Rilan whacked Tomas’s arm, trying to crack a joke to lighten the tension. “He’s great at making speeches to boost the morale, isn’t he?”
Tomas ignored him, holding on to the horse’s reins with a firm grip. The company took off down the dirt track that led out of Barrowtown, riding around supply wagons and through units of soldiers and defensive perimeters.
Landry rode behind Gharland, Britus, and their officers, while Rilan and Tomas kept behind him, hanging back at the end of the company, away from the others.
Tomas tensed his thighs to lock himself into place correctly upon his steed. Before long, it was feeling rather natural as he comfortably settled.
Rilan saw his friend’s hand tucked into the neck hole of his shirt, as if feeling for something. He gave him a smile upon seeing his tension ease with the horse.
“You got this, see?”
The road followed the edge of the forest surrounding the town, eventually curving around, and leading the company towards the battle site from the previous day.
Gharland slowed his horse, and the company did the same as they reached a group of soldiers with carts who were looking out over the hills and plains of the battlefield.
“Soldiers, why do you block the road?” Gharland barked.
Lieutenant Britus tried impressing his superior by jumping off his horse and shoving the soldiers aside. “Out of the way!” he barked. “Let the Captain through!”
One of the soldiers, while stumbling from the push, promptly bowed to the captain, and offered an answer. “My lord, I apologise!” Rilan could see the fear in his eyes for offending a captain. “We were sent to begin collecting the dead for burial,” he explained nervously.
“Then why aren’t you doing so?” Britus shouted.
“My lord…” the soldier began.
Rilan and Tomas looked ahead to see what all the fuss was about. Rilan noticed how nervous the soldier was. Not because of Gharland, though.
“Well?” Gharland asked.
“My lord, look for yourself.”
The soldiers blocking the rode parted, letting Gharland and Britus through to view the battlefield ahead. The rest of the company led their horses onwards to see what was happening. All were stopped in their tracks by a strange sight.
The battlefield was empty.
Not of mud, weapons, flags, shields, or broken armour, though.
The fields were empty of corpses.
Not a single body lay before them upon the grounds which, only a day earlier, had been a sea of dead.
“How can this be?” Gharland said.
“My lord, we were just about to return to camp and ask the same thing,” the nervous soldier said.
“No other corpse collectors have come through yet,” Gharland stated.
“No, my lord.”
“And it wasn’t the Imperials?”
“No, my lord. Our scouts tell us the Imperials we fought with yesterday fled back onto their ships.”
Rilan and Tomas were in awe…and shock.
The hundreds of corpses that had littered the fields the day before had vanished. Broken Coast soldiers and Akurai soldiers. All gone.
All that remained was the blood-stained grass, the thick, churned-up mud, and the man-made leftovers of the fight.
“What the fuck is going on?” Tomas whispered to Rilan.
“I said it yesterday, and I’ll say it again today,” Rilan said. “This doesn’t bode well.”
Chapter 8 - A Single Moment
Katryna lay on her bed in a dark and empty room. A single lit candlestick rested on her bedside dresser. Everything else was cast in shadow.
Katryna could feel her heart beating out of her chest, the blood pumping through her veins, and the muscles tensing throughout her body. It was as if she were being constricted.
Breathe. Breathe.
She inhaled deeply, before exhaling slowly.
Cool fingers of the evening wind run across her skin. The shutters had been left open, but Katryna didn’t mind the cold. It helped her stay grounded.
Katryna tried focusing on the cold sensation, but her mind kept returning to the nausea in her stomach, the racing heartbeat in her chest, and the panic in her mind.
Mother and father, poisoned. This cannot be happening.
It was an uneasy sensation to have. Katryna didn’t feel safe in the very castle where she had grown up.
Returning to her quarters as soon as the meeting had adjourned was a good call, she realised. She needed the break from everyone. Finding her way through the maze of halls and stairwells had not helped her panic, however.
Katryna felt trapped, slowly suffocating.
The walls felt like they would topple at any moment.
Fear was not the only emotion causing her such grief. Coming back home had filled her mind with long-hidden memories of Willem. Memories she had dug a pit for long ago. Memories she did not want to resurface at all.
Cold, icy hands pinned her down in the bed and strangled the air from her throat.
Her mother’s voice shrieked from the past.
“Katryna, what have you done?!”
There was a heavy knock on the door.
Katryna, startled, jumped up in her bed, wiping the sweat from her face. “Who is it?”
One of the Infinity Guardsmen stationed at her door replied, “My lady, your handmaiden Trish it here to see you.”
“Let her in, and shut the door behind you, please.”
Trish entered holding a small platter of food, still wearing her flowing red dress.
“I brought you something to eat, you haven’t had food since yesterday,” Trish said. Her voice was gentle and soothing to hear. A welcome relief.
Trish closed the shutters. The room fell silent as the breeze vanished. She placed the food on the bed and sat down next to Katryna. Katryna said nothing, still feeling swamped with emotion and anxiety.
“You really should eat something, m’lady.”
Katryna pushed the platter away. “Thanks Trish, but I’m really not hungry.”
Trish
