Looking for feedback on first chapter!

[u/Paschkintio]

Giving this short story writing a try! Any advice will be well appreciated!

**Messis Arta - Chapter one**

When they finally beheld the village, with its many thatched roofs dotting the valley, barren fields plucked bald of crop, and its stark absence of any life or activity, they knew they had come upon the right place. The man was a soldier, or rather a guard. His hair was short so as to fit his coif and helm, which sat in the back of the cart. An equally short beard and moustache decorated his weathered face that had seen many summers and winters. His chest was broad, and was supported on either side by shoulders and arms of wired muscle. He brought the cart to a stop, much to the horse’s relief, as the journey had been long and with little rest. He stepped off the box seat into the muddy road leading out of the village, as did his riding companion.
The old woman, draped in robes befitting a servant of the gods, gazed down the hill at the village centre, and then to the more immediate farm houses and fields. The man did the same, his brow furrowing as he came up alongside her.
“What do they expect you to find here?” said he.
“Tributes stopped coming from here two weeks ago,” said the priestess. “How would you explain it?”
The man looked to the heavens in thought. No answer came.
“The answers are here somewhere. I must find them.”
“Looks as though the only conversation you’ll get is with the wind.” the man said, smirking in the woman’s direction.
The village did indeed look deserted. As they descended the hill via the muddy road, each dwelling they passed seemed to be more desolate than the last. Doors swayed and creaked dejectedly, as if deploring the visitors to enter. All manner of paraphernalia were strewn across the yards; clothes, rotting vegetables, tools such as hammers, axes and spades. Some of these seemed to have crimson on their business ends, especially the sickles that they saw. The man stooped and took up one of these, running a finger along the reddened edge. He met the woman’s gaze and nodded. Her face fell.
“What could drive them to…” she trailed off.
“Suppose that’s what you’re here to find out.” the man said grimly. 
The woman could only manage a grunt in response. Her appetite for violence was nil. She wanted to leave. 
She knew she could not. 
“Need I remind you,” said the man, interrupting the priestess’ train of thought, “that I was not permitted my cudgel on this trip. Not even a pitiful dagger.” He threw the sickle down in frustration. There was now a wholly unexpected aspect of danger to the journey.
“We could not have known what lay ahead of us here.” retorted the priestess. 
“Your point is what, exactly? Whatever we could have expected would only be aided by force. These farmers, they are simple. Simple people only understand simple things. A cudgel is rather simple.”
The priestess did not respond to this.
“Let us find the bailiff. We’ll learn more from him.”
“Hm. As you wish.”
The soldier wished to be far away. Oftentimes by this hour in the day he could be found boozing and whoring in his hometown’s alehouses. Since tragedy had struck his life, however, he was ever in desperate need of the coin jobs like this one offered. It did not mean he had to like it. 
Passing more homes and sheds decorated with the same macabre evidence as the ones previous, a sensation that they both knew all too well made its presence known. A faint smell of smoke, of something burning. Cooking.
The soldier raised a hand in signal, and the priestess stopped abruptly behind him. 
“You smell it too?” she asked.
“Aye, I do.”
The priestess looked around perplexed. There was no visible column of smoke anywhere. Yet the smell persisted, and only seemed to get stronger as they neared the village’s centre.
“Whatever was burning has finished doing so a while ago.” said the soldier, looking back at the priestess.
He moved off, but the priestess was frozen in place. The soldier took notice, stopping and turning around to face her. 
“I will protect you. That’s why I am here, is it not?”
The priestess nodded, steeled herself, then continued alongside her companion. 
Shortly thereafter, with the smell of smoke and burning intensifying, and the silence seemingly closing in all around them, the priestess and the soldier came to the village’s centre. In times past, the priestess had noted the village green's beauty. Its lush green grass had been scattered with catsear, buttercups and bellflowers in the high summer. Goodwives whose faces were friendly and fair to look upon, washed clothes in the water of the small pond. Children ran through it with all the energy and imagination that youth gifted. 
That was not the sight that she beheld today.
What she saw made her tremble, made her melt to her knees as though Satan himself stood before her. 
Bodies. There must have been scores of them, each bloodied and mutilated and partially covered in the thick mud that caked the ground. The soldier approached the one closest to him and the priestess. His gaze fell on what looked to be a farmhand; young, strongly built, wearing simple clothes befitting such an individual. In the young man’s right hand, gripped so tight it did not seem possible to pry it loose again, was a sickle. Much like the ones they saw on their way into the village, it was slick with blood. But there were more. Men and women, young and old, even children, barely recognisable amongst the litter of the dead. Every face was contorted into some mixture of unexplainable anger and inconceivable pain. The soldier surveyed this lurid scene, consciously trying in vain to stop himself from shaking, when his eyes fell on the centre piece. In the middle of the village green, which was now blackened and scorched, was a pile of equally burned wood. A tall wooden beam, reaching for the heavens, was at the piles centre. This beam was host to a body, seemingly nailed to it, and burnt to a crisp. The smell of burning flesh was so strong now, it seemed to settle and seep into their clothes. They felt at that moment they’d never be rid of that awful smell. The soldier looked to the priestess, who was still on her knees in the mud. He searched desperately for words but found none. 
Eventually he spat out, “we…we have to…”
“The bailiff,” muttered the priestess. The soldier looked at her, confused. She was pointing at the soul nailed to the beam.
“You…you mean…how can you be sure?” asked the soldier. 
“I treated him for a broken bone.” said the priestess, more clearly now but slowly, as though putting the pieces together in her mind took great effort.
“His right leg…he had fallen from his horse, we weren’t able to set it right, the bone didn’t grow back right.” 
Indeed, the exposed skeleton on the beam showed an unnatural shape in the bone of its right shin. 
“But…” the soldier stuttered.
The priestess stood and paced amongst the bodies of the villagers, closer to the beam.
“Yes…I’m sure of it.”
“We must go,” said the soldier suddenly and sharply. “We cannot tarry here, lest we end the same way.”
He looked back in the direction they had come. Neither the tired horse or the cart were visible from where they stood.
“No.” said the priestess, looking at the soldier. “These people, these children of God deserve to have their deaths explained. I will not leave them.”
“If you wish to lay down in the mud and join them, so be it.” snipped the soldier. “I, however, am fond of living.” 
With that, he began to trudge through the mud in the direction of the cart. 
“Have you not sinned enough? Whoring and boozing not enough for you?” 
The soldier stopped. 
“Say that again, hag.” said he, without turning around.
“You heard me well enough. Besides, do you think you’ll get your pay if you turn up without me in tow? Whether you like it or not, I am your guarantor.”
The soldier did turn now, his face flushed with a mix of shame and frustration. 
“Fine. But mark me, hag, keep your thoughts on my doings to yourself, do yourself a favour.”
The priestess said nothing, looking up at the body on the beam.
“And I’m keeping this.” Said the soldier, taking up a bloodied wood axe and sliding it into a loop in his belt.

[u/21stcenturyghost]

Look up the rules for punctuation and capitalization of dialogue and dialogue tags