The Scourge (Kindle Serial) Read Free Page A

spotted you.” He is a peasant, with shaggy black hair and a patchy beard.
    “How can we help you?”
I ask.
    “My daughter. She’s
trapped. One of those monsters chased her into our house. Come quickly!”
    Many people say that chivalry
is a dying notion. That honor is dead. This may be true. But no knight I have
ever known can resist a maiden in distress. And though my every thought is to
continue north, toward Elizabeth, I find myself thinking about how close this
village is. How easy it would be to dispatch one afflicted man and be on our
way.
    The peasant clasps his
hands together. He has three black circles tattooed onto his right hand above
the thumb. They are odd things to mark your skin with. “Please, m’lords. My
sweet Allison. She’s my only daughter.”
    And that
is the final argument. The name thunders in my ears. I draw my sword and nod to
the peasant. “Take us to Allison.”
    The thud of our horses’
hooves is the only sound in the village. The settlement seems deserted.
Half-eaten bodies lie scattered everywhere. No one has cleared them. No one has
burned them. Morgan pulls his tunic over his nose. The peasant walks ahead of
us, looking back over his shoulder time and again to make sure we follow. He
holds one hand over his nose.
    “My neighbor, Thomas,
he got afflicted,” the peasant says as he walks. “He went into our house while
I was getting wood. My Allison, she was inside. She got herself into the
cellar, through the trapdoor. But Thomas, he’s in the house! My Allison can’t
come out with him inside!”
    He runs ahead and we
follow.
    “He lives here with
his daughter? In this stench?” Tristan gazes to either side, then back to the
peasant, ten paces ahead. “He seems a bit off to me. Why didn’t he stand
outside the house with a scythe and call Thomas out? Maybe he’s out to ambush
us.”
    “Honestly, Tristan,”
Morgan says, “is there anything you trust? This man is obviously a farmer. See
the fields? He’s spent his life working a three-crop rotation and tending to
his family home. He’s never killed anything larger than a pig, and you want him
to take a blade to his neighbor? The Lord says thou shalt not kill. Some people
still respect the Word of the Lord.”
    “So he tells us to kill his neighbor, instead,” Tristan says. “I understand how it works now.
Thank you, Sir Morgan.”
    The peasant takes us
to a home that is ten paces from the stone church. A two-wheeled wagon full of
stones barricades the door. Our peasant locked the plaguer inside with his
daughter.
    Howls ring out from
inside the house. We dismount and don our helmets. I point with my sword toward
the church. “Are there plaguers in there?” My voice sounds metallic with the great
helm on.
    “No, m’lord.”
    “Good. Wait inside.
Keep the door barred. This will be sorted in a moment.”
    “I’d prefer to wait
outside, m’lord.”
    I stare at him. Tristan
is right. There is something odd about this man. Too many things don’t add up. “If
you want to orphan your daughter, that’s your choice.” Morgan and I stand ten
paces from the door as Tristan takes hold of the wagon’s handles. He rolls the
cart away, groaning with the effort.
    I take a breath and
prepare to do my part for honor.
    Sir Morgan looks at
me. I nod to him. Tristan takes hold of the cast-iron door latch and glances
our way. I tighten and loosen my grip on the hilt of my sword. Tristan yanks
the door open and ducks behind it.
    It takes several
heartbeats for the afflicted neighbor to notice the open door. He is the
largest human I have ever seen, and I have seen many large humans. His arms are
logs, his neck thicker than my thigh. The man takes a shuddering step, then careens
toward us with his head ducked low. It is as close to a run as these things are
capable of.
    Morgan and I brace for
the assault, but just as the plaguer reaches the doorway Sir Tristan slams the oaken
door shut. The impact rattles the house. The man shrieks