Three Weeks

When the mace man doubled over Elrik slammed his fist down onto the man’s head. Elrik picked up the sword and finished the man off. Bone crunched as Elrik forced the sword through his skull. Elrik watched the blood soak into the earth. The man wore a light brown and white tunic, with a dog and chain on it. That was the symbol of Fraend’s merchant friend. Well, the man he thought was his friend. Elrik passed out again from the pain in his head and exertion of killing those men.

When Elrik awoke again the sun was high in the sky. It must have been 2 hours since he had passed out. He rolled over to try to rise. His hand touched someone and he winced. Elrik forced himself to look and see whom it was. Ellen, one of the kitchen maids, lay there with her bodice ripped open and dry blood matting her hair to her head. Elrik tried not to think of how many times the men must have raped her and how she must have pleaded for death and the fear in her eyes when it finally came. A look of horror still marred her once lovely face. She didn’t deserve this; she had always been kind to everyone. She had always had a smile for a dirty stable hand.

Brod Alemn was lying only a few feet away. He was another stable hand. Elrik had spent many nights playing cards with Brod. A holiday in the town with Brod was always exciting, and always filled with gambling and ale and if you were lucky Brod could find a girl to sit at your arm.

Elrik didn’t want to see anymore friends or acquaintances lying dead but he had to find someone. Many of the women had torn dresses or few clothes at all. Elrik’s heart beat with furry and anger gripped his heart. He made himself keep looking and began covering the women that he saw as best as he could with their cloaks or the men’s coats. It was grim work moving the bodies but Elrik drove himself on with respect for the women. While he was stripping the coat off of a man to cover a maid, Alice, he saw the man’s small beard. His search was over; the man lying there in a green coat and black pants was Gallan. His head had been bashed in and his face was barely recognizable but no one else Elrik knew had a beard just on his chin and not on his lip or cheeks. Gallan claimed his grandfather had been a westerner and had a beard like that. Elrik had never met a westerner so it might be true.

His search was over. Gallan was dead. Elrik wished he hadn’t found him. Hours more searching in vain would be worth it if there were even a little hope that his best friend might still live.

Elrik returned to where he had killed the two men and retrieved the sword. There was no where for him to go so he simply turned to the forest a few yards away and began walking. After a few minutes Elrik came across a horse chewing on a few tufts of grass that grew here at the edge of the forest. It was already saddled. Why was a horse here? Elrik assumed that the corpse leaning against the tree with an arrow through it just wanted a few minutes of rest before it died. Elrik had no desire to see who it was or what gender. He climbed up on the horse and road away.