The Hall of Heroes

11. - A warm welcome

It was a quiet, happy afternoon in the village of Jalka.

Ever since the morning the day before, when Honza had returned with the news of slaying the beast, the villagers had been rejoicing. The threat of the monster had been taken care of by the heroic souls of the dead that now once again resided in the tomb high in the mountains. A veil of shadow had been lifted from their village and just about everyone felt like they could breathe the free air again.

People felt grateful to the mayor for solving the situation, and even more to the wise woman who had sent the messengers of hope on their journey. But of course, right now everyone was most anxious to see the return of the messengers themselves. The brave few who would become legends and their heroic deeds would be remembered for generations to come. And even though Honza had brought some pretty dark stories of how they were overtaken by the scary souls of the dead heroes, these souls had surely gone back to the grave where they belonged and everybody was going to laugh about all of it over a beer this very evening.

Or were they?

The first ones to see them coming were the same villagers that saw the cart being towed in by Honza and Fanda more than a week before. The road by which they came was on the same side of the village - towards the mountains. And once again, it was a sight these villagers would not soon forget.

It was not their looks. They looked the same as ever. The same old fat beer-brewer Alois, the same fair herbalist Tereza, and the same skinny young carpenter's apprentice Fanda. There was actually not much different about Fanda, except that he seemed older and wiser. But there was something very wrong about the way the other two carried themselves.

Alois's usual grumpy looks was replaced by an overconfident, jovial sneer rooted in deep disdain for just about everything. It made him look like a different man. Those who saw him would swear he was not the Alois they knew. But that was nothing compared to what had happened to Tereza.

She moved about bent forward and after each fifty to hundred meters, she crouched down by the side of the road to look about and sniff like an animal. She also seemed to have developed strange muscle spasms that made her head twitch every few minutes. She was definitely not the young and fair Tereza that had left the village only a few days earlier.

The villagers started whispering among themselves and tried to account for these wild changes in the people they knew so well. Voices like "they are possessed" or "someone took away their souls" were heard from the crowd and similar feelings were reflected in the faces that watched as the group made their way into the village.

"I-I-I don't think we're we-we-welcome here." the person in Tereza's body observed.

"You're not!" sounded from Fanda's lips.

"We'd best find the person in charge." the one residing in Alois's body decided. "As fast as we can. I don't like the faces of these people."

Though many questioning looks turned to Fanda, who seemed to be the one least changed of the group, he kept his eyes to the ground and followed right after the other two, directly to the mayor's house.

When Alena, the mayor's wife, heard the doorbell and came down to open the door, she stood frozen in place upon seeing what it was that had arrived at her doorstep.

"Ka-Karel's not here." she managed to say. "He's... out in the fields."

"Cramps! And the Wise Woman?" said the man in Alois's body.

"Sh-she should be in her shed, I believe." the frightened lady of the house said.

Alois grumbled and turned in the direction of the wise woman's shed.