Near the town of Connel, the flatlands in the distance trembled as if a great wave crested just beneath its surface.
Like distant thunder, a growing rumble swept forward and broke the peace and serenity of the farmlands.
The grinding roar gave only short notice as the wave of convulsion rolled forward with uniform power.
The people of this region were not accustomed to earthquakes, though some had experienced a small vibration perhaps once in their lifetimes.
This, however, was no slight tremor, nor was it a massive quake that people of the west have often spoke of… an all encompassing upheaval that spreads like ripples on disturbed water. This was power unleashed yet also confined at the same time.
The quake took the pure form of a single rolling tremor, an unbroken line of disturbance stretching north to south, its ends out of sight.
The land in front and behind the convulsion remained calm and steady, but the ground at the point of the crest lifted up as if it were being pushed away by a thousand angry souls long-buried in the soil.
The fury of the disturbance lashed out upon all in its path. The few trees which spotted the landscape as markers for farmers resisted the tremor, but as the upheaval rolled past their roots, a few shifted to lean at slight angles from the ground.
Fence posts bolted into the air like thrown javelins. Shepherd dogs howled, and the panicked livestock wandering the fields raced in every direction.
Fortunately, the ground did not split beneath them. Though the tremor tussled them, threw them to and fro, no true injury befell a single animal.
