Page 372 of Of Empires and Dust
“You made it look like a good time. And I’d been in serious need of a good time that night. Something to take my mind off… everything. A lot of people died in Valacia.”
Dann saw the pain in Erik’s eyes, the darkness he knew so well. “So what you’re saying is that me getting drunk is going to save Salme?”
“That’s not even remotely…” Erik gave a resigned laugh, that pain momentarily fading. “Yes, Dann. You getting drunk is going to save Salme.”
Shouts echoed through the forest. “Ready to march!”
Erik gave a long sigh, then rested a hand on Dann’s shoulder. “We’ll get there in time, Dann.”
Dann nodded, giving Erik a half-smile, then turned to Nala. “Before we leave, take that cloak out of the chest and drape it over Drunir’s back. How do you think it’s going to dry stuffed in that chest?”
The last timeDann had looked down at The Glade from the edge of Ölm Forest with the sun sinking into the horizon had been the night Therin had told the story of The Fall.
That night, columns of smoke had drifted languidly from chimneys and the sounds of the Moon Market had danced on the air. He’d always loved the view of the rooves under the light of the setting sun, the twilight glow spilling through the trees. That view – to him – was home.
That view was gone.
No smoke rose from chimneys, and the few rooves that remained to glow in the setting sun were coated in char and tainted by the light of that damned moon. He could see the remnants of his home amidst the ruin and death, three of the four walls collapsed, the roof caved in.
The army continued on a steady march down the hill and off along the dirt road towards Salme, keeping its distance from the ruins of The Glade.
“You go ahead,” Dann said to Nala, gesturing for her to carry on with the others.
“This is your home?” the young squire asked.
“It is… or at least it was.”
“Then I’m coming with you. You shouldn’t be alone.”
Dann didn’t have the heart to argue with her. “Come on then.”
He gave aclickwith the side of his mouth and tapped Drunir with his heels. The horse neighed and set off down the hill towards The Glade, his breath misting in the evening air.
Dann caught Tarmon’s eye as he separated from the column, and the big man just nodded to him, holding his gaze for a few moments.
After a minute or so, Lyrei appeared at Drunir’s side. She looked up at Dann and gave him a weak smile, not saying a word.
He dismounted at the village’s edge and lead Drunir in by the reins. Nala and Maria stayed a few feet behind, the young girl’s eyes drifting over Urak corpses that had been reduced to little more than bones and gnawed flesh. The wolfpines and kats must have scavenged the village after the fighting.
Strangely, Dann found no human corpses. Only Uraks and livestock, a few horses, bones peeking through rotted and torn flesh. The smell was horrid. The vomit-inducing stench of decaying flesh was so palpable it coated Dann’s tongue and caused him to choke. That, blended with the ‘wonderful’ aroma of freshly laid shit, assaulted his senses.
Drunir walked alongside him without faltering, but he could hear Maria’s complaints behind him, snorting and nickering. He didn’t blame her. The Glade – the place that had always given him warm, fond memories – was a place of darkness and sorrow now, and animals had a way of feeling that more viscerally than most people did. They could sense things, feel the anguish in the air.
Partly-burnt wood cracked and split beneath Dann’s feet as he walked the ruined street towards The Gilded Dragon. He stopped and pushed some of the blackened wood aside. His heart clenched when he unearthed what looked to be half a skull,cleaved clean from left temple to right jaw, the flesh burnt away. Whoever had cleared bodies had not found this. A hundred faces flashed across his mind’s eye, from Verna Gritten to Marlo Egon to Iwan Swett – not that he cared much for Kurtis’s father, but that didn’t mean he’d wish death upon the man.
He dropped to his haunches and brushed the char from the severed skull, then picked it up and stood.
Lyrei reached out and took it from him gently, placing it into her satchel. She clasped his hand and squeezed. Only for a second, then let it go. Not a word passed between them, but it was like she could feel his soul.
“Why?” he heard Nala whisper to Lyrei as Dann brushed aside more of the rubble, finding no skeleton to go with the skull. He pretended he didn’t hear and just kept moving.
“The dead should not be left alone in a place like this,” Lyrei whispered back. “Someone took the other bodies. So maybe they’re buried here, or maybe at Salme or somewhere along the way.”
Ahead, at the end of the street scattered with broken spear shafts and Urak corpses, stood the remains of The Gilded Dragon. It would have broken Lasch’s heart to see the ruin that it was. The entire building had collapsed in. What was left of the wood was brittle and black.
Amidst the death of his home, Dann allowed a smile to curl his lips. He dropped to one knee and pulled a large chunk of soot-covered wood from beneath the cover of a broken shield.
“What is it?” Lyrei asked, standing behind him.
