Book of The Dead

“Keep your head down and don’t say a fucking thing,” the northerner growled.

Chaos was all around them. People screamed and cried, punched, kicked and elbowed their way out. To fall was to die, crushed to death beneath the boots of the fleeing crowd. In the mad press, it was difficult to breathe, difficult to think.

Rell put his foot down and felt it squelch into something wet. He didn’t look down.

“Just stay close,” the woman said, a hand on his shoulder gripping tight enough to bruise. “We’re going through the gate.”

“FLEE! THE CITY IS LOST!” roared a soldier from the wall, delirious with fear. “They’re slaughtering everyone!”

Pale-faced and wild-eyed, the man staggered left and right, threatening to fall from his position above the wall at any moment. A whiff of smoke was in the air, thick clouds rising from several fires in the city, adding to the despair.

“Come on, children!” a mother sobbed from beside them. “Hold on to me!”

No older than five, the younglings clung to her legs and cried out in pain as they were squeezed in the press of humanity. Small and frail, there was nothing the mother could do to shield them, as she was barely able to remain standing herself.

“Help them,” Rell muttered as softly as he could, knowing his companions would hear his voice.

“Shut your fucking mouth!” the northerner swore in his ear. “Do you know what’ll happen if they find you?”

They were almost to the gate now, where the crush was at its most intense, a city’s worth of people trying to force themselves through a space no more than ten metres wide.

Rell grit his teeth. He knew it was important, and he certainly didn’t want to get caught, but he’d be damned if he watched children be trod to death right in front of him.

Not when he had the power to save them. He drew in a breath.

“Make space for the children,” he said.

Despite the thunderous noise and chaos all around them, he didn’t raise his voice—he didn’t need to.

His words rang like a bell, rippling out over the crowd, sinking into ears and soaking into minds. The northerner clamped a hand over his mouth, hissing between his teeth while the hand on his shoulder grew tighter still, surely drawing blood.

If someone realised what had happened…. It only took one to end this mission before it had even begun.

“Stop fucking pressing!” a voice roared. “There’s children in here!”

“Slow down, you animals,” a woman called out. “Think of the little ones!”

For a brief moment, the overwhelming panic that had gripped the crowd was lessened, just enough for the pressure to ease. They made their way through the gate, Rell watching the two children the whole way while a hand remained clamped across his mouth.

Once they were through, the pressure eased instantly as people spread wider, spilling off the edges of the road. Despite no longer being crushed, they were still full of fear and desperate to escape. Rell found he barely needed to walk forward as he was propelled by the people behind, still shoving to get clear of the city.

To their left, the terrain sloped downwards toward the wide river that separated the Southern and Central Provinces, its famously fast-running waters frothing in the distance. Tyron’s dark mist coiled around the city wall like a hand of midnight, fingers grasping and slowly spilling towards the fleeing residents.

The northerner’s hand remained clamped over his mouth until they were several kilometres from the city wall and finally pushed their way off the road. Rell immediately spat into the long grass and scrubbed his lips on the back of his hand. When was the last time the man washed his damned hands?

“Don’t look at me like that, boy,” MacRielly stated with heat. “You could have got all of us killed opening your damned mouth like that. Pull your damn hood down.”

Rell did as he was asked, making sure it was pulled low over his eyes, and he turned to face away from the road.

“Don’t be too hard on him,” Feolin told her fellow gold ranked Slayer. “Those poor children would have been trampled to death if he hadn’t done anything. I certainly didn’t want to watch it happen.”

“You think I did?” MacRielly demanded, brows raised. “Anyone here want to accuse me of being an enjoyer of child murder? There’s more lives at stake than those two wee bairns. Keep that in mind, that’s all I’m saying.”

As much as Rell agreed with him, he knew he would never have been able to live with himself if he hadn’t done anything. He’d always wanted to save people, it was the reason he’d run away and tried to become a Slayer in the first place.

Perhaps he just wasn’t the right person for this task. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anyone else.

“Are you alright, Rell?” Feolin asked, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Oh, you’re bleeding! I’m sorry about that.”

He looked down at his shoulder and realised the blood had started to soak into the cloth of his shirt. Feolin peeled it back and began to administer some basic first aid, ensuring the wound was clean.

“We’ll clean it again and bind it when we make camp. For now, we should probably keep moving, alright?”

He nodded and pulled the shirt back over his shoulder and buttoned it up.

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“The city won’t finish emptying till morning,” MacRielly observed, looking back towards the gate. “This is a catastrophe for the Empire. There must be millions of people who’ve run from their homes by now.”

“It’s a problem we can help with,” Feolin said firmly, buckling shut her bag of supplies and slinging it onto her back once more. “Let’s get moving. I’m going to assume there’s a camp not too far away, it’s pitch black out here, people won’t want to travel far.”

Indeed, there was almost no light to speak of. Rell himself couldn’t see a thing, but the two Slayers beside him moved without any difficulty, heading back toward the road. He tried to follow as best he could, but stumbled several times before either realised what the problem was.

“Ah fuck. The boy can’t see, Feolin. We should strike a torch. We probably look as suspicious as a cow in clothing.”

“Damn, you’re right,” she muttered, fumbling for her pack once more. “I didn’t bring one. MacRielly?”

“Of course I bloody didn’t. I’ve been able to see in the dark for twenty years!”

Wordlessly, Rell held one out towards them. He’d packed several.

“Thanks, lad,” MacRielly said, taking it out of his hands. “Light this for me, Fee? Tah lass.”

With the sputtering flame of the torch to see by, Rell was finally able to place his feet. The three slipped back amongst the terrified people on the road and disappeared into the crowd.

As it turned out, Feolin had been wrong concerning the distance to any sort of sizeable camp. She had vastly underestimated the fear the people had towards the undead. None of the people around them even contemplated stopping to make camp for hours, despite the cold and dark.

Gradually they began to spot a few small fires, small indistinct silhouettes huddled around them for warmth. There weren’t many at first, but they became more and more common until suddenly they were everywhere. As if some unseen manipulation were in effect, almost everyone around them decided that this was the place to stop for the night, shifting off the road and looking for a place amidst the sputtering fires and scant rolls.

“Finally,” MacRielly grunted. “This is us then. Let’s find a likely spot.”

The northman certainly wasn’t tired, and neither was Feolin. Gold ranked Slayers both, they could run all night and not be especially winded. He was simply impatient and on edge, a sensation Rell could easily understand.

Since he wasn’t a gold ranked Slayer and the benefits of his main Class weren’t in physical abilities, he was starting to feel weary, but there was no way he could sleep. Jittery and on edge, Rell felt a building nervous energy. Here amongst the people, the time when he would need to perform was drawing ever closer. He’d been training for a long time now, but here, the risks were very real.

“Relax, lad,” MacRielly muttered as they began to wind a path through the scattered, makeshift camps. “No need to be tense. It’s as easy as taking a stroll through the tulips. I’ll find us a camp a little further off the road.”

Why further from the road, Rell wondered, but the answer quickly became apparent.

The further from the road they got, the more scattered the makeshift camps became, and they began to hear the muted sounds of scuffles in the dark. Occasionally, someone cried out, protesting a thief, or an assault, as desperate or dishonourable individuals imposed themselves on those they judged to be vulnerable.

MacRielly moved like a blood hound, sniffing out the most wretched he could find. When a shrill voice split the night, his head whipped around and he took off in an effortless jog, heading straight for it.

“Put your cock away, you gutless dog!” he roared, shattering any semblance of silence in the night. Before Rell had caught up, the sounds of heavy blows striking flesh could be heard and several men shouting and cursing.

“I’ll break a leg each, you motherless cunts!” MacRielly bellowed.

He was as good as his word. No more able to stand up to him than an infant could to a grown man, Rell ran up to find him knocking down men with contemptuous ease before stomping on their legs. Each time his foot came down, a sickening crack could be heard, followed shortly by a scream. It must have hurt him fiercely, even if the Red Tower no longer stood in the Western Province to empower his brand.

Feolin watched impassively as her longtime teammate inflicted this brutal violence before turning away completely and moving to comfort a group of crying women shivering in the darkness.

Not sure what to do, Rell stood, wavering back and forth before he finally decided MacRielly certainly didn’t need his help and he had no idea what to say to the women, so he may as well help set up the camp.

Ten minutes later, MacRielly had finished chasing off the attackers, Feolin had quieted and settled the victims and Rell had managed to build a decent fire in a makeshift pit.

“Fuckers,” the northerner cursed. “Everyone alright?”

“Y-yes, thank you,” a young woman replied, obviously wary of this clearly violent person who had nonetheless saved them.

“You’re more than welcome,” MacRielly laughed, sitting further than necessary from the fire, and from the others around it. “No need to worry, I’ll sleep over yonder tonight and be on my way in the morning. I was happy to help.”

“That’ll help with the smell,” Feolin drawled, drawing a small smile from the young woman, who sniffled and laughed.

Then she turned to look at Rell, who met her gaze. She nodded slowly. Swallowing thickly, he sat up a little straighter before he coughed to clear his throat.

“I hope you weren’t too frightened,” he said softly.

It was quite a thing, to become afraid of your own voice. It hadn’t been long after he’d started levelling his main Class, the Bard Class, before the words from his mouth had begun to change. Not only in sound, his usual flat tone replaced with something smoother, honeyed, as warm as an embrace and just as intimate, but the effect it had on those who heard it.

He saw it immediately. What little conversation there had been around the fire sputtered to nothing as every eye turned towards him, instantly hanging on his every word.

“Uh, n-no,” the young woman who seemed to be something of a leader for the group replied, blinking as if trying to dispel some form of magick. “W-well, yes, actually, but we’re alright now.”

“I’m glad,” he said, with a slight smile, and could almost feel it as they leaned towards him, drawn in by every syllable from his lips.

He hated it.

“At least the Necromancer left us a way out,” he said, then flinched at his own lack of subtlety. “I hate to imagine what might have happened if we’d had to stay in the city.”

As vulnerable as a person could be, the young women around the fire were more than susceptible to his words, nodding along, if reluctantly.

“I suppose,” the young woman replied. “But… it would have been better if he hadn’t invaded at all.”

“Of course,” Rell rushed to agree.

Feolin was watching him while MacRielly shifted somewhere to his left.

“All I mean to say is, it felt like the Necromancer was thinking of saving us, the common folk, more than the Nobles were. What did they do for us? Tried to lock the gate and keep us in.”

There was a kind of sense to what he was saying, a kernel of truth. That was all that was needed, his Class did the rest.

“Th-that’s true,” the young woman said hesitantly.

“I’ve actually heard that he only came for the Nobles,” he said softly. “He didn’t touch anyone who stayed behind in Baristaya, and anyone who wants to can go back.”

It was the first conversation, and a clumsy one at that, but there would be many more over the next few days and weeks.

Rell would use his talents to spread the word amongst the common people, and, hopefully, save lives in the process.