Chapter 62: Sunny Day
It was a sunny day in Brackley, and the clouds danced lazily across the sky. Only a few of them dotted the horizon, allowing gentle light to spill generously down to the dreary landscape of the pit town.
Wooden shacks stooped under its weight as if they weren’t used to bearing light for a change, and what few men lounged about the entrance of the mountain seemed too tired to pay any attention to it. Hands smeared, fingers calloused and torn by hours of hard work, wrinkles etched deep into their faces like cuts left from a sharp dagger — they were a ragged bunch troubled with today’s work ahead.
It occurred to Valens the moment he saw those faces that a dreary sky was the least of this little town’s concerns. There was so much else to it that having an occasional day of hopeful light didn’t mean a damn thing.
The work scarcely changes, after all.
Right. The painful monotony of it cared not for weather, or the evil, just cleansed deep inside the mines, even if it had threatened to swallow them whole. The men carried on as they would on another day. Valens didn’t know how he should feel about that.
Once you know too many things, you start thinking too much about the possibilities.
He took in a deep, long breath from the fresh air, feeling a true movement around his lungs for the longest time. He stretched his hands out, palms facing the sky, and took a good shower from the golden light. The wind whispered soothing calm through the holes around his clothes, and it was with a spring in his step that he followed the Templars’ line from the very back.
It’s a… sight, I guess. Maybe we should’ve waited for the night for our little parade.
Hauled over Dain’s shoulders, the giant cursed shard still emanated a set of dangerous frequencies. What little foul mana was left inside pulsed slightly like a wounded heart barely hanging on, but as it stood, it hadn’t taken much of an argument before the captain decided to take it with them.
Better to carry a giant shard than face another possibility of some Remnant Terror rising, I suppose. At least we’ve burnt the corpse. I’m glad they haven’t tried to carry that thing to the carriage as well.
That would’ve been a sight to behold, surely. The Weeping Horror with its tendrils sprawled about the Ironmanes, its giant eye placed right over the carriage’s golden ceiling, fixed with ropes tied around to the extension once used to cage Selin when she had been close to turning into a Wailborn.
The horses couldn’t have taken it.