“What?” Seraphina asked, bewildered
“What is she saying?” Rune echoed her confusion.
The woman stopped in front of the horses, arms raised. The horses halted, neighing and stomping their hooves in agitation. Seraphina thought the woman was strange, mad maybe, shouting at them things that made no sense, but she didn’t seem to be dangerous. She jumped off and approached her, using her walking stick to make sure she didn’t step into a puddle. But the stick was more for light defense in case the woman made a move Seraphina didn’t agree with.
“No, girl! Get back on your horse.” The woman took a few steps back, seemingly terrified. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean why? Haven’t you heard?”
“Ma’am, we’re simple travelers. I think we lost our way. We don’t even know where we are.”
“This is Langenbach, the cursed town. Plagued, under quarantine. Everyone around these parts knows. People would’ve warned you about it. Turn back now, or the bone fever will claim you.”
Seraphina heard Rune get off his horse. She felt his presence behind her, and she turned to crane her neck at him, studying the shadow of his face. He had his hood on, drawn low over his eyes. Hers was down, and the woman must’ve noticed the scarf by now, but she didn’t comment. From what she was saying, Seraphina understood she’d seen much worse, and mere blindness wasn’t going to impress her.
“Langenbach,” Seraphina said, feeling a tightness in her chest and a lump starting to form in her throat. “I passed through here two years ago. It was a bustling town back then. What happened?”
The woman’s arms fell, hanging limp at her sides. Her shoulders slumped, and she shook her head.
“The war. We held out for as long as we could, but four months ago, the town was bombarded. Then the Blasphemer’s army swept in, killed, raped, and raided. We got reinforcements and the resistance took it back, but it was all in ruin by then. This was mid-July. By the end of the month, we started noticing people getting sick. They felt weak before, troubled by fevers that came and went, but then the bruises began to appear, purple spots behind the ears, around the wrists and ankles. Then followed the bone-deep aches, a pain so hollow that it seemed to emanate from the marrow itself. Around that time, the refugees that had fled to neighboring towns looking for shelter were returned by soldiers, marched in chains so they wouldn’t escape. They told us the town was under quarantine, that the fever was contagious. Some of the soldiers stayed as well, already feeling the sickness nestling in their bones. By September, half of thesick in Langenbach had died. Of the ones still alive, only a few are still standing and able to work and take care of the dying.”
“Oh God,” Seraphina whispered. “That’s dreadful.”
The woman sighed. “I don’t know how you two ended up here, but it might be too late already. The sickness spreads through the air. We’ve been standing here, talking, and it’s probably inside you already.”
“But how... how did it start? I’ve never heard of the bone fever before.”
“They poisoned our wells. The church well, and the well in the market square. Most people use those, not a lot of houses have their own well. It took us weeks to discover what was causing the sickness. My husband carried water from the church well every morning and evening, and one day, he pulled the bucket up and inside it, he saw a lattice floating.”
“A lattice,” Rune repeated.
“No bigger than my hand. Langenbach is a small town. We don’t have any relic schools or lattice weavers. The lattices we have are medical grade and donated by Krähenstein Academy to aid at the hospital. They’re all broken now. We used them to lower fevers and keep patients conscious, but we pushed them to their limit, and they fell apart. So, when my husband, God rest his soul...” She made the sign of the cross. “He died a month ago. When he found the lattice in the well, we knew it was the Blasphemer’s work. We checked all the other wells and discovered a second lattice in the one in the market square. Their bombarding and raiding didn’t destroy the town, but two poisonous lattices did.”
She fell silent, and Seraphina sensed she needed a moment to mourn her husband and gather her thoughts. She and Rune were quiet, but Seraphina’s mind worked.
This was the town where she and Matteo had stopped last before getting back on the road to Ingolstadt. They wereattacked hours after they left Langenbach, so Seraphina could say that this was where she’d spent the last peaceful, cheerful moments with Matteo, at the tavern where they ate, drank strong beer, and made plans for the future. Matteo had told her about the lattice patterns he was working on, and she’d listened with fascination, asking him about bone cuts.
“Is the Black Eagle still standing?” she asked in a small voice.
“The tavern? Yes. It has its own well, so the family running it was spared for a while. Now they’re all sick. The tavern keeper runs it still, with his two sons, but his wife is in the hospital, her life hanging by a thread. The hospital is in the church now. The old one was bombarded, and we had to improvise.”
She nodded, her thoughts taking a trip into the past. She remembered that day vividly, how Matteo chose a table at the back, away from prying eyes, so they could eat and talk in peace. When Hartmann and the other guard left to check on the horses and smoke a pipe outside, she and Matteo drew close, foreheads touching as he drew a sketch for her in his journal. He always had his pocketbook with him, where he sketched patterns and wrote his thoughts. Seraphina had never looked in it uninvited, knowing some things he wrote were personal.
“Can you take us to the church?” Rune asked, and Seraphina startled at the sound of his voice.
“Absolutely not,” the woman said “The air is poisoned there. If you breathe it, the fever will come faster.”
Seraphina took a few steps toward her and reached out to touch her arm.
“What is your name?”
“Willa.”
“Willa, I’m Seraphina, and this is Rune. As you can see, I’m blind. He is my eyes, and do you know what else he is?”
The woman looked up at Rune and shook her head. She couldn’t see his face, so what did she know? These strangershad come out of nowhere, and she’d poured her heart out to them. Seraphina knew that was because she rarely saw other people anymore, aside from those ambling about and dying. Langenbach had been cut out from the world, and she’d be surprised if any of the towns around still sent them supplies.
