“You gave him… that bow,” Constian said. He smiled bitterly. “You really have betrayed us. Just finish it off, brother. I’m tired of this endless game.”
“I can’t, and I won’t,” Murtok said.
“I will if you give the word,” Jack said.
“I think you should without the word,” Cordelia chimed in.
Murtok held a hand up as if to ask them to wait.
“I blame you for many things, Constian, but I do not blame you for what we are,” Murtok said.
The ghoul lord spat at him, then took a lurching step back.
“Coward,” he said. He glanced around at the adventurers sourly. “You know I’ll just make more, Murtok.”
“I know,” the undead ranger said.
Without another word, the lord’s form became amorphous, fading into a black smoke. Seconds later, he was gone.
“I feel like that was a private conversation we weren’t supposed to hear,” Jack said.
Murtok shook his head.
“It’s not the first time we’ve had it, it won’t be the last, and you aren’t the first to witness it,” Murtok said.
“Not to ruin a dramatic moment, but we should go save our friends, guys,” Cordelia said.
“Morgan and Eriko,” Jack said, glancing to Murtok.
“We are terrible friends,” Tobias said.
Chapter 22: I wish you well
Every part of Morgan’s body hurt. His armor had taken the brunt of the scratches and blows from the ghouls, but the muscle beneath the chainmail had still taken a beating, and he felt it to his bones. A small trickle of blood ran down from his hairline, curving around his brow. His ears rang with a high-pitched whine.
Wiping the blood from his face, he set his hammer down, the weight of the weapon feeling exponentially greater. His shoulders burned from swinging it.
All around him, the bodies of ghouls lay motionless. The spell had done its job. He felt a twinge of guilt—they were monsters, yes, but they were people, once—and he tried desperately to fight off that sensation by silently repeating Murtok’s words. It was a mercy killing. They were rabid, and even if they did regain sentience, they’d likely be driven mad by what they’d become. I sent them to whatever afterlife they were waiting for instead of this nightmare, Morgan thought. He needed to believe that.
“You okay, Morgan?” Eriko asked. She looked at him with an expression of concern, but with her soot-stained face, her mohawk flattened on one side and sticking straight out of the other, she looked as bad as he felt, if not worse. But where Morgan felt bone-tired Eriko looked almost manic, her eyes wide and wild, the terror of the battle still sending a river of adrenaline running through her veins.
“Just tired,” he said, scratching Silence behind the ears. He gestured for Eriko to follow, and together, the trio approached the well in the center of town. “Let’s figure out how we’re going to…”
He looked over the edge and saw Jack staring up at him from the bottom. Caught off-guard, Morgan let lose a string of curses that were almost identically echoed by his friend at the bottom of the well.
“Holy shit, how long have you been standing there?” Morgan said.
“I almost shot you!” Jack said. “Don’t ever do that again!”
“You’re the one lurking at the bottom of a well!”
“I’m not lurking! I just got here! Lurking involves milling around!”
Morgan leaned exhaustedly on the edge of the well, scratching his head.
“I hope this means you have everyone with you,” Morgan said.
“Yeah, I—” Jack began to say before being cut off by Tobias.
“Well, how do you do?” Tobias said. “You look well, Morgan! Well, really, you don’t look so well. You look like you could use some well-wishing. I wish you well, you swell well-dweller.”
“We should have let the ghouls eat him,” Eriko said.
“Come on up,” Morgan said, too tired to be annoyed with Tobias. “We killed most of ‘em. The rest ran off.”
The marching order up and out the well was a bit of an ordeal. Cordelia scaled the well first, less with skill than with brute strength. Morgan couldn’t help laughing as he saw Cordelia get impatient watching Tamsin’s sad attempt at climbing. The barbarian reached down to yank Tamsin’s rope, hauling the wizard up the rest of the way. Cordelia picked Tamsin up like a kitten by the back of her robes and deposit her unceremoniously on her feet.
Tobias got much the same treatment, though Cordelia let the bard struggle a bit longer. Tobias was clearly looking for a way to ask for help without actually asking for help. Morgan tried to hide his surprise as Murtok followed next, the ghoul looking even more haunted and mournful than before. Jack emerged last, his fancy new bow slung over his shoulder. The ranger dropped to one knee and let Silence bump his head in greeting.
“How long were we down there? A few days?” Tobias said.
“Couple hours, give or take,” Cordelia said. She turned her face toward the sun as it tried to burn through the morning mist, turning the sky into a creamy yellow haze.
“I don’t like dungeon crawling,” Tamsin said. “Just, y’know, for the record. This isn’t going to be our entire career, right? Sometimes we can adventure above ground, I hope?”
“What you got there, kid?” Eriko said.
Tamsin followed Eriko’s gaze to the wand at her belt.
“Oh. I found some stuff,” Tamsin said. She pulled an ornate dagger from the back of her belt and handed it to Eriko. “This might be an improvement for you.”
Eriko turned the blade over in her hand, flipped it, testing its weight.
“Might be,” she said. “Thank you.”
“Oh, unless… unless it’s really yours?” Tamsin said to Murtok.
The gaunt waved his hand.
“Anything you found down there Constian or Urfang took from a dead body,” he said. “Keep what you found. You need it.”
“In that case, give me back my magic cloak, Tobias,” Tamsin said.
The bard dramatically threw the sky-blue cloak he now wore over one shoulder.
“I can’t. The cloak chose me.”
“I found it. I saved it! It should be my cloak.”
“This cloak clearly has a mind of its own, and it prefers me,” Tobias said. The cloak rippled as if to agree with him.
“This is the Muffin incident all over again,” Tamsin said.
“I’m almost afraid to ask,” Cordelia said.
“Our family Shih Tzu, Muffin,” Tamsin said. “She was supposed to be my dog, but nope, fell in love with Tobias at first sight, ignored me for fifteen years.”
“I am friend to both man and beast, and now also sentient apparel,” Tobias said. “It’s not my fault I am charismatic as hell.”
“I can’t believe we worked this hard to save you,” Tamsin said.
“What did they want you for, anyway?” Jack said.
“They wanted someone to tell the story of the ghouls,” Tobias said. He turned to Murtok. “Which is a horrible origin story by the way. I’m sorry for, well, for everything.”
Murtok gave the bard a half-hearted smile.
“Fate, chance, choices… none of it matters in the end, storyteller,” Murtok said.
“Would Constian have lied to me?” Tobias said.
Murtok shook his head.
“If there’s one thing Constian has always been, it’s honest about where we come from,” he said. “If he told you our story, he would have told you true. The bad, the ugly, the unfair, and everything in between.”
“He called you brother,” Jack said. “Was he being literal, or…?”
Murtok nodded grimly.
“We are brothers, both in our curse, and in our blood,” Murtok said. “And that is why I can’t end him. I’ll fight him until this world has its final nightfall, and hope someday he finds redemption or peace. But I can’t destroy him. He’s the only being who remembers who I was before all this, and I him.”
“Where will you go from here?” Morgan asked.
“He’ll rebuild,” Murtok said. “l’ll follow. Do what I can to inhibit that. Fortunately, I think he feels the same about me as I feel about him. He hates me, but he knows I’m the only one left who remembers him. He wants me to let him enjoy his delusions of grandeur, but he won’t kill me.”
“Family,” Cordelia said.
“You could travel with us for a while,” Jack said. “I… don’t take this the wrong way, but you seem lonely.”
The gaunt hunter let out a barking laugh. It was so sharp it made Morgan’s hair stand on end.
“I’m sorry,” Murtok said. “My friends, I am lonely in ways that defies description. That is my own curse, and one I’ve long learned to live with. But thank you for your offer. Even one night with adventurers by my side has been a balm to my loneliness.”
Jack held out a hand, and the undead ranger took it. They shook. Morgan watched curiously. It wasn’t like Jack to connect with strangers this way, but then again, even in the real world, Jack had a tendency toward profound loneliness. Maybe he saw something of himself in the creature. Morgan caught the others staring curiously as well, Tamsin with a look of concern, Eriko curiosity, Cordelia distrust.
“I should go. The sun… is hard on my kind,” Murtok said.
“Good luck,” Morgan said. The ghoul nodded to him, then disappeared back down the well.
“So, nobody died,” Cordelia said. “Good on us.”
“Where do we go from here?” Tamsin said.
Eriko raised her hand.
“I set a bunch of villagers free,” she said. “I think we owe it to them to make sure they’re okay.”
“Are we lawful good?” Cordelia said. “I wouldn’t have pegged us for lawful good.”
“Is there a ‘meh good’ category in this game?” Tobias said.
“If not, we’ll make one up,” Morgan said. “Which way did your new friends go, Eriko?”
Chapter 23: What is dead cannot die
Urfang groaned in the darkness.
His skin cracked and split as he pushed himself to his feet, much of his body blackened with burns. The pain was indescribable, even in this undead body so impervious to pain and damage. His skin had cooked beneath the wizard’s spell, and every movement was agony.
He roared with rage as he bumped into a stone wall, the nerves on his entire right side flaring up with the impact.
He breathed deeply, cleared his vision, and staggered on.
This was not the first time some hero had tried to destroy Urfang. He’d survived worse than a fireball before. And he knew how to fix it.
Walking was difficult, as his eyes had been damaged by the flames—blinded twice in one day, he thought resentfully. He found the nearest ghoul corpse, dropped carefully to his knees, and began to devour the flesh of his kin.
Eat, the black heart in the center of his being commanded him. Eat, and all will be restored.
He gorged himself on his dead companion and crawled on, seeking another. It would not end here. He would need to consume a dozen or more bodies over weeks, or months, but this was the nature of his curse—to eat was to live forever.
Yes, he’s survived worse. And this time, he had a target for his rage.
I will kill that bard and his sister if it’s the last thing I do in this world, Urfang thought. I will set them on fire and roast them alive while they scream, and then I will tear them limb from limb. I will…
Urfang’s vision swam as his undead body struggled to stay conscious. He could already feel his damaged muscles and skin beginning to knit back together. Slowly, methodically, he dragged himself down the stone corridor in search of another corpse.
The bard will have the worst death, Urfang thought. I may even bring him back again just to kill him a second time. No one does this to me without feeling my wrath.
I’m coming for you, little elves. Scream for me.
Chapter 24: The good part about being a hero
It didn’t take long to find the survivors. Two old people, a young woman, and a dozen children weren’t going to get far on their own but they did manage to flee almost a mile before giving up. Jack had no trouble following the trail of damaged foliage and broken branches they left behind. The group sat around a clearing not far outside of town, the older children wrangling the younger, the old man acting as a sort of desperate conductor to keep them from wandering off. The old woman held a toddler in her arms who could not stop crying. The inconsolable sobs gave their position away long before the tracks did. The younger woman held a sleeping infant, who looked far too peaceful for what they had been through, Eriko thought to herself.
The adventurers stepped out of the forest just a little too quietly, startling the villagers, who began to panic and run before realizing the group was not a pack of ghouls.
“You survived,” the old man said. His eyes were shadowed and haunted. Eriko wondered what the man had experienced, being left for last among his peers.
“And the ghouls are dead. Mostly,” Eriko said.
“We drove them off,” Morgan said. “But I know that’s no real consolation for what you’ve lost.”
The old man put a hand on Morgan’s shoulder, the cleric nearly a full head taller than him.
“You did what you could,” he said. “You could have kept going, but you fought for us. You’re the reason any of these children are alive. I’m Grahom, for what it’s worth. This is my wife, Mila. And…”
He trailed off looking at the young woman.
“It’s okay, Grahom,” she said. “He hesitates because we were just neighbors before all this happened. We’re not family. Not any more than those who share the same village are. I’m Jin. The children… well, they belonged to everyone and to no one now. They’re all orphans.”
“Why did they spare you?” Tamsin asked. Jack held out his hands and Jin, smiling, handed him the sleeping infant. Jack placed the baby’s head on his shoulder and swayed automatically.
“I don’t know that spared is the right word,” Jin said.
“They were saving the children for last,” Mila said. “We’re no strangers to the stories of ghouls in this country. We never saw them in person ourselves, but the tales are not unheard of. They save the young for last, and as merciless as it sounds, I think they just kept the few of us as caretakers until they didn’t need us anymore.”
“It would make sense,” Cordelia said. “How long did they have you in that building?”
“Maybe a week,” Grahom said. “They began picking off our people a month ago. A farmer here, a trader there. A young couple who snuck off in the night. And then one evening, as the sun set, they came boiling up out of the town well like a nightmare.”
He looked over his shoulder to see if any of the children were listening, but most seemed to be studiously looking away.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do with them all,” Grahom said.
“There’s not enough of you to go back to the village, is there,” Tamsin said.
Grahom gestured to himself, his shaking limbs and tattered body.
“Maybe others would come and rebuild with us, but alone… at best we’ll starve. At worst, bandits come through and finish what the monsters started.”
“My kin would take us in,” Mila said. She smirked as Cordelia took the infant from Jack and, with a gentleness her size and strength made seem impossible, rocked the child in her arms. “I was born in a town not far from here. A day or two by horse if the ghouls haven’t killed all of ours. A bit longer by foot since we’ll need the little ones to walk.”
“I saw horse tracks,” Jack said. “Give me a little time, I’ll find the ones who got away. I know there were still functional carts or wagons I saw in town.”
“We’ll get you there,” Eriko said. Morgan raised an eyebrow at her, which she actively ignored. “You’re sure they’ll take you in?”
“My husband may find some of my cousins annoying, but if we s
how up with a story of monsters and a wagon full of orphans, they will open their doors to us,” Mila said. “The whole town will. I wouldn’t want to try to make the journey on our own with all of these little ones, but if you’ll help…”
“We’ll help,” Eriko said. “No question. You can count on us.”
Morgan put a hand on Eriko’s shoulder and kissed the top of her head affectionately. She shrugged him off.
“I’m proud of you, party-splitter,” Morgan said.
“Cut it out, dude. You’re embarrassing me,” she said.
Morgan laughed that melodious, infectious laugh of his and walked away.
“Jack, why don’t you try to find those horses,” he said.
Jack tilted his chin at Cordelia.
“Want to lend a hand?”
“I love horses,” Cordelia said, handing the baby to Tobias, who looked the infant like Cordelia had just placed chewed bubblegum in his hands before handing the baby immediately to his sister.
“We’ll be back,” Jack said as he, Cordelia, and Silence wandered off into the forest and quickly disappeared out of sight.
“Why don’t we get you back to the town,” Morgan said. “See if we can’t find one of those wagons our ranger saw.”
Grahom nodded.
“It may be traumatic for the children to see…”
“They’ve seen worse,” Mila said. “And if the town is littered with dead monsters, then they’ll see that there’s nothing left to fear. Because while monsters are real, so are heroes.”
The old woman beamed a radiant smile at Morgan, who returned the favor.
As Grahom and Mila began gathering up the children, assigning older ones to watch over younger ones, Jin pulled Eriko aside.
“I know you’re the one who came back for us,” she said. “I remember seeing you in the window. I thought maybe you’d be scared off and not return, but…”
“I, um… I just went to get more help,” Eriko said. “Y’know. My friends. I couldn’t do it alone.”
“Well, I just wanted to thank you. I don’t think we had much time left before… the end. You saved us just in time.”
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