Valley of the Dead Read Online Free PDF Page B

the steps of the church, near a flagpole from which a colorful banner hung limply, there was a man in a floppy, burgundy hat and a dark, leather jacket of slightly better cut and quality than the rest of the citizenry. His clothes didn’t look clerical or military, so he must have been some secular, civil authority. If not the mayor or judge of the town, he probably was at least some minor official, like a beadle or guild president or whatever equivalent these people had – one minor enough that he wouldn’t have been warned to flee already by his superiors. Dante presumed he was nominally in charge of these proceedings.
    The other figure he could pick out was the only other person there on horseback, a.young man, probably just a year or two older than Bogdana. He was powerfully built, with long blonde hair. He sat astride a brown horse and kept near the woman, trying to stay between her and the crowd, sometimes shouting back at them. From his clothing, he was clearly a soldier. His long sword was out, and he was strong enough to wield it with one hand, even though it was quite large. Dante had seen others with similar weapons training to use them with two hands.
    Dante tried to make out what the people were shouting, but he could not understand their speech as clearly as he did Bogdana’s. He did hear the word strigoi several times among their shouts and the crowd’s general murmur. But the thrust of the exchange became clear quickly enough.
    “She’s possessed!”
    “She’s brought a curse on us! Her daughter died during the last plague, and now she’s taking it out on us!”
    “If we burn her, we’ll be saved!”
    “Leave her alone!” the young soldier shouted back at them, waving his sword menacingly and skillfully enough that they hung back. A rock bounced off his chest, but other than that, the crowd hadn’t yet built up the recklessness for an attack. “She’s done nothing wrong! She’s just an old woman! How can you people do this? Has the plague made you all go mad?”
    Dante knew exactly how they could do this, and unfortunately, it had nothing to do with madness or any physical plague. Corpses getting up and walking around could easily qualify as “mad” in his estimation, and he’d never heard of such a thing happening ever before, except in the Holy Scriptures, where it had been a blessed miracle brought about by God and not the horror he had seen in this alien land. But people hurting those weaker than they were, in order to make themselves feel better or more secure? One could see that every day, in every city, in every land he’d ever visited or read about. He envied the young soldier his naiveté, thinking it would be nice to see such human evil as somehow inconceivable or aberrant.
    Dante studied the woman tied to the stake. Her hair wreathed her head like a cloud exploding upward – wild, unkempt, and grey. There were twigs and ribbons in it, as though she collected these and decorated herself with them. Her clothes were similarly motley, made out of different scraps and layers, with nutshells, pinecones, and even animal bones hanging off of them. Like many who had sunk into madness and destitution, her age was impossible to determine. She was filthy and haggard, but there was no telling how much of it came from age, and how much was the result of no one taking care of her, including herself. Often people like her lived out of doors, and wherever Dante was at the moment, its climate seemed harsh enough that it would take a toll on someone living without shelter. Her frame still looked strong, and she didn’t appear to be maimed or crippled. She could’ve been slightly younger than Dante, or many years older.
    She didn’t seem at all afraid of what was happening, though it wasn’t because she was oblivious. On the contrary, she was very alert, looking all around and frequently breaking out into laughter or some incoherent song. Perhaps she was so far gone in madness she didn’t