Heading back to Clause was a short enough gauntlet, the cloak keeping the worst off my clothes. I had slipped out of the padded cloth because of the heat, but the tunic was nice enough under the cloak while remaining breathable. I had also slipped a pouch on my belt to hold the slip of paper, a few coins, and a few lengths of rope to hold the shovel. The length was awkward, but it would help keep my hands clear if I needed to, especially with the jar.
Locking up wasn’t much of a problem, but I made sure to give the foxes a pointed look, and they gave me a pointed yip of displeasure for ending their mischief before heading out into the unending storm.
It was slightly brighter as I made my way back to the cobbles and rubble of the outer edge of the city. From there, it was easy enough to make my way down the street to the center of the city.
There were corpse carts and souls around, and I sent them to meet their maker, at least those I could. For those I couldn’t, into the jar they went.
By the time I reached the city center, it was full.
I passed through an open square, corpse carts gathering up, covers keeping them out of the rain while they were sorted. A few were ferried out of a covered center before being moved to different smaller carts.
There were mourning figures paying for timber and urns to be traditionally cremated. The urns were simple clay, but the timber was exceptionally pricey if the silvers were anything to go by.
My heart went out to them, but more concerning than a month's pay for timber were the souls attached to the bodies. Souls held to the body, lingering before they were released to wander; the number of souls I had picked up was concerning, but the number remaining was more concerning. Those I had were those of destroyed bodies, those cremated by the fire.
More concerning still, I had gotten a feel for how many souls were around me and how many I had picked up, and now, looking at the carts, how many were bound to bodies… And the numbers didn’t line up.
There were missing souls. So many missing souls.
I wanted to help them but couldn’t even do that much.
There were just too many of them to take all at once; I would have to jar the rest of them and take them on slowly. It could take me weeks to get enough studying it to not cripple myself mage-wise.
I counted each cart and guestimated the number of souls per jar. I would need to mix the mana in each. Anna could help, probably, but she was recovering, and there weren’t exactly many death-adjacent gods I knew about to help out, and only so many she could do, even if she was up for it.
I could probably do enough to get through it, even if it would exhaust me.
With my numbers, I made it to the wall, past the guards, down the street, and managed to not get beheaded as I got into the Mynes residence.
I did get a peeved look from a familiar steel-covered guard, but that was it.
I shook myself off and cleaned my boots, one shedding far easier than the other, before making my way up to Clause's office study.
The room was easy to find, and not because of my memory or sense of direction, but because it was filled with muted but still very loud voices.
A lot of voices.
I gave a light knock before deciding that there was no way I could be heard and simply made my way in.
The room, despite its reasonable size, was quite packed. Anna, Strause, Clause, Joan, Gunther, two people I didn’t know, one a [Priest], the other some kind of commoner, the mangler and Arabelle.
It was loud and choked from the voices and packed enough to be hot from the bodies alone. The clause was still drinking, if the glass on his desk and the red on his cheeks was anything to go by, and I couldn’t fault him for it as he sat there in the middle of the shitstorm. Much of his composure was lost from sheer exasperation.
It was like walking into an invisible wall; you walked up, bounced into it, and pulled back, confused as to what had happened.
Anna and Gunther were shouting down Clause about caravans, Strause was complaining about a militia and chiming in with Joan about work and what I took as a curfew, the [Priest] was talking about last rights and how burying the dead was wrong, the commoner was talking about a shortage of men, Arabelle and Gunther were slandering one another, and Mangall was studiously frowning whenever Clause reached for the glass, and otherwise being so reserved that the room was quieter and colder for it.
I blinked as I opened the door fully, unable to orient myself in the confusing mess of seemingly unrelated things, each with the same source. I closed the door to keep this confined to the room. My timing was poor. Very poor.
Clause, listening to the spray of anger, heard the door close behind me and looked up, his head turned toward me mechanically, his face carrying a look that came about three seconds away from taking his own life, crossed with me shaving off three seconds.
His look got heads turning toward me, half confused, two shocked, and the rest seemed expectant.
I supposed it was hard to get past two mind readers, Gunther and Clause’s minding retainer.
Despite this, the room gained a stillness, and Clause eagerly breached the gap.
“Thank the Gods,” he said, his face softening as he realized it was me. We can finally start getting one headache off my chest.”
His voice took on a quality of both expected relief and thankfulness that I was not accustomed to. Generally, being the mangey dirt woman I was got me overlooked, and becoming a [Saint] that was visually similar to a reanimated corpse certainly hadn’t gotten me much beyond dread, but Clause looked like I was his one saving grace in the world.
It kind of creeped me out; if I were to be totally honest, adoration of that sort was not comforting in the least.
It made me tense in a way I immediately tried to undo with a quick, “I could solve all you’re problems, but I doubt you could head to the heavens without getting me stabbed to death by everyone here at least once.”
It was a joke, a bit of gallows humour.
Clause seemed to be in the right state of mind for that because he grimaced and looked at the positively vibrating crowd and answered, “You wish; I don’t think I could die at the moment even if we did our best. Four to one are not odds I would appreciate armed; Mangall could stop us on his own… Now, quickly, I need to get this sorted to start getting things off my plate. [Priest] Thatcher, [Groundbreaker] Foss, I will entertain you last now that the last of your group has arrived, and I would appreciate your patience,” he said quickly, gesturing and giving name to the two unknown members of the Clause smashing posse.
They looked to want to start up again, but then they got too confused looking at me and my very large shovel and took Clauses, ‘appreciate’ as it was intended and shuffled to the side quietly.
“First off,” Clause continued, “Gunther, Annabeth, I understand you both have tips planned soon to head south. The restrictions on travel will continue until the city is safe enough to send outriders to patrol; everything beyond the edge of the woods is off-limits unless approved by me, my Mother, or Mangall. Gunther. I understand you are unenthused by these restrictions because of your protection, but I will be more than willing to compensate by hiring caravan guards. Annabeth, you are both a Mage and a Noble, but neither put you above my ruling while in a state of emergency. If you need to head south, help me. I could use a Mages skills at the moment. If either of you leaves, I’ll find you, now Gunther, stop slandering my Mother, and Mother, please stop returning fire; if I hear either of you call the other some manner of slander, I’ll be forced to expel you from the remainder of the conversation.”
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Gunther and Arabelle turned to each other with a reserved foul look that could strip paint, but despite that, they calmed down, Gunther thinking about the money her words would cost her, and Arabelle on something I couldn’t understand.
Anna was both peaked and tired. Her face was red like a coal, and I could understand why. She had been planning to go south with me and had been planning something. Having that overturned was a bit of a blow for me because I had been a bit excited to go south with her but for Anna? All of her plans had been put on hold overnight.
It would give her more time to recover if nothing else, even if I couldn’t say I liked the reason for it.
It also affected me, adding a little more to my plate, but I could bet that I could get Clause to think about it with some help from Gunther.
“Am I next?” Strause asked, “Because I think your decision on pressganging a militia and pushing out a curfew enforced by said militia against their fellows is bound to cause strife without decent protection.”
“It might, but I need men. I need men, time… A wall, a whole lot of things, but manpower comes first. We need to move material and provide protection. The streets are calm now, but it will pick back up in as little as a week. To move that material, the best way is through empty streets, and the best way to protect them unless you can pull a wall out of your ass is a militia posted around the city, and fewer people to protect at night. You and your… Whoever you are won’t change that reality because the city’s nightlife is going to suffer for a period. If you want your… Entertainment. You’ll have to finish by nightfall. You’ll be getting some seasoned [Guards] to lighten the load, but I’ll need to get the Captains moving.” He dictated.
“She’s not a [Prostitute] Clause, she’s a taverner,” he said pointedly. “I’ll ask you to apologize.”
Clause raised an eyebrow at the request, but he didn’t seem to want to waste time and quickly followed with, “Very well. I’m very sorry for besmirching your character, Miss Taverner. It's rather hard to keep track of, considering the company he keeps. While I’m sure this will eat into your family’s profit, I imagine any free beds you could offer might make up the difference while we get to rebuild.”
“That’s an Inn, you ass,” Strause said.
“And a new sign will be very profitable,” Clause said, brushing aside his bothers tone with a clap. “Now, anyone else? Anything before I get to the most pressing concern in the wake of this travesty? No? No one wants to go before the burial? Good! Well, then come forward, you three.”
Clause beckoned us over, his motion loose from wine. He pulled up a map and rolled it across the table.
The three of us came to look, the [Groundbreaker] and I more so than the [Priest], but he still leaned a little to regard the map.
It was the area immediately around Moarn. The likes of which might be used to plan out construction in and around a city, as opposed to judging distance or showing geography.
“[Groundbreaker] Foss, Saphine here is a [Gravedigger] and has recently gotten herself into a position where using her talents will save her a whole lot of trouble. She will be helping your men dig. She’s also a [Saint] and has told me she can keep a grave sanctified, which saves us from needing to cut down a forest and drain all our oil for cremation. The three of you will need to work out much together, but for now, we need to solve where the hole goes before we need to figure out where the bodies go.” Clause said, looking up at us with a, ‘I swear to god if one of you countermands me, I will destroy you.’ “According to scouting and the Hunters Guild, along with your recommendations on details, there are five sites we can dig. Reports put us at needing two sites, but the two of you will need to figure out which sites are best,” he told the two of us.
Me and Foss both took a close look at the map, along with the indicated points, each with a number escalating from one up to five.
The two closest were in the forest, four and five, one across the river bank at the edge of the woods, which looked like it could work was three, and two of them were to the east, sparsely sheltered but near a road that would aid in digging one and two.
“These would be best on a clear day and need little clearing. I’ve seen them myself, but my Lord, they will be a mess in this rain. We would need to set up cover soon to stop the entire area from becoming mudpits. This one would need clearing, but it could work. Maybe a half day work, but there are no other good ones. These two are heavily forested, and it would take hours just to clear them. If I understand you correctly, you want the bodies ready to be buried by nightfall, but I can only see one of these sites doing it.” Foss told Clause.
“I agree with these two,” I told Clause, pointing at the open ones, “They might be well-drained hills, but everything is turning to mud out there. The whole damn clearing is three inches of muck right now. Anyone digging there would be liable to snap their neck… However, I think these ones are for the best. Suppose you can get a trail and a team of [Woodcutters] to help us. There are some clearings near here. Why are they so high in number?”
“They are closer, yes, but there are other things to consider. The remaining points are near highway posts along the old road. They could be used to keep watch on them to ensure nothing tampers with the graves; your skill aside, we can’t take chances. They’re also next to roads, meaning we can cart everything around nicely. These two might be closest, but they would require clearing, even with a natural one nearby, and they would require patrolling. Getting the hunters guild involved would necessitate payment, and that would be in perpetuity.” He replied.
I looked closer at the woods. Clause’s decision made sense, but something about it nagged at me, and it took me a few seconds to figure it out.
The two sites were near an unmarked feature that could change that.
“The map is missing something. There's a village here,” I told him.
“I can assure you there isn’t one,” Clause said.
“It’s the Sprites village, adding in the clearings which are about here, and here, the Sprites could watch them, meaning no Hunters and no Guards. I don’t know what the balance would look like… If Selly was here…” I told him, dragging it out in thought.
Clause made to look up, but Selly spoke up before he could point her out.
“Like hell, you’re going to foist off that on us,” Selly piped out as I found her on the top shelf behind me, sitting back and kicking her legs as they dangled. “You have any idea how deadly that trip would be for the average Sprite? There's no way the Queen would accept that, not after the tall folk's negligence, and definitely not without something in it for us.”
That caused a pause, except for me and Clause.
“Hmm… I would be willing to entertain something, but I can’t think of what to give them,” Clause said, brow furrowing.
“Land,” I told him. “Their colony is limited; if you let them expand, maybe set up a dozen colonies that would not only make it easier for them to check the graves but also make them safer overall. They have a limited population; more of them would be able to keep threats at bay. Selly, if you had ten times, you’re number tell me you wouldn’t be safer out there.”
Selly let out a little sound of outrage, unable to answer me with a no without lying her tiny chitinous ass off.
“I could do that, land for scouting that area of forest.” Clause said quickly. A little too quickly, if I were being honest, but if it got the Sprites some extra safety, then I didn’t care much about whatever was going on inside Clause's head. “With that land, they might even be able to trade. We could even supply help to get them on their feet and build for some goods. They make a fine thread and good honey; I’m sure Gunther would love to get her hands on some of that.”
“Clause, you can’t be seriously thinking about granting land for some simple guard detail,” Arabelle spoke up from behind us. “You can do so when you are Moarns [Baron], but trading land is not something you should do lightly. Think this through,” she said seriously.
“To be fair, Mother,” Anna spoke up, “Their entire colony could fit in my cabin. For patrolling the woods, there would be only a few cabins in the area, and it's far enough away that it would be impractical to build anything. There aren’t even trails out there.”
“There would also be quite the market elsewhere in the valley for fine goods. Honey would make a killing if there was enough of it,” Gunther said.
“Of course, you would agree if there was money in it for you, you greedy harlot,” Arabelle told her.
“Someone has to keep their eyes on the prize. Otherwise, you might steal that, too,” Gunther told her.
“Fantastic, I’ll write up a deal to bring to them,” Clause said, wisely not taking a side in whatever the hell that was, “Selliban, would you be able to bring the request to your Queen? Is this something she would be willing to entertain?”
Selly sighed, her whole body seeming to deflate slightly. “A grant of land and an expansion would be favourable to her. It would need to be brought to court… but I could see her agreeing after a review of the terms; the colony has been set in its size for a long time… But I can’t deliver it; I can’t go back.”
“I can do it,” I told her, “I’ll be going out that way if we set up the graves, I could drop it off with her… Just make sure the message is correctly sized; it wouldn’t be very great to haul around a full-sized piece of parchment.”
“Well, then… Foss, what do you say? Do you think these sites could work given a team of [Woodcutters]?”
“I suppose it could if that would be best, my Lord,” Foss answered him.
“Then these are our sites; let us finish with our details, and then you’ll need to finish off your preparation.” Clause said before letting out a sigh, “Let's get these bodies in the ground before they get back up. That would only serve to make this tragedy far worse that it already is.”