could get through.
Erik must have spotted the gaps, too, because he stiffens, his arms tightening around me.
“What happened there?” I cry, trying to be heard over the wind. “Could it have been a monster?”
It’s startling to me that I don’t see a beast yet. True, the rain has started to fall, but the wasteland in the north looks far too calm. There are no large figures approaching the walls from any side—or even within the city as far as I can see.
Which makes me think the damage to the wall happened before now. But from a monster or something else, I can’t possibly know.
Anything could have happened here since we left.
On my last day in the city, a group of humans betrayed Erik. Nero, the leader of the metalworkers’ guild, and Vincent, the leader of the carpenters’ guild, stood high up on the northern ramparts, looking down on me.Laughingat me.
My former guard, Braddock, stood with them, and he laughed loudest of all, his ruddy face gleaming with triumph.
They had just shot Erik with a giant crossbow bolt that I had fashioned with my own hands.
I had forged for them that crossbow, along with a harpoon, a net, and weighted chains, each powerful enough to take down a monster within moments.
I vowed that I would come back and destroy those humans.
Now, again, I have to remind myself why I’m flying toward this city instead of leaving its people to their fate.
Maybelle. Kedric. Mother Solas. Rachel. Councilor Genova.
Even the Wasteland Warriors who were as loyal to Erik as humans could be. He trained them to defend the city, but they were nowhere to be seen on the day he was betrayed. I have no idea what happened to them.
“That damage looks days old,” Erik growls in my ear. “It looks like it was caused by explosions, not claws and teeth. Can you see the burn marks at the edges of the holes? And the rubble in the industrial area to the north?”
I reach back with my left hand, brushing my fingers against my hammer, instantly giving myself the benefit of enhanced eyesight.
I follow where Erik is looking, my eyes widening as I make out the blackened buildings to the city’s north. Thosebuildings are used for metalworking, carpentry, and textile manufacturing.
“Could it have been caused by crimson coal?” I ask.
When the humans tried to kill me, they ground up crimson coal into an explosive powder and set fire to it, creating a blast as deadly as a fire dragon’s breath.
“Very likely.”
As Erik speaks, lightning flickers again, this time sizzling across one side of the city to the next, bringing the damage into full view.
Many buildings in the north are blackened and burned out, and the carnage continues southward as far as the castle in the center of the city.
I’m surprised to make out a blockade there. It extends out from the side of the castle’s walls, cordoning off the southwestern corner of the city. I can’t see exactly what that barrier is made out of—maybe stone and wood—but it’s clearly made of many objects piled high.
A whirlwind of possibilities flies through my mind, first and foremost that the explosions in the north could have been an accident.
Crimson coal is incredibly volatile. If the humans were crushing it up in the north and a fire broke out, the explosions could have decimated those buildings and blown holes in the city’s external wall.
Or… the explosions might have been deliberately caused.
Acts of destruction.But by whom and against whom?
It’s concerning, but the threat of a monster is more so.
