Chapter 68: Human Lives Are Cheaper Than Grass

The undead hound had been lured away—this was the perfect opportunity to escape.
Lucas and Vid slipped out of the abandoned brewery’s main entrance and stepped onto the street.

“We’re close to Old York’s alchemy workshop,” Lucas said. “Just three more streets and we’ll see the Oak Tavern. The Sage Alchemy Workshop is in the little alley beside it.”

Vid nodded, following Lucas through the deathly silent town. He couldn’t sense the undead hounds as he would the living. Against the undead, his soul-sight was useless, and the snow covering the ground further dulled his hearing.

He couldn’t pinpoint the hounds as if he had a third eye, nor would he send Mia ahead to scout for him. Mia, still less than a month old, was too vulnerable to expose to a necromancer who had practiced his art for at least a dozen years. No one could guess what unique means a necromancer might possess to deal with spirits.

He and Lucas pressed on, relying on Lucas’s familiarity with Alvador to avoid the roaming packs of hounds haunting the narrow streets. This town had clearly stood for many years, evident from the traces of renovation and expansion everywhere. Unlike a grand city such as Helburg, with its careful planning, this densely populated town was a labyrinth of tangled lanes and tight passages.

Vid felt as if he were wandering a maze. Lucas led him back and forth through narrow gaps, sometimes between stone houses, sometimes over the rooftops. Where there seemed no path, a box or crate would serve to bridge the way.

Had Vid come alone, he would never have found his way through these alleys; a newcomer could wander for hours before finding an exit. Thanks to someone who knew the terrain intimately, they avoided the undead hounds that prowled the main roads.

A necromancer who had evaded the Church for twelve years was perhaps too vigilant—he ordered his minions to patrol his domain from dawn till dusk, regardless of the presence of the Icelandic war camp nearby.

There were more night owls circling over Alvador than around the mountains, and the closer to the town’s center, the denser the flock, until they formed a swirling mass of wings.

It was certain: Quasimodo was hidden within one of the central buildings.

By ill fortune, York’s alchemy workshop was also located at the heart of the town.

The two of them paused—just ahead was the alley’s exit, where a pair of undead hounds slunk past the narrow gap. The nearer they drew to the center, the more cautious they had to be. Should a hound or a night owl spot them, they would face Quasimodo’s entire army of minions, and the Icelanders outside would be alerted as well.

“There’s the Oak Tavern.”

Sheltered behind a pile of discarded goods, they peered out onto what had once been a bustling commercial street, crowded with merchants and vendors. Now, only the stacked remains of market stalls offered them cover.

Lucas pointed to a building outside, where an oaken sign hung in the air, catching Vid’s eye. It was a two-story tavern built of pine, with a broad section for lodging—it seemed the entire row of houses was devoted to the inn.

One could imagine how lively it must have been, filled with drunken Tanians laughing into the night.

Beside the tavern, Vid spotted the emblem of the Adventurers’ Guild: crossed swords and a shield of iris, a star set in its center. Below, in curling ancient script, the guild’s motto was inscribed—translated into the common tongue, it read, “By Iron and Star We Are Witnessed.”

This was a true branch of the guild, not one of those makeshift “trouble boards” a local lord might set up—those might pay for odd jobs, but offered none of the guild’s privileges or conveniences.

Here, at least, was a proper establishment—though it too had become stiflingly silent.

Many buildings in Alvador’s central district bore the scars of sword and axe. The doors and windows of the guild and the Oak Tavern were battered and broken, their shattered frames creaking in the cold wind, stained with blood and splintered wood.

Most of the Adventurers’ Guild was charred, the Oak Tavern likewise, blackened timber half-buried in the snow. Lucas could still smell the acrid tang of gunpowder.

When the two waited for the hounds to leave and stepped forward into a broader view, they both froze in shock.

Neither was prepared for what they saw—Vid least of all. Never had he imagined corpses piled like sacks of grain.

The scene was unreal—no one knew how many bodies had been heaped in the town square, tossed there carelessly, a chaotic jumble, as if a bag of wheat had been dumped and swept together with a broom.

It seemed as though all the dead of Alvador had been gathered into that square.

A single corpse occupies little space—yet even a thousand bodies, stacked like stones, would not cover so much ground. But here, the mound of dead rose higher than the Oak Tavern itself, cast aside like rubbish. The necromancer had not bothered with any preservation or concealment—the bodies were left to lie as they fell.

The Tanian winter was a natural tomb, the snow preserving the bodies in cold. White drifts settled on ashen faces—men’s faces, women’s faces, young and old, all pressed together in the heap. Some features were twisted in agony, others were calm, some eyes sunken, some heads gone altogether.

Human lives, worth less than grass.

For the first time, Vid felt the full weight of those words.

It was a vision from hell—a group of altered zombies was picking through the bodies, five or six hulking male corpses searching the pile.

Quasimodo had commanded his zombies to select the dead, rooting through the corpses as if searching for suitable goods.

Chilled to the marrow, Vid and Lucas could only stare in horror. Lucas felt his limbs go numb, his hands and feet as cold as the grave.

The only faint comfort was that the zombies were not dragging bodies into the alley where the Sage Alchemy Workshop stood, but were carrying them elsewhere—likely to their master.

“That’s the magistrate’s residence,” Lucas whispered.

Quasimodo Vick—he was there, inside the gray-white limestone tower, its narrow pointed windows set with diamond-shaped leaded glass, the sills carved with the baron’s mallow motif.

The necromancer was barely five hundred meters from where Vid and Lucas hid—so close it was hard to breathe.