Free The Mages' Winter of Death: The Healers of Glastamear: Volume Two by Charles Williamson

Michael used a dwarfish spell to remove a four-square paces section of dirt at the edge of the clearing. After searching the bodies, they dropped the two knight protectors that Michael had slain into the pit, and Michael moved the block of soil and sod back to cover the evidence.
    They had left the knight protector that Peter Oxbow had killed using an ordinary sword because they needed to explain how so many of the other bodies received serious burns. They lined up the drivers’ and guards’ bodies, and took out the canvas from one of the wagons. The three healers sat together and prepared shrouds for each of the dead from their caravan while Gregory stood as lookout. They didn’t put the bodies into the shrouds yet because they wanted the reinforcements coming from Swamp Ford to see the carnage the brigands had created. Because it was the closest town, it would be the authorities in Swamp Ford who had the legal right to decide the brigands’ fates, but it was almost always hanging in cases like these.
    They searched all the brigands’ bodies and took their valuables to send to the victims of their attack. Michael had about two hundred gold crowns on his packhorse, and he added it to the family pile. There were twenty-six brigands’ bodies and one knight protector. Michael, Jacob, and Roger collected wood for a funeral pyre for the dead attackers. They planned to use one of the wagons, and the unhurt wagon driver to send the dead from the caravan back to Southport Province for burial in their family plots or cremation on a sanctified funeral pyre at their local shrines. By early afternoon, the survivors of the assault began to wake up. Those of the convoy of wagons only had memories of going to bed the previous night. The four surviving attackers had no memories of the past day. As the caravan drivers and guards awoke, Roger told them that the knight protector who had led assault had done something to them to make them sleep as the brigands attacked. The survivors began to help with gathering wood and making shrouds.
    Two of the survivors cooked a meal of salt cod stew with carrots and turnips. They ate together in silence; it was an extreme contrast from the jovial evening they had enjoyed together the night before. All of the soldiers and most of the wagon drivers had known each other for years, and Michael had to insist that they wait for the authorities from Swamp Ford before taking any action against the four surviving brigands.
     
    Around nightfall they heard singing of over twenty men from Swamp Ford as they walked along the nearby road, accompanied by Jim and John Neville and Gregory Oxbow on horseback. The men sung the famous Swamp Man’s Ballad known in every pub in Glastamear.
     
    You may ask me why I live there, land of vipers and the bite-fly, you may ask me why I love this wetland, with its odor of the swamp gas, with its bog and quicksand danger. I can tell you, I can tell you, it’s the fog emerged at sunrise, it’s the hyacinth in still water, it’s the heron while it’s fishing in the evening twilight quiet. I can tell you, I can tell you, but you’ll never see the beauty, you’ll never see the beauty if you’re not a swamp man born. If you’re not born to this land of damp and splendor, you will never see its beauty. Let’s have a toast to Swamp Ford and the hardy souls who live there, then let’s have a second toast to bless those crazy fools who live there.
     
    As the group grew near, they grew quiet. There was more death in one place than they had ever seen. High Priest Carson was walking with the men dressed in the unpretentious clothing of a common laborer. He and the mounted men came forward.
    High Priest Carson made Perry’s sign over the dead and looked at the four tied-up prisoners. He said, “Michael, this is a terrible scene. To see a knight protector leading this criminal band nearly breaks my heart. How far has the church fallen? It is up to John who is now our mayor to