What the Ashes Left

In a world of monsters, the most dangerous thing you can find is a hero.

The world had ended, and no one had bothered to tell the bandits. That was the only thought in my head as I parried another sloppy, rust-pitted sword strike. My arm screamed in protest, the cheap leather handle of my own blade slick with a mixture of sweat and blood. Cinderfall was burning. The smoke, thick and acrid, stung my eyes and choked my lungs, a constant reminder of our failure.

Months ago, the stories from the east had been just that—stories. Whispers of a city named Lenspear tearing itself apart, of Knights and Mages finally declaring open war. We’d thought ourselves safe, tucked away in our quiet little corner of the world. We were wrong. The war had bled outwards, poisoning everything. The patrols stopped coming. The merchants disappeared. And then, the dregs of the world, the carrion birds like these bandits, had arrived to pick at the corpse.

"Mark! To your left!" Viru’s scream cut through the din.

I spun, just in time to catch a club on my battered shield. The impact sent a jarring shock up my arm, and my knees buckled. I was no hero. I was a farmer who’d been handed a sword and told to stand on a wall that was already crumbling. I dreamed of the Royal Knights, of shining armor and noble purpose, but they were a world away, too busy killing mages to save us.

The bandit leader, a brute of a man with a scarred face and a cruel laugh, loomed over me. "Look at this one," he sneered, his breath a foul stench of stale ale. "Still playing soldier. There are no heroes left, boy."

He was right. Old Man Hemlock lay dead by the well, his pitchfork still clutched in his hands. Viru was backed against the burning remains of the granary, her small hunting bow useless at close range. We were losing. We were dying. I pushed myself up, my legs trembling, and raised my sword one last time. It was a futile gesture. A final, naive act of defiance in a world that had forgotten the meaning of the word. The bandit leader raised his club for the final blow. I closed my eyes.

And then… silence.

A strange, unnatural quiet fell over the battlefield. The crackle of flames, the screams, the clash of steel—it all just… stopped. I opened my eyes. The bandit’s club was frozen mid-swing. His face, once a mask of cruel triumph, was now slack with confusion. Every single attacker, every villager, had stopped moving, their heads turning towards the edge of the village.

A figure stood there, a still silhouette against the roiling smoke. They were just watching, their posture relaxed, as if observing a mildly interesting street play. The sheer audacity of their calm was more terrifying than any war cry.

Slowly, the figure stepped forward, into the flickering light of the burning granary. It was a young man, or perhaps a boy, dressed in tattered, dark clothing. His face was a blank canvas, utterly devoid of expression. One of his eyes was a flat, dead grey, like a winter sky. The other… the other was wrong. I couldn't quite see it clearly in the shifting light, but there was something unnatural there, a pattern that didn't belong in a human eye.

The bandit leader recovered first. "Who in the hells are you?" he roared, his fear turning to bluster. "Another stray dog looking to die?" He and two of his men charged, their weapons raised.

The boy didn't move. He didn't draw a weapon. He didn't even seem to breathe. He simply lifted a hand and, with a casual, almost lazy motion, flicked his fingers.

A tiny speck of light, no bigger than a firefly, shot from his fingertips. It wasn't fast. It simply drifted through the air and landed softly on the dirt in front of the charging bandits. For a moment, nothing happened.

Then, the world screamed.

Pillars of jagged, black stone erupted from the ground with a sound like the world cracking open. They didn't grow; they exploded upwards, impossibly fast, impossibly sharp. The two men flanking the leader were impaled instantly, their bodies lifted into the air, their screams cut short in a spray of crimson. The bandit leader, his charge halted, could only stare in horror as a wall of stone spikes sealed him off from his men.

The boy took another step forward, his expression unchanged. He flicked his fingers again. Another shard of light. This one landed behind the trapped leader. A whip of pure, white-hot fire lashed out from the ground, wrapping around the man’s leg. He shrieked, a sound of pure agony, as the fire burned through leather and flesh.

The remaining bandits were frozen, their minds unable to process what they were seeing. This wasn't a fight. It was an execution.

The boy tilted his head, a gesture of mild curiosity. He looked at the screaming man, then at the terrified bandits, then at me. His dead grey eye seemed to see nothing at all. But the other one, the strange one, felt like it was looking straight through me, weighing something I couldn't comprehend.

He sighed, a soft, weary sound, as if this was all a tedious chore. He raised his hand one last time. This time, there was no flick, no shard of light. The ground itself simply turned to mud beneath the remaining bandits' feet, sucking them down to their knees. Before they could struggle, the mud hardened back into stone, trapping them completely.

Silence returned, broken only by the crackling of the fire and the whimpers of the trapped men.

I stood there, my sword hanging limply in my hand, my body trembling not from fear, but from a profound, earth-shattering awe. The stories spoke of heroes who fought with honor and courage. They spoke of mages who wielded the elements with grand gestures and powerful incantations. They had never spoken of this. They had never spoken of a quiet boy who could kill with a flick of his wrist, who could command the very earth with a bored sigh.

I didn't know if I had just been saved by a god, or spared by a demon. And as I looked at the figure standing calmly amidst the carnage he had wrought, I realized, with a chilling certainty, that I didn't know which one would be worse.