Chapter 150: Civilisation
The next two days unfolded in tense monotony, paced by the grating creak of the cart and the pounding of footsteps on a road that grew rockier and steeper as they climbed the foothills of the Martissant mountains.
The air had cooled, now heavy with a mineral scent and the first persistent wisps of smoke rising from the still-invisible city behind the ridges. The old man’s bread, dense as a brick and black as coal, still sat in the cart, untouched.
No one had dared to eat it, not even Dylan, despite his jokes. It had become a silent symbol of their lingering distrust and the strangeness of the road.
Fatigue had sculpted them, deepening Jonas’s features, making Marisse’s gaze even sharper beneath her furrowed brow. Dylan had lost part of his mocking bravado, replaced by a nervous vigilance.
Maggie still walked ahead, but her pauses to scan the landscape behind them were more frequent, her silence heavier. Élisa seemed absorbed by whispers only she could hear, her bare feet skimming the rocky ground with increasing caution.
Donovan, the bearded one, brought up the rear like a threatening shadow, his halberd now held firmly, ready. The incident with the monstrous footprints near the old camp still hung over them, an unresolved secret gnawing at the group’s fragile cohesion.
On the third morning, as the sun struggled to pierce a cold, damp fog clinging to the mountainsides, they finally reached a narrow pass. And there, below them, sprawled like a crouching beast in a ring of grey stone, Martissant came into view.
The city was not welcoming. Tall basalt walls, streaked with soot and lichen, enclosed a chaotic jumble of sharp slate roofs, chimneys belching acrid smoke, and massive, fortress-like buildings. No greenery, no bright colors—only shades of grey, black, and rust. A complex smell rose to meet them: an unpleasant mixture of industrial smoke, scorched metal, dried fish, and, still somehow lingering, that deceptive, comforting sweetness of fresh bread that had once lured Jonas.
"There’s the nest," grumbled Donovan, his first words in hours. His voice was rough, like stones grinding together.