Thorn tried to swallow down the lump that had developed in his throat.
“We have ta run,” said one of the other bounty hunters, a lad called himself Sly. “We gotta get the fuck out o' here!”
Six-Cities Ben cuffed Sly on the back of the head. “Shut up.”
Another wail, another drifting shape in the dark fog. Fog in the day was one thing, fog at night was an entirely different matter. The world seemed to simply end just a few feet in front of Betrim’s face. Another hiss, this one seeming to say
coooooooold
and then Betrim felt it, the fog turned icy, his breath misting in front of him.
“Ain't never dealt with wraiths,” he said, his voice cracking a little. Betrim coughed and spoke again, his voice more level this time. “Best way ta deal with the dead is ta chop the heads off. That an' fire.”
“Fire?” Six-Cities Ben asked.
Betrim nodded. “Aye.” He remembered that much. The two best ways to stop someone coming back from the dead. Wasn't so sure about sending them back to the dead once they were up and walking again but it seemed what worked for one probably held true for the other.
“Get a fire lit an' get some torches. Now,” Joan ordered his crew of hunters.
Henry pressed up against Betrim, he could feel her shaking but was glad of the closeness. Anders stepped up on Thorn's other side. “Boss?” The drunk sounded scared and rightly so. Weren't a man alive wouldn't be scared in this situation, he reckoned. “Any chance I can borrow that charm around ya neck?”
Betrim couldn't help himself, a strangled laugh burst from his lips though there was little humour in it. He plucked the charm from around his neck and handed it to Anders. “Be wantin' that back once we're done with these bastards.”
Thorn saw movement out of the corner of his eye and his head snapped around. A face drifted out of the darkness, grey and wrinkled and wretched. Its mouth was open and moaning, its teeth were broken or missing. Straw-like dead hair fell down around its skull framing the pallid flesh of its face. It didn't seem to have a body but a faint blue light glowed in the fog behind it. It was almost within reaching distance. A hand, shrivelled and pale appeared below it and reached out towards the group.
Ben was the closest to the wraith. He tried to back away and tripped over his own feet, landing on the cold, damp ground and scrambling backwards. A shoulder appeared out of the fog and then an emaciated torso. Betrim couldn't tell if the face was coming out of the fog or if it was the fog, twisting into grotesque shapes.
“Thorn,” Joan shouted and shoved a torch towards him. The bounty hunter had his back to the wraith, perhaps hadn't seen it yet. Betrim dropped his axe, grabbed the torched and shoved Anders out the way.
Pleeeeeeeeeeaaaasssseeee
. The wraith hissed at them.
Against every shred of better judgement he had the Black Thorn stepped towards the thing in the mist, waving the flaming stick in its direction. It let out a crying sob and floated back into the fog, disappearing entirely. Six-Cities Ben looked up at Thorn with wild eyes and mouthed something that could have been a thanks but no sound escaped his lips.
Someone was cursing, screaming. One of Joan's bounty hunters. Thorn turned just in time to see Sly's terrified face disappear off into the fog, dragged away by ghostly hands. Heavy-Hand Joan roared, picked up a torch in each of his heavy hands and charged after Sly, the light of the torches fading quickly as he moved away. No one followed him.
“There's another one!” Henry screamed.
Betrim span and leapt towards the wraith, swinging the flaming torch at its face and screaming in wordless fury and terror. The dead thing shrank back from the fire, wailing and hissing as it went.
Henry stepped up beside Betrim, a torch in her right hand and a dagger in her left. “You hit it? Looked like you hit it.”
“I... uh... dunno. Think it passed right through,” he said in a wild voice.
Betrim and Henry stepped back towards the group together. They all had torches now, formed a circle around the little fire; a ring of flame to ward off the wailing dead.
“Joan!” Six-Cities Ben shouted into the fog, trying to be heard over the wailing and the sobbing and the hissing. “JOAN!”
Another face drifted towards them from the darkness and Davet and Anders swung fire at it, forced it back from where it had come.
“JOAN!”
Betrim spotted a soft yellow light to his left and a moment later a dark figure stumbled backwards towards the group. Joan had lost one of his torches and he was swinging the other one before him as if trying to swat flies. He tripped and landed on his arse, a hand reaching out of the darkness just behind. It took hold of his foot and started dragging the bounty hunter back into the formless grey nothing. The Black Thorn and Henry rushed forwards, waving torches at the hand and the face behind it. Anders moved up after them and started dragging Joan towards the fire.
“He's cold,” Anders shouted. Betrim glanced back to see Joan was shivering, his skin pale as the frozen water folk called snow. His eyes were wide and unseeing and his teeth clattered against each other.
“Get him close to the fire,” Ben ordered Anders. “Get some blankets on him.”
Anders laboured alone; everyone else was busy at the borders of the small group, watching for more attacks. The wailing continued.
“Is he injured?” Betrim asked, not looking behind him.
“Um, don't think so, boss. Just really fucking cold.”
“Get him warm then!” Betrim ordered. Anders threw every blanket he could find on the big man and then lay his own body next to him to share his own warmth.
Betrim wasn't sure how long they stood there in a circle with their backs to the fire. All night maybe. At some point the darkness lessened and the fog became more grey than black. At some point the wailing and sobbing stopped. The wraiths had gone for now but Betrim would put all the bits he didn't have on them being back the next night.
Eventually Joan heaved himself to his feet. He had three blankets draped over his shoulders, was shaking like an old man and had dark bags under his eyes.
“We need ta get moving,” he said in a sombre voice. “Make as much distance as we can while it's light. Move quick as we can an' get ta Fogwatch.”
“Best we keep a fire at night, I reckon. Double the watch,” Betrim said.
Ben snorted out a humourless laugh. “Don't reckon any of us be sleeping again out here.”
“What about Sly?” asked another of Joan's bounty hunters, a middle-aged fellow named Bert.
Joan just shook his head.
An old man with a long spear and rusty iron armour sat at the entrance to Fogwatch. He looked up from chewing at his thumbnail just long enough to chuckle at the harrowed looks on the newcomers’ faces.
Anders stared one way then the other, maybe it was the lack of sleep or the pounding in his head from sobering up but the fog seemed to lessen here, he could easily see thirty feet in each direction except back into the Fade, a blanket wall of shifting grey shrouded what lay beyond the town limits.
“No walls,” Henry whispered in a raw voice. Last night she had taken to screaming at the wraiths as they attacked, hurling insults and curses that would have made even the most hardened pirate blush. It hadn’t scared the dead things off but it had emboldened the crew a little at least.
“Hey old man,” Thorn said. “You on guard here?”
The old man with the rusty armour slowly looked up from his thumb, glanced first to his left, then to his right. “Huh. S'pose I am.”
“We been harried by wraiths all the way here. They're followin' us,” Thorn said.
The old man chuckled. “Aye. They like ta do that ta tourists.” He went back to chewing at his thumbnail, dismissing the group gathered in front of him.
Anders saw Thorn go red with anger. “They took one of our group.”
The old man tore off a strip of nail and winced before spitting it onto the damp earth. “Ah. Cure for that just over there,” he pointed towards what Anders assumed was the centre of town. “
Weeping Widow
we call it. Good a place ta get yaself drunk as any, I reckon an’ pretty much the only place in Fogwatch.”
Now Anders could see Thorn was getting frustrated. “Maybe ya ain't hearin' me, old man. They chased us here, followed us. They'll be here tonight. Every fuckin’ night.”
Again the old man chuckled. “An' what do ya want me ta do about it? Wave my spear at em?” He gave his spear a lazy shake. “Go on. Off with ya. Making my damned job more of a chore than it bloody needs ta be.”
Thorn growled but started off towards the town and all the others fell in line. Anders heard the old man curse under his breath and say something about tourists before he hurried after Thorn.
“Uh, boss. About the...” Anders started.
“Later, Anders. We gotta warn someone 'bout the wraiths first. Gotta be someone in charge of this hell-hole.”
“Right you are. I suppose I'll just...” he gave the skin he kept hung around his shoulders a quick shake. There was a slight sloshing noise from within but it was little more than a mouthful. Anders sighed. Sobering up was always the worst part about getting drunk.
Heavy-Hand Joan appeared next to Thorn, followed, as always, by Six-Cities Ben. He seemed to have fully recovered from his own brush with the wraiths though he didn't talk about what he had seen out in the mist. “Ya got a plan, Thorn?” Joan asked.
“Aye. Reckon so. Warn the dumb fuck who runs this place that the wraiths are comin' then get the hell out o' here 'fore they arrive. Port Mercy lies a ways ta the south. From there we catch a boat ta Chade. Not a short trip but not near so long as the walk it would take.”
“Never thought I'd see the day the Black Thorn suggested getting on a boat,” Joan laughed.
“Had occasion ta be on a few of late. Sarth an' back. Ain't so bad long as ya ignore the fact everythin' in the blue wants ta eat ya an’ the weather is generally busy tryin’ to accommodate that desire.”
“Joan,” said Bert. The old fellow had dark bags under his bloodshot eyes, he hadn't been faring too well with the lack of sleep though truth was none of them were currently fairing too well. “Me, Davet an' Kip. We was wonderin' how long we're stayin' here for.”
Heavy-Hand Joan sniffed and looked at Thorn before responding. “It's late in the afternoon. Don't reckon we'll be leaving ta sit out there in the dark, had enough of that. Safer in doors for now. No mist, no wraiths. Tomorrow maybe.”
“We're gonna go find this
Weeping Widow
. Have a drink ta Sly. We owe him that much.”
Joan nodded and put one of his heavy hands on Bert's shoulder. “Aye. We'll be along as soon as we've finished our business.”
Before they left Ben fished out a couple of silver coins from a purse and pressed them into Bert's hand. “Drink to the fallen,” said Ben.
“We'll be joining them soon,” Bert, Davet and Kip finished in unison.
“Boss...” Anders started.
“Not now, Anders,” Thorn said.
Anders sighed as he watched Bert and the others walk off in the direction the old man at the town limits had indicated. It struck him that Fogwatch was a bit of a desolate little town. There weren't many folk around, out and about. Plenty of buildings, most wooden and rotting, many looked as though they were slowly being rebuilt with stone, but the people were scarce. Anders supposed they may be staying indoors, scared of the fog or of the wraiths or of the newcomers. He saw very few guards; strange enough for a town in the wilds to have no walls, even stranger for one to have no guards. Fogwatch, Anders decided, was one of the strangest places he had ever been and that included the floating city of Soromo.
“You got any idea where ya goin', Black Thorn?” Six-Cities Ben asked.
Thorn stopped, he had been walking straight in one direction but now looked first to his left, then to his right. “Not a fuckin' clue. Seen all of three folk since comin' across this crap-hole an' none o' them looked like they had any sort of authority.” Anders watched as Thorn took a deep breath, the type of breath someone takes just before he shouts something as loud as he can. Then he stopped, let out the breath in a large sigh and started walking again. Anders and the others hurried to catch up and spotted the same thing Thorn had; a group of people, somewhere close to twenty of them. At the centre of the group was a giant of a man, Anders guessed him over seven feet with a fair few inches to spare. He wore dirty leathers and a hilt of something no doubt large and metallic and dangerous poked out over his left shoulder. Next to the giant stood a smaller woman, standing a touch taller than Anders. She wore her long red hair in a tight bun and had a suit of chain mail that looked to be well maintained and even better used.
As Thorn walked towards the group a trio of armed and armoured soldiers split off and approached. They did not look like they were in the mood to let the Black Thorn pass.
“Bones,” Thorn shouted as the soldiers stopped in front of him. The giant glanced up and then away. The smaller woman next to him took a much longer look; in fact she didn't appear to be in any hurry to look away.
“Gonna have ta stop you there, friend,” said one of the soldiers, holding up a hand, his other resting on his sword hilt. Thorn stopped and gave the man a good glare.
“Big man over there is an old friend so hows about...” Thorn started.
“Right,” the soldier interrupted Thorn. “Tavern's back over that way. Don't wanna have ta escort you there.”
Anders noticed the woman next to the giant was still watching them; it seemed Thorn noticed it too. “Beth. Ya wanna tell these dumb bastards ta get out of my way or do I have ta show him what his guts look like?”
The woman just stared on through cold eyes but the giant glanced up again, squinted then bellowed out a laugh. “Ain't you supposed ta be dead?”
“So folk keep tellin' me,” Thorn replied, grinning at the big man.
The giant pushed through the crowd of soldiers and enveloped the Black Thorn in an awkward-looking embrace. When he let go Thorn had a smile on his face that Anders had rarely seen.
“You see this, Beth?” the giant shouted back towards the woman he'd been with. “Thorn's alive!”