Ward of the White Worm

Death, that which stole the infant's heartbeat in the womb or which came in the knife plunged into an unsuspecting back. The dissolution that could be heralded by war or brought quietly in peace. It made its mark in the sick man’s body with pustules or effluvia that fell copiously, or it made no mark at all. It carried off the beggar at the almhouse gate screaming for aid for their sickly child just as readily as it took a king at his moment of triumph.

Death, it was written in the Gospel of Saint Agnes, was the greatest gift the Distant Gods had given to its mortal children. In Death was all suffering eased, all confusion solved, and all fears dispersed. The luckiest will get to rest until the Final Day, while the chosen few would be awoken to undertake the Pilgrimage, and the ineffable Distant Gods ensure no favor is given to rich or poor, noble or commoner.

Inevitable, Death comes, and leaves its child Decay behind. Decay, the Inevitable Honorable Rot, on the wings of burial shrouds which laid its manifold children the Worms and Myconid Dryads to feast upon the still bodies, and the Rot which will slowly brush away mortality’s works.

Robert, for his part, was quite in agreement with his men in not being particularly eager for Death, nor for the moment where worms would begin to crawl in and out of his body in the grave. It was in poor form for a godling to display their lineage so brazenly to another, especially as a threat, but it was undoubtedly effective at giving the Earl of Brynebourne the upper hand.

“You damnable vermin,” Robert hissed with any affectation of friendliness and geniality gone. He glared at Theodore with a wrathful hatred full of disgust, fueled by primal fear, a familiar gaze.

“Vermin I might be, but what does that make the one who gets eaten by vermin?” The lich replied, its rattling voice coming out with an issuance of more of that foul fluid.

“I promise, this will not be the last time I have had the honor of meeting you, my lord,” Robert said, walking backwards a few steps until he was back upon a section of the road that had not been reclaimed by nature yet.

“I hope the next time I meet you Robert is after you have been cut down from the scaffold,” Theodore replied with venom.

The road behind Robert was suddenly surrounded by the mirages of tightly packed buildings, the smell of seat salt and old fish rolling as he backed onto a macadamized street. Then the mirage, and Robert, vanished. All that was left behind was the moor and its lone road. The last of Robert’s band instantly scattered to the moor themselves, Burke’s continued snarling following them a few yards before the great black hound withdrew back to the carriage, hackles still raised however as he stood.

Theodore for his part slumped against the side of the carriage, his head bowing and his limbs weary. “That had been ill-advised,” he muttered to himself. “I really must learn to temper my anger better.”

Vermin.

Who was a petty brigand, even one that had the blood of a Distant God in his veins, to call him such? He knew those eyes, when he went to Parliament they were the same. Oh they spoke to him so respectfully, but all quietly reviled him. He was not as flexible as his mother had been when she held the seat, and neither was he as sociable as his grandmother before him. He came as a reminder of inevitability to them even as he voted for hospital funding or increasing the barley subsidies. Only in Brynebourne among the self-important gentry who wished to climb along like creeping vines did they look at him as anything besides a Worm.

His rage boiled over in his stomach, bulging and climbing along his esophagus before he doubled over, retching loudly

Maggots crawled in cold stomach bile near his shoes and he took a deep shuddering breath, the anger was gone and only weakness and exhaustion remained. Theodore went back to leaning on the carriage.

“Sir, are you well?” One footman asked tentatively, putting his revolver away into his livery coat.

“Yes, I have simply just overexerted myself,” he pushed himself to strand straight and give a tired yet assuring smile

“Lo! Someone, many someones, are coming!”

Indeed further down the road was a small group of men, some dressed in slightly dirty reddish coats, others still in their underclothes. Several of them held up lit lanterns, cutting through the slowly growing gloom as the sun crept downwards. At its head was an older man who ran with a bottle clearly clutched in one hand, a stain on his unbuttoned red coat that flopped clownishly around his body. The only thing redder than the coat was his face. Burke’s growling rose again.

“Ah, the calvary,” Theodore muttered. “Be calm, Mister Burke.”

Burke stopped growling.

The footmen muttered among each other, but stood resolutely back at their positions as the small regiment huffed, puffed, staggered, jogged, and floundered up to them before stopping with a somewhat unimpressive salute. The foremost of them, beet-faced and pulling a handkerchief out to dab at his face with his hand still clutching his bottle of what turned out to be port. “Captain William Rourke, my lord!” He puffed.

“Hello Captain Rourke.”

“At attention men!”

The men stood at something, although it was doubtful if it was attention. Most looked barely awake. One was even already closing his eyes, his head drooping down wearily as he relied on another of his companions for support.

“We had been camped out in the moor to keep watch for the brigand who has been acousting innocent travelers upon the road,” Captain Rourke declared, “and by Providence we saw your carriage when we did! Those rapscallions fled as soon as they saw us coming.”

Theodore was too tired to frown, instead simply saying, “what luck they had chosen to run.”

“Indeed!” Captain Rourke nodded his head, “they fear the hand of judgement, of course! Rightly so, what villains must they be to try to bring harm to a good young man such as yourself? We would have gladly fought to the last man to ensure your defense, had it come to that”

“Their leader, I did speak with him,” Theodore had an idea of where Captain Rourke was going and wanted to hear none of it. He glanced over at the carriage window. Olli was not peering out of it. He hoped she had simply retreated into the safety within. He then further hoped she had not seen what happened. But some smaller part of him actually desired such, for seeing would be much easier than explaining things. “But let us get to Paeth, we can speak more about this in the warmth of a good fire, Captain.”

Captain Rourke’s eyes glittered at the thought of being inside. “Verily! Then let us go posthaste, my lord.” Then Theodore’s footmen quickly got back to their posts, the carriage driver put away his rifle that he had been clutching in a white knuckled grip the entire time. The captain organized his heroically exhausted men around the carriage in something that may pass for a formation to a blind man who had never seen one. The horses made anxious nickering sounds as they glanced not at the newcomers or even the speck-like backs of the fleeing brigands, but at the land around them.

The sun was crawling further down towards the horizon, and the Brynemoor was known to be unquiet in the night.