It took Mervella a day and a half to arrive at the first destination that the map indicated to her.

She strolled down the long dirt road and approached her destination. From afar she could already see it: a village with small houses, but also something like a temple in the centre, a big building with a tower under a pointy roof. It was good to finally arrive in a civilized place again, and maybe this village would also have an inn where she would be welcome. She still had that coin the old woman had given her, among other valuables. The only thing that worried her: What was she supposed to do here?

On the main road, a few hundred yards from the first buildings away, she stopped. Something was wrong... terribly wrong...

It took her a while until she realized that it was the smell. She had been on dozens of battlefields, had seen death and suffering, and the smell of death was a familiar scent to her. But this? She took a sniff and hesitated to make one step further towards the village. This was... sickening. It didn't just smell like something died at this place - a lot of somethings, at that matter - but whatever dead corpse reeked like that must have been dead for half an eternity. Still, as dutiful as Mervella was, someone expected her to go there, and so she did. Keeping her breath flat so that the stench wouldn't turn her stomach inside out.

But the closer she came, the worse it got. With each step the stench intensified, and soon her eyes filled with tears, and she had to cover her mouth and nose with her hand. And then she noticed something else: This wasn't a small village, not compared to her home. But it was empty. Not one living soul was roaming the streets. Not a single voice could be heard from the inhabitants. No birds were chirping in the trees. It was like this whole place was one big graveyard.

And then she saw the figure.

It looked like the head of a bird on a man's body, with big round pitch-black eyes over a long beak. As it noticed her, it started to run towards her - fast enough for her to be alarmed. Mervella had to take her hand off her face, and the smell at this point was nigh unbearable. But she had no choice. As the creature came closer, she drew the sword from her belt and raised it. "Stop! Or I shall strike you down."

The creature stopped. Apart from its weirdly shaped head that at a closer look turned out to be an elaborate mask, it looked human enough. It was clothed in a long black coat and wore a black cylindrical hat. The round eyes were in fact small glass windows in the mask. The eyes behind them were barely visible, but Mervella could still feel the look from them.

"You better stop!" the creature called out to her. "If you value your life, do not come any closer to this place!"

It was a human voice, a male voice. Mervella looked at this creature and tried to remember where she had seen this kind of mask before. She looked around in this deserted village. "What has happened here? Where are all the people?"

The creature shook its head with the long beak. "What does it look like, stranger? Evil has come over our village. God has forsaken us. People have to bury their own families and hold on to the hope that they might be spared."

"What did this? Some sort of monster?" Mervella inquired, looking anxiously for any sign of danger.

The man in the mask nodded. "A monster, yes. The worst of all. One that your sword cannot defeat and your armor cannot protect you from. The Black Death."

And then Mervella understood. Though she had never seen it firsthand, the stories that were told among her siblings-in-arms had been more than enough. "Is there anything I can do?"

"What?" The man in the mask looked perplex, even though all Mervella could see was his body language. "Are you insane or just foolish? You need to leave this place. Turn around, walk down the road you came from and don't ever come back! And pray to God that you didn't catch it already!"

"God?" Mervella frowned. "Which god?"

A moment of silence. Mervella felt like the stares of the man behind the mask were piercing her. "What are you, a heathen? God! Our Lord Almighty! He who reigns in Heaven with mercy and kindness." He tilted his head. "What in the Lord's name are you doing here? Why are you here?"

Mervella pulled out the scroll that the old lady had given her. "I was told to come here and face some kind of challenge. Though nobody mentioned that the place they would send me to was infested by the plague."

"A challenge?" The man in the mask shook his head in a manner that showed her how much of his faith he had already lost. "Stranger, I really don't know what twisted mind put you up to this. But it has been fourteen months since the Black Death has befallen us all. We were once over three hundred souls in this village, but now merely eighty of us are left. In this time we have done everything in our power to keep it from spreading." He sighed and looked at her sternly. "You really want to help? Then go back the way you came! Give this village a wide berth and never come close to it again! But should you meet others like you on your way, then warn them to not come here at all! Spread the word of warning, so everyone else might be spared. This is all you can do, stranger."

It was not what Mervella had expected. Part of her felt a little disappointed, even guilty. She was a knight, she was obliged to offer help to whomever needed it. On the other hand, she was glad that she didn't have to go any further into the village. That horrid smell would stay with her for days already. Finally she nodded. "Alright, I will. But if there is anything else I can do for you, please let me know!"

"There is nothing," the man said. "Just go! The Lord's blessing be upon you."

Those final words, though certainly meant as a sign of appreciation for her offer, had a stern undertone to it. Like this man was offended by her question about his god. This was a very strange place indeed. No god was almighty, at least none of the gods Mervella knew about. It also seemed like this man took his belief a lot more serious than Rhojeka did, just as an example. However, there was no point in discussing this any further.

She turned around, sheathed her sword again and walked down the road away from the village. She felt the distrustful look of the man in the mask in her back until she had reached the crossroads. There she turned east.