The Order of Ashbinders part 1

Ale and Rumors
The inn smelled of rain, roasted lamb, and old wood — the kind of smell that seeps into a traveler’s bones and whispers, rest while you can. The sign outside read Greenthorn’s Rest, though “rest” was a generous word for the din of half-drunk farmers arguing about wolves, taxes, and weather that couldn’t decide what season it wanted to be.

I found a stool near the hearth, ordered a mug of ale, and listened.

It didn’t take long to catch the talk. Sheep gone missing. Shadows in the hills. Flames seen at night. The usual superstition, I thought — until an old hunter mentioned claw marks “the size of scythes” and grass that burned cold. Cold fire. I’d heard of that once, from soldiers who swore they’d seen it on battlefields tainted by dragon blood.

I leaned closer. “You said the grass burned? How’s that possible?”

The man blinked at me, as if realizing he’d said too much. “Ask Marta,” he muttered, gesturing toward the counter. “She knows all the stories.”

Marta Greenthorn. I’d noticed her earlier — the innkeeper with calm eyes, more soldier than servant. She moved with the quiet efficiency of someone who’s spent her life tending wounds and secrets alike. When I asked for another drink, she poured it before I spoke.

“Stranger,” she said, setting the mug down. “You’ve the look of someone who listens more than merely wants a drink.”
“Depends on the story,” I said. “I hear there’s trouble in these parts.”
Her smile was kind, but not warm. “There’s always trouble. Wolves, bandits, taxes.”
“Dragons?” I asked, half-joking.

The smile faded. Her hands froze on the mug. “Those are just stories, traveler. Old ones. Not worth the ale you’d waste on them.”

She turned away, busying herself with the shelves. But for a heartbeat, I saw something flicker in her eyes — not fear. Recognition.

I waited until the crowd thinned and approached again, quieter this time. “If you know of any ruins nearby — or strange happenings — I’d pay for the directions.”

Marta hesitated, then exhaled. “Ruins? We’ve plenty. Every farmer’s field has one stone older than sense. But if you’re chasing ghosts, head east. Travelers go that way and don’t come back.”
“That a warning?”
“An invitation,” she said, softly. “Some things prefer to be left buried.”

I took the hint and left the question hanging. But as I turned to go, she spoke again — quieter than the crackle of the fire.

“If you’re staying in town, keep your ears open. You’ll hear what you need soon enough. Trouble has a way of finding those who look for it.”

That night, I lay awake in the inn’s creaking loft, listening to the rain. Somewhere beneath the sound of dripping eaves, I swore I heard another noise — a distant rumble, too deep to be thunder.

And in the darkness, Marta’s words lingered: Some things prefer to be left buried.

The Sheep Thief
The rain eased by morning, but the mist stayed behind, curling low across the fields like it didn’t want to let go. By then, everyone in the village had heard about the missing sheep. Everyone except Marta — or so she claimed.

“Three gone last night,” the blacksmith grumbled, wiping soot from his beard. “No tracks I could follow, no blood, no sound. Just gone. Vanished like smoke.”

“Wolves?” I asked.
He spat into the mud. “If wolves can burn grass, then sure. Wolves.”
That sent me to Marta.

She was wiping down the counter when I entered, pretending not to notice me until I mentioned the scorched ground. Then she looked up — slow, measured — the way a soldier sizes a battlefield before stepping onto it.

“Scorched?” she repeated. “You saw it yourself?”
“Not yet. Thought I might.”

Her eyes flicked toward the window, then back to me. “The farmers will point you east, toward the tree line. Don’t go alone — the wolves there don’t howl anymore.”

“Noted,” I said, and she gave me a small, brittle smile. “Bring me what you find,” she added. “If there’s anything left to find.”

The pastures gave way to bramble and stone fences long fallen to ruin. Hoofprints dotted the mud, but they trailed off too suddenly — as if the animals had simply lifted away. Then came the smell: sulfur and something older, like burned iron and wet ash.

Wolves, they’d said. I’ve fought wolves. Wolves don’t scorch the ground.

By the time I reached the grove, the silence felt wrong. No birds, no wind. Just the hiss of damp earth still smoldering in patches. I knelt, brushing my fingers across the blackened grass — warm. Recently burned.

Something glimmered beneath the ash — a scale, no bigger than a coin, faintly iridescent, edges sharp enough to cut. When I held it to the light, it shimmered gold, then red, then… black.

I pocketed it and drew my sword. That was when the forest breathed.

A rush of air, low and heavy. Trees swayed without wind. And for an instant, I thought I saw something vast move between the fog — a shadow with wings too large to be real.

Then it was gone. Only the sound remained: a single, echoing heartbeat deep beneath the earth.

By dusk I was back at the inn. Marta waited by the hearth, as if she knew I’d return. I set the scale on the counter. It caught the firelight and bled color across the room.

Her hand hovered over it but didn’t touch. Her voice, when she spoke, trembled just enough to betray her calm. “So,” she whispered. “It begins again.”

I frowned. “You know what this is.”

She looked up, eyes steady. “I know what it was. Long ago.” Then she slid the scale back toward me. “Keep it close. If there’s truth in the old stories, you’ll need it sooner than you think.”

I wanted to press her — demand answers, names, something solid — but the look in her eyes stopped me. It wasn’t fear. It was memory.

When I left, she was still standing by the hearth, staring into the flame like it might speak back.
That night, I dreamed of fire. Not the kind that burns — the kind that breathes.
And in that fire, something vast opened one golden eye.

Ashes in the Hills
By the third morning, the mist had burned away, but unease still hung over the village like fog that wouldn’t lift. People spoke in whispers now. Flocks were penned tighter, shutters nailed shut. And standing at the village gate was a girl in chainmail that didn’t quite fit her.

“Are you the traveler who went looking for the thief?” she asked, voice steady despite the way her hands fidgeted around the hilt of her sword.
“I am,” I said. “And you are?”
“Patty.” She raised her chin, trying to look older than her years. “My family lost three sheep last night. I’m going after them. You coming or not?”

There was no hesitation in her tone — just the simple assumption that I’d follow. I liked her already.

We set out before noon, heading into the hills east of the village. The grass grew sparse, yellowed and brittle. The air smelled faintly of smoke even where no fire burned. Patty talked as we walked — about her father’s forge, her mother’s stubborn prayers, her adorable pet pig. The kind of stories people tell when silence starts feeling dangerous.

Then we found the first carcass.

Or what was left of it. Half the body, charred black. The ground around it turned to glass. And in the center of the scorch mark — another scale, this one larger, duller, but humming faintly in my palm when I picked it up.

Patty knelt beside me. “That’s not wolf work.”
“No,” I said. “It’s something bigger.”

We followed the trail higher, until the trees thinned and the land became stone and wind. That’s when I felt it — a pressure, low and rhythmic, pulsing through the ground like the heartbeat of a buried giant.

Then came the light.

Not sunlight — firelight, breaking through cracks in the hill itself, flickering from within.

Patty grabbed my arm, her breath sharp. “What is that?”
“Back,” I whispered. “Now.”

We crouched behind an outcrop as the hill shuddered. The ground split, dust rising like smoke. And from the fissure came a figure vast and terrible — a dragon, or the shadow of one.

It didn’t see us. It was feeding.

The creature spread its wings, each beat scattering cinders across the valley, and the stones themselves bled light. It bowed its head to the earth, inhaling streams of glowing vapor from the cracks — like drinking from the veins of the world.

Patty’s whisper trembled: “It’s… beautiful.”
“Yes,” I said. “And that’s the dangerous part.”

Then, just as suddenly, it was gone — disappearing through ashes carried by the wind, leaving the hills silent once more.

By the time we returned, night had fallen. The village was quiet, too quiet. Marta met us at the inn door. One look at my face, and she knew.

“It’s begun,” she murmured.
I handed her the scale. “You knew this would happen.”
“I hoped it wouldn’t,” she said, turning the scale over in her palm. “But hope is a fragile shield.”

Then she pressed something into my hand — a silver token, tarnished, etched with a dragon curled upon itself.
“Old village currency,” she said, too quickly. “A keepsake.”
She turned away before I could answer, her voice barely audible above the crackle of the hearth.
“Keep your sword ready, traveler. The world’s waking up.”

I slept poorly that night. The token burned cold against my chest. And somewhere far beyond the hills, thunder rolled — though the sky was clear.

It wasn’t thunder. It was wings.

The Silent Bell
Three days after the hills burned, the village fell quiet in another way. No morning bells. No call to prayer. No echo of the chapel chime that used to mark dawn and dusk — the sound everyone ignored until it stopped.

I noticed first, though I wasn’t the only one uneasy about it. The blacksmith claimed the bell-rope had frayed. The baker said a storm must’ve cracked the tower. But Marta? She just muttered, “Not the rope. Not the storm.”

She wouldn’t say more, but her eyes followed the chapel every time the wind carried the smell of smoke from that direction.

So I went.

The chapel stood at the far edge of town, a squat building of gray stone older than the road itself. Its bell tower loomed crookedly, leaning like it had grown tired of faith but hadn’t yet found the courage to fall.

The doors were half open. Inside — silence. Pews overturned, hymn books scattered, blood soaked into the straw-strewn floor. And in the middle aisle, carved into the wood with something hot enough to scorch it, a sigil.

A sunburst of six claws, curling inward.

I didn’t need Marta to tell me what it meant.

The air carried a metallic tang — not quite blood, not quite iron. And faint, beneath it, the whisper of chanting. I followed the sound to the tower stairs.

Halfway up, the smell grew stronger — incense, thick and sweet, clinging to the stone. I drew my blade. The steps creaked underfoot, and the chanting stopped.

When I reached the belfry, I saw them.

Three figures in red and black robes, masks carved from wood and scorched at the edges. They knelt around the fallen bell, their hands pressed to the bronze like it was an altar. The bell’s tongue had been torn out — replaced by a brand of glowing ember that hissed where it touched metal.

One of them looked up. His mask had eye holes c from scorched marks, leaking faint orange light.
“The flame watches,” he said.
“Then it sees you die,” I replied.

Steel met flesh. The first cultist lunged with a curved knife that smoked in the air; I turned it aside and drove my pommel into his throat. The second raised his hands to cast — a flicker of runes, half prayer, half curse — but I was faster. The sword found him before the words did. The third tried to flee down the stairs, leaving a trail of bloody footprints. I caught him by the shoulder.

“Who sent you?” I demanded.
He laughed — a dry, broken sound. “The world was born in fire,” he wheezed. “And it shall be—”

He bit something hidden in his cheek. A hiss. Smoke. His body went limp before I could catch him.

I lowered him to the floor, the stench of burned flesh thick in the air.

When I returned to the inn, Marta was waiting. She didn’t ask what happened — she already knew. I dropped the cultist’s mask on her counter. The scorch marks danced in the lamplight, forming that same clawed sunburst.

She stared at it a long time before speaking. “I read about these once,” she said quietly. “When I was younger.”
“In books?”
“In reports,” she corrected. “From the capital. About fires that burned from the inside out.”
She met my gaze. “You shouldn’t have gone alone.”
“Would you rather I let them finish their prayer?”

That earned me a thin smile — the kind soldiers give each other before the next march.

“No,” she said. “But you’ll need to be ready. The bell doesn’t ring because it wasn’t meant to warn anymore. It was meant to call.”

That night, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something had answered.

The wind carried no chimes. Only the distant hum of embers, waiting to wake.