Free The Battle of Ebulon by Shane Porteous Page B

the shadows of the
building.
    A gust of wind howled
around Tulacha's head, and she shivered in the creeping cold,
feeling the lack of warmth all the more for standing still. She
jumped up and down, and wiggled her toes in her boots, doing her
best to keep warm. She scanned the street, first one direction,
then the other, but she saw no one. The stonework was simple, and
unadorned. The lower levels were made up of larger blocks,
especially at the corners and over doorways and windows. Smaller
blocks formed the main parts of the walls. The buildings were
packed tightly together, and some reached 3 or 4 storeys high. All
were capped by sloping tiled roofs, parts of which were piled with
blown snow, and other parts blown clear.
    There was no sign of life.
No birds. No creatures. It was the dead of winter here.
    She heard a bang in the
distance, and looked nervously from side to side. There was no one.
But now she looked from window to window, suddenly certain that one
of them would reveal a face.
    "They left everything,"
Wegri said from right behind her.
    "Argh!" Tulacha couldn't
help herself. "You startled me..."
    "Apparently. There's no
sign of looting, no breakage, no bodies. It was an orderly
departure, but a speedy one. They weren't allowed to take very much
with them."
    "Did you find anything
interesting?" she asked.
    "No, not really," replied
Wegri, innocently. "Let's get moving, you must be freezing standing
here."
    She nodded, distracted
from her momentary suspicion.

    3.
    "No sign of damage here."
Khendam looked about the great storefront. "And no
bodies."
    "It doesn't make any
sense," Rysil said. "Why would everyone just leave, and then not
come back for their things?"
    "I don't know." Khendam
led them out of the immense building, and back into the windswept
street. "I don't like it at all. There's no sign of anyone, or
anything living."
    "Beautiful architecture,"
said Rysil. "Simple and well-proportioned. They must have been a
very sensible people. Dependable."
    "You can tell that from
stonework?" Khendam was not convinced.
    "You can tell a lot of
things, from a lot of things. Their window panes are often large,
which speaks of a certain skill or technology level. There are
sconces in the walls, as if for candles, but they have glass balls
fixed into them. They must have used magic to light their way. Just
imagine magical light filling all these buildings! We haven't seen
fireplaces, so perhaps they heated themselves by magic as
well."
    "Why do you think they
have all this magic?"
    "Magic brought us here,
didn't it?"
    "Yes," Khendam admitted,
"but we don't know if the same people who lived here brought us
here." He sighed. "I don't like winter."
    "Oh, I do," said Rysil.
The freshness, the stark beauty. The purity of it."
    "You must never have
wanted for anything then. My family is not poor, but the winter is
a tough time for every family in Brenave. Taxes bite like the
frigid winter wind." Khendam wondered what his family were
thinking. Had they noticed he was missing yet? Were they worried?
How would they manage if he never returned? He shuddered to
think.
    "When you reach my age,
when you've been what I've been through, you're either weighed down
by all that has happened to you, or you have learned to face life
as it comes."
    "You're enjoying yourself
trudging through the snow in a deserted city? You're happy to have
been abducted from your home? And you don't care about whether or
not you'll ever return to it?"
    "Now, now. We came
willingly, didn't we?"
    "It was a lie! A charm! An
illusion that evaporated the moment we arrived!"
    "All magic relies on
belief to some degree. If we'd wanted to, we could've fought off
the charm, whatever it was. No magic can compel you to do something
you truly abhor."
    "I didn't ask to come here
and abandon all those I love."
    "You were a willing
accessory to the magic. Didn't it make you feel like you were going
to serve some grand purpose, make a difference, be a
hero?"
    Khendam