Other inhuman shrieks echoed through Tellersted. Soldiers backed up in fear, turning their heads to try and source the noises, but it was as if it was all around them.
Yelin gritted his teeth, his eyes open wide. He tried to control his breathing steadily, but something about those noises made the hairs on his neck stand.
The rock in the centre of the ash-covered crater began to shatter and crumble before them. Red mist hissed from the cracks in its shell.
A hideous, guttural noise emanated from the rock.
Yelin took a step back, placing his hand against the king’s shoulder to pull him away as well.
“What… what is that?” Petir gasped.
The rock glowed a visceral red through its cracks. A thick, black substance dripped down to the broken cobblestone road, oozing like blood.
The stench hit Yelin like the cloud around a week-old corpse, causing him to wince and heave. It reeked of rotting meat and foul smoke.
Then, Yelin saw something he could not even begin to understand.
Long, spindly, ash-coloured appendages began to break through the cracks of the rock that sat in the craters.
Yelin shouted for everyone to back up, terrified of what he was seeing.
The fingers, long like a man’s arm, had dagger-like black nails. They slowly broke through the crust of the rock. First a few, and then more.
Yelin look to his side where he heard a shift in the rubble of a collapsed house. Another huge rock had smashed through the roof and floor of the two-storey dwelling, resting in a crater of debris half-buried in the ground.
That rock too was cracked and glowing red, with the ghastly fingers beginning to break through like a bird pecking its way out of an egg.
“We need to get out of here,” Yelin muttered in a fear-induced trance. He shook it off, blinked a few times and grabbed the king by the shoulders. “We have to get our men out of Tellersted, at once.”
Emery was just as hypnotised by the horror they were witnessing. He heard Yelin’s words and half-nodded, at a complete loss of words.
“This is not natural!” Petir said, beginning to panic. “This is not good!”
The Ashen men in the streets of Tellersted began to move away from the many craters spread throughout town as the rocks shifted and split apart.
Even the Caldaean men had been rattled enough to begin a retreat.
No horns blew, no orders shouted. In a silent yet mutual agreement, the fighting had seized, and every single soldier knew it was time to leave town. No good was about to come to them, and after all they had witnessed, no man wanted to experience what was to come.
“My king!” Yelin repeated, shaking Emery by the shoulders. Most of the Blacktree soldiers began a jog towards the east, filing into the main street and heading back the way they had entered town. The jog quickened as more and more men felt their fears swelling up. “Issue an official retreat! We still have men holding their positions.”
Emery looked to be in shock. His face was pale, and his eyes were glazed over as he stared at the enormous rock which began to break apart even further. Soon, the bony fingers were out from the rocky shell, giving way to charcoal-coloured, elongated hands.
The soldiers around them retreated from the battlefield in a rush, avoiding the strange rocks. They left a sea of dead and injured behind, but no man had the courage to even consider helping them.
“Why are we running?!” Baron Artima called out to his men. “Get back in there and fight!”
“Ser, the battle is over,” Yelin said. “Whatever is happening here is not good.”
Artima scrunched his face up, shaking his head. “Cowards! All of you!”
Emery broke his panicked trance, looking to the baron. “We must live to fight another day,” Emery said. “Ser Yelin is right. It is far too dangerous for us to remain here.”
The glowing rocks continued to hiss and shriek. Black ooze dripped from the cracks as more and more sickening appendages steadily broke free from their entrapment.
“Let me kill them! Let me avenge my son,” Artima shouted. He approached the king aggressively with a clenched jaw and sword drawn.
Yelin placed himself between Artima and the king, to which Artima stopped in his tracks. His expression turned to one of grief.
“Please, my king.”
“I’m sorry… We must retreat.”
The entire Ashen force was on the move as the official retreat was issued. Baron Artima stood silent for a moment, glaring at the fleeing Caldaeans still within sight across town. By this point, even Sen Dorval was retreating with his remaining men back towards Teller’s Square and the Citadel.
Their pace quickened upon hearing those guttural screams yet again. Whole limbs, bony and misshapen, were spilling out of the rocks, some a ghostly ash colour while others had textured skins like marble only a rich red and deep black.
Yelin could not deny that he was relieved to be fleeing. Whatever the things were crawling from the rocks, they were huge. There was nothing natural about them. The noises they made alone forced him to cover his ears and cringe.
No man wanted to fight whatever they were.
The Ashen army exited Tellersted, leaving the remains of the once beautiful town burning and crumbling. Hundreds of the fallen rocks shifted, crumbled, and opened.
The black smoke and roaring flames from the blazing crops and pastures around the town gave the retreating army some cover and before long, Tellersted was out of sight.
Screams of fear, calls for help, shrieks of horror, emanated in the distance. Then, monstrous howls and cackles, like fiendish gremlins.
No soldier, nor King Emery, Prince Petir, Baron Artima, or Ser Yelin, broke their pace
