Chapter 8: The Dead City

                                    

                                          
Four years have passed since the events in the  previous chapter.....
                          
Chapter 8    The Dead City
                          
Seedstide 1924
                          
Four years later
                          
Nature had reclaimed Erturia for herself. Through the granite buildings, windows rotted by the passage of two centuries, it snaked and wormed. Its green tendrils gripped the worn stone like a frightened child. The flagstones in the many courtyards of the Empire’s foremost city had been buckled as the bushes and trees erupted forth, splitting after decades of insidious pressure. The towers that crowned the rectangular halls and sober town houses were wrapped in thick green ivy, softening the harsh features of the Imperial architecture. 
                          
Marthir padded through the weed-infested streets, marvelling at the overwhelming silence of the city. For the plants, as ever, had more bravado than their animal counterparts; it had been two hundred and twenty four years since the day time stopped in Erturia and no bird song had echoed around its walls since.
                          
Erturia: the dead city. The gigantic mausoleum was home now only to the foliage and to the deceased. Marthir’s animal instincts set her nerves on edge as she prowled into one of the city’s large squares, weaving between the black statues around her. She halted to sniff one out of curiosity and she smelt only charcoal.
                          
The city was populated now by the charred corpses of its citizens. Instantly incinerated they were now petrified eternally in their moment of death. Traders still argued silently, gesturing at some unseen event transpiring towards the centre of the city. Children still ran to their mothers, their tiny features now shiny black masks. Marthir saw five soldiers in mid-stride, their spears held aloft, moving towards the enemy soldiers. Enemy soldiers derived from their own kin. And as the civil war that tore apart the Empire had ended in one cataclysmic instant they had once more united—in death.
                          
There were so many black statues, thousands and thousands, and Marthir had wept when she had first seen them the prior day. She and her five companions had snuck across the Wastes, the barren land that surrounded the once magnificent city, avoiding patrols of black-armoured knights. Last night they had crept like thieves into the dead city, in awe of the ruined majesty of the famed outer walls. Yet within the walls came the real sight—a city populated by charcoal statues, lit by the sinister glow of the red and silver moons.
                          
Marthir could sense the restlessness of the dead around her as she crossed the square. A lichen-coated fountain sat in the centre of the square, its waters now thick with green slime. Balanced on the edge of the fountain was a young lady, smiling at one of the soldiers as he moved past. Once again Marthir paused and touched her paw gently on the shiny black leg. The charcoal was solid and robust, cold to the touch. What had the girl being smiling about as the city was torn apart by fighting? A secret lost now in time.
                          
Marthir became aware of a faint grating noise somewhere in the distance as she entered a broad street at the far end of the square. A moment of indecision held her; should she retrace her steps and fetch the others? After all she had agreed with Kervin that this would be just a quick scout ahead before the five others followed her. If there was trouble she could use Kervin’s skill in taming her wilder side as well as the fire magic of Ygris. Her acolyte Ebfir and the two warriors, Iogar and Ograk would also be an asset if she ran into any knights.
                          
Curiosity got the better of her, which was ironic given that she wore her feline form. She quickened to a run down the overgrown street. The main avenues of Erturia extended straight from the six gates, each arranged at the corner of the vast hexagonal outer wall. The street she journeyed down ran parallel to the Avenue of Iron, the main route from the south-western gate. The street continued over a weed choked bridge, the River Erturia bubbling beneath its chipped base, and turned after three hundred yards to join the main avenue. Marthir paused and examined it with interest; the foliage was crushed and shredded. It was evidence that some heavy traffic had passed this way recently.