“That does not look promising,” Zorea said, as they rounded the corner and got their first look at the town of Jillin.

“The queen did say that the town had fallen on hard times,” Brand suggested doubtfully.

“She didn’t say it was a haunted ruin,” Zorea said.

Zorea was only exaggerating a little. The town was not quite a haunted ruin, but it was not far off.

They had been on the road for a week since leaving the queen. First they’d followed the main high road from Blackrock and then north a bit, along a less well-kept road that snaked away from the river through some straggly woodland and malnourished farm fields. Skinny cattle grazed in some of the fields, and a couple of horses gave them dolorous looks from a ramshackle stable block by a broken-down cottage.

This new exploration had even allowed Saul to hit Level 19, and he could feel that something special was around the corner. Level 20 felt like another important milestone.

After the previous bright days, and the swift exit from the political cess-pool of Blackrock castle, they’d been feeling hopeful and positive about their prospects. Those hopes, however, waned the closer they got to Jillin.

The sky clouded over. A cold wind blew in off the river, and a thin, spitting rain fell. Even the raptors seemed depressed.

They stood at the top of a slight rise looking over Jillin. From the number of buildings and the wideness of the streets, it had evidently once been quite a prosperous little town.

Now the windows yawned darkly onto the muddy streets. Only a few figures shuffled along, bent-backed, hauling carts or carrying sacks on their backs.

Off to the right was a graveyard larger than Saul would have expected to see even in a town of this size. To the left was a sluggish brown river running out of dark woodlands, trailing off south to join the dragon river.

Zorea shivered.

“Do you feel something?” Saul asked.

She nodded her head slowly. “I do,” she said, “but it’s not clear to me what it is. There’s definitely some magical effect here, but it’s more subtle than the warlock magic ever was.”

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“Let’s go carefully,” Saul said.

They proceeded down the road. There was no wall, no palisade, and not even a ditch around Jillin. The town simply ended abruptly with the last building by the road. As they approached, a voice called to them.

“Hey, who are you?”

The speaker was a big, heavy-set man with a tangled beard and a dirty face. He wore a leather apron and woolens as gray as the rest of the town, but his boots were good.

He regarded the newcomers with an eye as suspicious as his tone.

“I’m sent by the queen,” Saul said, “and I’ve come with my friends to find out what ails this town, and to help if I can.”

The man’s bushy eyebrows shot up his forehead in surprise. “Eh? To help? It’s a bit late for that, my friend. Are you sure someone’s not been playing a game with you? This is Jillin, you know, right?”

Saul nodded. “I do,” he said mildly. “I’ve been asked to come to Jillin and do what I can to help the town.”

“Well, mister sent-by-the-queen, you’ve got work ahead of you, if you decide to stay.” He eyed the newcomers a moment more, then shrugged, spat into the mud, and jerked his head toward the town.

“Follow me,” he said, then turned and strode off at a good pace, never looking back.

* * *

The bearded man’s name was Marcos Flint, and he was a kind of community elder for the few people that remained in Jillin. He took them to his home, a stone house near the old, disused market square in the middle of the town. He sat them down at his bare table and did not offer them anything to eat or drink.

After he’d spoken to them for half an hour, Saul wondered if he had been played for a fool.

It seemed that the troubles which had dogged Jillin had begun some four years ago, when a strange disease had ripped through the cattle that were the town’s main industry. The villagers had attempted to repurpose their land to crops, and that autumn, the grains they had planted had all died too.

The third year, a plague had carried off fully a third of the town’s population.

“That was last winter,” Marcos said. “Some stayed after that, but more left, heading out to Blackrock city, or to the other villages, or away south into the Riverlands to seek a new life for themselves. Can you blame them?”

“No, I don’t,” Saul said. “But what about the thane? And the queen? Did no one help?”

“The old thane tried at first,” Marcos said, “but he was barely here, and he was so old and forgetful that he couldn’t command respect at the court. He tried to send messages, I think but, eventually, he died, and no one has been seen from Blackrock since. Until you, of course…”

Saul smiled, then nodded to Brand. Brand produced a scroll from his satchel and passed in silently to Marcos.

The big man read it over slowly, then with more attention. Eventually, he handed it back and looked appraisingly at Saul.

“So,” he said, “you’ve not just been sent by the queen to help. You’re the new thane!”

“It would appear so,” Saul said. “Though from what you’ve said, it appears that it might be more of a curse than an honor. However, I’ll do my best to help you and the people of Jillin. Perhaps we’ll be able to make some improvements around here.”

“Perhaps you shall,” Marcos said thoughtfully. “Perhaps you shall.”