The Servant of Gelde: Deadlands

The story of The Deadlands was always different, depending on who told it. It always began with a good king of the Equine Prairie, named for its native horses raised and traded all throughout the world as the pinnacle of the species, enriching its people. The good king always had two sons, and upon his death a dispute over rule of the Prairie arose. Some would say the eldest was the king’s heir by right, and the younger boy raised an army to depose his brother. Some would say the king, distrusting of his eldest son, declared his seat to fall to the younger of his sons, and the elder attacked in jealousy. All agreed that a war raged, dividing the Prairie by city, town, and even household. Some would say the war went on for a decade, others just a few months. One man had once claimed the war was little more than fisticuffs in the royal keep. All agree that one brother or the other summoned a powerful mage to end the war in his favor, and with the request the Prairie, once a symbol of beauty and prosperity, was plunged into an endless cloud of darkness where each and every man and woman born of the existing bloodlines of the Equine Prairie would rise upon death and return to serve their eternal king—whomever it was that sat in on the throne, barricaded in his keep out of shame.

The Servant’s feet ached from the long march from New Hrodrik, called without any clear goal for his journey. His rusted armor scavenged from mercenaries and soldiers over the previous months was heavy, ill fitting, and rattled as he walked. He could feel a gap in his brigandine’s plate, just below his right rib, and planned to guard it well. The persistent burning of Gelde’s gaze was liable to drive him mad, but the promise he made to the old god would not be broken by anger, frustration, or madness; only success in acquiring the gold which would satisfy the god to return his wife and daughter to him. One day soon, he told himself every time either of their faces crept into his mind. Soon. He had no idea how far away he was from satisfying Gelde’s wish; the number had been taken from his memory with his name. He was a Servant of Gelde as long as the god wished, and only a Servant of Gelde as long as the god wished.

Gelde was not a cruel god. The Servant would never be allowed to starve or thirst, he’d always have a facsimile of his home to return to through just a few moments of meditation, and he was granted with strength, speed, size, and agility beyond even the greatest lay-men in all of the various kingdoms, fiefdoms, empires, and states that painted the practically boundless map of the world.

The Servant could see the sun above, a dim red circle behind the dark, smoke-like fog as he entered the borders of what was once the Equine Prairie. Children would tell tales of The Deadlands as if they were a myth. It was too preposterous of a premise for even children to believe, but sometimes the world was more preposterous than children’s tales, The Servant knew. In just a few months he’d collected half a dozen large bounties on highwaymen, bandits, and even common killers. He was on what was a new quest to him, his first true call. Gelde guided him toward The Deadlands at the summoning by someone in the royal keep in Rolling Peak, the old capital of the region, and supposedly the last settlement with any inhabitants. Rolling Peak may have been a sight generations ago, but in its current state it was little more than a small town nestled within decades old ruins. Elderly men and women sat on porches along the side of the dry dirt road watching the strange giant stroll through their town, their caretakers ushering them inside out of fear. When he reached the keep, however, he found its drawbridge up, and portcullis down behind it. Beneath the ledge was what was likely once a moat, now little more than a damp and muddy ditch. On either side of the path to the upturned drawbridge were two fully armed soldiers with their faces obscured by visors.

“Good day to you, men. I believe I have been summoned to this keep. I am a Servant of Gelde,” he told the men, but was met with even less than silence. Neither of the men turned to even face him, or otherwise acknowledged he was there. The Servant moved closer to approach the soldier on the right, and peered through the breaths and eyes of the visor. The man, if one could call it that, looked little more than a near fully rotted corpse. Chunks of the decedent’s skin had fallen away to reveal bone beneath, and its eyes turned glassy blue bulbs sunken far into the socket. The Servant recoiled in disgust for a moment but shortly regained his composure. The tales were true; the dead walked in The Deadlands. He’d heard of the evils of necromancy, but found himself ill-prepared to witness its reality. The Servant sighed and turned around to find someone on the right side of the grave, but found that all of the elderly had disappeared into their homes. He’d find someone to help him before breaking into an innocent person’s home, hopefully.

The Servant rounded the keep in search of any weakness, but was met by little more than a waist high wall surrounding the muddy ditch as far as he went. One building in the town did, however, catch his eye. He could just barely make out a sign of a mug of foamy beer hanging above a door. Even with his enhanced night-vision, he could barely make it out, so he wondered how any normal man might. In the windows, a gentle warm glow radiated showing some signs of life. As he approached, another two, presumably undead, soldiers marched by without paying him any attention. The Servant wondered what they might be patrolling for if a strange man in brigand’s armor wasn’t enough to draw their attention.

Opening the tavern door, The Servant was met with the familiar turning of heads in awe and fear. It was a strange feeling, but he was getting used to it over time. He did hope he wouldn’t, though; it would mean he’d been at it too long. Ignoring the glares of the old men seated at round top tables drinking the day away, The Servant strode directly to the bar-top manned by what was a comparatively juvenile man who gave him a warm smile. “You don’t look like you’ve come here to die,” he said. “What can I get you?”

The Servant returned the smile. “Nothing but information,” he told the man.

“Lucky for you, information is free. Unlucky for me,” the man said, obviously joking.

“The keep, how do I get in?” The Servant asked.

“What could possibly draw you there?” The tavern-keeper asked in surprise.

“My business is my own,” The Servant answered. He took no offense to the question, and would gladly answer it, but he knew well it would, at best, only result in more questions, delaying him further from seeing his wife and daughter again.

The tavern-keeper smirked. “Oh, be reasonable. I’m not charging you for it, you could at least sate my curiosity. It’s not often I get to speak to anyone interesting,” the man made sure to say the last part loud enough for the old men seated nearby to hear.

“We’ve got plenty of interesting stories!” one of the old men yelled angrily.

“And I’ve heard them all already!” the tavern-keeper shouted back with a laugh.

The Servant sighed in resignation; he’d probably do the same in the other man’s shoes. “I am a Servant of Gelde, I have been summoned there. Someone in there has called on me to fulfill a contract. What it is, I do not even know.”

The tavern-keeper scowled. “I don’t know anything about any Gelde, friend, but I’m sorry to tell you that you don’t look dead enough to enter the keep.”

“What do you mean?” The Servant asked.

“The bridge only falls for a new thrall to enter. There’s no way in that I know of. I’m sorry. We’ll see one of the dead in town every so often with a written order and a few gold pieces, but no one has been able to find where they come from.”

The Servant growled in quiet frustration. He had to find a way in, he couldn’t renege on his contract before it even began. Gelde’s gaze, however, remained unchanged. There was no frustration in the god’s perception of his servant, no detectable fear, or frustration. He hadn’t lost the god’s confidence, so he couldn’t lose his own. He’d find a way in. “You don’t know of anything I can do?”

“I do!” one of the old men shouted proudly. “If you’ll buy me a drink,” he added. “All of us, actually,” he included, rounding his hand to signify the other three men at the table were in on the deal.

The Servant felt Gelde’s gaze flash with some kind of acceptance. “How much for the four of them?” he asked the tavern-keeper.

“Drinks are a quarter-piece each. So, one’ll do it. I’ll throw in one in for you, too.”

“None for me,” The Servant said, and as he raised his hand, a gold piece formed in his fist as if from thin air. He placed it on the bar-top, and the tavern-keeper pulled it in.

“If I were him, I’d beat it out of you, Lewis,” the tavern-keeper directed toward the old man who’d made the offer before turning and filling four tankards from a barrel of ale behind him.

“That’s why you’re not him!” The old man Lewis yelled with a hearty laugh. “Come here, boy, take a seat,” he offered, pointing to an empty chair at a nearby table.

The Servant took the chair and pulled it in next to Lewis. “How am I getting in, then?” He asked the man, half expecting he’d been tricked.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Lewis asked the others at the table, who nodded in the affirmative. “You’re in a whole town of people on their death bed. Each and every one of us are doomed to cross that bridge sooner or later. So, you just wait. It won’t be long before one of us croaks and shambles toward our accursed fate. You just cross the bridge with us.”

“The soldiers will let me?” The Servant asked.

The men all laughed in unison. “Son, they’re corpses. They’re the ones who died young, usually in battle, so they’re already maimed. They might be a problem for the rest of the residents here, but a behemoth like you could swat them away without a sweat, I’m sure of it.”

The Servant considered it. He didn’t like the idea of waiting for someone to die, neither the time or the ethics of it, but he didn’t have much choice. At least, no others came to mind. “How will I know when one of you die?”

“The bell,” the tavern-keeper said. “There’s a bell in the keep that rings any time someone dies. Most of us will gather to watch them cross the bridge, so if you miss the ringing, we’ll fetch you. Nine times out of ten they’re already nearby. Sometimes, though, it could take days, even months for them to get here. Those are usually the young ones. We’ve been waiting on one for three months now, but I wouldn’t count on them showing up earlier than anyone here dies.”

“If they’re not already cut down while walking through any normal town,” Lewis added with grim humor.

“You can wait here,” the tavern-keeper said. “It’s not often I get to speak to anyone here under the age of one hundred fifty.”

“I’m eighty!” Lewis shouted back, feigning offense.

“And you’ve been waiting to die for seventy of them!” The tavern-keeper shouted back.

“It’ll be five years in two months,” Lewis said to The Servant. “Came down with a wicked cough, hacking up blood and all. Knew it was the end; it had to be. So, I packed everything of value I had and made the pilgrimage to die here. Five years later and the cough is gone, but I’m still here!” He slapped the table a few times and laughed. “Had nothing to go back to, so I’m just waiting, now.”

The Servant turned to the tavern-keeper. “You don’t look like you’re on death’s door.”

“Good eye,” the tavern-keeper said. “But wrong,” he said, pulling his collar down to reveal a series of large lumps at the base of his neck. “They’ve been growing for years. They suck the life right out of me; even make it hard to breathe, so I can’t work too hard. Physicians told me I had a few months at most, so I made my way here too. I know it’s coming, though. I came here about two years ago. It may not be as soon as these ones, but I’ll cross that bridge soon enough. Before my parents, even.”

“What’s this—what did you say it was? Gelde?” Lewis asked.

“My patron, of sorts. I serve him, and when my contract with him is fulfilled, I’m rewarded,” The Servant answered.

“I think I knew a man like you back in the day,” the old man opposite The Servant said. He had short white hair and a white mustache that contrasted sharply with his dark, almost black, skin. The Servant had met none like him in his life, but he dared not ask what afflicted the man. “Worked on a farm one summer when I was a boy. Harvest season, this man comes in. Huge man, like you. Impossibly strong. He was worth ten of the regular hands. Got paid like it, too. Boasted about the near infinite riches that awaited him. He never ate, didn’t even have a bed. He’d just plop his behind down for a few hours and be ready to work immediately. End of season, he walked off. Never saw him again, after that. I think he did say something about a Gelde once or twice.”

“So, what is it? You do some jobs for your patron, and he gives you money?” Lewis asked, some judgement evident in his voice.

“Something like that,” The Servant answered. He’d be open enough, but he’d never tell them exactly what he was promised.

“Alix, come, sit with us!” Lewis demanded. Alix, the tavern-keeper, feigned relenting and rounded the bar, a wooden cane tapping against the floorboards to support him. From the waist down, he was a much sicklier man than could be seen from behind the bar. He moved carefully, and some tension built in the others’ faces as though they expected to have to catch him.

“You all know the rule,” Alix announced to the rest of the tavern-goers who raised their glasses in confirmation they knew some rule.

“What’s the reward for your contract, then?” The strangely afflicted man asked.

“My business is my own,” The Servant snapped; far harsher than he had meant. “I apologize, I did not mean to-“

The whole table cut him off with laughter before Lewis spoke through it. “Calm, boy! You’re far from the first man to say something he doesn’t mean here at this very table. If we took offense at every scornful word, we’d be killing ourselves to go serve our eternal lord rather than sitting here.”

“I must admit, I expected much worse as I approached. As children, we’d scare each other with tales that the other was bound for the Deadlands. It’s a land without sun, nothing grows, and the dead walk-“

“Easy, that’s my home that you’re describing,” Lewis growled.

The Servant returned the warning with a terrified stare.

The table erupted into laughter once again. “As I said, we’d kill ourselves!” Lewis shouted, slapping the table as he laughed before calming. “We understand what you mean, you’re not the first man to wonder about the Deadlands. In truth, you may be the first to not come to gawk or sell to us a better life. Know this, friend, the Prairie may not be what the old stories tell of it, but it is our home and we make the best of it. Few of us actually spent our lives here, but we all spend our deaths here. Such is our curse, and make no mistake, it is a curse.”

“You fear death, then?” The Servant asked. Even after only a few months, he’d found his own fear of death fading. With his gifts, he might not see death for decades beyond what was natural.

“Minds differ, to be sure,” Lewis began, “what I fear is not knowing what being one of them is like,” he said. “None of us can know whether you feel death; have any semblance of awareness of what you are doing.”

Alix spoke up. “Surely, it’s a mindless existence. Nothing more than bodies. I’ve seen friends I know well crossing that bridge. Nothing of them remains in their eyes once that bell tolls.”

The table remained silent for a few moments of contemplation before The Servant asked another question, one a bit more pertinent. “How long until, well, the bridge comes down.”

“My grandfather said when he was a boy that bell would toll thrice daily,” answered Lewis. Too few of us remain for that. The bloodlines must end,” he said, smirking toward the dark-skinned man who returned a glare. “For you, it could be a few days, maybe even a few weeks. If you’re unlucky, it’ll be some forgotten descendant, in which case you’ll have to wait for them to drag their dead feet back here from across the world, or more likely someone here to die.”

“You’ll want to get comfortable,” Alix told him. “I’ve rooms up the stairs. Can’t ask you to pay, but I will ask you to clean it.”

“It won’t be necessary,” The Servant said. “I prefer to spend my evenings outside.” He was met by a flurry of confused looks, followed by acceptance.

“So be it,” Alix said. “On that, gentlemen, I do have some work to do. Martin, I saw two in that time!” he shouted across the room. “You’re the only one. Made it easy!” He pushed himself up with his cane and hobbled back behind the bar.

“Perhaps it’s time for us all. Same time tomorrow?” Lewis asked the others who nodded in obvious agreement. “Will you be joining us?” he asked The Servant directly.

The Servant had no reason to object, so he nodded and stood. The whole table dispersed from the tavern as a group, each heading off in a different direction. The Servant quickly settled on a spot in the dirt just out of sight of the bridge and sat with his sword laid in front of him. He closed his eyes for a mere moment, and opened them in the strange hazy facsimile of his old home taken from him with his family. The weight of his poorly crafted brigandine armor had lifted from his shoulders, replaced by soft silk robes. He was immediately met with the emerald green eyes of the cat named Strangers scratching gently at his legs. He knelt down to stroke its head, but the cat fought him off. As always, it only wanted some food.

The Servant entered the old mill-house and lit a fire for Strangers to lay himself by as his master cooked. The Servant had never learned to cook, and doubted he ever would. He could, however, boil oats and roast fish, so that is what he did most “nights”. As the oats boiled hard in a pot filled with water fresher than any he’d be able to find in the true world, he skewered three small silver fish he couldn’t possibly name, and sat them over the fire to roast until they looked done. Burnt and dry, he handed one to Strangers who tore into it with his sharp feline teeth, enjoying the meal much more than The Servant could imagine himself doing. He was supposedly in a place of peace, but it was little more than a cold and silent torment. The house was once a place of life and joy. He’d dance with his wife while his daughter slept nearby. He glared at the table his wife sat sewing together patches of fabric he’d sell in the nearby town while his daughter begged for a treat knowing he’d relent by day’s end no matter how poorly his own sales went. It was cold and empty. He longed for his home yet hated every moment he spent there. It wouldn’t be long, he told himself. They’d be back soon. They would all be together soon.

The ringing of a bell pulled The Servant from his home, and he was once again in the Deadlands. He had a vague feeling that some hours had passed, and saw it was a pitch-black night. If not for his enhanced vision, he might not have been able to see. The bell tolled again, and again. He stopped counting after the eighth ring, and by then, the old residents of the town had begun to exit their homes and gather in the street near the foot of the keep’s bridge. A questioning murmur rose in the growing crowd, each taking account of their friends to ensure it was not them crossing the bridge. A gasp of surprise came from an old woman as she pointed down the road toward the where the tavern The Servant had spent his day. It was unmistakable that Alix the tavern-keeper was shambling down the middle of the street, his cane nowhere to be found. Young Alix had passed in his sleep, The Servant concluded, the poor man was wearing his night clothes, and his hair had been ruffled by a pillow along the sides. The Servant stood by the edge of where the bridge would fall and waited.

“This is a cruel one,” the familiar voice of Lewis said from behind The Servant. “Now, who’s going to serve me my drinks?”

The Servant did not reply to the man’s macabre joke, instead he watched as Alix slowly crept forward. When the tavern-keeper reached the bridge, The Servant saw what Alix had meant when describing the thralls. There was no life behind his now glassy blue eyes, no expression on his face. No pain, no fear, no sadness. Alix was no more, and what stood was just a corpse puppeteered by strings of dark magic. The body, which was once Alix’s, paid no one any regard, and stood at the foot of the bridge as it finally began to fall. The crowd went silent as it waited. The moment the bridge fell against the ground, the new thrall proceeded across, The Servant in tow. He could hear many in the crowd question who he was, and what he was doing. He wanted to tell them he meant no offense to their tradition, but expected Lewis might spread the news of his presence.

To the Servant’s surprise, the undead soldiers had no reaction to him following Alix across the draw bridge. Their heads remained forward, obscured eyes fixed forward. He reached the portcullis before Alix, and waited. The dead man shambled forth, and stopped one step beyond the bridge that then began to rise back up, separating the keep from the rest of the city once again. As the draw bridge’s counterweights halted within the keep’s outer walls, the portcullis climbed, revealing behind it an inner bailey that had surely once acted as a stable for over a dozen horses. Corpses dragged their feet across the dirt, going about tasks no different from a common worker, while more of the undead guards stood sentinel along the walls and atop raised platforms looking out over the ruined city. Despite the state of the Deadlands, the workers’ clothes looked to be of considerable quality; clean, vibrant, and well fit. The Servant stepped inside ready to grab his sword from its scabbard, but still, none of the dead heeded his presence. Whether he was expected, or the creatures couldn’t even decipher what was in front of them, he didn’t know. He wasn’t sure which he’d prefer for their sake.

There was no clear entrance, not like more modern constructions that favored grandeur over security, so The Servant went to the nearest door he could find, the base of a rounded tower to his left. Immediately inside, he found a thrall in a cooking apron, laboring over a fire with a small animal skewered and roasting, no larger than a rat. On a nearby counter, a rusty knife sat beside a board of tiny turnips, too small to even be chopped. The Servant turned away from the kitchen and followed the body of a younger woman carrying a pail of water up some steps. Even in death, her visage was strikingly beautiful. Long blonde hair fell to the small of her back, well-kept as though recently washed. Her skin had yet to fall away, but the cracks of death came through along the sides. She wore a young maid’s green dress, white frills along its openings that hardly betrayed her status as either dead or a worker. The Servant in tow, she continued up a set of stairs and in through a door to a small dining room. Its table was set for a feast, but its silver plates bore little enough to sustain even one man. The young woman proceeded down past the long dining table and through a door on the far end of the room.

An impossibly old man sat atop a short stool, gently washing the back of a dead woman in a tub. He was unmistakably alive. The young woman who led The Servant in poured her water into a cauldron over the fireplace and turned to leave without paying either The Servant or the old man any attention. The old man didn’t seem to notice The Servant enter, and he hummed quietly as he carefully bathed the dead woman. “I have been summoned,” The Servant said, unsure of how else he may grab the man’s attention.

The old man, let out a startled sound and raised a hairbrush as a weapon in front of him before quickly surrendering. “You are him!” He said as excitedly as a man of his age could muster. “You are the one to free me!” He continued, smiling widely. “Oh, you bless me with your presence! You have answered my call!” He turned his eyes away. “I dare not look upon a god; I am no worthy.”

“I am no god, I am a servant,” The Servant corrected the man. “It was you who summoned me, then?”

“I- yes, yes it was me! Oh yes, it was me! Please, sit, sit,” the old man said, standing slowly and offering The Servant a chair from a nearby worktable strewn about with fabric, threads, and sewing needs. “I do hope you would excuse the state of my home. I have not had a guest in… I can’t remember how long. Too long!”

The Servant accepted the seat from the man. “I thank you for your hospitality,” he said to the man. He felt Gelde’s gaze intensify, knowing it was an order from his patron god to hurry things along. “I must insist, however, we speak businesses. Gelde holds little affection for pleasantries.”

“Yes, straight to business! I was once like you… I think,” the man said, his eyes averting in thought. “The terms, I have read you wish to hear the terms. I know you have travelled far, but I promise what I ask will only take you further to the top of the tower. Just through that door, and the next, then up! I can offer three hundred and seventy-six gold in return for that I ask. It is all I have left.”

“And what is it that you ask?” The Servant inquired.

“Convince the man up there to lift the curse. Or, kill him if he won’t do it. He should give you little trouble, he’s as old as me. Older, perhaps, if memory serves. Feel no shame in what you must do, for he is a wicked man. A wicked wicked man! Betrayer, trickster! Oh please, I beg of you to accept my offer, lift the curse! Release my people! They don’t deserve to be bound by my foolish wish. I have done all I can, I swear it! I have clothed them, bathed them. I would feed them if they would eat! I cannot bear look at them any longer!” The old man’s pleas grew more desperate, and tears began to fall. “The ending rite! Make him perform the ending rite!”

The Servant had heard of the ending rite before; as its name suggests, it ended all spells or rituals active from its performer. Young arcanists had to learn it early in their education to ensure they don’t make a mistake they could not undo quickly. While spoken of as an arcane ritual itself, it was truly a summoning ritual, and in return for the unknown god it summoned, a year of life would be taken from its caster—a year spent in a boundless purgatory, served instantly to anyone who observed the ritual. Many returned without their sanity. It was a desperate measure, but necessary to prevent untold damage to the world. Few could be convinced to do it themselves, so it was most often forced.

“I accept your terms, I require-“

The old man excitedly pulled a gold piece from his pocket, shining and polished. “I have prepared this one for your arrival.”

The Servant smiled quietly and took the gold piece from the man, and slotted it into his sword which began to glow with the golden light of Gelde’s blessing.

“Who would have thought any man could be so excited to die!” The old man happily mused.

The Servant, just as he was instructed, left the room and proceeded past the long dining table and through the door at the opposite end. A set of steps rounded up the tall tower of the keep, and The Servant climbed them carefully. Pieces of the rotted wood fell away under his weight, and while he was resilient, he was not invincible; a fall from even halfway up the tower might cause injury he’d not recover from for some time, even with Gelde’s blessing. A hatch sat at the top of the tower, but it was locked. The Servant, never one to be stopped by a rusty latch, punched upward swiftly, iron shattering on the other side, opening his way to climb to the top.

The top of the tower was as dark as any other part of the town, but far dustier and with an unmistakable smell of mold. Another old man sat against the wall atop a makeshift throne of scraps and debris. “I have given him what he asked,” the old man croaked. “I told him to be careful with his language, I warned him. He was very careful. Spent days agonizing over what he’d ask of me, and I did it exactly. Now, he sends you here to end it. To end me!”

“The ending rite. You know it,” he told the old necromancer.

“I won’t do it,” the old man replied.

The Servant stepped forward and drew his sword, its golden glow gently illuminating the inside of the dark tower room.

“No, no,” the old man said casually before he flicked his wrist. From the shadows, the body of Alix stepped in front of The Servant. “They feel it you know. Pain. They’re in there. You’d have to cut him down to get to me.”

The Servant stared into the changed eyes of Alix. There was no life behind them. No thought. What stood before The Servant was little more than a familiar puppet. The old man was a liar, a trickster. He was scared. The Servant could feel it in his gut. Without further hesitation, he cut down through Alix from shoulder, through the man’s unbeating heart, and down through the opposite side abdomen. The necromancer tensed as the body fell in two pieces. His eyes widened and he began to stammer unintelligibly as The Servant stomped forward.

“The ending rite, do it. No more words,” The Servant demanded.

“You-“ Before the old arcanist could get out a second word, The Servant’s sword had thrusted into his thigh, and the man screamed as The Servant twisted the blade.

“I will not kill you if you perform the rite,” The Servant told the man, holding his sword in the man’s thigh. “That is my word. But, I will enjoy this,” he said as he jerked the blade again.

“I will! Please! I will do it!” the old man pleaded.

The Servant pulled his sword from the man’s thigh and stood tall over him. “Perform the rite,” he demanded again.

The man crawled over to the side of the room and took from a small box a stick of ritual etching chalk, a rather essential tool to arcana. On the floorboards he began to draw out an ancient ritual rune The Servant had never seen before.

“That is not the rite!” a familiar voice screamed from behind The Servant. The shamed king who had summoned him had climbed the tower and was watching the events play out from the darkness behind.

The Servant grabbed the arcanist’s wrist and with one squeeze turned its bones to dust. “The rite! Do it!” he screamed at the man who began to weep in pain and fear.

“I spared them all! I set this land in darkness! I knew their bloodlines would end! All of the people of your land is what you wished for! I ensured no more would ever come to these lands! It was your evil, not mine! This is your doing!”

The old king stormed forward and took the chalk from where it had fallen from the arcanist’s crippled hand, and began to draw another rune that The Servant had never seen before. “There, this is the ending rite! Cut his palm and smear his accursed blood across the chalk to break the lines. End the curse, please! I beg you! The torment must end!”

As the king ordered him, The Servant grabbed the arcanist’s uninjured hand, and put a deep slice across its palm with his sword, then pushed it from one end of the rune to the other. The chalk began to glow, growing brighter, then flashed a blindingly bright white, and dimmed in an instant. As The Servant regained his sight, he heard a body crash against the floor behind him, and turned to find the old king had died with a satisfied smile on his face. Through the window, a rising sun peered over the horizon, unobscured by the Deadland’s smoky haze. The decades long curse had ended in an instant.

“It is done,” the necromancer said weakly, tears streaming down his face.

“You live?” The Servant was surprised the man, as old as he was, didn’t die with the king.

“My age is not my doing,” he said. “I have performed the rite, you must not kill me. It was your bargain. Your word.”

The Servant knew well the man hadn’t done it willingly, and he had every right to cut him down if he wished. But, it would not be just. Gelde was satisfied. The contract was completed, so he could do as he wished. “You are correct, wretch, I will not kill you,” he said before grabbing the old man by the back of his neck and dragging him through the room and down the stairs.

“Release me!” the man demanded, but The Servant quietly pulled him along with little regard for the man’s wishes.

Bodies of the dead littered the keep’s floor and the ground in the bailey, finally able to rest under a clear morning sky. The Servant effortlessly lifted the portcullis, pulled the necromancer under and through, then cut one of the ropes holding the draw bridge up from the rest of the old capital, the structure falling under only one counterweight. Across the bridge, an elderly crowd had gathered, and they cheered when they saw the strange man who had come to their dying town dragging a frail old man behind him.

Lewis was the first to greet The Servant, pulling the large man into a kiss on both cheeks. “I never believed we could be free! You have done it! You have freed us! We are in your debt.”

“Your debt is paid, your king has assured that,” The Servant announced. “This land is yours to do with as you wish. Your king, he had great remorse for the curse he inflicted upon you. This mage, not so much.” The Servant tossed the necromancer which had tormented them at the feet of the crowd. The pathetic man tried to crawl away, but with his broken wrist and every other small injury he’d sustained going down the tower steps, he could do little more than moan and drag himself aimlessly. “I had promised him I would not kill him,” The Servant said before moving along into and through the crowd. He marched toward the rising sun, hearing the cheers of righteous anger echoing through the clear skies.