Chapter 6: Rutat Burns

In the village of Rutat, Laura woke up with a jolt. She wasn't sure what had awoken her, only that some hidden sense was screaming at her to get up.

As she blinked, letting her eyes adjust to the faint light of dawn outside, she became aware of two things. The first was that there was a commotion going on outside her house.

The second was that her bed was on fire.

*Oh no*. It wasn't just her bed- it was the house! Flames were licking across the carpet and walls, and a wave of heat rose to greet her.

Awake in an instant, Laura dashed to the window and looked out. The village wall, just a few short yards away, was swarming with warriors, shouting orders and firing arrows. She couldn't tell what they were seeing. But she could hear the panic in her kinsmen's voices. She could hear people crying as they ran through the streets. She could hear the shrieks of something inhuman from the forest beyond, like a murder of crows swarming like hungry locusts.

Rutat was under attack.

A hail of burning arrows soared into the village from beyond the wall. As Laura watched, a house beside the garden she used to play in as a child erupted in flames. More screams. The cacophony chilled her to the bone.

She turned, dropped to her knees and thrust her arm under the bed, scrambling for her sheaf of daggers. The heat singed her tunic, but she grimaced and ignored the pain. There was another crash outside; a house must have collapsed. A child was screaming somewhere. Laura clenched her teeth, struggling not to vomit.

There! She wrapped her hand around the comforting feel of her sheaf and pulled out the leather pouch, still full of weathered knives. Leaping to her feet, she rushed down the stairs and out of the house as the wooden supports began to crumble. Her feet hit the dirt outside just in time. A sickening groan filled the air, and the dwelling collapsed into a pile of firewood.

Laura stared at the wreckage, feeling the heat lick her face. *If I hadn't woken up...*

Shaking herself, she dashed over to the wall and pulled herself up onto the buttress. What she saw chilled her to the bone. Pressed up against the wall, stretching far into the surrounding forest, was a throng of green-skinned humanoids with sharpened teeth and piggish eyes. From their ranks rose a howl of savagery that cut through the air like a rusted axe.

*Urts.*

She had heard the legends of the barbarous warriors. But she had never believed the stories- until now.

"Laura!"

The voice of Dain, her father, broke into her thoughts. He was standing next to her, a gash in his arm. "I saw the house collapse! Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." Laura embraced him quickly, then turned back to the roaring mass outside. "What's going on? Where did they come from?"

"I don't know. They just appeared out of the night!"

Laura ducked under a flaming arrow. She needed to focus. Everything was happening too fast. Urts were real. They were attacking. Her village was erupting in flames behind her. The child had stopped crying, but what had caused his silence, Laura didn't know.

The wall shuddered under her feet, and she struggled to keep her balance. "Right," she hissed, drawing a dagger from her sheath. It was time to save the panic for another day. "Let's show these monsters what we're made of!"

"No!" Dain grabbed her arm before she could toss the knife into the crowd below. "Run, Laura. Get as far away from here as you can. If you hurry, you should be able to reach Pailan by next nightfall. You'll be safe there."

"I'm not leaving you!" Laura exclaimed. A volley of arrows soared over her head, and she felt her hair bristle from the heat.

"Laura, the village is doomed." Dain's gaze burned into her. "We'll hold out as long as we can here while those who can't fight escape. And you're going with them."

Laura shook her head. She felt her eyes stinging, but she forced the tears down. "I can fight!"

"If you stay here, you die with us. Run."

"And what about you?"

"I've lived long enough to die for my friends." He turned back out, raising his bow high. "The escape route's at the south wall. These bastards haven't reached there yet. Go."

Laura bit her tongue to avoid screaming. Dain's eyes were set; there was no changing his mind. The village would fall. He would die. But Laura didn't have to.

The first Urt appeared over the wall. Dain drew his sword and skewered it through the head, sending it tumbling back down into the crowd. "Go!" he roared.

Laura clenched her fists. "I'll come back," she whispered. "I'll get help from Pailan. I promise."

Without giving Dain a chance to respond, she turned, scaled back down the wall, and rushed off into the crumbling village.

* * *

The south wall was eerily quiet by the time Laura arrived. Everyone else had either already escaped or been crushed by the collapsing buildings. Plumes of smoke choked the night sky in darkness. Laura could hear the battle in the distance, but how close the wall was to being breached, she couldn't tell.

The south door was locked and barricaded, so Laura climbed the wall and scaled back down on the other side, outside the village. She stood up and cast her gaze around.

A pit formed in her stomach; there were long smears of blood on the grass, dotted with torn fabric and discarded trinkets. The Urts had been there. There was a crocheted doll slumped on a bush, its head barely attached to the rest of its body by a few scraps of fabric. Laura felt bile rising in her throat again.

*Don't you dare. Rutat needs you now.*

She forced it down and looked outwards. The trees were thin on this side of the village, at the edge of the forest. The rich dirt of the forest floor became scarcer as the trees petered out, fading into sun-bleached sand. The outer edge of the desert of Aridus.

Laura's village was under assault. Her father was staring death in the face. Countless of her fellow villagers had undoubtedly walked into an ambush while trying to escape. It was certain she was in those same crosshairs now.

The only path left was forward.

She forced herself to run, tears finally starting to streak down her cheeks, running into the desert, running for the village of Pailan.