“She is not here anymore.”
Chieftain Duz, a stocky middle-aged man with ashen armour but no weapons, stands in front of a gray marble obelisk, surrounded with wreaths and flowers, as a humid breeze passes over the hill. He begins to read the inscription:
-TSANDRA THE SWIFT - ‘1002-’1051 - MAY MY SPIRIT WATCH OVER TOTH FOR EVER-
“I guess this town’s Keeper wasn’t much of a poet.”, his underling Edoc replied: “It seems pretty new too, so I suppose they haven’t even trained a new one yet.”
Duz looks at the village below, where the light rain is just about to make way for an early morning sun, and thin wisps of smoke rise from a dozen thatched-roof cottages and sheds. A small wooden tower is featured in the centre, but the settlement has no walls of note.
He looks back to his soldiers, and beckons them with a flat hand.
“The keeper of this town is dead, so we will not be fighting here, my friends. Free looting today!”
The one hundred and eighty footmen charge towards the town of Toth with their blood-stained tunics, leaving their banners up on the hill side.
Cyor holds Leora's hand, and dashes with her past a handful of farmers. He then runs up the stairs to the top of the watchtower.
"Okay, stand here, watch and learn. Our act begins."
Cyor leans out of the window, takes an arrow, ignites it with a nearby torch, and fires it straight up in the sky. Leora follows the smokey trail of the missile, and then gazes to the hills. She sees the foot soldiers charging towards the northern cottages, while the farmers below quickly retreat into their houses and cellars. At the very moment the brigands reach the outskirts of the farm, the Keeper finally shows herself.
Hanging upside down below her giant raven, a sturdy warrior with shield and morningstar flies in from the Granite Mountains.
"Can she alone really defeat that whole pack of soldiers?" Leora wonders.
"She will." Cyor responds, "The Keeper Tsandra always has and always will prevail. Look closely, Leora."
Leora watches as Tsandra's eagle swoops in, and Tsandra buffets five warriors with her giant shield, and tears through the flesh of another three with her morning star. The remaining footmen scramble for their spears and swords.
"Formation! NOW!!! Edoc, discipline this rabble!", Duz shouts out.
"Of course, chief."
As Tsandra batters through the front ranks of the foot soldiers using the momentum of her eagle and the impact of her shield, Edoc hastily assembles three dozen archers into a box formation.
"Get those bows out! Line up! Are you sick or something? LINE UP!!"
The archers ready their bows, and unsteadily line up for aiming.
"Aim."
"Hold."
"Release!"
A vast flurry of arrows fly past Tsandra, as her raven deftly dodges the majority of them. Yet one of the arrows makes its way into the raven's chest, creating a gashing wound. The raven descends and drops Tsandra on the hillside. Tsandra quickly recovers, stands up and charges straight up to the archers. She deflects the volleys of arrows with ease using her shield and readies her glistening morningstar for close-quarter combat.
"Swords!" Edoc cries. The archers swap their weapons as several of the other brigands make their way up the hill to join the mass combat. What follows is a long and bloody affair, where both Tsandra and her raven get a fair number of stabs and bruises. Yet eventually they manage to fully eradicate each of Duz' men, and as a final blow Tsandra manages to smash the skull of their leader Edoc with her morningstar.
While this is happening, chieftain Duz himself backs out quitely. Soon later, Tsandra makes quick work of any stragglers.
"Now that is what a true warrior fights like!", Cyor proclaims, "Thought it'd be best for you to see with your own eyes!".
"I cannot believe she just killed all of them! How can it be that she is so fast and agile while these men are so weak?" Leora wonders.
"That is because she is a Keeper, and this is what Keepers do. Whenever they need to."
"I want to visit her. I haven’t seen my aunt in years!”
"That's not possible, Leora. You know that keepers like your aunt leave once the battle is over. It really is very difficult to meet her."
"But Cyor. She is standing on the hill there, next to her own fake grave... And I don't see any more soldiers."
Cyor gazes up the hill. Indeed, both Tsandra and her eagle are still standing there, in seemingly calm contemplation by the fake grave, encircled by a cascade of corpses.
"Cyor… Cyor! Let's go meet up with her!"
Cyor nods, and leads her down the steps again.
The drizzle resumes and the reek of death engulfs them as Cyor and Leora walk up the hill. As they approach the top, the Keeper still stands there, in her blood-covered scale armor and a painstruck face, staring at her own grave. She takes off her helmet, showing her thinning white hair, and places it next to the obelisk. Her raven takes off to the skies. Leora hesitates to approach her further, but Cyor steps forward.
"Mylady, our gratitude is bottomless. We will forever be in your debt for what you have done for us this time, and all those times before. It is a huge honour that you allow us to meet you in person."
Tsandra looks down at Cyor with her deep brown eyes, and twitches slightly with her jaw.
"Cyor. Step back. Step back now please."
Cyor backs up, away from the corpses, and towards Leora.
"Those corpses are infected with Pestilence. You should be careful."
Leora looks in horror at the battlefield, and a realization dawns why Tsandra is standing next to her own grave.
"Are you okay, mylady?", she inquires.
"I am not.", Tsandra responds. "Cyor, I want to thank you for making that obelisk. These days the battles don't come as easy as they used to... and that diversion at least allowed me to attack them by surprise."
"No, no, no! It is me who is grateful! You have slain them all!"
"Yes, I can't believe it. You were so swift and strong!", Leora adds, but Tsandra’s mind appears to wander elsewhere. The three of them then look at each other in a brief moment of silence. Tsandra removes the side padding of her scale armor, and wipes away the blood on the wound underneath it.
Cyor steps closer, but Tsandra once more stops him in his steps.
"Don't come closer. Remember what I told you.", she snarls.
Cyor sighs. Tsandra turns to Leora.
"Leora, daughter of Tomarian. Can you tell me what you know about the Pest? I am a fighter, no medic, but surely you read the odd book or two, being the daughter of a Compiler?"
Leora looks at the wound from a distance, "I can look at it if you like."
Tsandra agrees, and Leora puts on her gloves and begins examining the wound.
“I’m no medic myself of course...”.
She thinks back about her days in the Compilation, a little shed full of summarized tomes and manuscripts, where she sat with her younger brother Tem. Together they used to browse encyclopaedias to learn about exotic diseases, and brag to each other who could find the creepiest affliction. Tsandra's side wound has turned a rotten light brown, with green scabs featuring on the surrounding skin. The wound looks very similar to those of the soldier corpses, and matches the descriptions of the Pest she can recall. And as she looks more closely, she realizes that almost all of the dead men here have these green scabs and odd light brown wounds all over them. She recoils.
"...but I do see that all these men are infected by Pest. And by the looks of it, you are too."
Tsandra looks back sternly. "That is of course clear to me. But is there a cure?"
"I don't think so.", Leora responds, "my father always told me clearly: the Pest is a one-way festival ride to misery, pain, stupor and death."
Cyor looks in horror at Leora. "But surely..."
Tsandra interrupts him: "And do you believe your father, Leora?".
"I do.", she responds firmly, "My father is the Compiler. He knows best in town."
"I do not want to walk this path of misery. Moreover, I do not want to spread further contagion.", Tsandra continues, "My best days are behind me, and with this affliction I will spread more harm than good. There is no point in continuing this journey."
She looks at Leora.
"Leora. I want you to take Cyor's bow, nock up an arrow and shoot me through the head."
"What?! You can't demand this!", Cyor responds.
"Cyor, this town will not survive with me as a Keeper. I am turning into a risk, and have no desire to see the town fall with me. You will all need to move forward. And the Pest needs to be contained."
"But Leora is so young! If need be I can do it.", Cyor says firmly.
"You could do it, Cyor... but weren't you having second thoughts about the nature of my affliction?"
"Yes, I did.", he admits.
"Do you know of a cure then?"
"I don't...but surely there must be one somewhere??"
"Cyor..", Tsandra continues, "Have you ever even heard or read about a victim of the Pest who was cured?"
"No, I haven't...", he admits, once more.
"And yet you want to search for one, even though you know of none. Aside from spreading hope in vain, all this dreaming also makes you indecisive. You cannot shoot this arrow through my head. You’d lack the focus for it."
Cyor looks down to the ground in silence.
"Leora, I will not ask you a second time. I need you to do this. And after you shoot me, burn me and all the other corpses here, so that this Pest will not reach the village or anyone else."
Leora glances at Cyor, Cyor holds out his bow, along with two arrows. She grabs the bow, takes aim, but then lowers the bow.
"Okay, I can do this. But who will protect us when you're gone?"
"That will be your call to make, Leora. Our village is small, and I trust your judgment. As far as I can think you would make a fine Keeper yourself."
"Do you have any last words you want to speak?", Cyor adds.
"Leave this place and prepare to go to the Granite Mountains. The climate is harsh and the food scarce, but it will be very difficult and unrewarding for pillagers to attack you there. Search there for the Lady of the Valley. She will be able to keep you safe, at least for a while.”
Tsandra takes off her pendant, which looks like a small bronze spherical mesh.
”Show this to her. And good luck to both of you."
Leora trembles, but knocks an arrow and aims the bow at Tsandra. She releases the string, and with that Tsandra into the afterlife.
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