The bells must have been another of those signals everyone but Runa knew about. Lich-Errant surged forwards, the encroaching shadows trailing behind him like a cloak that blotted out what was left of the sunset. The villagers retreated, and Runa was caught up in the tide as those who had been gathering and tying sheaves of the wheat surrounded the harvesters, making a wall between the people cutting the last of the wheat and the pretend lich.
There were songs. Of everything else she hadn’t expected, she definitely hadn’t expected that.
Severine bounded to her side, eyes alight. “Runa! Isn’t this fun? That’s Errant up there—”
Runa nodded gravely, as though she’d known all along, and had never even for one moment intended to stab him with an ancient, bloodthirsty sword.
“—and Widow Tremblewood says they’ll need you at the bakery! Come on!”
She grabbed Runa’s hand, and Runa let herself be dragged away. The crowd’s enthusiasm was like a shot of something stronger than ale. It seeped into her limbs, driving away the shock of her initial desire to go grab Bloodburster, and replacing it with laughter.
Dry grass and sharp-cut wheat stalks crackled underfoot. The air smelled of wheat dust and the fruit still hanging heavy on trees, the pinch of chill in the air a reminder of how quickly winter would arrive. A true winter, this time, not the icy overflow from the Cauldron.
The song was a call-and-response, half the village raising their voices one line and half the next, and Runa only caught about one word in six. They sang about the summer that was gone, and the winter coming, and food for the cellar and their bellies, before the spring came back at last, and green things began to grow again. They sang of the cold at their back and the warmth of the home fire.
They sang that the Seven Deathless were on the march, that they would share the knowledge they stole from the gods, to ability to live forever—but that wasn’t life, the response rose up, it wasn’t life they offered. And the song went on. The people refused the Seven Deathless’s offer three times, and the fourth time it wasn’t an offer, but the truth: the lich lords wanted them dead, wanted a horde of dead men and women to fight other dead men and women, wanted to burn the wheat they could no longer taste and poison the water that no longer quenched them, and turn all the world to dust.
The singing crowd climbed the hill, harvesting the last of the wheat and guarding it against the shadowy lich who followed them. Runa caught sight of Ninnius and Anklopher, mouthing uncertainly along and taking copious notes. She found herself walking alongside Corvin, and saw something more than the night sky and the flickering torches reflected in his eyes. He was singing, too, a surprisingly tuneful baritone, and when he saw her looking he gave a smile that was almost too wide for his face.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“Thought you lot hated songs,” she said in an undertone.
He shrugged, and his smile stretched out improbably wider. “If we hated them, they wouldn’t be so effective, would they?”
The crowd pushed them apart again and Runa found herself jostled and urged and dragged up the hill until she was just behind the men and women plying their scythes on the last of the summer wheat. They grinned at her, wiping sweat off their faces.
Looking back, she saw a small child fall behind. Errant hesitated, waving his arms with uncertain menace until a rescue party arrived to sweep the toddler up and carry them back to the safety of the crowd. Severine laughed.
It was a party. A way to remember one of the worst things to happen in this part of the world—and to celebrate that they’d escaped it.
The crowd poured into Pothollow and filled the road to the mill, handing sheaves of wheat over each other’s heads to be threshed and sifted in the flat courtyard in front of Tam and Errant’s home.
“Hey! Bakery girl!”
Widow Tremblewood was elbowing her way through the crowd towards them. She had an armful of wheat, which she unceremoniously unloaded onto someone else as she approached Runa and Severine.
“Junilla says—” she paused for breath. “Junilla says you didn’t know what our Errant was up to, with the costume.”
“It was a surprise,” Runa admitted.
“And you almost up and stabbed him. Or set him on fire, she says.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Down there looking like a lich lord, perfectly understandable. Would be worried if you didn’t try to take his head off, not that that tends to work. But Runa—” Widow Tremblewood appeared to be defeating breathlessness by getting all the words out before her lungs realized they’d run out of air. “—What are your thoughts on the undead? The normal ones.”
“What?” Runa blinked. Severine was pulling her to one side, and Ninnius and Anklopher had descended upon Wyd in a way that made her think someone should probably pull them out of there, but Widow Tremblewood had her sleeve firmly clutched in one knotted fist.
“Do you get particularly murderous when it comes to the normal undead, dear? Skeletons and the like, walking around?”
“What? Why do you ask?” Runa frowned. “And no. Skeletons don’t bother me. Why?”
“Oh, no reason,” Widow Tremblewood said evenly, and Runa spared a moment from being pulled in all directions to groan.
There was never no reason.
“Audella—” she began, but the old woman had already disappeared into the crowd. Runa cursed under her breath.
“What was that about?” she muttered.
Severine leaned against her. “The undead? Skeletons and ghouls and the rest of them?”
“Why would she ask about it?”
“At a guess? Some other exciting surprise getting ready to jump out at you.”
“And I’m not to smash it into pieces. Got it.” Runa ran one hand down her face. “Be handy if they told me this in advance.”
“I like it. It’s not every day you get to experience something for the first time that you’re going to do over and over again.” Severine’s eyes were shining.
“Over and over again?” Runa asked
“Every year, right? Because we’re staying here. If we’re staying here. We are staying here, aren’t we?”
