*Author's note: This story is quite long and, while there is some hot incest sex in here, it is quite a slow-burn with an emphasis on the story. It has a slight fantasy setting and there are elements of non-consent, but they form part of said story. Just a head's up for anyone not into that kind of thing. Enjoy.
***
The morning had started with a dark omen, or so Bethel's mother would have said. When tending to the turnip patch Bethel had seen black spots on a leaf of one of the plants. Fearing a blight, she pulled the plant up. Instead of the bulbous tuber she had expected she found only a black, gnarled root. It was fibrous and twisted, Its many, long tendrils clung tenaciously to the soil and took considerable effort to be extracted.
Fearing it may spread she checked the rest of the crop, but found only two more of the afflicted plants. Her mother would have seen a sign in there being three of them, but her mother had seen signs in everything.
Such an ill foretelling would have sent her mother to her bed for a week, but Bethel shrugged it off. She had even patted herself on the back for catching whatever it was before it took over. She had tossed the roots into the hearth to be burned later when she needed to heat the pot.
Perhaps the strange growth had something to do with the weather. This summer had been hot by anyone's standards, but up in the North, as they were, these sorts of temperatures were unheard of. It had the humid swelter of one of those sprawling mazes the Southerners call cities.
Still, a flash of those ominous roots came back to her later that morning when she first saw the dust of an approaching cart. Apart from the mountain to her back, the land in front of the farm was flat and the trees were sparse. The only place these grew in numbers was down by the creek. So she saw the two men on their cart from a long way off.
She thought to hide, as Eanon had told her to do if the house was ever approached by strangers. Their family farm was a half-hour from the nearest homestead and over an hour from town. Beth knew naught of weapons beyond, perhaps, her ability to swing a frying pan.
The fear subsided into bemusement, however, when she recognized the insignia on the tabards of two men atop the cart. They wore the duke's colors, crimson and gold and, though she could not see it, she knew at each tabard's center there would be a tilted golden chalice pouring out a red liquid. It was a symbol she had seen often enough in her childhood, in visits to the town and, once, to the city of Fryburg itself. Its true malevolence had escaped her until her late teens when her brother had, laughing at her naivete, explained that it was not wine but blood that forever poured from that motionless chalice.
She could never again see it the same way and, as the men drew nearer, it's dark power seemed to hold her there on the rough planked porch. Nevertheless, they were clearly a part of the Duke's army, perhaps they had news of her brother.
At last, she woke enough from her trance to look around her. She saw her father's walking staff, resting in a purpose built stand beside the front door. She had not touched it since his death a year previous and, even now, doing so felt like it might taint her memory of him. Jasomen Calfman had been a kindly man, never one for violence. But, as the cart crunched up outside the house, its wagon wheels spitting out loose gravel, Bethel took up the staff and turned back to grimly face the men. Since the war had begun its inexorable approach down the highlands, the hamlets around Fryburg had become restless and many strangers, some with ill intentions, roamed what had long been a peaceful place. These were almost certainly Duke's men, but it paid to be cautious.
"Calfman?" The cart driver enquired loudly without preamble. This seemed to awaken the man slumped over beside him, who sat up with a snort and then rubbed the back of a hand across a wet mouth.
"Who asks?" Bethel knew her voice sounded thin and high in the hot air filled with the screech of summer insects.
"Duke bloody von Fryburg, that's bloody who," The man growled, though it was without real malice. He was a grizzled, portly man who wore faded tan clothing beneath his ill-fitting tabard. Clasped over this was a belt, which his belly bulged over, and fastened to this was a dagger in a much-used scabbard. It was a knife of utility rather than a soldier's weapon. Neither of these men looked like anything like what Bethel thought soldiers should look like.
His companion, eyes seeming to find their focus at last, blinked hard and then looked at her. Whereas the cart driver had an amiable, avuncular appearance, this younger man had a lean, feral hunger to his look. He at least wore the Duke's black beneath his tabard though. Beth felt her skin crawl as the man's eyes scoured over her body. She gripped her staff tight pushing down on it until she heard one of the porch floorboards creak.
"We have nothing for you here. Your men came through less than a month ago. They took most of our supplies and they took my brother for your war."
"Aye that's right," The cart driver replied. He glanced to the man beside him when that man gave him a subtle nudge. Suddenly Beth felt a prickle of sweat as they both focused fully upon her at the same time. The second man leered at her, but the cart driver remained impassive.
"My father will be back from the village soon," She lied, hoping her voice sounded steady. "Speak your business and then kindly be on your way."
"Pretty thing," the man who had been sleeping moments ago said with a small grin. This lifted his dark mustache, which drooped thin and limp past the corners of his mouth.
"Aye, she is that," The coach driver replied without looking back at her, "Still, we got Duke's business to be about. No point in troubling the lass any more than we need to."
"And what business is that?" She demanded, hoping her attempt at authority was believable.
"We bear the wounded back from battle. Got your brother back here. I should warn you though, I don't think he has long to live."
"Impossible," She nearly laughed, the very idea of her handsome, vital brother being in the back of some cart was ridiculous, "He has been gone three weeks. He won't have finished his training, never mind have reached the front."
"Training?" The mustached man guffawed, "Ain't no training to be had, love. The Spreechen kill men faster than they can be trained. Battle is the only training a man gets these days. They give you a spear and point you in the direction of the enemy and tell you to try and kill as many of them as you can afore they kill you. Not that it matters even if you do, because they are a bloody endless tide." He chuckled again, "Training, indeed."
"It can't be Eanon," She insisted, "The front is leagues away."
"Aye, that it is, but enemy scouts pop up everywhere and your brother was just another of the misfortunate." The cart driver gave a small tip to his broad-brimmed leather hat as he said it.
"Or lucky," The other man interrupted, "He was one of the few from his company to survive. I heard the Spreechen had a Bloodmage with them."
The title stunned her. She wanted to laugh again then, tell them they had to be joking. Bloodmage's weren't real. They were terrors out of storybooks her father had read to her growing up. Dark wizards, twisted by their own magic, they were marked on their arms and bodies by black veins, or spiderwebs, or tattoos, the stories could never agree. What they did agree on was that to meet a Bloodmage was as good as stepping into your own grave.
The cart driver shrugged, "Lucky or unlucky, you can decide for yourself, lass. The only luck he had was that he was brought back to camp no more than a few hours ride from here. The medicos wouldn't touch your brother, said he had the blood taint."
"You ever seen a man with the blood taint?" the mustached man asked, his expression macabre in its enthusiasm. When she shook her head he continued, "Turns them right mean it does. He's going to die, they all do. He'll either break his back in the fever or slip away quietly during the chills. Personally, I would choose the second one, but what you really got to look out for is the in-between. Blood magic is proper dark magic. It seeps into the soul of a man, turns him against everyone, even those he loves. If you ask me I reckon you'd do better to put him out of his misery yourself. Captain should have done it when they carried him in. Ain't no cure for it."
"The captain is soft, but he does right by his men," the cart driver interrupted, "We were coming past within a league or two of here on a supply run and he said we should bring your brother here so he could die at home. Apparently, he had a soft spot for your brother. No other man at the front has had the privilege."
"He thought the sun shone out of his bloody arse, he did," the second man reiterated.
Bethel shook her head. That really did sound like her brother. Eanon had been just the sort to befriend his superior officer and engender special dispensation even as he died. She hated that they spoke of him in the past tense, even more so that she had started to think of him in the same way.
She had to be certain. With a deep breath, she stepped off the porch and strode up to the wagon. Moving out of the shade she suddenly felt the heat of the sun, and sweat immediately began to form on her back and under her armpits. Still, she held tight to the staff, wishing that its well-worn grip would gift her more courage and confidence.
It did not.
Cautiously she moved around to the side of the low cart. She gave the two men on the cart a leery look, still expecting this may somehow be a trap. Then she saw her brother. If she had not been told it was him she would not have recognized him at first.
He was grey in color, seemingly drained of blood, but he was alive. She could tell this by the short, sharp intakes of breath he took. His eyes were wide, hardly seeming to blink, and his lips were dry and cracked.
"Ean!" She cried and put a hand to her mouth. She felt tears burning in her eyes as the reality struck her like an ax blow. It was her brother and he was almost certainly dying.
Her vision turned liquid as salty water pooled at the rim of her eyelids. She looked up at the men.
"It's been a long ride, love," The man with the mustache said, "We ain't going to say no to a bit of hospitality if you're offering." The way he pronounced, 'hospitality,' the way his eyes fell to Beth's breasts and stayed there suggestively was like a slap. She burned with fury at his outrageous subtext, but even more so that he suggested it while she was standing over her dying brother. She had to restrain herself from slashing out at him with the staff.
