The Firelands

85 - Black Fire

                                                                        16th day of the forth Month, Worth's Moon

5:00 pm

The Firelands

They fell out of the sky.

"Oh, c'mon!" Kalen moaned, right before he slammed to the ground, Zedkiel landing on top of him, the others crash-landing nearby. "We flew upwards! How did we still fall?" he snarled, head snapping up. "Someone tell me exactly what gravity has against us!"

Zedkiel looked around as he pushed off Kalen, brushing himself off as he took in their surroundings.

They were on a city street. The ground was cobbled, the houses loomed over them, the doors and shutters worn and creaking. The windows were dark and the roofs were missing tiles.

But the dilapidated appearance of the street wasn't what caught their attention.

There were no people.

The street was completely deserted and silent.

However it wasn't devoid of life. When Zedkiel looked up, he spied shadowed faces behind the glass that quickly pulled out of sight, curtains falling into place.

"Where are we?" Incendio ask, rubbing his head as he looked around.

"Windwitcher Road," Kalen said.

The others looked at him.

"How do you know that?" Incendio said, staring at him.

Kalen raised an eyebrow at him then pointed to the sign on the side of a building that quite clearly told them exactly where they were – without telling them where they actually were.

"I suggest we go that way," Theth said. They others looked back, then gaped when they saw what he was seeing, tuning around, eyes wide.

There was a palace in the distance. They could see the towers and walkways over the rooftops; it shone white and gold in the sunlight, completely in contrast with the streets around them.

With no better plan, they did just that, making their way down the empty street, feeling eyes on them the entire time until they reached a deserted square.

"What's that?" Incendio suddenly asked.

"I don't know, I was just about to ask," Kalen replied.

"What's what?" Theth asked.

"I can hear something," Incendio said, his ears flicking back and forth as he listened, cocking his head to the side, frowning. "It sounds like..."

"Wings," Kalen supplied as they looked at each other and their eyes widened, just before a dragon shot over head with a roar, followed by another and another and another.

The flight curved in formation and they could see riders on the backs of the dragons, weapons held in their free hands, curling back towards the square.

Kalen's panic was instant at the notion of unknown dragons. These weren't the dragons of his group, he didn't know what they'd do, he didn't trust them and he was recoiling back into the shadows, out of the exposed square in a second.

Only to slam into someone, hands flying back to catching himself and look up.

He craned his neck back and found himself looking up the nose of a huge man, dressed in the uniform of a military personnel and Kalen realised his hand had closed on some sort of firearm.