1.02 In My Time Of Dying

[Madeline Merri]

There would be no dignity in it. Not that anyone from Sylvania could ever expect it. Each day there were dozens of bodies ferried from the east, boatmen wearing cloths over their noses and mouths soaked in the clean scent of pine oil to mask the scent. Many of them were the common people of the unheard hamlets and towns ravaged by plague, famine, and even wanton destruction of some unknown and shapeless beast. It was the way of Sylvania. The ferries would slowly verge to the far bank, away from the view of Siegfriedhof, curtained by a thick row of deep Stirlish Pine. The paths were well walked, far more than they should. The poorest of Stirland's nation would take the job of unloading these bodies, each of them wrapped in a burlap cloth like a bundled tree, and follow the path for more than an hour to the old quarry. The vista would open up, the land scarred and stripped clean, sloping ramps heading down towards the emptied quarry, a vast expanse of broken gravel and earth unfit to plant on.

Anton walked this path, the lifeless body slung across his shoulders. The day had not broken hard yet, and one couldn't tell that the man he was bearing was dead at all. Ahead of him strode the raven-haired girl, her head hung low, arms dangling in front of her as she wrung her hands, shoulders barely able to hold them up. It was quiet, perhaps as it should be. There were more of the labourers, well-experienced at their jobs, passing by them as they were working for coppers and to eat that night. They made their way down to the bottom, where the brown earth was opened up by many shallow graves. At the fore of the main path stood a man, bearing the livery of a Stirland official, passing coppers to each man who finished bearing a load. The foreman's eyes found the strange pair, and held up a palm to inquire as the unwrapped body.

"Hold and state your purpose here." He watched to Anton, while he noticed the girl could not even meet his gaze.
"We seek to bear the body under the earth, officer." Anton struggled a voice as his shoulders shrugged the body up to a firmer rest.
"And where is this man from?" Anton deflected the inquisition wordlessly with a look to the Sylvanian girl.
"He is from Nachthafen.. sir."
"Right - you can rest him here. Face down." The foreman sidestepped to reveal an open grave, hastily dug.

Anton hesitated for a moment before obeying the Imperial liaison, gingerly resting the man down. Before the silk on his shirt had a chance to settle, a pair of the workers had already grabbed spades, tossing dirt on top of him urgently, a quickness that stole the serenity of it all. Madeline's composure broke as she found comfort in Anton's breast, hiding her face from the sight of it. There was a slight huff from the officer at the reaction.

"All Sylvanians are buried face down. Imperial decree. The last thing we need is one of them to wake up and find their way back. Let them dig through the dirt and rock, let Cathay deal with them." The foreman was silenced by an empty hand of a worker beckoning for another copper for the work done. And with that, the business was over and done.

This was the dream that Madeline replayed in her mind. It would be something for it to be during the night, in the dark where nobody but the ghosts and spirits of the dark could see you. It would take her in the moments when she didn't have her violin in her hands, moments where the eyes of strangers and uncaring masses could see and scoff at her running makeup, look aghast at the woman's inability to hold her demeanor. She wondered at times how long it would take for the image to fade, was it burned into her mind's eye for all time? When would it come to be that memories of Sebastian would be fond, when she could see the carefree curl of his smile, or remember the scent of his spiced cologne. If the first two weeks would be any indication, it would be many months of living in this dreaming life.

The Cloak and Dagger found it's footing, each night opening to a few more patrons, and ending each night with each coin purse a little heavier. Madeline came to know Mannfred Waldenhof well. It would take a healthy breakfast each morning to get the girl out of bed. Within a week she was already looking in the pink, cheeks starting to swell from the gaunt shape he found in the alley. And with each morning, she found Anton Lupescu sitting across from that breakfast table, reading to her the Imperial words she couldn't understand in the morning bulletin he would pull off of the nearest lamppost in the city. Things worked like this for some time. Each day would pass with her unskilled hands learning the subtle craft of peeling potatoes, trimming and preparing meats for the grill, and scrubbing the pans and pots for the evening. What was new and different was the evenings for Madeline.

In Nachthafen, she wore the same red velvet dress since she was eight years old, tailored and altered to fit her as she grew older. To be able to afford a closet full of dresses (most of which Anton surprised her with when he went to market on the off days), and the most supple and comfortable leather boots she had ever seen. The crowds began to look forward to the evenings on the darker side of the Stirland main street. The people whispered and grinned in through the windows at the newest attraction on stage, a pale little wispy girl playing the tunes that ached the heart for the old men and women who could remember them - just as much as she drew the curiosity of each young man who saw a strangely exotic girl in the midst of their sleepy city. The booming voice of Mannfred would sometimes introduce her much like a snake oil salesman, proclaiming "Ms. Von Straaden!" She much preferred the nights where Anton would be the one to usher her onto the stage, his words were smattered between Sylvanian and Imperial, but were much more poetic and soothing to the ears. After each musical set was over, Anton would deflect and riposte the advances of the young men, sending them home with a protective scowl, while Mannfred would laugh and reminisce with the older crowd as the inn began to empty out to the trio for another night.

Madeline rested her elbows on the bar as she examined her hands. In a short two weeks, her hands had become a mess of blisters and small cuts, some of them already beginning to shine and heal over into callouses. She had not been used to living the life of a barmaid, there were nights when a cut from a knife would make a night of holding her bow more than a discomfort, raw wounds sometimes soaking onto the strings with her left hand. Anton passed with the last of the mugs in a wide washing bucket, propping it on his knee before setting it on the bar. He leaned in to examine the damage she'd already incurred.

"Mannfred, we are going to need to do something about these hands!"
"What hands!?" Mannfred shouted from the kitchens.
"Madelina, soon she will have fingers like ginger roots!" Anton always called her Madalina, it was something from his hometown, she assumed.
Mannfred pushed through the kitchen doors, cleaning his hands on a surprisingly dirty towel, propping a set of spectacles on his thick nose to see for himself. Madeline seemed a bit surprised when Anton took hold of her hands by the wrists, displaying them to their employer.
"They will heal over, there is nothing to worry about. My mother played the harp with hands worse than this, and she soaked her hands nightly in the dish pits of the Counts! Speaking of which.." He gave a suggestive head nod to the kitchen, to which Madeline stood and disappeared into the kitchens, leaving the two men to hiss and spit at each other in disagreement.

There were always tall stacks waiting for her at the end of the night. If she was lucky she would be able to get through them by the time the sun began to crest the buildings. The window above the basin had a surprisingly good view of the open city. The hours would often pass by with visions of herself walking through the tall houses and buildings of the city elite. She would sometimes even wave at herself if the vision proved vivid enough, and sometimes she would wave back.

Tonight was different. A commotion started at the far end of the street. Two lanterns rounded the bend in the city, obviously on horseback due to the speed at which the lights flickered and wavered. With all haste, the horses fell under the light of the street lamps as they began to fly towards the city hall, hooves nearly tearing the cobblestones beneath them apart with their riders pushing them hard and fast. As they neared, she could hear them barking and yelling to alert the town watch. Bells began to ring throughout the city as the guards emerged from the dark corners of the streets, each of them finding their own haste to the city center.

"To arms! Town guard to arms!! They are right on our heels! Away to arms, bar your doors!!"

The few stragglers in the streets froze in bewilderment, the night of wine and ale slowing their minds and striking them dumbfounded. All at once, it was as if they remembered where they were, and what exactly lay in the dark woods of the land of phantoms and shadows. Before Madeline herself even began to start realizing the enormity of it all, a hand grasped at her arm, pulling her away from the windows and towards the stairs. Anton led her up the flights to where the three of them kept their rooms.

"Madalina - do you know how to handle a weapon? A blade?" The urgency in his voice was made more intense by the sound of horses riling and rousing outside, smelling fear running rampant in the city. She shook her head at the question, her fingers gripping at his arm. With a swift motion, he placed a pistol in her hands clumsily as she fumbled and nearly dropped the heavy weapon. Anton quickly showed her how to cock back the hammer and fire off a shot. "I hope it does not come to this." Anton grabbed a longblade from the wall, oiled and maintained as well as could be hoped. With a hurried preparation, he tied back his black mane with a strap of cloth and cleared the stairwell with a pair of leaps as he went down to help Mannfred bar the doors.

From the room upstairs, she could see clear to the blackness of the city outskirts. Coming from the treeline she could see shapes flowing into the alleyways and streets. They were beasts of varying size and shape, some would run on all fours, while yet others would walk and run as the man would, and even some still defied the nature of the world itself, climbing and running the walls like frenzied cats. Downstairs Mannfred was shouting something, but the girl was transfixed by the sight of the horde sweeping across the city. There was a symphony of glass breaking, starting small like the twinkle of a wind chime, but as the line of black shapes closed into the city, the sound was augmented by the screams and shrieks of frightened commoners. The wall of guards moved out then, into the swirl of the attackers as a formation of lanterns and halberds held orderly and regimented. It was quiet for a few seconds until the swirling melee began. Unable to see where their attackers were coming from, the block of troops found foes coming at them from every single shadow possible, twisted bodies covered in talons, vicious appendages meant to rake the flesh from the bones. One by one the guards began to lose ground, their formation breaking as they were pulled into the dark to be torn apart.

When Madeline saw the creatures begin to fly across the rooftops, shingles sprinkling down to the streets below, panic sunk into her bones as she closed the shutters, and stumbled her way down the stairwell to the landing below. The symphony reached their doorstep as the windows in the front of the building shattered, the iron grates holding back hands reaching and clawing in to grab at anything in range. Her expression bled out to white when she saw the front door. Made of the heaviest wood money could afford, Mannfred and Anton were both leaning their shoulders against the door, bracing it as the horrors outside pushed and fought to break into the warm lights of the Inn. With each successive surge, the wood planks shook, the bracing iron bars creaking as the bolts running through them began to creak, splintering the wood at the seams. The men kept their backs pressed as their eyes both found the girl standing at the landing, watching their struggle as the door began to slowly buckle. They would be inside in a matter of a short few minutes. Mustering his composure, Mannfred pushed Anton away from the door.

"The back door! They are not at the back door! Take Madeline out to the streets, find something to ride, and get out of here!" Anton started to object, but a hellish scream cut him off at the same time as the windows upstairs began to give way one by one. Anton pulled Madeline from the landing as her footing struggled, tearing the skin on her knees as she stumbled to keep up. The kitchen door flew open wide as they fired past with a loud 'bang!' Checking outside with a quick peek to the window, it seemed as if the worst of the party had already reached the center of the city. They fled the building, Madeline looking back as Mannfred struggled, the door finally breaking with the metallic sound of a shattering hinge. His screams were cut short quickly as the two of them ran out into the streets.

All around them lay the dead, both the horrors that attacked, and the gruesome victims of the town guard. Their feet barely touched the stones as Anton led them away towards the stables, hoping to find a horse, a donkey, maybe even a large dog to get them away from this. Their steps were quickly hounded as the ferocity of the night were on their heels like spurs. The scream from behind warned them as Anton spun and put Madeline behind them. The first of them launched for their throats, Anton's blade clipping it on it's jaw, sending it sprawling onto the blood-slicked stones of the street, tumbling like a dog. Anton's eyes filled with a fear as the second was already upon him before he could set his feet.

The blast rang out as the breach flashed on Madeline's pistol, landing the shot directly into the chest of the second beast. It stumbled and fell, sweeping Anton's legs out from under him as it slid to the ground at Madeline's feet. She hopped and jumped away as the thing was not dead, clawed paws lashing out at her dress, catching and tearing the lace hem. Anton scrambled to his feet to keep moving, his breath knocked slim by the fall, coughing as they rounded the bend towards the stables. All around them the signs of the battle mounted. Pillars of smoke began to rise above the rooftops, the igniting flames lighting them a bleak orange in the dark. In the light of the fires, the silhouettes of panicked horses could be seen streaming from the mews. Anton was already at the reigns of one of them, easing it away from the chaos as it reared and fought to escape.

Madeline spun to watch their escape, seeing no shapes in the darkness in their midst. At the end of the street was another rider. The steed was impossibly calm as it strode among the houses, many of them ablaze, the fires causing Madeline to squint to see the shape. It was not a soldier or a guard, but a woman. The fiery light brought definition to the rider's features as she unconsciously stepped a few feet forward to get a better view. Her feet stopped and tripped on a fallen body, breaking her stride as she toppled onto the body of a lieutenant, his face torn from his skull. She didn't look to the grisly corpse under her, but kept her eyes trained on the mysterious rider. Her heart skipped a beat, chilled hairs raising on the back of her neck as she saw a familiar face.

Beneath a crimson riding hood, she saw the pale skin and raven haired image of Sylvania. At once, the rider turned to face her, pulling her horse to turn towards the stables. Madeline fumbled to grab her pistol, aiming it towards the woman and pulling the trigger with an inexperienced 'click'. The shot had already been fired, and she reached underneath her, feeling for a hilt of any weapon she could grab. Not letting her eyes leave the rider for a minute, her hand grasped around several handles, and grabbed for two of them. Luckily they were both the long handles of a brace of pistols. As she sat up, she tried her best to level the weapon towards her target. Before she could fire, Anton's hand had already grasped her at the wrist, pulling her up to her feet and in a single adrenaline-fueled swing, up and back onto the saddle of a horse. Bucking his heels fiercely into the steed, fleeing into the fires of the city. Madeline wrapped her arms around Anton's waist, still not letting go of her weapons, burying her face into his back, pressing tight.

They rode hard like that for as long as the horse could maintain. The fires grew, the pillars of orange smoke far in the distance as they made their way westward. Madeline kept her eyes looking back to catch any hint of a pursuer, a sign that they were still not out of the woods. Ironically, they fled into the deepest woods they could find on the path, along the highways towards Thalheim. When the horse's breath grew too ragged for even fear to spur forward, they took refuge beside a bridge across the River Steinbach. There were lanterns at the crossing, and a guard station which was emptied, the horse already taken, most likely to continue the message down the line toward the larger cities. They dismounted to rest inside the guardhouse. Madeline flopped down to the ground, bringing her knees up to hug at them, blood already dried on the torn spots at her knees, her pistols falling to the floor with dull 'thud's.

"Madalina, are you hurt?"
She didn't respond the first time, he asked again with more volume to which she let her head fall limp, shaking it side to side.
"I do not know what we are to do. Thaleim is still a full day's ride away. If those things leave, we might be able to go back-"
"-Mannfred did not make it out, Anton!" Her head reared up to defy his thought. He quieted, and crouched to his haunches in front of the girl.
"I know.. But there is no place to go, everything was back there, it was my home."
"You do not want to go back - you would be facing certain death. This I know for certain."
"There will be other troops coming, I am certain of this. They are trained soldiers, even *I* managed to slay one, we wait until the troops show and we follow them."
"They will not be enough either.." Madeline shook her head, eyes looking out the doorway to the empty road. Anton watched the girl's body begin to quake and quiver, the chills rolling down her spine, drawing up tears like a bucket to a well.
"How can you be certain?"
"It was that woman, Anton, the woman on the horse, you do not want to confront her unless there is no other choice."
"..Why?"
"She died last year, in Nachthafen when the Count's men began to take back their cities."

The same chill found Anton in a similar way. The girl stared at him to look for a reaction, which was impossible to hide. To him the stories of the vampires and the undead were barely more than a bedtime story, even this close to the border. The river Stir was known to transport soldiers and garrisons with the greatest of speed, holding the forces of the Counts of Sylvania at bay for the most part. The fact that a force such as that managed to reach the inner hamlets and cities was startling enough. But to know that there was a living nightmare among them, it was a prospect that would turn the feet of the bravest men to stone.

"How do you know this?" Anton asked this quietly as he reached to examine her pistols that she had picked up.
"She was my sister, Odetta." Madeline reached over to grab one of the pistols, holding it close to her chest as she resumed her curled-ball position. There was no doubt in Anton's mind that she intended to wait until the dawn broke, and that her eyes would not stop looking back down the road until the sun ensured that they would be safe for one more day. Anton flopped down beside her to console her with an arm around her shoulders.

[Si'anelle of Avelorn]

Brilliant!