I - Harvest of the Dead

The axe struck the planks again and again until the wood split and the door gave way with a long, groaning creak.

When Raymund stepped inside, the stench of rot and death hit him at once.

Rats burst out of the shadows, scattering across the boards as his gaze swept the dim interior.

Finely carved tables and benches stood abandoned, while heavy tapestries hung thick along the walls.

Raymund smiled.

“Looks like fortune favors me. No one’s been here yet.”

A grand spiral staircase led him upward, from where he heard the loud buzzing of flies.

But he paid it no mind.

Instead, he crossed the room and reached for the curtains.

“Silk…”

With a sharp pull, he tore them free and turned to the bed, his grin widening.

“Seems you lived quite well, didn’t you?”

The bodies gave no reply.

Their hollow sockets simply stared upward, fixed upon the canopy above.

Raymund seized it and ripped it down without hesitation.

Then he dragged the bedding loose, sending the half-rotten corpses tumbling to the floor with dull, heavy thuds.

He paused, lifting a corner of the fabric and inspecting it with a frown.

“Hm… reeks. Stained too…”

A brief shrug.

“Melusine shall clean it.”

Not long after, he left, loaded with every scrap of cloth he could carry.

He piled it onto his cart, then clapped his hands once, satisfied.

“This will do.”

Whistling, he pushed the cart over the cobblestones, past houses already looted.

“It’s getting harder to find untouched places…“

With every step, his breath rose in faint mist as he left the ghostly district and passed through the unguarded city gates.

The outskirts seemed less deserted, but even here many wooden and timber-framed houses stood empty, locked up, or already picked clean.

A few dogs tore at a corpse swollen with black buboes, fallen from a death cart.

Somewhere, a door creaked open. Two pairs of eyes peered through the gap, watching him.

Farther down the road stood a solitary, cloaked figure, a bundle of herbs held over his mouth as though to ward off the air itself.

“A plague attendant? I thought none were left here…“

Raymund gave him a passing nod, but the man’s gaze darkened when it dropped to the cart.

He spat into the dirt.

“...Pillager.”

Raymund heard him but didn’t care.

Instead, he just smiled as the wheels of his cart rolled over the increasingly muddy road.

“Call me what you like, you fool“, he muttered. “Someone has to make use of what the plague leaves behind.”

Eventually, the last buildings disappeared behind him, and the road led into a dense forest.

Shallow graves lined the path at the edge of the woods, where a rotting fence marked the boundary of land long abandoned.

At last, he crested a low rise, from which he could already see the estate, nestled at the forest’s edge, beyond a narrow stream.

Raymund slowed, taking it in with quiet satisfaction.

“A fortunate find…” he murmured, remembering when he and Melusine had come upon it weeks ago.

He pushed onward.

The stables came first. Inside, heaps of fabric had already begun to pile high.

The main house stood beyond. Its door sagged crookedly on its hinges as he forced it open and stepped inside.

He had barely shrugged off his coat when he heard a soft, steady dripping behind him.

Water.

When he turned, a shape was already rising from the floorboards. Soon a head formed of water lifted from them, its wide eyes fixed on him.

“My beloved…” the voice came, distant and muffled, as though spoken from beneath the surface of water.

“Melusine,” he said sharply. “Didn’t I tell you to make a fire?” he snapped. “And look at this place, it’s exactly as I left it.”

The trickling deepened into a quiet bubbling as her form gathered itself, rising higher, drawing substance from the spreading water beneath her.

A body followed, translucent and wavering, until she stood before him, her shape roughly taking the form of a woman.

Her gaze lowered.

“I… I’m… glug… sorry…” she murmured. “I tried… just as you asked…”

She gestured toward the hearth, where flint and tinder lay useless in a shallow puddle.

“But it wouldn't catch… glug… no matter how often I tried…”

Raymund exhaled, rubbing at his temple.

“I should never have let the fire die in the first place…”

He waved it off, then beckoned her closer.

“No matter. Clean me of the miasma now, before the plague takes hold. I was exposed to quite a lot today…”

Melusine inclined her head.

“Yes… my beloved…”

She flowed toward him at once.

Her limbs stretched and coiled around him, enveloping him entirely as her cold pressed against his skin.

Forehead met forehead. Lips found lips.

Then her long, dripping tongue slipped into his mouth, wet and slick.

Already accustomed to her way of cleansing him, his hands drifted along her form.

More limbs formed from her body, slipping around his waist and loosening his belt.

But just before they could fully give in to each other, Raymund suddenly tensed, pulling away from her damp embrace.

“What... glug ...is it?” she asked, startled.

“Someone’s there.”

In a single motion, he tightened his belt and seized the sword resting against the wall.

Melusine tilted her head.

“Someone?”

Raymund had already moved to the door where he peered through the narrow gap.

Two men stood outside.

One wore a patched gambeson and an iron helm, a crossbow held ready in his hands. An unfamiliar badge marked his chest.

He looked at the other man, and immediately recognized him.

The plague attendant.

Raymund stepped outside.

“See?” the man hissed immediately. “This pillager has taken this place! He likely murdered the owners as well.”

The constable nodded grimly, raising his crossbow.

“By order of Bailli Henri de Vertecolline, state your name and what right you have to this property. Quickly.”

Raymund didn’t answer.

Instead, his grip tightened on his sword as he sighed.

“Fools.“

Then he charged.

Startled by the sudden attack, the constable fired too hastily.

The bolt flew, grazing his cheek as he raised his sword and brought it down in a diagonal strike.

The blade cut through cloth and flesh alike.

Blood burst out, what belonged inside spilled out with it.

Gasping, the constable collapsed into the dirt, while the plague attendant staggered back, eyes wide with horror.

“Murderer!” he screamed.

When Raymund’s cold gaze locked onto him, he fled up the slope.

He slipped, falling, scrambling in blind panic.

When he dared glance back, Raymund stood still, watching.

“You cursed devil…”

Then he stopped, as something blocked his path.

A shape of water, watching him.

“Holy Mother of…”

Water closed around his head in a single motion, swallowing his cry. It forced its way into his mouth, his nose, his lungs.

He struggled desperately, but his hands couldn’t break through.

At last, his limbs fell still and Melusine released him.

His body slid back down the slope, limp, until it came to rest at Raymund’s feet.

Her mouth twisted into a grotesque grin, stretching unnaturally wide across her face.

“Did I do well, my beloved?”

Raymund drove his blade into the man’s chest without hesitation.

Then he returned her smile.

“Yes. You did.”

Her laughter followed.

A strange sound, almost like a gurgling, echoing through the forest's edge.

***

Some time later, a spade slid into the damp, loose soil surrounding the estate, lifting clod after clod from the ground until the pit was deep enough.

“That should suffice,” Raymund muttered, leaning on the handle as he caught his breath.

He seized the first body by the ankles and dragged it to the grave.

The second followed soon after.

For a moment, he stood in silence at the edge of the pit, looking down at the naked corpses.

“Fools…,” he muttered once more before he set to work again, shoveling earth over them until nothing remained but a patch of freshly turned soil.

When he was done, he gathered their discarded clothes and carried them back toward the stables.

Even before he reached them, he could hear the splashing sound of water.

Melusine stood amid the heaps of salvaged fabric, her arms extended as streams of water arced outward from her, cascading over cloth and linen alike.

She hummed as she worked, a low, resonant melody.

Raymund stepped inside and cast the clothes onto the growing pile.

“When you are finished,” he said, “draw a bath for me. We leave at first light.”

Melusine faltered, her form shivering.

Her head turned once upon itself, her large eyes fixed on him.

“So soon?” she asked softly. “But… glug… I like it here.”

The water around her stirred, rising and falling in gentle currents.

“The air… it is cool. Damp. It pleases me.”

“It’s no longer safe,” said Raymund curtly. “Others will come.“

“Then… then we shall slay them,“ she said, her voice brightening faintly. “As we did before.”

Another arm formed from her back, stretching toward him, her cool fingers brushing along his cheek.

Raymund smiled, though his expression did not soften.

“We can’t slaughter the whole world…”

“And why… glug… should we not?” she pressed, the water around her beginning to surge more violently.

“Because there would be no one left to take coin from,” Raymund replied. “This plague will not stay forever. Folk are already returning to the cities, and with them come laws, and men eager to enforce them. But where order returns, so does trade.“

He gestured toward the fabrics.

“If the rumors are true, the markets in the South are already stirring again. That is where we shall sell these goods… and begin anew.”

Raymund stepped closer, his voice softening.

“Or have you forgotten your dream… the one I promised you?“

Melusine stilled, the water fell silent.

“My dream…”

Her hand drifted downward, gliding over her middle.

Beneath the translucent surface, something moved.

A faint, reddish shape, round and softly pulsing.

Then slowly, she lifted her gaze to his.

“If you grant me my wish…” she said, her voice quiet now, almost reverent, “I will follow you wherever you go… my beloved.”

Raymund’s eyes lingered there, just for a moment.

“Come then,” he said. “Keep me company at my bath. And we shall try again.”

For a heartbeat, she did not move.

Then her expression brightened as the water surged upward around her, lively once more.

“Yes… my beloved!”