Troíde looked blankly into the void above her, where the light of the lamp could not reach.
“I don’t know,” she quietly said, shrugging calmly. “I would feel remiss if we did not at least give them some kind of respectful funeral. They deserve that much.” She lay upon a pile of blankets that Górin had laid out for her, away from the dirty grounds of the campsite. Beside her stood a cup of water that he had heated over a new campfire and offered to her. It had since gone cold.
“It would be a great risk,” Górin said solemnly, “A proper funeral pyre would be as much a beacon as anything else in this place. It likely won’t be any more noticeable than all of our shouting, but I’d not like to take the risk.”
“All the same, I still have no wish to leave them as they are.” If there was any emotional energy within her, it had long since been ripped out and dissolved into nothing. In that moment, just for a brief time when she stopped thinking of Jynge, she thought not of the mission, but of laying herself down to rest within the halls of the Elórdn estate. Away from Kaðrosedd, from the blight, from everything, and only near the approaching embrace of sleep’s nepenthe, praying that the Dark Lady’s forgiveness would come and comfort her with a dreamless slumber.
Górin looked to their surroundings in the flickering yellow lamplight. There was not much to see in this new location other than the dust and dirt, but such was just as he desired. The sight of blood, corpses, or the belongings of the dead would not help to placate his companion. After he had wrapped Troíde under two blankets and carried her to the new place, he took the brief moments to drag their broken companions to a far corner of the hall, even more distant from the corner where the lady of Elórdn recovered.
In his mind, he had no desire for anything in the moment but to remain seated where he was, and to ease his mind from what terrors had overcome the pair. He tried to bite at a bit of his rations, but the attempt only made him feel ill and reluctant to imbibe even plain water. He knew it was a waste to spit out the dried venison, but he could not bring himself to eat it for any money. The two of them remained there for some time longer, simply sitting and waiting in silence for their minds to return to grow numb and calm enough to properly consider the situations without feeling a dreadful exhaustion.
“We have to go, soon,” Górin admitted finally. Troíde looked over at him for the first time since coming to the corner and sighed.
“I know,” she said.
Górin stood up first, saying nothing but extending a hand out to his companion. Troíde took it and hoisted herself up, wobbling slightly at first. With a forlorn look towards the direction of the old camp, now mercifully shrouded by darkness, she considered their supplies.
“What is to be left behind, then?” she asked, throwing a glance at her pack that now lay at her feet.
Górin thought for a moment. “From Kaðrosedd in a direct line to Elbregn...It’s a risky and unfamiliar route, but with what little we will have to spare, it is our best option. That will still take us the better part of a branch, so we should move what food we can from the others’ packs to our own. We’d be best with two bows and all the arrows we can carry. A sword and spear, if you can carry one upon your belt and walk with the other. As for what I was sent here for…” He looked back in the direction of the camp where the trespasser’s hoard had been found. “I may have to be selective in what I choose to take with me. The leafs can be done well enough, but as for everything else, that is a layman’s judgment as to what is worth studying.”
Troíde felt a wave of shame and reluctance at Górin’s suggestion of pilfering from the dead, but she said nothing and did what she could to ignore the reverent refusal that pulled at her mind. Górin was not surprised when she wordlessly handed him her pack and declined to go with him to where the others’ packs lay amid the old camp, but he was too tired to be bothered by the untimely reverence.
It did not take him long to consolidate the most useful and valuable supplies into their packs. Everything else was placed into a neat pile near the dying flames of the fire, and left behind. When he returned to Troíde, he found that she had migrated towards the front entrance of the hall and had been watching him all the while. She stood as a guard might, leaning against the wall, eyes distant, and imagining herself elsewhere. When he came close, she gave a sigh and pushed herself from her forgetfulness to reach for the pack that Górin offered. Although it carried less bulk and weight than before, the thing felt uncomfortably heavy upon her. Once everything was in place, she gripped her spear in her right hand, and the two passed through the door of the hall into the dark of night, once more.
All of Kaðrosedd sloped upward slightly towards a central summit, whereupon a ring of walls had been built, long ago. What had once been a little roadside town had grown over time into a considerably wealthy place, though nothing so great as Elbregn or Sagherödn. The streets wound and wandered much, but if one were searching for the keep of the town rather than a single forgotten hall, no notes or maps were required for such a task. The two were occasionally forced to retrace their steps when they reached an unexpected dead end, but for the most part, they made steady progress so long as their route continued to lead them to a higher ground. Kaðrosedd was not a sprawling town, but for all its twists and turns, one could walk five miles without backtracking once, and still be no more than a mile away from where he began. So it was that much of the night passed them by, and though they were very weary already, still they moved onward through the later half of the night.
They crept along with all the noise of stalking cats, but the further they went along, the more they found such a thing was oddly unnecessary. While the lower regions of the town they had encountered near the hall were rather quiet and stagnant, the higher levels contained a ceaseless ringing of distant noises, as though a great chorus of hustle and bustle were happening not a bow shot away. Voices, footsteps, calls of beasts, everything one might hear within the grounds of a city. The gradually-growing sounds surprised them at first, and they hid to ready an ambush, but no such follower ever came. Many times this was repeated, and never did the din ever seem closer than a distant echo.
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Neither spoke more than was necessary, and that was hardly only due to the desire for secrecy in their ascent. The events which had preceded their departure from the hall hung over their minds like a dark cloud even more looming and grim than those above which prevented any light of moon or star from passing down to where they walked. An occasional whisper or gesture was the most of it, though they did occasionally hold brief and hushed discussions whenever the choice of way seemed debatable.
The light of the lamps poured forth, and if the pair stopped for a moment, the thin waves of fog near them shifted and turned in the dank air, like upturned sand upon an ocean floor. The further they went, the more they began to realize that the fog itself did not seem as thick upon the higher grounds, and for better or for worse, their lamplight could illuminate the roads ahead and the sides of buildings much further away than was possible down below.
The hearts of Górin and Troíde were laden heavily with sorrow and solemnity as they walked along the old forgotten roads. Together, they proceeded onward as mourners in a funereal procession, bearing the burden of the dead upon their aching shoulders. Wandering alone in the dark, bearing fleeting light against a tragic night, and awaiting death in whatever form it chose to make itself manifest to them, they made their ascent up the hill.
For all of the noises, both strange and ordinary, that the two heard as they crept along, none were so jarring nor so unsettling to them as that which came from a voice most familiar to them. Now and then, the resonant tone of Jynge would reverberate through the town, down from the heights of the summit. Each syllable repeated many times, and every incantation that she spoke broke through any grounds of silence or lesser sound. She chanted wildly and hysterically, though her frantic words were not without form or purpose. Whatever spell or ritual she was preparing within the hilltop keep, she was doing so with whatever haste could be mustered.
When the cries of Jynge had first begun to echo down the hillside, it took both Górin and Troíde by tremendous surprise. Both were halted in their steps, and their eyes were drawn to the origin of such a melodious din. While a great wave of relief spread throughout them both, knowing that she still lived, urgency took them when they detected the fear and distress that colored every word she called out. With a hopeful nod to each other, they quickened their steps and sharpened their eyes in spite of the weariness that plagued their bodies and minds.
The pair were reaching the final ascent of the hill when the buildings began to thin, and the roads became straighter, winding around the hill in a clean round slope. Finally entering into an area in which they were not constantly surrounded by buildings, they looked about in the night, though they could still see little. Very little could be spotted, of course, though when they looked upward towards the walls of the keep, they saw the rough stone faintly illuminated by golden flickering lights. The keep bordered the summit well, and its walls would not easily be scaled, even in clear daylight. Taking a quick look at the area around them, they stopped for a moment before running off into the direction most likely to be where the gate was positioned.
Slowly, they trod beside the narrow stone road, nearing ever closer to the tall wall of the inner keep. The pair had not been at it long before their quickened pace was suddenly cut short to a dead stop. Not far ahead stood a pale figure, only just barely visible at distance, and to their great thanks, facing away from them. They crouched and held their blades aloft, but their presence seemed to be undetected thus far. With a faint few words, they set to watch rather than to approach and risk alerting the man. Yet even as they spoke, they gained a clearer view of the distant figure and saw that his being was not terribly unlike what might be considered normal. Though he appeared nearly identical to themselves in form, a strange sight within the town, he still bore the same bloating and decay that had marked the flesh of their earlier assailants. Slowly, he moved, shambling forward but seemingly not in any direction by intent. Almost idly, he wandered, and so focused on him were Górin and Troíde that they did not even notice a similarly-shambling man mindlessly step forward not far to their left. When at last the motion caught their gaze, they jumped at the surprise, and Troíde nearly let out a cry, but pursed her lips at the last moment.
Looking about the open stretch that led up through the final road to the keep, the two began to spot more and more of the stumbling figures. Some stood by walls, others ambled along the road itself, and many simply remained in place and gazed blankly at nothing at all. Just over a dozen were in their view, and many of them faced the direction of the lamplight. Despite this, no motion to apprehend or pursue the two was made. Actually, even for the bloated men that looked almost in the same direction as the two, there was not even any sort of indication that they noticed them at all. Were it not for the slow aqueous movements of their limbs and the irregular rise and fall with each breath taken, Górin might have seriously pondered whether or not the things were even alive.
Were it not for the lack of any reaction from those whose gaze passed over the pair, they might have not taken the careful steps further along the road. They looked directly at the closest of the shambling figures, who had moved to come facing them. Not even the most minute reaction came to it, for it continued its slow steps in a directionless path. The pair kept their weapons raised high and walked with their backs to each other. The going was slow, for they would not risk a straight line if it meant coming within arm’s reach of one of the rotting men. Though never a single twitch or turn of the eye was made in their direction, they dared not leave anything to chance.
As they passed by the crowd, they began to notice similarities in many of those that were not yet so rotted and wasted away by a rank existence in the blighted town. While most were garbed in heavy clothing that remained well upon the body despite the decay and matting, others stood with naked chests while their tunics fell in tatters about their waists or had fallen off completely. These, Górin and Troíde saw, bore many twisted pendants and rings about their necks and arms. Long tin rods hung from their necks, and upon each of these were many deep scratches of the Mhánnic script rubbed with dark ink along the length.
“Icons of protection,” Troíde whispered as they were forced to pass so terribly close to one rotted man who stood slack-jawed near their route, “I dare not read the words aloud, for the name of the necromancer is written, as is the address of a vekra lord.”
Górin said nothing, but gave Troíde a forlorn look of regret. In her pause to stop and read the inscription of the doomed man’s pendant, she had abandoned her strides forward towards the end of the journey. Perhaps the fate of a mindless and lifeless shambling creature of blight was not yet come to her, but hope dwindled in her heart, and she might have well remained there in the grounds of Kaðrosedd to join her hapless and nameless brethren. He pushed her along with the hilt of his sword and the pair resumed their final steps towards the gateway of the keep, from which smoke and gloom seeped in a miasmal cloud of fear.