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Mulluck Eghart lay on his back, his head turned, watching the Wolf leave with the thin stranger and the child. He smiled and spat up a little blood. He’d enjoyed himself greatly and was excited to have an opportunity to fight the werewolf. He’d kill him next time.

He rose off the muddy grass and spat up a bit more blood with a cough. After catching his breath for a few moments, he rose to his feet, swiped at whatever mud he could see clinging to his body, and trudged toward the Mayor’s home. He slipped off the iron knuckles and tucked them into his pocket. As he approached the steps to the porch, he noticed one had been shattered into splinters – likely the fault of the beastman. He skipped the step.

The foyer of the home was a mess, again, mostly the fault of the wolf, though Eghart himself had contributed to it. Though the Mayor needn’t know that – if he were still alive. Eghart paused at that thought – he sincerely hoped the Mayor was not dead. The man had been one of the few people in Eghart’s life who treated him well enough. Eghart may have tried to pull the wool over his eyes with his gambit all those years ago, but the Mayor gave him work and a home and a sense of stability he’d not felt since he was a child, before the monastery, the farm, and the various bandit camps he’d fallen into. Eghart liked the man.

Though he wasn’t convinced that the Mayor wasn’t aware of what Eghart truly was. If he was, he understood the score and kept Eghart around. It was maybe the best relationship Eghart had with any authority in his life; he would rather not lose that. He doubted the town would last long without Mayor Gorval. Though that was likely due to whatever bargain he’d struck that Eghart had no details of.

Eghart approached the man on whom his comfortable existence depended; the Mayor was crumpled into a heap at the base of a bookshelf, covered in errant tomes and scrolls. Eghart crouched, cleared away the small pile, and saw that the Mayor was alive but unconscious. Eghart exhaled and then realized he’d actually been holding his breath. He was relieved that he hadn’t been mauled to death.

Eghart lifted the man from the floor, quite handily despite the Mayor’s not-quite-inconsiderable girth, and propped him up onto one of the seats in the center of the study. The man’s head hung loosely, and Eghart had to lean it back over the top of the seat. 

Glancing around the room, Eghart took in the chaos – the wolf had carved a swath through the study. He couldn’t make out much about what had happened beyond an overwhelming sense of rage. The crossbow bolt sticking out of the opposing seat suggested the Mayor had been agitated as well.  After a few seconds, Eghart saw the crossbow on the ground near the doorway and picked it up, just as Mayor Gorval stirred, groaning.

“Ughn.”

“What happened, sir?”

Corrigan Gorval’s head lolled toward Eghart, and the Mayor was slow to respond, his eyes wide, then shutting again. The man was having a hard time seeing. Eghart approached, holding the crossbow in one raised fist with his other hand held open and flat.

“It’s me, Captain Eghart.”

Gorval, with great effort, leaned forward, his forearms resting on his knees, and his head slumped down, staring at the floor. He coughed a bit and spat up some blood onto the rug.

“Fucking werewolf attacked me. One second, I was dealing with that medicine man, and the next I felt myself flying. Then I hit something, and everything went dark. Did you see where they went?”

Eghart placed the crossbow down on the floor next to the Mayor and stepped toward the shattered window, where the werewolf had made his entrance into the home. Glass crunched beneath Eghart’s bare feet, but he felt nothing.

“I saw him climbing into the window from the street and ran here to stop him. Fought him, and he overpowered me. I got my shots in. Ran off with his partner and the child – the other Gorse kid.”

“You fought him?”

“Yes. I can get him next time.”

The Mayor was silent for a moment. Eghart continued to stare through the shattered window as he heard Gorval rise to his feet – all grunting and heavy breathing.

“You saw the Gorse girl… they took my niece?”

“She seemed to go with them willingly, sir.” Eghart turned back slightly to look at the Mayor. “She stabbed me.”

“It’s all falling apart, isn’t it?”

“Not if I can help it, sir. Now that I know you’re safe, let me go get them.”

The Mayor had walked toward the pile of books on the floor at the broken shelving and tapped at them with a slippered foot. He grunted, though Eghart couldn’t be sure if it were frustration or pain. Maybe it was both.

“The Wolf… they were… are… a Triserian. There is some magic in their blood, and that may be why the undead are closing in. Like predators fighting over territory.”

Eghart understood predators more than the Mayor ever could. He said nothing.

“It’s like watching ants. Those two stirred up the whole pile, and they’re trying to kill the invaders…”

The Mayor turned from the pile of tomes and stepped toward Eghart.

“Can you kill the mercenaries? Maybe we can still salvage this situation. If they’re gone, things can go back. The truce can go back.”

Eghart nodded.

“I need silver.”

The Mayor’s eyes widened for a moment, and then he made his way, limping, to another set of shelves against one of the walls, piled high with boxes and books. He plucked a polished wooden box from a shelf and wiped away a layer of dust from a bronze plate set on the lid. He paused for a moment, glancing longingly at it. He limped back to Eghart and shoved the box toward him, which Eghart took.

“Do what you must. Kill them both. Bring back my niece. I’ve already lost a nephew. I won’t lose her, too.”

“I don’t know if she’ll go willingly. She attacked me.”

“Beat her to within an inch of her life, then. Just bring her back alive by any means necessary. She can hate me for the rest of her life, but at least she’ll be alive to do it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Eghart, thank you. You’re going to save us all.”

Eghart paused. He nodded awkwardly. 

“Sir.”

Eghart swept out of the room and out into the open air of New Gordhurst. He pried the box from his chest that he had been clutching tightly, overwhelmed and short of breath.

Eghart had always been a survivor beset by cruelties beyond measure. He still woke up some nights, terrified that he was still the same boy on that ranch. Sometimes Elspeth would rub his chest and ask him what was wrong. He’d tell her nothing and take her, or she would take him. That was their arrangement. 

But the Mayor’s words had shaken something loose just now. Corrigan Gorval relied on him, and not just as a captain of the guard. For the first time in a very long time, Mulluck Eghart felt something other than rage or the anxiety of survival. 

It was pride. He had someone he relied on, but who relied on him as well.

Eghart would do everything in his power to fix the crisis and get the girl back. He’d slay the mercenaries. He’d beat the Wolf to death. He would save everyone of this shitty town. He’d not just be “Egg” anymore – and even if they continued to mock him, he knew that they depended on him, and he would remind them of that. Their lives were in his hands.

He glanced down at the wooden box in his hands. The bronze plate’s etching read “To Harriet, my Beloved.” He flipped the lid open to see dull, but still quite fancy silverware. The set was still complete. Now it would serve a greater purpose.

Eghart closed the box and made his way to New Gordhurst’s meager forge; the weight of the iron knuckles in his pocket was a welcome sensation.

Soon to be the tool of the demise of the werewolf.

Soon to be the tool that saved the town.

…

Nathan Gorten watched Egg wander from Corrigan’s home, holding a small wooden box with a rather uncharacteristically light step. He wondered if the man had taken to looting the place, and if he would find his brother dead. He’d heard the clatter from the inn and had watched Eghart and the Wolf fight. He’d seen his niece in the fray and had conflicted feelings about that.

Eghart had fared well, but ultimately lost. The mercy of the Wolf was striking, and Nathan had wondered if that had been a mistake. Eghart was a murderer – that much was obvious. He’d become a good tool for his brother. Nathan never trusted the man; his arrival was suspect, and the man was off. Between the pale skin, his massive frame, and his curious tolerance to pain, Eghart made Nathan nervous. He’d seen the man back into a spear once and not react. It was terrifying watching the man pull the head of the spear loose from his side, slowly and awkwardly, and not so much as flinch.

Nathan approached and surveyed the damage to the home. The window had been shattered, there was damage to the steps to the porch, and the front door had been ripped off its hinges. He made his way up and paused at the doorway. He’d not set foot in the ill-gotten home in years. He followed the porch to the window and glanced inside, seeing Corrigan’s back as he sat at the desk.

“Are you alive?”

Corrigan glanced back over his shoulder, staring back at his brother. He winced, clearly in pain, and Nathan was pleased by this.

“Yes, regrettably for you, I am still alive.”

“I may hate you, Corr, but I don’t hate you enough to see another brother die. I came to see if you were okay and let you know that our mother died this morning.”

“Fuck.”

“Corea found the body.”

Corrigan turned back to face the inside of the study.

“I see. I feel for her. That can’t have been pleasant.”

“No, she is Larian’s daughter for better or worse, and she seemed… hardened this morning. Resolved to something. She reminded me so much of him when we were kids.”

“She was here, you know.”

“I saw. With the two mercenaries.”

“And you are okay with that?”

“She is Larian’s daughter. She won’t be stopped.”

“You’ll trust her with a fucking monster and soldier of fortune over her uncle, then?”

Nathan huffed.

“You’re not her uncle, Corrigan.”

“I am Larian’s brother, just as I am yours. I am her uncle by all rights, and you fucking rats filled her head with lies. Her and Garen, both. Do you hate me so much?”

Silence hung in the air for a long moment as Nathan wondered what to say. He said nothing, and that said everything.

Corrigan rose from the seat and approached the window, looking Nathan in the eyes.

“I won’t lose any more of my family.”

Nathan moved closer to the window frame and leaned against the wall, staring at Corrigan.

“Its not just your family that matters, Corr. You have never understood that.”

“I lost my son.”

“So did others. And some lost daughters. Some lost husbands, fathers, uncles. Wives, mothers, aunts. We should have fled further when it all fell, but you chose not to.”

“I had my reasons.”

Nathan slapped the wall.

“Just like you had reasons to fall in with that magician. You were blinded by greed. You’ve always been. You hired a killer to guard this town. How many people need to die for your poor judgment? You can’t salvage this. That Necromancer wants us here, and you are giving them what they want – why?”

“Then flee. Leave.”

“You know that I can’t do that.”

“You did when you and Larian changed your names. You forced Mother to do the same thing. You poisoned everyone against me when I needed you all the most,” Corrigan leaned closer, continuing, “yes, I fell in with that dark magician, and he seduced me, Harriet, and Martin. But you abandoned us to him.”

“We broke away because we warned you and you refused our help.”

“That is not how I remember it.”

“Memory was never your strength, Corr.”

Corrigan reached through the open window frame and grabbed Nathan’s apron, pulling him closer. Nathan ripped Corrigan’s hand away and took several steps back.

“I’ll be burying Mother this afternoon. You are welcome to come. Consider it a gift to remind you of having a family.”

“Fuck you.”

Nathan shook his head.

“Your greed fucked me and everyone else long ago. No, thank you. No more.”

Corrigan stepped further back into the study, nearly slipping on splintered wood from the collapsed desk. Nathan watched him in silence as Corrigan drew a crossbow that had been sitting in the dark. He held it aloft and aimed it at Nathan.

“It’s not even loaded, Corr. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Just leave. Go.”

Nathan sighed and sidestepped away from the shattered window. As he followed the porch, he could hear the sound of crying coming from the study.

He couldn’t help but cry as well. How had things gone so very wrong? He thought of his mother and was glad she had not lived to see what had just happened.

…

“I can take care of that for you in a couple of hours; there is no need for swords or horseshoes today,  Mr. Eghart.” Sandval, the smithy, looked Eghart over. “You look like a mess. Did something happen?”

Eghart stood there, a fistful of silverware in each hand. He said nothing, and Sandval simply shrugged and set the kettle into the forge. Eghart dropped both fistfuls of silver into the kettle and reached into his pocket, placing the iron knuckles on a nearby anvil. He walked away from the smithy, who began to inspect the knuckles.

Eghart whistled a tune as he walked back toward his home to prepare for his hunt. It was a sweet little song, and he couldn’t quite figure out if it was a lullaby, a work song, or a hymn. 

Not that it mattered.

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Garen was alive. Still alive despite everything this fucking town and the surrounding woods threw at him. 

His nimbleness had been his greatest asset, but he would find himself winded, repeatedly, while the unending tide of wandering dead would ceaselessly march on any resting place he would pause at for respite.

Old Gordhurst was a place he barely remembered from his youth, but the central lane from the escape was enough of a landmark to work with. He found himself clambering from ruined home to ruined home, narrowly dodging some hidden ghoul and barely escaping into the spaces between homes. It would have been monotonous if not the most terrifying thing he had experienced since the initial flight from the town years ago.

He pressed further into town, maybe aiming to reach the other side, or find some relative safety in some space that wasn’t already occupied by a shuffling corpse. He wasn’t sure anymore. It’d been at least a day without any food, and his water-skin was little more than some clinging drops and backwashed spittle. At this moment, he found himself at the gate of the old church grounds – it was a house of many gods, and he leaned against the cobblestone frame that made up the gateway of the entrance to the grounds.

He glanced behind him. Several houses away, a crowd of twenty of the undead continued a slow, lurching bead on his position. He coughed as he watched them stumble toward him and swore he tasted iron. He had been pushed for two solid days, or was it three, now? He didn’t know. He took several deep breaths to try to steady his heart and glanced toward the church. He saw and heard nothing within the openings that served as windows and decided to take his chances. It was a sturdy building, and he hoped the door could be opened and shut again.

He also hoped that nothing lurked within the church, either.

He made his way to the door and tried to open it outward, but it jerked suddenly, and the rattling of wood caught him off guard. The door had been barricaded.

He cried and slammed his fist on the heavy wood. He spun around, his back against it, and screamed in frustration. His spear clattered on the cobblestone steps that led to the church.

He gave himself a moment. That’s all he could afford. He collected his spear and approached one of the windows. The church had never been granted glass – it was a relic of an earlier time, and thus it was always open. Garen limped forward and studied the gap in the wall.

He might fit.

Fit or not, the moans from the undead compelled him to try to squeeze through. He leaned his spear against the wall. His head cleared the bottom of the window, and he looked inside. All he saw was darkness streaked with the greenish haze of light that had filled the sky – he had no idea why the sky was green here beyond the influence of the Necromancer.

He knew why, but not the mechanisms of it all; what the dark magic was. Skies were not supposed to be green.

He weighed the options one last time and, with all of his remaining strength, hauled himself through the window, collapsing to the floor. He expended the last of his reserves and climbed up, putting all of his weight on the church’s stone walls, and reached through the window for his spear. He clumsily pulled it through the open window and finally collapsed again, breathing hard through his mouth. His choking and wheezing breaths smothered any other sounds, and he might just as well die here and now – there was nothing he could do at this point. He was done.

He shut his eyes, and the creaking of wood from somewhere within the church forced him to open them again. He tried to get up, or at least roll into a position that could allow him to defend himself, but there was nothing to it. He shut his eyes again.

“You’re alive?” a hoarse voice asked; A man’s voice.

It took so much effort to open his eyes that Garen almost chose to leave them closed. His vision was blurred, and the darkness of the room made details indistinct, challenging to take in. A figure loomed over him, staring down.

“Blink if you’re alive,” the stranger demanded.

“Fuck you” was Garen’s reply as he finally blacked out.

…

Lemmex was quick to drag the boy and his spear away from the wall and toward the cellar hatch near one of the altars. He didn’t know gods anymore, not really, but the beautiful woman sheltered him, her altar next to the cellar. As he lifted the hatch, he took another look at the matron and the lettering on her platform. He couldn’t read. All he saw was a beautiful, nude grey woman with the characteristics of the Florian people – the living plantfolk of the woods and forests. Where there should be hair was delicately carved stone leaves, and her features were smooth in other spots. Where he might normally have expected a nipple, there was nothing, like she wore layers of plant growth, like her body was a flower emerging from the green of a stalk.

He did not know her, but he loved her. 

He kissed her feet, prayed to his unknown lady, and kicked the boy down the cellar hatch. He soon climbed down and shut the hatch off, lifting it again slightly to grab the spear and pull it under.

…

Garen awoke in a room that seemed relatively well-lit and surprisingly warm for what it was – all stone and rotting wood. The room itself was strange and built around the remains of a dead tree.

He adjusted his eyes, staring again. No, not a tree, but made to look like a carved tree. What was this? His head hurt, and he slowly pulled his body up from the floor, putting his weight on his right forearm.

That is when he noticed a small cup and plate on the floor next to him. He grabbed the cup immediately, sniffed it, and, not smelling anything suspicious, he sipped. It was water. He downed the rest of the cup desperately.

He turned his attention to the plate, and it appeared to be strips of some unknown flesh, burned to a crisp. He sniffed it, and it struck a foul note. He was so hungry, though… 

He shook his head and turned his attention back to the room, taking in the surroundings. He about shit himself when he noticed a man sitting in the corner, staring directly at him, his eyes shining in the dark.

“You’re from the town south, yes?” the stranger asked. His voice was brittle and hollow like bird bones.

“Uh, yes.”

“You here to rescue me?”

“I don’t even know who you are.”

“Lemmex.”

“Lemmex?”

“Don’t ask me to spell it. Don’t know how.”

Garen shook his head and sat up straight. His head was killing him, as he’d been sure he’d bumped it. His whole body ached as though he’d taken a fall. He wanted to be home, desperately. Not in this strange space.

Beside the strange, tree-like object built into the stone wall, the room felt like a hovel; a mishmash of scavenged garbage and religious artifacts. There was a small hearth that seemed to feed up into the Helatros hearth that would have normally occupied the church. Ash piled around it, either accumulated from worship long ago in the space above, falling through grates into this cellar, or accumulated from the cooking of Lemmex.

There were also rats, dozens, hanging from their tails across a line of twine stretched across the room. Some had been skinned, and Garen recognized they were going to be food. He glanced back at the plate, and then back to Lemmex.

Garen pointed to the plate. “Rat?”

Lemmex nodded and smiled. Most of his teeth were gone – except those that were rotten or shattered.

Garen pulled the plate toward him and grabbed a small strip. He sniffed it, and it smelled okay. He took some between his teeth, nibbled at it, and, content with the circumstances, ate it. It was gamey and practically burnt to ash itself. He ate everything on the plate.

Lemmex crept closer to the center of the cellar, out of the shadows where he had been hidden. His eyes were wide, yellow, and latticed with stressful red webs.

Garen scanned his immediate area and saw that his spear was not at his side. He glanced around in a daze and saw that the spear had been in the corner where Lemmex had emerged.

Unsure of what to do, Garen held the cleared plate close. He’d seen what a thwap from a plate could do atop someone’s skull from Mr. Goren’s place. It would at least give him a little space to grab something else if it came to that.

“So, did you lot come to rescue me?” Lemmex asked. “I seen your kind here before, but usually the heathens get at you. You all dress the same, so you have to be an army, yes?”

“My kind? Have you seen anyone else recently?”

“Just the dead ones being brought in.”

“Dead ones?”

“Yeah, dressed like you. Must be your friends. They’re dead now.”

“How many?”

“Can’t count. I was just the knife. No need for me to be learnin’ fancy numbers.”

Garen clutched the plate tighter.

“Knife?”

“Oh yeah, me and the boys did the knife work on folks before the town was killed. The road south. Made coin on what people were willing to pay, and made coin if they wasn’t. I was just the knife.”

Garen felt uneasy. The man was clearly a bandit. Had he been hiding here since the night the town fell?

“You live here alone?” Garen asked.

“No, got Stone-Tits upstairs.”

Garen’s head hurt. He felt a sharp pain behind his right eye. “Stone… Tits?”

“Some goddess. Statue of her,” Lemmex pointed above, “ a flower witch. She guards the hatch.”

Garen thought of what goddess Lemmex spoke of, but was not too familiar with the gods himself. He kept the faith in Helatros, but that was about it.

“Aside from ‘Stone-Tits,’ what else can you tell me about her? You said flower witch?”

Lemmex grew agitated and scratched at his cheek, really digging into the matted beard. “The F-florian goddess,” he grumbled, pointing a dirty, thin finger accusingly at Garen, “don’t touch her. She’s mine.”

Garen nodded, “Of course, I wouldn’t touch her. I was just trying to remember her name. I think it was ‘Rootmother.’”

Lemmex stopped scratching at his filthy beard. His eyes grew wide, and he chuckled to himself. He rose from his animalistic crouch and stood up. He did a jig. “Rootmother, eh? Ha ha!”

He stopped dancing and returned to his crouch, looking agitated again. The moment of joy evaporated instantly. “Stone-Tits is better,” he mused darkly.

He flashed a wicked grin at Garen and crept closer.

Garen gulped and nodded. “You’re absolutely right, Stone-Tits is better.”

Lemmex clapped his hands, giggled, and crouch walked toward the lit hearth, away from Garen. Garen released some of the tension in his body, but still held the plate close.

“Hey, Lemmex?”

“Yes?”

“I’m Garen.”

“Good name.”

“Thank you. Can we talk about what is going on here?”

Lemmex sat at the hearth, his body hunched, thin, and his bare back showed scars, including a nasty one near his kidneys. He glanced back over his shoulder.

“I can’t read but I can talk. I like talk.”

Garen rose to his feet and kept the plate behind his back. He stretched a bit. His body was still aching, and his lungs still felt like they were on fire. He took a deep breath and approached Lemmex very slowly. Lemmex turned his head back again, and Garen paused.

“Talk,” Lemmex spat.

“Yes. Can you tell me how you got here?”

…

Lemmex found it hard to remember a lot of things. He thought hard. He took time to put together what he knew. Maybe more would show up when he needed it. He spoke:

“I joined Egg’s band a couple of years before everything went to shit. We were doing good for ourselves. I did the knife work while Eggy did the planning. Smart guy, he was. Real asshole, too. Cracked me a few times, strangled Sylvo to death once on account of him slipping up at a bar. Egg planned to rob a small wagon, and Sylvo squawked and Eghart strangled him – no, snapped his neck – yes, broke his neck like a little chicken. Got rough for a bit and had to lay low. Only ever saw some of the guys try to kick out Eghart after that. We used to call him Egg, you know? They tried to kick him out, and Egg cracked three of them. There was fifteen of us. No, fourteen. Sylvo is dead. Yeah. Egg broke three arms, and then nobody said anything after. Lean times. Mostly knife work and buryin’ folks in the woods. Stripping bodies for what we could. Egg, Eghart, he got us through until all the shit happened. Some magic fucker raised the dead, and our robberies came back to bite us in the asses and we lost more guys. I was a knife guy, so I made it okay. Something wrong with all that. Unnatural, the dead walking, isn’t it? Eghart led us to town, but everyone was leaving in a panic. Then something snapped, Eghart cracked, and he crushed Millin’s skull like it was nothing and drew on us. We tried to fight, but he was an animal and felt nothing. I am good with the knife, and he felt nothing. He tried to stab me, and I ran here. Should have run elsewhere, ha ha. Ran here and found the church. Knifed the priest and locked the door. Heard screaming. Had to get away from Egg, though. Stone-Tits pointed the way to the cellar. Been here since. Got the priest down here, too.”

Lemmex pointed to the remains of the priest in the rightmost corner of the cellar.

“Felt bad about what I did. He keeps me company. Don’t talk much, though.”

…

Garen had originally failed to notice the remains of the priest, having confused them for garbage when he scanned the room. Now he saw the brown custodial robes and the leathery skin stretched tight over skeletal remains – some skin broken at the top of the head where a yellowed skull began to peek out.

All of this was a lot to take in. The mention of Egg alarmed him, of course, but the madman sitting at the fire was the immediate concern.

“Thank you for letting me know, Lemmex.”

Lemmex said nothing and stared into the embers of the hearth.

“I want to thank you for bringing me into your home and giving me some food and water. I am going to leave now. I promise I will send someone back to rescue you. I can’t do it myself. Okay?”

Again, Lemmex said nothing and continued to stare into the hearth.

Garen took a deep breath and edged his way toward the corner where his spear rested, the plate still firmly tucked behind his back.

“Death out there.” 

Lemmex’s low whisper forced Garen to pause. Garen felt sweaty now and cold around the base of his back.

Lemmex rose to his feet, eyes still locked onto the flames. “You won’t come back.”

“Lemmex, I swear, I will. We’ll get you out of here, but I have to leave to do that.”

Garen edged closer to the corner and began to reach out with his fingertips. He was just about there.

His eyes darted back and forth from the corner to Lemmex. Lemmex stood still, and Garen’s fingertips crept ever closer to the spear.

A glint at Lemmex’s hip caught Garen off guard, and before he could quite understand what he had seen, Lemmex had lunged, knife arcing wildly in front of him. He gargled and barked, swinging the blade.

Garen reached out for his spear with his free hand and waved it at Lemmex’s arm as he went in for a thrust right toward Garen’s gut. In the moment Lemmex was caught, he yelped at the redirection of his trajectory. Garen pulled the plate from behind his back and slammed it into Lemmex’s face. The heavy clay shattered into a dozen pieces, and the madman fell to the ground, face-first.

Garen tightened the grip on his spear and stood in front of the ladder, peering above, noticing the hatch. He began to climb and pushed the hatch upward, but it didn’t budge. He fumbled in the dark for the barricade and threw it to the ground, finally lifting the door, climbing back into the darkened church. The eerie green light already told Garen it was late afternoon. Darkness approached.

Garen stepped away from the hatch and observed the statue of the Rootmother. He silently mouthed a “thank you” and found he was still very much winded. Whatever amount of rest he had taken had certainly helped, but it was not enough.

He leaned on his spear, doing his best to catch his breath again. The noise of the hatch, he realized, must have echoed in the stone church, because he heard the barricaded door at the entrance shake. Ghouls had begun throwing themselves at it. Through the glassless windows, he would see ghouls reaching decaying arms into the sanctity of the church.

He spun around, taking in the entire room, and saw a door opposite the entrance, behind the central pulpit. He weaved between the seats and climbed the steps, throwing himself past the pulpit to the other portal. He opened it with little caution to find it was nothing but the chamber of the custodial priest. He grunted and dashed to another chamber door on the opposite side of the pulpit. He threw open the door and found the kitchen. He stepped in, found a door to his left, threw it open, only to find it connected back to the priest’s chamber.

Garen howled in rage.

He shuddered in surprise to hear someone howling back. He stumbled through the priest’s chamber, back into the church proper, and saw Lemmex standing before the entrance. He began to howl again. He smiled, flipped the barricade upward and to the floor, and slit his throat, stumbling into the door as he bled out. His weight fell into the door with such force it popped, creating a crack for long enough for a ghoul to slide an arm through, and soon enough, tattered fingers gripped at the wood, pulling the doors increasingly open against the crush of ghouls pushing toward the church. The very doors once thrown open, outward, to collect the weary, were now a funnel for the damned.

Garen dashed to the cellar at the base of the Rootmother’s visage and threw himself into the hole, looking upon her as he fell.

He landed hard on the cobblestone floor, but wasted no time grabbing the barricade at his feet, climbing the ladder, and locking the hatch. He slid down the ladder and heard clumsy feet walking all over the wood, rattling it terribly.

Garen’s legs gave out, and he slid down the ladder, sitting just below the entrance. He was tired and had to hold himself up using a rung.

He began to cry.

…

It must have been night by now. Garen had drunk more of Lemmex’s water and cooked up some rat. He was surprised to find a wineskin and took a sip.

His first real drink. Hell of a place for it.

He’d tried to drink from one of the cups left by a patron at the inn when he had worked there briefly. Mr. Gorten – no, Uncle Nathan – caught him in the act and slapped the cup out of his hand after barely a sip. To add insult to injury, his uncle had slapped him hard across the ear, which rang until the next morning.

He hadn’t tried that since.

But now, the dead above, in the hovel of a lunatic murderer, he was sure he would be forgiven for drinking something.

He’d fucking earned it.

Above him, there were still sounds, but they’d slowed down and grown less intense. Still, it seemed too dangerous to move back into the church. With little else to do, Garen began to explore the cellar. As near as he had determined, this room was a secret space that was intended for some other faiths. Maybe far older ones than he knew. More private, he supposed. It couldn’t have been storage for the other shrines within. This was a secret place.

There was the stone tree and the smaller hearth. There was also a cracked pillar that held a stone hammer, or most of it – the handle had broken off. There was a tapestry on one wall, hidden behind Lemmex’s filth and scrounging, and covered in grime and dust. Garen could not figure out what it meant to depict.

But two of these hidden shrines stood out to him.

The first appeared to be a carving of a werewolf into ancient wood. The figure appeared to be a woman with a wolf’s head and tail, her body draped in some robe with regalia he did not recognize. He took a swig from the wine skin, taking in the detail.

She looked resplendent yet feral. He considered Triseria to the north. Gordhurst had been close to the border of the kingdom, and as a child, he remembered tales and warnings of the wolves. Triseria had once laid claim to this area, he imagined. Long, long ago.

But the wolf in the carving comforted him in some strange way he could not understand. He continued to gaze at the shrine, nodded to the figure, and poured some wine to the floor. It seemed like the thing to do, like something in his very blood demanded he pay respect in some form.

The other shrine that spoke to him was one he knew was far older than any other here. He saw a stone, largely roughly hewn, but carved from it was the delicate work of a skilled hand, depicting a dragon.

Dragons died centuries ago, as Garen remembered from childhood tales. They gave their souls to Poe, the hero of legend. They’d given their lives to help him to defeat the Void, which ended with a cataclysm that shattered the West. As he understood it, the Void had not fully been defeated. All the dragons were dead. He was here in this godsdamned cellar, staring at some shrine to dead gods and dead heroes.

He sighed and squeezed out the rest of the wine from the flask to the floor. Once empty, he threw it toward the hearth in the back of the room and stood in silence. The silence helped his head hurt a little less. But the silence was broken by something curious – the sound of running water?

He looked around for the source and noticed the wine draining off, behind the dragon shrine. He glanced around the base and followed the flow to the base of the stone wall next to the statue. On a whim, he tapped at the stone and was greeted with a hollow sound. He felt the wall and ran his fingers over the surface, desperate for a seam. He began to search the cellar for something to make a torch. He found a broken chair and pried a leg away, and then made his way to the remains of the priest, nodding solemnly before tearing old fabric from the robes. He dipped his torch into the wine on the floor and lit it in the hearth.

He felt hope as the old robes caught flame.

Under torchlight, he searched for a seam, and finding it, traced the outline of a passage. These were old religions, some of them perhaps forbidden. There must have been an escape in case of an emergency. But pressing on the hidden door did nothing. There had to be some trigger.

He took a look at the dragon shrine again. The placement of the shrine and the door had to have a deeper meaning. But what? He recalled everything he knew about dragons and the legend of Poe, but nothing seemed obvious to him.

As he scanned the dragon shrine, he took in the intricacies of the depicted dragon and wondered if this had been a specific one. He had no idea, but he took in every detail he could notice. This shrine, a depiction of a serpent-like figure carved from a solid stone, emphasized the torso where a human chest might appear had it been a bust of the legendary hero himself.

He thought back on the legend as he knew it. The dragons gave their souls to Poe. Garen’s heart pounded in his chest. He was so close to something. As he grew conscious of his heartbeat, a strange turn of phrases rattled around his brain. A common saying, innocuous enough, really. He thought of Corea, as he always did. He loved his sister… heart and soul.

“Heart and soul?”

Garen took a free hand and placed it on the part of the dragon’s torso that seemed to him where a heart would be, as much as one could interpret the body of a dead dragon. He put his weight against the stone and felt the stone begin to shift and grind as three of the bands that made up the dragon’s underside began to collapse into the shrine under the pressure of his palm. Once the resistance grew too great, he heard a click as the hidden passage popped open. It was a simple wooden door with stone tiles meant to mask it like solid stone, so seamless in craftsmanship.

Garen glanced at the dragon statue and began to cry.

“Thank you.”

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Most of the walk from the sight of the town had been silent and uncomfortable. Fang had walked several yards ahead, as Erryl fell behind, taking a rear position behind Corea by a dozen or so feet.

Occasionally, he would clear his throat and flick his hand forward when she looked back. She understood that it was her falling behind in the middle, and she would need to keep pace. She would oblige as she scanned the treeline along the road.

They’d been walking for at least two hours, by her count, with no sign of a ghoul, and only the company of birds in the trees. She thought she had seen a thin rabbit ahead, but Fang snapped at it, and whatever it had been had darted into the safety of the brush.

The road itself was overgrown, with deep ruts of ancient wagon tread filled in with small blades of grass peppered with the occasional hardy weed. There was a more defined path, that of previous patrols. Corea hadn’t expected to see a sign of her brother, yet, but she felt a great pain as she marched. A pain that she would never attribute to Egg’s punch.

Eryll cleared his throat again, and she turned; he flicked his hand forward, and she picked up her pace again. This would get old, fast.

The sun had crossed the middlemost part of the sky by the time something happened. Fang, yards ahead, had stopped suddenly, and yelped a dog’s whine, like when someone stepped on a hound’s tail. Corea herself had stopped and began to approach, but Erryl cleared the distance and held his hand back toward her, blocking her progress, his rapier extended.

Errly then whistled. It sounded like a bird’s call, but she didn’t recognize the bird. Corea and Erryl stood as Fang took several steps back and turned his back to the road, toward their destination. He looked miserable and hunched, walking back toward them. Erryl lowered his blade and strode toward the Wolf. Corea followed.

“What?” was all Erryl asked.

Fang looked sick, his ears drooping. Corea thought that he would have looked pathetic if he hadn’t looked like he could kill her with a glance, otherwise.

Fang whimpered and buried the tip of his nose into the back of his hand.

“Slime.”

Erryl sighed. “You are the most vicious fighter I have ever had the pleasure to work with, but I marvel at what actually fazes you sometimes.”

“A slime?” Corea asked, stepping toward Fang. He ignored her, breathing through the fur on the back of his hand.

“A slime, young Corea, is one of many monsters that are found in the world. Putrescent little living puddles. They are not uncommon; I am surprised you have never heard of them.”

“I’ve heard, but I don’t see it? Also, my brother killed one once.” She glanced at Fang. “Why is he scared?”

At that, Fang looked at her, his eyes sharp, annoyed. He grunted.

“Not fear.”

Erryl shook his head. “Our friend has a tremendous sense of smell. That comes at the risk of sensitivity. It’s why I carry wolfsbane on me.”

Fang grunted and peered behind him, his ears moving, trying to pick up movement.

“How would you describe what you smell, my friend?”

Fang stepped further back down the road whence they had come. He now had his nose buried into his forearm, draped by the cloak. It was as though the scent had pushed him away.

“Imagine every dead thing a vinegar jelly picks up and let’s rot inside it.” 

Corea swore she heard him gag. She gagged, too.

Erryl turned to her. “What do you know of them, Corea?”

“I know their acid can melt just about everything over time, but you can use it for a lot of things if you treat it right.”

Erryl smiled, and Fang grunted. Erryl continued, “spoken like a farmer, but a good observation regardless. Let me ask again, what do you know of the creature itself?”

Corea wasn’t sure what he was asking, but she answered as best she could. “Well, they are these jelly things that wander, eating whatever they can pick up as they move. They don’t really have a shape, and they don’t think. They don’t have brains or anything. They can slip into any gap they find. If they roll into a critter’s warren, they can fill the whole thing up with their… I guess you’d call it body?”

“Not bad, but if you are going to travel with us, you need to learn to hunt. And you are wrong on one key thing. No, they do not have brains, not as we understand them, but they do think, and they think quite hard about how to eat everything and anything.”

Erryl glanced down the road.

“And I want you to kill it,” he added matter-of-factly.

She stared at him for a moment. His smile was not quite friendly or reassuring, but something severe and forced. It was inscrutable.

She glanced back at Fang for guidance, but he had already retreated several more feet back down the road, staring past her and Erryl. His ears drooped, and he still had his cloak in front of his snout. He would periodically shift, looking for the source of the smell.

Corea looked down toward her waist and drew her knife, holding it up. She felt stupid holding it in place and standing in silence. She felt like a child playing pretend in the moment.

Fang’s sudden yelp caught her attention, and she glanced at him as he took several steps back, eyes locked on something ahead of the party. She turned to look up the road, and that is when she saw the slime ooze out from the brush. The green, jelly substance rolled up on itself, settling into place like a broad bubble, like on the surface of a stew.

Erryl glanced back and shook his head at Fang. “It’s a small one, you ferocious beast, you.”

Fang said nothing, simply shaking his head. After a moment, he hunched over, wretching and stumbling.

“Well, he is going to be as useless to us now as tits on a goose. Alright, child, listen closely.” Erryl crouched and pulled his bag from his shoulder, setting it on the ground. The sturdy leather held the bag’s shape as he ran his fingertips through various pockets, pouches, and what appeared to be a wooden case within.

As Erryl continued searching for something unknown, Corea glanced back toward the slime. It continued its slow approach, seemingly indifferent to the presence of herself and the two men.

It was an ugly, but fascinating thing. She watched as what was essentially a pale green bubble undulated slowly across the road. She couldn’t make out anything specific from this distance, but the surface shimmered as the slime seemed to wiggle forward, and less than an inch at a time. Within the pale green translucence, she swore she saw the remains of a rabbit suspended in the gooey body.

Or at least what was left of a rabbit.

“Ah, here we go.”

Corea turned her gaze back to Erryl, who now had his rapier unsheathed. She noticed he was rubbing something across the surface of the blade – not the entire blade – but a measured, practiced distance. She realized it was chalk.

“These foul little slimes are acidic, as you so astutely mentioned earlier. On most contacts, the acid is very weak, but where there is one slime, there can be several, and enough acid will eat into your steel.”

He stopped chalking the rapier and held the chalk to her in his open palm. She grabbed it. It was a simple stick, like what Mr. Gorten used at the inn.

“We neutralize the acid with chalk. There are a few other things that’ll do it, but it’s always wise to carry chalk. Not just for killing slimes, but you always want to find as many uses for what you carry as possible. Understand?”

Erryl glanced past Corea, where the slime had emerged; there was rustling in the nearby brush. A moment later, another slime, around the same size, sloshed through branches and leaves and bubbled up onto the road.

Fang barked. “Would you get on with it already? There are two of them now! They stink so much!”

“Ignore him.” Erryl rose to his feet and smirked at Corea. “Another thing to know is how to kill these things.”

Corea stood up next to Erryl, applying chalk to her knife tip and along the blade.

“Since we have a new guest, I’ll show you what to do with the first one. Walk with me. Keep my pace.”

Corea nodded. Erryl crept forward, not exactly at a tiptoe, but each step was deliberate and placed at an even pace. As they approached the slimes, the stench grew worse. For a time, Corea had considered that Fang had been overreacting, but at this distance, feet away, the smell turned her stomach. She’d smelled rotten meat that was more pleasant than this – and Fang had been right about the vinegar element of it, too. She stumbled a bit and noticed even Erryl had masked the scent with his left wrist beneath his nose.

He glanced toward her, his eyes watering. She felt her eyes water too.

“Look into the slime’s body,” he whispered. He nodded toward the slime that was only four feet from them. “Creep closer, but no sudden movements. They will lash out.”

She moved forward a couple of steps to where she could clearly see several things within the bubbled surface, including the remains of the rabbit – it almost appeared wrung dry.

“There is a bubble inside the creature. Think of it like a heart or brain. It’s not very big, but it is distinct. You need to pierce it. Have you ever played marbles?”

Corea glanced back, and she took a few steps back toward his side. “Yes. I have some in my pack…”

He shook his head and seemed to smirk. She’d missed something.

“It’s like poking a marble with a stick. Get through the jelly and tap the marble. The thing will practically melt.” 

He readied a stance with the rapier angled downward. She took a couple of steps to the side and watched him shuffle forward, almost like a crab; his upper body was locked into place, but his legs slid across the road in an odd, weaving shuffle.

She had barely caught the actual strike; it had been so fast, all she had seen was his arm expand outward and retract back into his stance. But the effect was immediate, and the slime began to bubble along the service and seemingly melt, as though the jelly had been exposed to the heat of a forge. There was a small hiss of acid and a puff of foul scent, but the thing was apparently dead.

That, however, caught the attention of its companion, and the other rancid bubble began to inch toward the remains.

“Now you.”

Erryl stared at her and nodded toward the slime.

“GO.”

Corea did not hesitate and approached the bubble, slowly. She noticed now that the slime had seemingly picked up speed, excited by something, and she wondered how that had worked. Within a couple of feet, she glanced over the dome-shaped body, seeking the marble shape beneath the slick surface. She found it floating in the ichor near the corpse of a bird hatchling. She held her breath and stabbed into the ooze, aiming for the internal bubble.

She retracted her blade but noticed nothing had happened. She stood, puzzled, for a half second, and then yelped as a slime-tendril lashed out from the seemingly placid surface. She felt the jelly whip her across the hand as she retracted her knife to her body and felt the hand tingle.

She took several steps back.

“The surface of the bastard is going to throw you off, so you’ll need to adjust. I find it tends to be a little deeper than you’d think. Try again.”

Corea shook her hand, adjusted the blade, and moved closer to the again-placid bubbled surface. She thrust the knife in deeper this time, to the point where her fist plunged into the surface. She felt an immediate tingle and nearly let go of her knife, but as the slime began to dissolve around her hand, she regained her grip.

“Good, now, hurry!” Erryl had swept in beside her and thrust a small vial toward her. Collect the ichor, collect the marble. Hurry, before the acid is useless.”

Corea’s hand still tingled, and it was very uncomfortable. It was like she had fallen asleep on it. She dropped her knife and fumbled at the vial, popping the latched cork and glancing at the rapidly liquifying remains of the slime.

Her first real kill, she thought. Then she shook her head. No time.

She found the “marble” in a mass of jelly that hadn’t quite liquified just yet and scooped up the little ball with as much of the material as she could on a couple of swipes with the vial. As she had scooped the small, round object in, she noticed it was soft, not quite as gelatinous as the rest of the body, but certainly not hard, like glass.

She held the glass vial to her face to get a sense of what this was. She hadn’t even noticed that Erryl, crouched, was already applying something to her hand. She didn’t know what it was, and nor did she care at that moment. She was too intrigued by what had been her first battle. 

It wasn’t much.

But I‘m not much, either, she reckoned.

“What you have there, child, is something very valuable, as you are already aware. Slime ichor is very potent, with a thousand uses. The trick is to keep the organ with the slime. The innards neutralize quickly when exposed to air, but keeping the organ, even pierced, with the slime will slow the reaction down and preserve it for a little longer.”

Erryl rubbed some form of ointment on her tingling hand, and she immediately felt a cooling sensation. She glanced down, noticing how red her skin looked across the back of her hand. Whatever poultice he applied had started to soothe the irritation.

“What you are feeling is the mint.”

She nodded and reached for her knife, but didn’t see where it was. 

The roadman held the knife toward her, handle-side first.

“Your blade. Thank you for not stabbing our mutual friend with it this time around.”

Corea flushed, embarrassed still. She took the handle and drew the knife closer to her body. Erryl rose to his feet. He continued speaking.

“You should know these things can get quite big. I’ve heard of one as big as three houses roaming the plains of Sanara that nobody has managed to kill. Some say larger ones still haunt some dungeons and caves all over Aurin.”

Corea nodded absent-mindedly. She hoped she’d never see a slime as large as that the Barber mentioned.

The smell had begun to diminish and was not as overwhelming. As far as Corea had figured, whatever caused the slimes to melt seemed to also cut their stink, and she was thankful. She still smelled decay, as now the remains of whatever the slimes had been digesting were exposed to open air, but it felt less intense.

She knew it was less intense as Fang’s thudding footsteps approached from behind her and Erryl.

“It still reeks here. We need to move before-”

A rustling from the undergrowth along the road further ahead made Fang pause. Within a moment, three more slimes shlorped their way onto the road, in the direction of the party.

Fang took several steps back.

“Fuck.”

“We seem to have a migration, my friends.” Erryl sniffed. “Interesting.”

“Migration?”

Erryl turned back to Fang, seemingly ignoring Corea’s question. She looked back as well, and Fang, covering his snout as best he could with two massive cupped paws, nodded solemnly.

“Damn,” Erryl added.

Corea asked again about the migration. But Erryl was still quiet; he seemed unsure of what to say. It was Fang who broke the silence through the muffling of his hands.

“They’re drawn to death.”

Corea wasn’t sure why Erryl couldn’t rattle that out. He was quite talkative. Why did it take the Wolf?

“Well, we just killed these two slimes, right?” she asked.

Fang was silent. He stared at Corea, his eyes appearing almost concerned… about her? She wasn’t sure what he was getting at. It was something that frustrated her immediately – some knowledge she was too simple to be let in on. She hated that.

“A slime migration moves toward battles. Nobody knows what draws them there, but if there is mass slaughter, they seem to find their way to it. Like carrion birds. No… more like a tide.”

“This was a battle, though, right?”

Erryl shook his head.

“This is nothing. Migrations are always aimed toward a significant number of deaths – that is why they come to battlefields and consume the dead of armies if left undefended. There was a fight in this area, somewhere on the way toward the old town, and it appears several people died.”

Corea suddenly understood and stared at the emergent slimes, inching their way toward her. They would consume what they could here and continue toward the old town.

She prayed silently that Garen would not be among the remains that drew the local slimes.

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Breaks were something few and far between, given the nature of the great work that drove the Necromancer. There was no sleep, hunger was mostly an afterthought, and boredom was non-existent within the compulsion of the work. But even a worn, undead body needed repair. Fingers splintered, flesh tore, limbs sagged. I’m falling apart, again. The work was an ever-present drive in the Necromancer, and there was a restlessness as they lay on the slab where they had been working just moments ago.

Derobed, the thin, desiccated body was no longer identifiable as who they once were, because, like their constructs, the Necromancer had long since had foreign flesh and bone stitched onto what was their original form.

Nude in the flickering torchlight, the Necromancer struggled to recall who they were before the work had consumed them. Things slipped in time, especially given the sacrifice of the work. How was I remembered? That was the nature of the work. The power to raise the dead was among the most potent of magics, but every construct slivered the soul.

The gods could be lenient. This world was a harsh one where everyone gave up a little bit of their soul to survive – the Necromancer remembered that much of the other faith they had once followed. Damnation was reserved, truly, for the most wicked, they had been told once. Who had said that? But the sheer volume of the work carved away at what the Necromancer once was. I was human once.

The sound of clattering bones on the marbled slab interrupted the drifting thoughts. By now, the construct created to tend to the Necromancer had removed their shattered hand. The Necromancer was impatient to get back to work, but there was a need for new fingers – fingers that were delicate, ready to work. Fingers that were special, strong, and nimble.

The construct was one that the Necromancer had seemingly known as it awakened. How did I know this thing? Its form was specialized, suited for the work of keeping the Necromancer in the condition to keep up the great work. Long, delicate fingers, constructed of five finger bones each, rested upon four hands, placed upon four arms. Each slender finger curled and flexed in four places, bone and sinew exposed, twisting in ways fingers did not twist and bend in life.

The Necromancer watched the construct split the skin at the fingers of the severed hand, like splitting open a bag,  plucking cracked shards of bone. Beautiful, delicate, new finger bones were attached, and the fingers were stitched anew. Shredded skin was replaced with patches of the best quality skin gathered from a recent band of scouts out of the town down the road. It had been three so far. The fool feeds the work.

The parts had been a boon. Mostly fresh parts came from wandering bandits who could put up a fight. Constructs inevitably would fall, be dashed to pieces. But as each of the ghouls fell in battle, those pieces would be collected and brought back. Reassembled, they would rise again to complete their tasks for the great work.

Because all that there was was the work. The Great Work.

The construct finished reattaching the wrist to the Necromancer’s arm, and the Necromancer’s thin form hopped off the slab with a click as bony feet hit stone. The construct bowed and skittered back into one of the spots in the wall where long exhumed corpses had been stored. Did I know them once? The construct would wait until needed again.

The Necromancer plucked their robe from the table and held it out, looking at it. It was large and formless; there had once been a belt or sash, but that had long since vanished. The robe was more practical than stylish, and the Necromancer wondered why it had these thoughts. Am I vain?

Why did the robe matter so much? It was dirty. It was torn. It was… purple? A hint of an elaborate pattern to the fabric remained. 

Flowers, weren’t they? No time for flowers.

The Necromancer stood, thin and bare, contemplating the nature of a robe. Finding no further need for one, they cast it aside and sat down at the stool before the slab, setting back to work.

“Master?” A wispy voice emerged from the darkness of one of the radiating tunnels. A construct, mostly fleshy, stepped into the chamber. Its voice was weak, thin. Three new sets of vocal cords would fix that. The Necromancer stared toward the Herald.

“From the south. Another scout. Dead. On the way.”

Speech was very taxing on the dead. It was best used sparingly, but the Herald was a necessary construct – even for simple updates such as this. A voice is a voice.

The Necromancer thought about speech. Even the slivered soul felt something. Was it loneliness? Am I lonely?

The Herald approached from the tunnel. It had once been a young woman, mostly. Parts were parts, and the broad chest that had belonged to a man worked well with the bellows that collected the air to force the words out. The Herald pushed the bellows into the chest, collapsing the pumps, filling the bladders that replaced lungs in life.

“Saw Wolf. Triseria. Swordsman. Enter town.”

The Necromancer had only recently felt a new sensation for the first time in decades. Curiosity. Leylines radiated across the land, down to thin veins of coursing magic, and there had been something. A spark. A sense of something at least – something not of the land.

It had been distant and small, but it was new. Is this doubt? Is this fear? ‘New’ merited study, and the Necromancer had pulled constructs from the Great Work to investigate. That had explained the expanded patrol from the town, but the patrol had not been the source.

Triseria. The word was familiar, but the context was not there. It was something of a story from a life formerly lived, but there was one clear association. A wolf. A prize.

Several constructs were reported to have been smashed to pieces, teeth removed. Why teeth? It was curious. It was a sensation. The work consumed, but now too did the question.

What draws the wolf to these lands?

The Necromancer had stopped their work for long enough, but then felt compelled to look at the delicate replacement fingers, flexing them and feeling something else. You are so vain. They turned their attention toward the herald.

“Anything else to report?” Each word required tremendous effort.

The Herald pumped the bellows twice. “Crow fly south. See wolf. Swordsman. Girl. March north. March here.”

Had this been the Mayor? Is it him?

The Necromancer paused. They could not remember a name, and suddenly, a new sensation arrived. An auspicious day, to be sure, but the sensation was painful. Not like the pain of the work – not like the compulsion. This pain was sadness.

The Necromancer rose from the stool and walked toward a door behind their station. A door that led into a deeper crypt. The heavy stone door required effort to move, and the Herald approached to help. The flexing of the chest inadvertently pumped the bellows and let out strange, soft wheezes as Master and Herald pried open the heavy door.

Within the chamber was a long hall of holes where coffins once rested. Centuries of some bloodline tied to these lands; tied to the town above. Which bloodline the Necromancer could not quite remember, but it seemed connected. Within moments, constructs clattered out of the dark spaces. Hundreds. The work begins.

The Necromancer stood to the side of the door, pointing toward the tunnels at the other end of the chamber where the work was done. Chattering skeletons and lumbering ghouls pushed out of the chamber, flowing around the marble slab that served as the Necromancer’s station. Atop which sat a bell jar, tangles of filament rising to the ceiling of the chamber and down the tunnels. Within the jar, a green miasmic haze pulsed regularly.

The Necromancer watched them wander into the tunnels.

A truce was broken.But why did the Necromancer feel sad?

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Fang shook off the morning dew that had collected on his fur, taking in the sight and the scent of the killer in front of him. As far as he knew, the man, who went by Eghart, or to the village, “Egg,” was the captain of the town guard.

But what Fang inferred was that the man was a killer. As the heavy-set, pale man tightened his fists, the dense muscles of his forearms would twist like knotted rope. His arms, like the rest of his body, were extraordinarily pale – the man was an albino.

But it was the slivery lines of scars that latticed the man’s body that stood out most. Each one implied a moment of violence, and the sheer amount of scars suggested the frequency of the violence was more than one a town guardsman would face in the line of duty, even for a town such as this. The deep scars suggested blows of all manner obtained in the line of the bloody work that Fang too found himself embroiled in from town to town.

If the Egg was not a roadman, he was a bandit who had found his way into the graces of the town, leaving the roads and woods to his kind who were not as clever as he was – and Fang could tell, the Egg was a clever one. The heavy sag to his pockets said as much, and the man slipping on a pair of iron knuckles from them put a point on it.

The man’s scent may have been the most unusual thing about him, from Fang’s perspective. There was an acrid taste of fear emanating from the man, but nowhere near as great as it should have been – given the nature of his opponent – given the nature of the blows that had exchanged so far. Instead, there was a spicy scent, a peppery note of adrenaline. The pale man was looking forward to this fight as much as Fang was.

As soon as Eghart began his dash toward Fang, the Wolf eased onto his back foot, expecting the iron knuckles on the first strike. Instead came a kick to the hip with such impact that Fang twisted against his will, falling off balance, allowing for the knuckles to come down to the top of his shoulder with a heavy thud. The explosion of force sent Fang sliding into the mud and grass. Eghart followed that opening with several stomps to the same shoulder.

The pain was exquisite. The Wolf began to growl, and Eghart’s foot obliged the Wolf again, right in the shoulder.

Now, though, Fang seized the opening of the repeated strikes and threw his other arm across his chest, raking his claws on Eghart’s foot as it slammed into his shoulder, placing as much pressure as possible to catch the large man on his other foot, unbalanced.

Fang’s claws were sharp. Fearsome. He’d made short work of many with them, and he’d always understood them to be agonizing, dagger-like points. But there was no cry from Eghart, and any resistance to them felt delayed, like the man learned his foot had been pierced seconds after the fact. There was no flex to the muscles.

Fang glanced back at the dumbfounded Eghart, who was staring at the claws in his foot, registering what had happened, but not feeling it.

The man felt no pain.

Fang raked regardless, shredding his claws through the man’s foot and rolling away. Eghart’s balance faltered, and he landed forward on the shredded foot and tumbled forward into the mud. Fang, having rolled into his back, seized the opportunity to bring a heavy fist square to the back of Eghart’s bald and scarred head, shoving his face further into the mud with the strike.

Fang was already trying to get back up to his feet as Eghart pulled his face up from the mud, who was now sputtering grass and gunk, hoping to catch his breath. He wiped away what we could with a heavy forearm and saw the Wolf begin to rise to his digitigrade feet. Fang glanced down and just caught the impact of the iron knuckles on his ankle, dropping him to his knees with a muddy splash.

Fang yelped as the heavy knuckles buried into his hip bone and again in his ribs. He felt his lungs deflate at the sound of a crack. Without thinking, Fang lashed out, raking again and finding purchase on some muscle he couldn’t quite see. But again, there was no sound or reaction from Eghart. Fang raked again, drawing claws through meat, and then gripping, using Eghart’s flesh as leverage to push himself away. The Wolf scrambled forward, pulling himself along the mud, grass, and blood until he was able to look back, seeing he had made a mess of Eghart’s calf.

But now, Eghart had already been turning to right himself, and Fang had done the same, rising onto unsteady feet as his ankle throbbed. The two took a moment to size one another up.

Fang had just barely caught a sign of movement behind Eghart when he heard a familiar squelch.

Eghart took a step forward and had already taken a second step before he noticed something had happened to his thigh, as he dragged Corea along, who had her knife buried deep into his flesh. The weight shift was what he had noticed, not the point of the blade.

He looked down at her, confused, unsure of what he was seeing.

…

Corea stared back at Egg, his eyes were wide, and his brow raised. He didn’t look like he was in pain at all, and Corea doubled down, putting all the weight she could against the knife, plunging it deeper. She felt hot blood bubble up and burst across her hands. She pressed her full weight into it.

Her eyes shut tight, she never saw his hand reach for her hair. One second, she clung to the blade; the next, she felt a fire across her scalp. She kicked her legs, not feeling the ground, and as she opened her eyes, she saw the ugly face of Eghart, staring, furious. Before she could spit in his face, she felt a heavy strike right into her stomach. She felt herself curl up into a ball and hit the ground. Her vision doubled on her as she lay curled tight in the mud, her belly throbbing.

She glanced toward Eghart. He smiled wickedly and shifted his attention to her, so many feet away – how far had he thrown her?

She caught sight of Erryl, the scarecrow man, leaping over her, his thin, reedy sword drawn, making his way toward the giant man.

But Erryl never made it.

She saw Fang leap from the blurriest end of her vision, land on Eghart, and watched them slide out of her sight. Fang’s roar split the air like a thunderclap. She shut her eyes to stop the world from spinning.

…

Erryl came to a sudden stop as his companion’s gigantic form collided with Eghart with such ferocity that it nearly sent Erryl himself reeling back. He felt his grip falter on his sword, Lancet, as both massive combatants vanished from his view, only to right his grip as he scanned to his right, seeing Fang perched down over the Eghart. The man’s bulbous head rested in the Wolf’s slathering jaws, and the jaws were now tightening.

This had gone too far. Fang’s eyes, yellow, shone with a feral aura that Erryl knew all too well. The jaws clenched, and the sound of bone splintering was clear. Fang wanted to kill the man as painfully as possible.

And yet Eghart did not scream. He wrestled his thick fingers against Fang’s muzzle and tore at the jaws, but it was the struggle of a man trying to break free to continue the fight, not of a man on the verge of having his skull crushed. There was no fear, just simple anger.

Erryl whispered a minor prayer to Armastrid, Raven of Roads, as he thwapped the flat of the rapier against Fang’s face, right at the bridge of the snout, just above the nose. He’d had an aggressive dog once, and the snout had been useful then.

“Don’t you fucking dare kill him! Spit the bastard out.”

Eghart’s head was still clenched between Fang’s jaws, and the yellow eyes focused on Erryl. There was a flash of predatory menace and the hottest rage one could imagine – as though Fang wished death upon him – but Erryl stood his ground, raising his rapier aloft, and staring right back at his partner.

Without a warning, Erryl struck again, the same strike in the same place. Eghart continued to grab at Fang’s maw, and Fang squeezed his jaws together tighter. The pale man’s face was covered in blood.

“Fang. Stop,” Erryl pleaded.

The werewolf paused for a moment and loosened his grip on Eghart’s skull. Fang whimpered slightly, his eyes wide in alarm and confusion. He opened his jaws fully, and Eghart’s body dropped to the mud. The man laughed.

“Good dog,” Eghart muttered, spitting fresh blood from his mouth.

Fang rose to his feet, and Erryl observed a slight limp. He would need to inspect that ankle once they’d made some distance.

 Fang wandered off, pausing for a moment to observe Eghart and then Corea. Erryl saw him pause, hang his head, and limp over to his belongings discarded for the fight. He’d never seen someone put up this much of a fight against the Wolf. That terrified him.

Erryl turned his gaze back to Eghart, who was grinning and breathing heavily on his back. Erryl took in his features, committing them to memory.

Erryl pointed the tip of the rapier at Eghart’s face. The man did not flinch. Erryl began to speak.

“Next time, I will not be there to save you; I do you this kindness as a medicine man. If you approach us again, you will die. I’ll do it myself to spare you my friend’s full fury. Do you understand?”

Eghart, still on his back, collapsed under his massive bulk, wiped blood from his face, flicking it at the feet of Erryl, dashing red streaks across his boots. Erryl did not react. Then the giant spoke.

“People have tried to kill me for years, barber. Best you kill me now. I’ll come for you, the mutt, and your little bitch, all.”

Erryl stared at the man, his toothy grin reduced to small yellowish islands in a pool of blood. His eyes were wide with the fervor of a predator, not unlike Fang.

Erryl shook his head and stepped away, seriously considering putting the rapier through both of the man’s eyes and down his throat for good measure.

…

Corea was still curled up and winded as Erryl approached. He tapped at her rear with the tip of his boot.

“Can you stand?”

“I can’t breathe,” she choked out.

“We are leaving now. Before any more violence breaks out. Get up.” His voice was emotionless. Couldn’t he see she was in pain?

“Get up, or we leave you here.”

Corea did her best to uncurl her body. She tried to take in some breaths and felt her midsection burn. She coughed up some blood onto the grass and curled up again.

“Get. Up.”

She uncurled and rose slightly, looking at Erryl’s severe face. She saw no concern, and it angered her.

He looked at her for a couple of moments, shook his head disapprovingly, and walked off. At that, Corea scrambled to her feet, though it left her breathless and throbbing, falling to her knees. She glanced around. Eghart was still breathing heavily in the grass. Her knife was left where they had been standing before Fang…

She glanced around. Fang was already several yards away, and Erryl was gaining ground on him. The Wolf had just walked with his arms full, not even pausing to set his chains or shoulder his cloak.

Corea rose onto unsteady feet and trudged swervingly to the knife. She picked it up, slick with blood, mud, and failure. She glanced back over to Eghart, who had turned his head to look at her. He smiled at her as blood poured from his mouth. Several large punctures ringed his head across the crown. After a moment, he turned his gaze back up to the morning sky, and Corea did her best to jog after the Wolf and the Barber.

…

“The good news is, the ankle is not broken or sprained. Now my specialty is not werewolves, but it’s stiff because you took a big chunk of iron right fucking to it.”

Erryl tightened the lacing leather cuffs Fang wore around his ankles. The Wolf growled at the sudden tightness, but Erryl simply continued his work.

A low, rumbling “Thank you” came after a time.

 Erryl smirked. “For the ankle, my company, or stopping you from killing that man in a shower of gore?”

Fang was silent.

“You keep your temper remarkably well, given your affliction. What set you off?”

Fang continued to sit in silence, almost sulking. Erryl slapped Fang’s ankle, making him yelp.

“Fucker!” he barked.

“You don’t get to do that – be silent and brooding when you are a goddsdamned powder keg. I travel with you because you have a handle on it, but you terrify me, you great big bastard.”

Fang glanced directly into Erryl’s eyes. Erryl continued.

“Between us, me and the child, even as fearsome as she is, we know you are the things parents warn their children about in the dark. I know that’s not all you are, but you fucking terrify me. What happened?”

Fang shook his head and hung his gaze low, not wanting to meet Erryl’s eyes suddenly.

“The girl… the man hit her. It was a stupid thing she did, but she reminded me of my son.” Fang glanced back up at Erryl. “I miss my boy.”

Erryl fell back from his crouch to sit on the grass. Taking a moment to think.

“Didn’t know you had a son. How old?”

“Little older than Corea.”

“Shit. That would do it, I suppose.”

The Wolf said nothing further. He nodded to the girl as she limped up the road toward the northern gate – toward the two of them. Erryl gestured for her to sit, just as Fang rose and wandered past the gate, onto the larger road. He would take watch in case trouble came to find them before they left.

“I see you decided to join us,” Erryl said tonelessly as he rose to his feet.

“I’m really hurting.”

“Serves you right for your second stupid assault with a knife today.”

“He was attacking…”

Erryl slapped her.

Corea rubbed her face, her eyes wide in shock. She looked stupid and betrayed. She looked like a child.

Erryl hadn’t wanted to do that – to strike her. Especially given what Fang had said, but the Wolf did not react to it. This was a lesson she had to learn.

“At this point, Corea, you are a liability. You are the weakest link in our chain, and that will change. Either that changes, or we set you loose and you die on the way. Understood?”

He stared into her eyes and saw that they were watery and red. The change occurred almost instantly, with a blink and a hard gulp. One moment, her brows were drooping like those of a spoiled girl; the next, they were furrowed and angry. Good. He could use that.

“Understood,” she said.

He knelt to look her in the eyes. “Good. May I check your stomach? You took a strong blow from that monster.”

“Fang didn’t hit me.”

Erryl glanced toward Fang, noticing an ear twitch. Good. He needed to hear that.

“I meant the albino,” he added.

“Oh, right…” She looked at Erryl, then past him, toward Fang. “Did he hear me say that?”

“Absolutely,” he added. ‘I need to feel under your clothes, it is just the stomach and the lower ribs, understood?”

She nodded and untucked the shirt from her breeches and lifted the tunic. A dense, rectangular bruise emblazoned the pale skin of her stomach, just below the ribcage. There was a chance that had the strike been higher, her ribs would have shattered.

Erryl shook his head and lowered her hands that held up the clothing.

“A nasty bruise that took the wind out of you, but you’ll be fine. I’ll give you something for the pain.”

He handed her a ginger root that had been dusted in crystallized bloodshroom sap. “Chew as we walk. We leave now.”

He stood up as he slung his bag over his shoulder and reached his hand down to her. She took it and rose to her feet, tucking the shirt into her pants. Erryl had already begun walking, and she came up behind him.

Fang stood outside the gate, a few yards away. He’d finished wrapping his chains around his massive body and throwing his cloak over his shoulders, latching the pin. He turned to face them as Erryl stepped past the gate that made up the northern entry to the town.

Corea hesitated. Erryl continued moving, perhaps not really noticing in the moment, or perhaps knowing this was a moment she needed to do on her own, when he thought back on it years later.

…

Corea had never ventured along the north road, having been told by Mr. Gorten that he would tan her hide for even approaching it. He was a mean man in many ways, but it was the meanness of someone caring.

She felt bad that she had left so quickly after letting him know his mother had died. She wanted to help him tend to the body, but there was no time if she was to find Garen. He’d take care of her. He’d put Grandma to rest.

She felt bad about it, but in at least a couple of ways, she was relieved Grandma Nettie had passed this morning. Corea was free now to do the work that so few others would do. And uncle Nathan – Mr. Gorten –  would be too distracted to tan her hide for what she was about to do.

She took a deep, painful breath and stepped past the gate. She hung there for a moment, in silence and doubt. She touched her tummy and winced. Was she ready for this, really? The Wolf and Egg had made short work of her twice this morning, and she would be traveling with the Wolf. He was scarier than she had thought he was last night – this morning it had been claws, teeth, and blood.

She tried to breathe again, and just as she let the pain settle, she saw down the road that the Wolf and the Barber were waiting for her.

She started walking.

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The post Fang & Bone: “18. Gentlemen (and Lady) of the Road” appeared first on hpkomics.com.

“I have a meeting with the Mayor today, so you two will need to occupy yourselves until I am done. Fang, try not to eat her.”

“No promises. Only had two potatoes this morning.” Fang glanced over his shoulder at Corea. “And I got stabbed.” 

She shrank back behind them slightly and was very quiet as they continued to walk.

“What business with the Mayor?” Fang asked. “He didn’t want the teeth.”

“Oh, nothing much beyond offering to rescue a constituent of his humble town. Surely a noble man such as himself would see fit to award us for saving a local.”

Corea scoffed and spat at the ground. Erryl’s eyes darted back behind him, noticing her sour expression.

Interesting.

“Thoughts, young Corea?”

“The mayor’s a cunt.”

The two roadmen of Fools’ Errand paused in their tracks. They turned to look back at the girl, shocked.

“Mr. Nathan’s words, I just agree with them,” she added.

“No love lost amongst the family, I see? Just how related are all of you here in New Gordhurst?”

Corea thought about it, her face scrunched as she combed through all the names of surviving lines in town. Erryl watched her think as Fang glanced around and along at the edge of the muddy thoroughfare that made up the route through the village. It was still sunrise, so there were few people out, though two guards at either end of the road, on some sort of patrol, glanced at him. How could they not?

“Well, there were about eight families sprung off the Gordhurst name. That family isn’t around anymore. I think they were ancient. Right now, there are Gorses, Gortens, Gorvals, Gordursts, and Gordanes. I think the Gaerigs are an offshoot. Mr. Donnel is the last of them. There were also Gourlings and Gaenneths. I sometimes play with Ms. Eslpeth’s kids. They are Gaenneths. We also have some outside folk who moved in, and there are a few of them left here from the old town. But you were just asking about the big families, right?”

“Yes, exactly right, thank you, Corea. Would you say the big families are always in charge?”

“As far back as I can tell?”

“Yes, has it ever been different?”

“Well, I guess Mayor Gorval’s dad ran things before him.”  She thought a little more, then continued. “I know that Mr. Nathan – he’s a Gorten – is a cousin to the Gorvals. He’s my uncle… my grandma’s first son. My father was a Gorten until he married my mom and they combined their names. Gorten and Lorse. Gorse. That was kind of a scandal, the way my grandma told it. Apparently. Oh, and Gorten was a mix of Gorval and Mauten. Gorten. That was a scandal, too. Garen told me he heard father and uncle talking about getting as far from the Gorval name as they could. Nobody likes the Mayor.”

“So that would be a no, then.”

Corea realized she’d nearly ignored the question.

“Oh, yeah, that would be a ‘no,’ I think the Mayor’s family has run things forever. Though I guess he’s my family, too. I don’t like that.”

Erryl nodded and glanced over to Fang, who stared at him impatiently. Fang sniffed at the local air and grimaced at something foul in the distance. “Done with the local gossip?”

Erryl smiled. “Our little fighter is a wealth of information.”

“Don’t see the need to pedigree the local farmers.”

Erryl continued walking, plucking an apple from his bag and tossing it to Corea. She caught it easily. Her reflexes were good.

“And that large, pale gentleman, the walking Egg. What do you know about him?”

Fang’s ears perked up, and Erryl glanced over toward the Wolf, who had been trudging dutifully alongside him.

Corea took a bite of the apple, chewing as she spoke. She was clearly famished. “That’s Mr. Eghart, just don’t call him Egg to his face. I saw him punch out Mr. Sott’s teeth one time.”

“Eghart, is that his first name or family name?”

“Family. I think his first name is Mulluck. Mulluck Eghart sounds about right.”

“What do you think of him?”

“His name sounds like a frog. He’s a cunt, too. ”

Fang laughed.

Corea glanced up at the giant werewolf striding ahead of her, and Erryl noticed the slightest hint of a smile on her face. It might have been hard to fathom her stabbing a beastman four times her size moments ago had he not witnessed it himself.

“A lady ought not use the word,” Erryl replied. “Where did you pick that up?”

“I work at the Inn and bring people their beers. I heard you use the word twice when you were drunk last night.”

Erryl shook his head. He laughed to himself.

The trio approached the mayor’s home – the sizable, defensible home that it was. To Erryl, where he stood in the street, it was a shell, and a meaty, spineless thing sat within, cloistered away, fat, happy, and secure.
Ripe for the taking, if the opportunity and proper leverage were applied.

…

“How many men have you killed, Wolf?” asked the child.

“Many.”

“Yes, but how many is that?”

“How many men have you killed?” asked Fang.

“None,” Corea scowled.

“I’ve killed more than that,” Fang replied.

Corea stomped up the broken stairs to the covered porch of the Mayor’s home. She glanced at the broken step. “I wonder what happened here?”

Fang was silent.

She leaned over the railing that surrounded the porch.

“Is your friend really going to try to get money out of the Mayor to rescue Garen?”

“He’ll try.”

Corea had absentmindedly pulled out the kitchen knife and dug the point into a section of the railing. After a moment, she glanced over to the Wolf, who stood on the grass, keeping watch. He didn’t seem to notice the knife was out.

She had felt bad for a moment and considered putting it away, but instead turned her attention to digging the point into the wooden railing.

“So what are you watching out for?”

“Danger.”

“I thought a talking werewolf would be more interesting.”

Fang shook his head and turned toward her. He caught a glimpse of the knife, scanned what she was doing, and then looked back at her. He lowered his hood to show his ears.

“Perhaps if you were quiet, you might pick up a thing or two yourself.”

Corea stopped carving. She had made a cross so far. “What are you picking up?”

“I hear sounds from inside. I am not in the room, but I am at their meeting. Erryl and your Mayor.” He gestured to the window out front. “They’re there now, just inside, peek into the window if you’d like.”

Corea raised an eyebrow, skeptical of Fang’s boast, but crept to the window. Sure enough, from the corner, she observed Erryl and the Mayor. They were shouting, maybe, but it wasn’t distinct to her. It was muffled anger through thick glass.

She walked back to the stairs that led down from the porch and looked at the Wolf. He seemed to be smiling, if one could call it that, on a wolfen face.

“Are all your senses that strong?” she asked.

Fang nodded.

“I smell the dead, girl. All around the town. Within the woods,” he paused briefly, staring her in the eyes. “On you.”

She felt her heart claw its way into her throat. He knew? Is that why he hadn’t killed her for stabbing him? The monster pitied her?  She felt herself stumble for a moment. Fang continued to look at her, his brow noticeably softened.

“Her cloak, yes?”

Corea nodded.

“Was it a long sickness?” he asked.

“Two years.”

“I see.”

“Garen is all I have.” She began to cry. She raised her hand; her fist trembled. She readied to strike herself, but a sharp whine came from the Wolf. She looked at him, and he had stepped closer to the porch where she stood.

“Corea,” her name rumbled out of a fearsome bark. “Many battles ahead. Don’t fight this one.” It didn’t feel like yelling. It didn’t feel angry.

She unclenched his fist and slowly let her hand fall to her side. This was the first time he’d said her name, from what she could remember. No “girl” or “child.” It was comforting. She watched him turn and trudge back to where he had previously stationed himself.

“Mister Wolf, what was your name again?”

Fang turned around and lifted the left flew of his snout, exposing his many teeth, tapping at a fang with a claw. He glanced at her.

“Your name is Tooth?” she asked.

Fang stood there for a moment, confused.

“I know you mean Fang. I was joking.”

Fang’s brow furrowed, and he huffed. “I chose it after everything that happened. I realized I would be stuck like this; it seemed fitting given the circumstances.”

“What were you called before?”

“Hush.” The command was a growl. Corea wasn’t sure what had happened. She stared at the werewolf, who was now crouched, alerted to something. Then she noticed his ears shifting – two triangles on his head – focusing on something.

Without warning, he snarled and tore over the railing of the porch, directly toward the window where Erryl and the Mayor were meeting.

…

“Fuck you” was all that slipped from the Mayor’s lips. It had only been five minutes since Erryl had talked his way back into the home.

Erryl shook his head, puffing at his pipe. He sat back on the exact cushion where he sat yesterday afternoon. The room was still a mess, and there was still a layer of dust all over Mayor Corrigan Gorval’s study. Some new things had appeared, notably papers. There were also a couple of trunks that had been opened, the contents being removed and set into nearby piles.

Yesterday’s visit has sparked something in the Mayor. His eyes were red and puffy.

Erryl reiterated his point, “Mr. Mayor, surely you wish to see a rescue party formed, especially when there is a nephew’s life on the line. The descendants of old Gordhurst have met untold, sprawling tragedy; surely you can trust us to prevent another? We can even take your Mister Eghart along to ensure the deal is honored. As I understand it, he is the captain of the civil defense? We’d be grateful for his accompaniment. Anyone you can spare. We haven’t a moment to lose.”

The Mayor glared at Erryl, and Erryl observed the man’s face screwed into a red pinch from a sea of doughy paleness. The man opened his mouth to say something, but stopped. The effect was that of a fish plucked from the water – flummoxed and desperate. Erryl continued to puff on his pipe.

“You’re a godsdamned fool if you go looking for the old town, or anyone who was lost on patrol. You think we haven’t tried rescues before? We try, and they die – that’s how it has been. You may be handy at dispatching a couple of ghouls, and maybe your guild is as notable as you brag, but…” 

“… but, you hadn’t had myself and my companion at your service,” Erryl interjected.

The mayor stood up and walked around behind the seat where he had been sitting, back toward his desk. He stumbled a bit, still in the haze of intoxication. He leaned over the couch, digging his fingers into dusty fabric. He shook his head. He was exhausted. Desperate.

“I am the only reason you are safe here. The only reason anyone is safe here. I keep the monsters at bay – the bastard who killed my wife and son and razed the town, he keeps us here because it hurts me. Do you understand what I am sacrificing just to keep everyone here alive? You and your wolf, and that poor girl you plan to drag along with you, my niece, no less. I’d just as soon have you all killed where you stand to protect you from something far worse. You don’t know the evil out there as I do – and when you die, I will mourn the girl you drag down with you, you fucking arrogant scarecrow prick.”

Mayor Corrigan backed away from the seat and walked over to his desk, piled high with tomes and bric-a-brac. He glanced out the window that framed the desk. There were two empty bottles of drink on the desk… two bottles that hadn’t been there yesterday.

“I regret the loss of the boy. I do. I regret the loss of the others, too. Don’t you see it? My family, my town, it’s all dying a slow death. We rarely lose anyone on a patrol, not for years – there is an unspoken truce. Of course, I am troubled by the loss of this one. Five good men! One of them was my brother’s child!”

Brother’s child? 

Corrigan whirled back toward the desk, his eyes redder now. He’d been crying at the window. He leaned toward the desk and stared deep into Erryl’s eyes. It made Erryl uncomfortable – his whole countenance was off – frenzied, not just angry. Erryl had inspired enough anger towards him in life to know the difference. This was… feral.

“It wasn’t until you and that damnable Triserian arrived, you know? The patrol went out around the time you must have been traveling into our lands. It senses you, I think. It responded to you. You’re inserting yourself into something that you think you can so easily destroy. The Necromancer sees everything. You think I hadn’t acted before? Tried to get people out?!”

The mayor leaned down and drew a heavy crossbow from behind the desk, pulling the bolt back and locking it into place as he swung his arms up, aiming it squarely at Erryl.

He pulled the trigger. 

The Wolf crashed in from the window.

Erryl hadn’t even noticed the bolt miss him, as he had been too struck by the sight of Fang barreling into the glass pane and clawing his way out of the frame. The window was large, but it wasn’t large enough for Fang to simply slide through. Erryl watched Fang’s jaw gnash with every bark as clawed hands tore at the wooden frame. Glass shards, still lodged in the frame, tore through the wolf’s hide with a sickening ripping noise. After a few seconds, with a huff and a puff, Fang’s body was through. He stumbled in and, to find balance, he put his weight upon the desk, which promptly collapsed, knocking the Mayor back as he had been fumbling with a new bolt for his crossbow.

With a sudden strike, Fang, still off balance, grabbed the mayor at the chest, gripping the man’s robe and holding him two feet aloft. Corrigan scrambled and kicked, but without letting the man drop once, Fang found his footing, raising Corrigan several more feet from the ground, the man still flailing. He had even gotten a few good kicks to Fang’s ribs as Fang drew him closer to his own face.

Without a second thought, Fang then hurled the Mayor to the other end of the room. Erryl had to duck at the trajectory, nearly being clipped as the Mayor flew overhead. The man crashed violently into a wall of books, breaking several shelves. The impact knocked nearly every book off the wall.

Erryl scrambled to his feet, climbed over the seat, and fell to his knees, checking to see if Corrigan was even alive.

“I wish you hadn’t done that,” Erryl hissed.

“He was going to kill you.”

Erryl searched for signs of life. Corrigan was dazed, barely alert. Perhaps his head had hit the wall. His bell had been thoroughly rung.

Shit.

“I almost had him, I’ll have you know. He would have paid us.”

“He wasn’t going to pay us, and you knew that, Barber. You wanted your silly little mystery.”

“It can be two things!”

A whistle from outside grabbed their attention. They both turned to look back at the window, spotting Corea looking into the room.

“Fucking Hells,” she whispered.

Erryl glanced back at Fang, who looked at him. The Wolf was breathing heavily.

“One of us is going to have to talk to her about her language,” Erryl said.

Fang grunted and picked up the crossbow from the floor where the Mayor had been standing. He held it up. As Corrigan wielded it, it appeared large and deadly. As Fang held it, it looked like a toy.

“Do you want this?” the Wolf asked.

“The poor man has had it hard enough already. I’d prefer not to steal his things.”

Fang dropped the crossbow to the ground with a bored expression, and the crossbow clattered loudly on the hardwood. 

“Fine.”

Erryl watched Fang stomp off to the door to the house, still breathing hard. It was a minor bloodlust. Erryl observed the chaos of the room, ensured the Mayor was still alive, and rose to his feet, following. He paused at the side of the seat where he had been sitting. A single crossbow bolt was buried in the wooden frame.

…

The shattering of glass threw Eghart into a panic. The clamor pulled him away from a warm bed and into the early morning air. Erupting from behind a building and onto the main thoroughfare, he saw the werewolf climbing through the window into Gorval’s office. Eghart hadn’t equipped himself for the day as he had paid Elspeth his usual visit, still lacing up his trousers as he watched the attack.

Shirtless and bootless, he ran to the scene, fists clenched and heart beating fast. As he approached, he spotted the waif from the inn step up toward the window. The fucking girl with the dead brother brought this on. He wondered if he could get away with beating her to death for the trouble, even if she were Corrigan’s niece.

He arrived in front of the house just as the werewolf had stepped to the front door on his way back out – Eghart had never wanted a spear with him in his whole life more so than the moment he locked eyes with the beastman. Without a moment’s hesitation, Eghart tore up the broken steps and threw his body at the werewolf’s midsection, bowling the beastman over.

The man and the wolf collapsed into a heap in the foyer as Eghart began pummeling. The wolf’s grip on the door had ripped it from the frame, and it fell on them both, creating a bizarre pile of man, beast, and wood. Eghart elbowed the door, sending it sliding to the floor with a clatter, and he continued to rain blows upon the beast.

…

The speed and intensity of the fists had caught Fang off guard. The weight of the pale man did not help, either. Fang had thought the man was fat, clearly heavy, but this weight was dense; it was pure muscle, and the strength the man carried was transferred from punch to punch. Each violent impact on his face and neck sent the back of Fang’s skull smashing into the wooden floor. The blows kept coming, steady now, as the man dug his fingers deep into the soft hide that covered Fang’s throat. The man was smart, choking him to the best of his ability, and stabilizing himself for maximum leverage on each punch.

This was a real fight. It had been a while. Fang was thrilled. 

As another heavy blow came down toward Fang’s face, the werewolf swung a massive arm to block it, colliding with the pale man’s arm, throwing him off balance, and resulting in him collapsing onto Fang. The sudden shift of weight was rough, but the instability allowed Fang to lift his right shoulder from the floor and turn over, pinning the large man between his body and the stairwell.

Fang rocked the opposite direction, creating space and scrambling to his feet as best he could as the pads on his fingers and toes slid around. Fang had to dig his claws into the floor outright to gain some traction, using a wall as a handhold to rise to his feet. Aloft, finally, he glanced at a dumbfounded Erryl and smiled at him. Hot blood trickled around the edges of his mouth. It tasted good.

Fang stepped over and grabbed the wrist of the pale man, and with a sudden jerk pulled him from the floor, hurling him out the front door into the mud and grass. With luck, his shoulder would be dislocated.

…

Eghart had never been airborne before. The sensation was alien, but he could barely dwell on it as he hit the ground after two seconds. The mud and grass had cushioned the blow, barely, but it still took the wind out of him.

He lay on his back, breathing out the force of the impact. It didn’t hurt. Nothing hurt Eghart. But the impact was still felt, physically,  like a laden cart hitting a wall. The ringing in his ears began to fade, and he rolled himself over to his knees, rising from the ground as the wolf hopped from the porch to the damp earth, his weight generating a pile of mud at his feet. Eghart looked up at him, spat up blood, and slowly shifted his weight, raising to meet the wolf. 

The wolf nodded, unlatching his cloak. Beneath the cloak was a sizable length of heavy iron chain, which the wolf also discarded. Lastly, the tremendous broadsword that had been lashed to the back of his leather vest collapsed on the pile of chain and fabric.

Eghart flexed his fingers and wrists, loosening up. He slid his heavy right forearm across his mouth to sop up as much blood as possible. He repeated the same with his left arm, leaving red smears across pale skin. Raising his arms, he took a defensive stance, his fists raised, poised to strike.

“Is that all you have, dog?”

The wolf flexed his own fingers and then closed his fists.

Neither of them moved for several moments, sizing one another up.

Eghart was not a small man. He was taller than most, but the wolf towered over him by at least a head. It was intimidating, especially given the monstrosity that stood before him. But Mulluck Eghart knew monsters. He’d been one most of his life.

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“Godsdamned ridiculous, this,” Fang muttered as he adjusted the loops of chains across his chest from over his shoulder. He took a lock and clipped the two manacled ends to a section of the chain loop, the lock’s click securing the iron bundle to his massive body.

“The chains are your idea, friend.” Erryl picked at his teeth. “I thought it worthwhile.”

“Not the chains. The kid.”

Erryl snorted amusingly. “You let her trick you. We’re bound to her task, and we hadn’t fully set the terms.”

Fang straightened up and plucked his sword from the wall where it rested. He parted the cloak slightly away from his back, wide enough to lift the enormous blade and slot it into the reinforced leather loops on the back of his vest to hold it in place. Erryl watched an arm as thick as a tree trunk lift the blade overhead as though it weighed nothing. Erryl knew, though, that the blade weighed a great deal. He’d nearly thrown his back out trying to lift it once as the two sat drinking while camped one night.

“Maybe if you hadn’t been hungover.” The Wolf slid the massive blade into place to punctuate his point. The sound of the crossbar hit the leather with a thunk.

“It is done in any case, no way to avoid her tagging along now.”

“We can leave now. We find her brother – corpse or person – and bring what we find back. We honor the deal. That is as far as we go.”

“Perhaps you’re right. Surely someone is watching over the child and won’t let her follow. Surely this strange town is not that ignorant to let a child wander.” Erryl tapped his foot on the dirty floorboards at the stable entrance. “Though given the brother…”

“Stop. Erryl. He signed on and did his duty. Not a wandering child. You were a year older when you killed your first man. Did you not?”

Erryl glanced over his shoulder as Fang approached. He locked eyes with the tremendous werewolf as he crossed into the morning air to the outside of the stable. The Wolf turned back to look at him.

“I don’t see why my history has any bearing on this situation,” Erryl paused, “Wolf.”

Fang shook his head. “Boys become men early these days. We’re both examples. The brother, Garen. Another man chosen.”

“Yes, but what of the brood? This whole strange town?”

“No conspiracy to the brother’s fate. Its the way of the world. Blame the gods.”

Fang locked eyes with Erryl, and Erryl noticed the wolf’s brows were furrowed and seemingly sad. His companion’s eyes were still a shining yellow and intimidating. But there was also an apparent sadness. The eyes of a survivor.

They were eyes Erryl knew he himself possessed. Eyes that no doubt were common among most people of Aurin. Dying, corrupt, and deadly Aurin.

 Erryl rubbed some sleep from his eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped forward. He walked up to the werewolf, who had resumed his ineffectively obscuring hunch, and looked him in his wolfen face.

“I’ll need to stop by the Mayor’s place again. Surely recovering a body would be worth some coin – especially if he is a ‘man of the people.’”

Fang nodded and began to step toward the other side of the inn. “Make it quick. We need to get out of town before she returns. I’ll lie low at the north path.”

Erryl began to follow. He expected this to be a wild goose chase.

What he did not expect was a small figure, draped in red, to run up and stab Fang in the thigh.

…

She had heard them conspiring to leave with her coin, break their contract, and leave her to the village – to abandon her. 

To abandon Garen.

Before she had thought it through, she found herself rushing toward the giant beast, knife drawn back with both hands, and thrusting it forward, burying the point as deep into the thick thigh that kept him standing. She had hoped he would topple, but Corea was not strong, and she held the knife in the Wolf’s thigh meat, glancing up at him.

She watched his head turn and ghastly yellow eyes narrow on her, as though he had been bitten by a bug or louse. He simply twisted his body, and his natural strength ripped the handle of the knife from her grip, the blade still buried into his leg. As she fell to her knees, off balance from losing her handhold, he took several steps back, seemingly, perfectly calm. 

She glanced up from the mud and grass, and now the scarecrow, the man named Erryl, had swept into the space between them, his blade drawn and pointed directly at her face. His own face seemed dark and furious. He didn’t move a muscle as Corea stumbled backward from him, scooting away as her hands pulled her along the moist earth.

Neither of the mercenaries moved, still, as she scrambled to her feet. She would be the first to speak.

“You were going to leave me here. You were going to steal my coin! I heard you!”

Erryl flicked his rapier upward. “How long were you listening?” he asked.

“Just now! I just heard you.”

Erryl shook his head and turned to look back at Fang, who stood silently, staring at her. Erryl glanced down at the knife, still lodged in the Wolf’s leg. The stillness of the Wolf terrified Corea. She could hear his deep breathing.

Erryl looked back at Corea. He looked mad at her. He pointed the blade at her again, and she flinched. He swished the blade around a bit before tucking it away.

“If I had pulled that… If I heard something I did not like and came out swinging, as you did, I’d have died thirty times over by now. Idiot.”

He pinched his brow, just above his nose. “We were not going to steal your coin. We were going to honor the contract; we just weren’t going to take you along. You’ve certainly made the case for us now.”

The man trudged over to the Wolf, who continued to stand motionless. Corea could see his yellow eyes fixed on her. The eyes did not shift, nor did he wince, even as Erryl ripped the blade from Wolf’s thigh.

The knife landed with a wet thump in the grass at her feet. She glanced down at it, the coating of blood suddenly made her a little nauseous. She began to crouch to pick it up, but her eyes met the Wolf’s again, and she stood back up.

Erryl began to tend to the wound.

I heard them, she thought, didn’t I?

…

Erryl glanced at the wound. Fang’s stillness was not so much shock but a calculated choice not to immediately lash out at the child. Erryl had seen this reaction twice before. It made his fingers tremble.

Fang’s affliction, what else could it be called, was like traveling with a keg of spark powder. Erryl had treated enough accidental spark burns to know careful handling was paramount.

“My friend, I need to touch the wound to make sure I do not need to stitch it. May I?”

Fang’s gaze suddenly jerked from the child and down to Erryl. His eyes were wide, and Erryl felt agitation radiating from them, held back by the beastman’s not-informidable willpower. Care was very much needed.

Fang huffed for a moment and let out a low “Yes.” 

Erryl tore at the breeches a bit to get a clearer look at the wound. It was hard to tell beneath the dense and coarse fur, but Fang’s legs were thick, and his skin was tough. After a couple of moments of delicate prodding, he noticed the wound wasn’t incredibly deep. He considered the knife and what he remembered as he ripped it away from his companion’s leg in a blind rush. There wasn’t that much blood.

“Not deep, I can run up a simple poultice, and we can patch your trousers, and you’ll be good.”

Erryl, still crouched, pulled his healer’s bag from his shoulder and set it on the ground. He looked back toward the girl.

“I need clean water and some fabric to patch the trousers you ruined. Go.”

Corea nodded, taking a couple of steps back, her eyes darting between the knife and Fang. She paused for a moment and then scampered off.

As she was out of earshot, Erryl glanced up at Fang. “Please don’t eat the child. We don’t need to live a fairy tale story.”

Fang sighed and released some tension from his body. “There’s been enough death already.” He sighed.

Erryl was busy sorting through pockets and small boxes of herbs and medicines, but paused for a moment. 

“Her brother?”

Fang shook his head. “Someone else – close to her. A smell on the cloak, on the girl. I smell death.”

Erryl clipped a stem of stinging nettle and milked an acrid fluid into a bowl, and then pulverized mint leaves into the mixture.

“I suppose you would know better than I, friend,” Erryl said as he continued to pulverize the mix.

…

It was a few minutes before Corea returned, clutching a shirt. She approached the pair, keeping her distance while holding the shirt out to them. She held a bucket of water at her side.

Fang sat on a nearby stump, seemingly studying her as Erryl approached and took the shirt and bucket from her. He nodded toward the knife.

“Pick it up.”

She dutifully made her way over to it and plucked it from muddy grass. Erryl already began tearing at the shirt, shaping a rough patch.

“It was Garen’s,” she said, meekly.

Erryl said nothing. Corea watched as he handed the shirt to Fang, who began to take in the scent. He paused for a moment and glanced back at her. His expression has softened, but it did not do much to make him look any friendlier. He seemed curious, though, by Corea’s measure. She wiped at the knife with the end of her cloak and tucked it into her belt.

She was unsure of what to say or do, and just watched. By all rights, they had all the more reason to leave without her now.

She watched Erryl wash the wound with a mixture of water and some liquid from a flask he carried, and then apply some muck she didn’t recognize. Apparently, the man was a healer of some kind. There hadn’t been a healer in New Gordhurst since she was five or six. She watched him work.

“Stinging nettle, mint, antlion blood, and mud.”

She had been watching his hands, and she hadn’t noticed him looking back at her.

“Stinging nettle helps the flesh swell. Mint soothes the wound. Antlion blood is a common treatment for healing, as its blood can wash away sepsis. Mud binds them together.”

“Where did you learn that?” she asked.

“I didn’t say you could talk. Watch. Learn. You’re going to need to carry your own weight.”

So they were going to leave her behind? It was fair. She had been stupid.

Fang tucked Garen’s old shirt into his own satchel and sat calmly as Erryl began to sew up the trousers. The Wolf’s massive elbows rested on his legs as his hands hung limp. He stared into the distance, waiting for the task to be done.

Erryl sewed with practice hands, and Corea recognized the specific stitching. She had learned them from her grandmother before she had gotten sick. Before she died. She felt tears welling up and quickly tugged on her ear as hard as she could from beneath her hood. She felt like she could have ripped it off had she tugged just a bit harder. The pain replaced the sadness.

She glanced back at the two roadmen. Fang was staring at her. His eyes narrowed to inhuman yellow slits. She stared back at the Wolf. She could not guess what he felt, beyond anger, she supposed.

Erryl spoke again as he got up from the long crouch and began to stretch his legs. “The price has gone up. You’ll pay it upon our return to town.”

Corea shrank a bit. So they were honoring their word and doing the task, but she would need to stay behind. There was no case she could plead for them to take her along.

“If we’re to escort you, the price has got to go up,” he added.

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Corea burst into the hovel and began to pack. Time meant everything in these moments, and it especially meant hope. She’d tricked the Wolf, and the scarecrow man had actually suggested her brother may be alive, as she had hoped. He hadn’t booted her away as the Egg had over the past couple of days. The scarecrow, Erryl, hadn’t sadly shaken his head and written Garen off for dead, like everyone else.

Hope; she had forgotten what that felt like.

She knew it was a slim hope, but with those two roadmen, the search was the best possible chance she had of finding Garen. And Garen was smart. He was so smart. Garen was brave, too. He had a chance, and now she had a chance to help him.

She tried to avoid clattering and too much noise in the hovel as she packed. Grandma was resting quietly. She would ask Mr. Nathan to keep an eye out for her – she was his mother, after all. There was still stew from yesterday on the hearth, simmering over dying coals. He was welcome to some as he wished.

Corea darted back outside, brought in some branches she’d gathered recently, and tucked them into the embers. She paused, waiting for them to burn. She glanced at the mark of Helatros, God of Hearths, chiseled into one of the flat rocks that made up the hearth ring. After a few moments, the branches began to smoke and finally lit up. As she watched the branches alight, she realized some dried dung would also help. She tossed in a couple of the nearby chips and then wiped her hands on her morning gown.

She threw the gown off and over her head and grabbed at some breeches that had been Garen’s when he was smaller. She hiked them over her narrow hips and looped a corded belt tight around, just above her waist. She made her way to her small pile of clothes, throwing on an old linen shirt, one that belonged to Garen before her – like many things she wore. She tucked the shirt into the breeches and laced and tied the neck that exposed the thin wraps that made up her undergarments. Finally, she threw over a bluish-grey tunic she had received as a gift from Mr. Nathan for the Northwinds a year or two back. It was a little stiff and scratchy, but it was thick, and it was warm. She cinched it just above her waist with another belt – this one pounded leather. She balanced against one of the load-bearing pillars of the thin shack wall as she threw on her boots, tucking in the breeches

She hurriedly funneled what she could into a pack – the one that carried what few possessions Garen had managed to fit in upon the escape from the old town. She took what little food she could spare, a waterskin, and a small blanket. She stood, confident she had prepared adequately for what was ahead as she looked at the pack. But still, a girl needed a weapon.

She moved toward the hearth that made for the small kitchen and drew the sharpest knife she had from the small wooden tray that held the utensils. Corea held it aloft, studying it. Maybe a few inches shy of a foot, and only a little nicked in places. It will do, she thought.

As she tucked the knife into the space between her tunic and belt, she began to notice something. In all her flurry, there had not been a single familiar cough.

Silence.

Corea stopped, staring into the hearth. Tears began to well in her eyes as the silence roared and made her ears hurt. She was conscious of every noise but the one she expected – the one she’d known for two years, now. The pops and crackles from the branches only punctuated that terrible silence. A roaring void of still air from the small room where her grandma slept.

She approached the alcove. Each footfall seemingly echoed without the accompaniment of a rattling breath, a severe snore, or a sick whimper.

Corea paused at the simple door that gave the old woman her privacy. She gripped the handle, a simple leather loop, with trepidation. She stood there, the moment suspended in the absence of noise aside from a weak crackle of a fire a few feet away. She pulled open the door slightly, seeing the old woman’s frail body on her side, back to the hearth. She was still. Corea dared not open the door further and reached inside, not looking, gently resting her fingertips on her grandmother’s back. Her ribs were protruding, and the skin between each ridge was motionless.

That is when Corea knew that she and Garen were alone.

She fell back, letting go of the leather loop and landing on her rear with her back to the hearth. She began to sob. There was a crackle. 

She glanced at the hearth, wiped away her tears, and slapped herself in the face. She sniffed and felt another tear roll down the ridge between her cheek and nostril. She slapped herself again.

Time was everything.

She moved to the hearth and folded her knees beneath her, kneeling, staring into the embers. She held her hands to the wall of warmth and began to pray.

Fire heart, Helatros, hear my prayer. I bend my knee before your hearth, your heart on Aurin, gifted to us from the heavens.

Your warmth fills our homes. The flames lick at and cook our food. In the cold, you shield us. In the darkness, you help us to see. In battle, you guide the fallen home.

Fire heart, you are the father of all homes and the keeper of order. We maintain our hearth in respect and as a plea that you will fill our home with life.

And when needed, you carry our dead into your everlasting warmth.

Her prayer concluded, she glanced one last time toward the thin door and rose to her feet. She would tell Mr. Nathan on the way out to meet the roadmen that his mother had died. She shut it.

She knelt at her bedroll and worked it into a tightened bundle, lashing it to her pack. She picked up her belongings, adjusted the straps on her shoulders, and approached the door into the wilderness ahead.

As she had just about left the vestiges of home, her first foot through the threshold, she looked to the hooks on the wall to her left. She threw a red cloak over her shoulders. It had belonged to her grandmother in life. 

In death, it was a final token of love.

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The presence of the young serving girl standing at the stable was alarming to say the least. Erryl had stepped out at first light to piss away the night’s drinking behind the building before checking in on his companion, but the presence of the girl changed everything. Within mere moments, he’d drawn his rapier and positioned himself between her and the stable doors, his blade outstretched to the crack between the wood and his free hand nudging her away. He locked his eyes on the stable, wary of movement.

“Erryl. We have a guest. She offered us a job.” Fang’s voice, as low and monotone as it could sometimes sound, was more complex when one spoke with him enough. Fang’s tone, here, was amusement.

Erryl sighed and stuck the rapier back into his belt loop, and glanced back at the child as the morning light began to illuminate the town.

“You’re lucky, little one. You do know that wolves find children delicious, yes?”

“She’s a little small for me,” Fang added. “Doubt she would feed me past midday.”

The girl frowned and marched back toward the stable door. She pointed at the lock.

“Let him out, Sir. He promised to help me find my brother.”

There was a whine within the stable, “I promise nothing.”

“He already accepted my payment.”

“I accept nothing.”

Erryl’s head pounded at the back and forth between the Wolf and the girl. He shook off what he could and pinched at the bridge of his nose, right between his eyes.

“Someone, preferably an adult, please explain what happened.”

“A wandering child shoved a coin into the shed. The child wants us to find her brother.”

The girl looked at Erryl and nodded, slapping at the door with her palms. Fang roared in response, and the girl stood straight, clearly alarmed. Erryl clumsily searched his person for the key, but finding it was not on him, excused himself from the scene, promising to be right back down.

…

Erryl stumbled out of the back of the inn minutes later, still a bit hungover. He made his way back to the stable, where he observed the child arguing some point he didn’t care to hear while Fang remained silent inside.

Erryl placed his palm on the door to steady himself. He rocked slightly as he fished the key from under his shirt, pulling the string necklace over his head.

“You wouldn’t believe it, friend. Had the thing on me the whole time.”

A sharp bark shot out from within the shed: “Open the godsdamned fucking door you sodden shite.”

He glanced down to his left and watched as the child grabbed the key from his light grip. She quickly unlocked the chains and pulled them out of the door loops. They clattered noisily to the ground. She tugged the leftmost stable door outward, nearly stubbing Erryl’s toe in the process. She bent down and scooped up something from the wooden door frame, which he recognized as a coin. Then, with tremendous force, or as much as a starving girl could muster, she hurled it at Fang, who was still chained up within one of the stalls. The coin slammed into his snout, and he began to bark in response, rattling his bindings against the wooden supports.

“There’s your godsdamn coin, Wolf, you’ve accepted it!”

Fang continued to bark. Soon, the girl entered, staring him down. Erryl watched, unblinking, as he swung the right door open and then leaned against the door frame, watching the wolf argue with some waif.

“It’s too early in the morning for this horse shit,” he said to nobody.

After a few more moments of unsettling bickering between an adult werewolf and the young girl, Erryl sighed and strode toward them, snatching the key away from her and settling down to one knee to unlock the chains. Before he put the key in the lock, he glared at Fang. Erryl’s face screwed up into a questioning pout as Fang simply glanced over, wolfen eyes wide, and shook his snout toward the girl, signaling that she had started whatever this was.

“Unbelievable” was all Erryl said. 

He loosened the lock and cleared one of the links from the metal rod and rose to his feet, slipping Fang the key between two of his enormous, pinched fingers. Erryl took several swerving steps back and, upon bumping a barrel with his rear, hopped onto it, sitting – observing.

The girl stood in front of the Wolf, tapping her feet as he sat there, doing nothing. After a moment, he huffed out air from his snout and began to rise, unsettlingly slowly, clearly savoring the tension. He rose to a crouch and unbound his left manacle, rolled the free wrist around, and slipped the key into the now free hand. He made quick work of the second manacle and then flicked his arms, dropping the heavy iron bracelets to the floor and rattling the chains as he began to rise to his feet. In moments, he was at his usual height – his poorly disguised hunch meant to not draw attention to himself, though at his dimensions, it most certainly did not help. 

The girl took a few steps back, suddenly aware of the size of the thing before her.

The wolf snorted and then began to straighten his back. Hunched over, he was well above six feet. Now he seemed to grow taller, straighter, and fully stood over seven feet tall, glancing down upon the girl who took further steps back, nearly at the door of the stable. For emphasis, his head was back, snout pointed to the sky. Then, with a sudden jerk, he cast a wicked, wolfish smile at the child, his face pointed down toward her. She yelped.

Then Fang began to laugh. It was a horrific noise, and one that Erryl had never gotten used to in their travels. A laughing dog was surely some ill omen.

“You can stop scaring the child, Fang. You’ve made your point. You’re very frightening.”

The Wolf settled down back into a hunch, his arms hanging limply down, simian-like. He looked over to Erryl. 

“Just needed a reminder.” He glanced toward the doorway at the girl and continued, “This little shit is stubborn. And foolish.”

At that, the girl strode further into the shed. “You’re a bully.”

Fang pointed a clawed finger at her, inches from her face. She came to a stop. Then, with a flourish, he apparated the gold coin between the tip of his index claw and thumb claw, brandishing it before her.

“You’re a bully for throwing this at my nose, child. Away with you. I’m done.”

The girl stood there, defiant, and now it was Erryl’s turn to become involved. He drew his rapier and swished it absentmindedly, making every motion audible. He paused with a flourish and turned his gaze to her with a sudden jerk; she had failed to notice, still staring at Fang.

He sighed. “Young lady? Your name, please?”

“Corea Gorse.”

Fang snorted at Erryl and cast a dark glare. Erryl understood what the Wolf suggested through his yellow eyes, but Erryl was a creature of curiosity and curiosity compelled further inquiry.

“I see, and what deal have you made with my hirsute friend, Miss Gorse?”

Fang growled for a moment and then, seemingly acknowledging defeat, stepped back into the stall and leaned back against the wall, arms crossed, sulking. The wooden beams creaked under his weight, as did most wood in this town, it seemed.

Corea watched the Wolf slink off into the rear of the stable and turned her attention to Erryl, who continued to flick and swish his thin blade.

“I hired you two to help me find my brother. I’ve heard roadmen do their business passing through, and I know that one gold coin is more than enough to search out someone nearby. You gave me this last night as a tip, and I am sure you’ll be wanting it back as nobody tips gold. Nobody but drunks and bad men, and I don’t think you’re a bad man.”

She held the coin forward in the palm of her hand – her palm was rough and scarred from daily chores – and rocked the coin back and forth, the coin catching a glint of early light.

“I can’t say as much about the Wolf,” she added.

Fang growled again… or was it a chuckle? How odd, Erryl thought, and I’ve fought wizards.

“Well, I am afraid, my dear, that all negotiations must go through me.”

Erryl slipped off the barrel and threw the flat of the rapier over his shoulder, aiming for dapper, but stumbling slightly, came off as very much hungover.

He coughed slightly and stared down at the coin in her hand, and then glanced at Fang. Fang eyed him carefully, his gaze unsettling and predatory by the nature of his affliction, but his uncrossed arm and a sweep of his hand boded Erryl to pursue the conversation. Ever unsettling the sprinkles of humanity from that which was inhuman in most senses.

“Alright, Miss Gorse, what exactly can you tell me?”

…

Fang arrived a few moments after Corea had told her story and laid out the facts as she knew them. Erryl pondered what he had heard, and the Wolf distributed the potatoes from the kitchen; they had been quickly fired over coals with a light sprinkling of oil and dusting of salt and local herbs. He dropped one into the hands of the girl who winced that they were still very much hot. She bounced the potato between her hands until she scooped up part of her morning gown to catch it. Fang tossed a potato to Erryl, who grimaced a bit at the heat but quickly began gnawing away at it, the starchy pulp softened just enough by the simple cook.

The remaining three were for Fang as he sat down on the dirt and straw-covered floor. The girl had commandeered his stall, cloak, and blankets. He glanced at her, annoyed, chewing on one of his potatoes. She didn’t notice. Instead, Erryl could feel her eyes boring into him as he continued to chew.

If he didn’t answer her soon, he feared, her eyes would bore a hole into his skull and cook his brains.

He finished his potato and turned his attention to Corea, who sat comfortably among Fang’s things. He scraped some leftover oil from his mustache and nodded to her.

“Alright, based on what you’ve told me and my companion, it is more than likely, I am afraid, that your brother may be either dead or possibly hidden in the old village. If he hasn’t made his way home yet, he, being a smart lad, as you suggest, probably is waiting for an opportunity to escape.”

His face soured and his brow furrowed.

“But, that is the best possible case I can consider. It’s been four nights now. Time is running short. If we do this, Fang and I must leave, now, especially as Umbra is at its zenith and moonlight will be our enemy.”

Fang shoved another potato into his mouth as he watched Corea rise to her feet. As she passed in front of the Wolf, he handed her the third potato in passing, which she tucked into the nook of a shawl. Fang glanced at his palm, then back to her, and then back to his palm. He snorted.

Erryl stood still a moment, dumbfounded, and she reached the threshold of the stable door without so much as a word.

“And where are you heading off to? We need to negotiate the price and establish terms.”

Corea Gorse stepped out the door and looked back at Erryl. “I accept. I’ll be packing my gear. We’ll leave in an hour!”

The girl darted out of sight, and Erryl glanced back at Fang, dumbfounded. The tremendous creature rose to his feet, approached him, and dropped the gold coin onto the barrel lid next to Erryl. He placed a heavy, hairy paw on his shoulder and shook his head.

“Payment was rendered,” he said. “She slipped it into my hand as I gave her that godsdamned potato.”

Click here to visit the project hub for Fang of Triseria; click here to read the next installment of Fang & Bone.

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The post Fang & Bone: “14. Adventures and Babysitting” appeared first on hpkomics.com.

While I am generally not comfortable with intrusion into the narrative as a rule, this spot seems like the best moment, given what lies ahead. I want to divert from the tale of the Wolf, Barber, and Girl and explore a minor player in the events who might not otherwise get his due for his small but essential role in these events.

Donnel Gaerig was a third or fourth cousin to most of the residents of New Gordhurst. It’s in the name; Fang and Erryl were quite astute on the names bearing some derivation on Gor, and the Gaerigs being a further derivation – one that inherently connected them to the larger brood, but also separated them at once.

While somewhat unassuming and generally cowardly, Donnel was a likeable enough young man. This was good because he was the last of his family, and to survive, he had to be pitiable to survive himself, alone in the diasporic and shambolic town of New Gordhurst. The fall of Old Gordhurst resulted in the culling of his family, who had been on the quite literal outskirts of the town as the dead rose to claim residents – they, along with the Garlings, were the first to be lost in the community. 

Donnel was just a child then, around 14 or so, but managed to escape. In the time since, he had worked many jobs, but not particularly well. Eventually, he fell in with the town’s civil defense under the control of Eghart, who was particularly abusive to the young man.

So it would not come as a surprise that Donnel, as much of a coward as he was, was constantly thrust into patrols into the woods outside the town, where the ghouls wandered and pockets of bandits would pick off travelers. After all, he was a coward and would not have the wherewithal to stand up to Eghart.

And one of these patrols, a very important patrol that involved young Garen Gorse, brother of Corea Gorse,  is where Donnel’s story begins. Or, I guess if I wanted to be more precise, where it ended.

– EC

…

Donnel Gaerig had not been so close to brutal, bloody death for a decade as he watched Herman get pulled to the ground by a pair of ghouls. Donnel saw greasy, wrinkled fingertips pry at the soft meat beneath the jaw and the top of the neck of the leather jerkin that served as the “uniform” of the civil patrol.

As the fingers plunged into Herman’s neck, arterial spray shot out as the man’s cries became a gurgle as he began to drown in his own blood. He began high-pitched, an almost pig squeal, and then began gasping and choking as the two ghouls pulled him into the mud and rotting plants. Donnel saw convulsing legs as the undead swarmed him, with a third stumbling over and falling into the grotesque tussle.

The sputtering cry ended, and so did the thrashing in one violent, final jolt. A horrific sound of tearing arose from the tangle of bodies. Donnel sank further against the tree, sliding down the trunk. He collapsed onto his rear and felt the wet mud soak into the breeches.

He thought of his Ma and Pa, and his baby sister. He thought of a ghoul tearing a chunk of her skin from her forehead as she screamed, and he ran. It was too late for Sylvy, and it was too late for Herman.

Donnel had an inkling that it was too late for Donnel.

He began to cry as he let his spear fall slack to his side. But a hoarse whisper from the tree line drew his attention.

“Donnel, get over here! Hey, get away from them!”

He glanced into the trees, recognizing the whisper as Garen, the youngest member of the patrol. The newest, too. What a godsdamned clusterfuck this all was.

“Donnel,” Garen whispered, “get your arse out of there.”

Donnel clutched his spear and fell belly-first into the mud, keeping his body low as he crawled over; he would glance back, seeing the ghouls still prying at Herman, dismembering him in a strange bit of strength not common to ghouls. They had yet to notice him worming his way from them. The two minutes of crawling to the tree line left him covered in mud, where he found Garen crouched low, his hand extended outward.

“Was it Herman?” Garen asked.

Donnel just nodded. Garen helped Donnel to his knees and guided him to a spot behind a tree.

“Gods. I lost track of everyone. Saw Spencer get pulled down by a group of three emerging from some hole in the ground.” Garen’s voice quivered. “One minute we were walking, and the next I saw a bunch of hands pull him into the undergrowth.”

Garen wiped at some of the mud that coated Donnel, continuing, “I – I stopped long enough to jam my spear into Spencer’s neck. I think I was able to kill him before they could. I think.”

Garen flicked watery mud away from Donnel as best he could.

“Glad I’m not alone here. Glad you made it.”

Donnel swallowed for a moment, then nodded. “I’m glad you’re safe, too.”

The two young men were crouched in silence, wary of any sound of motion. Any sudden snap of a twig, crow caw, or rustle of leaves or grass kept them on edge and their leg muscles taut, ready to explode into a run at a moment’s notice. After a couple of minutes, and some scouting by Garen, they moved further into the woods, still crouched, still silent.

“What happened with you and Herman?” Garen asked as he crept into the husk of an outlying shack. They were close to the old town now.

Donnel stepped in and sat on the stone mount of a crumbling hearth. He could have sworn he recognized the place, despite years of rot and overgrowth.

“I’d stepped into a trap. One of those fucking bandits had rigged one up.”

“What kind of trap? I don’t see any blood.”

Donnel shook his head.

“Alarm. Loud, jangly bits strung up. Dinner bell – draw the rotters and then loot the remains after.”

“Gods.”

“Before we knew it, we was being chased by a group of four, maybe five, but only two of them was in any shape to follow. Then that was when we hit the other trap.”

“Another alarm?”

Donnel shook his head again, this time slower, more hesitant.

“I got a light step. Herman not so much. Iron jaw snare.”

“Fuck.”

“Shattered his ankle, and they was on us. I couldn’t pull him away – I couldn’t…”

Donnel began to sob and folded over himself, his head between his knees. He couldn’t help it. Surely there was nothing to do, was there? The rotters were on them both, and Herman had no chance. Absolutely not. And yet…

Donnel continued to cry, but the feeling of Garen’s hand patting his back gave him pause.

“It’s not your fault, Donnel.”

Donnel looked up at the young man, who was leaning over him. He smiled a smile that appeared to take effort, more for Donnel’s benefit than his own. Donnel hadn’t really known much about Garen Gorse, but he seemed like a good kid. Much too young to be here in this shit.

Donnel wiped his nose with a muddy bracer and had to wipe away the mud from his face with the palm of his hand.

“I don’t even know why you’re out here, Garen. Ain’t you the Mayor’s nephew?”

Garen stepped back a bit, shook his head, and then spat at the ground. “Not by choice.”

The kid’s sour expression said a lot. There was no love lost between Garen and his uncle, it seemed.

“I’m not sure what we’re doing out here. The fucking Egg just sent us into a trap. Has it even been this bad out here for you, Donnel?”

Donnel stood up from the ruined hearth and propped himself against his spear, thinking back.

“I’ve been doin’ this for a few seasons and ain’t seen it this bad, kid. The things never get that close to town, and if we see them, it’s maybe one or two. The fact we’ve been chased this far toward the old town is pretty scary.”

“Maybe we can slip past them and get back home? We can tell the Egg we’ll need a cleanup patrol. More than four of us this time.”

Donnel nodded. The kid was a natural at this – this decisiveness – so unlike himself. He’d take Garen’s lead.

“I think you’re right. I just worry, it was five I saw, and you saw three, that was…”

“Seven.”

“Yeah, nearly ten, yeah? That’s the most I’ve seen out here since, well…”

Donnel thought back to the night the ghouls swarmed Old Gordhurst. He shuddered and rubbed the heel of his palm hard against his forehead. His skull was pounding.

“How old were you when it happened?” Garen asked.

“About 13 or 14, I think? I don’t really know how old I am.”

“Younger than me,” Garen added. His gaze was empty. He looked between the gaps of the ruined shack.

“Right now, my sister is about the age you were then.”

“Ah, yeah, the one who works at Nathan’s old place, yeah? She’s always kind to me. Certainly works harder than I did when I was working for him.”

“She works hard. Too hard. It’s why I am out here. Extra shares from the pantry. Also, maybe to see if I can scrounge up something while out here. Look at these.”

Garen’s child-like excitement as he opened a small bag to reveal a handful of mushrooms struck Donnel. Moments ago, Garen had the bearing of a leader, someone Donnel would follow. Now he was a child again, excitedly showing off the meager bounty he’d gathered in the surrounding woods.

Donnel chuckled.

Garen glanced up, meeting Donnel’s eyes.

“What’s funny?”

“Nothin’. Those are some good mushrooms.”

…

Donnel wasn’t quite sure how much time had passed as they lay low in the ruined shack. Both of them had taken turns scouting the surrounding area, and as near as they’d figured, Old Gordhurst was northeast of their position. That made the plan simple: avoid heading that direction and hope that the ghouls would wander further into the woods. As long as they kept quiet and did not draw attention to themselves, they’d eventually find a window to escape the pack that they knew of.

It was the other ghouls in the area that they were not sure about, though. Occasional moans would carry on the wind, driving the periodic caws and chirps of the local birds into silence. The effect was nerve-wracking as the sudden silence of the birds put Donnel’s neck hairs on end. He couldn’t be sure if the ghouls were closing in or not.

Garen kept calm, at least he appeared calm; Donnel could tell he was afraid. Nobody in their right mind would show no fear here. Perhaps if they were seasoned veterans and masters of ghoul-slaying, they would not be so on edge. But Garen was still a child in many ways, and Donnel was a coward in most ways.

What little light carried across the woods on an overcast day was fading, and the sky was growing red. By Donnel’s count, tonight would be one to three nights before Umbra was full, and the purple moon was always a bad sign. He hoped he would be back home by then. From there, he would quit the patrols and find a different job. Mucking shit again seemed preferable to being surrounded by the dead. 

They were dumb, not a mind between them, but in groups, they seemed to overwhelm. What chance did he and Garen have against a group?

He shook his head and put the thought out of his mind. As long as he and the kid were cautious and saw to one another, they had a chance. Maybe.

After a few worry-filled minutes, Garen spoke up, his voice low, trying not to draw unwanted attention.

“You mentioned a trap earlier. Iron jaws, right?”

Donnel nodded. “Bandits out here have been using the dead to pick off wanderers and robbing remains after they clear the area.”

“The bodies don’t get up on their own feet?”

“Nobody sticks around to see. At least from the village. There was a traveler who came to town, and we were thinking he was a bandit who tried to sell off some stuff. Nathan got him real, real drunk, and he spilled his beans.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“A while back, maybe two or three years after… You know. I was a chore boy and heard it all as I was working. Nobody told me nothing. Nobody knew I was listening. Saw Nathan slit the guy’s throat, knew he was a bandit the whole time.”

Garen shuddered. “How do you think they survive out here?”

Donnel stepped toward a gap in the shack wall and peered outside, warily. “They’re road folk. They’re built different than us. Hard lives make hard people. Something I heard Egg say once when he was real fucked up.”

Garen shook his head. “I don’t think this patrol stuff is worth it.”

Donnel sighed and leaned against the shack wall for a moment. It creaked.

“It really isn’t-”

The wooden wall, aged and rotten, crumbled under Donnel’s weight, and the clatter echoed among the tree line surrounding the small clearing. Donnel yelped as he fell over shin-high slats and fell on top of the pile with a further crash. The sound was apocalyptic, and Donnel immediately scrambled to his feet, and Garen rushed over to steady him.

“Oh gods, no. No,” Donnel muttered.

The air was still, and the woods around them were silent. Then, as though to punctuate their doom, one moan sounded out from the trees in the west, and other moans from the south. In moments, the first ghoul stumbled from between an oak and a tangle of brush.

Then another, a dozen feet along the tree line. Then more.

Donnel wasn’t good with numbers, but he knew when he had more than ten. How many more, he wasn’t quite sure. But this was far, far more than ten.

Within seconds of entering the clearing, a cacophony of guttural howls filled the clearing, and the ghouls began lurching toward the shack. He froze, his legs nearly giving out on him.

Donnel felt something shoved into his hands and saw that Garen had thrust Donnel’s own spear at his chest. The kid somehow managed to grab it from inside and make sure Donnel had it within seconds.

Then, Garen grabbed at the bindings that kept Donnel’s armor laced at the chest and pulled at him as hard as he could.

“Run!”

The wall of undead meant there was only one place to go – Old Gordhurst. Garen began to run at full speed. Donnel glanced at the incoming ghouls, cursed the gods, and followed after the boy. It was all he could do.

While the wave of ghouls had come from the opposite side of the clearing, away from the old town, there were sure to be ghouls ahead. The pair pushed through the trees and brush, aware of every snap of a twig and crunch of the leaves. Behind them, moans faded into the distance, but ahead, new moans grew louder.

“We need to find shelter,” Garen shouted back, “we can regroup and find a way out.”

Donnel said nothing. He felt his stomach drop and felt his knees crack. Garen kept shouting ideas, rallying Donnel as best he could, but all Donnel could hear was the torrent of blood in his temples and his own choking gasps. He slowed down, then, pausing to cough, and Garen came to a skidding stop and ran back, pulling at Donnel, who pushed him away.

Garen screamed at him. “Gods damn it, Donnel. Fucking run!”

“Go, go. Get out of here, kid.”

“No! We’re getting out of here!”

Garen took a few steps back. It looked like the kid was fighting the urge to leave him, and Donnel just wished he would. Garen’s eyes kept darting between Donnel and the scatter of trees that they had run through. Garen looked nervous, and the sounds of the ghouls crunching through the brush explained everything. Soon, Garen was bouncing in place, waving Donnel over, and practically whimpering – but the kid was falling back, more and more. Soon he’d give up – leave him. Donnel wanted that.

Garen continued to shout and holler. He pleaded, but Donnel didn’t heed it.

Then, a moment later, there was a crash of leaves and a yelp. Donnel glanced up to find that Garen had fallen into a pit and was clinging to the edge, unable to climb up under his own power.

“Fuck! Help!”

Ghoulish noises seemed to echo out from the pit, and in an instant, Donnel threw himself toward Garen and saw the hole was far deeper than he’d thought. He also noticed it was not just a hole – there was a tunnel.

As Donnel reached down to grab Garen, the boy lost his grip and fell many feet with a horrible thump. Without thinking, Donnel stuck his spear into the dirt just at the edge of the hole and lowered himself down, landing a couple of feet from the kid. He knelt.

“Are you okay? Can you walk?”

“Yes, but we need to get out of here!” Garen pointed to the tunnel behind Donnel. “They’re in here too!” 

Donnel didn’t glance behind him. It didn’t matter.

“I’ll help you out, come on!”

He pulled Garen to his feet and began to help him climb out of the tunnel. In front, as he lifted Garen over his shoulders, he saw shining eyes in the dark, approaching slowly.

Garen had just hoisted himself up and over the lip of the pit and belly-turned back around, throwing his hands back in to help Donnel climb out.

But by then, the first three sets of greasy hands had found purchase on Donnel’s armor and began pulling him deeper into the tunnel as Garen watched helplessly. Donnel’s eyes went wide for a moment as another hand grabbed at his hair.

Donnel smiled briefly, and as he was pulled into the dark, he said his final words: “I hope you get to see her.”

Click here to visit the project hub for Fang of Triseria; click here to read the next installment of Fang & Bone.

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The post Fang & Bone: “13. The Sad Tale of Donnel Gaerig” appeared first on hpkomics.com.