Interlude 03 – The Doom That Came to Serrezht

Zaevi - Day 55 - 63 Days Remain Until the End of the Mourning Period on Mavigan

The cries of people dying all around them broke her out of the malaise since a week before this Streeklaen delivered the news that her brother was dead. Nevahl, despite his clear distaste for the man and his group, something that Zaevi shared, hired him and his group to try to break out Kehlen out of the prison colony he was in, but they quickly returned with the news that he didn't last more than few days there before getting killed by a fellow inmate, and was now just an another lime-covered body rotting in a mass grave.

That revelation broke Zaevi as she loved Kehlen dearly. The horrible fate her gentle brother had suffered… No… it wasn't fair. The fact that it also meant that her escort died for nothing and she nearly joined them in death… that was too much for her.

To his credit, Nevahl left Zaevi to her mourning and just gently guided her through each day and from destination to destination, apparently following the directions Streeklaen gave them.

And so they eventually found themselves in Rhantik, a village two days of travel away from Kalaade, which, as it turned out, was where a group that sounded suspiciously like the Queen’s party was headed to buy a boat.

Realising they had little time left, they were about to leave for the larger town when people started collapsing to the ground and dying.

Was it related to the weird storm in the distance?

Zaevi looked to Nevahl, but judging by the worried expression on his weathered face, he had about as much of an idea what was happening as she did.

A horrifying thought struck Zaevi then. Were the two of them next? If she lost Nevahl too…

Her companion, having gotten past the initial shock of the situation, approached a young man writhing in pain on the ground and looked him up and down. Then he nodded to himself, knelt by the man’s side, grabbed his head into both hands, and, in a display of strength Zaevi didn't expect her friend to possess, snapped the man’s neck with a quick twist.

‘Why?!’ Zaevi complained loudly.

‘It was a mercy,’ Nevahl replied as if he had just swatted a bug. ‘There was nothing we could have done for him.’

‘How can you say that?’

‘Come and take a look,’ he shrugged and got up.

So she did, and while Zaevi wasn't quite a stranger to dead bodies, the state the young man was in… Blood leaking out of every orifice… the collapsed stomach… a vine protruding out of a tear in his neck that Nevahl must have made when he was putting the man out of his misery.

The pandemonium around them died down. The few afflicted still clinging to life were letting out their final raspy breaths, and the symphony of their agony was replaced by the sounds of their loved ones mourning.

Zaevi examined the immediate surroundings and saw that dozens of lives were snuffed out in minutes.

‘Is… is it over?’ she asked.

‘I don't know,’ Nevahl shook his head. ‘Now come, we have to find whoever is in charge of the village. We have to burn the bodies fast.’

As it turned out, the village elder, his wife and two out of their children died during the outbreak, and their remaining son, a boy of eighteen, would, understandably, be of no help. With that avenue closed, Zaevi and Nevahl had to turn to what was left of the local militia. They mostly lucked out there as its commander, and two out of his five immediate reports survived. The grizzled fifty-year-old man named Kaiphyz lost a wife to the disaster, but still had enough mental wherewithal left to give out the orders.

‘People won't be happy,’ he said sourly. ‘It is not how we do things here.’

‘It pains me I had to ask this of you,’ Nevahl replied contritely. ‘But it is the only way.’

‘It is all right,’ the militia commander said. ‘I did send one of the boys to the herbalist before you came in, hoping he would know what to do, but the useless cunt fucking went and died too.’

Zaevi could swear that each word made the man age by a year.

‘Now, if you will excuse me,’ the man continued, ‘I need to start arranging for corpse carts and funeral pyres. I recommend you leave the village. People will soon start trying to find something or someone to blame, and a pair of strangers will make for a perfect target. Especially if one of them is clearly a magical being.’

‘I just have some dragon blood,’ Zaevi protested.

‘Pardon me for saying that, Miss, but you also have red skin and scales. That will be enough for most.’

‘He’s right, you know,’ Nevahl shook his head. ‘This is not some large city where faeblooded people are common enough for you to pass as one of them.’

‘Quite,’ Kaiphyz agreed. ‘Under better circumstances, you’d make for a curiosity. As it stands now…’

The militia commander shook his head.

As they made their way towards Kalaade, they passed several more bodies. Nevahl burned all of them with magic, doing his best not to damage the trees that managed to survive the calamity. At first, Zaevi protested that it wasn't fair that the victims’ families would never get to learn what had happened to their missing loved ones, but she stopped after one of the bodies they found was twitching and had vines actively growing out of its mouth and… the other end clearly looking for some place to set roots at.

Then, when Nevahl set the corpse ablaze, it jerked violently several times, leading Zaevi to wonder whether the victim was still alive or it was the vines protesting. She hoped for the latter, given how, by then, it had been hours since the outbreak, and the perspective of someone somehow managing to survive for THAT long was disturbing to say the least. This particular nightmare, being ended by being set on fire, was also… not the best way to go.

Nevahl must have been beset by the same doubts, as the next time they came across a victim in a similar state, he first snapped their neck with that weird strength he displayed earlier, which, as she would learn later, came from the [Strength of a Giant] spell, and then waited for a few moments before he immolated the poor soul.

What could have caused this? Zaevi asked herself for the umpteenth time that day, but, like the other times, there was no answer.