Clean up was ugly, but worse for the new crew. None of us had died, the Uvtrayl soldiers had been at the front everywhere they could be and took the worst of the hits as a result. But that was because they were soldiers, and more than that, they were experienced soldiers. The crew of the Thunderbane were all veterans of the war, command wanted these VIP escort ships crewed by people who knew what they were doing.
Conversely, only a handful of the crew in training from Willow Creek had any sort of combat experience at all, and most of them were the shaman. So when the civilian crew came out to move bodies and wash away blood and identify the fallen, there were plenty of hollow eyes and twisted stomachs to go around.
Olivia told me that was for the best, following me was unlikely to be peaceful and they needed to adapt or realize they weren’t cut out for the job and go home. I knew she was right, but it still hurt seeing so much pain in the people following me.
Not to mention the pain in the mirror.
I was still angry. There had been several of the Tombguard there and they just watched. How many more would still be alive if they had aided us? Why hadn’t they? I felt like I knew the answer, they were probably ordered not to. I wanted to viote the natural order and bring him back to life just so I could kill him myself.
I stood in the washroom in my quarters, staring at the mirror without actually seeing anything. My fingers hurt but I barely felt it and didn’t care to see why. My breaths were short, sharp, there wasn’t enough air. I felt dizzy, like I was going to-
“Breathe, beloved.” I took it a deep breath as Carmil’s hand wrapped around me from behind. “Breathe, loosen your grip on the sink, and come y down.”
“I don’t want to-”
“You’re still in shock.”
“No, I’m fine. Just a little-”
“Remember who and what I am, beloved. I have seen the many faces of shock over and over and over for centuries. You need to rest and let out what is building within you.”
She pulled me gently to the bed and y next to me, turning me to my side so that I could bury myself against her. Luvetra seemed to simply come into existence behind me and within moments I felt myself surrounded by the two of them.
“Is she okay?” I heart Tendri’s voice as the door shut behind her and I felt my elemental love shake her head. “Oh, make room Carmil.”
There was a brief moment of loss as Carmil slipped away. But between Tendri rapidly taking her pce and my sanguine lover sliding into my runes and filling my veins with her presence, I found it worth the temporary absence.
I breathed, slow and deep, the warmth of my loves grounding me and letting the stampeding thoughts in my mind slow down. I felt heartbeats. Mine. Luv’s. Tendri’s. I felt the pulse of Carmil within me. I felt peace slip inside my heart.
Several minutes passed before I spoke. “Did I fuck up?”
Tendri pressed her lips against my forehead in a soft kiss. “I don’t know. From what I’ve been told it sounds like the Tombguard will be better without him, but I can’t help but think there might have been a more peaceful means of reaching that point. I can’t see one, but…” Her words trailed off.
Luv grunted behind me. “No. He had too much h-hate in him. The w-way he looked at Wen was like how people looked at m-me. L-like she was a monster.”
I nodded slowly. “Hate and power are one of the most vile and destructive combinations possible. Dani’s world saw that first hand more than once.”
Tendri squeezed me. “I’m just worried that you might be starting down a path where violence becomes the easiest solution to your problems. I don’t want you to be that kind of person.”
[A fair and pointed worry, I must admit. I believe Esme to be made of too much love to ever walk that path, though I am far from omniscient. Tendri, I think that might be a duty you would be perfect for. Ensuring that our beloved remains the woman she wants to be, that she does not lose herself. A sacred duty for our Saint.]
Tendri took a few moments to read Carmil’s words, from the movement of her eyes I knew she read them more than once. She took a breath and nodded. “I lost Lietri once already. To lose the wonderful woman who has risen from her fall would be too much.” Tendri’s lips met my own in a tender kiss. She game me a gentle smile. “No, you didn’t fuck up. It wasn’t a perfect outcome, but I don’t think perfect was ever going to happen.”
Luv kissed my cheek. “You were also right about the r-rest of them. How they had a duty to make sure they were doing the r-right thing, not just following orders.”
I huffed softly and buried my face in Tendri’s chest. I remembered a middle school report I did on the Nuremberg trials as Dani. I’d had nightmares for months about what I’d learned in my studies. Honestly it was one of the things that made me start to really hate my hometown. The people there were like that, no thoughts in their head, just doing what they were told by the handful of authority figures we had.
It probably, no, definitely colored by view of Wen’s grandfather and the rest of the Tombguard. I was gd I wasn’t there to recruit because I knew I would not be able to look kindly on any of them for some time.
I took another slow breath and shook the thoughts away, focusing only on the presence of my loves. I rexed and closed my eyes. Soon enough I found myself drifting through the Dream. I floated slowly downwards in the non-reality of the realm, nding after a few moments onto a big fluffy mass.
I turned to smile at Daisy as she reached back with her trunk to pat my head. “You doing okay?” She squeaked out an affirmative. “Okay, good. I think I need to try something.”
I slid from her back and pulled the Dream around me, forming a little pocket of stability, my own dream under my control. I made it a grassnd with a few willow trees and one slow, gentle river flowing through it. Then I waited.
I didn’t need to wait long, a few minutes at most, before a pale blue light bathed the area and I turned to see Charon standing beside me. I wrapped my arms around him and he did the same in return. “Clever,” he said with a chuckle. “Close enough to real that I can use it to come to you.”
“I figured, if it worked that means we could actually spend more time together.”
His smile was bright and warm as he reached out to pat my head. “A lovely idea, and while here you can conjure more of those board games.”
“Or Mario Kart.”
He ughed. “Or that, yes. But that’s not why I am here tonight, is it?”
I shook my head. “Can you-, do you have the authority to summon gods who serve you?”
He nodded slowly, then turned towards the river. Moments ter the Blue Father stepped from the water and smiled. “Charon! Buddy!” He and the Ferryman hugged and smiled, I felt a warmth in me that he had more true friends. He deserved it.
“Val,” I said with a bow of my head.
“Esme,” he said with a simir bow. “I saw what happened. I’m sorry about how that went down.”
“Are you sorry he’s gone?”
The Blue Father shook his head. “Not really. He was slipping enough that it was going to start affecting his work soon, and yes that is the important part for me. He was a piece of work and bad for his family, but he did the job better than most. I know you don’t like hearing that, hells, I don’t like saying it. But when it comes to the restless dead, personality is not really important, only competence.”
I started to speak but Charon raised a hand. “He is right, as unfortunate as it is. The undead as you call them, are the second greatest threat on any world. Without exception. All orders that deal with them care about effectively doing the job first, and all other concerns are secondary at the very most.”
I grunted and lowered to the ground. Daisy moved over and sat behind be so I could lean back on her. “I really don’t like that. But I know you wouldn’t bullshit me.” I ran my hands over my face, trying to organize my thoughts. “Okay so what’s the number one threat?”
Taraval answered “Rogue gods. Especially ones that have found loopholes that let them do messed up shit without the higher powers being able to stop them.”
I groaned. “Like the Thundering?”
He nodded. “Upside, that war of theirs really did weaken the hells out of them. At their height, even those Dream projections they made would have been strong enough to give Kai a real workout and a good few injuries at the least. But instead we got the glorious moment of her giving them an absolute spanking.” He ughed, a big happy belly ugh that I could feel the cheer from in my bones.
I smiled and rexed a bit. “Okay. So, big question time. Why was Gravewalker…” I tried to be diplomatic, my words failed me though.
“A piece of shit?” I snorted and nodded at the Blue Father’s words. “Fear. Not even good proper fear of not doing his job. Fear of not being important. His mom was well meaning but a shit parent. Completely bloated his little ego from a young age, lots of talk of how being a Tombguard was the most important thing in the world. That other aspects of me were lesser.”
“Woooooooow.” I had no meaningful words for that.
“Yeah. He didn’t want to be a Tombguard, she she bloated the importance until he became obsessed with it. It worked, for better and worse.” Taraval sat back into a chair of water that formed under him. I raised a stone bench for Charon, who nodded in thanks as he took a seat. “So, years pass and he takes the training more serious than anyone else in the family. To an extreme degree. It makes him damned good as a Tombguard, but severe and uncompromising as a person. He would not tolerate what he saw as weakness or distractions.
“It meant he wasn’t too popur, but he was more effective than anyone else in the order, even the veterans. He brought in more, what did you call them, undead? I like that. Yeah, he brought in more undead in a month than others did in a year. So when he got older, he got authority as a result of his skill.”
I huffed. “I should be happy about a group where people rise due to competence. But it doesn’t seem to have been great in this case.”
“Actually it was fantastic for the Tombguard. At least from a perspective of their duty. Obviously less good for them as people. Especially when he became the head of the order, the youngest head they’ve ever had in fact. He was only just married the year before and wouldn’t have his daughter for another two years.”
“Do I have to worry about a vengeful widow?”
Taraval shook his head. “She left him years ago. Lives in Bck Sands now with her new husband and their kids and grandkids. Honestly when she hears what happened she’ll probably bake you a cake.”
“Oof, that bad?”
“She loved him at first, he was damned good at the job and worked hard to make their home comfortable. He loved her too, don’t doubt that for a second. But he loved the job more. A lot more. To the point that he raised a Tombguard, not a daughter, if you understand?”
I tilted my head in thought. “He wasn’t a father, he was a boss?”
“Exactly. When she tried to talk him into being a parent, he… well I don’t want to go into details but they went from in love to bitter enemies within a month. She tried to steal away their daughter and leave, but he was too good at what he did and in the end she was cast from the order for actively sabotaging their efforts. She has a mark on her now and can’t come back to Father’s Fingers for fear of being killed by her former friends and family.”
“Think that will change now?”
“I fuckin’ hope so.” He sighed and looked at the sky for a few long moments. “But that wasn’t where things started going wrong for him, at least from his perspective. Thing is, undead are not the problem they used to be for a whole bunch of reasons. Cremation is way more common now, ceremonies seeing the dead off are as well. Which, to be direct, are not required for the dead to pass on, but they can help if someone tries to stick around when they should be leaving. Also, demons help.”
I blinked and stared at the Blue Father. “Uh, how?”
“They eat bodies. Most of them do anyway. Carrion Feeders are the most common of them after all. Fewer bodies lingering means fewer undead. Though wandering spirits are still retively common, they are not usually dangerous.”
I wanted to ask about angels and demons and how they came to be, but I had the attention of a god for a specific reason that night and I would not waste it. “So what, less work made him worry that the great and mighty Tombguard were not needed anymore?”
“More or less, yeah. A problem multiplied by the fact that since fewer really dangerous undead are popping up means the life expectancy of a Tombguard is a lot higher. So popution is rising, duties are growing less frequent, and people start talking about being more open and letting some folks leave.”
“He panics about losing his pce as the most important of your priests and doubles down on his super strict ways?”
Taraval leaned forward, propping his elbows up on his knees. “He prayed to me a few times, asking me to make him a Saint. I think, I think that’s the point when he started to really fall. He wanted to be able to enforce the rules of the order and keep things as they were. But honestly he didn’t get quite so hateful until Weren’s training.”
I pulled my knees up to my chest. “Was she always a bundle of chaos?”
“From the day she was born.” He chuckled. “She got into pces she wasn’t allowed, used sacred artifacts as toys, put glitter in their face paint, was just a bright fre of life in a dour group of death. Honestly I think if it weren’t for her sisters she would have broken. They were more like her than the rest of the order. But unlike her they took the training and the duty seriously. They wanted to do work they were told was important, work that would keep the rest of the world safe. Weren? She just wanted to live. Her sisters helped her have fun where they could and blunted a lot of the bme for things by taking responsibility. At least at first.
“When they got older, when her eldest sister got her csses, things started to change. They started to be serious Tombguard and had less time to spend with her. Which, to be fair, is normal. Siblings drift apart once they start becoming adults. But in this case, it had unintended consequences for your lover.”
“She was less shielded from her grandfather?”
“And as a result, acted out even more,” he confirmed my suspicion. “She was less subtle, intentionally hid things poorly, skipped lessons, disrespected her teachers, pulled more pranks. But the thing that really pushed the old man over the edge was dinner. She’d been given cooking duty as a punishment.”
I snorted and bit back my ughter. “S-sorry, go on.”
“No, that’s actually funny. She was punished by letting her do something she loved. But in this case, it set everything off for Daindrel. He insisted on the Tombguard being an ascetic order, so when she served dinner with spices and garnish and desert he found the end of his patience with her. I don’t think she really understood what he was like, that he was holding back with her, expecting her rebellious phase to end. Just like he didn’t understand that she wasn’t just being a rebellious teenager, she was being true to herself.”
“After that, the real abuse started?”
He paused, there was a pain in his face that I think was over his memories of Wen’s life. “I won’t go into details, that’s Weren’s story to tell. But I will say that her life for the next few years was unkind at best. Ask her about her scars sometimes, I know she wants to tell you, to let it all out. But she doesn’t know how to start that conversation. As for Daindrel? He acted out of fear that one person failing, one person leaving would cause a ripple in the order that would make the whole thing colpse, and he took out his frustration on her until the day she escaped it all.” He took a slow, deep breath, and the shadows of creatures in the water of his form swam about faster for a few moments. “I honestly wished I could have removed him then.” He gave me a look of apology. “But as long as he was still doing his duty and doing it well, I had no justification. I know that sounds ugly to a mortal, but we don’t always get to act in ways that are kind. The undead need to be dealt with and he wasn’t just good at doing it himself, the order under his command was more effective than had been for centuries before.”
There was a long silence that followed his words. A silence filled with meaning. “… but?”
He gave me a slight gre. “You really shouldn’t be able to read a god that well. Yes, BUT, he was slowly poisoning the order. So I guess I should thank you for… well, thanking someone for killing one of my most effective priests sounds wrong. Thank you for letting my followers breathe. Even if this means the order is certainly going to crack now.”
“Well, they have less work, and may well have help from others soon, so maybe some cracks are worthwhile.” I spoke quietly, but I knew he could hear me. “Sometimes you need cracks to show so that people know something needs to be repaired.”
He gave me a small, thoughtful smile. “I can see why your pantheon chose you.” Then he gnced over at Charon who was smiling at us both. “And I see why he likes you too.”
“Val? Was there anything you could have done to help Wen?” I had to know, even if it hurt.
He looked at me for a few long moments, rubbed his chin, then shrugged. “I dunno, maybe when she ran, I could have perhaps… told my love that a certain someone needed help. Then said wonderful goddess could have contacted her Oracle and asked her to go find and protect said person in need of help so he couldn’t force her back?” He smiled softly at me. “But who knows, really?”
I felt the tension in me drop. He had helped her in the end. “Thank you.”
“Nah, not with thanks. I probably could have figured something out sooner and better if I was smart like you.”
I took a deep breath and thought about Gravewalker’s st moments alive. “I guess I represented another threat, a major change to things, one wielding authority he believed he was worthy of but never received?”
Charon snorted. “He had an unbelievably bloated sense of self importance and refused to believe you had received that ntern in good faith. Tried to tell me you had stolen from me. Oh, the look on his face when I told him you are my friend. I am not usually one for schadenfreude, but that was quite pleasant.”
I sat back against Daisy and stroked her head softly. “Okay.” I had things I wanted to ask, but really, I was so overwhelmed still that I wasn’t sure I could handle anything else serious. I sat up straight and raised a hand, creating a small ft square and several little pieces and cards to go along with it. “Lets not waste this moment, who knows when all three of us can hang out again.” I reached out and grabbed a red piece. “I call Miss Scarlett.”
