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Kane saw the sparks, the dwarf frantically trying to shield the load from the wagon, other dwarves scurrying without purpose around the wheels, nearby horsemen kicking mounts forward in an effort to escape what they knew to becoming. It was with an almost detached interest that Kane saw the two boys, ingenious boys, stand to hurl their burning mason jars, so recently filled with mothers jam, down upon the dwarf and his wagon.

The bright orange flash easily lit the face of the dwarf, the terror, the knowledge of his impending death stamped firmly across the rugged features. A roll of leather, still clutched in one gnarled hand, served to protect his face for a millisecond as the rising flame turned his clothes into ash. His beard, then his eyebrows went next, vanishing with the heat until his skin literally melted in an instant as the fire consumed him.  

Then the fireball began to grow and expand, swallowing panicking dwarves and men, vengeful peasants who ran toward it with no regard for their own safety. A crow, flying low through the streets, simply burst into flames as the heat struck it, the flaming, screaming, bird sailing through the air to vanish into the streets beyond. Men in armour were crushed as the concussion bent and twisted metal armour. The dwarves long hair, so glorious and well oiled, ignited almost immediately to turn them into short shrieking torches with nowhere to run. 

Unarmoured peasants disintegrated as the fireball swept down the streets like some monstrous beast that devoured all in its path. Windows shattered to spray glass in every direction. Stone buildings literally shattered in the intense heat to add flying stone to the shrapnel now filling the streets. Flesh was shredded, clothes torn, bodies literally ripped to bloody ribbons, as the blast expanded outward strike the second and third wagons.

These two were much closer together and exploded within seconds. Their explosions fused into one, so much larger than the first, simply wiping entire buildings off the face of the earth in an instant. Beneath them the earth moved.

The capital had stood for a thousand years. Beneath its streets ran unknown kilometres of long abandoned quarries, ancient tunnels, catacombs, and sewers. As fickle fate would have it, the second explosion occurred over largest of these works and the roof began to collapse. It was not just the explosion of course, a thousand years of digging, building, and progressively larger buildings, had done their part to weaken the ceiling of the ancient quarry and now thousands would pay with their lives. 

The fourth wagon, partially shielded from the blasts, tettered and vanished into the rapidly expanding hole in the cobblestone. Only Kane, who saw it all, had the time to notice and an instant to wonder just how bad things were about to get. The fourth wagon, when it hit bottom, exploded much as its fellows had, but this time the blast was hurled deep into the tunnels, shattering ancient support columns and carefully built arches. More streets began to buckle, buildings lurched drunkenly, and the city began to die. 

The two initial fireballs rolled into one as their awesome power drove outward, the concussion wave racing ahead of the flame to scatter struggling combatants before it as a great wind might blow leaves. Clothes melted to skin an instant before the skin was turned to ash. Not even skeletons remained of those closest to the blast. Naught but shadows and ash.

In the castle, Yorrek lived long enough to see the huge gatehouse, weakened by the ogres attack, sway alarmingly before giving a mighty groan and crashing down to bury guardsmen and ogres alike beneath hundreds of tonnes of stone. The few spires that had survived the Barons assault were smashed like wooden bowling pins, tumbling down into the citadel below. Everything stopped as men, dwarves, vampires, ogres, and angels alike, turned to stare in dumb fascination at the climbing fireball.  

Dust billowed through the streets to blind those who did not turn away in time. The black cloud advanced like an angry shadow, consuming all before it. Behind it, as buildings collapsed and vanished one by one, a great chasm grew across the very centre of the city. It swallowed all, sparing no one or anything it touched. 

Kane watched it all, drifting upon the winds, the fire and smoke swirling around him but not touching him. The force of the explosion snapped at his cloak and buffeted his wings but otherwise it was though he was made of stone. Where a people had struggled to be free, nothing remained but charred corpses, or nothing at all. He could see the shadows of some victims, their only legacy, burnt into walls an instant before the ground beneath gave way and everything vanished into the growing dust cloud. 

For those who had made it beyond the walls, it looked as though the end had truly come. The fireball still climbed into the sky. Smoke was everywhere as was the choking dust. The concussion tore flags from their brackets on the mighty gatehouses and entire sections of the city wall ceased to exist as they were shaken to their core. Entire lines of buildings, once the pride of the city, just simply slipped from view one by one. 

The old quarter, once home to the vampire overlords, gave its own shudder and then, incredibly, another explosion ripped through the earth and the hill, great houses, and palaces, all of it, heaved upward, outward, and then hurled itself across the city. No one could have known that that ancient builders had hidden their own store of firedust, used for blasting the sewers and catacombs, beneath that hill. 

The debris rained down across the city, crushing friend and foe alike. More buildings were smashed by blocks of stone the size of a horse and countless of lives were lost as bricks dropped from the sky like rain from a cloud to kill those unlucky enough to be beneath them.

Then the fireball was gone, leaving only smoke, dust, and ruin in its wake. The shaking of the city continued a few more moments but then it too quieted. The streets, torn up and broken as they were, settled once again and a strange silence settled over the city. It was a silence of screams and moans, but anything was better than the crushing, pounding noise of the explosion. Gone with the explosion was the will of many to fight, friend or foe. Men and women who, moments before, had been trying to kill each other, simply staggered away into the dust cloud. No none knew where they were going, only that they needed to get far away that place.

For Kane it was a sign. Enough was enough. He was floating above the massive crater, unable to tear his eyes from the destruction that had been wrought, when the anger hit him. Ulrek. He had planned for such an eventuality and so doomed the entire city. He would die, and now was not soon enough.

The silver sword flashed in Kanes hand and flames rippled along the blade, shield materializing on his left arm. He kissed the sword blade, the flames touching him not at all. Then hee charged toward the citadel and its shattered gateway. The reckoning was coming for Ulrek, and his judgement with it.