Death After Death

The situation was much as Simon had left it and largely unchanged from his last few visits. There was trouble in the north. No one quite knew what it was or why it had stopped trade to the north, yet mercenaries had been hired and dispatched. In fact, asking around, it sounded like Butcher’s Bill had left a few hours before he’d arrived.

He didn’t care about that, though. This time, he wasn’t looking for Freya. He wasn’t planning to help her or save her. He wasn’t even planning to visit the Barrow Mounds at all. Hell, if he had a better option for a forge, he wouldn’t even head north at all, but he knew of several villages up that way that had already been cleaned out by zombies.

So, aside from the occasional member of the walking dead he was sure he’d have to kill, that sounded just about right for Simon. It seemed strange that once he feared the zombies so much that the walls of the city seemed to be barely enough protection, and now he was comfortable with the idea that they might just walk up on him in the middle of something, but the reason was clear. He had magic for that sort of thing now.

So, not only was he not at risk in a real sense, but with his plan, he could actually help people. He wasn’t sure if his hammer would attract them all, but he could act as a beacon and draw at least some of them to him, and that would save lives.

Hell, that might even be enough to solve this level, he realized. For a second, that was enough to reconsider his whole plan. He definitely wanted to see that barrow. Should he try to rush up there first? Could he take the chance that Kell and company wouldn’t find it first and bury themselves alive? He wasn’t sure.

What he was sure about, though, was that he was hungry, so he paid an extra coin for a hearty stew and decided to sleep on it. The right answer wasn’t always apparent, but he usually got there eventually.

No one tried to kill him that night, though one old woman did give him the stink eye when he went out shopping for supplies the next morning. Simon decided there was no way the Butcher’s Bill would even find those mounds without his help. They’d been planning to follow the road north before he’d changed their plans, and he was happy to let them go off on their own little wild goose chase.

Instead of devoting much time to worrying about them, though, Simon bought a mule with an attitude problem cheap, half a bag of nails in case he needed to reinforce wherever he was going to be sleeping, along with as much smoked sausage, potatoes, and hard bread as he could afford with the meager coins he had left. He bought a few fresh things, too, for the trip up, but the more delicious something was, the more expensive it was going to be, and he didn’t have much for luxuries these days.

“You know, this sort of thing is more fun on easy mode,” he told his donkey as they left the market and headed toward the north gate. “But I had to go and throw all my gold away. Disappointing, isn’t it?”