Free The Arcanist by Greg Curtis Page A

trying to clear the rubble. They had to. With the walls breached in so many places the city was vulnerable. The walls had to be repaired. These were peaceful times but there were still bandits and smugglers about.
     
    By each of the holes there were bodies. The remains of the soldiers he guessed who had been walking the battlements at the time the mammoths had charged. They had presumably fallen to their deaths and then been covered in piles of rubble. As the gangs worked furiously to clear the rubble away, they also removed the bodies for burial. Their limp, broken forms served as a stark reminder that it wasn't just the city that had been broken. The people had been too.
     
    Someone had been busy laying out the dead for the families to collect and they made for a grim sight. Especially when there were so many of them. But at least they looked peaceful as the priests had gone through them, closing eyes and crossing arms over chests, neatening clothing. They'd even placed funereal bouquets in their hands, trying to make things seem as respectful as possible. Somehow he doubted their families would find it so comforting.
     
    What Edouard could see through those holes as he drove the horseless carriage closer to the gate though, was far worse.
     
    The walls had only been the start. Once they had broken through them the mammoths had cut a broad swath of destruction through the streets, and they hadn't been mindful of buildings. Instead they'd just run straight through them.
     
    Many buildings were in ruins; piles of rubble, stone and splintered timbers, and too often more bodies were laid out in front of them. Edouard guessed that the bodies bore testimony to the families of those who had lived and died in them. Too many of those bodies he noticed were very small. And as for how many had died, he estimated that there were hundreds of dead already laid out in front of them. There were probably many more hundreds or even thousands still buried in the remains of the buildings. Most of the broken buildings had barely even begun to be cleared.
     
    As for the people, what he could see of them was distressing. Many of them were in a state of undress. The attack had happened during the night when many were in bed, or so Marcus had told him. A lot of them had run outside in only their nightwear. Now they did not have a home to return to, or clothes to wear. A lot of them were wearing clothes that were ripped and torn, some covered in blood, and he knew that even among those who had survived there had been a lot of injuries.
     
    But worse than any of that was their mood. Most of the citizens were milling around like lost geese with no place to go. They weren't saying a lot, but their faces said everything about what had happened. One and all they wore expressions of horror, fear and disbelief. Many were showing the marks of the rivers of tears that had been cried. Some were still wailing. All of them looked shocked. Uncertain even now of what had happened. A few wore the armour of anger, and he suspected that as mighty as the beasts were they would still ache to kill them any way they could. Many more had simply given up and collapsed where they had stood, their faces masks of despair.
     
    Most were staring at the mammoths which were calmly wandering through the city, grazing on whatever they could find. No doubt they were still shocked that such beasts could be in their city. Probably though they were just terrified that the beasts might stampede again. And of course they were united in their confusion. Nobles stood beside street urchins, ladies of the night beside artisans, all of them unconcerned by whom they were rubbing shoulders with. The only thought on their minds was the great beasts.
     
    Looking at them, seeing the pain and suffering in their eyes, Edouard knew something of their misery himself.
     
    He had been born and raised in the city. He had played on these streets now filled with rubble and dead bodies and had got