Kiao drove the cart down the road at a speed unsafe for a cart to travel. She was trying to keep up with Soletus. He had burst on ahead with his long braid bouncing on hiss back. A solid lump formed in her throat as she felt it rock and bounce sometimes precariously so. Briar beside her clung to the seat beside her. Her face was ashen, either from what was coming towards them or her driving.

The huntresses stayed in close formation around her. They could charge on faster like the mare Soletus was riding, kicking up dust and then mud as rain started to fall. They didn’t though, mostly due to the fact they were turning back seen the progression of the story that was going to overtake them. The wind started to gust up again, but this time it didn’t die down. The grass in the plain stretch from her left and in front of them was flattened to the ground from the force of it. The trees to her right were bending. She assumed they were duck into the trees. Soletus passed them by and skid to a halt when they came to a bridge. It was a short bridge build over a gully. He sent his horse to the side of the wood platform bridge and then come back up and motioned for them to come towards them. They hurried and saw what was nothing more than dry stream bed. The deepest part it cut where the bridge was.

“Go down the bank over there,” he instructed. “It not steep there at all.”

There wasn’t much of the gully not too far off. And looked as if people had used it for crossing as well. Kiao got off the cart and let Briar drive the cart into the gully. She too the time to stare down the road at what was chasing them. She didn’t know what she was looking at.

She had only read written accounts about whirlwinds and saw a hand drawing. The drawing she saw was a slender tube curving to the ground. Before her was a column of black meeting earth. It spun with lashing lashing tendrils. There were dark object suspended in the air, churning around it. Kiao was certain one of the dots she saw was a tree. Around the bases of it was a skirt of dust rising in the air. It looked mesmerizing because he mind could comprehend or understand what she was seeing. It made it terrifying.

A hand clamped down on her arm and she met Soletus’s blue eyes filled with terror.

“Get down,” he pulled her. She jumped into his arms and he sat her down in the dry bed of the gully and pushed her to the bridge. The huntress followed, pulling their horses as far in as they could. Briar got the cart as close to the bridge as it could get and sheltered the horse attached to it. There was barely enough room for them all.

“Keep your head covered,” he shouted to them.

Kiao got on the ground as flat as she could and put her arms above her head.

“Maybe it will vanish,” whimpered Eione.

Kiao’s ears popped and ached. The wind got stronger. She peered up and saw a large branch rolling across the gully. It was the herald of something loud coming towards them. The dim afternoon light becoming evening. Soletus was behind her and he shouted for everyone cover their heads above the roaring wind. The volume of it was indescribable. The last thing she saw was wind rushed over the ground, turning everything white. She shut her eyes as dirt all around them was stirred up. She felt Soletus lay on top of her to shield her as the wind tore at the ground. She heard thumps above as unknown objects collided with the bridge. The horses nervous cries as the bridge above them groaned and snap. She clung to the earth, thinking it was going to be pulled up. Then she heard nothing else but and unworldly rumbling roar. She wanted to cover her ears. Even though she wasn’t a chanter with the strongest of hearing, however the sound banged against her ears making her feel disoriented. She wondering if they would be sent spinning. The fury and around them lasted what felt like forever, tearing the world apart and then it passed. Kiao could still hear it moving away. Her ears ringing painfully as she could hear more thuds around them. She didn’t dare move. She was afraid too. She decided to take stock of herself.

Her ears ached and were ringing loudly. Her head spun so she settle down against the cool earth underneath. Her heart lower from her throat and back into her chest but it still hammered with fear. She took in deep breaths to slow it down. She then thought about the elf above her. She didn’t know if Soletus was okay. She felt his chest expanding and contracting with each inhale he took. Be didn’t move. He muscles were tense and lock him into place. She heard him muttering something. She could only guess it was a pray.

She squirmed and put her hand on his forearm and squeezed it. He jerked and shifted his weight and pushed himself away from her. The world around them slowly got brightened, but stayed dimmed as heavy rain beat the ground.

“Is everyone alright,” said Soletus hoarsely.

Someone whimpered. Kiao pushed herself up to find out who just to make sure they weren’t hurt. She figured it was Xylia. She clung to Laurel. The twins untangled themselves from Briar, who had them. They all look shaken with fear, making them wide eyed.

“We need to get out of here,” stated Soletus. “This is a dry bed. Water travels thought here when it rains heavily. I don’t want us to be swept away in a flash-flood.”

Moving out of the gully was difficult. All the horse survived, but it was hard to get them out. A tree had fallen across the gully where they had come from. However, there were no trees were on that side of the road. It was all grass and it all just looked storm beaten. The tree itself was torn and broke. Some of the tress had no leaves on their branches, just a few in small clumps. The ends were broken with exposed pale yellow wood as if someone just snapped the ends off. The roots had only a trace of soil. The small tree had clearly been uprooted and carried.

Kiao never in her life, imagined a wing strong enough to carry a tree and rip it to shreds. In fact, her attention then went to the trees across the road or now the lack of them. The undergrowth was smashed under fallen trees. Many of them weren’t ripped by the roots but snapped from the trunks or split apart. It was the whirlwinds path and it marked how close it got to the bridge. If it has swung more to the left, they would’ve taken a direct hit. With that knowledge all she could so was stand in awe not knowing what to think other than to thank Dias that it missed them. She looked down the road. Thunder clapped again moving away from them. If the whirlwind was there, Kiao couldn’t see it in the dark line moving away from them. The was a gray mass in the raining and nothing else.

The rain let up to nothing but a mist and she walked down the road absently moving through the debris when she noticed a pot. It lay in the road, catching rain. She started to take in everything around her. There were a lot of little things scattered around her. There was a shirt in the branches of a tree, a house shutter, there was something big down the road, it was a portion of a roof. At first she didn’t know what it all meant. She didn’t understand why she was was seeing it all. Then she heard something crying. She thought it was a baby and then she run towards it and found that it was a baby goat hobbling towards her. It looked battered, shivering, and walking on three legs.

She knelled down and looked at the unfortunate creature. Luckily, it only had a nasty scratch that she could just bandage up without healing it. However, the implications of that goat that worried her. The only goats around were the one a man had grazed around the chapel. He had moved them in another pasture across the town they were in.

“Soletus,” she cried. He appeared, dragging the cart up from the gully with the huntresses and looked over his shoulder at her. “We need to go back!”

She had a sinking feeling in her stomach. She lifted the goat up in her arms and carried it to the cart.

“Why,” he mouthed.

“The town, I think the town was hit by that whirlwind.”

Without any hesitation, he shouted for them to mount up and head back from where they came. With that said, they all mounted up. Kiao climbed on the cart and let Briar drive so she could hold the goat in her arms. It was slow going until as there were trees and pieces of houses strung across the road. There was one chunk that look like a wall and Kiao could see a foot under. She started to get out of the cart. Soletus stopped her with a raised hand. He dismounted and took a look himself about the time she felt the chill of death in her bones. The young monk peered and he squeezed his eyes shut.

“Is there someone under there,” demanded Briar.

“There is,” croaked Soletus. He stood looking down with his jaw clinched.

“We can’t just leave them there,” said Laurel, pulling her horse up.

“We are. I will get someone to claim them, but we can’t stop for the dead, we need to move on,” said the young monk firmly.

Briar looked at him as if he lost his mind.

“They’re dead,” stated Kiao. “I can feel it from where I’m sitting.”

She held the living creature in her arms tighter. She didn’t care it if it smelled.

Briar jumped from the cart. Soletus grabbed her by the shoulders and stopped her.

“Get on the cart. There is nothing you can do for them. There is–”

Laurel had gotten off her horse and walked over.

“Laurel,” snapped Soletus too late as the huntress crouched down and her eyes got wide.

“They don’t have a head,” she gasped and staggered back.

Soletus indicated with his head to her horse. “Get back on.”

“We can’t leave them here. Animals will be attracted by their blood,” she argued.

“Laurel, get on your horse. We need to go. Now!”

Kiao then started saying the pray for the dead from where she sat while Soletus spoke.

“In a situation like this, there is no stopping for the dead. The town clearly took a hit. There will be people trapped or missing and we have to find them before they die. We need to do that before dark. And then and only then we will deal with the dead.” he said and then said as gently as he could. “From here, it’s going to get ugly. An elf stripped of their clothing and decapitated might be one of the nicest things we see.”

The huntresses were stilled by that. None of them said a thing. None of them even moved after that. Soletus let go of Briar and strolled to his horse with his back straight face free from any emotion.

“Briar, Laurel, we are leaving now,” he said in his no questioning tone.

Kiao swallowed and spoke. “Come on. Pray that Dias give us strength because it’s going to be bad.”

She didn’t know how bad it was going to be, but she knew what they were getting when the town came back into view. They could all see that half the town was missing. The whirlwind carved a path in town and spewed the remains of it. Once closer, the devastation was clear. The town’s stable was gone, flattened on its side. The general store was gone. There was a pile of rumble. There was space indicating where something had been, but it had been ripped up, leaving the stone foundation. In fact, there was a line of just foundations with maybe a wall and a half still standing.

Kiao’s heart sunk to see that the school out off to the side was collapsed. The chapel was on the side of where homes still stood was fine. There was nothing wrong with it from the distance she looked at it at. Maybe minor damage from a broken window. In fact, that side of the main road was just picturesque compared to the utter devastation across from it.

When they got to the center of town, Kiao heard cries. Six people came running towards them in various states. Some just urgent, others panicking.

“Priestess, Priestess,” they all cried. One looked fine, the other was covered in blood from the head to their chest.

“There are children trapped in the school,” said a man to her.

“There is more than half the town missing and the mayor’s house was hit,” said another.

“I can’t find my baby,” cried a woman.

Kiao handed the goat to Briar and climbed out of the cart. Years in the infirmary called her to start organizing the situation. There was nothing she could do about the people trapped, the people missing, and the woman’s baby. She had to see to the injured.

“Start organizing yourself and bring me the injured. I’ll heal who I can,” she said.

Soletus then joined her in taking charge. “We need to find every able-bodied elf that can help search for people. Yes, we will see to the school house first. Briar, take my horse. You and the huntresses start looking for people out there in the fields. Find someone to help you.”

Briar nodded and place the goat down. Despite her ashen face, there was determination in her eyes.

“I need some help with treating people,” said Kiao. She didn’t have the infirmary staff with her.

“Fine, Xylia, you stay with Kiao,” said Soletus.

One of them men then said. “Our wisewoman is out treating everyone she can. Should I bring her to you?”

“No, just have her treat people and send them to the chapel.”

Soon, the young monk left, Kiao took hold of the young woman still crying for her baby.

Kiao then asked the girl beside her. “So, Xylia, how well are you around blood?”

She then said with an uncertain voice, “I don’t know. Fine, I’ve seen animal blood and hurt people before,” she said, looking at the crying woman’s head and arms.

Kiao hoped that was enough to mean she would be steady enough to work.