It was a damp morning with clues of summer. The band of killers departed the night before. Mangled corpses of village shop-owners, housewives, and students dappled the dirt roads. The rain water splattered into pools of blood, carrying meandering streams of their mixtures down into the sea shore. My mother's was among them.
Word was that they were reapers, clans of brutal warriors that ravaged small villages across the Outerlands. They had no interest in fame or power, nor were they ventures of the Centerworld. Just sadists who lived off the simple pleasures of blood and bullion.
The Nukyluk Salmon company, in all of its rotted, dilapidated glory now stood eerily still without the subtle steps and stern remarks of mother. I coped with the idea that she joined my father, who had perished out at sea 10 years prior when I was 8. It left me alone in a business that was now a depressing shadow of a bygone era.
I was on a third swig of brandy when the cries resumed outside. The ones shedding tears were lucky, for some never awoke to even have that chance. My stomach churned and I thought of throwing up the rest of the alcohol. Mother's body remained in the next room, and the expected maelstrom of emotions that would follow the death of a parent seemed to evade me. After my father's funeral, my tears similarly refused to flow.
I picked myself up and walked over to the mudroom to where my mother laid. I gingerly carried her legs in one arm and her head in another and made my way outside. The company was one of many trade shops along the village port.
"Andrei, Andrei!"
It was Boris, the butcher next-door. A graying old man, one eye wrapped in a makeshift wool eye patch and an amputated leg supported by a splinter of wood. He stumbled over from across the pier, panting in fatigue.
"No, no. Not Katya! I'm sorry son. Those bastards. I had heard stories. but I never thought our town would be subject to this."
"She's with my father now, Boris. I can reconcile with that.
""Oh, Andrei. You've grown into a man your father would be proud of, I can be sure of that."
Boris had been a shipmate of fathers. He was apparently a retired Centerworld warrior, yet those were just stories.
"Boris, where are the burials? I've heard the cries of many through the absence of mine."
"I and the rest of the portside folks have been helping burials outside church near the Gods' Shrine."
"Thank you then, I'll make my way there."
The Gods' Shrine. I was familiar with it as a kid, the family took monthly trips to accumulate fortune for the company. I started to make my way off the pier and across town.
Yet before I made off, I heard Boris' frantic steps follow me. "Andrei, the village isn't safe anymore. I'm sure you realize. There are people who will take advantage of your vulnerability. Your's was the most profitable in town."
He was right, I knew it. Nukyluk Salmon was one of the oldest and biggest participants in the towns economy. The townspeople held reverence for my mother's strength. But now she was gone. There was no telling how local bad actors would respond to her teenage son being alone at the masthead.
The trip to the shrine was nothing sort of a cursed site. The market stands on the main road were trashed, produce spoiled and structures burnt. The living quarters on the outskirts of town smelt of rainwater and ash, and heartbroken fathers, mothers, and siblings alike sobbed among upturned gardens and soaked porches.
Upon approaching, the Shrine seemed to have avoided a similar fate, and a bulk of the townspeople stood with tributes of food and jewelry. Hands folded in prayer, and sullen faces conversing in hushed whispers. A couple of soaked faces turned upon my arrival with more whispers in tow.
"Its the Nukyluk boy..."
"Poor Katya and her husband, how cruel."
"...both gone now. He's the sole heir of the company now."
"...I heard he was decrepit...
...my kid said he was cruel...
...I've heard the same, he was smiling at his father's funeral...
...he isn't fit to manage that company. Haha, maybe my son would be a better option"
I supposed that it wasn't the cruelty that surprised me -- the Outerlands commanded such individuality -- it was the blatancy.