RavensDagger

  Chapter Thirty - An Ill Omen

  54th Day of Spring - Year 1758 of the Golden EraShorefarm, Yellowfield, Draya Calyrex

  They knew it was approaching morning when the pub started to get busy once more. There had been a lull. A few hours in the middle of the night where the st of the patrons had gone home and the lone barmaid had spent a few minutes cleaning up and then nothing had happened.

  The fire died down, the st of the candles was snuffed, and the whole pce went quiet.

  Viridian and her companions had filled the silence with low chatter, but even they ran out of things to say eventually. They simply leaned back and did nothing for a few long hours.

  Now the lull was over. Someone was moving furniture around in the main room of the pub, setting the stools and opening the shutters on the windows to let in the early morning light.

  "Time to head out?" Viridian asked the others.

  "Why not?" Carnel said as she stood. "I was getting tired of the quiet anyway."

  "I think it's good for you. For us. We can't sleep, but time spent in meditation can do something simir," Lazur said.

  "You can meditate if you want. I just find it boring," Carnel said.

  Viridian pushed the door open, then walked out into the corridor just outside of the storage room. It annoyed her how noisy her wooden feet were on the wooden floor. The noise was enough to alert the middle-aged man setting up the counter. He jumped when he saw them, then reached under the bar and pulled out a wooden bat. "W-who are you?" he asked.

  "We... paid to stay here overnight," Viridian said. "Did the barmaid not tell you?"

  The man paused, still holding onto his stick for a moment, but when none of them made a move towards him, he lowered it slightly. "No... she didn't let me know that. Well, she did say that she put up some visitors... ah, that would be... forgive me. I wasn't expecting you, is all. Did you need breakfast before you head out?"

  "No thank you," Viridian said. "We're just going to visit the church now. Do you think the priest would be accommodating at this hour?"

  "The priest? Oh, sure. He's a rise-early sort of fellow," the man said. He brushed some hair back and out of his face, revealing a forehead covered in small, spiky scales that dug into the skin under his hair.

  "That's good. Thank you for allowing us to stay. Have a nice day."

  "We aren't treated very well," Carnel said as they slipped out of the pub and onto the main streets of Shorefarm.

  Viridian shrugged. "We don't look very human. It's one of the reasons I want more clothes. If we dress like people, then we must be people."

  "You just want to py dress-up with us as if we're dolls," Carnel said.

  Viridian considered that for a moment. "Maybe?"

  The town looked different in the light of the early morning. The sun wasn't all the way up yet, but it was enough to cast everything in pale blues. It was going to be a nice day. The sky was almost cloudless, save for a few fat, white puffs that were hanging high above and catching the sun's light.

  They navigated their way over towards the church in the centre of the town, but stopped before they ever made it there.

  The front of the church was a wide, open space. A sort of town square, with some benches and where the ground was mostly paved over for easy walking. The town was situated on several hills, and the church was atop one of these, so the square was built at something of an angle, with little pteaus acting as wide steps.

  There were a dozen fgpoles up along the sides of the square, and bodies hung from these.

  They were men and women, some dressed as normal peasants, some dressed in much nicer garb. One of them was in the bck robes of a mage.

  They hung from cords wrapped around their upper arms so that their hands hung limply above their heads. Their feet were pressed together, one atop the other, and a long metal spike was driven through them, boots and all, into the wooden fgpoles. The result was a person hanging as if crumpled in mid-air.

  "Is that one of Beornhelm's apprentices?" Lazur asked as she looked up to the mage.

  "It might be," Viridian said. The young woman had the shoulder-shield of a magus. The back of her robes were ripped open, and Viridian suspected that she'd been flogged.

  Some of the people hanging there were still alive. They were groaning now that the sun was coming up. The young apprentice didn't seem to be one of these.

  Viridian followed the bloody marks at the base of each pole to the centre of the square, where a few more poles were resting on the ground next to a small stage covered in dried blood.

  The front door to the church opened and a pair of men exited. There was an old gentleman in priest's garb, and next to him a young man in simir, though far less grandiose robes.

  The two men were talking in low voices, but they paused as they noticed Viridian and her companions.

  "Hello!" Viridian said aloud. And in a lower tone, so that only her friends could hear, "Let's not assume the worst."

  "Too te," Carnel said.

  "Hello, visitors," the older of the two said. He slid his hands into his opposite sleeves and gave them a gentle, almost kindly smile. The man stepped forwards, and Viridian gnced down for just a moment. His leg was entirely draconic, a cwed foot and muscur leg covered in fine scales. She couldn't tell where the transformation began, but it seemed as though it went at least as far as his knee. "How might this humble servant help you?"

  "My name is Viridian. These are my companions, Carnel and Lazur. We were sent here on behalf of Magus Maldrak, to... assess the condition of Shorefarm and its environs."

  "Oh?" the priest asked with a blink. "Magus Maldrak... I'm unfamiliar with that name. Is he a lord of these nds?"

  "I don't believe so," Viridian said. "He is... trying to help. I think he knows that things aren't well, at the moment."

  "Things are quite well," the priest said.

  "They are?" Viridian asked.

  "Of course! Under the auspice of the dragon lords of Draya Calyrex, how can the nd be anything but well? The bounty of the dragons has fallen down upon us like fresh morning dew since time untold."

  "Oh... of course," Viridian said.

  The priest smiled. "Please, report back to your master that all is well, especially here in Shorefarm!"

  Viridian might have believed him a little easier if it wasn't for the increasing number of moans from the people hanging from the poles around them. They were coming awake with the dawn, and with the sounds of people talking nearby.

  "What happened to all of these people?" Viridian asked.

  The priest's face twisted in a mockery of sadness. "Criminals. So many criminals."

  "That's a lot of crime for a pce where things are going so well," Carnel said.

  "Yes, well, goodness only encourages a certain type to commit wrongs," the priest said. "Now, was there another reason for your visit to our fine town?"

  Viridian gnced back, then up to the body of the magus hanging from the pole. "Can... what will happen to their bodies?"

  "Burned, of course," the priest said. "So that their essence won't join the ground and risk becoming part of the glorious cycle of our dragon lords."

  "Of course," Viridian said. "Might we take possession of that body, then? The apprentice mage. Their master wishes for their safe return, but barring that, he wants their body returned."

  The priest frowned at them. "I see.... Well, he is no friend of mine, that Magus Beornhelm, but nor is he an enemy. His two apprentices were caught spreading ill words here in town... tell you what. The other escaped justice and ran to the local mansion where our lord, in a fit of noble delusion, has decided to keep them for themselves. Retrieve this other wayward apprentice for me, and I'll surrender both of their bodies after they have had their due."

  "But, priest Hearthorn, should we not consecrate both to the holy fmes?" the younger priest asked.

  "Shush now, boy," the older priest, Hearthorn, said with a dismissive wave.

  Viridian pointed in the general direction of the mansion. "The rge home, over there?" she asked.

  "That's exactly so," Priest Hearthorn said.

  "Well, I'm sure we had to go there anyway, so I see no harm in doing as you ask. Thank you," Viridian said.

  "Wait a moment," Lazur said. "We can do this for you... but I see no reason to do so freely. Hard work requires remuneration, and if it was easy, you'd send your junior here to fetch the other apprentice, wouldn't you?"

  The priest's eyebrows rose, but he nodded. "I suppose. Yes, that's only fair. What sort of recompense would suit you, puppet?"

  "We accept coin for tasks," Lazur said.

  "Very well... then five silver ought to suffice, yes?"

  "Six, so that we may share evenly," Lazur said.

  The priest chuckled, but nodded all the same. "Six it is, then," he said.

  Viridian was quick to grab Lazur by the hand and pull her along as she started down the road. When they were out of hearing range of the priest, she half-turned while walking. "Why did you ask for money?"

  "It was to further your ruse," Lazur said. "I don't believe you were being truthful when you said you wanted to help. Now he's more likely to believe us, thinking we are but greedy puppets."

  "So we're not bringing the apprentice back?' Carnel asked.

  "Not if it means they'll be killed, no," Viridian said. "Something is deeply wrong with that man, and that church, and I don't want anything to do with them. Let's go to the mansion first. Maybe the people there are more sensible."

  ***

  A note from RavensDaggerSee, everything is okay, the priest said so :)