Jean Rabe - Redemption

“Fiona!” Dhamon heard her sloshing along the creek. “May I have one of those knives?”

The Solamnic Knight looked up without recognition. She had cleaned up nicely, though her face looked raw with scars, and the cut on her forehead was still swollen and ugly.

“A knife, please?”

In a move so fast it surprised him, Fiona drew one of the knives from her belt and thrust it forward, its tip hovering in front of Dhamon’s stomach. “Will this knife do?” Her eyes were vacant, her voice ice. She inched the blade forward until its tip pressed into his flesh. Her free hand drifted down to the second knife. “Or do you want to borrow two?”

He didn’t reply and he didn’t retreat. He just stared into her eyes, hoping to connect with sanity.

“Just why do you want to have one of these knives, Dhamon? Do you want to use my own weapons against me?” She tugged the second knife free, but held it at her side. “Or maybe you want to—”

“Cut his hair with it.” Ragh grabbed the threatening knife. He’d moved up behind her silently. He passed the knife pommel first to Dhamon, who after a moment backed away.

“Oh. Cut his hair.” Fiona turned and knelt at the edge of the creek. She transferred her remaining knife to her right hand and speared a crawfish on the pebble-lined bottom. She worried the blade at its shell, pulled out the flesh, and stuffed it into her mouth.

Looking at her, Dhamon felt more pity than anger. He quickly shaved and cut the tangles from his air.

Though his hair was uneven and hung to just above his shoulders, he looked more presentable. Sticking the knife in his belt, and acknowledging Fiona’s glare for doing so, he led his two companions back to what was left of the road. He didn’t stop for rest or speak again until, an hour later, the silhouette of a town came into view.

It was a mining colony at the road’s end, just as indicated on Ragh’s map. The mining town was empty, and they quickly bypassed it for fear there might be another Chaos wight haunting the place. They continued to follow faded wagon tracks until just before sunset when they camped in the open away from a fresh cluster of sinkholes. The sunset was the only dash of color on the land, painting the ground a pale orange and making the edges of the low-hanging clouds look like liquid gold. They drank in the beautiful sight without speaking. Fiona and Ragh settled in for the evening when the last of the color faded. Dhamon sat watch all during the night, listening to the soft snores of the draconian and the surf washing against the nearby beach. He stared out into the darkness as he felt the heat begin to radiate from the large scale on his leg. Clamping his teeth shut and swallowing a scream., he dug his fingers into the earth and endured another painful episode without waking the others. It was a night of excruciating agony.

All the while he thought of Riki and his child—his need to see them before he died, needing to know that they were all right. There was Maldred to consider, too, and other things to atone for if there was time. Before the torment sent him spiraling into unconsciousness, he prayed to the vanished gods that he had enough days to set things right.

There was a cemetery on the outskirts of Bev’s Oar, most of the graves marked by wooden planks the color of the earth. Rows of markers stood as straight as soldiers’ ranks, the ground hard-packed and forbidding with silt blown across it by the wind.

“Graves are old,” Ragh stated.

“Most of them,” Dhamon said. He pointed far to his left, where two more recent graves told them someone was still alive in town to do the burying. Dhamon reached into his pocket and felt the coins he’d taken from the skeleton. He tugged a few out, the light catching them and glinting. “We’ll get something to eat in the town, get some clothes, a passage.” Get off this rock and be about my business—fast, he added to himself.

Dhamon inhaled deep—his keen senses picking up the smell of the earth, the rotting wooden grave markers, and the faint scent of bread baking, cinnamon. He pointed down a path to the row buildings about a half mile away. “Just through this graveyard and—”

“Wonder who’s buried here?” Fiona had wandered away and was staring at the marker on the grave that seemed to be one of the most recent. Dhamon and Ragh joined her. The marker was a polished plank of walnut that looked like it was once the back of a chair, and carved on it were the words: Died After The Sun Went Down.

A chill raced down Dhamon’s spine, and suddenly the smell of the bread wasn’t quite as tempting. He looked at the other markers. The oldest were the hardest to read, the sea air and the years weathering them badly. However, they had the most information on them—names and dates: Mavelle Colling, Beloved Wife and Sister; Wilgan G. Thrupp, Died of the Sweating Sickness; Bold Bolivir, Treasured Husband and Son; Ann-Marie, Cherished Grandmother ; and more. Graves that appeared less than two or three decades old lacked any detail. There were no names, no real dates. One said: Tall Man . Another: Old Woman. Some said: Died Today , though “today” had to have been a year or more ago judging by the condition of the packed earth.

Little Boy, Red-Haired Man, Fishing Man, Thin Elf, One-Eared Goblin, Woman in Apron, Lovely Young Girl, Tavern Owner , and the like.

“What in the levels of the Abyss?” Dhamon breathed. “What kind of a weird cemetery is this?”

Ragh was tracing the more informational message on a very old, chipped stone. “Beven Wilthup-Colling, Proud Founder of Bev’s Oar. Born in the summer of the Year of the Storms, Died at age sixty in the Year of the Great Turtles.”

“I’m done sightseeing at this cemetery,” Fiona said. “All this death is depressing. Death surrounds you, Dhamon. Let’s go into the village.”

Dhamon grabbed her arm. “Aye, Fiona, we’re going into that village. But this cemetery has given me a bad sense about the place. You and Ragh shouldn’t go in until after I’ve made sure it’s safe.”

“Dhamon the hero,” she said tonelessly.

“I’m no hero,” he said.

“No, I guess you’re not. A hero would have saved Jasper and Shaon.”

Dhamon snarled, thrusting Fiona at Ragh. “Keep her here until I get back.”

“Who were Jasper and Shaon?” Ragh asked.

The dwarf Jasper was a very good friend , Dhamon thought. I almost killed him but it wasn’t my fault, the red dragon controlled me. I couldn’t save him later on at the Window to the Stars. Fiona knows. She knows the list. Jasper—one more name on the list of people who died because they adventured with me. Shaon… A dragon I once rode killed her.

“Who were Jasper and Shaon?”

“The two of you stay here until I come back,” Dhamon said tersely. He wasn’t about to add Fiona to the list, or the draconian for that matter.

“And if you don’t come back?” Ragh asked.

Dhamon hurried down the path toward Bev’s Oar.

He sighed with relief when he was beyond the graveyard and at the edge of town. The first few buildings he saw were relatively new and well-maintained, with brightly painted eaves and shutters and dried flowers arranged in pots outside the doors. Signs hung above businesses, the pictures on them showing a tavern, fishmonger, inn, and weaver. So far, so good. Things looked normal.

“Thank the Dark Queen’s memory,” he breathed. “People.”

He wasn’t sure what he’d expected to see, but part of him didn’t expect the dozen or so men and women who strolled along a cobblestone street that served as the main thoroughfare—he could hear the indistinct click-clack of their heels, an altogether welcome sound. A dog yipped as it playfully chased a lanky young man around a corner and down a side street. A matronly woman clucking at a child at her side carried a basket filled with bread. Dhamon took a few steps down the street, his own heels clacking on the cobblestones—indeed a comfortable sound, he told himself, after all they’d been through. He considered waving to get Ragh’s attention, have them both hurry into town right now, but he didn’t know how the people would react to his scales. If they didn’t accept him, they wouldn’t accept the draconian. He had to check things out a little more.