Michael Sullivan - Avempartha

“Did you find Arista?” Fanen asked. “Is she…”

“We don’t know,” Hadrian replied. “The deacon says it took her and Theron’s daughter. She might still be alive.”

The women of the village tended the wounds of those found at the castle, while the men began gathering what supplies, tools, and food stores they could find into a pile at the well. They were a motley bunch, haggard and dirty like a band of shipwrecked travelers left on a desert island. Few of them spoke and when they did, it was always in whispered tones. From time to time, someone would weep softly, kick a scorched board, or merely wander off a ways only to drop to their knees and shake.

When, at last, the men were bandaged and the supplies stacked, Tomas, who had cleaned himself up, stood and said a few words over the dead and they all observed a moment of silence. Then Vince Griffin stood up and addressed them.

“I was the first to settle here,” he said with a sad voice. “My house stood right there, the closest to this here well. I remember when most of you were considered newcomers, strangers even. I had great hopes for this place. I donated eight bushels of barley every year to the village church, though all I seen come of it was this here bell. I stayed here through the hard frost five years ago and I stayed here when people started to go missing. Like the rest ’a you, I thought I could live with it. People die tragically everywhere, be it from the pox, the plague, starvation, the cold, or a blade. Sure, Dahlgren seemed cursed, and maybe it is, but it was still the best place I’d ever lived. Maybe the best place I ever will live, mostly because of you all and the fact that the nobles hardly ever bothered us, but all that’s over now. There’s nothing here no more, not even the trees that was here before we came, and I don’t fancy spending another night in the well.” He wiped his eyes clear. “I’m leaving Dahlgren, I ’spose many ’a you will be too, and I just wanted to say that when you all came here I saw you as strangers, but as I am leaving, I feel I’m gonna be saying goodbye to family, a family that has gone through a lot together. I…I just wanted you all to know that.”

Everyone nodded in agreement and exchanged muttered conversations with the person nearest them. It was decided by all that Dahlgren was dead and that they would leave. There was talk about trying to stay together, but it was only talk. They would travel as a group, including Sir Erlic and the woodsman Danthen south at least as far as Alburn where some would turn west hoping to find relatives while others would continue south hoping to find a new start.

“So much for the church’s help,” Dillon McDern said to Hadrian. “They were here two nights and look.”

Dillon and Russell Bothwick walked over to where Theron sat against a blackened stump.

“’Spect you’ll be staying to find Thrace?” Dillon asked.

Theron nodded. The big man had not bothered to wash and he was coated in dirt and soot. He had the broken blade on his lap and stared at it.

“You think it’ll be back tonight, do ya?” Russell asked.

“I think so. It wants this. Maybe if I give it back, it will give Thrace to me.”

The two men nodded.

“You want us to stay behind and give you hand?” Russell asked.

“A hand with what?” the old farmer asked. “Nothing you can do, either of ’ya. Go on, you both have families of your own. Get out while you can. Enough good people have died here.”

The two men nodded again.

“Good luck to you, Theron,” Dillon said.

“We’ll wait a while in Alburn to see if you show up,” Russell told him. “Good luck.”

Russell and Tad fashioned a sled from charred saplings and loaded what little they had on it. Lena mashed up a salve, which she applied to Hilfred’s burns, and left it and a pile of bandages with Tomas who took it on himself to stay with the soldier. And so it was, that with only a few things to pack up and carry with them, the bulk of the villagers were on their way westward by early afternoon. No one wanted to be anywhere near Dahlgren after sunset.

“What are we doing here?” Royce asked Hadrian as the two sat on a partially burned tree trunk. They were just up the old village path from the well near where the Caswell’s two little wooden grave markers used to be. Like everything else, they were gone, nothing left to mark their passing. They could see Deacon Tomas sitting with Hilfred who still lay unconscious.

“This job has cost us two horses, over a week’s worth of provisions, and for what?” Royce went on, and with a sigh broke off a bit of charred bark and absently tossed it. “We should head out with the rest of them. The girl is likely dead already. I mean why would it keep her alive? The Gilarabrywn holds all the cards. It can kill us at will, but we can’t harm it. It has hostages, while all we have is half a sword that it doesn’t really need, but apparently would just like to have. If we had both parts of the sword Magnus could put them back together and we could at least bargain from a position of some strength. We could even have the dwarf make us all swords, and maybe even spears with the right name on it. Then we could have a go at the bastard, but right now, we have nothing. We are no threat to it at all. Theron thinks he’s going to bargain, but he doesn’t have anything to bargain with. The Gilarabrywn set this up only to save itself the tedium of hunting for that sword.”

“We don’t know that.”

“Sure we do. It won’t keep those girls alive. It probably had them for lunch already and when night comes, old Theron will be standing out there like a fool with exactly what it wants. He’ll die and that will be that. On the other hand, his stupidity will buy time for the rest of us to get away. Considering his whole family is gone and his daughter is most likely already dead, it’s probably for the best.”

“He won’t be standing there alone,” Hadrian said.

Royce turned with a sick look on his face. “Tell me you’re joking.”

Hadrian shook his head.

“Why?”

“Because you’re right, because everything you just said will happen if we leave.”

“And you think if we stay it will be different?”

“We’ve never quit a job before, Royce.”

“What are you talking about? What job?”

“She paid us to get the sword for her.”

“I got the sword. Her old man’s got it right now.”

“Only part of it and the job won’t be finished until he has both parts in his hands. That’s what we were hired to do.”

“Hadrian.” Royce ran a hand over his face and shook his head. “For the love of Maribor, she paid us ten silver!”

“You accepted it.”

“I hate it when you get like this.” Royce stood suddenly, picking up a charred piece of scrap. “Damn it,” he threw it into a pile of smoking wood that was once the Bothwick’s home. “You’re just going to get us killed, you know that, right?”

“You don’t have to stay. This is my decision.”

“And what are you going to do? Fight it when it comes? Are you going to stand there in the dark swinging at it with swords that can’t hurt it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re insane,” Royce told him. “The rumors are all true; Hadrian Blackwater is a damn loon!”

Hadrian stood to face his friend. “I’m not going to abandon Theron, Thrace, and Arista. And what about Hilfred. Do you think he can travel? You try dragging him through the woods and he’ll be dead before nightfall, or do you want to try stuffing him in a well all night and think he’ll be just fine in the morning? And what about Tobis? How far do you think he’ll get on a broken leg? Or don’t you give a damn about them? Has your heart gotten so black you can just walk away and let them all die?”