Salt Storm: The Salted Series: Episodes #31-35 Galvin, Aaron (classic fiction txt) 📖

For all the fight Henry had offered before, he showed little of it now – gasping for air, his hands weakly reaching to flail at Tom Weaver for release. The monstrous Selkie would not relent, however, dragging Henry around the building’s corner and out of sight.

Lenny looked to Brutus and Jemmy T then, wondering if they should follow.

Henry’s screams from inside the crematorium put an end to such thoughts. From pain to rage, and then on to senseless shouting. A minute later, Tom Weaver exited the crematorium alone . . . but the voice of Henry Boucher lingered on, the Frenchman howling and cursing with foreign words.

The red-haired giant’s face showed no sign of remorse or patience for questioning of his actions as he stalked toward the remaining few who had fought beside him.

When Henry continued to shout inside the crematorium, Brutus cleared his throat. “So, you’re not killing him, Tommy?”

“He’ll be dead soon enough,” said Tom, continuing past them. “He’s gonna suffer first.”

Lenny understood why when he saw where Tom was headed. Vasili . . . Lenny’s expression softened when the giant man knelt beside his fallen friend, gathering the slain little man up in his arms like a swaddling babe.

Tom Weaver carried his friend toward the nearest stack of Selkie skins. Then, laying Vasili’s body atop the pile, he added the little Selkie to the remnants of all those gone before. Though Tom Weaver’s broad back served to block the view of all those watching him, Lenny swore that he saw the larger man reaching into the front of Vasili’s suit.

What’s he doing? Lenny wondered, but did not say, the answer revealed a moment later when Tom Weaver removed his hand from the inside of his fallen friend’s Selkie suit. Lenny glimpsed the leathery thongs of a simple necklace then, the untied pieces spilling across the back of Tom Weaver’s hand before the larger man tucked all away in his own Selkie pocket.

None voiced any reproach for what the big man lifted from the body of his fallen friend. Nor did any raise a word against him when Tom Weaver fetched up one of the torches that Henry’s Lepers had used to light their way as they worked. Beginning with the stack he had placed Vasili upon, Tom lit the makeshift pyre on fire and lingered long enough to watch the flames catch.

For a moment, Lenny thought to step forward and stop Tom from burning the others; all to keep to their original plan of leaving evidence for others to come after. To see and know something of the same horrors as they had witnessed. In the end, neither Lenny Dolan or any of those alongside him did anything to say or sway Tom Weaver’s actions. As the fiery tendrils began to lick the stack, and then flame in full around Vasili’s body, Lenny’s chin quivered in remembrance of the one he had left upon a pyre of ice in the City of Song. So many . . . he thought over and again as Tom Weaver lumbered on to attend the other, fallen Selkie fighters who had bled with them in battling Henry’s Leper gang.

For each and every fallen comrade, Tom Weaver lifted and carried the bodies himself. He placed each of those onto a Selkie stack all their own, then lit each makeshift pyre in turn. The Selkie giant did not stop his efforts until all of the fallen Selkies were attended. Even for those who had fought among Henry’s group, Tom Weaver ensured that none of the Selkie dead were abandoned to rot.

A Dolan doesn’t leave others behind, Lenny thought of his father’s words and Tom Weaver’s work when the other flames began to take all the other piers too. All while Lenny’s gaze scanned the uncountable number of Selkie fallen whose remains had been stacked and tied together. How are there so many?

As the last of the pyres were lit, Lenny again thought to speak out against Tom’s actions. To save a few of the stacks and remind the elder Weaver of their earlier, shared decision that the Selkie skins should remain as evidence – a testament to all those slaughtered at the hands of the Blackfin’s Orcs and the Merrow king’s orders.

His mind suggested there would be proof enough for any willing to press further into the cavern and bear witness to the thousands of corpses still strewn among the ice-covered, stony fields and hollowed out, makeshift ditches.

It’s better this way, Lenny told himself then, his resolve and reason lessened for every stack lit in tribute by the crimson-haired giant. Listening to the crackle of flames overtaking the pyres, Lenny’s mind again turned to the unburnt one he had left to freeze in the Ancient City of Song. Forgive me, Pop. Lenny prayed, wincing at the singes and pops made by the flames, almost as if the various pyres sought to give all of the fallen Selkies a final, fiery song of sendoff from the element itself.

Beside him, Jemmy T bowed his head and whispered the same prayer he had offered at Declan’s funeral. “Go now, my bruddas. Aye, and all my sisters too. Swim off to Fiddler’s Green. Don’t dive below, to them depths unseen.”

When the last of the pyres were well and truly blazing, Tom Weaver cast his torch aside and returned to stand vigilant guard over the flaming one that he had rested Vasili upon. In his heart, Lenny knew that Tom would remain watchful until the pyre had burned to ash, a final show of respect to his little, fallen friend.

Among the remaining few survivors from their initial group, Brutus was the first to stir. “Come on, lads. He’ll be along shortly. Let’s get the rest sorted back at the train.” He said softly. “We’ll need to shove off soon.”

Jemmy T nodded, slinging his crossbow and adjusting the weight of it over his shoulder before heading out.

Curiosity held Lenny back. Though reason suggested he