The larder was everything he described, and more. Meats and cheeses hung from pegs along the walls, and casks of flour, beans, and other dry goods were stacked in rows. At the back, a trapdoor led to a root cellar filled with potatoes and onions. A soft clucking coming through the wall suggested that there was a chicken coop somewhere nearby as well.
“As odd as this sounds,” said Jimmy, “I have no interest in killing a chicken. Those five people I sliced open? No problem. But a poor defenseless chicken? I don’t think I could do it.”
“You just don’t want to have to pluck the thing, lazy,” joked TJ.
Jimmy grinned back at his friend. “Well, yeah, there’s that too.”
They rummaged through the provisions, gathering a little of this and a little of that, then returned to the sunlight to sit and chew. While they all would have preferred a nice hot stew cooked in the compound’s fire pit, they knew there were other things to deal with first. So after they had sated their hunger, the five stood up.
“Well, what do you think we should do first?” TJ asked.
Allison replied, “Let’s get these brutes out of sight. We can drag them out into the woods and let the wolves eat them. That’s the best they deserve.” The others knew she was just delaying the inevitable, not yet wanting to face the reality of Simon’s death. No one called her on it.
The others nodded, and Chuck piped in, “Wait a sec, lemme see if they’ve got anything of value on ’em first. Always search the bodies!” Noticing the look of distaste on Allison’s face, he added, “Look, Allison. I know you’re a newbie and all, but you’re going to have to get used to this. We are adventurers, and being an adventurer costs a lot of coin. Unless you want to retire in some village somewhere and be a farmer’s wife, you’re going to have to accept that we’ll be pulling stuff off the bodies.
“Besides, if there’s anything of value on them, what’s the point in leaving it out in the woods for the wolves to chew on? Where do you think they got all that stuff? If you want, we can do the Robin Hood thing and give to the poor, but just letting it all rot is stupid.”
“OK, fine,” she sighed. “I guess you’re right. I don’t have to like it, though.”
With a shrug, Chuck began to rummage through the clothing of each of the bodies, and examined their fingers and ears for any jewelry. He didn’t think it likely, but there was always a possibility that a fallen foe carried an item of magical nature. The world wasn’t lousy with magic rings and amulets and the like, but they weren’t as scarce as one might think. As Frodo himself had discovered, it was extremely difficult to destroy a magical item, so they began to build up over time as new ones were created. Unfortunately, other than a few small pieces of jewelry and the coin in their pouches, there was nothing for Chuck to report. The stuff he did find, however, went into a small bag that he agreed would go to the villagers they’d met earlier. They dragged the dead bodies out of the compound and over to the tree line near the body of the archer Stu had shot.
Reluctantly, they then turned to Simon’s body, which still lay in the shade of the wall with the arrow sticking out of his chest. The five gathered around him and spent a few minutes in silence.
“We should dig a grave,” Stu remarked.
“Yeah,” Jimmy replied.
No one moved for several long moments. “I’ll go find a shovel or two,” said Jimmy.
“I’ll come with,” Stu offered.
The two trudged into the compound, leaving the other three behind. Not long after, Chuck slipped away, muttering something about the call of nature. Neither TJ nor Allison responded, and perhaps they didn’t even notice. The two stood together, looking down at their friend.
“You know, I was really excited to learn that he was going to be here,” said Allison. “On some level I thought it meant this wasn’t going to be as geeky as I’d imagined. Of course,” she added, chuckling, “it was actually every bit as geeky as I imagined. You have to admit that the king’s speech was over-the-top melodramatic.”
TJ grunted his agreement.
“But anyway, now I feel guilty about that. Not that that makes any sense, I know. It had nothing to do with what I wanted. He was going to come whether I did or not. But I still feel guilty anyway. I feel responsible. And maybe that’s the healer in me talking, but I feel like I should have done more. I should have done something. I should have . . .” She choked up as she trailed off.
TJ put his arm around her shoulder but didn’t say anything. Nothing he could think to say seemed appropriate.
Jimmy and Stu came back, each carrying a shovel. Allison looked over and sighed. “Give me one of those,” she said, and took the one Stu held. She turned and surveyed the area. A portion of the clearing was sprinkled with wildflowers, and that was where she pointed. “He should go there.”
The ground was heavy and full of clay once they got through the first layer of topsoil, so it was harder than they expected. Even so, working together and trading off the shovels as their shoulders got tired, they had the hole dug within an hour. With the ground cleared, Stu and Jimmy carried Simon’s body over and placed it in the grave. Chuck had come back, and they each took turns shoveling the dirt over him. When the hole was filled, Allison replaced some of the flowers in the dirt. They then stood quietly, listening to the wind rustling through the leaves and birds chirping.
“It’s peaceful. I guess that’s appropriate,” Chuck murmured.
Allison nodded, then turned and walked to the compound without a backward glance. The others all followed, one by one, until Simon was left alone. And there he remained.
CHAPTER 9
By the time they finished laying Simon to rest, the sun had begun to set, turning their shadows into black giants. While no one was particularly happy with the idea of staying the night at the brigands’ camp, by consensus it was decided that doing so was preferable to sleeping out in the woods in unfamiliar territory. Stu was confident he could find them a place to set up camp that would be protected from the elements and wild animals, but that hardly made sense when they had a solid wall surrounding them.
A number of cooking pots were stacked neatly in a corner of the larder building. A casual inspection indicated that they were well scrubbed and free of grime. It appeared that even outlaws took cleanliness seriously, at least when it had a potential effect on their health. TJ took a medium-sized one from the stack and filled it with chunks of the meat, as well as some potatoes and onions from the root cellar. A nearby barrel was discovered to be filled with water, collected from a series of gutters attached to the roof of one of the buildings. He filled the pot the rest of the way with the water and lugged it over to the fire pit, where Stu had already coaxed a flame to life. They banked the coals and set the pot in the middle of them. Soon the smell of stew filled the air and set the group’s stomachs rumbling.
Darkness fell as the food finished cooking, and the firelight danced in the crisp air. They ladled their meal into some wooden bowls and ate it with hard bread taken from the larder.
Jimmy broke the silence by asking, “So now what?”
“Now what, what?” TJ replied.
“Now what do we do? Somehow we got here, and we have taken on the skills and memories of the made-up characters we were playing this morning. What do we do now? Just go on living like this? I’ll say it’s pretty cool to have these abilities and stuff. I’ll also say that Simon was a friend of mine, and that whole getting shot and killed violently thing wasn’t really in my long-term plans. I was planning on going to college and becoming an accountant. Not glamorous, but a good living. I’d kind of like to go back home, if you know what I mean.”