Burned flesh. The smell wafted gently on the breeze as the riders approached the Great River. Tanner thought he had smelled it awhile back. It was one of those things that a man never forgets. Not when the first time the smell belonged to his father. He tried to tell himself, ‘No, it can’t be that’, but as the party moved steadily towards the river, Tanner couldn’t deny it. It was burned flesh.

The startling thing was that the smell picked up in intensity as the group rode on. Anyone who had lived through the Council’s War probably knew the smell from burning farm houses, but had anyone alive ever been exposed to burned flesh in such an increasingly overwhelming fashion? Tanner doubted it. Certainly no one in this party. Andre was too young, younger than all of them. Faolan had seen rough times, but never mass slaughter. Likewise for Annah. Fayte? Fayte was a different story. Fayte had traveled all over the known world, and seen many things beyond Tanner’s description and knowledge. But Fayte was the kind of man to leave before things got too bad. Tanner wondered if Fayte might be planning on turning around before they reached Bexar.

But Tanner, Tanner knew this smell. His father had been burned when half dead by Red Legs. What two arrows started, flame finished. In border skirmishes, Tanner had smelled this once again. When the Westover Council refused to pay the Bears for beating off nomad raiders, Westover had gotten the torch. Some died quickly, others not so quickly. Some had burned. The smell was always the same. Sickly sweet, like over-done pork, until the thought of what had actually burned made one want to gag.

‘No it can’t be that’, but it was. When the party saw the first mound of corpses, with smoke coming out from underneath pile, smoldering like wet leaves in a brush fire, there was no doubt what that smell was. Just … so many bodies. And no signs of an armed combat. Everything was in disarray, like no one had minded their own property in the town. It was as if the Bexar women had told their men to mind the house, and the men decided to drink instead. Just a mess. But that wasn’t the worst of it.

The odor made Tanner want to retch, which he would have, except he had nothing but beef jerky to throw up. Fortunately he kept it down. A little swig of water cleared the taste from his mouth. The smell-induced nausea subsided a bit. ‘How can this get any worse’, Tanner mumbled to his horse. ‘At least there’s money waiting in Bexar’.

No, when Tanner saw the first walking human, he realized, ‘Damn, it did get worse’. He had seen people like this before. After a battle where a village was sacked, the older people might look like this four days later. Disheveled and filthy, with their clothes almost to rags. But it was the eyes that were the worst. Eyes that stared far and away, as if someone were trying to look at something a hundred leagues away. One would be standing in front of them, but the survivor would look right through you. Tanner’s mother had the look, briefly, until she died from an infected Red Leg sword wound.

Tanner had never wanted to see that look again after his mother’s death. Unfortunately, he had during action with the Bears on the Border Lands. And now he was seeing it again. He immediately wanted to ride on.

And then there was another, and another, and another. Half dead humans with a hundred league stare. Nothing Tanner had seen before prepared him for this. Not even the world he had seen when Faolan, Zen, and himself rescued Daren Fawley from that witch. Daren could have handled this. Nothing seemed to faze him, except fool prophecies that were taken in brothels. Faolan seemed to have a better composure about this whole thing. Good. One of us has to.

And then, a little ways closer to the river, there was another mound of burning corpses. Not good. This was just … wrong. Princess Bexar would never let anything like this happen on her lands….A black cloud of thought crossed Tanner’s mind, when he realized that these almost dead people were coming after them. Not fast enough to catch them, but if the party hung around too long, things could get ugly in a hurry. Tanner was thinking of making haste toward to the bridge over the Great River, when Annah and Faolan urged everyone to make haste for the bridge. It seemed like a good idea.

As the party rode into Bexar City, Faolan and tanner both noticed riders in the distance. ‘Definitely not Bexari’ said Faolan. No, the riders wore completely different dress. Kind of like the diplomats from….

‘Those are Rios. After them!’ shouted Annah. Tanner and Faolan galloped after them, but they disappeared over the crest of a hill. When they reached the crest of the hill, Faolan and tanner stopped. There were burning piles of dead everywhere. Tanner gagged slightly again. But there was also a hill on fire.

Or rather there was mound with tents on it. And surrounding the tents, about 30 yards out, was palisade of stakes with few openings. There looked like people within the palisade, but Tanner couldn’t be sure. Faolan was. ‘Those are Bexari’ and they rode toward the encampment.

‘Okay’, Tanner thought. ‘Lots of burned corpses’. ‘Survivors in some kind of shock’. ‘Rios’. “How can this get worse?’ Then Tanner saw a blinding flash of light coming his way. ‘In Petan’s name, it just did’, as the fireball crashed into him and the burning flesh he smelled was his own. It was all Tanner could do not to fall over.

Another fireball came out of the sky as Faolan and Tanner charged up the hill. More singed flesh. Actually, a bit more than singed. Tanner’s face was red; not in anger, but because he had burned. ‘Some witch is about to eat cold steel today’ thought Tanner. He gritted his teeth and pulled out his sword.

Surprisingly, Faolan was actually calm. He cried out, ‘We’re friends of Bexar, and are the friends of the Princess. We come in peace!’ And this was good, because another fire ball that was to crash down suddenly disappeared. Tanner and Faolan slowed to a trot, when a familiar, if weary, voice called out.

‘I think you have come at a bad time. Bexar hospitality is not what it was.’ A very weary Samson walked out. Tall and strong as usual, but with the air of a man who had seen too much fighting lately. Almost to the point of being beaten and broken. Something was definitely wrong.

See: Tanner Hawkwood