In the shadows of the night, when I was worried about being ambushed, it was bad enough. But now the devastation is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, and all I can do is imagine the heat and the flames, the people and animals panicked and fleeing and burning alive…
Except that’s not the way it happened, was it.
And when I put it all together, I’m even more horrified.
Across the narrow lane, a beam of sunlight at a low angle rounds the corner of another house that’s managed to survive… and the brown marking on the stucco beside the door is highlighted as if something unseen is demanding I pay attention to the symbol.
The sloppy swirl was made in a counterclockwise direction, given where the brush ran out of blood. The drips that flow down from the design suggest it was done in a hurry, and I know, even before I pivot around, that the same marking is going to be beside the door I’ve just come out of.
It is.
As I turn to the lane we rode in on, and look at all the burned-out shells, Idon’t need to inspect any of the other surviving structures to know that they’ve been marked with the symbol as well. It’s anSand aP, intertwined.
Salvation and Protection.
I’ve only ever heard about the dark-magic warning before. Supposedly, it’s made with the blood of a goat or other cloven-hooved animal that’s slaughtered in a prescribed way. What it means is that someone came through here, killed the farmers and their families, along with all the livestock, and then marked the little community as contaminated with evil.
And everything was burned to the ground because when they stacked the bodies and doused them with the same oil used in the lamps in Mr. Lewis’s pub… the fire was so hot, so intense, so big, that it spread throughout the buildings.
The goal was to incinerate the people’s remains, not the houses.
“Merc…?” As I call out, it feels as though I am forever saying his name in that pleading tone of voice. “Where are you?”
I have to find him. I cannot be alone in all of this revelation, though surely he knows what’s transpired here, too.
Assuming he hasn’t left me.
As I set to walking, ash squeaks under the soles of my slipper shoes, and the smell of faded smoke and dead bodies becomes all that I know, the noxious combination staining the insides of my nose and dripping down the back of my throat. Falling into a run in spite of how stiff I am, I try to outpace the stench.
And then I don’t think any more about it… or anything else.
I pass by the final two houses and a long view to northwest unfurls before me. But instead of the fenced-in grazing pasture and then the outer rolling farm fields, it is the lone figure standing in the midst of the grass that draws all my attention.
Merc has his back to me. His black hair is waving in the wind that blows into him, and he’s bathed in the golden light of the dawning sun, the broadsword in his hand glinting silver. Beside him, our horse is cropping great yanks of green blades, tethered by a lead line looped around his chestnut neck.
I’m tempted to call Merc’s name, but something chokes the syllable in my throat.
I’ve never seen the man so still, and I worry he’s spotted something dangerous off in the distance. I scan the horizon, all the way to the slopes of the snowcapped mountains to our west. The sheer breadth of the vista is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, and a sense of vertigo threatens to upend my balance.
There is nothing moving in the landscape. Nothing coming at him… or me.
Meanwhile, he just continues to stay planted there like a statue, his focus unwavering, that eerie lack of motion making me wonder if he’s noted the symbols by the doors, knows what they mean—and is disturbed by where we’ve had to rest the night. Yet that makes little sense. He’s a mercenary who’s traveled anywhere and everywhere to maim or kill on behalf of whoever can pay him most. He has seen such violence before, in one form or another.
May have even committed it from time to time.
As moments pass and dread curdles my gut, I figure I should leave him be. But I should know better than to think I can be sensible when it comes to the man. Unable to stop myself, I step through a fence’s open gate and proceed into a pasture that’s intersected by a sluggish stream.
He doesn’t turn toward me. Not even as I surmount the rounded back of a rickety bridge, my steps causing creaks as I cross the crystal-clear water. The horse hears my approach, however, and cranes his neck around for a brief, disinterested glance—before he resumes his vigorous munching with a nicker.
And still Merc doesn’t seem to notice I’m here.
Pausing to look around again, all I see between us and the mountains are fields planted with crops that were not harvested before the first frost that hit this territory mere nights before, the gourds and melons bruised and browned out, the leaves shriveled up—
Merc drops the lead and starts walking away, as if in a trance. When he gets to the two-rail fence that contains the farming plot, he sheathes his broadsword, ducks through, and continues over to the first of the planted rows. Crouching down, he pushes his hand into the dark soil. As clumps fall through his fingers, his head rises again to the distance.
Wherever he’s gone in his mind, it’s not for the company of others to witness. And because of this, I cannot turn away. I circle to the right, until I catch sight of his profile—
The anguish on his face carves new features into the planes and angles I’ve become so familiar with. He seems twice his age now, and exhausted to the point of illness. Instead of bending down by choice, he appears crushed by burdens so heavy, even he can no longer bear their weight.
