Chapter 3: Estily
The cavern spat them back out into the dusk. They raced down the wooded slope, the heavy scent of woodsmoke and pine filling their lungs. When they reached the edge of the village, they stopped. The main street was not burning—it was choked with people.
A panicked crowd was fleeing onto the main trade route, the King’s Road, heading East toward Estily, the Western Woods’ main city.
Ori, Tez, and Yasir plunged into the crowd, their eyes darting past soot-streaked faces, searching for one thing: family. Yasir was frantic, shouting for his mother and father, but the roar of the crowd swallowed his voice. Ori stood by his friend, clutching the hidden sword. His heart was pounding.
Then, a voice cut through the noise. “Orian! Tez!”
Klohee rushed toward them, her face etched with grim determination. She pulled them close, her physical presence a controlled force amid the shoving mass.
“My parents, Klohee, I can’t find them!” Yasir cried, tears finally breaking through his panic.
Ori straightened, his hand instinctively gripping the hilt of the hidden sword. He felt the familiar rush of reckless courage and told himself he was now armed and ready. “We’ll go back. We’ll find them. We can still—”
He was cut off. Klohee physically restrained Ori, Tez, and Yasir.
“Get back, boys! The road! Keep to the road!” she shouted, pulling Ori away down the road.
Just then, a horrific sound silenced the crowd: a high-pitched scream immediately followed by a bone-snapping crack. A massive, shadowy form—another monster—tossed a body high into the smoky air. The beast caught the corpse and began to feed.
The visual shock shattered Ori’s confidence. He was no hero. He was just a boy. The powerful eagerness he’d felt seconds ago shriveled into raw, shaking fear.
“Run!” Klohee commanded, her voice like steel. She shoved the three boys onto the King’s Road. Ori, no longer resisting, joined the masses in their escape.
Another monster emerged from the smoke, a larger one, and gave chase. Ori gritted his teeth, his gut twisting with sorrow and self-loathing as his feet pounded down the road. He was running away from the danger, not toward it. He was useless and in need of saving.
In a conscious act of self-condemnation, he released his grip from the sword and left it in his belt. As his grip relaxed, the living weapon instantly reverted to the dark green rod.
Around a bend, a small cluster of older village men—fathers, farmers, and laborers—stopped, drawing rusty axes, scythes, and one bow.
“Go to Estily! We’ll hold the path. We’ll stop the beasts from following!” one of them yelled.
Ori ran past the brave men, his face burning with shame. They saw him as a child worth protecting, not a capable warrior. He wished desperately he could be like them.
Tez, Klohee, Ori, and Yasir rounded the bend, the cheers of the defiant men quickly swallowed by the roars of the chasing monster.
They followed the fleeing villagers along the King’s Road. Even Tez, the idealized pillar of strength, maintained a desperate pace. It took nearly three hours for the flight to slow down to a hurried walk.
By midnight, the road swelled with people. They met refugees from a few smaller farm settlements west of them, all heading toward the safety of Estily.
Despite the heavy travel, there was a strange silence. No monstrous roars followed them.
The sheer mass of bodies became its own burden. It was fully dark when they finally reached the high stone gates of Estily. The city’s guards, overwhelmed but organized, reluctantly let the refugees flood inside, funneling them behind the protective walls.
The family found a small, sheltered spot near a central plaza to rest. Though exhausted from the travel and the shock, sleep was impossible. The air buzzed with the fearful whispers of hundreds of displaced people, still streaming into the city.
The next morning, the bell tower rang a solemn, unfamiliar rhythm. A city guard announced the immediate distribution of rations.
Ori, Tez, and Yasir stayed together. Ori kept the dark green rod hidden deep among their meager belongings, actively avoiding its touch. The sheer volume of people made the unstable weapon a danger, and the lack of privacy meant they couldn't risk revealing it or the black onyx stone that Yasir kept secreted in his bag. They kept the secrets of the rod and the stone even from Klohee.
Klohee returned with a ration of coarse bread and water, her face a mask of sincerity and urgency. She urged them to move deeper into the city.
“We’re leaving, boys,” she stated, her gaze sweeping over the chaotic plaza.
Tez frowned. “Leaving? But where? Everyone here says we’re safe.”
“Everyone here came from the villages west of us, like ours,” Klohee explained, her voice low. “Whatever spawned those creatures must be centered west of the city. If it breached our villages, Estily is the next natural barrier. We won’t wait for it to break.”
She looked directly at her sons and Yasir. “We are heading East, then South-East. We are going to Sowden. That’s where we will find my brother, Rost.”
Just as they finished gathering the few supplies they had, preparing to slip through the eastern side of the city, a terrible, drawn-out shriek ripped through the courtyard. It was followed by a flood of panicked citizens pushing back against them, their faces twisted in terror.
The screaming intensified. Something was desperately wrong.
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