We treaded down for three days straight with a couple hours rest in between, where we ate the last scrap of meat I had in store. And we were at the bottom of the mountain in no time. “Haah!” I sighed heavily, “It was easier than climbing up, keeping aside that sudden landslide, the down slopes probably helped.”

“Wuf!” Fennyx gave a drowsy reply and I concurred. We were both incredibly tired from all the trekking, yearning for a place to rest and a hefty feast fill up our growling stomachs.

We had walked for about six miles, when we saw the sheds of houses in front of us. The mountain was still in sight behind me. I wasn’t expecting a village to be so close to the mountains. But it seemed like luck was on our side.

As we were sprinting towards the village, enthused to just see human settlement, I noticed smoke coming out of the shed. It wasn’t visible from far away because of the moonless night, but as we went closer, it became more and more evident that something had happened. I ordered fenrir to get into my shadow and not come out in front of the humans. I figured they might be suspicious of him and would throw us out. Although it’s not like they’ll figure out he’s a fenrir.

I dashed to the village and it became more and more clear to me.

The village was in absolute shambles; fence broken, doors fallen, windows shattered, crops destroyed, cattle dead, houses burned down, and people killed. And a silent fire pit smoking in the middle of it all. It seemed too eerie to be true, but I was standing there. Nothing could’ve made me believe this wasn’t a horrifying work of the

I could guess the fire had just extinguished by the cold night winds.

“Who… did all this?” A dormant memory was triggered inside of me. I remembered the faces of my family, the butler, the guards, the burning mansion. And the faces of the culprits who did it.

“Arf!” To my notice, Fennyx had come out of my shadow and his bark snapped me out of it. I didn’t know if it was intentional or not but I commended him for waking me up.

I didn’t tell him to go back in my shadow as we inspected the village of what frightening thing had occurred. Down below, at small distance, I could see a man, half cut, dragging his body around.

I was astonished to see, a man with his waist cut off, still alive and able to move. I noticed the expression on his face as he crawled towards me, it was of immense pain. His eyes were blacked out, mouth wide opened; he seemed to be trying to say something.

I unsheathed my sword as he practically looked like a ghost to me, if not a monster.

“Kiiii eeee” I couldn’t decipher what he was saying because of the course voice he was making. Maybe his vocal cords were also damaged.

I crouched to listen to what he had to say, as he held my ankle indicating to do so.

“Killl meee!” he screeched.

I impulsively stood up after hearing his request as it was unheard of. If he could still stay alive after having his half body slashed, he should probably live. I wondered.

But I couldn’t look at his painful eyes and the sickening sight. I prepared myself as decided to comply with his request.

I closed my eyes, sword pointing to his head, I just wished to end his suffering. “May the lord forgive him for his sins, and accept him to under your asylum.” I prayed for him and sliced through his brain. A tear rolled down his eyes as I checked his face to make sure he was dead.

I tracked the path he came from and it directed me to burned down house. I went inside surveying, with torn clothes and lot of blood, there was a woman laying down there, almost naked. She was probably raped. I went ahead and checked her pulse. And killed.

I could almost guess who’s work it was. Not like I knew them but it was sure done by a group of bandits.

From house to house, I examined if there were any signs of life remaining. But there was nothing, except a little kid, standing in the midst of it the village, gazing at the clouded sky.

I walked over to him, trying to initiate contact, but his eyes said it all. His mouth wide open, and eyes whited out, he was standing unconscious.

“Should we take him with us? Till the next village we find? Or….” I asked Fennyx as if hadn’t already though of the answer.

“Arf!” Fennyx barked furiously, implying that we should take down the ones who did it.

“No! We don’t have any obligation to take revenge for them. Besides, everyone is already dead, and we don’t even know where those bandits went.”

“Arf! Arf!” He replied crossly.

“So? What do you want me to do? Just run about out in the open after some crooks who I haven’t even seen? I know you can smell them but only if they’re nearby. What if they’re miles and miles ahead?

“Wuuf!” Fennyx knew he couldn’t oppose me, and had run out of plausible arguments.

“Let’s first think about what to do with this child.”

I held him by his hair and slapped him continuously to bring him out of unconsciousness. His pulse, though faint, was still there.

There was no rage or ambition in his eyes. Just plain dull. If left alone….

“Well, on the second thought, let’s think about it later.” I closed his eyes and laid him down in one of the houses.

I wasn’t a religious man, but I felt a little too compelled to check inside the small cathedral erected in the village.

The condition of cathedral, when seen from inside, wasn’t so much different from those houses I came across before. Everything around from gate to benches to windows was wrecked, and the priest – killed. His body rested against the statue of his lord. Tracing the god’s scripture, I realized there wasn’t any head over its figurine.

“Fwueue!” I whistled, “Let’s go look there.” I murmured, pointing towards a door towards the back of the church.

We sneakily moved around to the end of the cathedral, as to not disturb the silence and tamper with the evidence.

“This must be the orphanage!” I imparted as I saw the bodies of the children laying dead in the hall. “Terrible!”

I picked up the photograph frame resting face down on the ground, just adjacent to the chest of drawers.

The picture had the faces of quite a cute children, a smiling priest and a beautiful nun. It also had the kid I saw outside in it. It seemed as if he too was an orphan here.

Looking at all the corpses in the village, I came to a rough count of fifty people living here previously. I had originally planned to bury all the carcasses but it looked too much work to do so.

We were too exhausted to individually dig their graves so we  dug a huge grave at the back of the village – thirty feet deep and twenty meter long. I carefully placed first ten cadavers and evenly covered it in soil. Then again placing the next ten bodies, we repeated the process till the last seven bodies remained. Blanketing in soil, and thinking that my work was done I craved for a dip.

I had already spotted a well at corner of the village, and went forward for a water bucket longing for a nice wash after burial. I pulled down the bucket hanging on the well but it didn’t hit any water. I pulled up the bucket and it was empty, having not a single drop of water more than it already had when I flung it down.

But I could hear water stirring when the bucket went in; and neither the bucket touched a hard ground. Curious to see what lied in there, I threw a small fire to check its nature. However, the fire extinguished before even reaching the end, but I did catch a glimpse of it. To confirm my suspicion, I fired a small lightning bolt to the well walls. Sure, it wasn’t as bright, but it’s certainly radiant than my other elemental affinity. The bolt repetitively deflected, bouncing off the water walls to create light effect, eventually enabling me to see what was inside.

“Sigh! I’m not taking accountability for that.” A dead woman’s body was lying there. She must’ve jumped in the well to protect her body. Well, that’s just one possibility.

I fired a dark flame arrow to cremate it, but I still had my doubts, if it’d work. The dead body was still wet, so I wasn’t really sure if my dark flame would ash that.

I checked other houses for water but my efforts were futile. Even water in the cathedral, in which they admit people to religion and ‘wash away their sins’. Unsurprisingly, the water there too wasn’t clear, but deep red, as if it connected a straight path to netherworld..