Chapter 3 | Forever Our Home

   Asena twisted the knife eventually killing her friend for the last 20 years without flinching.* The older woman in the room, the mother of the man she'd just coldly murdered, was sprawled on the floor with tears gushing out of her.

   "I'm so sorry..." the woman’s cries filled the room.

   The older woman continued to apologize, rocking the body of her son back and forth.

   Once the echoes of her cry died down, Asena was free to speak.

   “I am so sorry for your loss," Asena robotically returned.

   The woman pressed her lips, a notion that Asena recognized was an attempt to smile, though she could not understand what the smile was for.

   "Thank you, dear." The woman said softly through sobs. "Jerome must be at peace now."

   Asena nodded and tried to pull Jerome from his mother's arms, but the grip of the woman was firm.

   “No, not yet!”

   There was a hint of desperation to Ola's cracked voice that most others would have recognized, but Asena continued with her duty without pause.

   "Wipe the blood off."

   Ola looked at her bloodied hands as if they were foreign to her. After a long moment, she nodded and let Asena take her son to a corner of the room.

   "What will happen to them, you think?"

   The older woman needed, no, wanted answers, but she knew well enough that the girl before would not have them. But she was desperate after all and was ready to accept anything Asena would say. Anything would be better than nothing at all. Her son, her youngest... he was gone without even a fight, and then what? What will happen to his body, to his soul?

   "The second squadron, Mugitus, they are in charge of the bodies. I do not know more than that."

   "But surely you must have an idea!" Ola cried impatiently.

   "They will most likely be burned."

   And just like that, Ola felt a part of her life drain. Burned? Her son would be burned. Asena had not said cremated. No, at least a cremation meant there’d be a ceremony. Here in the dukedom of Damyanov, burning a body means desecration. Criminals are burned. But not someone like her angelic son.

   A knock interrupted their conversation, and the front door opened to reveal a well-kept young man. He wore ceremonial armor, an old one, though mostly crimson all over, his pants and shoes were black. While the inside of his cape was like a void. However, the spatters* could be made out even in the shadows.

   Asena frowned as the young man stepped on a fur rug, the only mess ever made in the house that could not be simply wiped off.

   He glanced in the direction of her attention. Then, a small blaze emitted from the sollerets, burning off the blood that had turned them from black to red. Still, the fur rug remained soiled.

   "My condolences, Madam Ola."

   "My lord," Ola pressed her hands to the floor, "please not my baby."

   The young lord turned to Asena and then to Ola. He did not know what she meant.

   "Please do not burn Jerome. He was a friend to all, to you!"

   He matched her height by kneeling on one knee and placing a gloved hand on the woman's bare one. His glove was half tattered, torn from the fights he'd been preoccupied with before entering the house. Parts of his pale skin peeked through. Similarly, Ola’s skin was in part covered by dry blood.

   He narrowed his eyes for a moment at Asena.

   "Madam Ola, I'm afraid that this is an infection. If we leave our loved ones simply buried in the ground, we cannot guarantee that others will not seek them to weaponize this infection. We must burn-" He shut his eyes for a second, and retracted, "cremate them to give them peace."

   "Cremation," Ola's eyes softened, "then we will hold a vigil for Jerome…?"

   The young lord did not take a moment to break the news to the older woman.

   "I'm afraid that the ceremony will not be as extravagant as you'd like."

   Ola could not understand.

   "We must cremate them all... together. Hempholme, our town, is no longer safe to hold many vigils."

   He helped Ola stand on her feet and led her to a window. He pointed towards a distance that was just close enough to distinguish for her to understand just what he’d meant. At the center of the village were those who died.

   "No. No, not a burning, my lord."

   "We will not call it a burning. Madam Ola, believe me, that we will honor each and every life lost today."

   Asena watched as Ola calmed in the arms of the lord, and observed how he was able to justify the burning of the bodies without a ceremony.

   Turning away from them, she took the body of her friend by the waist and hauled him on her shoulder. While watching the bodies grow in number around the town center, Ola was unable to pay any attention to Asena, her mind wandering to the term “cremation together”.

   The door clicked open and then close. Asena could not distinguish between her and Jerome's blood as it trickled.

   "Dame," a man in a dark red cape stood in her way, "you are trailing blood."

   "An Orkney Knight," Asena observed out loud. "What is an Orkney Knight doing in Hempholme?"

   The knight-errant hung his head, "we were devastated by a similar attack, Dame Spiros."

   She returned with a nod, changing the position of Jerome's body from a fireman carry to a princess one so that the blood pooled rather than dripped.

   "Burn the blood," the knight-errant called out to another from near the center of town.

   "You are survivors then?" A Hempholme resident asked as they carried a lifeless small body* in their arms.

   Again, the knight looked on solemnly with a glimmer of regret.

   "They took us by storm, traveling merchants and our own."

   "Like us then."

   "Hurry on!" A knight shouted near the pile of bodies. "Dump them and get the next one!"

   The townspeople and the surviving Orkney Knight-Errants grimaced at the knight clad in the official wear of the Drakons, similar to the lord's uniform.

   "Remember that we all lost someone today," a green-haired knight placed the body he was carrying carefully over the rest, "be more careful with your words."

   The other knight gritted his teeth in shame, "yessir, Commander Spiros."

   "Rusen."

   "Asena," Rusen nodded his head solemnly, recognizing the body she was carrying, "how is Madam Ola?"

   Asena perused through her mental dictionary, "grieving."

   The two were immersed in their short talk that they hadn't realized the people who'd begun to surround them. Their voices almost melded into one but were still quite distinguishable due to the topic of their conversations.

   It seemed as though the battle had ended with enough survivors, but many were still dead.

   "Clear out the fountain. We can place the bodies in there to contain the fire."

   "My child," moaned a man.

   "How should we place them?"

   "Remember to pierce through the heart,” a knight reminded another with a whisper.

   "Excuse me."

   "May we place ceremonial garments for our dead?" A woman inquired over and over again, carrying a shirt twice her size.

   The town center grew noisier by the second. The only chance to be heard was to shout at one another, though it created even more unwanted noise. 

   "Spiros!"

   A familiar glasses-wearing older man crossed through the multiplying crowd situated at the town center. The remaining population was all almost present. He headed towards the Spiros siblings, their green hairs standing out amongst the red of battle.

   He passed by a couple of knights protecting the eldest of the town, Elder Monik. Regarding the elder with a bow, he continued to pursue the siblings, Elder Monik called out his name.

   “Panu, Advisor Panu, what are we to do now?”

   Before the question could be answered, a soft and calming whistle sounded off like a wood thrush singing pierced through everyone's ears. This was universally recognized as the Call of Rusen.

   "The Lord," Rusen redirected everyone’s attention to the head of one of the sea dragon statues erect around the town center.

   Silence swept over the town for the second time that day. The first had been after the small battles had been won... or rather, finished.

   "In my attempt to shield Hempholme from the worst outcome, I took to my sword before addressing you all. I face you today in shame; I have failed you today. We have lost much, some more than others. An enemy we cannot see has made the Drakon Knights and Orkney Knights-Errant into fools. Has made me into a fool."

   The townsfolk could not agree. The older ones have seen the young lord grow up alongside their children and witnessed his coming of age. They’d been there when he first inherited his title and would’ve all been there for when he would eventually become the duke. And the children, they’d played with him as if he were their older brother. Hempholme was as much a home to him as Haerford.

   They did not hesitate to show their contention soon as he paused speaking to the crowd, surprising Aleksi. Even the knights were surprised to see the outpouring of love the town readily showed after the event that passed.

   "As a way to honor our departed, the Mugitus Avis Knights shall collect all of our departed into the Sea Dragon’s mouth and hold a collective cremation. And around each smaller sea dragon statue, you may place ceremonial garments and trinkets to be burned separately. My eternal apology that we cannot allow more than this."

chapter footnotes:

1. Drakon Knights are the official knights under the ducal family of Damyanov. They serve directly under the duke and not the empire.

2. Orkney Knights-Errant are knights of the dukedom under the Orkney Guild found in the town of Orkney. They were officially appointed as pseudo-knights.

3. The sea dragon is the symbol of the Hempholme town and the town center is where they often hold festivals.

4. Anything with "*" has been changed- the language in this chapter has been changed to suit a rating more suitable for "Everyone".