by Cebelius
This must have happened right around the time Mila, Marcus and I left on our journey. There were no hints of any sort of invasion when we departed though.
He continued to search without any real hope of finding much until Twisted came loping back to him, standing on her hind legs as her body rearranged itself under her coat.
"Find anything?" he asked.
"Yeah, actually. You were right. There's something under a pile of debris over there," she said, pointing toward the far side of the clearing. "It's buried under a bunch of ash mud in the corner of an old building, but I can smell a bit of something. Probably bodies, but they weren't buried in a grave. There's an open space."
Frowning, Yuri nodded and said, "Go over and wait for me."
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"To get a shovel."
Laina joined him at the wagon, and as the two walked toward where Twisted stood, she asked, "What do you think happened here?"
"Honestly? I am not sure. My best guess is that some invader came through and killed everyone, and scavengers came through at some point afterward and took what remained, but it happened so long ago that there just isn't anything to tell me who they were, at least, nothing above ground."
Laina pursed her lips as they reached Twisted, who simply pointed at a spot where about four layers of wood from what had once been a log structure remained. Most of the building had been burned, and what was left was too short to make use of. A pile of ash had drifted into the corner here, been rained upon, and plant life had grown up.
Glancing at Twisted, he pointed toward the mound and said, "You smell something through all that?"
Twisted just grinned.
Shrugging, Yuri put the spade of his shovel in and shoved as Laina asked, "Are we diggin' up a grave?"
"Yes."
He tossed a clod of dirt and plant life aside, changed his angle and began to dig in earnest as she asked, "Why're we doin' this? What does this have to do with this sword we're supposed to find?"
"Laina, this whole area seems to have suffered some sort of invasion. Anything we learn here will likely bear on what we find when we get to Svartheim. I believe the sword is there, because Baba Yaga said it was. But we have no knowledge of what lives in Svartheim. Whatever came through here seems to have done a thorough job of completely sweeping the area of civilized life. We would be fools to think the dungeon was not at least impacted, if not actively involved."
Laina frowned, but she set her shovel and began to help Yuri dig.
A bare five minutes of moving earth later, Yuri drove his spade down and heard the snap of wood, and a cascade of dirt fell into the hole he'd made in the board.
The smell hit them then.
It was fetid, rotten, and Laina squeezed her eyes shut and dropped her shovel, stumbling away as she covered her nose.
Yuri was made of sterner stuff. He had smelled this before, many times, and just kept digging. It took another twenty minutes to clear away enough dirt to reveal the outline of the door. Laina'd rejoined him after a moment, helping him gamely until he set his shovel aside.
It was a heavy trapdoor, three by three feet in size with no visible handle or ring. The hole he'd made was near the center of the wood, splintering one of the rotten boards and dropping a sizable chunk down into the cavity below.
"I would not blame you if you do not want to see what is inside," he said, glancing up at Laina. "This will not be pleasant."
"It's already not pleasant," she said, wrinkling her nose. "If this happened so long ago, why's the smell still so bad?"
"Sealed space," he replied quietly. "The walls of basements are often plastered. Without fresh air and vermin to help, rot is slowed considerably."
He looked at her again and said, "I am sorry, Laina, but you truly should not see what I think I will find down there. Would you get me a taper from the wagon? The sun is down and the light fades."
He set his shovel aside as she gave him a queasy look and said, "Yeah ... thanks. I'll be right back."
As the minotress walked away, Yuri stepped far enough from the hole to breathe fresh air, and closed his eyes to steady his nerves.
"What's down there?" Twisted asked. "I mean, sure, bodies, but why's that a big deal?"
"Because," Yuri said with a sigh, "I think there will be children."
"What?! Why?" she asked.
Yuri wiped a hand across his face and turned to meet Twisted's confused gaze. "If there was warning of an attack, it is typical for small settlements such as this to either escape if they can, or to hide those who cannot fight before battle begins."
"And you think this is ..."
He nodded as she trailed off.
"I think it likely that when it was over, there was no one left to rescue whoever was hidden here, and something prevented their escape. I only hope that they can reveal something that can help us, even though it is too late for them."
Laina returned with a metal holder in which was affixed a taper. It was essentially just a long, treated wick, and it would burn for about twenty minutes. It was lit, and cast a glow around her that barely flickered as there was no breeze here beneath the trees.
"You ... sure you don't want me to-"
"Go back to the wagon," he interrupted, accepting the taper. "Someday you may see things like this, or worse, but I will not be the one to thrust it upon you. There is no physical danger. Thank you for the light."
Laina frowned, her bovine ears twisted almost completely down. Her expression was deeply troubled, but she nodded and turned, walking away. Yuri looked after her, saw that Asturial and Euryale were tending a fire they had lit behind the wagon. Beyond them the stream's water glimmered in its track, reflecting the firelight, though he could not hear it from where he stood. Asturial was looking at him, her golden eyes luminous. He could not read her draconian face, but their eyes met a moment, then she looked away.
"How come I get to stay?" Twisted asked.
"Safety," he said, glancing at her. "If something happens in there, I need someone close by to help me."
"But you don't want me coming down?" she asked.
"No. I will call you if I need help, but this is not something I want anyone to see."
Twisted surprised him by coming to him and nuzzling his neck lightly as she said, "Okay. I've seen more than my share of death, but ... yeah, it smells pretty bad down there. I don't mind missing it. You promise you'll call me if you need me?"
"Rest assured," he said with a faint smile.
He returned to the door, set the taper carefully aside, then sat at the edge of the excavated earth and kicked hard. The rotted wood splintered, and only a few kicks were necessary to break enough of it away to reveal a set of plank stairs that angled down and out of sight.
The stairs were much better preserved than the door that had protected them. Yuri took up the taper and with a last deep breath of the clear air, descended into the basement.
The space was not large. Perhaps ten feet wide by twenty long, and his taper was sufficient to reveal the back wall by the time he reached the floor. Four stout wooden posts supported a ceiling that, as he suspected, was plastered along with the walls and floor. Racks ran along each side of the basement. The right racks held a few barrels but were mostly empty. The racks on the left were empty and only took up three quarters of the length of the wall. The last section was taken up by a standing desk on which sat a closed book.
On the floor in two neat lines just in front of the racks were six small bedrolls, each swaddling a lump of rotting remains. The taper's unwavering light revealed little the smell had not. Each body seemed curled as though in sleep, and though there were vile stains around each blanket-wrapped lump, they were not bloodstains.
Yuri nodded, his suspicions confirmed, and he focused on the one figure that was not in a bedroll.
She was sprawled against the back wall, and the remains of the dress told him it had been female. He guessed her species to be either wolfen or
gnoll — likely the former. He couldn't be sure without examining the skull, something he had no intention of doing.
Unlike the other bodies, there was a wide bloodstain around hers, and one hand of the corpse still clutched the knife with which she had slit her own throat.
He lifted the taper, but the walls revealed little beyond a faint sheen put there by the rotting process, and so he went to the standing desk and set his light down, then carefully opened the book.
It was a ledger of record, noting what was stored in the basement. There were dates, and those on the first page were almost twenty years old.
The book was fairly well-preserved, owing to the fact the room had been well sealed, but Yuri was careful as he paged through it, and sure enough he came to a note written for whoever might find the tragic scene:
The air is going bad. I've given the children the sleeping potion. Now there is only me. It's been two days and I can't hear anything.
I can't get out. I am too old to dig free and the children are too small.
There was no time. We did not believe until it was too late. The runner from Steinlunder said they were from Svartheim. We could always deal with the raids before, but something has changed. Now there are hobs with the goblins. They were never there before ... but they're there now. Of that I am sure, though I never saw them myself. We sent a runner of our own on to Torp, but there's no telling if he made it. There are wargs in the woods, and it is not safe even on the roads.
According to the runner we got, the leader of the raiders is a hobgoblin called the Halfrekkr. I wish I could say more, but that is all I know.
This has been my home. It is now my grave.
If anyone ever reads this, please.
Avenge us.
Below that simple plea were written seven names, one of which had the look of a signature.
Marion.
Below the names was a simple, crudely drawn map. A pair of lines Yuri recognized as the road and the stream had a marking for the village this had once been, called Lund. The road continued on to another dot called Steinlunder, and then there was a third dot, to the left of the road under a mark that looked like three mountains, the middle rising highest, the one on the left second and the lowest on the right.
Svartheim.
Yuri had gotten somewhat used to the smell by now, but felt a hard knot rising in his throat as he read those names again, and then the note. The children had been given a draught and died in their sleep when the air ran out, but the woman — Marion — had died by her own hand.
He hesitated a long moment, wondering what he should do. His first instinct was to pledge to the ghost of this woman that he would find the Halfrekkr and avenge her, but his first duty was to Terry. He could not afford to allow himself the sentiment. Nevertheless, he carefully pulled out the page containing the woman's last message, folded it, and tucked it away. He then moved to the body of the woman and carefully retrieved the dagger she'd used to end her own suffering. It had no sheath, but he could make one. It was a small thing meant for preparing fish, slightly curved and too delicate to have been any use cutting through the heavy wood of the trapdoor. He then took up his taper and left the tomb without further search.
He had what he'd come for.
Returning to the free air, he saw Twisted squatting several feet away, and said to her, "Go to the wagon and get me a small tarp. There should be one among the supplies near the front, just behind the seat."
She hesitated a moment, then rose and trotted off, returning a few minutes later with a square of tarp twice as large as would be necessary, but Yuri didn't begrudge the dead their due.
He folded the tarp to the appropriate size, weighted the corners down in the hole with some of the larger chunks of earth he'd earlier dug out, and then began methodically filling the hole in from the edges, tamping periodically to keep the tarp from collapsing under the weight of the earth.
"Won't it collapse again eventually?" Twisted asked after a while.
"Yes, but that will be fine. It only has to last until we are gone. I do not want the smell to draw unwanted attention," he said quietly.
"What did you find down there?" she asked after another few minutes watching him work.
"Answers," he said sharply, pausing to look up at her.
She must have seen something in his eyes, because she recoiled slightly and said, "Okay. I'll um, see you when you're done."
"That would be best."
She left him then, and he finished filling in the hole as best he was able. There was a sizable mound when he was done, but it would serve its purpose. A few light rains might even seal the earth again. Part of him wanted to leave some sort of grave marker, but there would be no point. There was no one left who would remember these people. He was probably the only civilized man alive who knew they'd ever existed now, and he would never forget — no matter how much he wanted to.
He returned to the fire and Laina handed him a bottle of her milk, then wrinkled her nose. Euryale was less circumspect as she snapped, "Go bathe, and wash your clothes. You stink of rot."
He drank the milk, handed back the bottle, and spent so long scrubbing himself and his clothing in the stream that by the time he came back it was to find Laina and Euryale asleep in the wagon.
Asturial was still awake, reclining near the slowly dwindling fire. Her golden-eyed gaze seemed to pierce him as she asked in a voice lowered to keep the sleepers from waking, "Well?"
"We follow the road. There will be another village ... probably like this one, and we will look for three peaks standing together. Svartheim will be there."
"It was bad, wasn't it," she asked.
He nodded, glancing away.
"I could burn it if you like," she offered.
He shook his head. "I thought about that, but a fire would collapse the ground and produce a vast column of smoke, giving us away. I would like to burn them ... but not now. Perhaps if we come back this way, when all is said and done."
Asturial nodded once and said, "Do not let it get to you, Yuri Kolenko. We have larger concerns than a village, or even a city."
"I will take first watch. There are probably wargs in the woods, but I suspect we will hear them before they get near. Sleep well."
Asturial put her head down and closed her eyes without another word.
Yuri glanced around, but there was no sign of Twisted. He was not worried. She would be in her element out there, and was probably hunting for the sort of meal she preferred. In the last four days, she had brought meat twice, but it was obvious she took her meals first.
Four hours later, he woke Euryale, who leaned up and then crawled out of the wagon to take watch. He spread his blankets underneath the wagon rather than in it, finding the ground more comfortable than the hard boards.
Sleep proved elusive though. He stared up at the underside of the wagon and let his thoughts wander where they would. He knew better than to try and control them. That would only make it worse.
Over and over again, he saw the little bundles in two neat rows, the slime that had accreted on the bedrolls. The faint sheen their gradual decay had put on the walls and ceiling.
The half-rotted faces.
He had seen death in many, many forms over the course of his adventures and even before, but never like this. He had washed as best he could, but what he had seen had left him somehow fundamentally unclean.
Movement caught his attention and he glanced to the side to see Twisted slipping between the wheels. She scooted over until she was on all fours next to him and her green eyes, faintly luminous in the dim light, stared down into his. After a moment she glanced to his sleeping roll, then back at him, waiting.
Without really making a conscious decision, he opened his blankets to her. She slid in, cuddling against him and resting her head on his chest as she wrapped an arm around his stomach.
He slid an arm around her body, resting his hand on her hip.
She took a single deep breath, let it
out slowly, and closed her eyes.
He too took a deep breath, but it hitched when he tried to let it out. Twisted squeezed him gently, and after losing a last, desperate internal struggle, he buried his face in her ruff and shuddered, doing his best to keep the sorrow that dampened her fur and clawed at his throat from waking anyone.
Twisted shifted her other arm under his body and gathered him up, rubbing gently at the spot between his ears until his grief for a woman he had never met and would always remember passed, until the haunting visions left him, until, finally, he slept.
14
Into Darkhome
They camped in Steinlunder the day after leaving what Yuri now simply thought of as Marion's grave, and found that circumstances there were much the same. There were bare spots, but what had not been burned had been stolen or transported away. Even most of the rock that had been used for low walls and the like had been broken up and taken.
Yuri understood well the value of construction material for scavengers, but he now suspected that the army that had destroyed this place had also been the ones to cart away the remains of the town. Goblins were too short-lived and short-sighted as a species to care about such things, but hobgoblins were another matter entirely.
Unlike orcs, who very rarely lived above ground and were fiercely tribal, hobgoblins — left to their own devices — would build nations of their own atop the blood and bones of those they had slain to claim the land. They did not integrate, they dominated. All other species within their territories were hunted and enslaved or exterminated with the sole exception of the goblins from which they came.
The last time such a nation had arisen, it had taken the might of the southern empire to destroy it, and though that had been over five hundred years ago, stories were still told of that war.
Yuri had never personally seen a hobgoblin. Little was known about them, other than that the goblins produced them every so often and whenever that happened, they invariably spread like a plague over the land. Most civilized nations had as a national policy the extermination of such creatures.
