First Journal – Smoke

The hills and trees cover our view of the town and I am glad for it. We have found shelter in between the wall of a cliff and the slope of a hill, just to the south-east of the town. Young Ned is anxiously walking around from one side of our small camp to the other; he wants to do something but cannot for lack of strength and skill. Master Wheatley is sat quietly some little way off where we are. Our Cal keeps watch, a little way to the other side. He is not much inclined to talking now and I can imagine I feel but half his pain for the loss of Darren, who fell during the assault; they’d been companions more than fifteen years. They came out on the evening of the twelfth night after our arrival in Trestlebridge, it now being the morning following, just after dawn. They had not blown their horns for most of the day and this had caused much anxiety to the townsfolk, who by now took the absence of the noise as more threatening than the horns before. Almost none had set to work during the day, they all feeling it more beneficial to their safety that all should be at the north side of town to keep watch and be ready for an attack. The lack of action during the day, and the sudden pressing silence, however, caused not alertness in them, but seemed a sudden outlet of exhaustion; for the men and women of the town had not slept much for some time, what with the blowing of the horns in the eight previous days, and the sudden quiet caused their eyes and minds to give in to fatigue. Then without warning, and in as much stillness as the day had progressed, the orc marauders advanced from the hills and valleys in the north-east. We only realised that they were coming when we heard the shouts from the guards across the trestlespan. By this time they’d had their archers and their oils ready on the other side of the river cleft and were firing at will. Although some of the arrows fells on the remains of the charcoaled buildings and were doused instantly, some came down on thatched roofs and instantly caused fire. Some of the townsfolk fired back, but they, not being as trained in battle as their opponents, caused not half the damage to them that they did to us; and the marauders being stood in the shadows of the trees, and us being easy targets among the blazing buildings, there was nothing to be done in the end but run. We fled through the southern gate and into the hills, where the townsfolk scattered and have made small camps between the valleys and clefts. Only when we stopped running did we notice that Darren was with us no longer, and Cal has not spoken a word since. We wait now until the smoke has gone; the sky is dark with it all around. Most of the buildings must still be on fire, though we dare not go and look for fear of being shot down. Families are slowly finding their own again as the feeble light of the morning finds its way through the trees and over the hills, though it shows us mercilessly what has been lost as well. Two girls of eight and ten stay with us for the moment – their parents have not come to claim them yet – and also the smith’s father, who against all expectations managed it out of the town and into the hills even with his one rotten leg. Still, he is very poorly, having been shot in the shoulder with an arrow and having inhaled breaths full of smoke. I shall be surprised to see him make it another day or two.