Frank was dead.

It was my fault. I had been so busy with Josiah, that I had completely ignored Frank. I hadn’t even examined his wounds. I had assumed bruised or cracked ribs and ignored it. What if it had been more? What if one of the broken ribs had punctured a lung? I should have paid more attention.

I bent down to look at the body. He felt cold to the touch. That felt so wrong. By this point I had seen a lot of dead bodies; I was responsible for at least 5 of them. But I had never seen one cold. He looked pale, and the underside of the body looked like a giant purple bruise. The blood had stopped pumping and settled to the bottom due to gravity. His body was in full rigor, so he had been dead at least 6 hours (thank you CSI). He had petechial haemorrhaging in the eyes. He had died of asphyxiation.

He hadn’t made a noise in his sleep which meant it wasn’t a sharp sudden thing like pneumothorax or hemothorax. The only thing I could think of was that he had died of a pulmonary contusion. The trauma to his chest must have bruised his lungs. Some of his blood vessels were damaged, so the oxygen exchange wasn’t as efficient. This must have led to hypoxia and his death. I felt a sick sense of comfort in knowing I couldn’t have done anything to save his life.

Someone put a hand on my shoulder; I didn’t have to look to know it was Mark. I slowly got up and turned around. “It happens. I have seen the strongest of men survive battle only to suddenly die the next day.” Mark said to me. It wasn’t surprising, injuries could cause clots which could travel to the lungs and cause a pulmonary embolism, plus things like concussions and internal bleedings could cause deaths, which in the 6th century would be inexplicable. “We managed to face 25 soldiers led by a werewolf and come out with only one casualty. We were lucky. You saved Josiah; it is a miracle that he is alive. You saved one life only to lose another; there is a balance to that.”

I stood up and punched him lightly in the gut. “You get too… sage-y sometimes.” I wanted to say Zen, but Zen Buddhism wasn’t a thing anyone in 6th century England would know about.

“What are we going to do now?” I asked. “There are only 4 of us, and Josiah won’t be able to fight for at least a month. We can’t protect the wagon train.”

“We should be able to reach the town of Grantebrycge (Cambridge) before midday. Then we can split the team so a few of us will stay with the wagon, whilst we find another mercenary company to take over the mission.”

“And what are we going to do with the Blood Wolves?” I had no idea what we were going to do with the bodies.

“We will have to dig a hole and bury them. We will cremate our comrades from the Red Tailed Mercenary Company and send the ashes with the wagon train, so that they may reach their families. We will take the money and then bring Frank’s body back to his family.”

I nodded. I supposed these were the realities of war. The losers were buried in mass graves hastily dug up, only to avoid the scavengers that the smell would bring. The corpses of the winners at least got a cremation and the ashes were transported back to the families. So that their loved ones had something to bury. Only the very lucky few or the very important got their loved one’s body back for burial.

We spent the morning digging up a mass grave, never thought I would say that. It was a roundish hole 10ft in diameter and about 4 foot deep. It had taken 10 of us close to 3 hours to dig a hole that deep (Mark had bullied the people on the wagon train in to helping). We filled up the hole with the corpses of our enemies. Again, never thought I would ever say that.

I made sure to be very careful whilst moving the corpse of the werewolf. Mark insisted on keeping the head of the wolf as evidence/war trophy. If as I suspected a viral mutagen was the cause for the transmission on were-ism then the head was probably safe to touch carefully, as viruses can’t survive outside of a live host for more than a few minutes. I washed the head down with a bucket of bleach water and vodka, and then washed the head in some sterilised water to remove the smell. I wrapped up the head in a buck skin.

I went over to where Isiah and Josiah were sitting. They were still by the stream. I had instructed the others that no one could move Josiah yet. Isiah had spent the morning quietly sitting with Josiah explaining his new reality to him. I hadn’t seen him yet, but my super hearing had picked up some heated conversations.

“How is he?” I asked Isiah

“Stubborn. Weak, but he is alive. He survived so he is a were-cat now. It will take him a few days to get used to the changes. He is getting restless.” Isiah said. His face had a look of gratefulness.

“Isiah spent the morning explaining that I ain’t human anymore… he explained how I’m gunna be stronger and faster than normal folk. How I am going to be able to change into a cat. Or like that monster from yesterday.” Josiah said to me. Isiah slapped Josiah on the back of the head. Josiah looked at him angrily, non-verbally asking why he got hit. Isiah pointed at me using his eyes, Josiah remembered and sheepishly turned his head to me. “Uh… yeah. Thank you for saving my life.” He tried to raise his splinted arm to rub his head and then looked at his arm.

“This thing itches, can I take it off? I am really hungry; can I get something to eat?” He said.

“No, that splint is staying on for a month. I am going to give you a sling to carry your arm around in. you can never reveal that you are anything more than human. That means you can’t seem to recover from wounds faster than humans. If anyone ever finds out that you are a were-cat you will be a hunted man, then they will discover your brother. And eventually even me. And if they find out about me, I will have to kill you.” I said with a smile. “You aren’t a human anymore, you can’t behave like you used to. You can’t go around picking fights. You can’t control your strength, if you fight a normal human you would kill him and then I would have to kill you to avoid the enquiry. And no more whoring, your curse is passed on through fluids. If I find out that you have passed on your curse to anyone; I will kill you and any one that you have infected.” As I said this I formed a void edge on my finger and cut the spear that Isiah had planted yesterday in half. Josiah’s eyes went wide at the sight of me cutting through metal with my finger. He gulped and nodded.

I reached into my void space and brought out a package of improvised pemmican bars that I had made and kept in the void space. This was an idea that Isiah and I had come up with after noticing Isiah’s increased hunger after changing. I had come up with the recipe by combining dried venison with the rendered tallow with some honey, oats and some nuts. It was calorically dense and Isiah claimed it tasted very nice. I refused to taste the thing as the idea of eating tallow repulsed me. Josiah needed the energy as his body had used up a lot of energy to heal itself. Whilst he and Isiah ate the bars, I cut the spear shaft to get a foot long dowel, and then split the dowel length ways to form two flat sided sticks. I took some cloth and carefully ripped it into bandages.

Josiah seemed to calm down a bit after eating; he had been fidgeting restlessly before. I re-bandaged up his arm and then his leg. I made him a sling for his arm, and ordered him under the threat of death to keep pretending that he had badly broken his arm.

Isiah and I rolled the cart back to the camp site. Josiah came walking behind pretending to use the rest of the spear as a walking stick. Isiah and I “helped” Josiah into the wagon cart containing our loot. We then piled up the bodies of the Red Tailed Mercenaries into the now empty cart. We also carefully placed Frank’s body in that cart wrapped up in his tent.

We broke down our camp ground and packed our packs. We would have to carry our packs as we had run out of space in the carts. We reached the city of Grantebrycge just after midday. Grantebrycge was a fairly new city established at the same site as the roman fort of Duroliponte. Like Leicester it had lost a lot of people after the romans left, but unlike Leicester, Grantebrycge was resettled by Saxons. Unlike what the stories told us, the Pendragons did not war with the Saxons. The Saxons were part of the lesser Ducal Kingdoms and whilst they didn’t support King Uther, they stayed neutral. King Uther didn’t care about the fights between these Ducal Kingdoms; his sole focus was on what was called the scourge of magic.

Mark went off with Balthazar the head merchant in the wagon train to find a new mercenary group. Balthazar had agreed to pay us the 50 gold that was offered to the Blood Wolves, he had also agreed to help us sell the loot we had collected from the Blood Wolves. We were now rich.

The four of stayed with the wagon train, protecting the train, I passed the time by making a hard cast to encase Josiah’s arm. In modern times it would be made of plaster of Paris, but we didn’t have plaster of Paris. I thought about making it from clay, but Isiah pointed out that he would need to train Josiah, which would mean that the cast would have to come off. So I ended up having, what was basically a cheap giant manacle type thing, commissioned. It was a hinged cylinder that would encase his arm and act as a splint. Also as a bonus it would act like a bracer.

Mark and Balthazar came back in the early evening along with 20 other burly men, these were the people who would take over from us in guarding the wagon train on their journey to the port of Londinium. Balthazar had also arranged for the cremation of the Red Tailed Mercenaries.

There was a sombre mood in the camp that evening as we stood looking at the burning pyre of what were our comrades, albeit temporary ones. We stood there reflecting on how close to death we came, even me. It had been my first life or death battle against a supernatural being. And although I had won easily; I knew that in the true world, werewolves were nothing more than cannon fodder. There were many stronger beings such as other sorcerers (mages were also called sorcerers) and elementals, not to mention the gods that walked the earth and the hidden immortals.

We didn’t speak after the funeral pyre, nor did we eat supper. We all had our own thoughts to keep us company as we turned in for the night.

The next morning, the mood at the camp was noticeably lighter. The funeral pyre had been cathartic, and had drained out some of the negative emotions in the camp. We spent the morning untangling our things from the rest of the wagon train and bidding our farewells. We ended up spending 10 gold coins on buying a couple of horses and a wagon of our own, to carry Frank’s body back with us.

We made our way to an inn, to have a sit down breakfast and discuss our plans before we headed back to Leicester.

Isiah opened up the conversation, cutting off Mark who was about to start speaking. “There is something wrong here, we were supposed to be ambushing the bandits, but we were the ones who got ambushed. They were in a platoon, and they seemed to know we were coming.”

Isiah looked at me to continue. “We weren’t the first to get ambushed.” I said. Mark snapped his head around to look at me. He already knew me to be supernatural so he gave what I said more credibility. “We knew about Corporal Kenway’s squad, from when we visited Leicester.” I paused and took a deep breath. “And I think Corporal Alwin’s squad was also ambushed. That red on their shield was human blood. The wolf bragged about killing an imperial named Alwin when he attacked me.” That last bit was a lie, but I couldn’t exactly tell them about Isiah’s nose.

“Corporal Alwin and his squad were in the forests of Sherwood, north of Leicester. If this squad really killed them in Sherwood and then made their way south towards us, then they would have had have been hunting us. They couldn’t have known about us beforehand, as this mission wasn’t planned. That means there is a spy. Someone at the training camp has been working for the witch.” Mark was easy to convince of this as he was aware of David’s tattoo.

“We will have to be very careful from now on. No one at the camp can know where we are going, or how we plan to ambush bandits.” Isiah said

“Can we even continue to hunt bandits? They were working in platoons not squads, and they were led by a monster” I said.

“That is our sole mission… but you are right, we can’t operate in these small teams and hope to win against larger squadrons in an head on battle.” Mark sighed

“We will have to get creative. Attack at night or from large distances and then run away. We will have to separate individuals from the group and quietly kill them. This will be a true hunt in the forest and not a fight” Isiah said.

Mark’s eyes seem to light up at that idea, it was risky but it was the only real option we had.

“We should get better equipment.” I said. “We will be fighting against superior numbers; we will need every advantage we can get.”

Mark finally cracked a smile. “We can actually afford real equipment now, we finally have some money. We managed to sell all of the Blood Wolves’ equipment for another 50 gold. And I kept the monster’s sword, which by rights should belong to Emris for killing that monster.” He said giving me a wrapped package.

I attempted to give the sword to Isiah. “We couldn’t have survived the battle without Isiah’s archery; he single handedly took out half the Blood Wolves, the sword should belong to him.” I said, trying to lessen the attention on me.

“NO!” Isiah said. His eyes briefly glowing yellow as his nostrils flared, too fast for normal humans to notice. “I fought using my bow, not a sword. Emris was the one fighting with two swords.”

Oops, I forgot that the smell of the sword would trigger Isiah’s were-cat side.

“Fine, I’ll take this one. But we should get everyone some real swords and some chain-mail armour that fits.” The army issued swords and mail were iron, not steel. And the mail wasn’t custom, so it was ill fitting and uncomfortable.

Mark nodded his head and agreed. The swords and mail were expensive, but because Grantebrycge was a city, there were blacksmiths who already had swords made for sale. The mail was even easier; as although the armour was custom fitted, the mail was made into rolls like fabric sheets and the material was cut out of that.

We stayed in Grantebrycge for 2 days waiting for our armours to be made and our swords to be adjusted to our liking (I even had Graith’s sword re-profiled to have more distal taper and made it thinner and lighter). Then we made our back to Leicester. Our return journey was a lot faster. We were on a cart and not walking. We made the 4 day journey in a day and a half.

On the return journey, I managed to convince Mark to give the credit of killing Graith to Frank. Mark had been adamantly against the idea at first. but he agreed it was for the greater good after I pointed out that there was a reward for killing creatures of magic, and that Frank’s widow would need the money with Frank no longer there to look after her.

When we reached Leicester, the first thing we did was to report to the camp. We reported our battle to the quarter master, who had stayed behind and was the person in charge of the whole bandit hunting operation. He listened to our story, his eyes turning large when he heard about the werewolf. He listened and agreed with our assessment that there was a spy and he also confirmed that he had not heard from Corporal Alwin’s team in over a month. He wrote down what had happened and he promised to write a letter to the military HQ about Frank’s bravery, he promised he would make sure Frank’s family got the proper rewards for his bravery. The quartermaster surprised us when we tried to turn over some of the profits of the mission, instead of writing down 20 gold, he wrote 2 gold and then told us to give the rest of the gold to Frank’s family.

All of squad nine made our way towards, Frank’s house with his body. Annis took one look at us; she knew. She collapsed on the ground and broke down crying. We all quickly bent down to pick her up. I was the first to reach her and I tried to hug her. She kept punching me in the chest and crying until she got tired, Amelia had come out at some point and also broken down crying. Isiah was comforting her.

We moved inside and told her what had happened, we didn’t tell her the complete truth as we were ordered by the quartermaster to not tell anyone about the werewolf. But we told her that her husband had fought valiantly against vastly superior numbers, and come out of the battle only to die in his sleep from unseen injuries sustained in battle.

We spent the afternoon with her. Talking, and learning more about Frank; about his life before his conscription. We learnt that we knew very little of Frank and that he would never be forgotten. We made our way back to the quartermaster after saying our good byes. Josiah needed to heal and we were mentally exhausted, so the Sergeant gave us the next week off to recover. We decided to go to Border Creek so that Mark, Isiah and Josiah could see their families. I decided to tag along to speak to all of the people I had made friends with. Merlin didn’t want to intrude and decided to stay at the camp to practice his sword forms.

We decided to leave after Frank’s funeral, which was in the morning of the next day. We were joined by the quartermaster and the many people that knew Frank. Frank was well loved in the community and it showed in the sheer number of people that came to the funeral.

After the funeral we all hugged Annis and Amelia and we promised to help any time they ever needed us. Amelia kissed Isiah on the cheek, it was clear that they both still liked each other but Frank’s death had made Amelia realise about the dangers in marrying a soldier.

We bid our farewells made our way to border creek on our cart.