Jeremy

It was nights like this one that reminded Jeremy that the frost season was rapidly approaching. Usually this meant that his meals would be a little sparser to offset the increased prices and that he would be doing a little bit of hunting on the side to supplement his meals. This year was a little different. This year was Jeremy’s first year tending field, assisting the Lupanes, and he was trying to help them bring in a few more crops before the frost set it. The town was still in its infancy and little in the way of food reserves beyond salted hedgehog.

At this moment Jeremy was sitting in the center of the modest sized plot of corn, listening for the intruders that had been vandalizing the farm recently. It only took it happening one time for Jeremy to start camping out in the field until he chased the intruders away, he owed that much at least to the town for offering him a haven and allowing him to live the rest of his life out peacefully, having had his fill of danger and violence in the dungeon.

Usually the vandals only showed up once a week or so, while most of the guards were off partying with the elf’s cult. Jeremy assumed they were teenagers just being assholes out of boredom, but he’d never caught them red handed. Personally, his prime suspect had been the neighbor’s son, Roger. The kid was hot headed, literally, and always had an impish look on his face. Having seen him attend the gathering with his father today, Jeremy was almost tempted to take the night off and sleep in his small dwelling on the property.

Almost.

Although the night was chilly, it wasn’t unpleasantly so and the night sky so far away from Ostlind was as clear as day. Thousands, if not millions, of stars twinkled down at Jeremy from the heavens above. The moon was conspicuously absent tonight, replaced by an almost imperceptible black circle set against the vast darkness of space. Eventually, Jeremy slowly drifted off to sleep in the chair he’d been sitting in next to the scarecrow.

When he awoke Jeremy was still staring up at the night sky. After several moments Jeremy figured out what was wrong with his previously serene picture. Instead of a black sky staring back down at him with its millions of twinkling eyes, the sky was colored orange and red. A split second later his hearing was returned to him as well and he heard the crackling of a large fire.

Without a second to spare, Jeremy leaned forward from his chair and started his mad sprint to the Lupane household with his pitchfork in hand. Although his movements began as sluggish they quickly sped up and smoothed out until he was running in top form. He’d been in shape while working the guard in Ostlind and that hadn’t changed much since his occupational shift to farmhand.

The large two story wooden structure was aflame, much as Jeremy had feared. It had not been burning for long, nearest Jeremy could tell, and he could see neither Davis nor his wife Kala outside of their home. In his mind, there was no choice to make here and his course of action had been mapped out the moment their home caught fire.

The front door was unlocked, much to Jeremy’s relief and confusion, so he let himself into the burning home. After a second of coughing Jeremy remembered his training and lowered himself to a crotch as he made his way forward. The only rooms he’d been in previously had been the dining room and lounge, after having been invited over for dinner by the Beastman family, so he wasn’t exactly sure where their bedroom would be located.

That little fire starter Roger had taken things too far this time, and he better pray to his little tree god that the Lupanes were okay.

Through watering eyes, Jeremy tried to observe his surrounds and figure out where the staircase would be to the second floor. Every now and again he was forced to step back because of a particularly thick patch of fire, or turn around at a dead end. His progress was painfully slow and every detour he had to make filled him with an icy dread to counter his scorched and cracking skin. His only hope was that Kala was manning the Inn tonight and that Davis was still there with her.

Finally, he found the staircase located in the back of the house. The fire hadn’t completely engulfed the stairwell yet so he was able to make his way up. Though flameless, the upstairs area was just as scorching hot, if not more so, having been filled with all the smoke rising thus far. The first two rooms he tried he found locked. He’d move on for now but come back if he didn’t find the bedroom sooner.

The next door opened to a room darkened with smoke. Without it being lit by the ambient light from the slowly encroaching fire, it took Jeremy several moments for his eyes to adjust. The room wasn’t a bedroom, or at least it wasn’t one yet. It was a medium sized room with a small window to the outside of the house and three constructions along the wall that looked to be well on their way to cribs. Jeremy hadn’t known that Kala was expecting and did not have the energy to process what that really meant yet. He needed to find her as fast as possible.

The farmhand rushed back into the hallway and attacked the last door with his shoulder, not even pausing to check if it was locked or not. He was far too frantic at this point, both from a lack of clean oxygen and panic over his new family’s situation. The door splintered and burst open as he threw himself into it and he tumbled in the room, narrowly avoiding injuring himself on his improvised weapon.

Once again his eyes had to adjust, but even before they did he knew something was wrong. The floor he’d landed on was damp and smelled of iron. With tears welling to his eyes that had nothing to do with the gathering smoke, he looked toward the bed that slowly faded into existence. Upon it he saw two shapes, two shapes he knew to be the Lupanes. Kala must have miscarried in her sleep somehow, and the blood he’d landed from was from that. Please let it be from that.

It was not. Both Davis and his wife Kala had been tied down to the bed and cut several times. For a long moment he stared at them, knowing that once again his life had taken a major turn for the worst. He contemplated just standing there and waiting for the fire to take him too, to finally end the existence that he’d never wanted.

A gurgling noise brought the human out of his reverie.

Staring up at him were Kala’s eyes, pleading with him for something. Her tongue had been cut out to prevent speech and probably to make it harder for her to yell. Every cut along both her and Davis’ body had been done away from a major artery, so they would bleed but not quickly. Whoever had done this wanted them to live through their house burning down, in as much pain as possible, and have no ability to escape.

A quick glance left showed him that Davis was also still among the living, if only barely. Immediately Jeremy started searching the room for something to help him. He was not a healer, even if he knew basic bandaging, and from the looks of the room they’d already lost far too much blood to be transported to a healer, even if the house wasn’t on fire. Of course he couldn’t run and get one either, on account of the flames licking away at the foundations and making their way up to the bedroom.

The brief glimmer of hope was for naught, there was still nothing Jeremy could do for the Lupanes. In that moment something inside of his chest snapped and he could feel that he was truly broken this time.

“Grggll. . .”

Jeremy looked down at his hand, which was clenching the pitchfork so hard that his knuckles were starting to strain. There may not be anything he could do to save the Lupanes, but there was one thing he could do for them. He could figure out who’d done this to them, and kill them in a much more gruesome fashion. Jeremy had never considered himself a creative man, but he figured he had the proper motivation to think something up this time.

He steeled himself and aligned his pitchfork to where a heart would be in a human anatomy. He’d never asked the Lupanes about their organ placement because, well why would he, so he only hoped it was similar. He started into Kala’s eyes as he provided her with the only mercy he could, a swift death.

It may have been a trick of the dim lighting, or just his own hopes making him see what he wanted, but he thought that she looked thankful. He gave Davis the same treatment and confirmed they had both died so they wouldn’t have to live to burn alive.

By this point the staircase had gone up in flames and there were no windows in their bedroom. Jeremy rushed over to the nursery, smashing the window with his pitchfork and then tossing it out. He then dragged himself over the window sill and fell down to the ground located a floor below.

He limped over to his pitchfork and picked it up before looking toward his neighbor’s farm. Much to Jeremy’s surprise, it was also on fire, as was much of the town in the near distance. He ignored the pull on the back of his leg and the strange sensation that he’d been feeling since discovering the Lupanes dying in their bed and sprinted toward town, pitchfork in hand.

Annahmia was under attack.