Yummerskand

The morning rose bright, cold, and ominous. A strange scent hung in the air, and the hounds seemed uneasy. Maybe they were just hungry. None of the traps that Struf had set had captured anything, so they packed up camp and began to scout around with hungry, empty bellies.

"When do you think we should turn around and head to the village?" Stan asked Yim, who shrugged nonchalantly.

"By mid morning, I think. We'll follow our trail back north and then cut over. Should be home in time for dinner, and I'll be damned if I let them start any trouble before our bellies are full."

"Hungry, are you?" Stan laughed, and Yim grumbled.

"I don't do travel much."

It did not take them long to realize that they were, in fact, on top of Yummerskard. Or at least, what was left of it. What Grein had thought was a clearing was actually the burnt out shell of a town. The scent had turned to stench, and his mostly empty stomach clenched at what he knew lay just ahead.

"Oy, there are bodies!" Grein managed to shout to the group, who clambered through the open brushy field to get over to him. He had not planned his breath well, and accidentally took a deep, soul staining breath of death and decay. He retched.

"Fuck." Stan said, the first one to Grein's quivering, bent over body. "Take a step back until your stomach calms itself, brother." He said. He had already placed his linen over his mouth and nose and was breathing shallowly. "This is more my job than yours."

Stan heard Marty swearing at his dogs as he moved towards the blackened earth. He had a feeling that the dogs wanted nothing to do with the smell of impending doom. Nor, truth be told, did he. But this was what he had come for.

"Draag." Mira said quietly as she walked behind Stan. No one else in the group was too eager to follow them into the ring of terror. "How did I not see this last night during my scry?"

"Tired, hungry, perhaps?" Stan asked. He shrugged. "It looks like it's been here for a few days." He poked at a piece of crumbled wood with his walking stick. "Who knows?"

"Do you think that Freyja and Rufus were a part of this?" Mira asked.

"We won't know for sure until we search." Stan said firmly. "Don't go worrying about things that, to our knowledge, have not yet come to pass. You'll worry yourself sick."

"Yes, dear husband." Mira said with a tone of mocking in her voice. Stan had a feeling that the dragon Tulith would be making an appearance soon. He hoped that the other villagers wouldn't notice, or if they did, would just assume that it was an odd effect of witnessing so much death.

"Watch your tone, woman." He decided to play it up. "I'll beat you so hard that the Deatheater comes for me next, just like old Lira."

She laughed, masking it as a cough for decency's sake. "Oh, I don't think the Draag would make it to you before I did."

"If I hadn't seen something just like this a few weeks ago, I wouldn't believe my eyes." Stan said. His stomach gurgled, and he was glad that he was hungry. He would hate to puke up his breakfast.

"I'm surprised you're holding it together." Mira said. "I've got a stomach of steel in this body, but you, I'm sure, are suffering quite a lot."

"Breath shallow and try not to think of it." He shrugged. "If Aurelius taught me anything, it was how to control my bodily functions in the face of disgusting things."

"This is certainly a mess." She said. They approached their first body.

It was really more of a husk than a body. Just like Aurelius' corpse, it was half puke green, half burnt to a crisp. The stench was unimaginably harsh and complex, and it burned his nose with its fervor. The ground crunched beneath Mira as she squatted to take a closer look.

"Looks like a man, but that's all I've got."

"This is what Aurelius looked like when I found him." Stan said. Breathing was harder now, this close to the death. He had hoped he would become numb to it, but that obviously was not the case. He glanced behind him, glad to see that the other villagers were keeping a safe distance.

"Definitely the Draag." Mira scowled. "And a whole village, no less. What could a whole village do to attract the attention of a hungry Draag?"

"Maybe harbor some fugitives?" He suggested. "Or hurt children that were fleeing their hometown?"

"You think this has something to do with Freyja and Rufus?" She asked him, and he shrugged.

"You're the one who told me that the Draags like to target bad eggs. If this village did something as a group, it had to be pretty heinous, or the Draag had to be pretty angry."

"I've never seen a whole village taken." Mira admitted. "And the Draags don't just attack bad people. They're like any creature. Piss them off and boom, there's a massacre."

"Like any creature?" He asked her drily. "I don't think a village cat will murder the whole village over some spilt milk."

"True. But Draags are somehow less logical and a lot stronger than cats, so it sort of works here."

"Shall we keep moving?" Stan asked her as he stepped away from the body. He wished desperately for some -- any -- clean air.

"May as well. I don't know how we're going to clean this up."

"Burn it all down?" Stan suggested. "The bodies, at least. That'll take care of the smell."

"I suppose."

They moved further into the crater that the village had become. They passed body after body, all distinguished by the half bloated, half burned appearance. Not even maggots had colonized the flesh yet, although Stan wasn't sure that they would. Just like Aurelius' deathbed clearing, the air seemed suspiciously dead and void of life.

Stan marveled at just how flat the village was. Only the occasional timber stood testament to the fact that there had been a village here, probably just a week ago.

"God, a whole village." Mira said, choking on either tears or smell -- Stan couldn't tell.

"We'll find this thing if it's the last thing we do." Stan said. "No matter what these villagers did, surely they didn't all deserve to die like this."

"What a fucking mess." Mira said. "Why don't you head back to the group. Tell them to gather some wood for the funeral pyres. I'll drag the bodies into a pile and see if I see the kids in here, too."

"Are you sure?" Stan asked, and Mira shrugged.

"I'll use a little bit of my … true self … to deaden the senses and get the job done quicker."

"Ok. No argument here." Stan trailed back the way he had come from, giving wide berth to the bodies that they had looked at before. A good third of his brain was focused on trying not to puke. The other villagers were keeping a safe distance. Stan wondered idly if they were emasculated by the fact that Mira had chosen to go, but they could not brave the stench or sight themselves.

"We should gather some wood from the periphery. For the pyre." Stan said as he closed the distance. He could tell that the men had been working hard to appear busy, with Marty focused on his dogs, Grein and Struf caught in conversation, and Yim rearranging his pack.

"How many?' Yim asked, his face a sheen of sweat. His expression was stony, but Stan could tell that he was on edge.

Stan sighed, fighting hard to keep his voice from cracking. "Everyone, Yim. No survivors, as far as we could tell."

"That monster." Marty's voice cracked and he hugged his dogs. "How could the gods create something so… brutal? Mindless? Terrible?"

"That is the question of ages." Stan said. He patted Marty on the back. "No shame in being upset. Let's get some wood together and give these folks a proper send off."

All told, there were forty two bodies in Yummerskard. Mostly adults, but there were a few smaller bodies that were likely older children or young teenagers. Those were the worst for Stan. Like his father's fire, they had some trouble lighting the bodies. But once the fire was burning bright, and the sun was at its peak, it was time for them to turn to home.

"This has been the worst day of my life." Struf said as they walked away and back towards where they had come from. Towards home. His face was ashen gray and he looked much older than his forty years.

"It certainly ranks up there." Yim agreed. He, too, looked older than his days, and tired, eyes sunken with sadness and dull with rage.

Mira -- or Tulith, Stan wasn't sure -- had been quiet for hours. She had helped him start the fire, and hung close to Stan, eyes furtively scanning the area as if expecting the monster to return. Given her knowledge of such things, it had certainly kept Stan on his toes. But even silent, she nodded in agreement. It had indeed been a terrible day.

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