Forest Mage

“What are those men doing?” I asked, gesturing at the fellows unloading lumber.

He shook his head sadly. “The bodies are piling up at the infirmary. I can only haul six coffins at a time. But if the supplies to make coffins or the coffins themselves are already out here, then I can just bring the bodies. We can crate them up here before we drop them in the holes.” He spoke with deliberate callousness. He climbed into the back of his wagon while I stood at the rear of it and shoved one of the top coffins toward me. I caught an end of it, surprised by how little it weighed. Kesey saw the look. “She was just a girl,” he said. “Martil Tane.”

“You have a list of names, then?”

“I do.”

We lowered the first coffin and went on to the others, taking each one in its turn. The names were roughly chalked on the coffin lids. I put the list of the dead in my pocket with the first one. By the time we were finished with Kesey’s load, Ebrooks was ready to deliver his. We went by the order of his list. I borrowed a pencil stub from Ebrooks to number the lists to match the graves.

Nine coffins awaited burial. I was relieved when Ebrooks and Kesey both went for shovels. Even with three of us working, it was heavy work. At one point, they walked to the shade of my fledgling hedge while I went to the spring for a bucket of water. We drank, put fresh vinegar on our masks, and cooled our heads.

“How bad is it going to get?” I wondered aloud.

Kesey lifted his mask and spat to one side. “The first few days are always heavy. The weak ones go down fast. After that, it’s just steady for a while. Then, just when you think it has to be over, there will be another flurry of deaths. I think the people that have been taking care of everyone just get too tired and let go. Then it trickles off until it’s only one or two a day until it finally stops. And then winter comes.”

I wanted to ask him how many plague seasons he had seen, but could not bring myself to form the words. I looked at the freshly mounded graves, then toward my shed, where the ringing of hammers against nails had been a constant since the men and lumber arrived. A glance in that direction showed me a tidy stack of new coffins. As I watched, two men stood up and moved another one into place. There was something so implacable about the process that my heart turned over in my chest. It was almost like an odd sort of peace.

This was the Gettys I had not been able to see before now. This parade of coffins, this methodical burial of the dead, this was what had separated me from the veterans of my regiment, far more than my body had. This was the war they had fought without weapons every summer since they had been stationed here. They lived the year around knowing that when the hot, dry days of summer returned, disease would pick them off as remorselessly as any enemy marksman. Like any battle-hardened regiment, they looked askance at the newcomer, wondering how long he would last and if, when the battle were joined, he would fight or break. I had been green and I had not known it until then. We were at war with the Specks, and today marked my first skirmish. How had I ever doubted it? I had lived in the midst of this graveyard and never truly seen what it meant until then.

“Let’s finish it,” I said quietly, and picked up my shovel. With a grunt, Ebrooks stooped to take up his and Kesey followed.

I was smoothing the last mound with the back of my shovel when I heard the creak and clatter of another wagon coming. I looked up in dismay. The sky had begun to turn pink in the west; the light would soon be gone. Over an hour ago, the coffin-builders had left their yield and departed for town. Only the three of us remained.

I didn’t recognize the driver until Kesey grunted and said, “More joy to come. It’s Sergeant Hoster.” Ebrooks uttered a muffled obscenity. I said nothing at all, but my heart filled with dread. Yet when they picked up their shovels and went to meet the wagon, I forced myself to trail along after them.

Hoster pulled in his team alongside the row of empty coffins and sat waiting for us to approach. His vinegar-soaked mask was crusted brown with road dust. “Got a few more deaders for you. The docs don’t want them lying around the infirmary.”

“Couldn’t they have waited until morning? Night’s coming on fast,” Kesey objected.

“You don’t have to bury them tonight. Just get me unloaded so I can head back to town. There’s a double Gettys tonic waiting for me, and one of Sarla’s whores, on the house.” He scratched the back of his neck and then pretended to notice me for the first time. “Well, well. I thought you’d run off and joined the Specks by now. You would have if you were smart, Burv. But then you probably think you are smart. So smart that you think you covered all your tracks and no one can prove what you done. But I can, Tubs. And you won’t get away with it. This outbreak of plague may give you a bit of a reprieve, long enough to dig more graves. But when it’s all over, we’ll still find time to deal with you. I promise you, in the end you’ll be filling a grave up here. Justice will be done.”