by Ember Lane
Lincoln took a deep breath. “I shall go up, order some more ales and ask her what happened. That is what I shall do. And you watch, it will all be fine.”
The screech of Lincoln’s stool sliding back rang out, and he stood and walked up to the counter.
“Uh-hum,” he said, clearing his throat. “If I may…errm, Morag, if you’d kindly…”
Morag looked up from doing an in-depth study of the counter. Her lifeless eyes eventually met his. “Yes, dear,” she said, forcing a smile back on her face.
Lincoln thought he’d seen a hint of something behind the veil of insanity that was her guise. Was it fear and not madness? He couldn’t be sure. These folks lived with fear all the time. Aezal had told him that this far along the trail, bandits ruled the verges and shadows, and king’s men galloped by, eyes front. Could she be scared of them? He tried a reassuring smile.
“Four and a half more ales, please,” he beamed.
“Half for the gnome? Sensible.”
Was it fear? Fear or sorrow? Lincoln couldn’t tell. It was like she regretted something, something that was coming. Oh no! It was true. She was going to kill them all. He glanced around at the table, widened his eyes in fear to signal her ill intent to his companions. The broth, he thought, had she poisoned the broth? He checked his health—fine, full—but was it death over a certain time? Would their health fade hourly while they slept in the beds that they’d so sought out?
“Tell me,” Lincoln asked as Morag poured the ale, ill-concealed fear spilled into his trembling words. “Is there anyone else residing in the hamlet…anyone…anyone at all? I know you said you own all the buildings, but, anyone?”
“All dead,” she said, with a certain finality. “The…the pox. One by one they dropped down dead.” Her eyes glanced down, breaking away from his, telling Lincoln her words were lies. She’d killed them all and shoveled the lot of them six feet under. He’d no doubt about that now. Her eyes finally rose and met his. “They’re just out back if you want to see,” she said, flicking her head back, but then stopping abruptly like she’d been caught in some kind of act. “Out back, all but one of ‘em,” she said again.
“Except you,” Lincoln pointed out.
Morag sighed. “You’re a bit dim, ain’t you? They’re all out back except one. And yeah, except me. I was spared. Almost like I was needed for something.”
Insane, Lincoln thought, clearly insane. Probably driven mad by watching her little community drop dead one at a time. Shame, he thought.
“I wish we could stay more than one night,” Lincoln told her. “Keep you company.” Even as the words spilled out, he wondered why he was saying them. He didn’t even want to stay that night, let alone another.
She slid the ales to him. “One night, let’s hope. It’s…” she made to say, but a glance toward Aezal and company, and her words stopped in their tracks.
“No. How long have you been on yer own?” Lincoln asked, curious how she could have fallen into insanity so fast.
“Only a day since the last one breathed his final breath. He’s the one out front…” She started twitching again. Tossing her chin over her shoulder.
“The twitching? Did that start about then?”
Morag started blinking and crimping her cheeks up and down, jerking her head to one side. “You’re a bloody fool.”
“I’m sorry?” Lincoln said, gathering the mug’s handles together. He decided that if she was going to be rude, he wouldn’t pry any longer. “Are you trying to tell me something?”
Jerking suddenly, Morag stiffened, she stood bolt upright. “What’s the big man’s story?” Her eyes almost burst into life for a second as they settled on Aezal. “I could use me a strong man.” Her pale tongue licked along her cracked lips, but her manner betrayed forced words.
“Story,” repeated Lincoln. “What’s his story.” He tried to smile, but his lips weren’t brave enough, and so he scooped up the first of the ales and skulked back to their table. About to return for the rest, he was surprised to see Morag already around the counter and bringing them to the table.
“So,” she said. “Where you boys headed?”
“Erm,” said all five, and they each proceeded to look at their toes.
“West,” Ozmic eventually managed.
“Ain’t much west but trunks ‘n rock, moss ‘n tangle, not much else apart from that. North and east yer’ve got Merrivale. How you gonna get a cart full of wine west?”
“We were hoping to sell in here, in Thickwick, but it don’t seem—”
“Oh, I think that’s the last of your worries,” she declared, but her eyes constantly jerked toward the window. “Bad out there,” she muttered, lingered for a moment, then turned and scampered back to the bar.
“She’s a strange one,” Ozmic whispered.
“I’m sleeping with my sword unsheathed,” Aezal said.
“Easy, big man,” said Crags, with a smirk on his face.
“Seems to despise the rain,” Lincoln muttered, absently. “And she’s got this twitch, like someone’s looking over her shoulder.”
“That’s her victims haunting her,” Crags said ominously, and silence fell around the table.
Lincoln looked around to see that Morag had vanished out of the back. “There’s something odd about this place.”
“Aye,” said Ozmic. “Very ominous, like the clouds are gathered over its roof.”
Lincoln stood back up and stretched. Something about Morag’s manner, her constant indicating toward the outside irked him. Was she mad, or trying to tell him something? He walked up to the front door and opened it, stepping outside. The weather had closed with dusk’s arrival. Rain now pelted down and turned The Silver Road into mush. He pulled the collar of his deadman’s coat up, and wandered out onto the road. In the moonlight, The Silver Road truly did resemble its name, glistening like a magical path between the pressing black of the thick forest all around them. A slash of warm gray above lent him a pitiful light, but enough to look over the road and spy one of the deserted houses. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw the jerk of a hasty movement. Without thinking, he crossed the road and approached the house, determined to put thoughts of a maniacal murderer and the ghosts of her victims aside.
He pushed the dwelling’s front door and it slowly creaked open. Peering inside, he could see little in the gloom, but what he did see lent him the impression that it was far from abandoned. He could make out a table, mugs, and plates on top. He saw an old chair pulled up to a hearth. Taking a step inside, his eyes began to get used to the dark. A notification flashed up.
Congratulations! You have opened the skill, Night vision. You have level 1 night vision.
The room came into focus, becoming lighter, but revealing little more to him. He felt a sharp tug on his pants.
“Oih!” Crags said. “Whaddya doin'?”
Lincoln stifled a scream. “Sssh!”
“Why? What is it? There’s five of us an’ one of her. What’s the problem? Why’s everyone so fearful and tiptoeing around?”
Crags walked into the room, skipping around its meager furniture. “Smell that?” he asked.
“What?” Lincoln replied, sniffing at the air.
“Blood, I can smell it a mile away.” Crags sniffed around the room, creeping away from the hearth and toward a narrow set of wooden stairs that led upward. He skipped up them two at a time. Lincoln stayed downstairs and waited. Crags soon appeared at the top. “Yep, two old 'uns stiff as a hundred-year-old hinge.”
“Recent?”
“Can still smell the blood. A day at most.”
Lincoln stopped dead still. It suddenly dawned on him that Morag was scared, scared witless by something unseen. “She’s being held hostage,” he said softly as the true realization of what was going on dawned on him. “Thick, I’m am bloody thick.” He made to leave the house, to run across the road and warn his friends.
“What is it?” Crags asked, the gnome’s voice holding hi
m back, and Lincoln whispered his suspicions.
“Follow me,” said Crags, and he slipped out the door, sidling along the front of the dwelling, hugging the shadows.
Lincoln followed, and they slid around the corner of the building and into the beginnings of the forest. Crouching behind the first trunk, they watched the tavern. An eruption of silhouettes appeared in the window where they’d been sitting, where Aezal, Ozmic, and Grimble were sitting. Lincoln strained to burst forward and help, but Crags held his leg back.
“What are you thinking, big man?” the gnome hissed. “We have the advantage.”
“What are we going to do?”
“A hamlet with everyone murdered. A hamlet set like a trap, just waiting for the prey to walk in. We’ve been setup. Question is who are they trying to catch?” Crags dashed across the road. Lincoln crouched and loped after him. The gnome flattened himself against the tavern’s outside wall. Lincoln followed suit.
“What’s going on?” Crags asked, not tall enough reach the window. Lincoln peered in.
“Fawkes,” he muttered. Standing behind the bar, looking straight out at the window. The weasel from Brokenford stared at Lincoln as though he could see him in the dark. “I never expected to see him again,” Lincoln muttered under his breath, but he remembered Fawkes’ threats, and knew his words were lies.
“Upset him, did you?” Crags asked.
“A little at first, but not enough for all this.”
Fawkes was leaning on the counter, sword in hand. Aezal, Ozmic, and Grimble were nowhere to be seen.
“What are they doing?” Crags asked.
“I reckon they’ve got the others. They’ll still be alive. It’s me they’ll be after.”
Morag had tried to tell him, to warn him. Heck, Fawkes had probably been lying behind the bar, sword pressed up against her… It didn’t bear thinking about. What else had she tried to tell him? Her constant twitching should have told him there were bandits hiding out in the back of the tavern, but Lincoln had a niggling feeling there was more than that. He slapped his palm on his forehead. That was it, there was one out front too…
“It’s you the king is after,” a deep voice rang out behind him, and Lincoln felt a cold steel point on the back of his neck. “In you go.”
Crags’ eyes darted around, and suddenly, he was gone, scarpering up the road.
“Why you little—” Lincoln made to say.
“Now,” growled the man.
Fawkes’ eyes lit up when he saw Lincoln enter. “Well, if it isn’t my old, light-fingered friend.” He walked up to Lincoln, eyeing him up and down. Lincoln saw the tied bodies of his friends lying in front of the counter. Fawkes grinned from greasy ear to greasy ear and jabbed Lincoln hard in the stomach.
Damage! Fawkes has winded you. You have received 9 damage and your health has been reduced. You have 71/80 health left.
Lincoln crumbled to his knees. Fawkes’ fist smashed into his cheek.
Damage! You have received 11 damage and your health has been reduced. You have 60/80 health left.
Lincoln keeled over. Fawkes kicked him straight in the gut.
Damage! You have received 9 damage and your health has been reduced. You have 51/80 health left.
“King wants him in one piece,” one of the bandits pointed out.
“Still got a bit of leeway.” Fawkes sneered and he kicked Lincoln square on his jaw.
Damage! You have received 23 damage and your health has been reduced. You have 28/80 health left.
Lincoln groaned. Blood flooded into his mouth and spilled out of a vicious cut on his face. He heard Grimble and Ozmic growl, and through a crimson veil, he saw that Aezal was out cold.
“Twenty three left. I wonder how close I can get it to zero.” Fawkes knelt down and Lincoln could smell the man’s sweat. He could feel his breath on his open cheek. Lincoln saw the glint of a knife, and felt its bitter blade open the skin on his cheek farther.
Damage! You have received 2 damage and your health has been reduced. You have 26/80 health left.
“See,” Fawkes hissed. “I can reduce it bit by bit until it’s just one. Then I could sit back, have a smoke or something, and go again. I could keep you on one health for the rest of your time in this land. Years,” he said, his voice now raised in triumph. “I can keep you suffering for years.”
Lincoln felt his hands grabbed and tied, his feet bound too. Fawkes gave him one last kick for good measure and Lincoln blacked out. When he came too, he’d been dragged beside Aezal, Grimble and Ozmic.
“Ahh, you’re awake,” Fawkes said. Lincoln looked up to see his captors crowded around their old table, all tucking into steaming bowls of broth. “You don’t know King Muscat yet, but I can tell you he’s not the most patient man in the land. If the king wants good ale, the king gets good ale. It’s simple. In Irydia there are no variations to that rule.” Fawkes shrugged. “Except maybe Quislaine and Zybond; they can test him at times. You should thank the king, because I wanted you dead.”
“I left your gold with Finequill,” Lincoln groaned.
“Ah, Finequill. I fear that little arrangement is over. I’ll be a king’s man after this. One who caught his eye, and I’ll have you to thank.”
Lincoln felt his rage grow. He tested his bonds, but they held fast. Checking his health, he saw it had recovered and was now mid twenties. Then he remembered the chaos spell Digberts had granted him. Useless, he'd decided. There were too many of them and as far as he knew, it only worked on one person. He still had his sack, but the weapons inside it were useless too. Would all his good fortune be undone by this single man?
“What’s that?” Lincoln heard one of Fawkes’ men shout. Lincoln craned his neck to try and see, but could spy nothing but boots and knees.
“Fire?” Fawkes asked. “In this rain? Sketcher, go see what’s up.”
“It’s tha gnome!” said one of them, presumably Sketcher.
“The gnome is three feet high. Run him through if you see him. Go see what it is!” Fawkes barked.
Sketcher reluctantly got up. Lincoln heard the front door open and swing shut.
“Not the gnome,” he told Fawkes.
Lincoln felt a jab in his side and knew Aezal had woken.
“Then who?” said Fawkes.
Lincoln saw Fawkes get up and amble over as if he had all the time in the world. Fawkes crouched beside him. “You forget, player, this is our land. There’s nothing out there anymore. Gnomes run from danger. I am curious about one thing though. We’ve watched you all the while you’ve been on The Silver Road. Where did you pick up the gnome? Did you know it’s against the king’s decree to let them live? How about I go out there and slit its throat right now?”
The thring of his knife rang out.
“No!” Lincoln shouted. Call Digberts, he thought, just say the word three times.
“Why?” asked Fawkes, then he leaned over. “Have you become attached to the little man? Treason, that is treason.”
Lincoln struggled, but his bonds still held tight. He wanted to say the words, but for some reason they wouldn’t spill out. Then Stretcher screamed at the top of his voice; a scream abruptly cut off.
“Boss?” one of Fawkes' henchmen cried.
“Just go out there and see what’s going on.” Fawkes leaned in farther, pulling Lincoln up. “Maybe I’ll just kill you now.” Fawkes put his knife against Lincoln’s exposed throat.
And then the door to the tavern exploded in.
Splinters of wood flew everywhere followed by a shout so fierce that Fawkes appeared to freeze in the act of slitting Lincoln’s throat. Fawkes suddenly jerked up as he was pulled away from Lincoln and tossed aside as if he was a mere matchstick. He crashed into the bar counter sending the mugs and bowls flying. Lincoln saw fighting in front of him and watched in satisfied horror as one bandit, then two, crashed to the floor with their throats slit.
Aezal sat up shirking his bonds as if they were nothing and was on his feet in an inst
ant. “Allaise?” he cried. “Pete?”
Lincoln struggled, felt his hands being untied as the brawl in the bar ended as abruptly as it had begun.
“Fawkes!” Lincoln cried.
Pete hurdled the bar, dashing out the back. Allaise pulled Lincoln to his feet, slitting the ropes binding his feet.
“You really should be careful who you upset. Fawkes is no ordinary rogue.”
Pete came back from the depths of the tavern. “Gone,” he said.
Allaise nodded. “Looks like we got here in the nick of time.”
“How did you know?”
“Finequill,” she said, as if that one word was enough. “He had a fit of conscience just in the nick of time. Finequill told us that they’d sold you out—set Fawkes on your trail. So we set out after you. Then as we were approaching this place, a gnome jumped out of the woods and told us what was going on. Shall we drag the dead bodies out of here and get comfortable for the night? Looks like Fawkes has taken off.”
“But?” Lincoln scratched his head.
It took them awhile to clear the place up. They found Morag’s body in the stables. It seemed she and Fawkes had fought as he made his escape. Allaise draped a blanket over the broken door, and Pete manned the bar.
Despite everything that had happened, Lincoln couldn’t keep a smile from his face. Sitting at the bar with Allaise on one side and Aezal on the other, he felt the best he had since he’d been in the land. His health had recovered, and with it, so had his cuts and bruises.
“So you died?” Allaise asked.
“Yep,” said Lincoln. “Troll hammer right on my head.”
“Ouch! And the map Spillwhistle sold you works?”
“I think it’s all tied up with a few things that are happening.”
“So, you’re still going to seek out this place in the shade of the mountain? Why not start here? There’s a few buildings, a tavern…”