Chapter 20 - Part 2

The harrowing journey though the storm was something they would all remember to their dying day. Dust and grit battered at them. Wind howled with fury, tyring to pick them up and smash them. Every inch of every bit of space sought to shred, to destroy, to shear away life.

Thomas managed to call forth the deepest powers of the staff, but he could only slow down the wind, not stop it. Then they all saw the lull once Delegado pointed it out, but they never could have stayed with it without his help. Flamebearer had dismissed her horse, lest the fiends detect it, so she rode with Thomas. Orphan rode with Deledgao, and Feather sat in the reed cocoon that had carried him over the Eldeen Reaches against the half-orc’s chest. A short but thick guide rope connected the horses, and they hunched over their saddles to avoid being knocked off their mounts. Without the weight of the horses movement would have been impossible. As it was deadly shards of razor-sharp volcanic glass flew by to their right and to their left, but the half-orc guided them through.

It seems hours, but it was over in a minute. The storm was only five hundred feet thick, its power gone once they were more than a few inches from its edge. A half-mile of featureless expanse of black gravel stretched out like the corpse of a sea lapping against a harbor. At the end of that half-mile was Ashtakala.

Titanic shards of volcanic glass like the ones in the magical windstorm, only thousands of times greater in size, thrust upwards, high in the sky. Great walls of some dark stone ringed the city, wedged between the titanic shards. They could see few buildings at this distance, although many seemed to be ruined or half-collapsed. In between the broken towers and buildings were whole ones, in no apparent pattern.

One great black spire stood at the center of the city. Soft sounds of screaming drifted out from the distance.

“Ashtakala,” Flamebearer said. “Praise the Silver Flame!”

“Yes,” Thomas said. “Praise the Flame!”

“Louder, Thomas, the fiends can’t hear you,” Delegado snapped.

Orphan slipped off of the half-orc’s mount as Delegado freed Feather from the reed cocoon. The hawk was agitated, and made no effort to leave Delegado’s lap until the half-orc put the bird on his shoulder.

“No one coming to attack us or greet us,” Orphan observed. “Let’s go before that changes.” He started for the walls of the city at a run, and Thomas and Delegado spurred their mounts after him.