Valley of the Dead Read Online Free PDF

and Bogdana leaned closer to him.

Chapter 5
    These miscreants, who never were alive,
    Were naked, and were stung exceedingly
    By gadflies and by hornets that were there.
    Dante, Inferno , 3.64-66
    Dante kept as fast a pace as he could, but they never quite got free of the smell of smoke following them up the valley, though sometimes it seemed fainter. Looking around as he rode, he saw no other signs of danger from either the living or the dead. He only spied the trees and the occasional squirrel or, in the distance, a deer. The terrain was getting steeper and more difficult as they went. Dante thought now it was more imperative they find a settlement, so they could pick up whatever road went through the village and begin to follow it. It would help them make better time.
    By late morning they had reached one of the towns in the valley. It was a decent sized settlement, with a vast expanse of the forest cleared away for their crops. Looking at the larger buildings, Dante thought the valley must offer some material wealth to the people there – probably from mining, quarrying, and timber. This early in the year, the fields they rode through were bare, as well as devoid of any people. But up ahead, coming from among the buildings of the town proper, Dante could hear loud, angry voices and the general rumbling of a crowd. Thankfully, however, he did not hear the moaning of the dead
    Dante held the horse back, and looked over his shoulder at Bogdana. “Do you still want to go there?” he asked. “We can skirt around the edge of the town. I’m sure we can find the road on the other side and get moving faster. It might be safer. There seems to be something going on there.”
    Bogdana looked past him, then around at the empty fields, and sniffed the air. Dante was quite sure she noticed the smoke, and evaluated its proximity and danger just as carefully as he had been doing all morning. “We have to,” she concluded. “They may still not know the danger. We have to try.”
    Dante nodded and urged the horse forward. They passed between some two and three-storey buildings, as they entered the town on a street leading toward a central square. People looked down on them from some of the windows, and there were people on the street. All of them either headed toward the town square, or stood about, looking down the street to see what was going on there. All were on foot, and they made room for Dante’s horse, but all eyed him suspiciously. He remembered how, years before, he had seen troops leaving the besieged castle of Caprona after a truce had been negotiated. The troops had to march between the ranks of the opposing army. Dante thought he now knew much better how they must have felt, surrounded and outnumbered.
    The crowds became too thick for him to continue once they reached the edge of the square. At the corners of the square were four enormous oak trees. A white church occupied the middle of the area. To Dante, the church’s architecture looked strange but graceful in its simplicity, with a low dome in the middle, and two steeples at the front of the building. The crowd gathered around the church was agitated, restless, seething with motion punctuated by shouts. Their attention was focused on a thick, wooden pole sticking up from the ground in front of the church. A woman was tied to it, with a pile of wood all around her. The wood looked wet, and even from this distance, Dante could smell the oil they had poured on it. His heart sank, knowing death and cruelty had arrived there in advance of the army, and the horror was going to begin even before the troops arrived to slaughter everyone. Dante tried to move forward to get a better look at what was happening, while still staying close to the street they had rode in on. He was relieved to see the crowd did not close in behind them.
    Besides the doomed woman and the members of the crowd, there were two other figures there that seemed to have some special role. In front of