Chapter 98: Days of Future Past
Simon recognized the signs quicker than most would have, even with everything that was going on. Even before he found the bodies, he knew what had done this. The crude arrows with their red fletching and the hoof prints that were everywhere made it pretty obvious.
This was the aftermath of a centaur raid. It was a big one, too, from the looks of things.
He even had a pretty good idea of where he was. He wasn’t entirely sure which village this had been, but between the style of the smoldering huts and the color of the hills, he knew he wasn’t too far from one of his least favorite places in the world: Crowvar. He’d had enough of the Raithewait family to last a lifetime, and his fingers tightened into fists at the very thought of them.
For the moment, he ignored that and all the dark feelings that came with it. Instead, he focused on the carnage around him as he took in the scene between the billowing curtains of smoke.
There were a few dead bodies in the street, and most of those were of the men who’d died defending the town. Simon noted that there were none of the Baron’s men among the bodies either. That made sense. If the Baron had bothered to send men, then there might not have been a massacre.
Of course, the true massacre awaited him at the center of town. As he’d expected, most of the women and children had crowded into the temple. It was a holy building no longer, though. Instead, it had become a mass grave.
Simon paused a moment to pay his respects, then he started climbing up one of the partially collapsed facades. Other than this building and one of the stone granaries, the town had basically been leveled, so the top of the rubble, some ten feet above the ground, was where he was going to get his best view of his surroundings.
Simon quickly searched the horizon in all directions but saw no signs of riders. Which was positive, he supposed. That meant he wasn’t here to kill them. Which begged the question, “What am I supposed to be doing here?” he asked, coughing briefly as he looked around.
He made an effort to search through the dead, looking for a survivor or two, but he found no one. He didn’t expect he would. According to his men, the centaurs made great sport of lighting buildings on fire and then shooting the people who tried to run from the burning buildings. It was a pretty thorough way to cleanse a place.