8.7

Havel was not having a good day.

To be honest it was not a good season either.

And considering where it started maybe he could even extend that probably the whole past year had been a subtle and particularly cruel act of the gods upon him.

Seemed about right for a fifth son of a Gong Farmer that had thought he’d gotten away from the stink.

He’d been lucky to earn a place among the guard’s training boys! And when he properly earned a place in the countess’ men two years ago? Well his Lenka’s parents had finally agreed to their marriage after he got his proper coat and armor!

So he was not going to say that year was bad.

But this last one?

The training and hours were hard but the pay was good without needing to shovel shit and haul it down the street all night and you always had someone at your back. He even had the Countess on his side! He heard some of the lords treated their footmen poorly, but not the Countess. She was always smiling at Havel when she came to inspect the Captain’s work or the times he had duty in the feasting hall.

But all of that had come crumbling down in an afternoon.

And it hadn’t been when she died!

No, it came during the trial of the traitors!

“As the Countess of Viznove and Lady of Kaeketeh I pass Judgement on the traitor guards of House Bathory.”

He had not even been in the feasting hall but he had felt those words rattle his bones as they poured out from the Keep. The words had rung out from him so terribly and all consuming it felt like his teeth would crack.

“On all who have turned their eyes from the evil and vile acts done before them.”

And with the words memories had welled up within him, of the moments when he doubted if a particular girl was what his fellow guard claimed.

“On all who saw and knew betrayal of the oaths of nobility and fealty and did nothing.”

Or when one of them joked how it would be a waste to not give one a taste of womanhood before they were gone forever into the dungeons for their crimes.

“On those whose hands took life they should have guarded.”

He’d never even realized how many times he’d turned away in just two years. Of just how often a thief happened to be a woman or a girl. How often even those finer dressed might be taken on suspicion of unlicensed whoring.

“For every trespass against innocence, for every year stolen, for every drop of blood tainted.”

The feeling of those memories seemed to burst open inside him. He’d seen women spot the guard and then in a panic go for blows which saw them taken away for assault of the countess’ men doing their duty.

“I judge you guilty of all acts vile made under the shield of your complacency and cowardice.”

Those words were when the pain struck, he’d fallen to it and so had Matej beside him. The sentence shook so fiercely from every bone that it burned and buzzed, and then the invisible fire of it moved outward. The world turned white and a roaring silence filled his ears.

But even in what should have been a senseless relief from pain the words roared through him.

“I declare your penance shall be to live and suffer every year stolen under your watch or by your hand.”

And then he had finally lost all sense.

But he was Havel, fifth son of a filthy gong farmer. So of course he couldn't get the easy simple release of death after that.

After all, the punishment was to live!

To live the years that some star forsaken dragon had deemed he’d stolen simply because he didn't want to lose the best opportunity he’d ever dreamed of! Just because he wanted to be able to come home to his wife without smelling of shit as his father had!

So of course then it got worse!

First he woke up in the dungeons below the keep, where women who had been properly convicted were once taken.

He’d not fully realized what it was that happened, he’d just woken up surrounded by a bunch of inhuman girl-like things with eyes that shined in the dark and had immediately pissed himself thinking that they had thrown him to the wizard’s monstrous ‘patients’.

But when one of them cursed and recoiled and the others flinched back just like he’d seen in the barracks when a guard wet the bunk in a drunken stupor?

When he heard them mutter in familiar words if not voices?

When he felt himself as he patted down looking for injuries?

That was when Havel realized what the sorcery had wrought.

Live every year stolen.

He remembered the faces, he was sure he didn't know them so clearly before the curse.

But now every single face was clear in his mind.

Every feature.

His fingers touched his face, and it almost stung.

It was not any one face.

But that bit of nose?

That curve and crease of a lip?

The corner of an eye?

A brow?

A tooth?

It was all smoothed together.

But without even seeing it Havel knew the face he wore, the hands he flexed, the muscles and toes.

The soft skin and locks of hair.

He knew them the way he knew every single face now panicked and afraid and pleading to him back from his past which he had left to their fate.

So many faces.

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Glances out of the corner of his eye as he turned to look at something else. Or when he started avoiding looking in the first place.

He’d been just about ready to actually sit in the dungeon and give up against the weight of those memories. The crushing certainty of them. But then their new countess declared justice served, their punishment given.

Havel and all the other cursed were now free to go.

Released in batches.

The Wyrm Countess sent them out on the bridge to middle Kaeketeh and her guard closed the gates of the wall fort behind them.

Quick as you please.

The banners were foreign now. The familiar colors Havel had worn with pride were stripped down.

The city felt different and somehow changed, conquered and overturned.

It hurt in his chest almost worse than that burning curse had!

So yes Havel was having a truly awful day!

But even in his shock he had it better than some.

Not all of the Countess’ men even had a place to sleep other than the barracks! Only the captain and a few of the veterans and those like Havel with a wife or family actually had homes of their own!

But nevermind that!

Discharged, Punished, Cursed into flesh not their own and then left as a milling crowd of former men with nothing to their names for some but the infant shifts they wore and a pouch with a season’s pay.

He’d been surprised their new Countess paid them. But then she was supposedly fair.

Fair?!

His brows pressed hard into each other and his lip found new and horribly familiar teeth rubbing against them as he snarled.

How did he know what those women’s teeth felt like?!

Havel had no idea.

Curses and Sorcery!

At first he had just stood there. Trying to ignore the sounds of once men breaking into sobs.

Those that had not fallen to such a state as to openly weep had slack expressions and wide eyes. Most who did not wail had at least a shine of tears and trembling lips. Others mustered some honor to only have streams of incontinent cowardice pouring down their cheeks. The only thing Havel could do was maintain a stoic silence.

But he could feel how his brows clenched in grief, the hot water on his cheeks, the way his lips trembled. All of them were visibly brittle, barely standing in some cases. Huddled like chickens on the bridge.

Then a voice rose up, from the gate fortress. A Stranger’s bark.

“The Lady said you're free! So be free ya filthy traitors! Git Out!”

The tone was familiar where the voice was not.

A captain had given them an order!

Before he even realized quite where he was going Havel was walking home.

Others also moved.

Somewhere along the way it ended up with only a few of their number falling in with him. A little knot moving in the old habits. The cobblestones were familiar under his naked feet, from childhood, from his wedding day.

He didn't know when he parted from the rest of the main crowd. He simply walked familiar streets.

Then before he knew it he was outside his house.

He’d bought it for Lenka and him when he’d made his rank as one of the countess’ men.

Saved up apprentice pay for most of it!

Inside he could already see signs that Lenka had not been doing well. There was no sign of light or a fire!

There was no motion he could see through the windows.

Did she already know what happened to him?

Had she fled back to her parents?

One of his followers spoke up. Voice familiar and haunting for the way it reminded him of cries he was certain he had forgotten.

“Wait... this is... Havel? Is that you?”

His name, he almost wondered if those strangely familiar ears of his perked at that. He could feel his brows squirming up his skull in surprise.

He turned and saw a face that was the most astonished and yet also hopeful expression he had ever seen. He wondered if that was what his own expression was, the same slightly shocked look which was much like when you took a blow to the head.

His voice was not his own, it was their voices, bits of each of them all woven together.

Unique but not his own.

“Y-yeah... I’m I... Yeah I’m Havel.”

The face smiled, but the eyes showed every single worry and concern. There were crinkles of disgust and also even a hint of a look of desire there. All mingled and blended together but plain as morning sun.

Those eyes practically shouted every single thought and feeling, screaming the truth across every feature of the poor cursed man before him.

“Aa-ah I’m- it’s me. Matej.”

Havel offered a smile, but it felt like there was a grimace in it too. His brows and lids and eyes also moved, there were tears threatening. He tried to think up a joke but suddenly the idea of trying to make light of this all collapsed and he let the grief of it just lay plain and true on his face.

He was not even a man anymore!

He was nearly bawling like an infant!

Havel’s tone was brittle and felt thin. Like winter’s first ice on the river. He tried to ignore how the tears were dragging in currents down his too round cheeks.

“We didn't talk much... You know where I live?”

Across from Havel a face that was as much a blend of haunting victims if different in the details collapsed into its own form of honest grief.

“Yah, Captain wanted us to know yer girl... In case...”

Havel felt a sting of memory, he was just starting to shake his head to try and banish the itching thought of it. The memory was interrupted, he saw a looming figure coming up the road to the left. Sauntering in a way that looked like trouble. The clothes were a worn dock worker cut.

The reek of fish and ale followed soon after. Coming up behind the dockman there were others. Not as clear from Havel’s low vantage. But they looked like rough trouble for a footman.

For a moment everyone froze. But then a sneer took up the dock worker’s face. The expression was a subtler thing, faint and almost stone faced compared to the open wariness that had overtaken the three faces of Havel’s former comrades.

The voice was definitely a dock worker, but one smug on deep cups and new found strength.

“Well well! Fortunate stars favor the bold boys! We got a gaggle of our countess’ freshly cut down and softened traitors just out here wandering their lonesome!”

That brought cruel laughs from the rest of the men.

Fear was plain on the faces in front of Havel, they didn't have any weapons or armor. A bag of silver each perhaps but offering a bribe seemed unlikely to work. None of them were even half the height and definitely no more than a quarter the weight of the slimmest and frailest of the men that were spreading out to surround them.

There were only four of them alone, small and still out of sorts in flesh not their own.

As Havel looked around the crowd was being joined by the curious and then the interested and equally cruel. But worse still he saw the other people a street down that witnessed what was going on.

He could see them and after a brief look of concern, recognition settled over them.

Some sneered just like the dockworker at that moment.

But many more flinched fearfully.

And they turned away.

Havel felt the tears briefly held back finally break free.

Feeling like it was his own old face turning away from him.

He could already see what came next.

Shivers overtook him.

He could not look away as the thugs closed in around them.

This was going to be it for him?

“You idiot fucks get away from those waifs!”

And then a screaming fury of a woman was practically flying between the thickening mass of burley men. Leaving some of them falling with pained groans and hands going between their legs in a way that made all four of the former men cringe in sympathy.

A goddess blessed apparition of anger and justice suddenly stood between Havel and for a moment he had hope.

Until he recognized that face.

The one that he had chased with Oldrich shy of a year ago. The face of the woman that had run from him and prostrated herself before the very countess wyrm that had cursed him and all of her predecessor’s footmen.

He didn't even know her name but Havel knew that there was a certainty she would soon realize her mistake and leave the four of them to every awful thing he had ignored and looked past.

As soon as she realized who he was.