Chapter 7
Flynn wiped the sweat from his forehead as he shuffled in front the crowd, which had gathered before the funeral pyre. The midday sun hidden by the grey clouds above as the cold winds whipped through the trees of the public garden.
“Elder Hornefred was a great man and a great minstrel…” Flynn stuttered, “one of finest… He, ah, told the songs better then any man I ever knew.”
Flynn cleared his throat before continuing.
“He was also… a good, ah, great Elder. Even though he… we never completed the second well, not that it matters, we will finish it and when we do… we will remember Hornefred and what he did for us.”
Bahruun stood behind looking out upon the crowd, comfortable and relax. Flynn had refused to let him speak.
Two days earlier, Hornefred had died in his bed, taken by the illness he had been battling for a week. When the body had been removed from the Elder’s chambers Flynn had handed the mantle of Elder to Bahruun without question, Flynn never liked his position as Master of council and he, absolutely, did not want to be Elder.
But then the morning of the of funeral came and as the council met to prepare for the solemn event Bahruun came with the news that Nerys had returned to Finestone and claimed he had been the one to bring her into the town, thinking Flynn would prefer to focus on funeral of his friend.
Flynn, suspicious, went to the guards and found none had seen the gates opened that morning. The coincidence of Nerys returning with no guards seeing her and Bahruun being the one to discover her a few days after Hornefred’s death was too much for Flynn to believe. Flynn then realised his error in giving Bahruun Hornefred’s title, something he was resolved to fix that day.
Flynn returned to the town hall, taken by his fury, cursed Bahruun in front of the whole council, demanding he not say a word at the funeral and that he would deal with him after he had said goodbye to his friend.
The councillors were stunned, unsure what to make of the fight between the two leaders and wondered what had caused Flynn to go into a rage. They shook their heads and whispered to themselves, none of them had ever liked Flynn, finding him a strange, gruff and distant man, but they tolerated him because Hornefred had demanded he be at his side. Flynn did not care what the councillors thought of him, he was not a man who cared to understand the soft art of politics, all he knew was his last friend was gone and Bahruun and the Demon may have been the ones to take him.
As the funeral had begun and the councillors said their words of farewell Nerys, unescorted, appeared at the gate of garden, her cloak flapping wildly behind her like a war banner flying in the wind.
Flynn growled to himself as he watched the Demon approach, doing all he could not to jump from his place and strangle her with his bare hands. The Demon was responsible and she had come to see the fruits of her labour. He met her treacherous, red eyes.
“Shepard Johanna, the final blessing,” said Flynn, low and quiet keeping his eyes on Nerys.
Flynn stepped back into the line of councillors, next to Bahruun.
From the crowd emerged a short, spry woman with curled, black hair. A smile could not help but creep across Nerys’ face as she saw the woman had decided to wear a bright, red dress in place of the elegant, red robes usually worn by the Shepards of the Last Woods. Amused, Nerys wondered what the woman had been before she had been thrown the once scared title of Shepard.
“Thank you, Flynn,” she said quietly and turned to the crowd.
“Hornefred was the greatest that man that we could have hoped for in the darkness of these trying days,” declared Johanna her voice strong, hard and commanding cutting through wind that roared overhead, “when those charged with our protection betrayed us and used their strength to enslave us, Hornefred and only Hornefred, reminded us of the truth we had all long forgotten.”
The smile vanished from Nerys’ lips.
“This man reminded us of what we had forgotten, who we are and where we came from. Our father, Sulla the Fire Babe gives our bodies the strength to fight our enemies. Our father, Quillo the Beautiful give our minds the sharp, cunning we need to survive in these cursed days. And our father Rei the Defiant who gave us the resilience we need to stand hard against any foe.
She paused a few men shouted Hornefred’s name.
“Without this man to lead us we would still be a terrified, we would still be struggling and we would still be lost, cowering from the hands of those that struck us,” she yelled angrily, “and we own it to Hornefred to make sure we do not cower again, that we continue through the trials that are certain to come.”
A feeling of dislike swept over Nerys. This Lower Man, whoever she was, could be an annoyance.
“Johanna,” muttered Flynn seemingly as annoyed as Nerys, “the blessing.”
There was a moment as Johanna looked at Flynn and then turn back to the crowd.
“Shepard,” called Johanna raising her hands, “I call upon you. Bring the Mother Wolf to the Last Woods were Elder Hornefred awaits her.”
The wind in the trees became still and the garden became silent.
“Bring the blessed Mother and let her find a good man, true to his word and loved by those he leaves behind. Let him ride upon the her back, nestled against her regal mane.
“Keep from him the Midnight Worgs who would feast upon those unworthy and untrue. Keep him from him the spirits who wait to trick him from his path. Take him to the edge of the Abyss where he may step into the final end knowing he leaves behind those that will continue his memory.”
There was a pause as the blessing concluded.
“Not the Abyss,” shouted a man from the back, “let him ascend.”
“Yes, let him ascend,” yelled another man aggressively.
“Let him ascend,” shouted the woman standing next Nerys.
Soon the crowd was shouting the same in chorus, a sadness took over Flynn’s face and tears welled in his eyes.
“Silence,” shouted Johanna and the crowd quieted, “do you find Hornefred to be the greatest amongst us?”
“Yes,” shouted voices from the crowd.
“Will you sing to the gods as one? Will your voices be loud enough to reach Thalius and the Saquaari?”
“A curse on Gods,” shouted a man from back, “a curse on Thalius and the damned Saquaari.”
A dark silence hit the crowd.
“He belongs with Sulla,” cried a woman in tears, “let Sulla come and take him. He belongs with the heroes he loved.”
Nerys looked around the people nodded their heads silently, their faces angry and fierce. Johanna look at those behind her, the council were expressionless.
“Then let it be,” said Johanna with a wavering voice, “let Sulla take Hornefred from the Last Woods and take him where the heroes rest.”
The crowd began to chant Hornefred’s name, the voices growing louder and louder. When the air started to shake from the voice Johanna motioned to a boy standing by the pyre, torch in hand. He bent over and the fire quickly took hold. The crowd fell silent and the flames grew.
After a short time the body of Hornefred was lost in the flames.
One by one each villager left, muttering simple thoughts of love and admiration under their breath. Flynn had not turned from the flames, watching it take his friend and letting the tears run down his face. Bahruun waited quietly beside him, shuffling nervously.
“The town hall,” said Flynn quietly to Bahruun, “bring your Demon.”
Flynn wiped his forehead, the fever from his illness still burned under the skin. He turned and started to walk down the hill when Johanna’s small shape cut in front of his path.
“Not now,” snapped Flynn and kept walking.
“I will not be ignored,” demanded Johanna.
“Not now,” yelled Flynn loud causing a few in the remaining crowd to jump and some of council to shake their heads.
Johanna froze in place and watched as Flynn walked from the garden.
Nerys approached Bahruun who was still staring into the flames.
“He was a good man, whose time had come,” said Nerys.
“Without question,” nodded Bahruun and turned away from the pyre, “we should deal with Flynn.”
Nerys agreed and two made their way from the garden to the hall. Flags of exquisite fabrics that hung from the window sills rustled in the cold wind that had come across the plain that day. The clouds over head made the hall’s white shell, dull and grey.
Bahruun pushed open the doors. Flynn stood inside the dark room studying the large mural of Thalius behind the podium. Flynn turned and took a large breath and the let it out, slowly.
“You are a wicked one, Demon,” stated Flynn his voice calm.
“My name is Nerys,” she replied.
“A week after you appear, Hornefred is dead of a strange illness. My own skin turns pale and burns. Bahruun claims you have only just returned, but no one seems to have seen you come or go from our town. I will suffer no more lies. Tell me, why did you bring death to my home?”
“Death was already here, Hornefred said so himself.”
“The herbswoman gave Hornefred a stew of flowers and roots to fight the illness. Would it have saved him?”
“Yes,” said Nerys she step forward so that Flynn could easily attack her, if he dared, “it would have expunged the poison Bahruun fed him. He would still be with you.”
Flynn did not move, but studied her for a moment.
“Will it save me?” asked Flynn.
“Of course, if it is what you want?”
“Why are you bent on tormenting us?”
“Because you hold a place for the living. Go and die in the plains, if you must, but leave this place to those that would use it.”
“Do you think you can save these people?” laughed Flynn, “do you think this was how I wanted it? There are too many people here. Come the summer, there is no more food, the wells are already stressed and are becoming dirty, the men outside trap us here. There is no hope left.”
“Then be done with it. Go to the Abyss with your friend.”
“I would, but I am still needed here,” growled Flynn his body grew in space as he opened his shoulders and stood tall, “someone needs to keep the peace, someone has to stop the suffering and that isn’t going to be done by a damned Demon. I should have killed you the moment I saw you.”
Bahruun cleared his throat about to speak.
“Quiet,” ordered Nerys and then paused before continuing to address Flynn, “we will bring food from the farms, we will fetch water from the springs. The world has not ended yet, Flynn.”
“Beyond the wall?” laughed Flynn.
“Yes, leave these damn walls and take back your lands.”
“With a group of twenty men who can’t swing a sword.”
“Yes, those men, the men I saw on that hill today did not seem to know you had already built a pyre for them. They deserve a chance to fight.”
Flynn wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“You think you know better, Demon, then let the council decide it, but if they decide against you, this time you and your servant will leave and never return. You will keep your word this time.”
“I always keep my word,” growled Nerys, “Bahruun invited me to stay after he saw what you and Hornefred had become. And when your council sees it, they too will also beg me to stay.”
“Bahruun, call them.”
Bahruun left through the door to the side of the podium. Nerys and Flynn stood silently across from each.
“I do…” Nerys began.
“I do not want to hear your lies, Demon,” said Flynn coldly, “save them for your pet.”
The bell that sat above the hall began to ring out across the town, summoning to council to meet.
“I will take one of the chairs,” snapped Nerys.
“You will stand where you are, the chairs are for the council only.”
Nerys wanted to leap across the room and plunge the dagger deep into the insolent Lesser’s face. But she didn’t, she simply waited to see who would arrive.
Bahruun returned to the room and lent by a wall, lazily, watching the two tense combatants continue to stare each other down. The three were joined one by one by the eight councillors that had stood behind Flynn at the funeral. Each was welcomed and asked to wait while the others arrived, forming a circle in the centre of the hall.
The final one to arrive was a short woman with mud caked onto her legs and dress. She smiled at the others, warmly, and took a place in the circle.
“I have called you all here to discuss a serious matter,” started Flynn matter-of-factly, “as you can see a Demon has found her way into our town. She has bewitched Bahruun and murdered Hornefred, also she has also poisoned me.”
A man step back out of circle, a look of panic across his face.
“And you brought us here to offer us up to her,” yelled the man, “you’re a fool, Flynn.”
“Stay calm,” ordered Flynn, “she has promised to leave us in peace once she has spoken to you.”
“How do you know it will keep its word?” snarled another grim looking man covered in ash.
“You have nothing to fear from me,” said Nerys calmly.
“You murdered our Hornefred, Demon, and now you say we shouldn’t fear you,” said an old woman more puzzled then angry.
“No one was murdered,” replied Nerys, “Hornefred asked for death, as unbelievable as that may sound to you. Bring me herbswoman, she will tell you, as such. When Hornefred became ill…”
“Poisoned,” spat Flynn.
“When death came for him,” continued Nerys, “he said he welcomed it and that he would except the judgement of the gods.”
“He did,” said the woman caked in mud, “I gave him the broth and he refused to drink… He said it was his time.”
“But it was not his time, he was deceived,” snapped a young woman with fierce eyes and body movements.
“There was no deception, there was an ailment and a cure that I made sure was available,” said Nerys, “Bahruun knew to get herbswoman and to help her to find the correct cure for Hornefred, which he did. I needed to show you the true face of the man your followed, a man wanted death and not just for himself.”
“Bahruun, you have disgraced yourself again, let us hope your father never hears of this” said the old woman shaking her head.
“Bahruun…” started Nerys.
“I am speaking Demon,” scowled the old woman cutting Nerys off, “we have heard your wicked words Demon and I hope you enjoyed your distasteful game, you have cut us a wound that will never heal. We will hear no more, leave us to morn our leader and take Bahruun with you.”
“He was no leader,” snapped Nerys, “he was a fool who was obsessed with death.”
“Disgusting,” snarled the man covered in ash, “even for a Demon.”
“You have no supplies to last past summer, what was Hornefred going to do for you when the stores were empty?” shouted Nerys.
Some of the councillors looked away, while others sighed, but none dared to speak.
“Nothing,” continued Nerys sensing weakness, “because he already saw you all as dead, walking corpses. The wells dry and instead of seeking new supplies, he set you about digging a hole that will take a year to finish. Pointless work to distract you from what you know.”
“I said that to him,” said a small old man on the far side of the circle, “I said it was folly, but he insisted it was the right thing to do.”
“Then what should we do?” asked Nerys to the man who had spoke, “where do we find water?”
“The farms just to the west have ample water supplies and windmills to bring more to the surface, we just need to find a way to get it back here. A caravan to bring fresh water, I told Hornefred.”
“Then do it,” said Nerys, “take a dozen horses and those that will help and go.”
“Quiet,” said Flynn, “you do not give orders here.”
“I am not giving orders,” said Nerys to the old man locking her eyes onto his, “I am agreeing with you. You need to stop acting like Hornefred wanted you to act and start looking outwards, beyond the walls.”
“Why do you care what happens to us, Demon? Your kind have never been any more then nuisance,” challenged the man in ash.
“I don’t care,” said Nerys simply turning to face the man, “but when the Heart left I found myself the same as you, locked behind walls, scared to leave, wondering what was to become of me. As much as it disgusts me to admit it, I need the Lesser Men in this moment. And as much as I know it disgusts you, you need me. This is the way of the new world and I hate it.”
The man covered in ash simply nodded in reply, his face no longer angry be stern.
“There are those among of you that hate it as well,” declared Nerys, “being locked up this place wanting nothing more then be back on the roads to your true homes and finding your families or working a farm as you once did or just being able to see the plains again and wander them freely.”
Another man who had stayed silent until now nodded.
“It is true,” he declared, “I want to get back to my home and my children.”
“I can give you that, if you listen to me,” said Nerys to man and then turned to rest of the room, “tell me what you want and you will find the answers.”
One by one each councillor gave voice to what they had hoped for, but never dared speak of under Hornefred because under Hornefred there was no reason to speak of them. And one by one each councillor started to realise Nerys held a reason for them, to the future they needed to seize, the life Hornefred had made them forget.
Flynn watched on, unsure of what to make of it, he tried to interrupt but was hushed by the circle and when it was done and the councillors had listened. The doubt that had once held them was gone and they knew now they could leave their cage and take back their lands.
“Tomorrow when the dawn has broken, we will go for water. I will guard the caravan myself,” declared Nerys, “we take those who wish to help and walk our lands.”
“I will take the road tonight and see what I can learn of camp to the east, I will report back by day break,” said the man covered in ash.
“I will arrange the children to be taken in by the workers and taught trades,” said the old woman.
“I will take those willing and start planting just outside the wall,” said the woman covered in mud.
“You are all fools,” yelled Flynn from the corner, “you have lost your senses.”
The room fell quiet. Nerys smiled and enjoyed watching the man struggle.
“Curse the gods, if you will, they have earned your scorn, but look at yourself now, suckling at the Demon’s breast in desperation. Try to escape that which is unescapable,” snarled Flynn, “the worgs come for us and they are never kind to those that deny them what is theirs. You have forgotten Shepard Ardil, you have fallen from your way.”
“Shepard Ardil was a servant of the gods as was I,” said the old woman, “but I won’t be anymore. Not after all I have seen.”
The circle nodded silently in agree. Flynn growled at them.
“Then let the godless demons have you all,” yelled Flynn and then he stormed from the room.
The room was silent for a short moment.
“My friends,” said Nerys into the silence, “we have a new world to build, but before that there are somethings I must demand of you. Bahruun will be continue to be Elder here with no others as head.”
“Bahruun, alone…” said the old woman shaking her head.
“Please,” said Nerys, “we do not have time for this. What we must do is set our eyes on the horizon and march onwards.”
The councillor’s looked at each other quietly.
“I don’t care, if that is what you wish,” said the ash covered man, “but the council must still be consulted on all matters.”
The others started to nod.
“I would be nothing without your council,” smiled Nerys.
One by the one the councillor’s dispersed chattering excitedly about their plans until Nerys and Bahruun were left standing alone in the room.
“You are quite the devious one,” laughed Bahruun, “I will make sure to keep an eye on you.”
“I have a task for you and it must be completed quickly,” said Nerys.
“Already?” sighed Bahruun.
“Do you know the manor house of the Pryce family?”
“Of course, I have met with them a few times. They have quiet an alluring daughter,” smiled Bahruun, “am I to pay them a visit, give them the same treatment as Hornefred?”
“The Pryce family are already dead.”
“A pity, the daughter was quite the animal in bed.”
“I need you to ride there and lay a wreath of orange flowers at the gate.”
“Why?”
“To show your devotion to me and it must be done by tomorrow evening.”
“Or else?”
“Or else our pact is ended and I will find another to be my lord.”
“You would be nothing without me, Nerys,” laughed Bahruun.
“I know.”
“I will be expecting a host of woman when this done, I have been celibate for so long I am thinking of calling myself Shepard. Will you be coming back to the house?”
“Of course, but first, I wish to see the Elder’s chambers.”
“I’ll show you the way, then” said Bahruun and retrieved a lantern from the podium.
Bahruun led Nerys through the side door and passages until they arrived at the same hallway of doors she had been brought to on the first night.
“We will have to do something about these doors,” said Bahruun, “the crest is no longer relevant with the Pryce’s gone.”
“The crest is still relevant,” said Nerys, “the House of Pryce and all its claim are mine.”
“And how is that?”
“I took them,” replied Nerys simply, “the crest is mine.”
Bahruun smiled and pushed open a door. In one corner of the room sat a bed that had once been Hornefred’s, the stained sheets reeking of human waste and death. Against a wall sat a bookcase and a desk. On the desk sat an empty bowl with the residue of the herbswoman’s cure.
“What are you looking for?” asked Bahruun as Nerys slowly looked through the books that lined the shelves.
“History,” said Nerys.
“I have history books in the library at home,” yawned Bahruun picking up the empty bowl on the desk and started to toss it back and forth between his hands.
“That is not history,” muttered Nerys, “just stories to send children to sleep. The books in here are the real history of my domain with detailed records, thoroughly checked and verified.”
She found the title she was looking, ‘Civic works and judgements of Elder Olta’ and she pulled it from the shelf.
“Who was Elder Olta?”
“The Elder before Francis,” Bahruun had found the wall and was now leaning against it the bowl still in hand, “Francis lost his head a few days after the Diamond vanished.”
“Where is his book?”
“I think the clerk had more to worry about then finishing a stupid book.”
“Where is it?” growled Nerys.
“Why would I know, Nerys?” huffed Bahruun, “probably in the clerk’s room, abandoned.”
“Then we will complete his book and one for Hornefred, as well, the records must be kept complete,” declared Nerys taking the leather tome under her arm and then added with a smile, ”you will have a volume yourself one day.”
“You speak like my father,” sighed Bahruun, “he should be dead now, if the gods are kind.”
Nerys laughed.
“Come, you need your powder, your mood has become sour. I think I will have the last of my port. We have earned a night of celebration.”
“I was promised more than a night.”
“One night for now, Bahruun,” replied Nerys, “but rest assured, the new world will be laden with gifts for both of us.”