The chill of the morning, still crisp and biting, echoed the aftermath of the battle in the defiled courtyard. Emanresu paused to draw a breath. The acrid smell of burning flesh filled the air, with wisping tendrils of smoke rising from a bandit that had breathed his last, falling into the fire pit in the center of the courtyard. Emanresu motioned to one of the townsfolk, and together, they lifted the brigand from the pit and tossed his body to the side.
Emanresu smiled weakly, his ragged breath still struggling to return to normal as the anxiety waned from the battle’s end. He placed a hand on the man’s shoulder and nodded in thanks. The young man from Bren grinned slightly and wiped away the quickly drying blood that had spattered his face during the fight.
“That was much harder than we anticipated,” he cursed softly as the man from Bren hurried away to assist elsewhere, setting down the Heater briefly to adjust his black bracers.
Looking around, the people of Bren who had volunteered to protect their little community seemed to have made it through the battle without any significant losses, if any at all. It was hard to tell at this point, and only a final headcount would tell for sure. Considering they trained for barely weeks, the townsfolk had made a good accounting of themselves. The task of clearing out the bandits had come all too soon, but the assistance they provided was immeasurable.
Having the large bulk of Resua towering beside him had been comforting, though the pain of losing him was still fresh. The battle had progressed as planned, but a miscalculation in the bandit’s numbers had skewed things sideways. “Never an indication of the second garrison being housed in the manor,” Emanresu picked up the Heater and sheathed the Hack. He looked around, trying to gauge the number of his Whites still standing. To his knowledge, the White were the only ones who suffered any losses, but it was a risk they all took each time they stepped out onto the field. The numbers with the townsfolk had been in our favor, but protecting the townsfolk while attempting to engage the most experienced bandits was no simple task and had cost at least three of the White, including Resua.
He had watched as the massive bulk of Resua fell, his chest pierced with a bolt from a brigand’s crossbow, dropping the towering battle scribe in his tracks. The bolt buried in his tunic like a sapling reaching skyward for light. Emanresu had felt a lump form in his throat at the sight of his fallen friend and had redoubled his efforts to conclude this fray before any more of his friends fell. Alas, Aleric fell to a mighty sweep of a brigand’s blade. Emanresu’s shoulders drooped as he realized the losses. First Darth, then Resua, and then Aleric; the battle had raged on with renewed vigor in honor of the fallen comrades.
Before the last blow was dealt and before the last of the brigands had felt the steel rip through their flesh, Emanresu had already been looking, scanning the survivors for her.
“Where are you, Serrah!” his mind cried out.
The fallen lay strewn across the courtyard, brigand and White alike. Emanresu strode with purpose, searching.
“Has anyone seen Serrah?” he shouted, his heart pounding in his chest with the thought that he was unwilling to entertain. The answer that stilled his heart echoed back at him; no one had seen her. His breathing became shallow as he searched. The bond they had formed during the arduous trek boiled to the surface of his thoughts.
“The foul stink of the disguise she had to bear when they first met, the skills that she presented without fanfare or need for acknowledgment, the fighting skills she so adeptly displayed,” thoughts careened through Emanresu like a charging boar.
His only lasting thought was, “I should have told her.”
His shoulders drooped, and the frown on his face deepened as he spied her body under a brigand, identifiable only by the autumn brown locks she so beautifully bore.
Emanresu felt his heart stop, and the blood rushed from his head. Feeling faint, he quickly approached, grabbed hold of the brigand’s tunic, and threw the man’s body to the side with a strength that belied his lanky build.
He knelt beside Serrah, her ragged breathing foaming red upon her lips as the air rasped shallowly in and out.
She looked up at him, her eyes pleading for him to help, praying for another outcome. An outcome that was not within his power to grant. He quickly exposed the wound, tearing at it like a rabid dog. Deep into her chest, the blade had cut, the gash gently pulsing a stream of crimson bearing the life she had lived. Emanresu quickly bound it, “If only to delay her last,” Emanresu thought as he lifted her to work the wrap around her.
A spray of blood splattered him like a warm summer rain as she coughed, even as she struggled to breathe. Little droplets of crimson ran down his face, intermingling with the tears that preceded them.
His heart pounded, crushed with the weight of her impending death. The blood pounding in his ears and the scent of her blood mixed with the sensation of his own blood pulsing through the vessels in his nostrils.
His head drooped as he held his cheek gently against her forehead. He wiped the blood from her cheek and face as he gently held her.
“I am so sorry, Serrah,” he whispered.
A tear ran down Serrah’s face, and Emanresu reached up and caressed it away with his thumb. He sat heavily on the ground as the Whites slowly shuffled closer. Emanresu looked around, the tears streaming down his cheeks, telling them all they needed to know about his true heart.
Tarlis placed a hand on Emanresu’s shoulder and knelt beside him. He reached out and gently adjusted the wisp of hair from her face. Her gaze turned to Tarlis, and she managed a weak smile that disappeared into a bloody cough.
“You did well, girl,” Tarlis said, his stoic figure belied by the quiver in his voice. Tarlis, too, had grown to love this young woman, filling his heart with the daughter he once lost; she had become family.
Serrah raised her arm weakly and laid a gentle hand on Emanresu’s cheek, gently coaxing him closer into a hug he had so desperately wanted before all of this. He held her close, her shallow breathing getting weaker by the moment. He could only say the one thing he had struggled not to say. “I love you,” came the whispered admission. “I don’t know why, but from the moment we met in the inn. Me, a wandering idiot with a silly quest, and you, working beneath your skills as a maid, since that very day, you have always been in my heart.”
Serrah looked at him, her eyes streaming tears steadily down her face, “I know,” she mouthed. Her body relaxed, and her eyes ceased to focus as the last breath seeped from her.
Slowly, one at a time, the Whites touched Emanresu and drifted away to tend to their own fallen. Tarlis stayed. The bond the group had made over the last many moons, the effort and training, and the surprises that had sprouted into enjoyment and spread through them were fresh in Emanresu’s mind as he turned to look at Tarlis. The pain evident on his face, Tarlis put an arm around the young man.
“We shall honor her as we do all of the fallen Whites. This I swear!” The guttural, heartfelt statement crawled from him and fell to the floor, unheard or uncared for; the outcome was the same.
Tarlis urged Emanresu to let her go with a tug on his spaulder, and heeding this, Emanresu hugged the love of his life close, holding her now limp head in his hand. He kissed her on the forehead and gently laid her back down onto the dirt that so eagerly lapped up her life’s blood.
He slowly stood, and Tarlis stood with him, a hand gently clasped on the young man’s back.
“Let’s look to your wounds,” Tarlis began, examining the various wounds on Emanresu, bandaging the wounds that needed care and letting the others seep blood until they scabbed on their own.
Emanresu reached down and snatched up the Heater and the Hack, sheathing one and slipping his arm through the other.
His thoughts drift back to when he and Resua had started this journey moons prior when he slipped his hand into the shield and buckled on the sword for the first time. The lost and fallen since then tugged at his heart, and his shoulders sagged. “But that was a lifetime ago, and we still have the rest of this mess to deal with,” Emanresu heaved a sigh of resignation.
With the sword and shield firmly returned to their rightful places, Emanresu turned to look at Serrah’s body. The steam from her body slowly drifted upwards in the chill air of the morning.
Emanresu laid a hand on Tarlis’s arm, “Is that not odd?”
Tarlis followed his gaze to where Serrah lay, the wisps of steam that Emanresu had noticed increasing to the level of a boiling pot.
“No, that is not normal,” the old man furrowed his brow. “The blade must have been tainted with something, but I have never seen this before, so I know not what.”
Emanresu hurried back to her side, reaching down to touch her cheek. The heat from her face was palpable and grew steadily hotter even as he examined her. As the heat became too hot to bear, he removed his hand and stood, backing slowly away.
The steam rose and enveloped her body like a newly carved slab of venison, roasted and set out in the winter freeze.
When he finally noticed, the smoldering had grown to encompass all her garments, each piece browning from the heat, and then, as if on cue, Serrah burst into flames; heat radiated out, pulsing and burning, forcing the two men to shield their faces and stepped back.