Book of The Dead

“You done, Worthy?”

“Aye, I think we’ve finished up on this side. Well, as finished as it can be.”

Trenan nodded and wiped the sweat from his brow as best he could. Despite his physique, enhanced by the Unseen beyond the limits of human physiology, he was still exhausted. A level of fatigue that sank deep into his bones and seemed to take root there. He’d need a few days to recover from all this exertion.

“You look like I feel, lad,” Worthy Steelarm chuckled, eyes knowing beneath his shaggy brows. “No need to worry, we’re done for the time being. Let your team know they can start packing their gear once we get back to camp.”

“I will. Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t ‘sir’ me. I’m a Slayer.”

The Hammer Warden nodded and turned to head back to his team. The Gold Rank Slayers would be even more worn out than he was after the heroics they’d performed over the past week, and the months prior to that. The number and strength of the kin that roamed these plains was like nothing Trenan had ever heard of back in the Empire. As much as he wanted to contribute, at Silver rank, he was much weaker than people like Worthy, who did the vast bulk of the fighting.

As he approached, his two comrades looked up from their efforts digging for cores.

“We’re packing up and going home,” he told them. “Once we get back to the camp, grab your stuff and we can leave straight away.”

“Finally,” Arthur sighed in relief. Face and robes covered in dirt and gore, the man looked like he’d been put through a grinder.

His wife, Chol, somehow managed to maintain her cleanliness even on the battlefield. Perhaps it was her dark skin tone, or perhaps her nature magick that made the difference, but she never looked as filthy as Trenan and Arthur. She stood, hands pressed into the small of her back and groaned.

“A good thing,” she said. “Another day and I might have fallen to sleep in battle.”

“You should have said something,” Arthur frowned, worried. “If you’re too tired to fight, let me know.”

“I will, dear heart,” she said, smiling. “This time, I did not, because I had strength in me still.”

“Save it for your own house,” Trenan grunted, already walking away. “Leave the cores, we’ve got more than we can use from kin that size anyway.”

It’s not like they were getting paid for them. Money wasn’t much of a thing for those who had fled the Western Province. What would be the point of coins, after all? Everyone was desperate to survive, and there weren’t enough resources to go around.

Well, they were swimming in cores and materials butchered from kin, but short on food and fresh water. Thankfully, those were rationed and dispersed freely.

Chol and Arthur, also at the limits of their strength, or perhaps just sensing Trenan’s lack of desire for talk, remained silent on the long trek back to the camp. Underfoot, shards of crystal mixed with the sandy soil shifted, crunching and crackling like shards of glass as they walked. Despite two years of looking at the blasted wasteland that was the former lands of Granin, he still wasn’t used to it. The lack of green, the tactile hum of magick in the air, the cloying heat, it was an alien landscape that he couldn’t quite believe was part of his own world.

Just how far had the realm fallen for so much of it to be covered in this terrain? All his life, he had wanted to fight to hold back the rifts, never knowing that war had been lost centuries ago.

“Trenan? You alright?”

He snapped back to himself, shaking off the morose thoughts and realised he was on the outskirts of the camp. Tents, fires, figures moving and laughing, Slayers all. Somewhere, a hammer was ringing on steel, bringing a sense of normalcy to the wasteland, and he relaxed a hair without even realising it.

“Yeah. Sorry, Arthur, just got lost in my thoughts. Can you do me a favour and pack the gear? I’ll go report to the higher ups and then we can leave together. Alright?”

“Sure thing, boss.”

“Shutup.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Wearily, he trudged to the centre of the camp where a bright, roaring fire could be found, people sitting and discussing around it, warming themselves by the flames.

It almost didn’t bother him anymore that the whole thing was fuelled by magick rather than wood. There was an almost infinite supply of arcane energy just floating around in the air out here, he’d been told. Pumping it into a collection of flame crystals was a heck of a lot easier than finding a tree out here, that was for sure.

“I think we’re getting close to the rift in the north,” Trenan heard a deep voice rumble. Somehow, Worthy had gotten back ahead of them. Not surprising, really; the man could run like the wind itself when he wanted to. “The kin are getting thicker and stronger. I think I was right on the edge of the Broken Lands during our last fight.”

“Be careful near those fucking rifts,” another voice warned him. “They’ve been running wild for hundreds of years; who knows how large and dangerous they are at this point?”

As he drew closer, Trenan found Worthy and the former leader of the Slayer rebellion, Rurin Wilkin, talking together by the fire. Slayers being who they were, they didn’t seem to care who overheard their discussion. As far as the higher ranked Slayers were concerned, they were all there to do the same job, so why bother keeping secrets from each other?

“I heard the same warnings you did,” the Hammer Lord replied. “We’ll need some careful planning before we run in there, we all know that. Clearing one of these rifts is going to take a lot of people, Rurin, so try and free up your schedule.”

“Me?” the old Slayer squawked. “I’m too old to be fighting colossal class monsters on the edge of a gods-knows-how-large rift. We have hundreds of golds; send some of them.”

“We might need all of them,” Worthy replied flatly.

“I’m sure your young nephew will help out.”

“Of course he will, but having undead isn’t enough to replace gold ranked Slayers, you idiot.”

When they finally lapsed into a comfortable silence, Trenan felt the time to approach. He gave Worthy a nod before turning to Rurin.

“Wanted to let you know my team is heading back to the city for a break.”

“Mr. Ebert,” Rurin grinned. She’d taken to calling him that to poke fun at how straight-laced and organised he was. An unhealthy state of mind for a ‘proper’ Slayer. “Thank you for the report. I’ll have someone make note of it. When do you expect to be back? If you haven’t noticed, there’s a shit load of kin to kill out here.”

Trenan considered the question. They’d been out for two weeks, and while the fighting had been beneficial to them, it was unrelenting and harsh. Chol and Arthur were worn down to the bone, and so was he.

“A week,” he said with finality.

That would give them enough time to rest, perform the status ritual and adapt before coming back out again.

“Sensible,” Rurin said with a slow nod. “Cautious, appropriate.” She nodded again, failing to hide her sly smile. “Are you sure you weren’t destined to be an accountant?”

“I feel as if I’m where I’m supposed to be,” he replied. “Do you disagree?” he asked, brows raised.

“Well I

fucking don’t,” Worthy grunted. “I like this kid and his team. It’s a damn shame what happened to your fourth, but that’s not on you. Good Slayers, the lot of you. Now piss off and sleep. Take that as an order if you need to.”

He really was tired if a little compliment and sympathy from the Steelarm was enough to get a lump in his throat. Not willing to speak, Trenan bobbed his head and left the fire.

When he returned to the others, their tent and belongings had been packed away, his own bags neatly piled on the ground while Chol and Arthur stood talking to another figure. The moment he saw them, Trenan felt his heart drop in his chest.

Surrounded by ethereal light, ghostly green flesh around dark black bones and coated in midnight armour, the wight looked much as the others did, except he recognised her features.

“Hey, Brigette,” he said heavily, trying to keep his expression neutral.

She looked towards him, her expression faintly sad.

“Hello, Trenan. I wanted to stop by before going to the rift.”

The silence between them deepened as Trenan didn’t walk forward and the undead didn’t approach, leaving Chol and Arthur standing awkwardly in the silence.

“Take care of yourself out there,” Trenan blurted, then kicked himself for saying anything at all. What was the point?

He thought he saw a ghost of a smile on the wight’s face before she extended her hands and gripped her former teammates on their shoulders.

“Look after each other,” she said, “and stay safe.”

Then she was gone, striding off to join the skeletal horde massing nearby. Clearly, Tyron had ordered them out to help clear the kin now that he had returned to the city. They’d heard about his return days ago, but only now were the undead showing themselves.

“You don’t have to be so standoffish with her,” Arthur muttered as he shouldered his pack.

Trenan picked up his own, unsure what to say.

“It’s just… she’s dead,” he said lamely, shrugging the straps onto his shoulder and starting to walk. “What do you say to your dear friend who is dead?”

“Maybe start with ‘I miss you’,” Chol chided him. “Or ‘hello’. Most conversations start with hello.”

“I just… I don’t know what it’s like for her as an undead.”

He hated saying it. He hated thinking it. He hated the fact it was real.

“I just… hope she’s happy.”

“One way to find out,” Arthur said. “Ask her yourself.”

The three friends fell into silence as they set out on the long walk back to the city.