058 The Not-Immortal Blacksmith II – Heroes
Sam, Molly and Hesh were on the road again. Walking and walking and walking. They followed the old country road forever in a westward direction.
The next stop on their ever-growing list was another graveyard, abandoned and ravaged by time. They could see it on a hill to the south of the road, its mausoleums raking the sky. As a cloud passed the sun, a shiver ran through the group, and they stopped.
“Well, there it is.” Hesh remarked, as they stared up to the graveyard.
“Looks a lot bigger than the last one.” Sam said, as he rinsed the road dust from his mouth, and spat.
Molly removed a homemade clipboard from her pack, “According to the last village, the undead seem to come pouring out from the graveyard every “Gielik” evening, that would be the second day of the local eight-day week. --”
“When is that?” Sam interrupted.
“I was getting to that!” Molly said, a growl in her voice. “They poor out of the graveyard every Gielik evening, which would be tonight.”
Hesh began to climb an overgrown path they had found leading up to the graveyard. “Come on you two! I found the old graveyard path.” Molly and Sam glared at each other for a moment before following. A few minutes later found the trio standing at the shattered iron gate of the graveyard, and taking in the view of the road below.
“This would be an excellent place for a gun emplacement!” Sam ventured, an attempt to clear the air with Molly.
“…You would be correct” Molly replied, giving the hill and graveyard a critical eye. “And I think I spy the reason the graveyard is here, and probably why it has been acting up.”
Sam and Hesh turned and stared at Molly and Hesh asked, “What do you mean?”
“If you will direct your gaze to the mausoleums, you will note that they are at the four corners of the graveyard.” Molly started to get a lecturing tone to her voice. “You will note that the “chapel” in the center isn’t shaped correctly for your standard local chapel.”
“In addition, the iron gate isn’t as old as the rest of the fence, and is several feet lower than the rest of the iron fence and walls.” She continued. “If you look at the grave stones, I think you will find they are all of the same stone, as opposed to other graveyards where the family buys the best stone they can afford.”
Hesh held up a hand, “I see what you are talking about. Put all of that together with the placement of the graveyard on the best hill to defend against attackers, and this used to be a small defensive outpost, before it became a graveyard.”
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Molly smiled. “Ding! Got it in one, Hesh!”
Sam frowned, ran a critical eye across the scene, and walked to one of the corner mausoleums. “The problems, then, would be the graves beyond the walls. And the attempted conversion of the corner towers into family mausoleums for the locals, which seems to be recent.”
Hesh and Molly moved to look at what he was looking at. As they came to him, they saw what he did: old, but not ancient, scaffolding adorning the old tower.
Sam scratched at the small amount of peach-fuzz that was growing on his chin, “So, it would seem that at some point in the past, the local villagers decided to make this place their graveyard, messed with the towers, and probably opened up an even older grave site below one of the towers they had, or were, converting to a mausoleum.”
“I believe you are correct.” Hesh replied.
Sam dropped his pack on the ground next to the old stone tower. “Time to get set up, and do some exploring.” Hesh and molly agreed, and did the same.
*-*-*
The thing in the darkness slowly oozed its way closer to its target. It ate the occasional thing here and there. Some of the things screamed, most did not.
I’m getting closer. It occasionally thought, and the things “mouth” would smile.
*-*-*
Sarah, former small goddess of small shadows, kicked a tuft of grass as her homemade pack bit into her skin again. “Pen? Are you sure you can’t make a better pack?”
Pendleton, former small god of Gnomes, grouched. “Yes. For the umpteenth time, I am sure. To make better packs, I would need better supplies. Maybe if Mil could hunt up something with a bigger hide?”
“Shut up Pen-Pen.” Maximilian, Mil to his friends, god of war, said. “We just need to find a town, then things will start to work in our favor.”
“Just find a town, he says.” Pendleton said in a mocking tone. “We’ve been walking for three weeks, and we haven’t found shit!”
“Maybe if you could follow a compass as well as you can follow a seam?” Mil replied.
Sarah stepped in to head off the argument. Again. “Look! Up ahead! There’s an old fort on a hill!” Mil and Pendleton stopped their budding squabble.
“So there is.” Pendleton said.
Mil smiled suddenly, a memory hitting him. “The battle of Hunters hill, 1842. There should be a road just on the other side!” He let out a sigh, “Oh, and let’s avoid the old fort. Some idiot turned it into a graveyard and disturbed the dead who were buried there.”
The three gods passed to the east of the fort on the hill, met the road on the other side, and traveled east.
“Mil?” Pendleton asked, “What was the name of that place? And what happened there?”
“What happened was a brilliant military defeat! Thousands killed on both sides. Then the invader, one King Brant, dumped a poisonous gas spell on top of the fort on one Gielik evening.” Mil smiled at the memory. “It sank into the underground chambers where the troops dwelt, killing them. It also sank down across the fields at the bottom of the hill, killing King Brant and his army.”
“What was the name of the fort?” Sarah asked, finding herself interested in the local history.
“Fort…”
-
…Bradley.” Hesh read off an uncovered chunk of stone from where the three were digging. “Fort Bradley. Huh. Don’t we have one of those back home?”
“Just the IFV, I think” Sam replied. “At least I don’t know of one.” He looked to Molly, “Do you know?”
Molly thought for a minute, then replied, “There was no fort named after General Bradley in our world, sadly. The man was an excellent leader, led over a million troops in world war two, and was in command of the army during the invasion of Normandy. All he got for his troubles was an Infantry Fighting Vehicle named after him.”
“Wow.” Chorused Hesh and Sam.