~ Chapter Three ~
  Death and the Maiden 

Barley’s breathing and resumed to normal and she was now propped up on her elbows scanning the room. 

“Bastard…” she whispered under her breath as she peered into the shadows.  She then began scanning the area around her as if looking for something she lost.

“Are you alright dear?” the Brewer asked hesitantly.

“Yes.  Where is it?” she asked, stilling looking around her bed.

“Where is wh--..” her father started, then abruptly stopped.

The temperature in the room had dropped further.  He watched with growing terror as frost formed on the large mirror over the bar.

The Brewer was now shivering not only from renewed fear but also the deep pressing cold.  He raised his hands warm them with his breath.  He glanced quickly at the dead crow on the bar.

“Fool….”

The whisper was so soft the Brewer was not sure from which direction it had originated.  Then something moved in the dark corner across the room.  Barley stopped looking for whatever it was she was searching for and shook her head softly, the familiar smirk crossing her face.

“He’s here…” she began. 

A dark figure emerged from the shadowed corner across the room and paused in the faint firelight.  Instinctively the Brewer pressed up against the wall behind him, eyes wide and unaware that he had stopped breathing.

The Grim Reaper was less than twenty feet away from him.

The specter was tall and thin and wore coal black robes.  A large hood covered the downward-tilted head so the Brewer could not see the face. Not that he wanted to.  But what he did see was enough to strike fear deeper than he would have imagined possible.

Two skeletal hands held a very large scythe out in front, the forbidding blade curving down towards the floor. It looked as if it could cut the head off a horse with one swipe.  Without a sound the Reaper rotated the scythe so that the terrible blade was curved over his hooded head and the base of the long black handled rested on the floor.  The Reaper moved silently over to where the dead crow lay on the bar. 

“Smite…” he whispered as he laid a skeletal hand on the bird’s body.  The crow began to stir.

Movement by Barley caught the Brewer’s eye and he looked away from the bar to see that she had apparently found what she had been looking for; a small glass vial that had been lost in the bed sheets during the assault. The Brewer recognized it as the medicine the young village doctor had given them to guard against infection from the broken legs.  Barley was to take three drops every 2hrs.

He suddenly realized he had not given Barley the medicine all day.  She had been sleeping and his thoughts had been elsewhere.  Idiot! How could he forget such an important detail?  He watched as she now took the medicine and lay back down smiling in relief.

As soon as Barley sipped from the medicine vial the Reaper looked up from the bar and whirled around to face her. The hood fell back enough so now the cold, cracked skull was visible.  The eye sockets flared a bright red as he stared at Barley.  The Reaper approached the side of Barley’s bed.  She just watched him approach, the amused look still on her face.  The Reaper lowered the great scythe down to where she lay, but she just reached up and pushed the scythe away.  Just as before.

The Reaper raised the scythe above his head and howled in anger.  A great wind rose up in the room and furniture began flying in all directions.  Windows and mirrors shattered, the lanterns blew out and crashed to the floor.  A flying spittoon struck the Brewer and, dizzy, he slumped down the wall.  Barley cried out and clung to her bed as it slid across the room.

The Reaper then lowered his arms and the wind ceased.  He stood motionless in the center of the room leaning on the great scythe, its blade once again arched over his head.  The black crow, having been brought back to existence by his Master, now flew up and perched itself on top of the large blade.

Still groggy from the blow to the head, the Brewer began to realize what was happening.

Barley had not taken her medicine all day and infection had set in.  Not only had it set in, it was killing her.  She was apparently so close to death that the Reaper had showed up to claim her soul.  But in the midst of doing his job the Brewer had distracted Death by killing his minion the black crow.  This distraction had lasted long enough for Barley to take her medicine, thereby reversing her death sentence.

By the time Death had returned to Barley it was too late, she was no longer dying.  This had obviously infuriated the Reaper, for this had happened many times before.  This was the first time, however, that Death had made himself so visible to mortals such as himself.  In the past the Brewer had only glimpsed shadows from the corner of his eye, not really sure if he had indeed seen something.

The Reaper must be getting either careless or too impatient to hide himself properly.  He suspected the latter. Not good.

He looked up to focus on the dark figure standing in the center of the room.  The Reaper was paging through a large book, running a long bony finger quickly down each page before flipping to the next. Searching.

“I tire of this game!”  The Reaper hissed, throwing the book violently at what was left of the large mirror over the bar.  The fat book bounced off the frame and hit the floor near where the Brewer lay.  The Brewer grabbed the book and saw the pages were filled with columns of names with dates and glyphs next to them.  This must be the legendary Collection Tome he thought, scanning the open page.  There he saw his daughter’s name, but it was fading rapidly from sight. She would not die today.

Barley’s cry made him look up to see the Reaper standing over her holding the great scythe high with both hands.

“I WILL HAVE YOUR SOUL!”  The Reaper bellowed, raising the scythe even higher.  The black crow cawed loudly as if in confirmation, hopping madly. 

Now Barley looked terrified.

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