Previously on The Path of Poison…
Sepp, adopted son and apprentice to the hex man Búcher, attempted to flee from their home when a war arrived on their doorstep, but Búcher was cut down in the escape. Sepp followed a refugee group out into the wilderness and mourned his father and master. Now Sepp and his fellow townsfolk arrive somewhere new…
Previous chapters are available here and here
The sun had risen behind the same dull grey bank of cloud as yesterday. The kind of grey that sapped the colour from everything. Everything already felt tired. The country the refugees passed through was overgrown—not verdant, or lush, just wild and particularly unbeautiful. It was a task to herd to the group through the close clumps of thorny bushes, growths of thick stinger-laden leaves, small pits, little gorges, and small rises that covered the land here. At some point during all this, they had passed into Voerlund.
Sepp had never been this far north before. Sure, he’d struck fairly far out a couple times and spent nights under the stars, but as far as he knew, he’d never actually left Silverden. When he overheard the captain mentioning it to a few people, something odd welled up in his gut. Like he’d passed some boundary, and it was too far now to go back. He looked about himself and the group, at the grim surrounding. He recalled descriptions Búcher had given about his native land, mostly that it was in general harsher than Silverden. Its dialect had harder sounds, their faith had churches to a distant World Serpent, there were chilly winds that blew down from across the Great River, the rugged landscapes were of peaked hilltops, deep forests and deeper caves, and the ancient towns sat in the shadow of the oldest city in the known world—Lundermark.
The temple guard had said the their going had been a little nervous. They had expected the presence of Voerlund soldiers, considering the conflict immediately south, but there was no one. There was fear they’d gotten lost in the night. The guard’s aim was to find a stream or river and follow it to a settlement or border tower and explain the situation if needs be. Murmurs passed through the refugees as those who’d fallen in with the guards disseminated the worries. Some folk threw about the idea of splitting off. Sepp felt exhausted hearing it. He didn’t think he could take that discussion. He just wanted to get to where they were going and wait to go back home. But truth be told, he didn’t know what that would be like.
After a short rest near what they guessed was midday, something appeared on the horizon. One of the guards sped off on his horse, and returned a few minutes later with a cry that it was the border fortress they’d been looking for. It hadn’t really been a border fortress in centuries, more a regional guard barracks, but the name had stuck long ago. For the first time in what felt like far too long, Sepp felt a small measure of relief.
The tower came into view properly now. It was squat, grey like the sky above it, stained and weathered, but looked solid, with a stark stateliness in some of its decoration, and had a weight to its age. Emblematic, thought Sepp, of Voerlund itself. Búcher had once said it wasn’t that Silverden’s lands or people were soft, far from it, things just seemed richer down there. That’s why he’d eventually settled just a little south of the border. Off to one side of the tower, a ways off, was something Sepp had only ever heard of: a pile of large, loose stones, out of which was a long, thick wooden pole. Before this was a long flat stone festooned with countless items. Offerings. It was a landwight shrine, a thing utterly unique to Voerlund. They believed spirits lived in the earth and the water and such, and had some influence over it, so they left gifts and talked to them there. In Silverden, they knew the World Serpent lived in all things and didn’t need landwights, yet many places taught that the dead of Silverden served the Serpent as custodians and stewards. Búcher, though he’d never had a family beyond Sepp in Silverden, had adapted to the practice pretty easily. He’d said once, rather cryptically, he wasn’t sure if there was a particular difference anyway.
As they neared the tower, which sat upon a slight rise in a clearing, the sounds of commotion and business reached the group’s ears. The captain was hailing the fortress commander. The words were not comforting. Sepp filtered through the group with a few others and listened in. It was immediately obvious: others had arrived here before them. Village faces were scattered all around the camp, some familiar. Apparently, they’d gotten lost in the night and ended up further out than expected, and since the intended group hadn’t arrived, they stayed. The captain wasn’t pleased, but really what could she do? The Voerlunders had taken the folk in out of the dark. The relief in Sepp’s chest faded away, but somewhere inside him, he was glad some of his people were okay. The barracks commander told the temple guard that there was a town north of here he could personally vouch for, they’d be able to accommodate some folks for a while, it a good few miles out though, through difficult country and poor roads. But they could break here, and the guardsmen would see what rations they could muster. It was evident they felt for their southern cousins.
Through it all, though Sepp felt a return to uneasiness, he couldn’t help but listen to the Voerlunder’s speech. It was pretty close what they spoke in Silverden, at least in the north, and as such was mutually intelligible. Unsurprising since they were once a single great kingdom, and the peoples shared deep ties of blood and religion. But they had split when a prophet glimpsed a holy vision on a holy river in the far south, and these ancient border fortresses were the first line of defense against invasions from the zealots of the then new Holy Veneracy. Things were much better now, though, one of the first things the Lunderman family had done when they seized power and dragged Voerlund out of its barbarism five centuries ago was make amends with Silverden. But refugees from a war can be a recipe for strain. Sepp listened mostly, though, because of Búcher. The old man had often fallen back into Voerlic when frustrated or amused. The short smile that had attempted to cross his face was stopped in its tracks by the image of his father bleeding out in the dust.
Sepp wandered around the edge of the large camp looking for somewhere a little quieter to sit. He’d been given a small bottle of table beer and some bread by a pale gold guard who’d tried to look reassuring. He turned around the corner of the tower. People had made little fires and makeshift seats. He’d pretty much just been keeping his head down, clutching his packs the whole time. Listening. Looking. He was thankful the others had left him alone apart from a few weary smiles or glances his way. He wondered how many of the others were feeling the same dead weight in their chests he was.
He heard something different then. There were three women gathered about the space between two close buttresses. They seemed excited and extremely attentive of something. As he approached, he saw past them a familiar face—Miss Imalde. Sepp stopped. In her arms was cradled a baby, a wide and golden-eyed little baby, smiling at all the people cooing and fussing. The woman looked up, and caught Sepp’s eyes. She sat forward when she saw him, and called him over. He had no reason to feel so, but he felt a little awkward.
“Hello, miss,” he said with an instinctual politeness and short bow. The woman looked absolutely exhausted, but energy seemed to flow through her regardless.
“S’eth, Sepp, it’s so good to see you!” He chuckled at the swear. She’d always seemed so timid in the shop. She looked to her friends. “This is the lad Sepp, from the apothecary, we have him to thank for those wonderful herbs.”
“They really got her through the worst, you know!” said one of the ladies with a touch to Sepp’s arm.
“Well,” said Miss Imalde through a grin she couldn’t contain, “you can see...he’s here!” She looked down to her son, who returned the glimpse with the simple, uncomprehending lightness of a newborn. Sepp had knelt down near her and smiled at the child and back to her.
“Always glad to help, miss. Hey, you let me know if I can cook anything up for you, or Mr. Imalde, okay?”
“Will your group be staying here, too?”
“I’m afraid not, miss, I think we’re moving on to a village north of here.”
“Oh...well, I would get something made up,” she stuttered, “but I-” one of her friends tut-tutted and began digging around in coinpurse. Sepp stopped her.
“No no, anything you need, it’s on the, well, the house, okay?” The same friend turned to Sepp.
“Think you have anything light for sleep? She won’t admit it, but she needs it.” He smiled.
“Don’t worry, I think I have something small here.”
“Bless you, Sepp. Oh! And tell Master Byoosher I said hello?” Sepp caught himself.
“Of course, miss. Stay safe, and congratulations to you and Mr. Imalde. I’ll be back in a little while.” He got up, gave another short bow, and began to walk away.
Next to the stream the fort got its water from, Sepp took small sips of table beer between bites of bread. To his surprise, it was fresh, and went down well. He mulled over his encounter. Frankly, he hadn’t realized just how badly he had needed something like that. He felt for her, and her child. There was something of a rush in his chest where so lately uneasy churning had sat, and he had been letting it grow. He thought to himself, and allowed himself to dwell on the thought and the feeling: he could help. He could do something. Sepp set his table beer down and held the bread in his mouth while he opened Búcher’s satchel. Undoing the clasps, he found the contents immaculately packed. Pouches and tied up rolls of all sorts of rare ingredients, as well as generous shares of common things good to have handy in a pinch, along with supplies for the actual preparation. Under these lay little black glass bottles of hexes with nullifying blooms on them. But on top of all this was something more important than even the rarest leaves and powders—Búcher’s grimoire. A loose small little volume with a rough leather cover and ragged edges to the tough pages. It was filled to the brim with cramped, wandering handwriting, annotations, diagrams, illustrations of leaves, flowers, stems, and hex blooms. In his hands was the life’s work of his father and master. Perhaps no more personal a thing could there have been for a man like Búcher, who had given over his life to learning. Sepp held it with exceptional tenderness as he turned the pages. He came upon a section headed “Somnolence”. There was a simple drink he could prepare. He’d made it dozens of times before. Sepp sat up, downed his beer, washed and filled the bottle with cool, clear stream water, and immediately fell back into the mulching of herbs and petals, with the voice of his father echoing in his head as glanced over the annotations for the potion.
Loving this story. I really feel Sebb's loss keenly. The world building is really classy too. A lot is imparted without it ever seeming like an info dump. It's wonderful!