The party arrived at a much wider section of the river valley. Where there was once a river only a dry riverbed remained. Four large hills had once sat across the opposite site of the riverbed from the road. The hills themselves had been blasted from the east by a terrific force. Only a third of their former height and width remained. The side facing the east was carved out as a quarry for gathering gravel would be.

“Damn,” Brondulf said, “The Tempest did this?”

Hugh nodded, “It left its mark everywhere and even wiped out the river here.”

He pointed to the north past the last carved out hill. “The river is of course the same one that flows past Greihold. When the storm smashed all those hills, boulders scattered across this river valley. A great number of them blocked the river’s path through this valley. But, you can’t really stop a river. Now it follows a different path around the ruins of these four hills further west from us.”

The former riverbed and river valley were very dry and lacking in vegetation. The only thing that grew were twisted low, dry bushes with few leaves. Gale force winds had torn out most of the good soil that plants could survive in. Rhunal looked to the south where the river finally passed by their road again.

The river was flanked by several curious looking trees that looked like a massive willow tree. The branches arced up and away in a circular pattern from the top half of the trunk, dipping their branches in the river from a good distance away. One of these trees was actually perched on top of a small dusty hill. Its long branches arced up and past the hill down to the water almost a hundred feet below. Despite what looked like a complete lack of any other vegetation on the exposed hill, the giant tree perched on top seemed green and healthy. Rhun wasn’t sure what she found so interesting about it, but somehow she did.

The party continued up the road that went along the high side of the dusty river valley. The road gradually began to curve to the east. As it did so, something strange began to happen to the vegetation around them. The tall straight spruce trees lining the road began to curve as they grew. Even more unsettling was the fact that the trees began grow and twist in what seemed like completely random directions. The arc of them became more and more extreme until some were curved as far as ninety degrees by the top of the tree, facing horizontal at the top. Still each tree held a specific curve unique to it.

“The most obvious sign that you’ve entered the frontier lands is the trees.” Hugh pointed at a few with particularly wild shapes. "Welcome to the Turbulent March!”

“What kind of administrator would name an official region of the kingdom that?” Bron asked.

Hugh chuckled, “Of course it isn’t the official name. It was a nickname that was created almost the same time the March was drawn up. And the only official residence in the whole area is my fortified village, Refuge.

"It was created because it is the only road through to the other settled lands east of the mountains. To be honest The Turbulent March is so ubiquitous that I don’t even know the kingdom’s proper name for it.”

“Now I must warn you, the further north you go, the stranger things get. And it doesn’t only affect the trees. There are some truly fantastical beasts or even monsters up here. We’ll be far enough south that we are unlikely to run into any here though.”

Rhunal noticed that even as Hugh said this, he removed his crossbow from his back. Lovell gave his bow a couple of pulls to test the tension. Brondulf stopped using his bearded axe as a walking stick and laid it over his shoulder instead.

She reached over to her small dagger. She looked at the rust covering some of the blade and the chips in the edge.

“It would certainly not stand up to a monster”, she thought gloomily, “I don’t trust it in a fight against a man either. I suppose I’ll have to rely on my magic.”

She hung back a bit and started to run through her best abilities useful in a fight. She blasted one of the spruce tree trunks with her most lethal spell, her firebolt. The force of it blasted bark off the tree around the impact site. Firebolt was powerful enough to kill a human if it struck them around the neck or head. But it was also somewhat slow and possible to avoid if the target was quick enough.

Hugh turned around, “We don’t want to start a forest fire. We need to walk near this forest for some time.”

“Just wait.” A vortex of wind began to whip around her whole arm until she flicked it forward, lashing the slightly burning trunk with the vortex of wind. Charred bark flew off the trunk and the flames were extinguished.

She tried her short ranged lightning spell against a different trunk. The damage was minimal but it could stun a human-sized target for a crucial moment. It was a favorite of her master, while they were practicing for mage duels. She eventually became so used to the stun that it began to not work so well on her. Her own version was so short ranged that she almost had to touch the target to electrocute them and not lethally.

Sweat began to pour down her brow from the exertion magic put on her. Her stamina was actually well above what a human could manage. But with mastery of magic came a certain efficiency with stamina as well. A master wizard could put out much more devastating spells for the same energy that Rhunal could muster with her weaker one-handed spells.

Her master had tried to explain why once. A pact with a chosen god or goddess granted you the power. The mage was said to be merely the channel for that otherworldly power instead of having to draw it from the world.

She had never believed in any human god or goddess. For an orc, following some human god would have seemed disingenuous to her. The origin of what relatively limited power she did have was a mystery. Her master was an acolyte of the god of thunder. But he was able to use abilities from most elemental schools of magic. His lightning spells were by far his most efficient and destructive.

The inherent physical drain that magic use put on the user resulted in mages being almost universally thin and lacking heavy muscle mass. It was much the same build that a long distance courier would have.

Even Rhunal was leaner and a bit shorter than the average orc woman. Though she herself didn’t know this personally. If seeing a male orc adventurer in Greihold was rare, seeing a female was a one in a hundred chance.

She collected her energy for one last destructive spell. She punched forward as her left hand encased itself in ice. Extending her fist fully, the large chunk of ice flew forward and shattered against a tree trunk with a satisfying crack. It looked impressive, but in practice it was not strong enough to knock down a human target. They would be staggered for a moment at best. The spell also took a ton of energy. The combination of drawing the water from the air or her body and projecting it forward at high speed burned through her strength quickly. While firebolt was also projected forward, its low weight made it a less draining spell.

Wind and lightning had their uses, but if it came down to a fight it would be firebolt she would have to rely on. With that knowledge, and most of her energy completely spent, she resumed walking. She didn’t have the energy to ask Hugh any more questions about the world.