Taker's Vigil

The corpse was pale and gray-haired. The Taker preferred the old ones; burying the young seemed sad even to his hazy mind. It wore well-oiled paxonhide boots, traditional for one taking the Final Walk.

Thunk.

His shovel carved through soft earth with each monotonous, rhythmic swing.

Thunk.

The tiny human had given him a gold coin. Her long braids had quivered as she struggled to keep the tears from falling and pressed the single gold coin into his palm.

“For Papa.”

That was sad, The Taker thought. He had been a father once too, with a small human of his own. The fuzzy scenes of porridge bowls around a table and late-night, hearthlit conversations were hard to recall.

He’d hoped she wouldn’t sing. But she had, of course, that same lilting melody that they all sang. Tradition was tradition, and ‘the Takers liked it when you sang,’ never mind that the Takers never expressed their preference either way. Hard to do that without a tongue.

‘Roland, Roland, down the well,

So quick he rose, so fast he fell.

Bring the Taker, give him pay

As he leads the lad away.’

She’d stopped then, but the song had already wormed its barbed little tendrils back into his dim mind.

Then she was gone, and only the scrape of the shovel and the silence of the graves accompanied him. And, of course, that damnable song. It was his daughter’s voice that sang now, reminding him again of those nights around the hearth. Before the Cathedral, before the needles that pumped fire into his blood, before the whispering Fathers and Mothers took his mind away.

Bury him deep and check it twice

For Young Roland must be safe from mice.

When the grave was dug, the Taker inspected the corpse. Two silver coins rested over the man’s eyes, a tribute for passage into the afterlife. One the Church was happy to accept.

O’er each eye, a silver coin

So his kin in hallowed halls he’ll join.

Upon his heart, a piece of gold

So in his grave will he grow old.

Pocketing the silver, the Taker then felt for the typical incision under the man’s left breast. A single gold coin inserted under the skin, over the stilled heart. There wasn’t one. The girl’s insistence over the coin made sense now. Likely she had been hesitant to even touch the corpse.

Scripture dictated a coin over the heart, a donation to the Church for shroud-vigil. The soul would linger on the corpse for a day as they always did, and the Taker would ensure it was not disturbed. If no coin was found, the Taker was required to bury the corpse and depart. Scripture was law. And yet… the coin was there, clutched tight in his enormous pale hand. Scripture had not been followed, but he would still honor the spirit of it. The Church would get their coin.

And so the Taker buried the man, and began his silent vigil.

Leave his shoes upon his feet,

For far he walks to take his seat.

Less than four hours passed before his next visitors arrived.

“Ugly bastard, ain’t he? These the ones you talked ‘bout, the cryptwatchers?”

The man’s accent was foreign. The Taker turned slowly to regard the newcomers, unsurprised to see that all four of them wielded blades or clubs.

Beneath his tongue, a pin of steel

Profane mouth to forever seal.

“Be glad it’s got its hood up. Its face is even worse.”

“Big bastard. Do they all look like poxwalkers, all pale and scabby like that?” the first one asked. A fighter by the looks of him. Beady eyes studied the Taker warily.

“Supposedly they’re convicts,” the bald woman to his right said. “Bad ones, y’know, murder and sacrilege and such. Church has their way with ‘em. Cuts their tongues out, makes golems out of ‘em."

The Taker stood silently, two hands on the handle of the shovel.

“Alright ya bastard, we’re taking the corpse,” the first man said. “Soul’s not left it yet, and we’ve been hired. Give us the shovel, go take a walk, and we’ll be gone when ya get back.”

The Taker didn’t move, and the woman sighed. “Didn’t think so. No choice then. Doubt it’ll even feel anything.” She gestured to the first man.

The man took a step forward.

THUNK.

The shovel lodged halfway into the graverobber’s skull. The Taker followed with a rib-shattering kick that dislodged the shovel and sent the man flipping backward into a nearby tombstone. With a shuddering groan, the man’s body twitched then went limp, blood sheeting onto the stone.

“Alleran Above, he—” the second man’s sentence stopped abruptly as the Taker grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pulled him face-down onto the ground. The shovel’s red-spattered blade followed, into the back of his head.

The woman screamed, and the Taker grunted as the tip of her sword bit into his side. The Taker caught her in the face with a meaty fist, feeling the snap as the blow broke her neck. A wooden club slammed down onto his head, but after his time in the Cathedral, pain was an afterthought.

The club did not fall a second time, as the Taker grabbed the man’s raised wrist and broke it like a twig. The resulting scream died as the Taker slammed the butt of the shovel upward, under the man’s jaw. Blood and teeth flew from his shattered mouth as the final assailant collapsed.

He’d already broken from scripture once, and it didn’t seem right to leave the bodies there. By the time the Taker had buried them, the Cathedral’s Blessing had closed his wounds. He stared at the four gold coins in his hand. Like the girl’s coin, these hadn’t been placed under the skin and over the heart. But maybe that was alright. Perhaps the method was less important than the payment itself. And so he stood and watched, and tried not to think of the dreadful song.

Taker watchful, Taker Proud

Stand silent vigil o’er the Shroud.