Two cutters slipped silently out of Minas Tirith Port. One sailed south, the other east, each heading toward an allied territory shrouded in the shadow of the plague.
A seagull took flight from the top of a mast, soaring into the distance.
Below, the once-dense lights of the fishing villages dotting the coastline had dwindled to just a few scattered specks.
It swept over one town after another.
Some had already fallen to the plague, where only the wind now stirred the dust. Others were still clinging to life, but piles of bodies already lined the pale white quarantine lines. A few seemed to have pulled through; small bands of survivors had heaped the dead into small mountains, lighting massive bonfires that blazed into the sky, becoming beacons in the dark night.
Finally, it landed atop the bell tower of a city.
