by Barbara Becc
Across the short space between them, Al’s trembling fingers reached for Vega’s.
~~~
One Year Later
They agreed to meet in Saint Louis. Al would be coming down the Missouri River, and Vega would meet him where the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers joined. It was all very calculated, very planned, but she was still nervous. What if she had forgotten the way he felt with her? What if he had found someone else in that time, despite what his letters said? She shook her head and stared across the muddy waters at the approaching boat and the small figures scurrying across the deck. She took off her shoes, hopping around on the bank until she wrestled her feet free and stuffed her woolen socks into the toes of the worn leather and set them on the beach. The boat was closer now, and she let out a slow breath. Vega kneaded her toes into the soft mud, letting it squelch through them and ground her thoughts. All the doubts and worries and anger and loneliness, they had made it through together. They would make it. Love, she finally decided, was infinite in time and distance. Who knew what the future would hold for them, but -
Vega heard the chattering of magpies in the trees behind her, and their needy, begging cry spurred her forward into the lapping water. She looked ahead, scouring the boat for any sign of Al’s great shock of red hair. The riverboat was close enough now to make anchor and start ferrying passengers to shore. Vega waded out into the muddy waters, her skirts billowing and dragging behind her through the murk.
Here I am.
She heard shouting and laughing from one of the small ferrying boats, and then saw red hair arch through the air and into the river towards her. She grabbed large fistfuls of her skirts and slipped on the slimy, muddy rocks as she hurried forward. Al broke the surface and started swimming in great strokes, his heart skipping beats and his air coming in gasps.
Where are you? Where are you?
~~~
Meeting across the Milky Way
Through the varying shapes of the delicate clouds, the sad message of the shooting stars, a silent journey across the Milky Way, one meeting of the Cowherd and Weaver amidst the golden autumn wind and jade-glistening dew, eclipses the countless meetings in the mundane world.
The feelings soft as water, the ecstatic moment unreal as a dream, how can one have the heart to go back on the bridge made of magpies?
If the two hearts are united forever, why do the two persons need to stay together—day after day, night after night?
~~~
仙
纖雲弄巧，飛星傳恨，銀漢迢迢暗渡。 金風玉露一相逢，便勝卻人間無數。 柔情似水，佳期如夢，忍顧鵲橋歸路。 兩情若是久長時，又豈在朝朝暮暮。
-Quin Guan
Cinder and Blood
Barbara Becc
I love stories about reluctant heroes, about women who do stuff and about heroes who are not always good. This story is a twist on the Cinderella fairytale and my favorite fantasy tropes and stories. A vengeful queen, a runaway princess, secrets and dwarves, and fires in the country. A hunter who isn't quite like all others. A story of secrets and vengeance.
~~~
"Do you understand what is being asked of you?"
The voice made the chandeliers tingle and was projecting 'royalty' as much as humanly possible. It came from a surprisingly young person, dressed in cloth more expensive than anything Hunter had ever owned all her life. The queen looked breathtakingly beautiful, though, she had to admit that. The dress under the red robe seemed to be spun from pure gold, and reflections danced over it like light fairies. It was mesmerizing.
The silence in the great hall began to feel cold, and Hunter realized that the queen waited for an answer. "Yes, Your Highness. I understand."
"You will bring Ella here, where I can oversee her punishment. Do not kill her." The queen sat back down, draping her robe around her. It made her look like she was sitting in a pool of blood. Hunter shuddered and hoped the queen didn't see it. Being trained to kill and actually killing were two very different things. She tried to avoid killing in any way possible.
Hunter wiped her hands on her pants and straightened. She squared her shoulders just a bit more, hoping it made her small figure appear stronger.
"You are an unusual girl, my dear," the queen continued. Hunter resisted the urge to roll her eyes at that tired old statement. She had heard it so many times before. Ever since she had decided as a little girl to reject her given name and role and do all the things that the boys did, she had been called unusual.
At first they thought she was just rebellious, running around in pants and high boots. They forced her to wear dresses, to embroider and sew, to cook and clean. She did what had been asked of her, but she put on pants as soon as no one was watching her and worked at the horse stables as much as possible. She didn't scream, she didn't cry, she just took off the dresses and snuck out of the kitchen.
At some point, and she still wasn't sure how it happened, the people at the Duke's county accepted what she was. She wasn't a girl, she wasn't a boy, she was just Hunter.
This wasn't the first job the queen had bestowed on her, but this was the first time the queen was sending her alone. Not that she minded it much — she always felt slightly threatened among a group of men and going alone was a nice change. But she would still sleep with a dagger held firmly in her hand. Old habits save lives.
The queen sighed dramatically. "I don't know why you dress and act like this, and I frankly don't care. You have proven yourself useful. My men didn't complain about you on the last job I sent you."
That was probably the highest praise anyone could ask for from Sir Jeremihah and his men. The old warrior had grumbled when she was assigned to his troupe and ignored her, but he finally taught her what he knew after she happened to save his life in a stroke of luck. He also addressed her as a he, which was weird at first but made it easier in the long run among all the men.
"I hope that you can instill some sense into Ella, make her stop. The girl is causing terror all over my lands, and my people are getting scared."
Hunter bowed her head. "May I ask a question, Your Highness?"
"Always with the questions." The queen sighed and played with the fur inlay on her collar. "Very well, speak."
"Why are you sending me alone? Why aren't Sir Jeremihah and his men on the search?"
"I need them here," the queen said with the definite kind of tone that allowed no further questions. "You will be given funds to hire help should you need it, but I can't risk to send my best men away at times like these."
Hunter swallowed a remark that it was always times like these. The words 'Peaceful Negotiations' were just not in the queen's vocabulary. She was constantly at war with some neighboring kingdom. Many lives were lost and fields not farmed because her people had to fight in wars. A few angry souls tried to bring in better times by getting rid of the queen but no assassination attempt had ever been successful. The guard protected her every minute of the day and some poor sod had to taste all her food for poison.
The queen dismissed her with a wave of the hand. The seneschall caught Hunter's arm before she left the room.
"I have some things for you, boy," he said and walked ahead. He also addressed her as a man, like Sir Jeremihah.
She left the castle on a small horse that fit her size, accompanied by a pony that carried supplies. The cook had packed her bags with food for ten people and the armorer had given her three swords and shields as well as a crossbow. The poor pony was clattering with every step.
Ella's first arson fire had been laid to the very kitchen she had just left. It was quickly discovered and the damage was minimal but the cook had been livid. She was ranting and yelling about it until they found the note written in charcoal on the wall.
You know why.
Ella
The cook had seen the note and not said another word for days. Even today, as she loaded up Hunter's bags with food, she kept looking at the wall where the note had been pa
inted over.
Hunter followed the trail of arsons across the country. With every fire she inspected, Ella seemed to become more confident. Her first crimes were just little things, easy to extinguish. But the more recent fires were bigger, more dangerous. So far no person or animal had been hurt by it but the last arson had burned down a whole farm. The farmer and his family had been out on the fields and the old mother had managed to escape in time but the farm was lost.
Hunter came to the homestead just as a hard downpour killed the last flames. The family stood in front of the smoldering ashes of what had once been everything they owned. The rain gracefully covered their tears as they turned and walked away. These were simple folk, working their farms and raising their families around here on the simple values of hard work and no complaints. They were not rebellious, not angry. They just resigned to everything that life threw at them.
As she had done at every arson site, Hunter searched the area for traces of a watcher. Holding her sword ready, she searched behind barns and shrubbery. She assumed that Ella would want to see her handiwork, that she would stay nearby and watch the fire. But if she saw a shadow among the trees in the distance, it was long gone by the time she got there.
After a week she had to admit that she wasn't making any progress. Farms still burned almost every day and she could do nothing to stop it. Sitting in an inn, she stared into her watered beer and picked at the scrambled eggs that the waitress had brought her with a suggestive smile. As it was her habit, she had covered her features with a hooded cloak and had made her steps heavy and her voice deep when she arrived at the inn. It was always safer to be a man out here in the country. It wasn't the first time that a waitress was flirting with the fresh-faced stranger who didn't talk much.
She took another sip of her cheap ale, ignoring the noises of the many people in the cramped inn. When she sat the mug down, someone was sitting at the other side of the table. It was a dwarf with long, orange hair and displaying a carpet of chest hair in the same color under his wide open shirt. He looked unusual for a dwarf; his beard was cut short but Hunter decided not to ask him about that. He took a sip from his own mug and grinned at her over the rim.
"You must be Hunter," he said with an amused lilt in his deep voice. "How's the hunt for the fiery Ella going?"
"It takes longer than I expected," Hunter said, picking up another piece of bread with scrambled eggs on top.
"She's setting you up to fail, you know."
"Who is?" she asked before shoving the bread in her mouth.
"The Queen, of course. She lets the Heralds travel around, telling the story to the people. How you volunteered to find the Cinder-Ella, how she gave you a chance despite your strangeness."
Hunter almost choked on the bread. "Volunteered? I was ordered! I wasn't asked if I wanted to do this."
The dwarf laughed out loud. "That's even better. If you fail to catch Ella, she can claim that she was just too soft hearted to deny you this chance." He laughed some more, loud and hearty. "And then she can say that she listens to her people and will send a real man."
"I'm not just some girl. I'm one of Sir Jeremihah's men and he has vouched for me before."
"And nobody has seen him in a while," the dwarf said with a smug grin. "You're on your own, and when you fail, it'll be all your fault. All the while, everybody is distracted and doesn't realize what's really happening."
Hunter swallowed the rest of the bread down with a gulp from her mug to hide her face. She should have known. She should never have trusted the Queen. "And what would that be, what's really happening?"
He stopped smiling and leaned forward over the table. "That's not something to discuss here."
Hunter shoved the plate away from her, suddenly not hungry anymore. "What do you want?"
The dwarf grinned again. "I thought you might want to hire some help and I wanted to recommend me and my guys to you."
"Why should I hire you? I could hire anybody."
The dwarf frowned at her. "Listen, Softcheeks, I have no doubt that you are capable; I've heard great things about you. But you are a girl who dresses like a man and that attracts some weird people. You can hire absolutely anybody but I can assure you that my group is the only one that will not bother you about how you look and act."
"I'm not..." she wanted to say a girl but that wasn't quite the truth either. It had become difficult lately to really know how she felt. "I'm not convinced."
"Let me introduce you to the team," he said and beckoned her to follow him. "My name is Docillric by the way, I'm the boss of the Seven and One."
Hunter got up and followed him through the low-lit inn. Most people didn't care about the slim figure following a strong dwarf almost her size but she was aware of a few eyes watching them closely. "Seven and One?"
"You'll see."
Docillric led her to a table at the far end of the inn where a loud party seemed to be going on. Judging by heights, it was six dwarves and one human who had started to build a tower of bones they had picked clean. Docillric knocked on the table to get the attention of the beer chugging group, which caused the bone tower to tumble and garnered loud cries of protest.
"Come on Doc, we worked hard at this!" one dwarf shouted. The others chimed in and beer mugs clattered as they celebrated their unity in protest with another gulp of beer. Hunter tried to get a look at the human in the group but the tall figure was hooded and sat in a shadow. She could only make out a smile beneath the darkness.
"Lads, ladies, this is Hunter, a potential employer of us if you lot could behave yourself for one minute."
One of the dwarves, possibly a woman (it was hard to tell sometimes with dwarves) leaned forward and studied Hunter's face. "So you are out to catch the Cinder-Ella. I thought you were taller."
"You shouldn't talk about height, Tiny," the hooded human said from the back with a grin visible on her deep red lips. Her voice was deep but clearly female.
"I'm normal for a dwarf!" The dwarf tried to reach over the companions to hit the human but Doc shouted something in dwarven at her and she settled back down with a grin.
"That tall one over there is my second in command, Snow," Doc said and the hooded figure nodded once. "The others here are Sebillic, Karrilic, Linnele, Deidrele, Honeyrele and Tiny Tinele."
"I'm not tiny!" Tinele shouted but she grinned at the same time.
Snow lowered her hood with a cough and leaned forward into the light. Hunter swallowed a gasp as she saw her face. Her skin was of a noble brown but she had a mark, white as snow, from her forehead over her eyes and nose down to her chin. It looked like someone had taken a paintbrush and painted a symmetric pattern on her face in white. Snow laid her hands on the table and Hunter saw more white marks on her hands and arms covering her brown skin.
Snow looked at Doc and frowned. "Isn't she employed by the Queen? If we work for her, we're basically working for the Queen. I don't like that."
Doc raised his hand with an intense look towards Snow. "Relax, princess of my heart, we don't even have to show ourselves. And living on the Queen’s funds means reliable pay at least."
"That would be something," mumbled the one called Karrillic through his beard.
"Any more complaints?" Doc asked. Snow still looked unhappy but she shook her head to the question as all the others.
"Then it's settled." He turned to Hunter and held out his hand. "The Seven And One are at your service."
Hunter stared at his hand. "I haven't yet agreed to hire you."
Doc grinned even wider. "Trust me, Softcheeks, you won't find a more dedicated and more trustworthy bunch anywhere near."
Hunter looked around and snorted. "In this inn that's a pretty low bar to hit."
Snow laughed out, clear and enchanting like music. It made her look incredibly beautiful and the other patrons fell quiet as if they tried to hear more of that beautiful sound. Snow quickly pulled up her hood again and shrunk into the shadows. She smiled from under her hood. "I like
her," she said.
Hunter shrugged and shook Doc's hand. She liked this group and everybody else she could hire was either as trustworthy or even less than them.
"Well," Doc said, "have a seat then and let's make some plans how to catch the Cinder-Ella."
"Why do you call her that?" Hunter asked.
"The people around here call her that. They know that her name is Ella, the banished daughter of the Duke, the Queen's previous husband. And now she sets things on fire with cinder, so..."
Hunter nodded. "I guess that makes sense. I still don't understand why the Queen is so open about all of this. I thought this would be a secret mission."
"Remember what I told you about setting you up to fail? She can twist the story in any way she likes and blame it all on you."
Snow leaned forward again, a predatory smile on her lips. "You got yourself a powerful enemy there but, lucky for you, she's my favorite enemy too."
Hunter tried to smile but Snow looked a bit too scary. "I've been following Ella for a while now and I'm sure she's watching the fires from afar but I could never find her."
"Of course not," Snow said. "She's watching you just as you watch her."
"You think so?"
Snow leaned in even further and lowered her voice. "I'm pretty sure she's even watching you right now."
Hunter wanted to whip around but caught herself and studied the reflection in the window instead. The inn was packed, rain and harsh winds bringing in many travellers from the road.
"I don't see any women except for the barmaids," she said, more to herself.
Snow laughed out. "That's hardly an argument you and I can make, don't you think?"
It was true, of course. The Cinder-Ella would be in disguise, just like her and Snow.
Docillic stood up and paid the waitress. "Let's check on the horses, guys."
That seemed to be a code word, because the whole group stood up and left the room. Doc came out last and ushered Hunter and the group in front of him towards the stables. The stablemaster tried to stop them but a coin flipped into his hand made him settle back down on his chair, ignoring the group of seven dwarves and two humans walking through the stables.
