Wood was cut and a pyre laid by the river in just a few minutes. The whole village worked doggedly together, as if Orson’s death had given them a sense of purpose. A symbol they could all get behind. They hadn’t been able to mourn the loss of their village, but they could do so now for their mayor.

  Alex didn’t try to push his way through the crowd this time. He watched from the road as Bryon lit it aflame. The mayor’s body rested peacefully atop the pyre as it slowly started to burn. As the villagers were building the pyre over a small stretch of sand on the riverside, the blacksmith had gone to the wagon and brought back a blocky mace with him. That laid above Orson’s chest now, his hands wrapped around it.

  Valerian had woken up and come to pay their respects. Cedric hadn’t come. When he asked about it, Valerian only shook his head. Alex figured the crew leader was too ashamed to see Lanna.

  It wouldn’t have been a problem.

  Lanna had not shown up to watch her father’s cremation. Seeing her bereaved, the peddler and his wife had offered her the more comfortable bed in their wagon. She hadn’t left it when those healer women had gone to get her. Alex was almost glad for it. She had all the more reason to be suspicious of him now, but he didn’t even have the heart to run away.

  The mayor’s death left him feeling heavy. Lanna had asked him to save her father, and he’d failed. It shouldn’t bother him as much as it did. He’d done what he could, risked life and limb at the battle of the bridge. But he’d failed all the same.

  He kept picturing the way her eyes looked. Lanna had very unique, pink-orange eyes, but they had lost all the brilliance that made them beautiful. Now they looked dark and hollow. It was like looking into the eyes of a puppet. The color might be painted in, but there is no life there.

  He couldn’t help comparing Lanna to his sister after their parent’s death. Only with her it had taken weeks for her eyes to slowly dim, slowly stop wrinkling when she smiled. Which was worse, the slow death or the quick one?

  He had tried to help Rachel before she abandoned him, but he’d just been a kid. He had tried to help her, no? I can’t even remember anymore. How long have I spent trying to forget it?

  Alex felt something in his throat. Swallowing the dryness, he willed those thoughts away. It was easier said than done. Suddenly he felt so tired. So weighed down by the death of the mayor and the memory of those who’d been dead for years. The electric feeling of leveling up had long worn out. It wasn’t yet noon but he already wanted to find a bed.

  Instead of a bed, he left the funeral pyre behind to look for Diana. He hadn’t seen her since the bridge, but Daven hadn’t been overly worried about her so he expected she'd be fine. The archer hadn’t been anywhere at the funeral either, so Alex wasn't surprised when he saw him sitting by his sister on a small cart.

  The mobile hospital wasn’t anything more than a trio of those repurposed grain carts stuffed with lots of blankets commandeered to carry those who’d been wounded in the raid, or were already sick when the whole thing went down. Not exactly cutting edge medicine.

  Those who were able had gone to the mayor’s funeral, which included the two village women who had been nursing everyone. That left an older, feverish looking lady in one of the carts and two men half-sat against the backboard of another, talking quietly but in good spirits. One had a head wound and wrappings on his left hand, while the other had a red-tainted bandage tight around one of his thighs. Alex figured they might be some of the few who’d managed to escape from the western side of Riverbend with their lives.

  Bundled in what must have been a dozen blankets, Diana had the final cart for herself. Maybe that came with being one of the chasers. You got the least rotten grain cart and some ragged blankets if you didn’t die trying to save everyone’s lives. Great deal.

  He walked up to them, approaching the cart from the side. Fiddling with his new bow, Daven didn’t notice him until he spoke up.

  “Will she be alright?”

  “Hm?” The archer looked up. Alex knew he had some keen senses due to his class, so he must have been really far away with his thoughts. “Oh, yeah, she will. It’s not the first time she passed out like this. She’s just too pigheaded to know when to stop. First time was the worst. I really thought she was gonna die on me.”

  There’s just too much going on in that head of hers.

  Propping his arms on the cart, Alex briefly studied the passed out woman. Diana looked peaceful in her sleep. Her red hair had been brushed back and some color had returned to her, but a thin film of sweat still shone on her brow.

  “I didn’t know mana exhaustion was this bad,” he said.

  In reality, he hadn’t even known it was a thing at all. He’d have to thank Diana for teaching him the side effects in a very visual manner.

  “Ah, so mages can be smart, then.”

  Alex smiled. “Only the best of us, you understand.”

  The braggadocious tone seemed to cheer up the archer a bit. He put his bow to the side and reached into a small bucket that sat beside him. Grabbing a wet rag from inside, he wrung it out of most of the water and, carefully, dabbed the cloth on Diana’s forehead.

  “The Reaper is right, you know,” Daven said, looking fondly at his sister. The rag moved down the side of her face. “She really is talented. That’s why that wandering mage helped her, I think. She could see it in her. Put it in her mind that she could go to that fancy academy she wants to go to.” His face scrunched in distaste. “But screw that. She is talented alright. She doesn’t need that stupid school and all those rich bastards who’d look down on her.”

  Alex nodded but kept quiet. He was the last person that should be giving advice on how to deal with anything related to sisters. Daven had quite the bone to pick with anything related to big cities, but he was reluctant to ask about it. Once in Holdenfor they would go their separate ways and none of it would matter.

  xxx

  Soon enough they were back on the road. Orson’s pyre still burned behind them, but everyone knew they couldn’t tarry.

  Daven was good company when you wanted to distract yourself from your own thoughts, so Alex walked with him next to Diana’s cart for most of the day. The archer’s prattle also kept the weariness of so many miles from being at the forefront of his mind. They didn’t stop even once for the rest of the day, and his legs burned after nearly eight hours of nonstop walking.

  He’d still take the long walk over the bumpiness of Bryon’s wagon.

  The injured villagers who had attended the funeral also talked freely with them during the trek. He learned that the stout woman Alex had seen demolishing the competition during the Selection Festival’s drinking contest, Helga, had been chosen to lead them from now on.

  Helga had refused the title of mayor, aptly pointing out you couldn’t quite be a mayor without a village. When he asked about Bryon, one of the guys said he was too cantankerous for the job and didn’t get along with most people. That and Alex didn’t think the blacksmith would be interested in the work that came with being a small-time politician.

  The last slivers of daylight still painted the forest surrounding them in a soft reddish hue when the piercing scream of a woman came from the front of the cart line. Daven reacted first, snapping his bow out in front of him and dashing toward the scream. Cursing, Alex followed behind. Power quickly flooded his veins, washing away the lethargic feeling from his body.

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  He needn’t have worried. When he got there, he let the rush of power melt away.

  Latchfield Mill was already gone. Unlike Riverbend, the small hamlet hadn’t been torched. The doors had been kicked open and torn from their hinges, shutters ripped from the windows, but all the buildings still stood. Some twenty or so log houses with slanted wooden shingles for roofing, as well as a large watermill built over a sturdy quay by the river.

  But the people…

  Alex counted at least twelve men and women dead on the ground by the main road. Their bodies lay strewn face down as if trying to run away, dark blood puddled like oil beneath them. There was no dignity in their death. Their clothes had been torn and ripped. Limbs poked out awkwardly in impossible directions. It made him want to walk up and readjust the arms and legs back to their place, as if that would somehow alleviate their discomfort.

  He took a sharp breath to calm his nerves, only to have the smell of it assault him all at once. Death. Blood and piss and feces, and that distinct stench of foul meat left to rot in the sun. Bile burned his throat as it rose unbidden.

  Other villagers spurred by the scream trickled in behind them, but they all grew quiet once they spotted the bloodbath. It was the silence of a graveyard. The only thing Alex could hear was the lapping of water against the spokes of the wheel, like two bucks colliding as they fought for territory. That and the buzzing of flies as they squirmed and wriggled around open, gaping mouths. These people had screamed in terror before they died.

  “Bloody hell,” Daven swore beside him, then turned away to retch. His new bow clattered to the ground, quickly forgotten.

  Alex finally tore his eyes away from the grisly scene. He would join Daven if he looked any longer.

  The shock broke after that. Those nearby prayed or cried where they stood. A couple who’d been at the front of the line covered their children’s eyes and ushered them away. One woman came running out of the caravan and rushed to one of the corpses, falling down over it in tears. Her sobbing was a wretched sound.

  Word of the massacre spread, and Helga and Bryon appeared from the throng of villagers a few minutes later. The new leader of the Riverbenders looked crestfallen at the sight, though she managed to keep her composure. Bryon only closed his eyes for a moment, as if paying his respects to the victims.

  Alex felt an intruder into all these people’s lives. These were their neighbors laying there, Latchfield Mill being the closest hamlet to Riverbend. It’s likely they met regularly for trade, special festivals, and travel. Some, like the woman crying over the dead man, might be family. And he was just someone who’d showed up a day before the most tragic day in their lives.

  Valerian, Cedric, and the Reaper showed up soon after when that day had grown almost fully dark. He was surprised to see the crew leader amongst them, but he kept his thoughts to himself. They’d also been told of what had happened, but it was one thing to hear it and another entirely different to see it.

  “Lord First,” the Reaper hissed. He looked better rested after a full day’s sleep in the wagon, though the bags beneath his sallow eyes held strong despite it.

  Looking over the hamlet and the dead bodies with narrowed eyes, Valerian turned to Helga. “How many lived in this place?”

  The woman answered after a moment. “Fifty, sixty people. Good folk,” she added mournfully.

  “There aren’t enough bodies,” Valerian noted.

  Helga seemed to catch on quickly and her eyes widened.

  “Search the houses,” she told a group of villagers that had formed around her. “Find whoever’s left, dead or alive.”

  It wasn’t a lengthy task. The houses in Latchfield Mill were as small as the village itself was. After a few lanterns had been lit, the villagers confirmed Valerian’s suspicions soon enough. Only six more bodies amongst all of the houses.

  Valerian had taken one of the lanterns for himself and gone out as well, but instead of walking into the homes, he’d wandered around the village, through the narrow alleys between houses, then finally ended his tour by the river.

  “It happened in the morning,” he told them after he was done. “Maybe even before daybreak. I found tracks coming from the forest. Feet, he said. Large feet.”

  The answer didn’t need to be verbalized. They all knew it. Kruwal.

  “There are no tracks leading anywhere up or down the road, nor back into the forest. They all lead to the river, and the Kruwal have no notion of watercraft. So…” he paused. “So I believe they made the people they captured build rafts to ferry them all across. There are some signs of recent woodwork by the riverbank. Saw dust and rough cuttings left behind. And the mill is nearly empty of logs.”

  Alex felt his eyebrows climb up. Not only a paladin, but a detective too. Valerian had more up his sleeves than he let on.

  “Wait,” Daven said. He closed his eyes for a moment, and when they opened, the blue in them glimmered faintly in the lantern light. Walking up closer to the riverbank, he stared out across the river and quickly nodded to himself. “Yeah, you can see it once you know what to look for,” he called back. “They tried to hide them in the foliage, but they’re there. Something like a dozen rafts. Maybe more.”

  Night vision? Alex wondered. Or maybe just a form of enhanced eyesight. He couldn’t tell which, and he well remembered Cedric’s warning on asking people about what gates and traces they had available. Still, Daven was an archer. Some kind of trace to augment his vision was fitting.

  “Those who did this might have crossed,” Bryon interjected. “But we don’t know if there aren’t more around this side of the river.”

  Hearing the blacksmith, Daven dashed back from the riverbank and snatched the bow he’d dropped. Almost instinctively, he turned back to look at where the injured carts were parked as if to confirm there wasn’t a Kruwal lurking over Diana.

  The idea was a grim one. Alex felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. The Kruwal could be watching them like he’d thought earlier. Only not from the other side of the river, but from the endless forests around them. Now that night had fallen, he could barely see ten feet beyond the firelight of the flickering lanterns. The trees beyond the road and the houses were shrouded in thick darkness, their branches drifting in the breeze like gnarled claws.

  I’m sure falling asleep tonight’s gonna be great.

  A villager he didn’t know the name of spoke up then. “We should burn those rafts if we can, no?”

  “You gonna volunteer to do it, Matty?” someone who looked like they might be his cousin answered. “Swim across the whole bloody Dunnser at night, burn a dozen rafts, and come back?”

  “Er, I was thinking one of the chasers might do it,” Matty said. He turned to the crew and raised his hands apologetically. “No disrespect meant, you see.”

  Looking across, Alex tried to calculate the distance between the two riverbanks. “I might be able to do it from here,” he said, though it sounded doubtful even to his own ears. The other side of the river was farther than any of his traces had ever reached.

  “Don’t bother, chaser,” Helga said. “Fire would only alert them we’re here. Besides, even if we do burn them today, they could just have the people they took build them more rafts tomorrow. No, best we leave them as is. We’ll bury the dead and keep travelling. There’s a nice clearing an hour south where we can camp for the night. I don’t want us spread out over the road to sleep. We’ll bunch together and draw the carts close.”

  Bryon and the other villagers nodded in agreement. It was a reasonable plan, Alex thought.

  “Uh, not to be rude,” Daven said, “but aren’t we in a rush? Not that I don’t want to bury them, but, you know, with the Kruwal on our asses and all that.”

  “We need to bury them, otherwise this might become cursed ground.” That was Valerian.

  “Cursed ground?!”

  “Can’t you feel it, lad?” The Reaper asked. “The heaviness in the air? How it weighs on you, as if trying to pull you under the earth? One more day like this and we’ll have graveghouls or worse rising up. Trust me, we don’t need another thing to worry about.”

  “He’s right,” Cedric spoke up for the first time, his voice raspy. “Places with such horrific deaths are known to also create some of the worst dungeons. Especially if we leave the bodies left to rot.”

  That settled it. With the Reaper’s help to soften the ground, the burial sites were dug in less than half an hour, and the earth mage himself said some sort of prayers or last rites as the bodies were laid to rest. Instead of one massive gathering to mourn like with Orson, the villagers honored the dead as they passed by them on the roadside.

  Meanwhile, Helga organized a group of men and women to scout their surroundings for any Kruwals as they travelled and later slept. Most of them were Riverbender men who were hunters by trade. Regular hunters, Alex deduced, not chasers with a hunter class. They carried bows and hunting knives with them, while Bryon had handed out any spare weapons he had brought with him to any who wished to carry them.

  As he expected, sleep did not come easy that night. Huddled in a worn blanket under the starless sky, Alex’s thoughts spun. First the dungeons, then the Kruwals. Now whatever this was. Cursed ground. Graveghouls. What kind of freak world had he ended up in?