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The Silk Scarf/ Unseen Wisdom Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

“Alisha!” Harris yelled, from where he knelt on the floor.

Three men wearing the rough homespun garments of peasants surrounded Harris. Two of them were older, with graying hair, while the third was Cedrick’s age, not a boy, but not yet an independent man. Harris held an old woman’s head in his hands, while another looked on, her hands shaking and deep worry lines carved into her features.

“Can you help her?” the old woman asked.

“Alisha’s on her way,” Cedrick said, hesitantly approaching. As he got closer, he held his breath. The pallid face of the downed woman was disturbing to say the least, but the painful grimace and look of sheer terror twisting her features bespoke a horrific pain.

One of the older men took a knee beside her and took her wrinkled hand into his. “Tamara, we’re getting you help. Try to stay calm and breathe, the priests are helping us now.”

The whites of her eyes were yellowish, and her fingernails thick and scaly. Cedrick coughed, holding his sleeved forearm over his nose and mouth in a vain attempt to shut out the smell emanating from the woman’s body.

“Brother Harris,” Alisha called, hurrying toward them. As she approached, her pace slowed, and when her eyes met Cedrick’s, she stopped entirely. “What’s wrong with that woman?”

Harris tilted Tamara’s head from side to side and peered into her eyes. “I’m not sure,” he said. “It’s some sort of degenerative disease. Look here, at her gums. They’re bleeding, and the tissue under her nails is oozing.”

Cedrick took two desperate steps backward and his back hit the wall. “She’s been infected by undead,” he said, his voice muffled by his sleeve. “That smell, and the amount of decay… I’d say it was more than a week ago, probably two, when she came into contact with one of the walking dead.”

All eyes were on him then, and if Cedrick had been a more timid person it might have been unnerving, given the eerie feelings he couldn’t shake, being so close to a decaying, yet alive person.

“Undead?” Alisha asked, shaking. “You can’t be serious.”

“Deadly serious,” Cedrick said. “She’s too far gone for herbs and tonics. You need magic to fix her up now.”

Brother Harris looked from the woman to Cedrick and back again. Making a quick decision, he motioned for the men to follow him. “Get her up. Drag her to the altar.”

Cedrick followed too, in case Harris needed his help. He wasn’t sure what good he would do, but he’d read all the books of his mother’s journey, and their fight against the undead of Va’ Shinn. Looking around the room, Cedrick had a growing suspicion he might be the best qualified to help the infected woman. Unlucky for her. He decided not to tell anyone how questionable her chance of survival would be.

* * *


Three days later, Cedrick entered Blackwell’s inn and tavern and paid for a room and a bath. Precious coins running low, he laid his money down and headed to his room. With no temples in town, an unfortunate detail, he was forced to pay for a bed.

When he got into the room, Cedrick took his only clean change of clothes out of the saddlebags. Shortly, a maid arrived and set a bowl of hot water and a small linen rag on the table, then hurried from the room.

Cedrick approached the table and noticed a small sliver of soap on the rag. He sighed. “I guess this would be my bath. Better get in before it gets cold....”

Making the best of what he had, he stripped off his dirty clothes and washed. When he was finished, he dunked his laundry into the bowl of water. It was better than nothing, he thought, knowing he didn’t have the time to bring his clothes to a laundress. He wrung his clothes and dressed in his fresh garments, then dumped the water out the window and went down to have supper.

The quality of the meal was about the same as the quality of the bath. Tired and wanting a good night of rest, Cedrick headed up to bed.

He pulled the drapes closed to shut out what they could of the setting sun. Larkridge was indeed nothing spectacular, he thought, but then, he’d not come to sight-see.

After he’d helped Harris and Alisha heal Tamara’s infection, he’d had a chance to speak with the frightened travelers. Undead near Larkridge. They’d been terrified, and shared only a few details, but the woman had been traveling west from Larkridge when she’d been attacked by a creature she could barely describe.

Cedrick was torn between going home and telling his mother what troubled the village far to the west, and simply hunting the rogue creature down himself.

The morning he left Toneii, Cedrick headed east for Rheinguard, but not an hour down the road, he turned, knowing that he had to first see for himself what was really happening in Larkridge.

Walking skeletons? Risen human corpses? If he was going to petition the temple for aid, he’d have to be sure of what the menace looked like. And if it was one rogue creature, he was more than a match for it. He wasn’t the gifted cleric his mother was, but magic wasn’t a completely foreign concept.

Well-rested and refreshed, Cedrick said his morning devotion in his room and then headed downstairs.

“Care to break your fast?” the inn keep at Blackwell’s asked.

“Yes, please,” Cedrick replied. Then he remembered something. “I’m passing through, and I’ve heard the roads around here may not be safe. Something about some people missing...”

“Rumors of hideous creatures trickle down here from time to time,” replied the fat man, already sweating from the work of serving trays to tables. “Nothing to worry about if you’re staying in town, though.”

“I just said I was passing through.” Cedrick, tried not to let his annoyance show, but after paying too much for a poor night’s sleep and a substandard meal, he was in no mood to exchange pleasantries with the swindler. “Where do these rumors say people are disappearing?”

“Up near the borders. Wild beasts that take villagers in the night. They say the creatures leave behind paw prints bigger’n a man’s boot.”

Cedrick turned and left the inn. He’d have to search elsewhere for the information he needed, and a map of the area wouldn’t hurt, either.

* * *


After purchasing a few essentials, including an old map, from a dry goods store, Cedrick followed the Nideam River southwest from Larkridge. “Follow the river,” the old man had said. “You’ll find them if you stay by the water.” Apparently, most of the disappearances had been women washing and children swimming. Even a fisherman or two had gone missing, and with evidence like that, Cedrick knew the river would give him the best chance of finding what he sought.

The land steadily changed, as the river widened, until it became a flat marshland as far as the eye could see. The chirping birds might have been pleasant, boosting his spirits in an unforgiving terrain, but with the clouds of buzzing insects obscuring their songs, the incessant cacophony was just annoying.

Cedrick wrapped his dirty cotton shirt over his face to keep the bugs out. A last resort after the fourth time an uninvited guest attempted to kill him by flying into his throat to choke him to death.

To say that the wetland was unpleasant would be an understatement of criminal magnitude, Cedrick thought. He wished that he’d taken the advice of the old man who sold him his travel supplies, and steered clear of the swampy mess. At the time, though, Cedrick just thought the old man lonely as he droned on about the vastness of the marshland and the foul creatures that inhabited it.

“I could kick my own ass right now, Maurice,” he said, his voice muffled. “I can only imagine how that old man would laugh if he saw me now... my shirt wrapped around my face, and what skin isn’t covered with leather, now covered with bites.”

As if in agreement, Maurice tossed his head and whipped his tail. Certainly, Cedrick was not the only one suffering.

The ground grew softer as they went, and eventually Cedrick dismounted to give his friend a break. Maurice was a mountain horse, brawny and durable. What he wasn’t, was a wide-hoofed, light plains beast made for covering miles quickly on soft ground. Rheinguard’s horses weathered long winters high up in the mountains and if anything, were praised for their ability to maintain themselves on poor quality food through the cold months, and regain weight quickly when the pastures thawed. He was short, compact, and heavy... not the best choice for a wetland trek.

After two restless nights of batting away insects and struggling to keep his boots dry, Cedrick passed by a small cabin set on a high bank overlooking the river. Fresh footprints all around told him the house was inhabited, and he couldn’t help but wonder what sort of person would choose to live in such a god-forsaken place.

Rumors abounded of witches living in the wild lands, powerful nature-worshipping hags sought out by the desperate and godless. Cedrick didn’t put much stock in stories usually, but he did not care to have a run-in with a witch if it could be avoided. Some were rumored to be man-haters, even aiding desperate wives in speeding the deaths of their own husbands.

He was just about to pass the hovel when he reined Maurice in. “What would Mother do?” he asked.

He sighed and unwrapped the cotton from his face, dismounting. If there was a chance that the person who lived in the cabin, witch or not, had seen the undead... well, he had to ask them. A shred of proof would go a long way to helping him petition the temple for aid. So far, he had no proof, and only a few accounts of actual sightings. Nothing to explain the dozens of missing people.

“Please do not be a witch,” he whispered as he approached the door. Steeling himself for the worst, he knocked.

No answer.

Cedrick knocked again, and then pushed the door open. “Hello?” he called, “is anyone home?”

The cabin had only one room, and he could see it all from the doorway. No one was there. The hearth was unlit, filled with ashes, and a bed lay upon the floor, piled with furs. A few dishes lay scattered around the small room, but there was no sign of movement, so Cedrick left.

He turned Maurice and followed the river’s bend, not sure where on the map he was. He wasn’t lost exactly, he knew the river would lead back out of the swamp, but the thought of turning back, without splitting a single undead skull, seemed disappointing beyond imagining. The world needed paladins, he told himself, if for nothing else, then to protect against the return of the walking dead and the practitioners of necromancy.

Cedrick rode for an hour more when he finally said, “What do you say, Maurice, should we take a break?”

The pretty gelding tossed his head and snorted.

“Right then, I see an easy way down, let’s get a drink and see what we can do about a little lunch. I brought you some apples, but I doubt you much care. You’ve been sampling everything green you’ve seen for most of the day.”

Towering trees shaded the ground though there were several hours of sunlight left. Thick moss hung from the branches of the ancient trees, giving the swamp an eerie sort of beauty. Cedrick enjoyed the irony, a place full of life, where everything was rotting.

He led Maurice through the trees to the bank of the river, and found a gentle path to lead the horse down to drink.


Much to Cedrick’s surprise, a figure crouched at the river’s bank. Cedrick’s heart pounded. What if it was the witch who lived in the cottage, he thought, considering backing away.

He scolded himself, as he halted and watched the figure. Was he really afraid of meeting one of the country folk, with their strange traditions and medicine and magic? He thought not. They were probably harmless. In fact, there was probably nothing other than mosquito bites to fear in the swamp at all.

The figure rose then and turned to face Cedrick. The mask of a steel helmet stared back, sizing him up.

Though somewhat relieved to see a fellow warrior, he wondered at the other’s strange clothing. It appeared the fighter was somewhat shorter than Cedrick, who had always been praised as tall. But, beyond the intricately carved helm, the figure looked nothing like a fighting man. In fact, he even wore a sort of dress.

“Who are you?” demanded a voice, Cedrick could have sworn was female.

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Caged Maiden
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