Path of the King: A Dark Progression Fantasy Series by Layne Alexander

Author:Layne, Alexander
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Alexander Layne Publishing
Published: 2024-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

23 - ASH

Marak walked through the ruins.

The wind carried white ash through the air. It collected in his hair, in the ridges and gaps of his armor. He could taste in his mouth and upon his lips. Haron, walking next to him, was covered in so much of it that he resembled a ghost. Marak imagined that he looked much the same.

“Dead gods…” Haron breathed. The two stopped in front of what had been the largest bathhouse in Amin. It was now little more than a blackened skeleton. The stone walls had been shattered, the roof collapsed.

Right next to the bathhouse had been one of many granaries. When the granary had caught fire, the trapped gasses, produced by the containment of so much wheat, resulted in an explosion that leveled all surrounding buildings. It was a risk Marak had read about in books. There’d been an infamous case in the Rising Dominion of a city that had stored all of their grain in a single, massive granary, located at the very heart of the city. One day, a kitchen fire had turned into a small inferno, which had jumped across to the granary. Half the city had been destroyed in a single instant.

Amin had been a little smarter. There were a dozen separate granaries, spread all throughout the city, to minimize the damage in case of a fire.

Even still, there’d been little distance between the granary and the surrounding buildings. The explosion had still been immense, and the destruction significant. Worse, it had only helped spread the flames.

“Amin is terribly designed,” Marak murmured. “I already knew that. Iadus had me study a map of the city once. Originally, it was little more than a small town. And it just kept growing and growing with no one to guide the growth, until the whole thing was just a mess.” He felt numb as he said the words. He found himself unable to take his eyes off of the blackened corpses strewn throughout the street. Body parts, someone had told him, had been scattered by the explosion so far that a leg had been found outside of the city walls.

“What of the city fire wardens?” Haron asked, looking more aghast than Marak had ever seen him before.

Marak shook his head. “Amin barely had any. They had even less after Cassian took over. A few of them tried to help, but…” the sentence didn’t need finishing. The ruination all around them spoke for itself.

They kept walking, now down a residential street, where on either side of them, houses had been consumed by fire. A fire still smoldered. The air reeked of smoke so strongly that it was hard to breathe.

“The total toll hasn’t yet been counted,” Marak said, his voice hollow. “It’ll take many more days, and perhaps even weeks before we know how many people died. But…we can safely say it’s in the thousands.”

“Not exactly the ideal way to start your reign,” Haron muttered.

“No.” Marak stopped moving. He closed his eyes. Calazar would be on his way soon.

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