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SUMMARY: This is the first chapter of a dark fantasy that I am currently working on. It is an amended version of an earlier draft.

SEVEN DARK TRAVELLERS

STEPHEN PALMER

CHAPTER ONE

Jaav saw the eaglebolt emerging through clouds moments after he walked through the town gates. The sun was behind him, setting in the west; the clouds were low, grey, threatening rain. Like a diving eagle the sorcerous bolt tore through the air, leaving a wake of grey smoke and feathers.
"What's that?" said Feebiaan, his guide.
Jaav's voice was hoarse, as if ruined by exposure to weather and filth. "That's a forkin' eaglebolt, that is!"
"Where's it going to land?"
Jaav stared into the sky. Was it possible that the eaglebolt would hit Yfnaga? He glanced down to see the town spread before him in the great bowl that was its setting.
Feebiaan gasped, "It's going to hit us. Run!"
But it was already too late. Before Jaav realised that his guide spoke true the eaglebolt let out an unearthly scream and smashed into the town. At once there was a flash of blue light. A column of smoke and debris rose into the air as secondary flashes of black lightning blasted out from the impact, and buildings in the town centre crumbled as if made of sand.
Jaav stared, rooted to the spot. Then he noticed that buildings nearby were tumbling.
"Run!" Feebiaan yelled.
The shock wave smashed into the street where they stood. Jaav was hurled into the town gates, which collapsed around him. Dust and smoke filled the air. Screams echoed all around, but one scream was loudest; he looked through the whirling dust to see Feebiaan's body trapped beneath a block of masonry, his chest smashed and spurting blood. Men who had been atop the gates fell around him, their bones snapping as stone blocks hit them. A rain of mortar debris fell to the ground.
But Jaav, short and squat, was alive and unharmed. He stood dust-covered and shocked, staring at the devastation around him.
It was the work of a moment to determine that Feebiaan was dead. Without hesitation Jaav clambered up the pile of masonry that minutes ago had been town gates, to survey Yfnaga. Through clearing smoke he saw that the eastern half of the town had been smashed into rubble; the eaglebolt had hit the Mercantile Quarter, where the Haunted Road met the eastern gate. In the west only a few buildings had collapsed, though every structure that he could see was damaged, doors leaning out into streets, beams splintered, glass smashed. From distant buildings strange black creatures rose into the sky, shrieking and moaning, like so many rooks disturbed in a woodland rookery. And there was a stink of cloves in the air: sorcery.
"Damn wizardry from the West," Jaav muttered to himself.
There was a moan from beneath blocks at his feet.
"'Oo's that?" Jaav grunted.
"Help..."
Somebody trapped in the rubble had heard him. Jaav shrugged off the enormous backpack that he carried, then undid the smaller rucksack that lay on his stomach. There was a whimper from inside.
"Quiet, 'Oppy, quiet my boy," he muttered as he put the rucksack down.
Using a wooden stake he began pushing aside blocks, until, a few minutes later, he smelled blood and saw a void in the masonry.
"Anybody there?" he called.
"Help..."
Beneath lowering cloud and with sunlight fading it was too dark to see inside the void, so he spoke again.