"High Respect, You are Kortarian princess, here now."
He pressed both fists together at his chest and inclined his head, a formal Geortarian greeting, I recognized it immediately and followed.
A man about fifty, broad-shouldered with a serious face, wearing a brown coat that seemed spotless, not a grain of sand could be seen across its surface.
I had prepared myself for the sight of it, of the rubble of what was once the castle. Ash and char were all my mind could register, although the area gave off an almost putrid smell.
We left the carriage at the outer approach and continued on foot, the eight guards fell into formation around Karelos and me. The ground underfoot was covered in stone and pebbles, almost one with the compressed sand and dirt.
The man's Kortarian was careful, I could notice some remnants of his mother tongue's grammatical features. His vowels were slightly off, we Kortarians speak with the front of our mouths, but it seems Geortarians do so with the back.
"Me less. I am Nuorruin Thot. From me, you hear."
It seems the Geortarians clarify a lot of details with every sentence they speak. I thought.
"I am Xena of Kortaria. This is my brother Karelos. Thank you for meeting us."
He nodded, shifting his posture slightly. "I, in instant future, tell you what I see in night past. As much as I can, information witness."
They really do clarify a lot. I might run a sort of language investigation if I stay here.
He walked us slowly toward the interior of what was once the castle, speaking in his careful broken way, choosing each word like defusing a bomb.
There were no sounds of conflict coming from the castle at the moment of the incident. The night was as peaceful as ever, not even a shout could be heard, nothing that could've drawn attention from the city below.
The first anyone outside the walls had known was the fire, a sudden eruption from the kitchen quarter, visible above the rooftops, black smoke that couldn't have been from a cooking accident.
The first wall section had collapsed inward about three minutes after the fire started. The sound had brought more people running. When the dust cleared from the collapse, the rubble field was now visible through the gap.
Yet it wasn't empty.
"Corpses. Many. I see in past."
He didn't say anything after that like he had run out of words to describe the horrors of what had just happened.
The kitchen quarter was the most intact section of what remained. The rubble that fell inwards protected the interior from the fire that spread throughout the castle. Sort of ironic, that the chaos protected a part of the castle from further chaos.
Karelos examined a section of collapsed wall with his bare hand braced against a piece of stone, and I watched as he made contact with a piece of buried ember, pulling his hand back sharply, shaking it to ease the pain away.
"Put your gloves on." I said.
"Yes," he replied with dignity.
I was always wearing my gloves, heat-resistant, thick-palmed. When I wasn't busy with paperwork I'd train my bow and arrow skills.
Wood isn't particularly friendly to the unprotected hands.
...
I turned away from everyone before I threw up as I saw the first one.
She was a kitchen staff, by what remained of her clothing. Probably younger than me. She had fallen on her side near what had been a preparation table, one arm extended as though she had been reaching for something.
Around her were the remnants of a ceramic bowl cracked by the impact, surrounded by a scatter of utensils and the charred remains of food.
There was a wound it extended from the left side of her chest, to her back, a hole so clean you could see through it.
Something narrow and sharp had done that, a spear or something else, an arrow, maybe.
I stood there and thought about the morning, the morning before whatever had happened. The sound of this room, warmth of the ovens, the smell of whatever they were cooking for a king's table. Pastries, an abundance of game meats, and the overwhelming yet comforting scent of refined spices.
These people were talking to each other, complaining about something trivial or laughing at something small.
Someone burning their hand on a pot, someone tasting something and pulling a face.
Then all of them dropping dead.
I felt something climb my throat that had nothing to do with the smell, although the ever-growing putrefactive smell did not help.
My eyes were burning. I blinked hard and pressed my lips together. There were eight guards behind me, along with Nuorruin and Karelos, as the Kortarian princess it would ruin my image to-
Six steps were taken before I threw up, holding myself at the knees, my breathing grew harder, I tried desperately to recover my position.
But that corpse.
What had once been so lively.
Karelos appeared beside me. "First corpse... It happens." He gave gentle pats on my back. "We'll be searching in the rubble, feel free to take a moment if you need it."
I heard his footsteps crunch against the ash on the floor. I wanted to be helpful in the scavenge mission, but I still had my uncontrolled empathy, something the knights have already learned to control.
...
One of the two female knights that were brought to this mission called us over. She was crouched over two bodies in what had been a corridor connecting the kitchen to the main interior.
Karelos and I crouched beside her.
Large chunks of their flesh were completely absent, as if they had been ripped off. One had them on their shoulder, the other a large hole on their stomach.
"You can see everything." Karelos mentioned.
The remaining borders though, they were a deep, absolute black. The blackness at the edges had moved outward from a point and taken the matter it passed through.
I looked at Nuorruin.
"Have you seen this before?"
He was quiet for a moment. "They must remain as stories." His Kortarian, for that single sentence, felt carefully planned out.
We sat in a loose group at the edge of the ruin's outer boundary. One of the knights had brought dried food from the carriage. I held a piece of it for a while without eating it.
Nuorruin had excused himself with a formal press of his fists and retreated toward the city, leaving us with the open quiet of the castle.
Karelos sat beside me eating without apparent difficulty.
"You should eat, we're gonna be here for a while."
"I know, I'm just...-"
"I'm aware its been rough, seeing all the bodies, but we still have hope of finding a living soul in the rubble."
"..."
I had stood up to stretch my legs, moving slowly along the boundary line where the castle's outer courtyard met the stone walkway that ran inside the perimeter wall.
A faint line, red and discontinuous caught my eye, it didn't follow a straight path, consistently heading northeast, toward the far end of the capital.
Most of its color was lost, resembling drops of rain, but if you focused hard enough you'd notice the reddish-brown hints to it.
I crouched down and looked at it carefully without touching. Blood, completely dried, not a pool unlike those under the castle's rubble.
I stood and followed it towards the northeast gate. I glanced back at the group. Karelos was saying something to two other knights.
It took me a couple meters to hear the footsteps behind me.
"Xena. Where are you going?"
"The Northeast gate."
We looked at the ground without saying anything for a moment, Karelos had followed my eyeline.
"Someone left the castle."
"That's why I'm going."
The northeast gate was smaller than the main entrance. Its doors were iron-branded wood, since the royal guards of Geortaria had been victims to the massacre, the gate was unlocked.
With a simple push, the gates opened wide. The blood trail ran directly through the center and stopped at the threshold, where the stone turned into sand.
The desert.
This was the desert in full, pale sand with some scattered stone extending outward in every direction until it met the sky. Wind moved through the gate and carried sand with it.
Whatever trail had once been left here had been erased by the desert itself.