The Journal of Alec Mal.

Captain of the City Guard.

Day 7

Khadim of the Seven Towers. Seven Towers. The City of Towers. Call it what you will. I call it home.

I am writing this to try to make sense of what happened a week ago.

A week ago, we had over a twenty thousand people in our city. Humans, dwarves, elves, everyone. Our towers were the homes of magi who protected the city, taught those with magical talent, assisted in our lives. They helped the dwarves build our sewers, defended the city against the worst of the weather that rolled in from the mountains. Along with the Guild Council, they ran the city.

A week ago we traded down-river with Ascondea and up-river with Cushilain, Nascency, as far north as the Oruskan.

Our libraries were amazing, our churches true monuments to the power of the gods. The cathedral of the Argent Path towering over all the lesser faiths.

A week ago our city, my city, was alive and well. We had crime, I had the Guard to police it. We had farmers, fishermen, artisans. Now we have survivors.

What happened?

Why did it happen?

How do we survive?

I must help distribute food to the survivors, find out who else has survived.

Day 10

We held a town meeting in the amphitheatre today. It seated ten thousand. By my reckoning it was barely a quarter full.

Myself, Horan of the Guild of Merchants, Jostan of the Argent Path. We alone of the Guild Council survived. We were lucky. There may be magi in the remaining towers but we cannot reach them. Yet.

If that was everybody, then we have food and fresh water to last us several months. One immediate problem solved.

Tomorrow I begin organising work parties. We need riders to go to the villages around us, people to search the ruins. I need to re-map the city, find out what has survived, what we can use,  what we must raze and rebuild.

Day 14

Mapping the city is proving challenging but it is begun.  Of the seven towers that gave our city its name, only two now remain.  The Great Star tower, tallest of the seven, has been reduced to rubble.  Of the apprentices and magi who served there we can find no trace.  There may be survivors in the cellars.  I shall send a party in through the sewers, see what we can find.  The towers of the Wolf, the Ram and the Hart are also ruins.  The Blue Tower has been severed from its base as though by a giant axe.  Of the tower itself there is no trace.  Only the Grey and Hawk towers remain upright, though for how long I cannot speculate.  If there are people in the surviving towers, they have not made themselves known.

The Riverside district has been pushed into the ground, almost a square mile of city sunk by several hundred feet.  I have sent half a dozen volunteers down there to take stock and assist the survivors, if there are any.  I do not know why, but the river itself remains on course.  I could see no flooding from my vantage point.

Our walls, thankfully, remain intact and defensible.

The burial parties continue to be harassed by something.  I have instructed them to work during the hours of the highest sun only.  This has slowed their progress somewhat but we have lost no more people.  They will not give me an estimate of how long their task will take and I have stopped asking.  It will be done when it is done.

Day 17

Two of the scouts returned from Riverside.  They refuse to talk of what they found there or of what killed their companions.  I have declared the area off-limits.  This will not prevent looters from attempting the trip down.  I cannot afford to lose many more people but if someone wishes to commit suicide, then I cannot always prevent them.  Guards will be posted around the Riverside area, as much to prevent things from leaving as to stop people from entering.

A rider arrived from the mountain village of Minehold.  He tells me that a party of seven are following, two or three days behind him.  They are all that is left of the village and the miners who were above the surface on the Night.  The mountains are gone, shattered to rubble, but there is a fortress there, carved from the living rock, that appeared during the Night.  They sent no-one to investigate and I cannot afford to right now.  If only seven survived from a village that size, what hope is there for smaller communities.  But there must always be hope.  For now, he sleeps.  I will question him more tomorrow about his route, his experiences.  I salvaged the map from the old Watch building by the Great Star tower.  It is almost useless.  Almost.  We shall make a new map.

Day 19

I have asked one of the Argent Path priests to visit the survivors today, determine their needs and record their stories of the Night. I hope we can put together a coherent picture of what happened. Knowledge is our only power here.

Music! I heard music in the city! We were clearing the rubble at the base of the Grey Tower and a drummer started up, giving us a beat to work to. I had not realised how quiet the city had become. His song was not one of cheer but one of the old songs of quiet hope. We moved more rubble in that time than any day before or since. The men have taken him as a mascot! We cleared a path to the tower doors but no further. The wood does not look natural, it feels cold and sickening. If we are to enter the tower we shall have to find another way.

The survivors from the mining village arrived this afternoon through what remained of the west gate. Their rider has not yet emerged from his rooms. Tom, one of my lieutenants in these dark days, welcomed them in and assisted them in setting up camp. All seven of them. I fear we have cleared too large an area in the hope of more survivors. I hope to question them tomorrow.

Day 20

Howling in the night, away to the north. There is a pack out there somewhere and we have not the resources to track it down.

The miners told me their tales over breakfast. Many ran into the mines when the Night started. They never emerged. Those who survived did so in the village hall, the doors locked and barred to prevent people getting out, the creatures from the mine getting in. When the horrors of the night came to an end they sent their only horse ahead and followed on foot. They lost three children on the way here, taken on the first night. By what, they do not know. I hope and pray it has not followed them here.

The drummer was there again today as a party shored up the north wall.

I visited the burial grounds again today. I must keep doing this to remind myself of what we have lost. There was a woman standing at the far side of the field, strange shapes moving in the smoke blown from the pyres near her. She was gone when I looked closer. I will not sleep well this night.

Day 28. I think.

It has been many days since I last wrote in this journal. The wolves tried their luck against the north wall a few nights ago. On that night I saw the woman from the burial grounds. I counted more than twenty wolves. Torches followed their progress along the wall towards the fallen section at the burial grounds. They did not make it more than thirty yards in before the graves swallowed them. She was standing near the pyres, her arms raised. As the last wolf was swallowed, so she lowered her arms and stepped into the night. She must be found.

To be continued...