This is the ninth chapter of the Fang & Bone serial; click here to visit the previous installment of Fang of Triseria. Please share your thoughts on the story in the comments, or visit the project hub for more information.
Erryl sat and puffed at his pipe as Mayor Gorval kept silent, his glare locked on the shattered and rotten teeth on the dusty table. His breathing was steady, and the sheen of sweat that had accumulated across his balding head just moments ago had seemingly vanished. The man even appeared pale.
Erryl saw that the teeth had struck a nerve and knocked the mayor off guard. A conversational feint. It was time to go to work, to prod at the defenses and uncover the most valuable resource a mercenary could have: information.
Erryl exhaled a stream of smoke as he spoke, “Corrigan, you were saying something about the origin of these ghouls?”
Erryl watched the mayor’s expression sour and the involuntary shifting in his seat. Keep needling him. Keep him off-guard.
“I assure you we have it in hand, Mr. Nick, but if it will help satisfy your curiosity, I can relay what happened to the town a while back, the night we found ourselves under attack.”
“Yes, please. There may be a clue for my companion and me in your recollection of those events.”
“I doubt you’ll glean much beyond what those who survived have come to understand, but who am I to deny you the opportunity to waste your time?”
The mayor scratched at his round chin, figuring out where to begin. After a few moments, he leaned back into the dirty seat and crossed his arms. Whether he was protecting himself, or being standoffish, was hard to tell.
“It was about ten years ago, and some months when the ghouls struck and overrun us. Though I suppose it goes back further, a few years before, when a strange magician arrived. Best to start there I suppose. I don’t recall the name now, but the magician dabbled in dark arts. Vengeance magics, necromancy, all of that foul stuff.”
“Foul indeed.”
“Right. Well, a few years before the incident, he comes to town. Gordhurst then was a lot bigger than what we have now. A lot less temporary. Fine stonework for most of the center of the town, built around a Lightsworn Abbey, which was the faith of the area for a long while, though that faded just before the kingdom to the north fell to the dogs. Moon worshippers, them. By the time this necromancer arrived, the abbey was more – I guess you’d call it a town hall than a place of any real worship.”
“Not a religious man, I take it, Mr. Mayor.”
“What good would it have done me given the circumstances?”
“Fair, I suppose. A lot to occur in only a couple of years.”
“This necromancer came to town, claiming to be a religious scholar of some kind, out of Tradewind, who was cataloging old ruins, abbeys, and the like. Said he’d heard of our little place and added it to his list. We had no real way of knowing whether that was the truth or not. Triseria was gone to the dogs and all, we were isolated.”
The mayor paused for a moment, his eyes rolling up toward the top of his skull, as though searching for some lost memory.
“Anyway, to my great shame, my wife and boy took an interest in the man and his studies. She was brilliant and the love of my life. Gone now. Boy was the same way. Took after his mother. I never had much in my head for books and theory, but Gods know I provided for her, and then him, as best I could. But the stranger offered them a bit of culture I could never deliver.”
“Your boy is gone, too?”
The mayor was silent. Erryl didn’t press further.
“They… they took up with him on his studies, and in time he started showing them magic. Ancient stuff, beyond little tricks everyone knows. With enough time I could produce some flame, as I am sure you are. She found it fascinating and took to the craft. So did he – my Harriet and Martin. They were happy and it all seemed harmless. The stranger gave them something. Anyway, in time, he had sort of become a feature around the town. Started healing folks. He really built up this reputation as a kind, learned man who came to love the place. But the whole time he was secretly engaging in his dark arts.”
The mayor lifted from his seat a bit and twisted, seeking a little relief from the weight he carried. He sat back down and leaned forward, continuing his story.
“He spent a lot of time at the abbey but also exploring the tombs on the abbey grounds. Even petitioned for the grave keeper’s key to do his studies in private, exploring them for hours at a time. I didn’t think much of it given what he said he was there for, but it was a lie. He started casting spells and digging within the tomb of old Ser Gordhurst himself. The man established the town at least two centuries ago and I am the one who destroyed it because I was loose with a tomb key.”
Erryl continued to watch every little detail of Gorval’s body language as he spoke. Every glint of sweat. Every errant twitch. The mayor’s story rang out as largely truthful, but there were moments…
It wasn’t so much anything like an explicit tell, but rather a combination of pauses and gestures. Erryl had yet to come up with anything concrete, but it was something about his wife and child that seemed to trigger him in a curious way. It was touchy, undoubtedly, but there was more than a sense of tragedy in tone and involuntary movement.
Just what, remained to be seen.
“What sort of experimentations and magic was he doing? He never gave you a name?” Erryl asked.
“The name he gave was likely false. I’ve since forgotten it. I’d uncovered his credentials with Tradewind just as things had gone south and whatever his plan had been came to fruition. I looked into the name on the papers after the fact; murdered. Never left the city. Papers probably ended up tucked in an old drawer back there, or burned up in one of the fires.”
Gorval drew his finger across a dusty portion of the table between the two seats. He drew a single circle and some rough runes within.
“What I remember was this, carved into my boy’s chest.”
Gorval continued drawing. When he was presumably done, he withdrew his finger slightly from the surface and lingered briefly before wiping the dust on a pant leg.
The rune itself was unfamiliar to Erryl. He was sure he had seen it’s like before, but the details were unclear. Perhaps a transcription error that was born of time and trauma. Regardless, it was unsettling. The runes evoked older magics he had barely contended with himself. Fools’ Errand, as competent as their merry band of assholes was, had only ever experienced the practice of ancient magics a time or two.
“Familiar to you, Mr. Nick?”
“Not particularly so,” said Erryl, half truthfully.
“By the time I had begun piecing things together, he’d already moved forward with his plan. The dead rose. Those whom he had cured and came to know – they died too and were born again of necromancy. My Harriet and Martin…”
The mayor clasped his hands together and his knuckles grew white.
“I found him trying to conduct something fowl with them, already dead. I hoped to kill the man, but by then he’d already surrounded the tomb with the rotting horde – they rose and I fought through, I don’t know how. I managed to reach the center of the town and hurried off survivors and helped to rally whoever I could to provide an escape. It was a death march, we were hounded by ghouls for miles.”
“And yet they leave you be, here?”
“You don’t understand. These aren’t normal undead. They pushed us out of the town. He wanted the place – the abbey. When we were far enough away, they only seemed to leave us be. We made our way to the inn and lodge down the road and established this new town. The ghouls never enter town, merely patrol the woods between here and there. They’ll kill a traveler or two, outsiders, but leave us be unless we do something he does not like. They are his eyes and ears.”
“So you’re hostages.”
“You speak as though there is a possible escape, Mr. Nick. We’re here to keep people from his lands. Without us, there are questions. We’re safe as long as we uphold his wishes.”
Erryl coughed a bit.
“Grotesque. One might question the leadership, no?”
Mayor Gorval rose to his feed, his face red.
“I warn you and your mongrel… leave us be, go back the way you came. Stay away from the signs we’ve made that mark the lands of the dead. If you push this, he’ll see to it that we are killed. We’ll have failed our one purpose for the necromancer. Our blood will be on your hands.”
Erryl rose to his feed and tucked his pipe into his vest.
“You know, Sir Mayor, it sounds a bit cowardly to me.”
“I believe I gave you the mistaken impression that I value the opinion of mercenary trash. There is no gold for you here. If you press on this issue I’ll have you seen as a disturber of the peace.”
Gorval’s face grew redder still. His voice had risen considerably. Spittle flew from his lips.
“Just because the ghouls surround the town, doesn’t mean we haven’t gotten good at destroying them when they wander in. The only difference between you, your dog, and them is the smell. You all are just meat at the end.”
Erryl stood silently. He showed nothing on his face for a moment as not to give the mayor a self-perceived win. Instead, Erryl slowly broke out into a narrow-eyed smile, threateningly friendly. Pointedly considerate.
“We won’t tarry where we are not welcomed, I assure you. We’ll just take payment for the ghouls we’ve slain and be on our way.”
Gorval was quiet for a moment, his eyes wide, his face plump and crimson. His senses had almost seemed to leave his body. When he came to, he angrily swept his hand across the table, scooping up the ghouls’ teeth and hurled them into Erryl’s face. They bounced off and clattered to the table and wooden floor.
“Damn you, fucker. If you are still here tomorrow I’ll have you arrested. Your dog should be so lucky. Leave. Now.”
Erryl smiled, nodded, and made an exaggerated bow, his legs bent. Almost courtly.
“Good day to you, Mayor Gorval. I take my leave.”
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