Chapter Ten - A Plague

51st Day of Spring - Year 1758 of the Golden Era

Shorefarm, Yellowfield, Draya Calyrex

Green rose from a crouch and resisted the urge to wipe at her face. Her siphon slowly retracted and clicked into place. She glanced down at her essence counter before it was locked away in her barrel chest. 298.

The three of them had initially hesitated over the four bodies they'd left on the road. Were they to share one each and then split the third? But Blue communicated to them, with grunts and gestures, that they ought to partake in all four equally.

It meant that they all had a more or less similar amount of essence at the moment. Red was ahead by a few dozen points, and Blue behind by as many, but the difference was rather slight.

It actually gladdened Green's mechanical heart that her... comrades were willing to share so easily.

They might need that, if the last fight was anything indication of how things might go.

Three puppets against as many peasants and a single dog, and it had felt like a close thing. Green wasn't sure that she could take on a single peasant on her own. Maybe. If she had the drop on them, hit them first. She had a weapon while those they'd fought were barehanded.

What would happen if they ran into a larger group? Would they be outnumbered, surrounded, and massacred?

She shuddered, which had her entire body clinking and clanking like a cheap windchime. Red turned towards her and slowly tilted her head to the side like a dog asking a question. "Eh?"

Green gestured her concern away with a brush of her head, then made a sort of circle to encompass the entire town. "Looo... loook?" She hadn't yet mastered every vowel sound, and she wasn't sure if making lots of noise now would be wise.

Red nodded, then glanced around. The long market street went in three directions from here. The road back to the piers was behind them, and it split to the left and right. The right seemed to lead right out of the town. There were some homes way off in the distance, up a slight rise, and past those were the hills with the lighthouse they were supposed to look into.

The road to their left went deeper into the town. Red pointed that way, and Green nodded, though it was a little reluctant.

Would they be meeting more people that way? Would they be as hostile as these three?

Blue pointed to the bodies, then to the side of the street. "Hhhhide?"

Green thought about it, then shrugged. They could hide the bodies if they wanted to, but there was also a lot of blood all over, including on the three of them. Using the siphons on some dead fish had felt so clean and easy compared to stabbing into a recently dead human.

Red grunted, then carefully put her sword into its sheath and reached down to grab the leg of the first and nearest man. Green stumbled over to help.

She was happy about one thing. This puppet body of hers didn't seem capable of feeling any amount of exhaustion. Her mind, however, did. She just wanted to sit down and stare at the sky for a moment, but there was no time for that.

They corded the bodies next to the intersection, between an old cart and some crates. They wouldn't be immediately visible, but it wouldn't take much to find them.

Crows were already circling above, the birds eyeing them with curiosity and the corpses with hunger.

"Go," Red said while pointing to the leftmost part of the town.

"Ye," Green agreed, and with no protest from Blue, they toddled on deeper into the village.

Shorefarm, or whatever this small offshoot of that town was called, didn't have much going for it, Green found. She wasn't sure how she knew that, exactly, but she had the impression that this was just some small, poor, fishing town by the ocean, minding its own business most of the time.

They reached a spot where the road widened into what was almost a village square. There was a wider space, with muddy ground and a large stable in the distance. Poles stood up, evenly spaced, and long garlands hung from between them.

In the middle of the square was a pile of corpses.

It only reached hip-height for Green, but it was large enough that she couldn't begin to guess how many were there. A hundred people? More? She wasn't sure. What she knew, instinctively, was that they had been there a while. Swarms of flies hummed around the bodies and the carrion crows were idly picking at exposed flesh. All the softer flesh was long gone.

The three puppets stood at the square's edge for a while, at least until a moan shifted their attention to the side.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

From the shadows of the nearby stable, a figure staggered into view. It was humanoid but warped, much like the peasants they had encountered earlier. This one was taller, its limbs stretched unnaturally long, with patches of gold-tinged scales covering its emaciated frame. Its head lolled as though the neck barely supported it, and its glowing eyes seemed unfocused, the golden light flickering like a dying candle.

The man's robes were plain cloth, but he wore a sash around his chest embroidered with gold filigree. Something told her that this man was important, even as he shuffled out of the stables.

And then he was joined by two more. Simple peasants, like those they'd encountered. They were dragging a body behind them.

The man stood by the heap, then raised his head to the sky, followed by his arms. "Oh, great Aurynth the Golden! Rightful ruler of the Yellowfields! The warm fire! The seeder of wheat! I, lesser servant of you my great lord, beseech you for a sign!"

The man reached to his side and pulled out a knife. It was golden and curved and caught the bit of sun piercing the clouds brilliantly. He shifted his robed back, exposing a scale-covered arm covered in deep lacerations.

"Take of my blood!" he screamed before cutting across his skin.

He tucked the knife away while his blood splashed on the bodies. It seemed to glow there, sparkling and bright before he covered his arm with his robes.

"Take of my tears!" he shouted next, before wiping his face and flicking wetness onto the bodies.

The two peasants heaved, and the body they carried was tossed onto the pile.

"Take into thee my serfs! That their nourishment may call you and your mighty power back unto your loyal servant of lesser noble blood!"

The man spread his arms wide and waited.

Blue slowly moved backwards, first one step, then another. Green followed suit, moving slowly as if that wouldn't catch any notice. She wanted to grimace at every clink her metal joints made. Red glanced at them, then the pile of bodies which glowed faintly with feverish light, then she followed them back as well.

Something told Green that that man was beyond them. Worse, she thought she caught sight of more in the stables beyond.

Her heart almost leapt out of her when she turned and noticed a dozen people shuffling towards them.

They all froze, but the people, peasants one and all, merely walked on past them, their eyes fixed ahead. They were mutated. Some had scales ripping out of their flesh, others twisted and broken wings. All of them were thin, pale of skin, and sickly, and not a single one of them acknowledged the three puppets as they stumbled into the square.

"Go," Red said with a gesture towards the far end of the village.

Green nodded. Yes, she wanted to get out of here. Something told her that any amount of aggression would quickly do away with whatever calm these people had. There were only perhaps two dozen of them, but that was far more than she could imagine them taking on.

They shuffled through the village unmolested.

As they reached the far edge, a new sound broke the silence--a rhythmic clanging, faint but not so distant. It was the ring of hammer on metal, slow and steady, punctuated by the low hiss of steam or breath. The puppets froze for a moment, exchanging glances. Green tilted her head toward the sound, and Red nodded sharply before gesturing for them to follow.

The path leaving Shorefarm curved slightly, leading to a small blacksmith's shop tucked against the rising hills. It was a modest building, with a sagging roof and a chimney belching faint trails of smoke into the foggy sky. Outside, under a crude awning, stood a man at a forge. He was tall and thin, his face obscured by a cloth wrapped around his head and eyes. His arms were muscular but marred with burns.

He held a hammer, raising it just a little, before it fell and clinked against a glowing piece of metal. His hammer strikes looked tired. As did the man. He moved with the slow, exhausted rhythm of someone pushing themselves well past their limits.

In the forge behind him, a small brass dragon breathed a steady stream of fire into a blackened metal bowl as long as an armspan. Some sort of artifice to smelt steel.

The man paused between one blow and the next, and slowly raised his head. "Oh? Who goes there?" he asked. His voice was soft and whispery. "I gave unto the lord all I had. My gold and my eyes and my precious things besides. I have nothing more to give."

Green paused, but this man... didn't seem insane. Not as much as those villagers, in any case.

Maybe there was finally someone who could tell them what was going on here.

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