Death After Death

For a short time, Millie was beside herself. She’d thought the men had been about to murder her. While they probably would have eventually, Simon chose to let her believe her version, because it was kinder than the truth. Somehow, the idea that other humans could be so monstrous bothered her more than the idea that a troll or a vampire would be.

So, as the two of them sat there, feeding their small fire, he gave her a primer on the Murani. He did not attempt to be even-handed about it, either. He didn’t try to explain the honor culture of their nomadic horse tribes, or the strange schools of the Magi, and how they were as learned as they were monstrous. Instead, he gave her ghoulish details meant to make her see them as anything but human so that it would be easier to put this event behind her.

“They raid from the north, year after year, and century after century in a constant quest for slaves that’s as predictable as the seasons,” he explained. “The ones that are worked to death are the lucky ones, though, because those who are too weak to work are sacrificed to their Godking on bloody ziggurats.”

He had to explain what a ziggurat was, of course, because she’d never seen one. He also explained how the Magi drew their power from their magical overlord via the amulets they wore. He even fetched the twisted, charred example off the corpse to show her after she’d calmed down. She held on to it with white knuckles for the rest of the day like a charm, and he didn’t try to stop her. It wouldn’t hurt anything.

Instead, he busied himself looking through the surviving gear of both men and the saddlebags of the dead pony. The other animal vanished in the snow, but even so, they had a bounty of supplies they hadn’t had when they walked into the level. There were warm clothes on the dead man that Simon took for himself, a fur-lined cloak he’d let Millie wear, and even a bedroll that would help them get through these dark nights, so long as they shared it.

Simon even found a small journal on the scout, along with coins and a crystal that might have been used for communication or scrying. The journal was too burned to get a lot out of the first half, but the second half offered some clues about what they were doing, at least.

The two men had been part of a larger expeditionary force scouting for weakness in Charian clan holds for a spring assault. The way he wrote it implied that it was part of a larger campaign that had been going on for a while, which made Simon uneasy. That was further verified by a crude map he found on the warrior’s body.

It combined with Simon’s knowledge of the area to give him a pretty good picture of where they were. They were in the northernmost part of Charia, where the brutal peaks were least inhabited, and the terrain formed a defensible barrier against the Murani lands to the north. At least, that was supposed to be the case. As things stood now, it sounded like they might be Murani lands at this point, but Simon wasn’t going to worry about that right this moment.

Mentally, he planned the trip back and decided it was more than doable with decent weather. In a week, or perhaps two, depending on the condition of the passes between here and there, they could be back in the familiar lowlands, unless Brin had set up border forts anywhere that was particularly inconvenient. Still, before he told Millie any of that, he decided to go out and do some exploring. He wasn’t going to get her hopes up until he had the lay of the land for himself.

That night, they slept fitfully, pressed together in the small bedroll, with the hot embers of the fire on one side and the cave wall on the other. It wasn’t the most comfortable bed Simon had ever slept on, but with a few hot rocks at the bottom of their bedroll, they made do.

He would have slept soundly if not for her nightmares. Millie woke up three times that night, convinced they were about to be murdered by one monster or another, and each time he had to soothe her until she calmed down. The following day, the weather had improved, but only by a little.

So, except for brief trips to his deadfall to gather more wood, he stayed with the girl, and they chatted about better days as he subtly challenged her to imagine what a great life she’d have in the future in an attempt to make her focus less on their dire circumstances. In that, he was only partially successful. Still, as the days wore on, and they slowly worked their way through the supplies of their attackers, he learned a few things.

He learned that she grew up on a farm and missed her family's sheep and her mother’s spinning wheel. He learned she had four sisters, even if she said it in a way that implied her parents were probably happy to have one less mouth to feed. She also admitted she really wanted a dog again, which Simon thought was too adorable.

“What?” she protested as he made a big deal out of it. “I miss our hound, alright? He was a tireless guardian of our flock, and stayed with me every day we grazed, even in the worst weather.”

This book was originally published on novelbuddy. Check it out there for the real experience.

Eventually, their worst weather cleared, giving them their first view of the snow-filled crags they found themselves in. Millie tried to come with him, but Simon wouldn’t allow it. “I see things you don’t,” he explained. “You might step there, or there, and simply go sliding down the mountain.” Millie tried to make the same argument in reverse, but eventually relented.

While he wanted to find some high ground to see how far he could see west, the first thing he did was walk down to the edge of the frozen pond so he could get access to a mirror. There, he reviewed a few things. That started with his map, which was largely as he remembered it, but eventually, he queried the level.

‘You are currently on level 37, which remains unresolved,’ the mirror answered, with floating blue text.

That piece of information annoyed Simon. It meant that in Helades' preferred version of history, the two Murani scouts needed to live, while he was sure just the opposite was true.

What is she thinking? he thought in frustration. Why is she so bent on the Murani being the winners in all of this? Do they mellow out after there’s no one left to enslave, or do they just go extinct?

Simon doubted that the Goddess had been trying to give her chosen hero the peace of the grave, so he ruled the second option out. Still, he mulled it over as he crunched through the snow, trying to figure out what her grand design could be as he made his way higher up the slope. In fact, he was so focused on his petulant thoughts that he almost made a terrible mistake.

Simon had been walking forward without really paying attention when a flash caught his eye, and he stopped. He was glad that he did, because another few strides and he would have walked into the next level and left Millie behind.

Simon cursed quietly as he stood there, looking at the scene. Beyond him lay a desert, with mountains in the distance, and what might have been a sandstorm darkening one side of the horizon. The sand was whiter than the deserts he was used to, so it almost blended in with the snow. As he stood there appreciating the warm breeze, he decided that it probably didn’t lead to any desert he’d explored already.

“So where does it go?” he wondered aloud as he looked for details that might explain it. He was fairly sure that they wouldn’t be going to the next level, at least not right away. He was only a hundred or so miles from where he’d accidentally kidnapped Millie, so for now, he’d just mark it on his map and come back to it after she was safe, but he still found it curious.

Most levels bring me back to the same places over and over, but every once in a while they give me a curveball, he thought as he finally stepped away enough for the thing to close and studied the pattern of melted snow that its warmth had left behind.

Simon pondered the crossroads of history as he got enough of a view to confirm their location and made his way back from his little scouting expedition. When he returned, the first thing he did was butcher the dead horse. It had been burned on one side and had not outlasted its master by more than a few minutes. Given the choice, Simon wouldn’t have eaten the animal, but in their current situation, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Horse wasn’t great meat, but it was better than starving, and if they roasted it on skewers, it should be enough. It would even pack well.

She made a face at that when he brought back the haunch, but rightly agreed there were no other options. “I just want a warm, soft bed, and a bowl of steaming porridge,” she sighed as he set about carving chunks off the frozen haunch with his sword.

They talked a little while he focused on that, but when he was done, he gave Millie the good news. “There’s no more of these guys lurking anywhere nearby that I can see,” he said, pointing a thumb over his shoulder at where the corpses were being stored outside in the snow. “I did see some smoke from the next valley, though, that might be a clanhold.”

“It might also be fighting,” she answered morosely.

When Simon explained that it was a bit too steady for that, she brightened and asked, “Is that where we’re going then?”

“It’s the wrong direction,” he answered with a shake of his head. “We’re going west. This is a late spring snow, so I think things will start to thaw in the next few days. Once the temperature warms up, we’ll head down into the valley and make our way back to familiar ground. I can even bring you back to your home village if you want.”

“To Nolfast?” she asked, like it was a foreign concept. “Anyplace but that. If I did, then I’d be breaking the rules of the lottery, and my parents would…”

As she trailed off, Simon thought about reminding her that the vampires were dead and the lottery that had determined his fate had likely vanished with it.

“What about Lostelam?” she asked. “You said it was nice; we could live there?”

We? Simon almost choked on the word and barely avoided speaking it by coughing into his hand. He definitely didn’t plan on hanging around.

While the scullery maid was pleasant company, she wasn’t helping him to dig deeper into the pit. He was on level 37 now and knew the way to level 38. That was as deep as he’d ever gone, and as far in the future as he’d ever seen without the benefit of being walled in his own grave for decades.

No, he was only two levels from getting to ask Helades the big questions, and he had no plans to stick around here for longer than it took to make sure Millie landed on her feet. He’d find her a safe place to live, and maybe kill the local goblins or thatch the roof of whatever cottage he got her settled into, but after that, he was coming right back here. Maybe after he got his answers from the Goddess, he’d take it easy and spend a couple of years researching that new information.