Wild Gourmet: Chapter 4

Of all the stone buildings in town, the one assigned to Brand must have taken the worst beating. The roof was not only ruined, but had caved into a good half of the big, single-level space. A lot of it had burned, leaving bits and pieces of char here and there. It was a complete and total wreck. It was also very large, much larger than Brand could see himself needing or wanting once it was repaired.

That’s a problem for another day, though. For now I need to sleep.

Wrapping around the side of the building, he found what Moira’s instructions had told him would be there. Two doors were secured to each other by means of a stick through the handles, and throwing them open revealed a staircase down into the even darker underground below the building.

Brand had been hoping for a bed. He really had. But if he needed to, he could spend a few more nights sleeping on the ground, especially when there was a pile of straw in the corner of the cellar he could spread as a makeshift cushion. Taking advantage of a water pump installed in the corner, he used the last of his soap to take an ice-cold bath using a cloth. Rinsing his clothes, he blew the dust off a shelf and laid them out to dry, hoping they would be wearable by morning.

He pulled his pack over to him. There truly wasn’t a lot left in it. He had some tinder, though he’d have to find fuel in the morning if he wanted to start any cooking fires. He had a few barebones cooking utensils tied together with twine. He had a single pan, enough to have cooked what little food he found on his way to town. With those removed and spread on the floor around him, he was totally unpacked.

He stared at his meager possessions. When he had been conscripted, the army agent had told him not to worry. He had said that a successful campaign would result in pay and a pension, enough to keep him for the rest of his life, even if he didn’t work. It was the king’s guarantee, he had said.

Now the king was dead and the kingdom was a thing that existed more in name than actual force. There were no authorities left that anyone felt compelled to follow, and no force sufficient to enforce their will if there had been. If his pension was ever a real thing, it certainly wasn’t now. He was as poor as he could be while still having clothes to cover his body.

Brand felt his nerves shake just in time to stop himself from laughing. He knew from the long nights alone during his journey that if he let that happen, he’d laugh until he cried, then cry until his eyes were swollen and his voice was hoarse. It would take an hour, maybe two, to regain his control over himself. He didn’t have time for that.

Lying down in his bedroll, he bent his arm under his head for use as a pillow and closed his eyes. The war was over now. If the kingdom couldn’t feed him, he’d feed himself. If others couldn’t feed themselves, he’d provide meals to them. If the world outside was cold and bloody, he’d make a clean, well-lit place for people to come for comfort and sustenance.

He was a cook, after all. He may have lived through the end of all things, but he was desperate in ways he could hardly explain to explore what that meant in the world that came after the end.

There were no windows in the cellar, but that didn’t mean that Brand didn’t know when dawn came. He had been waking up before first light to begin cooking for most of his adult life. At this point, it was like a clock etched into his very soul. The system didn’t have anything to do with it. It was a power all his own.

He rose out of bed before first light and saw the dawn with his own eyes. It was an odd experience, as dawns went. The wall around the town meant that the environment grew light long before the sun’s rays could hit the inside of town directly. Even in the shadow of the wall, though, Brand could finally see what was left of the town.

Wow. That really isn’t much.

“Pretty stripped down, right?” Moira was suddenly there, standing beside him as he scanned over the town. “The attackers didn’t leave much.”

“I don’t think I really understand what happened here.” Brand didn’t take his eyes from the devastation of the town. “They even filled in some of the wells. Why? It doesn’t seem necessary.”

“For killing all the soldiers here? No. It wouldn’t have helped with that.” Moira took a step forward. Brand could see she had a document holder in her arm, a leather tube with a strap for carrying various missives here and there. The army had much more paperwork than he would have imagined from books of adventure, so he was well familiar with them as an object. “I can tell you what I know. I wasn’t here, obviously.”

It was obvious because she was alive, Brand realized. If she had been here then, she wouldn’t be there now. Nobody could have survived this. Except he seemed to know someone who had, based on how they talked.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Neil was, wasn’t he?”

“In a way. My understanding is his parents hid him just outside of town and told him not to come out. After that, one of our side’s patrols found him and took him somewhere else. He’s only recently returned himself. Come on. I’ll show you the town. What’s left of it.”

Moira walked with him for a while before they started speaking again. It didn’t take long for Brand to see he was wrong about the town, if not wrong by much. Everything that wasn’t stone was gone, or nearly so, but here were a few places where wooden shacks had been erected. Here and there a few buildings with makeshift roofs over them that had clearly been slapped up on a temporary basis stood proud above the wreckage, patched and rigged to stand in temporary ways that he hoped would hold.

“We are getting more people now. I was the first. I was here for weeks alone before Neil showed up. I thought I was going to go crazy.”

“What did you do to pass the time?”

“Planning, mostly. Putting up my shack. I was an administrator in the war effort, a Battle Recorder. That went away when the army disbanded.”

“I know that feeling.” Brand gave Moira a more thoughtful look. Anyone with a class could get a sense of the danger someone else with a class posed to them, even if it was subtle. Moira gave off no sense of danger or weakness at all. It was almost as if she wasn’t there. “You don’t have a class even now, do you?”