36. Death Becomes You
Chapter 36
Death Becomes You
14 th Day of the Blood Moon
Salme – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom
Erdhardt sat forwards on the steps of his porch, stretching out his chest and pulling his head back. His spine and neck cracked, the muscles in his back spasming. He grimaced and held himself in that position until the spasms petered out and faded to a dull ache, his muscles loosening once more.
He let out a long, exhausted sigh, then dipped the rag in his right hand back into the bucket at his side and continued to clean the blood from his hammer. His original warhammer had been crushed by a Bloodmarked some time ago, and one of Salme’s weaponsmiths had crafted him the weapon that currently lay across his lap. The head bore a hammer on one side, spread into nine points like a butcher’s meat pounder, with a hefty spike occupying the other side. It was nothing fancy, but it killed Uraks, and that was all he needed it to do. Some of the children had taken to calling the weapon ‘Bonebreaker’, but Erdhardt cared little for the name. Naming a weapon was a pointless thing.
He squinted as he looked up at the morning sun, picking a strip of grey flesh from the hammer’s teeth. That night’s Urak attack had been the bloodiest in a while, and he’d not yet slept. Not that he slept much anyway. The beasts had been quieter the past few days, but he was under no illusions. All that meant was that they were busy either killing more travellers along the roads or adding their numbers to the siege of Camylin. And once that city fell, Salme would be next.
He set his hammer down beside him, grabbed a clean rag, dipped it in the water, and wiped the dried blood and dirt from his face and neck. Keeping himself clean was a task in and of itself. He couldn’t bathe every day, that simply wasn’t feasible, and yet every night he painted himself in fresh Urak blood. A wet rag was the best way for him to keep from looking as though he’d crawled from a pile of corpses.
As he wiped a piece of gore from behind his ear, young Lina Styr and her mam, Mara, appeared around the corner. Lina carried an armful of baskets so high they rose above her head while Mara held a massive iron pot.
“You’re meant to be sleeping.” Mara frowned at Erdhardt, shaking her head. “And you could do with a hot bath.”
“I could do with a great many things, Mara.”
The woman’s frown turned to a sympathetic gaze. She’d lost her husband four summers gone in the same battle that had taken Haem Bryer and many others. She understood Erdhardt’s loss. He softened, giving Mara a half-smile and looking to young Lina. “And what do you have there, young lady?”
A small blonde head appeared from behind the tower of baskets, with bright green eyes and a smile that seemed far too genuine for the current state of the world. “We brought you food, Master Hammersmith.” She puffed out her chest a little, raising her chin. “I made the carrot cake myself. Swear I did. And the bread. It’s got seeds and walnuts!”
“Is that right?” Even a grumpy old man like Erdhardt couldn’t keep a smile from his face at the pride in Lina’s voice. He hauled himself to his feet, his knees arguing, his back aching. “And is all this for me?”
“No,” she said, laughing.
“I think it is.” Erdhardt pretended to take the entire stack of baskets from her.
“No, it’s not.” Lina giggled, twisting to keep the baskets from him. “Just one!”
“Oh, all right then. But what happens if I eat the whole cake in one sitting? Will you make me another?”
“You couldn’t eat the whole cake! Not on your own!”
“That’s a challenge I’m willing to accept.” He ruffled Lina’s hair gently, then turned to Mara. “Thank you. You didn’t have to.”
The woman shook her head. “Nonsense, Erdhardt. We all have our parts to play. I’m no good with a spear, but I can keep you fed. Gods know you’re no good at that yourself. Here.”
Mara handed him the iron pot, which was far heavier than she’d made it look.
“Lamb stew. It will stay fresh enough for a few days if left sealed in the cold. But I don’t suspect it will last that long.” She grabbed the top basket from Lina’s tower and placed it on the step beside Erdhardt. “Bread, sweet carrot cake, blackberry jam, and scones.”
“Mara—” Erdhardt made to protest but was cut off by a sharp ‘tssk’ . They’d done this dance many times in the months since arriving in Salme.
“I have other people to feed, Erdhardt. And I don’t have all day to stand here and argue with you over blackberry jam.”
“You’re a good soul, Mara Styr.”
“You look too far from yourself, Erdhardt.” The woman gave a slight bow, then carried on with Lina in tow.
Erdhardt slung his hammer through the loop on his back, grabbed the basket, and brought it, along with the pot, into the squat wooden house he called his own, and laid them both down on the table. There was little else inside. A bed, a chest, a table, a wardrobe, and a chair, with a fireplace set into the eastern wall. He’d no need of much else and rarely spent time within the four walls unless he was sleeping.
This place was not his home. He would never have a home again. That had died with Aela. She’d been his safe place, his warmth, his comfort. His only task now was to protect the people of The Glade, to watch over them as The Father would. After that, he would find his wife in Achyron’s halls.
It was a simple plan, but it was a good plan.
The thought of Aela made him lift his right hand and stroke the obsidian earring, carved into the shape of a feather, that hung from a still-healing hole in his right ear. He had been wearing it since the night she’d died.
A knock sounded at the door.
“You’ve not slept either then?” Anya Gritten stood in the wide-open doorway, blood and dirt mashed into her leathers, her face much the same, her red hair brown as bark.
Erdhardt grabbed a clean rag from the counter and tossed it to her. “There’s a bucket on the steps.”
As Anya cleaned her face and hands, Erdhardt pulled Lina Styr’s sweet carrot cake from the basket and cut two slices. He stepped out onto the porch and offered one to Anya.
The young woman refused, but he set it into her hands anyway. She was as bad as him for refusing kindness.
“No fork?” she asked, setting herself on the steps.
“No fork means no cleaning.” Erdhardt sat beside Anya, giving her a weak smile.
“Spoken like a man.”
“Spoken like a wise man.” Erdhardt bit into the carrot cake, letting out an involuntary sigh. Lina Styr made a damn good cake. “Many injured?”
Anya nodded, her mouth full of cake. “More than I’d hoped. Some that are far beyond my ability. Parlim Sten’s legs were both broken, shattered like glass. I stayed with him for hours, tried to keep him with us. But in the end, all I could do was give him Altweid Blood and hope it eased his journey.”
“I’m not sure how you do it, Anya. Your mother would have been proud. It’s far easier to take a life than to save one.” Images of Verna Gritten’s broken and twisted body flashed across Erdhardt’s mind. He’d known the woman his entire life, and now she was simply gone.
Anya smiled softly, a smile that faded within seconds. She shoved the remainder of her cake into her mouth, almost inhaling it. “On that, I’m exhausted and need to sleep. Shall we?”
Erdhardt and Anya walked the streets of Salme, nodding to those who passed while going about their morning. He remembered what Salme had looked like only a year or so prior. No more than a village, with stout log homes not much different to The Glade and a population of no more than a few hundred.
Now the place was a city by any definition, home to thousands who had flocked from across western Illyanara. The homes that had been erected to house new citizens were a mishmash of stone, log, and mudbrick with rooves of thatch and shingle.
Erdhardt and Anya stopped at a patch of land at the western edge of the city, far enough from the water that the soil was moist but not sodden. It was there they had planted the ash seeds.
It had been Tharn Pimm’s idea. In The Glade, they had taken locks of hair from every body they’d buried and planted each with its own seed. When humans had first come to Epheria, the ash tree had been sacred to their gods – the tree of life and death. The teachings and worship of those old gods was all but gone and dead, but the knowledge of the ash tree remained.
Erdhardt knelt before Aela’s sapling, which was less than half a foot tall. He laid his palm flat against the soil. “I miss you again today, my love. Just as I will tomorrow. Just as I did yesterday. Why didn’t you just run?”
He’d been angry at her for quite a while. Furious, even. But then he’d realised that at least this way, he could bear the pain of a world without her. A pain she would never have to know in return.
He knelt there, unmoving, his hand pressed into the soil, until Anya finally broke the silence.
“It’s time I slept.” Anya stood over the sapling that was her mother’s, her eyes raw, tears dripping from her chin. “And you. You’re no good if you’re too tired to swing that hammer.”
“I will see you again tomorrow,” Erdhardt whispered to Aela. He placed his fingers to his lips and kissed, pressing his hand into the soil before standing. “Sleep doesn’t call me yet.”
He turned to Anya and held out his arms, offering a hug. The young woman wrapped her arms around him and pressed her head into his chest, sobbing gently.
“Two peas in a pod we are.” He rubbed his hand on her back.
“Except I’m a lot younger and I smell better.” Anya sniffled and laughed, smiling as she pulled away.
“You watch your tongue. I’m still an elder of The Glade.” Erdhardt squeezed Anya’s shoulders softly, sighing and brushing a tear from her cheek. Anya Gritten had saved him. Not physically but mentally and emotionally. Of all the people in The Glade, it had been she who had refused to let him wallow in his cups, to let him lose himself. And for that, he owed her an unpayable debt. “Go get some rest.”
With Anya gone, Erdhardt placed one last kiss on Aela’s sapling and went to do his round of the city before retiring himself. It was a routine he had fallen into, and thank the gods for it. More than once he’d found a broken section of wall unattended, an injured man or woman left lying in a ditch, or any other manner of issues, of which there seemed to be no end.
Many of those problems had grown fewer and fewer since Dahlen Virandr had taken over as the commander of Salme’s defences – or the Lord Captain, as many of the others had taken to calling him. He was an impressive young man, clearly bred for war. Were it not for him, the Belduarans, and the dwarves – and he supposed the Lorians if he was being truthful – Salme would have been nothing but rubble months ago, every soul within dead.
As he walked, he passed one of the many squares built into the city. There he found near a hundred youths with spears in their hands, all standing tall and paying close attention to three of the Belduarans, who were instructing them on the proper way to stand and move in formation. Dahlen had introduced these training sessions. The young – sixteen or younger – didn’t fight on the walls. At least not yet. And so they were drilled in the morning with the second rotation.
Once past the square, Erdhardt ascended a set of stairs that led to ramparts along the city’s palisade wall, which had grown thicker and taller. The Uraks had only attacked during the day three times. But twice out of those three, Salme’s defenders had been caught with their trousers around their ankles. It wouldn’t happen again.
He marched along the ramparts, ensuring each and every guard stood at their post.
They knew him. They all did. ‘Fellhammer’ they called him. It seemed as silly as naming a sword. Perhaps heroes of legend deserved names. And even then, the true legends never needed one – the great Cassian Tal, Alvira Serris, Ruarc Oden. Erdhardt had never gone to fight for the Illyanaran army like Vars and the others. The most battle he’d seen had been during his time in the town guard of The Glade in his younger years, where his hammer had crushed many an Urak chest. But even then, that had been nothing on the scale of the war that now burned Epheria. Still, he would abide the name so long as it put courage in their hearts to think him worthy of it.
As he made his way around the rampart and closer to the gates, he found Lanan Halfhand, one of Salme’s elders, looking out at the land on the other side. She stood with her arms folded, head tilted to the side.
She glanced at Erdhardt as he approached.
“Hammersmith. You should be resting.” Her eyes were dark and sunken, and flecks of blood on the back of her neck and behind her ears had clearly been missed when she had cleaned herself after the fighting.
“I’ve heard that a lot this morning, though only from hypocrites.”
Lanan snorted at that as Erdhardt took his place beside her. She had been watching the workers toil before the walls, digging the dry moats that Dahlen had ordered. One was already finished, and at that very moment, men and women were pulling impaled Urak corpses from the stakes set into its base.
While the bodies from the night before were removed, another group worked on a second moat, some ten feet further from the walls than the first. They dug the trench with shovels, piling the dirt high on the other side, before setting long wooden stakes in place. It was hard, gruelling work, and even in the cold winter air, many of the workers were shirtless and sweating.
“I never thanked you, Hammersmith,” Lanan said.
“For?”
“Beating Benem bloody. He’s been much easier to deal with ever since.”
“My pleasure.” Erdhardt folded his arms. “Though men like that never let things lie. He will come for me, whether it’s a spear in the back during the fighting or some kind of poison in my drink, or perhaps one night I might simply fall from the wall. I reckon I can keep him in check. But I’d advise you to exercise the same caution.”
“I’m not new to these games, Hammersmith. As you well know. It just so happens that Benem’s food of late carries a bit more sweetness than it usually would.”
“What did you do?”
“Me?” Lanan pursed her lips, raising an open hand with only two fingers and a thumb. “I would never do anything. But when Freis Bryer last visited Salme at my request, she planted many Fanril flowers near the main hall – a natural remedy for constipation, if I remember correctly. And I could have sworn I saw one of the cooks from Pirn picking them accidentally. It’s very easy to confuse Fanril with blooming Barntip.”
“Lanan, you’re going to kill the man by making him shit himself to death.”
“As I’ve already said, Erdhardt. I’ve done nothing. I’m simply a casual observer. And my observation is that Benem has been too occupied drinking his bodyweight in water and emptying his bowels to cause me any concern. I’m simply speculating that perhaps the cook picked the wrong flower.”
Across the years, Erdhardt had always known Lanan as a sharp woman, quick of wit and more than capable in a fight. But at that moment he made a personal note in his mind to never make her an enemy. All men died, and there were many ways to do so. But shitting himself to death was one he hoped to avoid.
“Well, the moats seem effective.” He gestured down at three men struggling to haul the body of an Urak from a set of four stakes through its leg, chest, and neck.
“Very much so. Simple, crude, and viciously potent. And that is another thing I must thank you for. Suggesting Dahlen Virandr lead the defence was an inspired choice. Though I dare say he sleeps less than even you and I.”
Erdhardt followed Lanan’s gaze to see Dahlen Virandr on his hands and knees in the second trench, dragging an enormous stone free so the trench could be deepened. “By The Father, the man never stops.”
So much blood and dirt were mixed and mashed into Dahlen’s face and skin he looked closer to a corpse than a living man. Since the Uraks had attacked that first night, Dahlen had always been where the fighting was thickest, he, the Belduarans, and those three dwarves that never left his side. And that had also been true only hours ago when Dahlen had manned the ramparts over the gates from sunset to sunrise. The young man had even leapt from the walls after one of the Belduarans had been knocked from the battlements. The woman had broken her leg in multiple places, but because of Dahlen and the others who followed the madman, she yet lived. Erdhardt himself had carried her back through the gates whilst the fighting had been dying down.
Erdhardt was not surprised to see the man still awake, as that had been the case most mornings, but to see him digging the trench was unexpected indeed.
“How long do you think we can last?” Lanan broke the silence, still looking down at Dahlen Virandr and the others.
“That depends entirely on how hard they come at us. They’ve eased off these last few nights. The mood’s been better. But I don’t doubt for a second they’re going to come back twice as hard. If Camylin falls, we’re next. And they’ll come with much larger numbers.”
“Unless they make for Midhaven.”
“There’s that. But I’d rather prepare for the worst and pray to Varyn for the best. Much will depend on if the forces sent by Dahlen’s father and Calen arrive in time.” Even as he spoke the words, Erdhardt couldn’t quite believe them. It hadn’t been two summers since Calen had passed The Proving. Erdhardt could remember the young lad’s face after he’d emerged from ?lm. How had it come to this? How, by all divine will, was he standing on the walls of Salme, awaiting relief from an army sent by Calen Bryer? It wasn’t even stuff of bards’ tales. It sounded more akin to one of Dann Pimm’s drunken stories, like that time the boy had sworn he’d laid eyes on a horse with a horn growing from its head. “All we can do is fight as hard as we can as long as we can. There is nothing else. Live for tomorrow.”
Lanan gave a half-smile and nodded to herself. “Ylinda Pimm is a good leader. Not as considered as Verna Gritten was, but still, a good leader. But are you sure?—”
“I’m sure, Lanan.” They’d had this conversation already. “My days sitting on councils died with my wife. Someone making decisions about the future of a place and its people should have a will to be around to see that future. As things stand, I’ll settle for doing my best to make sure we see tomorrow.”
“Where are you going?” Lanan asked as Erdhardt turned and started towards the nearest set of stairs.
“To let a man get some sleep.”
Erdhardt descended the stairs, nodding to the guards who stood at the gate in a variety of torn leathers, hastily-constructed gambesons, and old shirts. At least all four of them gripped solid steel-tipped spears in their fists now instead of pitchforks and scythes and clubs.
There wasn’t much trade to be found, not with the Uraks roaming across the continent. Even ships were few and far between. But there was one trader who hailed from Skyfell in Valtara who had begun to frequent the sea route between the two cities. It was from him that fresh steel, iron, leather, and fruit had flowed into the city. Though Salme’s coffers would soon be dry, and they would have little left to trade.
He passed through the gates and over the two planks laid across the first trench, which bowed precariously under his weight.
Erdhardt found Dahlen standing in the second moat, shirtless, blood trickling from near fifty tiny cuts across his body, some fresh, some broken scabs, and some which had clearly once been sutured. Sweat rolled down the man’s shoulders and back, and he breathed as heavily as a panting dog. The dwarven captain, Nimara, stood by his side, as did some of the Belduarans and the young lad who had taken to following Dahlen around like a shadow – Conal.
“You need sleep.” Erdhardt stood at the top of the trench, looking down at the young man.
Dahlen drove his shovel into the earth, then rolled his head around, his neck cracking. After a few moments, he looked back, raising his hand to shield his eyes from the sun. “You still alive, old man?”
“It’s up for debate.”
Dahlen gave a laugh, wiping the sweat from his brow. “All good?”
“A few new scars to call my own.” Erdhardt pursed his lips and twisted his arm to show a long gash that ran from his elbow to his shoulder. He’d actually not thought about it until that moment, and that was when it began to sting. “Not as many as you though. You’re getting slow.”
Dahlen wiped his hand across his back, smearing blood with the sweat. “Fuck.”
“I told you I could suture them.” Nimara shrugged, sunlight glinting off the innumerable rings laced through her blonde hair. She looked as worse for wear as Dahlen, a piece of her left earlobe missing, a sloppily sewn chunk taken from her right shoulder. In fact, it was clear to see who among them had still not slept from the night before based on the amount of blood and dirt mashed into them.
“You use a needle like you use an axe.”
“And you bleed like a little bitch.”
Erdhardt let out a heavy sigh, pulled his hammer from his back, dropped it to the ground, and climbed into the trench.
“What are you doing?” Dahlen eyed him askance.
“Go and get those wounds taken care of. Anya is sleeping, but the man from ?lm should be in the bloodhouse. See him, then get some rest.” Unlike his usual opinions on naming things, Erdhardt had quite liked the name given to the converted inn where the majority of the injured were treated. So much blood had dripped onto the floorboards it had begun to look like paint.
“I’m fine.” Dahlen made to grab the shovel he’d lodged in the ground, but Erdhardt wrapped his fingers around the wooden shaft and ripped it from the earth.
“I didn’t ask if you were fine.” He thought back to a time when he had been an elder of the Glade, when he had spoken and others had listened – when he had been whole – and he brought that man forward. “In fact, I don’t remember asking you anything. Go and get your wounds seen to, then rest. These people need a leader, not a martyr. You’ll do nobody any good if those wounds get infected or if you’re too exhausted to swing a sword.”
“What about you? You’ve slept as little as I have, and those bones are a lot older.”
“These bones have lived through more pain than you could understand. They can take a bit more.” He rested a hand on Dahlen’s shoulder and lowered his voice. “A shouldered burden breaks a lonely man. You might be willing to die for them, but that’s not what they need. I’ll take over from here. We’re both off rotation tonight. Sleep. I’ll do the same once more wake to take my place, and I’ll see you for a drink in The Rusty Shell. Gods know we need one.” Erdhardt raised his voice. “The same goes for all of you who fought last night. Get seen to, and get some rest.”
“They don’t need you to die for them either, Erdhardt.”
Erdhardt patted Dahlen on the shoulder, then looked around him. “I already did. I’m just lingering a little longer.”