Rattling shutters and gaps between the wooden slats of walls allowed a faint breeze into the store. The establishment smelled of dust, mildew, and the acrid aroma of burning leaves that kept the ubiquitous mosquitoes and flies from riding the weather inside. It wasn't that much of a store, all in all; but then, it wasn't that much of a town, either.
The bulk of the voices—and there were always voices, despite the store's ramshackle appearance—wafted from the counter opposite the door, and from the racks of meats and baked goods alongside. Ellithir allowed the locals to loiter, picking at the foods and paying for whatever they consumed, rather than insisting they buy in bulk. Just another way to compete with the eateries and taverns in town—all two of them. Even over the sounds of those voices, though, the willowy elf heard rickety floorboards beneath a hesitant tread, and the faint rustling and thumping of someone browsing idly through the aisles of various tools.
The visitor eventually emerged from the second aisle over, between haphazard coils of hempen rope and a portcullis of dangling rakes. Beneath a mop of unruly red hair, Khydol's face was morose. The gold-hued tunic he normally favored was hidden by a cloak and mantle of drab brown—as was the holy pendant he usually wore exposed for all to see.
Gracefully, her own steps squeezing nary a squeak from the floorboards, Ellithir stepped from behind the other counter—the one where she normally tallied up purchases—and produced a three-legged stool for her guest.
"Thank you." Clearly a response born solely of instinct; his eyes hadn't even focused on her. Ellithir studied him further: the abnormal garb, the pensive gaze, the faintly pointed ears indicating that he shared a portion of her own racial heritage.
Studied him, and waited for him to come to it in his own time.
"It's done," he said finally.
She nodded. She'd expected as much. "And this troubles you?"
"It..." he shrugged. "Yes. Somewhat. It's just... a lot to take on."
"I know it is." She reached out, gripping his shoulder tight. "We've talked about this, Khydol. You're doing the right thing. Look at what else is happening over there! Hail, in this season? Wilting crops? If the gods are finally showing their wrath at those apostates, surely your anger is justified!" It was an old discussion, one they'd held half a dozen times before. Khydol agreed with her, she knew that; he just had to be reminded.
"And besides," Ellithir continued, jabbing a finger at the half-elf's unseen holy icon, "what else would she ask of you but vengeance?"
Reverentially, Khydol reached beneath the woolen mantle and withdrew the heavy pendant. There, worked into the silver, were the triple daggers of the Savored Sting: Calistria, mistress of lust, deception... and retribution.
"The goddess be praised," Khydol murmured, softly but sincerely. Across the store, the voices began to taper off as men and women glanced out the windows, saw the first streamers of smoke writhing from over the horizon—and over the border.
"The goddess be praised," Ellithir echoed, her thin lips quirked in the faintest of smiles.
∗ ∗ ∗
The ghosts of Marcov Draeven's past have taken their toll.
In some taverns, a brawl means something has gone very wrong, and it's time to yell for the watch. In others, it just means that sailors are in port, or teamsters are between deliveries, and someone's imbibed a bit too freely.
And then there are those in which a brawl simply means "We're open."
The stranger—one of many—slouched in a rickety chair, trying to absorb the last dregs of warmth from the hearth's dying embers, and watched with profound disinterest as the last of this evening's rowdies were hurled out the door by the husband-and-wife team of half-orc bouncers. The fight hadn't even been fun to watch; those killjoy bouncers had stepped in too early.
He couldn't be bothered to remember the tavern's name. The latest in an endless line, tracing a pathway of pain across the Inner Sea, it was nothing to him but another place to drink, and maybe chase a few hours' slumber. It wasn't even a good place; that damn insect-repelling herbal smoke that had recently grown so popular throughout the River Kingdoms was giving him a headache.
Not that Marcov Draeven appeared any more special than the shabby ale hall. Grease-matted hair that might, if clean, have appeared a rich brown hung past his shoulders in ragged strings. Unshaven cheeks went beyond gaunt into sunken, and red-rimmed, deep-set eyes suggested many recent sleepless nights. An old and often-patched chain hauberk left rust stains on a tunic almost too dark to show them. Only his weapon, a monster of a hand-and-a-half sword, demonstrated any signs of care. It currently leaned against the wall, unscabbarded, like any old walking stick.
Any of the patrons who noticed him at all—and if they did, it was only for that naked blade—had certainly dismissed him as just another sellsword, gone somewhat to seed, haunted by past years.
They had no idea how right they were.
To those potential observers, it would surely have seemed just another drunken mishap as fingers fumbled and lost their grip. They might have chuckled as the mug toppled and bounced across the floor, leaving tiny chips to mingle with the layers of broken crockery that served as the tavern's carpet.
Only Marcov himself knew that he'd placed the damn thing solidly on the table, that his hand was a good four or five inches away when it had suddenly gone skidding over the edge.
"Pharasma take you!" His low growl was surely inaudible to any nearby ears. "Leave me alone! Just one evening, damn you..."
His sword wobbled against the wall, threatening to tilt.
Spitting curses, Marcov stumbled a few steps from the chair—not drunk, entirely, but not precisely sober either—and dropped to one knee, hand outstretched to retrieve the fallen tankard.
That lean brought him just near enough to the next table to overhear the conversation over the ambient cacophony. Which, he realized sourly, had been the entire point.
Their entire point.
"...third town in as many weeks!"
"Bandits, maybe? Been a rough harvest. Lots of folks goin' hungry over there."
"Bandits steal, ya idiot. Kill a few; rape some, maybe. What kinda bandits burn whole towns to the ground?"
"I dunno. Angry ones?"
"Idiot."
"Yer both idiots. It's divine vengeance, it is. Knew it was comin' to 'em sooner or later."
"No!" Marcov hissed as he rose, wayward flagon forgotten. "Not my business. Not my problem!"
The mug at his feet shattered as though crushed beneath an unseen heel. His sword against the wall, and the chair he'd so recently vacated, began to rock.
"No, gods damn you!" He already had a goal, had somewhere to be! Why wouldn't they just—?
The chair toppled, one leg snapping loose. The embers in the fireplace burst upward, then extinguished themselves in a sizzling, sifting rain of ash.
And the howling began.
A single voice, at first. Then a dozen... three dozen... a hundred... more. Shrieks of terror, wails of despair, screams of agony, sobs of grief. The final gasps of the dying, and the hopeless moans of the damned.
Nobody else heard them—Marcov knew that all too well from prior experience—but that didn't make them any less deafening to him! Once more he fell to his knees, hands clasped to his ears, eyes squeezed so tightly shut that flickers of color flashed across his lids.
"Stop it! Stop it! Leave me alone!"
The howling only grew louder. The sword fell, sliding across the hearth, quillons grating on brick. Crockery atop the surrounding tables began to shake and clatter.
Strong-willed, stubborn, and prideful was Marcov Draeven. Even in the face of the unnatural onslaught, the gale of angry souls, it took him nearly a full minute to bend.
"All right! All right, you bastards, enough!" The sellsword's hands dropped from his ears to the floor, where he crouched like a wounded animal. "Enough," he repeated, far more softly.
The howling stopped. The surrounding objects ceased their impossible dance. And Marcov opened his eyes.
The room around him had changed, and not just by the will of the dead. Chairs and tables lay strewn where patrons had bolted to their feet and retreated from the spectral maelstrom. Quite a few had fled, to judge by the gaping door (and, in a some instances, windows). Most of those who remained stood, wide-eyed and sweating, pressed against the farthest walls, but a few edged forward, hands reaching for weapons.
Marcov slowly rose, stretched out his hand, and hissed something at his phantasmal retinue. The broad-bladed bastard sword flew from its spot by the hearth to land in his waiting palm with a muted slap.
The bravery rushed out of those few courageous souls, along with gasps and muted shrieks. They, too, fell back against the walls once more.
Marcov needed only a moment to find one of the men on whose conversation he had eavesdropped. "The towns you were talking about—where are they?"
"I... That... Towns? Sir, I don't want any—"
"Where. Are. They?"
"Touvette!" It was scarcely a squeak. "Eastern Touvette!"
A sharp nod, and then Marcov turned toward the shivering barkeep. "For the damages." He fumbled at his belt a moment before he found his coin purse, not due to any lingering intoxication—Marcov was quite sober now—but because his possessions had a bad habit of never remaining precisely where he'd put them. Finally, he scooped out a handful of silver, which he casually dropped to the floor when the barkeep showed no interest in coming anywhere near him. Then, sword still unsheathed resting flat upon his shoulder, Marcov strode toward the stables.
∗ ∗ ∗
The reinforced leather of Loursa's armor absorbed the stroke that would otherwise have split kidney and spine both. Still, she staggered a step across the churned and muddy field before spinning around, whipping sweaty strands of hair from her face, and slamming the heavy stock of the crossbow against the brigand's jaw. Something cracked—bone or wood, she wasn't certain, but the man collapsed. Loursa took that momentary respite to draw her own blade, catch a few deep breaths, and assess.
Kelbran hadn't been much better off than any of the other tiny communities scattered near Touvette's easternmost borders. The unseasonable ice storms had ravaged the settlement's crops as badly as its neighbors'; its people were just as desperate, just as destitute. But when the invaders came, and the first of the villages fell, Kelbran had welcomed survivors, rather than turning them away to seek refuge elsewhere. It was a decision that Loursa and the other guards had questioned when Samrev first made it, but the old village reeve had been adamant. "We have no charities in Kelbran to provide such services, as the great cities do," he'd said, "but we can show charity all the same."
He'd had a practical motive as well, it turned out. When the invaders finally came to Kelbran, the sixth community to suffer their depredations, Loursa and the other guards had met them with a much larger force than they'd anticipated—a force made up partly of refugees who, though starved and exhausted, burned with the need to avenge their own lost homes. Nobody knew how these bandits had managed to avoid the military patrols that scoured Touvette's major roads, but for the first time, it looked as though they might not be unstoppable.
Still, Kelbran had paid the price; Loursa wasn't sure, but she might well be the only guard left, and at least a third of the townsfolk lay hacked and mutilated. The rest fought in groups, overwhelming bandits alone or in pairs, making up in numbers and ferocity what they lacked in equipment and training. Loursa again brushed sandy hair from her face—she couldn't even remember when she'd lost her helmet—and hefted her sword, ready to go and assist. As long as nothing else changed, victory was just a matter of—
Everything disintegrated in a chorus of screams as the first of the dead shambled over the nearby knolls.
They weren't many, as compared to the townsfolk or bandits. But then, they didn't need to be. Dozens of villagers broke and ran. Those that remained stood rooted in shock, if only for an instant, and in that instant the invaders attacked with renewed vigor. The walking corpses had turned the tide in favor of their living allies before they'd even drawn near enough to strike.
The screaming only grew louder—not merely in pain or in panic, though both were plentiful enough, but in appalled recognition. Loursa's heart, already beating like a charging hound, climbed into her throat as she recognized many of these creatures as the dead citizens of other fallen towns.
The last few dozen survivors of Kelbran found themselves in a chaotic mass, their homes behind them, bandits and the shambling dead to all other sides. Loursa squeezed the hilt of her sword, struggling to hold tight despite the patina of sweat, and prayed for a miracle. Any miracle.
Had she known what sort of miracle was coming, her prayers might have been a bit more specific.
Coming Next Week: A mysterious cult lurks in the shadows in Chapter Two of Ari Marmell's "Best Served Cold."
Ari Marmell is an author and game designer, and has written extensively for Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, World of Darkness, and more. His fiction includes the independent dark fantasy novels The Conqueror's Shadow and The Warlord's Legacy, the young adult fantasy Thief's Covenant, and the Iron Kingdoms novel In Thunder Forged, among others. For more information, see his website at mousferatu.com.
Illustration by Damon Westenhofer
