The Bar at the Edge of the Sea

by Tom Abrahams

  This was her chance.

  Anaxi charged forward. A pair of long strides and a push landed her at the base of the third snake’s neck. This was the widest part of the entire beast, the spot from which all eight necks and heads appeared to root and spring. Without stopping, she took another long stride. She pulled back the spear, her hand moving behind her ear. Her body twisted, coiling. Her right shoulder pulled back, and the muscles along her chest strained. She lifted her elbow with one final leap, planted her front foot, and drove the spear forward.

  Her bleeding knuckles brushed the side of her face as she grunted. The air left her lungs. Her stomach clenched. Her back leg kicked into the air behind her. The thigh of her planted leg tightened, cementing her in place as she uncoiled.

  Anaxi put everything she had into this movement. Her grunt became a roar that tore at her throat.

  The spear landed dead center in that wide part of the beast’s broad, imposing chest. The iron spike drove deep beneath the flesh. At once, the beast and its remaining heads bucked backward and hissed. The sound was like a waterfall crashing into rocks a thousand meters below. The room shook. Black dust clouded the air. The torchlight appeared to dim. The world quaked underneath Anaxi’s feet.

  But she held the spear in place, the wood blistering the soft skin of her palm and fingers. She kept it long enough to grab it with her other hand and pull. Using downward leverage, the spear ripped something fatal inside the beast.

  It thrashed. The hissing crescendoed. Its tail whipped forward and caught a man to her right. He vanished into shadow as if evaporated. The sound of cracking bone hitting solid rock followed.

  Anaxi gave the spear a final tug. It lodged the barbed spike into the creature’s chest before its movement forced her raw hands to let go. She ducked out of the way as the pole swung back and forth from the beast’s writhing.

  One by one the heads drooped, the tongues wagged, and the necks weakened. The beast was dying. Anaxi reached for the spear again, hoping a final tug or push might end the beast’s fight, but as she did, something hard knocked her from her left side. She crashed to the hard floor on her shoulder. A bolt of pain shot through her arm and along her side.

  She clenched her eyelids and gritted her teeth. The room spun around her. A deafening thud shook the ground underneath her, and black pumice ash sprinkled her sweating face and neck.

  The room fell silent as the air leaked from the beast. She opened her eyes and saw Branch lying on the ground next to her. His good eye stared straight into hers.

  As she focused, sweat fogging her sight, Anaxi wasn’t sure if he was alive or dead. And for reasons she couldn’t quite understand, she wasn’t sure which of those things she’d rather be the truth.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  An icy breeze slapped Li in the face as she pushed through the cantina doors and onto the porch. The cold stung her eyes, bit at her nostrils, and burned her ears.

  The wind carried with it a thick fog of snow, which, at first, disguised what lay beyond the plank boards of Pedro’s wraparound. Crystals crunched under her feet as she turned sideways and tried to slice her way through the chill toward the railing at the front of the porch.

  Pedro was already there, his shirt collar pulled above the shoulders of his vest. His hands were buried deep into his pockets. From behind, she could see puffs of his breath stream to one side before lifting into an invisible vapor.

  “I was never much for the cold,” he said. “Dries out my sinuses. Makes my skin itch. You?”

  Li eased beside him, the surprising warmth of his body an invitation to stand close. She did. She folded her arms across her chest and tucked her balled fists underneath her arms. A shiver ran through her body.

  “I’ve never seen snow,” she said. “I’ve read about it. This is snow, right?”

  Pedro chuckled in the same way a grandfather might laugh at a silly, but plausible, question from a precious child.

  “Yes, Adaliah,” he said. “This is snow. It’s magnificent for a day. Maybe two. Then it gets old.”

  She scanned the vast stretch of land beyond the cantina. Where there was water the last time she’d looked outside, there was now a white desert. She wondered if the ocean lay underneath.

  “Why the snow?” she asked.

  Pedro motioned to the left, to the same place from which she’d raced against the Horde. Off in the distance, a dark spot moved along the snowy plain. The descending sun cast a shadow on the object, which made it easier to spot.

  Not far behind it was a much larger patch of dark movement. It spread across the white plain like wine across a tablecloth, leeching farther and farther.

  “That’s the new arrival I told you about,” he said. “Not sure he’ll make it. Rough life. A revenge seeker.”

  The wind shifted and swirled around her, chilling Li’s neck. She tightened her fists and adjusted them under her arms. Her toes were cold even in her boots. She wiggled them to make sure she could.

  Behind them, swinging bar doors rocked on their hinges. Heavy steps trod across the boards. Barach sidled up next to Li, sandwiching her between the two larger men. She didn’t mind it. They blocked the wind for the most part. Barach leaned onto the railing with his forearms, clasped his hands together, and tilted his head toward the coming Horde and their chase.

  “That him?” he asked.

  Pedro sighed. “Yep. I would have thought he’d have a bigger lead on the Horde. I was telling Li, I’m not sure he’ll make it.”

  Li watched the chase. She imagined the panic coursing through the man’s confused mind. She empathized. That was her not that long ago. The sensation of being dropped into the middle of a dream without having fallen asleep.

  There was the rush of excitement. The pain of injury. The mind-numbing fear.

  Who are these nasty people giving chase? What do they want? What would they do if they caught me?

  These thoughts, along with the instinctual urge to run, were poured into a boiling pot about to spill over. It was the most-life affirming combination of sensations Li had ever felt. The irony wasn’t lost on her as she recalled experiencing those thoughts without the context of the truth.

  She nudged Pedro with her shoulder and asked, “How did he die?”

  “Avalanche,” he said.

  Li raised an eyebrow. “Avalanche?”

  “It’s when a sheet of snow comes loose and barrels down a mountainside. Quite something to witness. Nature is a powerful thing.”

  “Not more powerful than you.”

  He snorted a laugh. A visible puff of air curled from his nostrils. “Who says we aren’t one and the same?”

  She considered this and followed his gaze back toward the new arrival. The speck was a distinctive blob now. The shadows helped her trace his progress along the sea of snow and ice. Sunlight bounced off the white, making it glow almost blindingly.

  The three of them watched silently, letting the wind fill the spaces between them. Snow was falling harder now. It came in curtains of thick white flakes that dropped and drifted in silence toward the ground.

  The approaching drama drew closer. Li could make out individuals amongst the Horde and the turn of the new arrival’s head as he frantically checked over his shoulder at the relentless pursuit.

  The single line of the Horde’s pursuit cleaved in two. They were trying to flank him, force the direction of his movement. The man ran a straight line toward them. Or rather, dogs ran, Li realized. He rode behind them on some sort of wooden apparatus. The Horde also drove packs of dogs in front of them.

  “What’s he doing?” she asked. “With the dogs?”

  Barach answered this time. “He’s on a sled. It’s a form of transportation in icy, desolate climates.”

  “Dog…sleds?”

  “Exactly,” said Barach. “The teams of dogs can move much easier over the snow. The driver works them like teams of horses.”

  She’d read about that in some of the Regency period novels on h
er shelves. Banned books about aristocracy and individual freedom were delicious. None of them, however, featured teams of dogs other than those set loose to hunt. They weren’t strapped to sleds.

  As they drew closer, the snaps of whips cracked across the air like thunder. The dogs’ tongues flopped from their maws. Their bright eyes, electric blue like Pedro’s, collectively focused on the destination.

  “His name is Matthew,” Pedro said. “Or Matthias. Or Mateo. Matej. Matvei. I can’t remember which. They’re all the same, yet not. He’s desperate to get here even if he doesn’t know why.”

  The familiar sensation washed through Li’s body as she watched Matthew work the dogs behind the curtain of snow. He urged them forward with a rhythmic push of his hips and shoulders. The dogs trudged through deepening terrain, the snow up to their chests as they plowed forward.

  Li silently cheered him on to the finish. She didn’t know Matthew, but her heart pounded in her chest. Short breaths caught in her throat. She desperately wanted him to make it.

  To Matthew’s right, the flanking line of Horde sledders advanced. They mushed their dogs past him to choke his approach and force him off course.

  “He might not make it,” said Barach.

  They angled their path, driving Matthew to the left and closer to the Horde pursuing from that side. A spear launched at him and barely missed, vanishing into the endless white.

  Li bit her lower lip. Her tongue ran across the cracked surface of it. Her heart raced.

  “What happens if he doesn’t make it?” she asked, breathless.

  Matthew’s dogs slowed; their progress impeded now by the Horde cutting across their path. They blocked him from the cantina. There was seemingly no way around.

  “He’s not going to make it,” Barach said, a hint of disappointment in his tone.

  Li repeated her question. “What happens?”

  “Just watch,” Pedro said.

  Matthew’s dogs almost stopped completely in their tracks. The snow was heavy enough that Li could no longer see their eyes. Their coats, covered in snow, blended into the landscape.

  Li held her breath. Her back stiffened. A wind blew across her face, making her eyes water. She refused to blink.

  The Horde surrounded Matthew on three sides now. But at the last instant, Matthew cracked his whip. The snap raced across the thin crust of ice atop the snow, its sound a spark that ignited his team. The dogs jumped to the left, behind the section of the Horde that had blocked him. It was the only open spot through which to escape.

  Before the Horde could react, he was through the narrow opening and racing around the back side of the enemy ranks. He cracked his whip against the icy air again and again, each snap like a turn of the ignition. The dogs leaped, almost flying, across the ground toward the cantina.

  There was an open path now, but the Horde gave chase. Turning and regrouping, they surged. A volley of projectiles arced through the air, barely visible through the falling snow.

  Matthew turned. The dogs headed straight for the porch now. He was closing in on them. He would make it.

  Li exhaled. Not realizing she’d been holding her breath, she sucked in deep lungfuls of cold air. It stung and she exhaled again.

  The projectiles aimed at the porch now as well, a mix of spears and arrows and hatchets. Li backed away, but Barach held her steady. Three projectiles overshot the target and hit an invisible wall at the steps to the porch, dropping flatly to the earth as if a giant hand swatted them away.

  Matthew was meters away from reaching the porch. The dogs slowed. He leaped from the sled and sank into the snow up to his hips. Using his hands, he climbed onto his belly and tried sliding himself along the ground.

  He looked up at Pedro. His eyes caught Li’s for an instant, pleading for help. He struggled onto his elbows and knees, reaching for the porch. He stretched to touch the bottom step when an arrow drove squarely into his back.

  Li suppressed a shocked cry. Barach winced. Pedro was unfazed.

  Matthew’s back arched. His shoulders drove back and together. His eyes fluttered. Li saw the bruising on his cheeks and across his jaw. It was dark purple, with yellow-green around the edges. She imagined these were the wounds from the avalanche.

  Behind him, a tall skeleton of a man stepped from his sled. His boots sank into the snow, but he marched forward without trouble. A nasty smile spread across his narrow face, revealing angular teeth that ended in fine points. A gray tongue snaked across them.

  In one hand he wielded a large curved blade. He held it at his side, the blade rubbing against his leg as he moved. He was only a meter from Matthew when he raised the blade and opened his mouth wide to speak. But as he did, Matthew’s strength gave out. His head dropped. He flopped onto the ice face-first, and his right hand slapped against the step.

  The tall man stopped mid stride. Mechanically he tilted his head to one side, as if studying something he’d never seen before. A curious child or confused dog.

  Pedro moved from the railing. “All right then. That’s enough.”

  Without reacting, the tall man took a step back and pivoted. He motioned to the other members of the Horde, and together they turned their sleds around. In a group, they drove their hounds away from the cantina.

  Pedro stood on the bottom step. His left boot was next to Matthew’s hand. He looked down at him and reached over to touch the arrow. He ran his thick fingers along the feathers along its fletching. Then he glanced back at Li.

  “C’mon then,” he said. “I’ll be needing your help. If there’s a mission here, it’s yours.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “It’s not just a sword, you know,” said Uriel. “There’s more to it than that.”

  Zeke stepped over a decaying, felled tree. It snapped under his weight as he pushed off it. He scanned his surroundings for any threats. Shafts of lights cut through the thick canopy, playing tricks. The light danced off webs and disappeared shadows. Tiny bugs, almost too small to see, zipped in and out of it. The distant din of insects was the soundtrack that faded into the background.

  It wasn’t a distraction to Zeke. Uriel was. She kept talking from the rear of the group.

  “The sword is only part of the legend,” she continued. “It’s only one of the things Josephine left behind.”

  Zeke called over his shoulder, indulging her, as he stepped underneath a low-hanging frond. With his hands, he motioned for Lucius to watch his head.

  “How do you know this?” he asked. “And why are we just now learning about it?”

  “I know a lot more than I let on,” she said. “I’m not one of those people who has to tell people everything I know.”

  Zeke pushed past a thicket of low brush. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means what it means.”

  Lucius stepped alongside Zeke as they moved into a small clearing. A wide beam of light shone down onto the detritus covering the ground. Zeke glanced up at the hole in the canopy and relished the sunlight. He squinted against it and shielded his eyes with a salute. The warmth felt good on his face despite the perspiration that drenched his hair and coated his forehead, neck, and behind his ears.

  “I knew about the other items,” said Lucius. “They’re part of the legend.”

  Zeke hopped over a stump. “That’s what Uriel said.”

  Lucius walked around the stump and kept pace. His shorter legs worked faster to stay even with Zeke as they moved from the clearing and back into the dense foliage.

  “They are part of what the legend calls the Regalia,” he said. “The three items together represent virtues. The sword is valor. The other two are for wisdom and benevolence.”

  Valor, wisdom, and benevolence. These three together tipped the balance of good and evil in one direction. Why wouldn’t it then be a good thing for something so favored toward good be in the hands of someone with bad intentions? Wouldn’t that strike the equilibrium?

  Zeke held up his hand and stopped. Th
ey were under a cluster of thorny trees, which twisted skyward, searching for the light.

  He pivoted to face the others. “Hold on. How is it that two out of three of you knew there was more than a sword and neither of you told me?”

  Phil raised his hand. “I knew too.”

  Zeke huffed. “All of you knew?”

  “You didn’t ask,” Uriel said.

  Zeke’s face flushed with the heat of frustration. He flexed his hands and stepped back into something soft that gave way under his boot.

  He ignored the prick of a sting on his calf. “I didn’t ask? Really? Would it have mattered? I ask questions all the time that go unanswered. I have questions about questions from other questions. And you’re telling me—”

  The attack was instantaneous. No warning. No time to mount a defense. In a split second, red ants were everywhere. On the trees. On the ground. They seemed to fill the dank cool air of the jungle as if hovering like flies. Zeke couldn’t figure out what to do about it.

  Each stinging bite amplified the one before it. He couldn’t think straight. Not with the bolts of pain zapping through his body one after the other.

  While he swiped at a swarm on his right arm, he caught Uriel out of the corner of his eye. She glowed blue and appeared to be ant free. Instead of focusing on herself, she was helping Lucius. He, like Zeke, was covered in ants.

  “Get them off! Get them off!” he screamed.

  Zeke didn’t see Phil.

  Taking a cue from Uriel, Zeke stiffened his posture and tightened his hands into fists. Despite the stinging bites, which made him want to twitch and recoil, he focused on his core. His muscles tensed. The blood rushed into his head and he strained until the warm sensation of energy pulsed in his chest. The heat spread through his body and he opened his hands, then his eyes.

  The pain was gone. Around him, on the floor of the jungle, lay a circle of dead ants. They’d fallen from his body. And now with the pulse of energy flowing through him, he bounded toward Lucius.

  Whatever Uriel was trying to do to help Lucius wasn’t working. He squirmed on the ground in pain. Ants covered every inch of him. Zeke couldn’t even make out his features. They even coated his wagging tongue.