Chapter 339: The Pyre

The area was large and relatively flat, situated away from the main settlement, near the edge of the forest. The sight immediately caught Darion’s attention as he cleared the final line of buildings.

The corpses.

Bodies had been gathered into several enormous piles across the open ground. Vrethkan warriors had already spent hours collecting the dead from the streets, the alleyways, and the battlefields where the fighting had been thickest. Some were still carrying bodies toward the piles, while others were arranging them with grim, methodical care. They worked in silence, their faces pale, their movements heavy.

The atmosphere was strangely quiet. There was barely any sound.. No cheering or celebration either. Just people doing what needed to be done.

Darion stopped for a moment, his boots sinking slightly into the soft dirt. Seeing the bodies gathered in one place hit him differently than seeing individual people fall during the chaos of battle.

Yesterday, they had been moving, screaming, fighting, and bleeding. Today, they were completely still. They were just objects now. Meat and bone and ruined armor.

One of the warriors approached Darion, his face smeared with soot. He gave him the number they had counted so far.

"Five hundred and five."

Darion looked toward the piles again. The sheer scale of it was staggering. "Five hundred and five..." He repeated.

The warrior nodded. "Mostly warriors, m’lord."

Darion gave a slow nod. Five hundred and five. He wasn’t surprised. In fact, considering the scale of yesterday’s battle, he might have expected more. His undead had overwhelmed Vrethka’s forces with brutal, mechanical efficiency.

But he had deliberately stopped the fighting once Dross was dead and the settlement surrendered. He thought about that. It could have been much worse. If he hadn’t killed Dross when he did, the fighting probably would have continued. If the warriors hadn’t surrendered, his undead would have kept advancing, kept killing, until there was no one left to swing a sword.

More people would have died. Perhaps hundreds more. It would have crossed a thousand. In a strange, grim way, killing Dross had ended the battle faster than killing everyone could have. It was a cold equation, but it was the truth of war.

Darion looked more closely at the piles. The vast majority were armed men. Warriors. Fighters who had taken up weapons against him. Very few civilians appeared among the dead.

That mattered to Darion. He remembered the settlement from yesterday. The women, the children, the families watching from their homes. People who had never picked up a weapon against him. Darion had specifically tried to keep his undead away from them whenever possible.

He thought about how another invading army might have handled the situation. Some conquerors didn’t care.

They would enter a settlement and slaughter whoever they found. They’d burn houses, kill children, attack families simply because they belonged to the enemy.

Darion didn’t see himself as that kind of person. He had fought the people who fought him. The warriors. They had chosen to stand against him. They had carried weapons. They had joined Dross’s war.

Darion might not have been merciful during the battle, but he hadn’t deliberately turned it into a massacre of civilians. A small, dark thought crossed his mind: ’At least I can say I fought them fairly.’

Marrick noticed what Darion was looking at. He didn’t need to say anything; the distinction between the armed dead and the absence of the innocent was obvious.

One of the warriors explained that preparations were almost complete. Darion asked what remained. The warrior pointed toward the corpse pile. "The fuel has already been poured."

Darion looked toward the bodies. The warrior explained that the fuel would help the pyre burn properly. In Vrethka, the dead were not buried. They were returned to nature through fire. Their ashes were left behind rather than their bodies being placed underground to rot.

Then came the part Darion didn’t expect. The warrior handed him a torch. "It is tradition that the one who defeated them lights the pyre."

Darion stared at the torch. Then at the warrior. Then back at the torch.

’...What?’

For a moment, Darion suspected a trick. His mind immediately went to the worst possibilities. Are they mocking me? Maybe they’re angry. Maybe this is some strange attempt to humiliate me. Maybe they’re expecting me to feel guilty. Maybe there’s some hidden meaning behind making the person responsible for their deaths light the fire.

He didn’t immediately move. The torch felt heavy in his hand. The warriors were watching him, their faces unreadable.

Darion quietly asked the system, his thoughts a sharp whisper in his mind: ’Is this actually a Vrethkan tradition?’

[Confirmed.]

[Lighting the funeral pyre is traditionally performed by the victor who defeated the deceased warriors.]

Darion blinked. So they really weren’t mocking him. He looked at the warriors again. None of them were laughing. None of them were smirking. They genuinely expected him to do it. It was a sign of respect. A final acknowledgment of the warriors who had fallen.

Darion slowly accepted the torch.

He stepped toward the corpse pile. Marrick remained nearby, watching silently, his face pale. The Vrethkan warriors stood around the open ground. Some lowered their heads. Others simply watched Darion.

Darion looked down at the bodies one final time. Five hundred and five. He didn’t know their names. He didn’t know their families. He didn’t know what kind of lives they had lived. But they had been people. And yesterday, they stood against him.

He took one final breath. Then he lowered the torch.

For a second, nothing happened. Then....WHOOSH! The flames caught the fuel. Fire raced across the pile, a hungry, living thing that consumed everything in its path. Smoke rose rapidly into the air, thick and black. Within moments, the entire mass of bodies was engulfed in flames. THOOM! The sudden burst of fire made several nearby warriors instinctively step back.

Darion stood motionless before the burning dead. The orange glow reflected across his face. Marrick silently watched beside him. The sound of crackling fire filled the open ground.

And Darion simply watched.