2. Leoric
Chapter 2
Leoric
W hen the town of Barrowdeep offered me food, pay, and my own little shack to work as a gravedigger, I was ecstatic. The townsfolk needed strong arms to do some good, honest work, and I needed a full belly and a roof over my head. Fair was fair. Digging holes was easy enough work for someone who once swung swords as often as I did.
They never mentioned the problem of how the local corpses forgot to stay dead.
I planted the end of my shovel into the dirt, the handle smoothed after so many nights of digging. I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear and dragged a hand across my forehead, wiping away sweat even as more of it cooled against my back. The moon watched me work, a pearl dangling from a cloudless sky. Peace. Quiet. Just the way I liked it.
My preference was to dig by night. I enjoyed the silence and solitude. It also meant that I could more easily listen for signs of the waken dead. Scrabbling noises as they scratched at the insides of their coffins, or the sound of splintering wood as the stronger ones somehow broke through the lids.
The worst was hearing a walking corpse’s guttural, ragged breath as it shambled toward me.
They’d tricked me, these townsfolk, seeing a man with the thick chest and broad arms of a warrior, knowing that I could wield a weapon as deftly as I wielded a shovel. And how very lucky they’d been, finding in me the sort of man who wouldn’t retaliate, who was either too soft or too stupid to abandon them to their fate.
I’d met enough of the locals to know that too much was at stake. Human lives. A handful of the elderly, and several young children, all too frail to fight for themselves. Some small animals, like the wiry gray dog who gratefully accepted my bacon scraps in the morning.
I leaned on the handle of my shovel, resting my muscles, breathing a weary sigh. For a moment, the handle’s rounded end reminded me of the pommel of a sword. Enough killing. No more of the mercenary’s life. No more fighting other folk in the name of wealthy, petty lords. This was better.
“No more war, Leoric,” I reminded myself. “No more senseless murder. Now, we fight for the living.”
“And the living thank you, my child.”
I thought I’d lived in Barrowdeep long enough to recognize the sound of the priest’s footsteps. Wisps of smoke coiled from the censer he carried on the end of a thick chain. Fragrant wood burned and glowed within the vessel, a source of light as much as it was a conduit for the cleric’s prayers.
Father Whiston moved softly on his feet, stark contrast to how he delivered his sermons with booming conviction, or how he greeted his parishioners with warm laughter as they filed dutifully into his church. I never came to worship — I didn’t care much for gods and temples — and to his credit, Whiston never once scolded or shunned me, not even when I lingered after service to help myself to the communal breakfast.
He was a good man, even if he did move with all the unsettling silence of a ghost. Few of the townsfolk dared to venture by the graveyard after dark, not that I blamed them. The priest’s presence was not unwelcome. I gave him a flat smile and greeted him with a grunt.
“Only doing what I can for the graves to earn my keep, Father Whiston.”
The priest smiled. “Do you suppose that’s the reason they call you a gravekeeper, then?”
I frowned to cover an amused smirk, digging the shovel into a fresh section of earth, stamping on the blade with the sole of my boot to make it bite deeper. “That’s a funny one. You be sure to save that joke for your congregation.”
He chuckled, stepping around the gravestones, gathering his robes about himself to stave off the chill of night. “My congregation? You should know that my ‘congregation’ — the humble people of Barrowdeep — truly are so grateful for the very particular services you render.”
This time I smirked openly. “Do you mean the part where I dig large holes in the ground, or the part where I fill them back up again?”
The priest rubbed his beard, eyes cast up to the sky. “All of that, but especially the messy business in between. Keeping the infestation of ghouls down has become a lot easier since your arrival.” Father Whiston clasped his hands and sighed. “There is only so much strength that the gods can provide me. Still, the eyes of Vahtalla are ever watchful, and for that I am grateful.”
Again the priest turned his eyes skyward. I tried not to follow his gaze. This wasn’t just some turn of phrase, after all. I’d seen the supernatural benefits of unwavering faith with my own eyes. With a whispered plea, a frantic prayer, the priest had set the ghouls alight with ghastly blue fire, a gift from his unseen gods.
Somehow the things that crawled out of the graves and catacombs frightened me less than these divine beings who supposedly dwelled somewhere past the clouds, beyond even the sun and moon. Vahtalla the Unblinking, radiant Ybura and her veil of stars, all the other gods of the new world — such power they granted him, made him as deadly as a wizard. I comforted myself with the knowledge that the gods, at least, had not yet forsaken Aidun.
“You do plenty enough for the townsfolk, Father. I know for certain that the villagers are grateful for everything you do.”
The priest smiled. “We could spend all night going back and forth, Leoric. Too much indulgence for a man of my profession, I should think. Just know that you are always appreciated in Barrowdeep. ”
Father Whiston gave me a polite nod, then stepped off toward the church, guiding himself by the light of his censer. I counted his steps as they crunched over dead leaves and newly turned earth. The priest worked hard for Barrowdeep by day, and yet his responsibilities continued well into the night. Cleaning up the pews, polishing the cups, scraping away the candle wax — so much to do before he retired to his little room by the side of the chapel.
It was clear that the community looked up to him as a pillar, owed him so much, and yet the man remained humble in his trappings, refusing what little luxuries the village offered him. It surprised me to learn, for one thing, that the accommodations I’d been afforded were even more luxurious than Whiston’s.
I received a meager salary, assumed to be equivalent to a member of the local guard — a fanciful way of putting it, since the local guard meant the old constable and his gangly son, the only two men in town with their own mismatched suits of armor. Cobbled, no doubt, from remnants of the war, bartered from passing travelers like myself.
Often I wondered if those travelers who’d continued down the road had been the cleverer ones, moving on and turning a blind eye to the troubles of Barrowdeep. I’d shed my armor long ago. Foolish thing to do, perhaps, knowing there was still so much conflict troubling the nations of Aidun. But I was happy enough to leave the ravages of war behind me. All I needed at my side was my blade — or my shovel, as it were, the tool that truly earned me my keep .
Small stipend aside, the villagers also provided me with a modest cottage, what in reality had most likely been a storage shed until they found the need to house their new hero. Not a name I gave myself, only something the local children liked to call me. More the fool me, letting them tug at my heartstrings.
Meeting the little ones on what was meant to be my first and only visit to Barrowdeep had perhaps been the very thing that convinced me to stay. I only intended to spend one night at the local tavern, and that was when the kindly and charismatic Father Whiston had cornered me, a glass of cider in each hand. And then the innkeeper joined us, too — Jeromah, a stout woman with a quick, sharp tongue and a knack for baking fabulous pies.
A full belly, a seat by the fire, the sweet words of Father Whiston and Jeromah the innkeeper — a deadly trap crafted out of warmth and comfort. For me, especially, an exhausted mercenary, a hesitant soldier, a sellsword too tired to ever sell or wield a sword ever again. They needed a decent, strong man to help keep the peace, they said, offering me my own little home close to the town chapel, and conveniently close to the local graveyard.
But my own home! Somewhere to unbuckle my boots, to lay my head, a place with a roof and four walls. And walls meant at least one corner where I could lean my shovel, too. After all the fighting, I’d put my muscles to work burying the dead, the battlefields covered in carrion, swarming with birds of prey.
No worthy end for a soldier, bones picked clean by vultures and crows. So I laid down my sword, promised I would use what was left of my strength to provide my fallen fellows with deep graves, a guarantee of dignified rest. Here, at long last, was a chance at a regular life. A quiet life.
We all know how that turned out.
Did I hate the priest and the innkeeper for deceiving me? Not at all. They never lied, for one thing. When they mentioned the occasional troublemaker at the cemetery, I’d assumed they’d meant vagrants, ruffians, perhaps even grave robbers sent by some villainous local necromancer. They’d merely neglected to mention the ghouls by name.
The situation was transactional, a fair exchange. I needed food and shelter. Barrowdeep needed someone to make sure their children and livestock didn’t disappear in the night, stolen away by ravenous ghouls. I was fighting for the cause of life and human existence, not the whims of territorial nobles.
I stabbed my shovel into the earth, muscles sore and straining for rest. My breath tumbled in curls as I took a moment to pause, fiddling with the leather flask of water at my hip. Yes. This was fine. As close to a simple life as I could hope for. I tipped the water back, relishing the cool, crisp sweetness as it pour down my throat. Yes. A simple life.
Except that the ghouls had grown bolder, emerging from the crypts with more frequency, in greater numbers. Father Whiston had done his best to tell me all he knew of these strange creatures, how they preferred to feed on corpses, but would settle for the living if they exhausted their food supply .
They’d clearly run out, desecrating the Barrowdeep graves, devouring the dead. It didn’t take long for Whiston to mention how the ghouls could bolster their own numbers. Perhaps they propagated themselves by passing along their blight with their wicked teeth and claws, perhaps through some unholy primal ritual.
All this fighting and killing throughout the world had awakened undead forces, or so Whiston theorized, causing ancient evils to stir. And so the dead rose from their graves. Dark times in Aidun. Troubled times. I didn’t like trouble. Had my fill of it.
I stoppered my flask and picked up my shovel. I still had a night’s work ahead. And then I heard it coming down the road, the unmistakable rumble of wheels. A carriage arriving in Barrowdeep this late in the night? I squinted at the long road to the town gates, frowning harder when I spotted a glowing caravan moving of its own accord. No horse. No driver.
Sorcery.
Fragrant woodsmoke filled my nostrils as Father Whiston approached. He’d heard the wheels too, then. He tilted his head, following my gaze down the road.
“What is it, Leoric?”
I glowered and gripped my shovel tight.
“Trouble.”