The Pathless on Paths---------Chapter VII part 1(2)

The further they flew, the more decay they beheld. By the time they had left the center of Caterpool, and here most of the remnants of once existing buildings were half drowned in the black gray soil. Signs of human existence gradually faded, until all that was left passing beneath them were occasional teeth of cement that stuck out of the land: the remains of a wall, a piece of cracked road, some exposed steel. The ground was uneven, for under a thin gray soil was buried the rest of the city: the traces of man will pass, but not lightly, not easily, and all the more not willingly.