B U R N I N G R A I N
The second one hit just a few feet away, but on the other side of a boulder so the blast didn't hit her.
Caren ran in the opposite direction, more fiery lumps of rock smashing into the earth all over - in the distance and nearby. She knew a place she'd played as a child, a cave, she could hide there.
She worried about her family, hoped they were safe, and that their wooden adobe wouldn't stop burning rain, no matter how nice it looked or how comfortable an upbringing it had given her. She waited by the mouth of the cave, lying on her stomach and watching as the lumps of rock smote the earth, burning the fields and setting light to the scattered trees.
The fire spread, luckily the cave was nestled high up in the rocks, but eventually she had to retreat inside for the smoke.
How long had it been going on? Hours, probably, with no sign of stopping. As she went further back into the cave she noticed some carvings in the walls. She'd played here with her childhood friends many a time and knew the small network like the back of her hand. Maybe she'd just never noticed when she was younger.
Caren looked closer and saw they looked like writing, kind of weird. She walked further into the caves, the crack and boom of the firestorm sounding behind her, almost forgotten, now. There was light ahead, the place had been built up, wooden joists holding up walls and ceiling, large strings of the same strange writing carved into the walls in a series of running bands that flowed around the outside of the cave.
And in the centre; what looked like a doorway, but empty, going nowhere. It seemed to be important, whoever had been here had even carved a small dais for the stone pillars and lintel to rest on, as well as scrollwork into the floor.
She knelt down and brushed at it with her fingertips and felt the surface still gritty from the chisels. Who had done this? It was the work of thirty or more to create this weird monument - especially where nobody would see it. It was like a temple.
A crack and a shudder rocked the place as a burning bomb hit the stone roof of the cave. She dropped again to the floor, hands over her head for a few moments, realising that she was safe in here when nothing happened. Standing shakily she was about to cross behind the monument to continue exploring when something happened to it.
The carvings on its sides seemed to glitter, like water, then the glittering flowed all through its traceries until it seemed to flow and spread, linking across the empty frame to form a glittering black doorway where before there was nothing.
She scampered back and upwards, hiding in one of the nooks where she had once played hide and seek with her friends. The black portal shimmered and waved and a man stepped through, dressed in metal. Then another and another until the place was full of them, all holding swords and dressed in the same armour, similar scrollwork decorating it as that on the walls.
The one at the front looked like the leader. He lifted his sword and the torches mounted around the cave burst into life on their own, bathing the space in a flickering light, Caren ducking down behind her rocky hiding place as the leader gave a speech. He growled on for a while, voice reverberating inside his iron helm in some foreign tongue. Caren risked a glimpse and saw all the others on one knee, heads leant forward to rest on their swords. The leader made a motion and they straightened up in unison, Caren ducking back out of sight.
She heard the tramp of iron shod feet as they left, realising that the firestorm had finished some moments earlier. She heard the last one leave the cave and crept out from behind the rock, looking back and forth, making sure she was alone. The place looked radiant with all the torches lit, like gold dust was inlaid in the carvings.
The black portal glimmered in the centre. She walked toward it.