Death After Death Ch. 131-132 (Patreon)

Ch. 131 - Building a Legend

The first thing Simon did was escort the survivors to the nearest village. He left his mule there with them, along with most of his supplies, because it would only slow him down. It was only once they were safe that was handled, that he followed the centaur’s tracks back to see where they’d come from.

No one volunteered to come with him, but that was fine. That sort of trust would come in time. He might be known as a witch hunter or a gifted healer further south, but he had no reputation here. That sort of thing would come in time, which worked out for him because he was more than a little rusty. In fact, he almost resented having to buckle his leather armor back on after going so long without it. 

Of course, by the time he got there, the trail was long cold, but it was a place to start. He’d learned through hard experience during his time serving the Raithewaits that finding the main centaur herd for any given region could be tricky because they were always on the move.

Theoretically there were dozens of them on the plains, and the only reason they werent a bigger problem, was because they warred with themselves and the orcs as much as they did the humans. Normally all you needed to do was kill the war bands interested in picking fights with men, and the rest would find something better to do with their time. Simon didn’t feel like that was going to be enough in this case. 

Three days later, he found his first herd and followed them from a distance, waiting to see what they would do as he hid in the tall grass and the other cover the empty plains provided. He didn’t do anything beyond that, though. Not until he saw them fight with a band of gnolls that had wandered too far from the foothills of the mountains that rose up to the east. 

As they skirmished and taunted each other, he moved into position upwind of them, but it was only once the fight was fully joined that Simon lit fires. When he’d worked as a warrior for Baron Raithewait, his favorite tactic had been to bait the trap and surround it with hidden archers. Since he had no army behind him yet, though, he settled for another form of encompassing attack instead: brush fires.

A centaur herd was more than just the young male war bands that did the killing. It was also full of women and colts that would grow up to become killers. He wasn’t an anthropologist or anything, but that much was plain to see. In that sense, this was some kind of war crime, he so supposed, as the fires started to spread and fan out, driven by the wind, but he didn’t care. 

Half a dozen spot fires lit by a lesser word of fire hundreds of feet apart became a wall of fire in less than five minutes when the winds were right, and right now, the winds were perfect. Within minutes, he could no longer see the herd, and the wall of fire raced toward them. He could imagine what was happening, though, based on what he was hearing, it was easy to imagine. 

Right now there was more running than dying. There was probably a stampede, and it was headed right toward the gnolls. That was bad luck for them, but Simon didn’t exactly care if the dog men survived either. They were in no way man’s best friend. 

A centaur attack was so successful, oftentimes, because they were patient. They could dance around with their superior mobility and wear down their foes, even if they were stronger or better armored. That didn’t work so well now, though. 

Now everyone was running, and those who weren’t fast enough were being burned alive, giving the gnolls just what they craved most: the chance to rip out the throats of their enemies up close and personal. The next half hour was a bloodbath, and as Simon approached the fighting once it was all but done, he walked past more than a few charred corpses. 

He had no doubt that much of this herd had gotten away. Perhaps half of them might have escaped, but they were a shadow of what they’d been this morning. It would take them many years to build back up to what they’d once been, and for now, that was enough. 

Simon fought the last few with his bow, sniping a few where he could as he hid amidst the smoke. He was out of practice and didn’t always hit where he aimed, but he would get better. He had to get better. 

By the time it was done, he counted sixty corpses on the ground, including the gnolls. He spent the rest of the day gathering the trophies he’d need to prove he’d done this thing in the form of the ugly bone jewelry that the warriors wore in the noses and ears. A pile of such trophies would make him a lot more believable when he started recruiting people to his side, and if things hadn’t changed too much, they could also be sold in Crowvar for quite a bit of silver. 

It was grisly work, and once it was done, Simon found a stream not so far away to wash in despite the fact that the sun was getting close to setting. Once he was mostly free of blood and smoke, he slept warily and spent much of the next day making normal-sized arrows from the Centaur’s huge ones before he continued on.

This far from the main trade roads, the herding villages that dotted the prairie all hid behind palisades to help keep the monsters at bay. As he visited them, one at a time, his legend started to grow with every story he told.

That was when Simon also started to slowly gather people to his banner, such as it was. One at a time, men interested in either the bounty on the horse lords, or their own personal grudges against the centaurs started asking to fight alongside Simon, and he was happy to let them join. 

After another week, he had three people in his little mercenary troop, and after a month of tracking his equine enemy across the broad plains, he had almost two dozen. They faced the horse lords wherever they found them and with whatever numbers they had. Sometimes, Simon’s men thought he was suicidal, and he was often forced to use a bit of surreptitious magic to balance the scales, but as they won fight after fight against the horse lords, the men started to trust him. Still, it was only when he was lying in his bedroll and overheard some of the men he was fighting with talking about him that Simon understood how far his personal legend had gotten out of his control. 

“They say he lost his whole family, you know,” someone said around the low fire, “In the massacre at Teller, or maybe Guin Springs. Hard to say, he don’t talk about that much.”

Sim had been to both villages and could confirm they’d both been sacked by the horse lords more than once. He’d never lived in either place, and he’d definitely never had a family get mascaraed there. Simon doubted that those truths would have been enough to stop the stories, though. So, instead, he just listened as the tails of his pain became more and more elaborate. 

He’d been at this for years. He’d killed over a hundred centaur warriors by himself, including a few with his bare hands. Also, according to different voices around the fire, he’d sold his soul to the devils below, and he couldn’t die until he’d killed the last centaur. 

“Simon? No,” someone else said. “I don’t believe it. He’s a good man. He wouldn’t truck with demons or other infernal things like that. He’s just very driven.”

“Believe what you like,” the first voice answered conspiratorially. “I’m telling you it’s true. No man kills so many without a reason or survives so many battles without some kind of magic on his side.”

“But what about you,” a third voice asked, “Ain’t you survive plenty yourself? You’re always talkin’ about how you’ve been through half a hundred battles without much more than a scratch.”

“I… that’s different,” the storyteller said, making Simon smirk as he lay there staring up at the starry sky. He tuned out the rest of the conversation as he contemplated what they’d said and tried to decide what he should do about it.

Over the last few weeks, they’d taken down over a dozen small warbands and all but obliterated a herd they’d chased into a box canyon.  It wasn’t enough to turn the tide or anything, but as far as Simon was concerned, it was a start. They’d made a dent in the monsters that haunted the land and built up a huge pile of trophies that his men could turn in for the bounty. 

It had also shaken all the rust off for him. It felt like forever since he’d fought this often and this hard, and right now, Simon felt like he was in as good with the bow and the sword as he’d ever been. He was also in excellent shape, which was nice considering just how often he wasn’t. 

He was showing his age a little, too, though. He’d probably burned through two decades of life on this run so far, and he was starting to feel it in his joints. So far, he’d avoided the temptation to drain the lives of his enemies to solve that problem, but it was ever a temptation, especially during the heat of battle. 

Honestly, the way the last few weeks had gone, he would have been happy to stay out here for a year, avoiding magic as much as possible and just hunting and stalking their next target and then ambushing them when they found the right battlefield. It wasn't quite as productive as mapping or healing the sick, but it was fun, and that had its place in his quest, too, didn’t it?

Unfortunately, they couldn’t stay out here forever. Living off the land was hard with such a large group and even harder on the battle-scared plains they traveled across. They were going to have to stop for supplies again. Normally that wouldn’t be an issue, but this time, fortunately, or unfortunately, they were approaching Crowvar. 

The men Simon fought beside could make up whatever strange backstories they wanted about him, but his real backstory was in the walls of that awful town, and just visiting it for long enough to stock up on the essentials was enough to risk making his whole life spin out of control. He might have grown as a person, but he doubted very much that any amount of personal growth would be enough to forgive Varten for what he’d done and what he’d tried to do. 

Anything Simon did on that front would hopelessly derail his crusade against the centaurs, though. Did he want to stop the tribes from uniting more than he wanted to kill Varten? Did he want to save the whole region instead of just one family? That’s what he was going to have to decide, but for right now, he had no answers; his mind was as empty as the sky above him. 

Ch. 132 - Short Changed

Crowvar still bore the ugly scars of its failed defense against the orcish attack that had succeeded without Simon’s defense. That wasn’t a surprise. He’d seen them when he was last here with Murphy. Still, it was disappointing. Pretty much every city and town he’d been to had grown as it moved into the future, but Crowvar looked worse than ever. 

Is it that the centaurs grew too strong or that the men of the region grew too weak? He found himself wondering as they walked through the gates. 

The guards that were standing there looked at his group with hard eyes, but Simon could see that the warriors of Crowvar had no chance of stopping him if they tried to keep him out, and he decided to force the issue. It turned out that wouldn’t be necessary, though; as soon as they asked his business, and he told the stern-faced men that they were mercenaries here to collect on centaur bounties, the guards brightened immediately. 

“We’ve been hearing about you, be we wasn’t sure if it was just a tall tale or not. People have been known to exaggerate these things.” the guard captain said looking through their sack of bloody trophies, “Say, that’s a hell of a haul. You’re all going to be rich men at the end of this!”

“It is,” Simon agreed. He stood there chatting with the guards for the next few minutes about where the best place was to stay in town for a night or two and how the best way might be to ask for a meeting with Baron Raithewait before they proceeded into the city.

There were a couple of inns left in the city, but there probably weren’t any big enough to accommodate all of Simon’s men. So, instead, they camped in a burned-out lot next to the Happy Harlot and used their common room for a bout of celebratory drinking and to plan their next steps. 

Some of his men were definitely leaving after their payday, but Simon didn’t begrudge them that. They’d signed on to make a little gold, and after they got it, they were welcome to do whatever they wanted. He was pretty sure they could get another volunteer or two here anyway, especially after Simon bought the bar a round or two and stories of their exploits started to spread. Crowbar wasn’t a large town, but even in its current condition, there were a couple thousand people that lived there. Surely, some of them would want more than to eke out a meager existence in this grim place. 

The size was helpful in any case because they needed to resupply. Simon’s crew was desperately short on things besides food. They needed arrows, rope, weapons, and more than a few repairs made on their armor. Fortunately, Crowbar had all of that, even if it didn’t have much else. 

Simon waited until everyone was drunk and having a good time, and then he slipped away to go pay a visit to where his wife’s grave should have been for a few hours. Of course, it was still a blank spot, not far from the graves of nameless strangers. Someday, he’d come back here only to find a stranger buried in her place. Still, for now, he felt connected to her in this place, and he spent a couple of hours just quietly talking to her as he filled her in on his quest. He told her about the places he’d been and the people he’d saved, and when he was done, he was surprised to find it didn’t hurt as bad as it did before. 

Simon and his crew spent the next day buying and packing things, and it was only that evening that he received a summons to Crowvar’s central keep. He’d expected an invitation for sometime later in the week, but when half a dozen guards showed up in the Happy Harlot’s common room, he knew things weren’t going to go quite as expected. Half of them had their halberds gripped tightly enough that they obviously feared a fight.

“By order of his lordship, Baron Varten Raithewait, the leader of this band, is to come with us immediately,” their leader declared. 

Simon’s men tossed him worried looks, and Bret, the man sitting nearest to him, said, “You really think you should be doing this?” when Simon started to stand. 

“We’re just here to collect what we’re owed!” Someone else shouted. “If you think you can intimidate us by—”

“I’ll come,” Simon said, standing up and speaking to defuse this situation before it got any more tense. 

In an enclosed place like this, if the fighting started, there would be plenty of deaths, including people he’d prefer to survive. If they wanted to get him alone for some treachery, then he was all for it. By himself, Simon could really cut loose and do things he could never do when his allies could see what he was capable of.

Outside, they made one stop at Simon’s camp to collect the bags of trophies they’d brought with them. After that, the Baron’s guards escorted Simon like he was under arrest and were resistant to his every attempt to strike up a friendly conversation with them. 

He probably should have been afraid, but he wasn’t. Instead, he was overwhelmed with nostalgia. He’d been before. He’d been here too many times. He could practically see the faces of old friends that he could no longer remember the names of. He could see the places where he’d killed people. It was hard to stay focused on the now when there were so many other ‘thens’ to see. 

Simon was lead directly into the dining hall that doubled as an audience chamber where he found Lord Varten sitting on a large wooden chair that had been moved on to the dias next to the far wall. It was a poor throne, and it undermined his attempt to look imposing. 

As Simon walked forward he looked around the room, noting the man’s brother wasn’t here in this timeline either. Did that mean he was dead, or had that accident not happened yet? Simon had no idea, but for now it didn’t matter. The only people in the room were the guards that had brought Simon, the maids that were still clearing away the remains of dinner, and the Baron himself. 

He stopped ten feet in front of Lord Varten and gave only the slightest of nods. It was as disrespectful a bow as he could offer, but Simon was fine with that. He was looking for any excuse at this point, and he had a feeling that Varten was going to give him one without too much effort. 

Still, at first, the Baron only looked down on Simon with disdain as the guards brought the bags of totems and trophies he’d collected to the man and, at the Baron’s command, dumped some of them out on the floor. 

Lord Varten looked at them for a moment with surprised eyes and then turned to Simon and, feigning nonchalance, said, “You really expect me to believe you killed so many? There’s got to be dozens here.”

“By my count, we’ve killed 118 warriors, along with 54 colts and almost three dozen mares, your Lordship,” Simon said with a smile. “Not all at once, of course. Lots of smaller war bands and ambushes on a couple of different herds made up the—”

“Poppycock!” Lord Varten said. “There’s no way. The centaurs aren’t simply that big of a threat. If you think I’m going to pay you for the bones and ornaments you must have dug up in some graveyard out there in the wastes, then you’re a bigger fool than you look.”

“A silver a head for centaur warriors and orcs and half as much for knolls and hobgoblins,” Simon answered calmly. “Those are the rates that the Raithewaits have paid out for decades.”

“Perhaps that was true in the past, but that’s a price for men that kill actual threats, not grave robbers,” the Baron shot back smugly. “You’ll see not a single silver from me for this.”

“We killed every one of those monsters,” Simon retorted calmly, “If we aren’t paid… well, it’s like your father used to say, mercenaries are cheaper than a standing army and much more disposable. How many men do you think will fight and die facing the monsters of the region when they hear they won’t be getting paid for the privilege.”

That made Varten fume for a moment. Simon sympathized. Simply having to talk to the man in a way that was vaguely respectful made Simon fume, too, but he was managing to keep it together better than he would have expected.

“I might see my way to pay out a few pennies for each of the… what did you say? 81 centaurs, was it?” the Baron said finally. “In the name of good relations with the warriors of the region. Let’s call in 5 per head and be done with this argument.”

“400 coppers is 20 silver, your lordship,” Simon said, squeezing his hands into fists so tightly his knuckles turned white. “That’s less than twenty percent of what we're owed, and I’m afraid quite unacceptable.”

“You can leave here with what I’ve offered or with nothing at all,” Lord Varten answered dismissively. 

“I know my rights,” Simon said, a touch of anger showing in his voice as he resisted the urge to turn the Baron into a bonfire just for the joy of it. “If you won’t pay me a fair price, then I’m afraid we’ll have to resolve this dispute with something besides words.”

“Are you threatening me?” the Baron asked, leaning forward. He was a little older than he’d been when Simon had suffered under his yoke, but the man was almost certainly still spry enough to swing a sword. It was obvious from the scars on even the youngest guards that his games hadn’t changed at all in the interim. 

“I’m challenging you,” Simon said, “Or your champion if you’re afraid to face me directly. If I was threatening you, you’d know it.”

The Baron purpled with rage for a moment before he yelled, “Guards! Seize him and put him in irons!”

The men began to move at once but uncertainly. Simon didn’t move. Instead, he regarded them briefly before he spoke. “You don’t have to listen to him, you know. He’s already failed this town once, and he will again soon. The orcs might have weakened Crowvar, but the Centaurs will finish the job in a year or two if someone doesn’t handle it.”

There was enough truth in his words that they delayed and looked to each other, trying to figure out what it was they should do. That delay was enough to cause Lord Varten to cry out, “I am the lawful ruler of this region and have the situation well in hand. If you cross me, you can be strung up right next to this man and his ragged little army.”

“That’s right,” Simon agreed. “I have an army. They know how to fight too, but maybe after I take over yours too, that will be enough to handle the challenges your domain faces.”

“You insolent little…” the Baron snarled as he stood and drew his sword. “You think you can take my seat just because you killed a few horsemen?”

“I’d planned to settle for silver,” Simon said with a smile, “but since you aren’t paying, I suppose that would be the next best option.”

The armed men around Simon had paused and were obviously unsure of what they should do. One particularly zealous guardsman looked like he wanted to punch Simon in the face, but even as he raised his mailed hand to do just that, the man next to him grabbed his arm and held him back with a shake of his head. “Let the Baron fight his own battles this time.”

Simon smiled at that as the Lord approached. He had no sword, but he drew his dagger and waited for the first attack as patiently as he could. He was going to enjoy this.