Ugh, I am sick. Fighting off a fever in sweltering summer heat. What a time to be alive. Been working on another installment to By the Sword. Please enjoy.

Mist

He let the fisherman wander off, instead himself wandering toward the pier’s edge, and coming to it, sat himself to stare out into the bay. The grey mists, coiling in interwoven patterns, their slow waning and waxing as the breeze blew, hiding then revealing the ever present features of this cove. And always the dark, near black waters, the ancient eternal sea, reached as far as the mists would show, always ready to present its eternal mystery, its unsearchable deepness. It is to say he could not help but let his mind return to his youth aboard the Sisyphus, the zombies, Captain, the blood, and the cross he’d stolen so many years ago.

The ungraceful, booted steps of the soldiers approached, marching with a drummer boy beside. Turning, the lean figure broke from his sour musings, his black clothes, damp from the ocean spray, clinging to him like a second skin, and faced his pursuers.

Slowly standing, he heard one of them proclaim, “For the willful murder of Lieutenant Brown, I hereby place you under arrest. Throw down your sword.”

At the word of sword, the company—some ten or twelve strong marshaled in neat rows—uplifted their sabers. Still beside, the drummer boy stood, an oversized jacket about his shoulders matching those of his companions. He too, now stared out into the bay, into the mists, gazing upon the mysteries of the sea. The wind then suddenly moved with a tremendous howl, and about the pier did the fog thickly grow covering the thin figure in its wispy tendrils.

The company stood, their eyes trained on the slowly fading form. In a moment, his black silhouette dissipated. Shortly there was a splash, and one soldier cried, “He’s in the water.”

They dispersed quickly, trying to catch sight of the swimming outlaw before the drummer boy’s gargling pleas made clear who had entered the waves.