1 Laughter in the Ashes

You can call me Rust.

If not for the body I am dragging into an old graveyard, I'd buy you some ale and we would have been best friends by morning. That is, if you can tolerate my lifeless friend over here.

Don't mistaken my humor for nonchalance or cruelty. But in the Ashen Belt, you need to fake strength to survive. And at the moment, I'm doing my best to bury my one and only friend.

"Lose weight, Angus," I told the corpse that did not look human. "You are making this hard for me."

Laughter bubbled in my throat, thick and wrong. Old Angus made it a rule that I laugh when we suffer. His exact words, I swear. "Laugh, Rust, or the Hunger wins," he used to say before his booming laughter shook the smithy.

And we would laugh, with me shoveling coal into the furnace, or him hammering the sword into shape. At those times, the heat was unbearable, but I would trade it for this chill or his booming laughter for this silence.

Despite being a short man when alive, Angus was quite the giant as a corpse. His skin was broken at different places, revealing bones and black flesh. That made my grip slip and I fell on the hard soil.

Dammit... I have no strength to stand again.

Instead, I turned and looked at the worlds hovering in the sky. Realms higher than ours, bigger, and making my troubles in this Ashen Belt seem insignificant. 

"How am I supposed to laugh... when you are not here?" I asked before covering my eyes, my mouth twitching into a grin. "Dammit, Angus, dammit... come back."

He won't come back, I made sure. Otherwise, I would be the one needing a burial. Not that he would waste a meal after suffering the Hunger.

Not him, it.

And maybe in the future, me.

This was the Hunger.

But for me, a different kind of hunger was building inside. A rumble from my stomach shook the graveyard – or that's what I thought it did. You might ask me: but Rust, how can you think about food in such a bleak situation?

None of your damned business, I would answer. But Old Angus would hammer me to the ground if I was this rude to someone. And so, with my sincerest apologies, I remind you that I am not in my best state.

It has been three days since I last ate anything. The last meal I had was a breakfast of boiled potatoes and plain bread right before we left the Ironheart Stronghold.

Some of you will think: 'Yuck! Does that even taste like anything?' No, it does not, but I would kill for another meal of that boring and tasteless food.

I successfully rose to my feet, although unsteady and hunching. My bloodied fingers dug into the black skin of my victim, and a handful of flesh came loose. Its rotten smell made me retch, but there was nothing for me to puke.

The soggy lump of flesh rested in my hand and I looked down with horror. This used to be the powerful arm that wrapped around my neck and dragged me to the smithy.

I suddenly remembered my father's words. 'Never bury a Broken, Rust. Otherwise, they will drag you down. Haha!'

My father would let out a silly laugh, unlike the hollow one I had. My two role models are simpletons who laugh in the face of death, so how could I turn out different?

I needed to make haste to bury the corpse before it began moving again, making the grave for me instead.

"I guess you heard my advice and started losing weight," I laughed again as the flesh fell from my hand. My body bent forward as I pulled Angus from his ankles, each step making my entire body shake.

The graveyard was eerily empty, but that was no surprise in the Wildlands. No sane human would enter this place at night, or even at all. But I am not very sane at the moment. They would not give him a proper burial in the stronghold.

"You deserve to be buried next to your wife and kids, Angus. I will make damn sure of that, I promise. Just... give me a few hours."

But it took more than a few hours to drag him to the burial site of his family and my father. I never visited this place ever since they died twelve years ago.

An old shovel rested atop my father's tombstone. I had a suspicion that it was the same one Angus buried him with, still resting here after all this time. And when I picked it up, it weighed heavy of my unknown future.

"A nice spot right next to his wife, right here is good."

I began digging, pushing the bending shovel into the ground with my arms, foot, and whatever strength I could muster. The crusted earth gave away, and the grave began to take shape.

"At the very least, Angus, you no longer have to worry about rent," I said while digging, throwing the soil and dead roots to the side. My hollow laugh arrived again, an ugly sound in the dark night.

The grave I dug was far from ideal, but I made sure it was deep enough that Angus would never hear this world's bullshit again. I climbed out with my last remaining strength before leaning on my father's tombstone.

"It has been a while since we last talked," I said between labored breaths, each one like a sharp knife stabbing my chest. "But I still haven't accepted that you are dead. It still feels like a bad nightmare."

My hand reached to the tombstone and I rose with its help, then dusted its white surface. Then, I turned toward Angus, ready to push him into his last destination.

"You were the only thing that made me forget that nightmare, Angus," I said as I propped myself behind the corpse, my two hands barely covering his shoulder. And then, I started pushing. "I'm sorry for not being who you believed I was."