Free Memories of Ash (The Sunbolt Chronicles Book 2) by Intisar Khanani Page A

two and three stories high until we reach a wide avenue paved with flat yellow stones, pockmarked with age and scoured by the wind. In a few places the pavers appear to have been pressed down, the surrounding stones riding up at angles, as if some great weight had been dragged along them. The mage walks to the center of the road, his boots tapping softly as he casts up and down its length.
    This must have been a major thoroughfare once. Now the buildings that line it gape at us with dark windows. My skin crawls as I stare at the silent structures. Are the people here dead as well, or did they manage to flee this place? And where’s all the trash? The broken wagons, whatever might have been abandoned in the wake of an exodus or sudden extinction? People don’t — can’t — take everything with them when they run. I left Stormwind’s home full of clothes and dishes and food, left chickens and goats to fend for themselves. But there’s no trace of anything here. Even the entrances stand empty: no doors remain, no shutters to close up the windows, nothing.
    No one takes their doors with them.
    The mage continues down the avenue, ignoring me. My internal compass tells me we’re heading roughly toward the magefire. We pass building after building, all of them run down and falling apart, their entries yawning open like hungry mouths. Puffs of dust rise around my boots with each step. Nothing else disturbs the earth, no tracks of wild beasts or birds. The emptiness of the land presses against me like a sheet wrapped a little too snug, making it hard to breathe the magic-less air.
    Something scrapes against stone.
    The mage’s head whips around as he searches for the sound. I stand still, straining to make out any sign of movement. The noise comes again, a heavy scraping somewhere out in the city. The pebbles on the road rattle softly.
    “Run,” I say, breaking into a jog.
    The mage glances uncertainly up and down the road as I reach him. Everything lies quiet.
    “Run,” I repeat, keeping my voice low. “We really don’t want to know what that is.”
    The pebbles rattle again, the vibrations traveling up our legs. That decides him. He races ahead, his boots thundering on the stone underfoot.
    That’s not the way to escape a pursuer. I may not recall running from anyone or anything quite like this before, but it’s simple and clear: move quietly UNTIL you’re found out. But I don’t dare shout to the mage to slow down, step lightly — my voice might only hasten whatever chases us.
    Being left behind suddenly seems as dangerous as being loud. I speed up, searching for a break between buildings that I can use to part ways with the mage, but they’re constructed shoulder to shoulder. My pack thumps rhythmically against my back, reminding me with each slap how much my whole body aches.
    There— an alley up ahead. The mage has almost reached it. He barrels forward, then skids to a stop, twisting and lunging back the way he’d come. His face is nearly white, his eyes so wide they look as if they might pop out of his skull. I pivot and begin running hard. I don’t need to see what he flees to know I don’t want to meet it.
    Behind me, stone grinds and shifts as if beneath an immense mass. The mage pants as he races after me, wheezing with terror. I glance over my shoulder, golden morning sunshine illuminating the road behind me, and I falter.
    A long gray thing ripples around the corner, a line of darkness on the yellow stones. Behind it come others like it, scraping at walls as the creature pulls itself into the avenue. They remind me of squid tentacles, but they’re scaly and end in massive, wickedly curved talons. Far more disconcerting than the strangeness of the limbs is the sheer size of them: some are as wide around as a horse. I can’t tell how long they are, for I can’t quite make out the creature they belong to.
    The longest arm snaps toward us and its claw gouges a hole in the road not fifty paces away.