Chapter Four

For two days the party followed the southern road as it slowly moved inward from the eastern border.  On the third day they left the road entirely to travel southwest through the plains that spread from Wyndfall into Torah and beyond.  They avoided other people as best they could, choosing instead to make camp off the road and share the watch throughout the night.  On the fifth day they reached the edge of the western forests and knew it would not be much longer.  The entire western portion of the country was awash with trees that were perfect for building both cities and ships, which was perfect for ports and villages that lined the coast.  Here they rejoined one of the roads and pushed as hard as they could with what they had left to reach the hamlet of Kolblim, just south of Devresh. 

Gerard slowed his horse to a walk as they made their way to what should have been the town center.  Instead, it could only be described as a ghost town.  There were no people to be seen anywhere, and aside from the creaking of an unlatched door swinging in the soft sea breeze, there was no sound either. 

“Where are all of the people?” Jonah, the head of Gerard’s guard, asked in a hushed tone, but even that seemed to drive a knife through the oppressing silence.  During the journey Gerard had confided in all of them the news of plague in the port cities so they would know to what they rode, but none of them had suspected this. 

“Fan out and see if you can find anything.  Report back in fifteen minutes if not before,” Levi ordered from the back of the group.  Each of the guard nodded in understanding and began riding in various directions through the town.  Once they were out of earshot, Levi moved next to Gerard.  “This isn’t a good sign,” he warned softly. 

“No, it’s not,” Gerard agreed solemnly, scanning as much of the town as he could from this vantage point.  “Do you think they all retreated inside the city?” 

“Some might have, but probably not.  They city is riddled with plague from what we’ve been told.  Retreating inside would be like trapping oneself with the monster one is trying to escape.”

“They have to have gone somewhere,” Gerard countered, and Levi didn’t disagree. 

Within ten minutes, Jonah returned to the town center. 

“What did you find?” Gerard asked, knowing he’d only returned early because he’d seen something. 

“It’d be better if you followed me,” Jonah returned, and the commanders nodded, following Jonah as he guided his horse back the way he’d come.  When they reached the edge of the hamlet, he turned slightly to the left and led them to a hill overlooking a flat expanse dotted with stone markers. 

“Why are we at the cemetery?” Gerard asked.

“This way, Commander,” Jonah said, urging his horse down the hill and amongst the graves. 

They picked their away between the headstones until they came to the end of the marked graves.  What began there made Levi and Gerard’s hearts grow cold.  The land was littered with mounds of overturned dirt marking all the graves dug recently enough the grass had yet to regrow over them.  Levi began counting them, but he gave up when he reached the forties and was nowhere near done. 

“There have to be at least a hundred,” Gerard whispered in horror. 

“More, sir,” Jonah replied softly, and Gerard’s eyes widened. 

“That has to be most of the town,” Levi whispered as they began to walk amongst the new graves. 

They were silent for a moment before Gerard realized the question no one had thought to ask yet, and pulled his horse up short.  “Who buried all of these people?” 

Levi stopped his horse as well.  “That means that there have to be at least some people left in this town.”

“Jonah, I want you to return to the town and find the rest of the guards.  Organize a search of every building until you find the people that are left.  I want to know as much as possible about what has happened here and in the city.”

Jonah nodded.  “Yes, Commander,” he replied before turning his horse back to the town. 

Levi and Gerard continued to move through the cemetery slowly, each trying to process the level of decimation that had visited this small town over the last few weeks.  Though neither would mention it, they also were wondering how this kind of devastation would translate to a large city like Devresh, which currently held captive the king, the queen and the second in line, Gerard’s father.  They could only hope that the royal family had barricaded itself somewhere safe and that the king was receiving the best care possible. 

“Do you see that?” Gerard asked, shielding his eyes with his hand as he tried to see the far edge of the unmarked graves.

Levi also shielded his eyes against the sun’s glare and was able to make out movement where Gerard indicated.  “Those look like…people,” he replied slowly, unsure if his eyes were playing tricks on him. 

“Let’s go find out.”  Gerard guided his horse toward the people at a brisk walk, and Levi stayed by his side, but as they got closer, their heavy hearts sank even farther.  Four people, none old enough to be considered an adult, were hunched in the heat of the afternoon with cloths tied over their noses and mouths as they struggled to dig more graves amidst the masses.  Without words, both commanders dismounted and allowed their horses to move off to graze as they approached the diggers.  Each adolescent looked apprehensive as they approached, but none of them backed away in fear. 

“May we help?” Levi asked solemnly, indicating the half-filled graves.   

One of the adolescents looked them up and down suspiciously, weighing the sincerity of their offer, before giving a curt nod.  He indicated a handful of makeshift shovels next to one of the graves, and Gerard and Levi took a pair, moving to the second and third graves.  They each tied a spare piece of cloth from their saddlebags around their faces and then drove their shovels into the packed earth.  The dirt crunched as the shovels struck, the only sound left as they hollowed out the final resting places of three more lost souls. 

Time passes slowly in the heat of the sun as they worked together on the graves of the fallen, but one by one, the guards rode toward the diggers and took in the site.  No one issued any orders or even spoke at all; they dismounted and began to help.  When the graves were deep enough, a pair of men helped to lower into the ground each of the three linen wrapped bodies laying a short away before covering them with the freshly turned dirt.  When each was done, the young diggers removed their cloths, and the soldiers were shocked to see how young they truly were.  Of the one boy and three girls, the youngest girl knelt over each grave and placed a stone with a different shape painted on it. 

The oldest girl seemed to pick up on their confusion over the stones.  “We can’t write,” she said by way of explanation. 

“Excuse me?” Levi asked.

“We can’t write our letters, sir,” she repeated.  “We can’t put their names, but we don’t want to forget them, so we put something to let us know who they are.”

Levi nodded understanding, but inside he was filled with sorrow.  There was no one left even to place the names of the dead over their graves.  Only these children could were here to place markers in the only way they knew how. 

“Would you �" would you say the words?” the younger boy asked plaintively.  “We never got a chance to learn all of the words.  They deserve the words,” he trailed off, looking at the grave in the center, which contained a man old enough to be his father. 

“I can do it, sir,” Jonah murmured from Gerard’s right, and both commanders nodded agreement, stepping back so Jonah could stand at the head of the center grave. 

“The people of this land were not always of this land.  They were of other lands far and wide, but something drew them to this place.  They came here and made the land their own.  They tamed the plains, ruled the seas, conquered the mountains and mastered the forests.  They overcame all they saw and passed down their ways and knowledge from father to son through each generation.  Yet with this knowledge came the understanding of the one thing the people could not defeat: the people could not stop death. 

“The stories tell of all things changing as time goes on, but one that never does.  Death comes in many forms, but for all its variety, come it does.  To the bear in the night or the babe in the morn, to the crop in the spring or the tree in the winter, death can and will come.  The people used to fight death, but given enough time, even that changed.  They grew and learned and came to respect death for what it was rather than fighting to change it.

“Death is a new beginning, in each of its differing forms, for every end gives room for a start.  The old must die so the young can live, and when our bodies tire or are robbed of breath, we return to the earth and pave the way for others to continue for us.  Today these souls have embraced death and begun the next stage of their journey, whatever it may be.  Their ends have laid a beginning for each and every one of us, and we must accept this gift for what it is.  It does not do to dwell on death, so allow change to happen and dull the pain of this passing.  Let time ease the trial of separation and help your heart to remove the blame from death, for death is not the enemy.  Death is the next step.” 

At the closing words, words every man, woman and child knew by heart, each of them knelt on the ground and pressed their foreheads into the dirt.  “Death is the next step,” they whispered before rising to seal the graves.  Jonah went first, laying a hand on the first grave in reverence, whispering words of parting and encouragement to the soul within.  As he continued to the second grave, Gerard stepped up to the first grave, kneeling so he could place his hand on the overturned dirt.  His whispered his parting reverently before moving to the next one.  One by one, each of the soldiers and children processed through the graves, taking as much or as little time as they needed. 

The young boy was the last to go, but when he reached the second grave, his tenuous control fell away, and he collapsed on the dirt, his shoulders wracking with sobs.  The soldiers could do nothing but watch and feel he agony of each cry, knowing he needed to say goodbye in his own way.  Finally, when he could cry no more, the boy rose shakily and turned to the third grave.  After a moment of reverence, he stepped away from the graves and into the arms of the middle girl, who held him as he shook with the few tears he had left. 

Gerard watched with a muted sense of horror as a boy fought the grief of burying his father, wondering if he would be that boy in a few days’ time.  They had yet to hear any news of the king or his advisor, but they were trapped in a city riddled with disease.  If this town had suffered this level of destruction, what chance did the people of Devresh have of escaping with their lives?