Chapter 42 Bonus Chapter: Noore The Terrible, Part 2

Noore’s hands trembled as she dragged another corpse through the village, to the fallow fields where she had started her graveyard. The winters in Utsnil were brutal. She had hardly come dressed prepared for them. Yarterex had supplied her with warmer clothes, and gloves, but no amount of insulation could truly spare her from this cold. The air blowing off of the ocean was as wet as it was frigid, and it never failed to strip the heat from her bones. It didn’t help that her work kept wearing holes in her gloves. 

She had already buried fifty eight bodies. The first few weeks were easier, when the earth was still pliable. It was imperative that she put the most time in then, so she could get the most work done while it was possible, and it had worked. Before winter set in, she was able to settle into a comfortable rhythm of burying three bodies per day. However, once the ground began to freeze, that story changed quickly. She was lucky to bury one in two days, now. 

Her penance was not served in solitude. Yarterex was never far, though he was hardly a social butterfly. He kept her fed, brought her supplies, and ensured injuries were tended to. He had been forced to heal many of her blisters in the first few weeks, until her callouses thickened enough to withstand the constant digging. 

The graves were not the only places she had to dig. Many days were spent carefully digging through the ruins of the many homes she had destroyed. Yarterex insisted she try to keep families together, so she had made a grid of the buildings, and been excavating each in order according to her system, after doing an initial sweep to get anyone laying in the open. Whenever she claimed she was finished, the dragon would examine the wreckage, sniff for any trace of additional corpses, and either tell her to move on, or point out one she had missed. 

The dragon wasn’t cruel, or distant. In many ways he seemed oddly friendly, considering the grim work he had assigned to her. She supposed he might be lonely, flying around the continent by himself. She thought most dragons had riders, maybe that was why. He even prayed to Tiamat every night, in the same tone that one of her men might write a letter home to their own grandparents. It was oddly endearing. 

The nightmare of her last night with her parents, thirty one years ago, plagued her every night, now. It felt more and more obvious why the burnt ruin had disturbed her so, upon her first arrival. It looked so close to how her old home had, when she and her brother had been caught by slavers, picking over the remains of the battle like a flock of vultures. She still wondered where he’d gone. She’d been sold to The Amethyst Eagles, a respected and esteemed company of mercenaries from out of southern Utsnil. 

Truthfully, she wasn’t sure where she was from, originally. She was too young to remember the name of the town. She was too young to remember even his name, or her own. Noore had been something the mercenaries gave her when they started her training, at the ripe age of five, she and eleven others. The old commander had some idea about training a new group of elite soldiers from the cradle. She supposed it worked. She’d killed him in a duel as soon as she had the merit to challenge him, and she had been the commander since then. 

Some of the others she’d been raised with thought it was cold. They regarded the man as a father. She had only ever regarded him as a superior officer, the way he had taught them. His last engagement in command had resulted in multiple tactical blunders, and unnecessary deaths, the same kind he had trained her to see as unacceptable. Removing him was the logical choice. The naysayers had been swiftly dealt with, regardless. 

Today she’d been digging through the remains of a barn on the edge of the village. It had snowed all night, burying everything in four feet of the blasted fluff. This was probably going to slow her progress to an absolute crawl with all the extra digging that would be required. “I’ll be lucky if I don’t have a coldmark by the end of this…” she muttered to herself as she scooped and tossed another shovel full over her shoulder. Now that was the last thing she needed. She still wasn’t sure what she’d do with herself at the end of all of this, and while she never quite bought the whole ‘cursed coldmark’ superstition (far too many coldmarked got forced into mercenary work to make ends meet for her to judge), it certainly wouldn’t make life easier for her. 

After a few more scoops, she finally hit something. She bent down, and began brushing aside snow with her gloved hands, trying to get a lay of the land beneath it. “Ah… there’s number fifty nine.” A spike of shame shot through her as she gazed upon the charred skull before her. It was another mouse, its mouth gaping open in pain. Yarterex had chosen his punishment well. Her cognitive dissonance couldn’t handle the material consequences of her actions from this distance. It had turned the statistic into a tragedy that left her puking behind the bushes more days than not. 

Whatever she did after this, it couldn’t be mercenary work again. She continued digging the body out, and managed to get her arms under it to put onto her sled. Somehow, the children’s sled had survived the blaze, even if its owners hadn’t. It helped her to bring the bodies over in batches, and make sure they went into the ground together. Hopefully this building wouldn’t have too many farm animals inside. The last thing she needed was for the bones to somehow get mixed up. 

The one favor the cold had done for her, was preserving the bodies. She didn’t know if she could handle moving them if they were actively decomposing. 

The sound of footsteps caught her attention. She thought that Yarterex was out hunting again. Who else could… She glanced up to the approaching figure, and found a ravenfolk staring her down from about two dozen feet away. The woman seemed to be in a state of shock, surveying the surroundings in abject horror. After a moment, her gaze shifted down to the sled, and the charred and frozen corpse laying atop it, curled in anguish, and she managed to squeak out: “K-Karys?”

“I-” Noore was at a loss. She had been here just over a month, and this was her first time meeting any sort of survivor. “I don’t… I don’t know.”

“What are you doing with him?” The words were a clear accusation. Noore knew how this looked. She knew looters were common enough after massacres like this. 

“I’m taking him to the... cemetery… that I’m digging, out in the southern field.” She gestured, out towards the wide field where she and Yarterex had decided was a fine resting place for them all. “I can show you.”

The woman drew a club, hands shaking. “Why should I believe you? How do I know you’re not- not-”

Noore glanced at the weapon, none too impressed. The woman was clearly trained, judging by her stance, but she was far too emotional to be a real threat right now. She could easily disarm and subdue- no. No. None of that, Noore. “Like I said, I can show you. I’ve marked every grave.”

With how the snow muffled the ambient sounds of the surrounding forest, the only thing Noore could hear was the raven’s ragged breathing. It was starting to make her own breathing quicken to match. “Are my- are my family there?” There was the question she was truly dreading. How could she sufficiently explain her… regret. The feeling still felt alien to her, as much as she’d been drowning in it since her duel with the dragon.

“I don’t- I’m not sure. I haven’t finished with the whole village.” It was a lie. She’d buried a family of four ravens already, on only her fifth day here.

“Please, help me check?” There was an implication in her words. Noore could tell she wanted the company, even from a stranger. The chance of her family making it out alive were slim. 

“Alright, I can do that.” Noore stepped out from the rubble, and gestured for the raven to follow. The raven headed for the exact house she was worried about.

Her stone marker was still visible through the snow, marking the building as number 3. The raven leaned down over it in confusion, before glancing up at her with confusion. “What’s this?”

“It’s… a system I put together, to match the graves to the house I found them in, since I don’t know who anyone is.” Noore wrung her hands around the handle to the shovel, face screwed up with shame. “I did… I did already bury these people. A woman, a man, and a… a teenager.”

“Take me to them,” the raven grabbed her by the shoulders, tears rolling down her cheeks and frosting up as their residue stuck along her feathers. “I need- I need to see for myself.”

“R-right. This way.” Noore didn’t move. She had frozen up completely at the touch of the other woman. Her gaze was so pleading, so desperate. She didn’t even know she was speaking to her family’s killer. After a moment, the raven seemed to realize, and withdrew back to herself to wait for the mouse to lead. 

Not a word was spoken on their trudge through the snow. Noore was traveling back and forth from the cemetery often enough that she’d worn a path down. Even if it was covered in snow now, she knew every step by heart, and the position of every headstone. It took some digging, but eventually she revealed the location of the three graves in question. 

“I- I think this one was the woman, this one was the man, and this one was the boy,” she pointed to each in turn. “I’m sorry if they’re-”

“No, no. Thank you. I-” the woman sobbed and dropped down to her knees, staring at the graves and their chiseled ‘14s’ in horror. “Can you help me add their names?”

“Y-yeah. Hold on.” Noore fumbled through her pockets for the tools in question. The large river stones were easy enough to carve numbers into, but whole names seemed far more challenging. She bent down by them each, and one by one chiseled each name in. Grenor. Ornxiri. Yatos. It was… barely legible, but the woman seemed thankful regardless. “Is there anything else I can do for you, miss…” she faltered, not knowing the name of the survivor. 

“Niroxi. Niroxi Crown,” the woman slowly pushed herself to her feet. “Father, G-Grenor,” she said the name, as if in an effort to preserve his legacy, “he used to say we were descended from royalty. Some… distant royal line, he was never consistent with where. Said we were the children of a string of youngest children, all left with nothing.” She paused, taking in the silence of the winter for a long moment, before forcing herself to finish the thought fermenting in her mind. “I guess… I’m the generation to break that tradition. This time, the eldest child gets nothing,” she let out a forced cackle, as if laughing might make it hurt less. 

“I’m sorry for your loss.” Noore didn’t know what else to say. That was the standard thing to say, wasn’t it? Maybe ‘my condolences’ would have gone over better.

“You have nothing to be sorry about. It’s not your fault.” Niroxi held out a hand, and brushed it against Noore’s cheek. “I can’t thank you enough for burying them. I- I can’t imagine if a wild animal had gotten to them instead.” Another moment passed in silence, Noore once again frozen at the touch. “Do you plan to bury the whole village?”

Noore managed to nod, cheeks flushing slightly as she felt the raven’s hand rub against her cheek. “I can’t go until I do.”

“Then let me help you. It’s my home. It’s my responsibility too.” The woman gently pried the shovel from the mouse’s fingers, and began walking back to the barn. “I didn’t get your name.”

“I-it’s Noore,” the former mercenary managed to lift her boots out of the snow they’d sunk into, and follow after her. “There’s- there’s something…” Why was she trying to say this? It would only cause unnecessary hardship, looking her parents killer in the eyes. 

“What’s that, Noore?” Niroxi turned back to her, eyes still wet, frozen tears sparkling in the winter sun. 

“I… all of this…” Noore gestured around her, slouching as she did, “it’s all my fault. I- I was the general who gave the order. My archers lit the arrows, it’s-”

She saw the shovel coming, but didn’t bother avoiding it. Niroxi had planted her feet well, and really given it her all. One of Noore’s teeth was even knocked loose. At least the snow caught her fall. There was enough of it to keep her from really getting hurt from it. However, there wasn’t enough to stop the raven’s assault. Kicks and further blows with the club rained down on her, curled up and covering her head. She’d endured worse in training. Niroxi must just need to get this out of her system. 

“You monster! What is this! Some sick- some- some kind of sick way of counting your kill count for you?” the woman screamed, delivering blow after blow. The woman had to be some kind of soldier with the placement and force of the kicks. She was no slouch. 

Noore didn’t hear Yarterex coming, but she did hear the raven’s squeak as she was unceremoniously scooped off of the ground and held in the air. The stony gray dragon towered above the two of them, easily forty feet long. It’s reddish-pink eyes just seemed annoyed as it carried the stunned raven back off to their campsite. It briefly glanced over its shoulder to make sure Noore was in a state to get back to work, and after seeing her stand and grab her shovel, huffed and continued on.

With Niroxi’s help, the entire village was laid to rest halfway through spring. It took some convincing, but Yarterex managed to get Niroxi to put up with Noore’s presence in order to join her in the work. 

The raven insisted on changing the process, and excavating the bodies all ahead of time, identified, and tagged ahead of time. She didn’t want to risk the spring thaw letting them rot, and instead stored them all in one of the intact cellars with plenty of snow and ice to preserve them longer once spring hit. After that, it became all digging, all day. 

At first the two spent most of their day in utter silence, talking only when the work necessitated it. Noore wasn’t sure if she would set the woman off again, and Niroxi seemed to think her a monster. The mouse supposed she wasn’t entirely wrong. 

Noore didn’t set out to convince Niroxi of anything. She had a job to do, and that was that. She was thankful for the help, and the company, even if it was silent, but she wasn’t going to beg for forgiveness. It may have started as an assignment under threat of death, but the longer she went, the more she felt truly obligated to finish it. Yarterex had certainly noticed the change. He spent longer stretches away, sometimes even a few weeks at a time, trusting her and Niroxi to finish the work. 

Eventually, in their last week of work, Niroxi cracked the question, “what are you going to do after this?”

Noore truly had no idea how to answer. She had become so single mindedly focused on her task that she’d forgotten she’d ever need to do something else. “I know I won’t go back to being a mercenary. That’s all I can say.”

“You know, burying one village you murdered won’t wash your hands clean,” the raven jabbed at her, trying to get a rise as she occasionally did. 

“Then I’ll find other ways to amend things.” It was a simple answer. She wasn’t sure how she would do it, she only knew that she would. “I don’t think burying every body that I’m responsible for in my entire life is possible, or pragmatic, though.”

“Then join the fight against Ordenia.” The idea was enough to get Noore to pause in her digging, and lean on her pickaxe in thought. She wasn’t truly sure if washing away blood with blood would work. It could mean fighting against her own men. People who she had considered brothers and sisters in arms. Nixori seemed to recognize her dilemma, and pressed further: “Every death and enslavement of invaded territories under Ordenia is your fault too, at least partially. They wouldn’t have expanded nearly as far without you. Even if you’re not fighting for them anymore, your actions are still causing suffering.”

Noore couldn’t argue that. Ordenia didn’t have its bloodthirsty reputation for nothing. She’d been enslaved under the same circumstances as a child, herself, as had her brother. There were still families out there, ones just like hers, being torn apart, killed, and enslaved. More orphans just like her were being funneled into it, child soldiers like her weren’t uncommon. She just got more personal attention from the old commander to make her more dangerous than others. “Yeah. Fine. When the last body is in the ground, I’ll join the defense in Ksorieka.”

“Then I’ll join you.” The raven continued her dig. “Technically I’ve been guilty of dereliction of duty for the last five months. I should get back to it too.”