Tales of Ruuin - Homecoming

Prologue

Skullgarden Graveyard

Tal, Kingdom of Morgenheim

Fall, 6th Butchermoon, Year 1876

"Stefan? Do trees grow out of dead people?"

Stefan moaned inwardly, throwing another shovel of dirt over his broad shoulder and onto a steadily growing pile of dark earth. Bad enough he had to dig a fresh grave all on his own, but it was positive torture having to babysit his little brother as well. The little chatterbox sat at the grave's rim, all knobbly knees and elbows, fidgeting constantly and kicking lose small avalanches of dirt every time his bare feet hit the earth. Stefan sighed. He was five feet down – one more and he could call it a day. That was, if William didn't slow him down any further with his incessant questions. At five years, his brother had more of those than there were stars in the sky...

Stefan, why is the heaven blue?

Stefan, why is the grass green?

Stefan, why do you have to work so much?

Stefan, why where you wrestling with Helga in the hay?

He blushed slightly at the memory of that last one, once more lamenting the fact that there was just no shutting him up! With heroic effort, Stefan looked up, smiled, and gave his answer, already knowing it would not be the last. "Yes, William, trees sometimes grow out of dead people." Under his breath, he muttered, "Or at least their roots burrow into them." He braced himself for the next stupid question, valiantly shoveling on as he waited. Will's thin legs fidgeting, gears in his little skull going into overdrive.

He didn't have to wait long.

William pointed a thin finger towards one of the Witherroot trees that loomed between the gravestones, its branches pressed against the walls of a squatting mausoleum. Huge, twisted and in his opinion ugly trees, their branches always reminded Stefan of skeletal fingers.

"Have those grown from dead people as well?" asked William.

A grunt, then the slap of wet earth on earth. "Yes, William."

Stefan despised the trees. Even though fall had only just arrived, most of them had already shed their leaves, strewing them all over the green grass and gravel paths. He groaned inwardly. He would have to gather them up tomorrow. Again. Damn his bones but if he would ever succeed old Hornbach as undertaker, his first order of business would be to cut all of them down. They could use the extra space as well, considering that the Skullgarden graveyard was getting quite crowded.

William fell silent, staring intently at the warped trees. He started drumming his heels against the grave walls in the familiar fashion that heralded another question, kicking lose small avalanches.

"For Mendra's sake! Stop fiddling!" hissed Stefan, a little sharper than intended. "If I don't finish this grave today Hornbach will cut my pay. Again!" Quieter, he muttered, "The old, miserable miser."

"I'm... I'm sorry," mumbled William. "I just was wondering... I just thought..."

"What?" Stefan stretched his aching back. "Spit it out already."

"I... I was wondering if... if a tree had grown from mother's grave. I'd... I'd like to see it and maybe... maybe sit under it?"

Stefan suppressed a wince. Great, now he felt like a jerk. Worse, how should he tell his brother that his mother didn't even have a grave – at least none that belonged to her alone? When she died two years ago, just one of the many hundred victims of what the people had baptized 'The Winter of Vermin', he did not have the money to pay for a proper burial. Food had been more important than the dignity of the dead back then. It still was. Thus, it had been a choice between the lime pits or the mass grave; everything else would have seen her devoured by the vermin plague that had overrun the city.