Peace in the Empire - A Vignette

[Madeline Merri]

The countryside was gripped in a state of fear over the past five years. It had been twenty before that since I'd seen this country. We passed through here, a small region south of the Drakwald. There weren't many uses for this part of land apart from the thick and deep rivers driving the mills and lumber that fed and sheltered the people of the empire. The shelter wouldn't last long. I was with the Free Companies of the River Sol, travelled well over the previous months to bolster the defenses in this area from the unspeakable beasts of the darkest wood. We had done our job, if only for a while.

The fogged, rolling plains echoed the hooves of my horse as I rode alone into the mists, the sound of the ragged cobble roads and pounded firm trails the only indication I was nearing the villages, what used to be the villages. They had been pleasant oases once, firelight and chimney smoke amidst the endless fields, holds of the small farming communities marked with piled stone fences. Dozens of strapping young farmhands, legacy families of the region, indentured servants, each of them gathered in the large taverns and markets after a long season's rest earned. I remember vividly the day our company marched into Schwarzburg. Back then the people loved the imperial sigils. They represented safety, security, the promise that the Emperor had not forgotten the lifeblood of his nation. That was before the last great war, when the unspeakable horrors of the forest crept in like the night.

All that remains now are shattered and abandoned homes. Five years of exposure had worn the scorched stone and wood buildings into the landscape, mossed over without much to indicate their age except my memories. Even those were ghostly, trying to piece together the Breton boulangerie on the corner there, the quiet bridge that led to the city hall. A few strong memories still stood, still forgotten from the newest cartographer's drafted map. At the east edge of town stood a tall building, acting as all those ruins of the past.

It's windows were shuttered, not chancing more than the slivers of firelight to cast into the night. But I knew this was the place I had come to investigate. I came because I had no purpose in the army. The war with the beast was fortuitous to me, I had risen in the Free Companies quickly, becoming a bombardier lieutenant in the auxiliary of the Imperial Legion. It guaranteed thick hearty meals, soft beds, and a horse to ride. All that meant nothing to this city. I wore no insignia, not on my breast or on the barding of my aging horse.

I dismounted outside the three-story building, laying the reins on a hitching post to adjust my cloak and coat as I removed my hood. I opened the heavy door to a sombre sight. Twenty pairs of eyes, glinting in the light of a large fire in the center of the house turned to me. I stood without hand on hilt of blade, letting them look at my greying beard, palms open to them until their eyes began to peel back. I looked about the crowd, searching with squinting eyes in the bright glow for the sash of imperial leadership. Finding only one man bearing the red of the Emperor, I approached, despite the sash being tattered, worn and thoroughly uncared for. He sat with his young son, an adolescent bearing fright on his young brow as I hovered at tableside, nudging him away from a seat so I might rest.

"Who are you to brush aside my son, sir?" The officer wiped his scraggly, bearded and gaunt muzzle with the back of a sleeve, the heavy and warm scent of ale coming out from his cough after. I hid my distaste for his appearance, despite mine not being much better than his except for the sobriety.
"I have been sent here to help with your dispatch." I laid the scroll, familiar to his eyes as he nodded.
"Good, though in the five months since we sent riders, things have found themselves much more... costly. The situation worsens almost nightly, and they send an aged swordsman to aid when I need twenty with the faith in our Lord Sigmar to dispel this ev-" I stood to make my point, his hand quietly sitting me back down with a gesture, eyes hoping his villagers saw nothing of this insult. He continued in a less bitter tone to me, "-this evil. It knows no reason, nor any hunger or thirst we know of."

I tuned out his rambling, talking of everything I'd already known. I rolled in my palm the glass vial, a liquid tumbling smoothly inside as I thought over the smattering of new information. There had been now twelve deaths in the past five months. Entire farms being killed off in the night, found days later with horrific expressions of rigor mortis, pools of blood formed, gushed from their ears. The town guards were not drawing any conclusions, nor could they. They were children when I was last through here. I knew where the killer would be next, and I would be there to stop them.

-----

I left the inn soon after, knowing that the approaching night would ease my way in travelling inconspicuously, leaving me to drift in the shadows much like the killer. I had been directed to the last farmstead to suffer the horrific fate of what the townspeople were calling 'The Dozen Dead.' My horse was tempered in battle, and sodded by age, eyes to the path I chose as I rode off the main thoroughfare and into the fields. I chanced no lantern under the waxing moon.

The miles rolled on as the moon peaked overhead, even the insects didn't dare rouse in this cursed land. It was a passing cloud that hid it, revealing it in a slow drift as the moonlight bathed a covered well beneath a massive tree. I stopped and dismounted, swatting my horse on the hindquarters to turn it back on it's course to the town. They should have some use for it. The ground was cold and hard under my boots, crunching the frosted grass of the late autumn underneath each step, laid ominous as I closed in on the well.

Beside the stone well, was a well-used bench. I eased down into the seat once more, like I did twenty years ago. The wind rolled across the farmland, and the light let me see for miles in all directions. There was a softness to the air, my breath catching and blending in with the fog as it pooled beneath the little hill. Hours passed and I found sleep tugging my head low. In this state it was hard to decide whether a dream had taken me or not, if only for a second. The world had not let me live in the mundane, and the second passed. Down in the western field, the faintest glow pierced the veil. On the wind it sounded much like a wagon wheel with a shot axle, but I knew better. The moon shifted an hour as the glow made it's way up to the hill. The wind took on the aspect of the spectre, wailing into my ears slowly.

With a deep breath I fetched the vial from my pocket, pulling the solid waxed cork. I tilted my head to one side, laying half of the vial into one ear. The pain was that of leaning over a fire too long, then quickly sharp. I could hear the hiss of the liquid sizzling at my eardrum, then nothing at all a short few seconds later. I gathered my resolve for the other ear, and in a short minute, I had reduced the world around me to silence. I watched the spectre, my breaths deep to fight the pain and ready myself, steeling for what I may encounter.

Feminine features began to gather in that form, twenty yards away now, drifting up to me, face contorted as her mouth was unnaturally long, posture leaning into an unheard scream. She tried this several more times before her features shifted once more to a stillness, watching me only a few meters away now. My hand trembled as I reached down to the hilt of my blade. Caution bade her reel back, mouth forming in yet another unheard wail, screaming murder to my soul, forcing me to close my eyes at the sight. I unlashed my sword from the hip, tossing it away in gesture, opening my eyes to see that same stillness.

"Matilda... I have put down my sword for good. I promised one day I would. And we would live in peace, think no more of these things. I am here now to declare my undying love to you." I waited as she stepped closer, the spectre of that little farm girl distilling into the perfection I had found all those years ago. All those years where I had let the legion drag me from battlefront to battlefront, leaving her with nothing but delivered letters and undelivered promises. Leaving her to the first rush of that black tide of the forest, leaving her no choice but to take her own life in the depths of that well, cursing the imperials, cursing the fickle nature of man, cursing me.

Her eyes wore sadness, profound enough to draw tears to mine. I held out my hand to her for what seemed like time eternal, before she approached me, alabaster lips forming words that I caught only in passing. How long are you here for?
"As long as you'll have me. I should have never left you. I love you, Matilda..." I ached to say those words to her in life, the tears rolling down my scarred and worn features as the girl tried to take my hand the cold chill passing into my skin as the confusion crossed into her consciousness.
What is wrong? I cannot touch.
"Give me a moment, I will be with you, do not worry."

I drew the knife from my belt, causing her brow to furrow before I lanced it hard underneath my ribs and upward. The pain levelled me to her hip on my knees, the girl bending down immediately to rest a hand on my shoulder after a few seconds. Her warm touch surprised even me, wondering if she had at last found some peace. It was only when I looked down to my side and saw the greyed and battered body I'd been wearing for twenty years, was when I realized that I had also too, found some peace.

[Elessehta of Yvresse]

Humans, giving their short lives away, foolish creatures, but a wonderful story.

[Larose]

Short and sweet haha I liked it, but then again from an elven view, most human lives are short and sweet