Chapter 6

Andrew knew it worked as the raw lye soap tended to burn his skin if he got it on himself undiluted while cleaning with it. Andrew stood still and allowed his brothers to wash the burning blood off his skin. He wasn’t sure which hurt worse before they finished, the blood or the soap. This also proved to be a rare time he was able to compare himself to his brothers. He had not realized of late that he was about the same height and build now. Andrew stood at just shy of six feet, with shoulders to match with a strong set of well-defined muscles to show for years of fieldwork and now brush clearing. His waist was narrow and his stomach showed solid muscles as well with little fat to mar the surface. His legs now, they were very well muscled and defined from a life of hard farm labor. He took a moment and wet his hair, running some of the foam into it to wash his head. His hair tended to get oily if he didn’t keep it clean. He did insist on keeping it short, not letting it run down to his shoulders as his brothers had. He felt his dark brown looked better short. Another thing he preferred to be staying cleanly shaven. Beards made for an itchy face he had discovered the previous year when he allowed it to grow out for a time. Covert glances also showed he now matched his brothers in other areas of size as well.

As they worked to remove the burning blood, Lann entered the showers and stripped to get any blood off himself from moving the corpse. “Now we know what was special about the items in the cask.” He dropped the small figurine with a tiny reddish colored gem in the belly on the washboard at the door and began scrubbing his arms. As the blood rinsed away, the water smoked and turned black for a few seconds before the power in it was diluted enough to no longer be a serious threat. “It’s a demon figure of some sort boys. I’ve never seen one like this before in all my travels, so I don’t know which one it is. I can tell this much though, it’s old, very, very old.” He had just finished scrubbing the spots that had been hit with the blood when Lorna walked in on the naked men.

Andrew didn’t have the strength to feel embarrassed at his nudity in front of his mother. His brothers quickly grabbed towels to cover themselves. She saw Andrew’s distress and began to use her weak amulet healing stone. At first, she felt resistance to it then slowly she gained ground and began to cure her son of the poison of the blood. She hadn’t finished when the power of the stone failed. “I wish I could get in touch with Minda, should have made me a new and better healer than this old relic.” She looked at her husband who was standing next to the door, dressed now and ready to leave. “Andrew,” she said, “Hold your sword and it will help even more than I can son.” She turned and started to leave the shower when she spotted the figurine on the ledge by the door. “That is one truly evil bit of work from the look and feel of it. I’ll get my bag of trinkets and store it in there for now. It’ll shield us from the effects of the dark energy it’s giving off. At least I hope it will.” She left the room, not touching one of the objects of tonight’s trouble.

Andrew looked around, not seeing what he was looking for, he staggered towards the door. “Hold it, Andrew,” said Wendel. “You’re too weak from the poison to be running around outside.”

“Sword,” whispered Andrew in a horse and pained voice. “Need sword from the yard.” He staggered again as he tried to go outside.

Lann frowned now. “You dropped it as I tossed you in the trough, so it’s in the corral.” He took Andrew by the arms and half carried, half dragged his son to the gate. He could see the sword next to the trough in the mud, but the mud had a sickly red glow in it, very faint, but visible in the darkness. “Damn, the corral has been poisoned.” He turned and yelled back at the family, “Everybody out here, we need to get all the animals out into the fields right away!”

The animals did not fight the attempt to move them away from the poisoned grounds, they could smell the decay and didn’t like it at all. Andrew bent down and fell to his knees as he tried to pick up the sword. Grasping it he asked the sword if it could help him. The sword remained silent, but Andrew felt a sudden flow of healing energy rushing up his arms and through his body, washing away the toxic effects of the stranger’s blood. When the effects faded, Andrew was able to get back to his feet. He still felt weak but knew now he would be alright later in the day. Andrew went back to the body and looked at it closely. Even as he studied it, it began to dissolve into a cloud of thin dust that blew away on the night breeze. In minutes it was completely gone, leaving only a dent in the grass and a dark red stain from blood in the soil. Andrew noticed several items on the ground that had not dissolved with the body. Coins, bits of metal, a rapidly rusting dagger, and a small oblong smooth stone. ‘I bet that is the glowstone.’ he thought. With the sword tip, he worked the stone away from the dead grass. Once in the living grass, he watched it to see if it was contaminated. After a minute, nothing happened, so he picked it up with a bit of cloth at the edge of his nightshirt. Something about it was off, he wasn’t sure what, one side was smooth, the other was etched with letters. LF is all he could make out. ‘Maybe the person that made the stone,’ he thought and pocketed it.

Lorna looked her son over to see if he needed any more help. “Just water mother, I have a terrible thirst all of a sudden.” He returned to his tent and pulled out the pack with his water skins. He also placed the stone in an upper pocket for later examination. Only one was still full so he drank all it had. Lorna took the two empty skins as he drank and began refilling them at the pump.

With his thirst taken care of for the moment, he returned to where the body had been. He saw that all the grass and soil that had had the body on it had also dissolved away completely now, leaving a deeper depression in the packed dirt. Only one spot remained and he backed away from it slowly. On the slightly raised pile of dirt, another small crystal rested that he had missed on his first examination of the hole. Looking closely without touching it, he could see it was smaller than his pinky fingernail, but he was able to easily see it from the faint glow it gave off. The light was not steady though. It was waxing and waning quickly, almost as if it were powered by the beating of a living heart. “Mom. Dad. Come over here, quick,” he called. When they arrived he pointed at the shard. He could see it was like the shard in the figure, it seemed to have the same feel and pulsed in the same disturbing manner, like a heart beating.

Lann let out a grunt that had a touch of fear in it. Lorna began cussing in a very unladylike manner. “Both of you, stay away from that thing. I’ll be right back.” She ran off to the house and both men backed away further from the glowing crystal shard. Lann waved the rest of the family back so they wouldn’t be close enough to be hurt if something bad happened. A minute later she came running back out, carrying her old travel pack with her. Lann just nodded and she opened the pack and pulled out a small metal box. Andrew could see by the color it had to be lead. They watched as she pulled out a pair of tweezers that had an oddly shaped grip. She carefully lifted the tiny shard and dropped it in a small vial she had removed from the box. She sealed the vial with a cork stopper, then began to wrap the vial in a thin sheet of metal. Once the vial was fully wrapped, she set it in a compartment in the box. She closed the lid and added another vial of mixed powders into a slot on the top of the box. Once ready, she inserted a burning brand into the slot then closed the cover. Before the lid closed though, Andrew saw a flash of light inside the box.

“What was that you added to the box Mother?” he asked.

“It is an alchemist mix of powdered metals that burn when mixed and set ablaze. It will melt the lead wrap, sealing that nasty little gem away from the outside world.” She lifted the cover and saw the flames had gone out. “Good, it still works even after all this time.” With a pair of tongs, she opened the box and lifted the still glowing metal blob from the slot. Andrew got a good look at the box now. The slot had stone lining it, not metal. Whatever the mix had been, it would have melted the lining had it been metal. She quickly poured water on it, cooling and hardening the metal around the vial. She then slid the metal into a silk bag and they all felt a sudden release as if the pressure had been removed from them.

“Now for the figurine.” She took it and wrapped it in the foil, repeating the process. “In case you are wondering, the figure is of a minor demon thought to have once tried to take over the lands far across the western sea. What became of it has been lost in time, but now we know it’s still alive and gaining power. The gem is a power stone of some sort. It draws energy from those around it and feeds it to the holder of the rest of the stone.”

She then added the silk pouch to the box and closed it and all the feelings of wrongness vanished, fading like a sour odor in the breeze. Once the box was safely sealed and returned to her locked chest in her room, she returned to assist with the animals that wanted to return now that the feeling that had them spooked, to begin with, had gone away. The problem was the soil that was contaminated. The men all soon had shovels and the women manning the wheel barrels to haul the rotted dirt to a new pile of brush next to the road. They would burn it once the sun was up.

Andrew looked at his wounds and saw they had closed up and only faint scar’s remained, but he felt tired and very hungry. Lorna saw him looking and sat down next to him, “You’re tired and hungry. That’s the effect of rapid healing. You need to go inside and eat the remainder of last night’s meat, that will help you get over the hump, then several hours sleep to recharge on.” She pulled at him and he rose to his feet, not arguing about it. Once inside, he opened the cooler box and saw the large bowl with all the cooked rabbits he had captured the day before during one of his laps around the fields.

He added a thick chunk of bread with butter and a small jug of chilled milk. Before he knew it, the bowl was empty, the entire bread box emptied and all the milk drunk. He felt full to the point of bursting, yet he knew his body needed it. His mother came in and saw the damage he had done to the ready foods and smiled, shaking her head ruefully. “It’s a good thing we have several loaves rising overnight or the rest of the family would be rather upset with you for eating everything in the cooler box.”

Andrew looked up at her, not quite understanding what she was talking about until he looked at all the empty dishes on the table. “Oh Mother, I’m sorry. I didn’t even realize I was eating so much. I just had to eat until full, and I just couldn’t get full.” He stood and carefully started to stack the plates and bowls to move them to the sink. “Sit boy, you’re still weak from everything that’s been happening to you overnight.” Lorna moved to gather the dish’s when both girls all came in together, somewhat mussed from hauling and dumping the wheelbarrows.

Seeing what their mother was doing, they converged on the table, gathered the dish’s and in a few minutes had them washed, dried and put away in the cabinet where they belonged. As all this happened, not a word was spoken or glance given in his direction. When done they continued to the girl’s rooms to shower and get ready for what was going to be a very long day. “Well, that was easy,” said Lorna. “Off to bed with you boy, you need rest.”