Ashes Slowly Fall

by Katya Lebeque

  “Well, you’re a Pathfinder now, aren’t you?” She said easily. “So what sort of Pathfinder will you be?”

  A Pathfinder. The word didn’t feel right in her throat or on her shoulders. A second ago she had found out she was a Pathfinder in the same, passive way she had been Germanic or a female her whole life without choice. She had not thought in the few minutes she’d had to process this new title that it might be an action as well, that it might require something of her. “I – I’m not a Pathfinder, not like that, En-Enrosa. I’m just not. I’m a… I’m a sister and a daughter, I suppose. But that’s all.”

  “That’s not who you are, Vanita. You have hidden from the gaze of everyone all your life, including your own. But some things cannot stay hidden.”

  She lifted Vanita’s chin, not flinching when looking at the scarred face. “You’re a remarkable young woman, Vanita, who has a lot to give to a dying world. Well, apparently, your sight is what you have been given.” Then, as though she sensed it was too much, she quickly stepped away, dropping her hand. “Shall we go inside? I brought dried herbs with me and I can brew a decent cup of rosemary tea.”

  … In the end, it was two days until Vanita spoke to her mother again. The Pathfinder had brought cured meat and dried ground apples, as well as herbs, with her strange news. She also brought word that “her informants inside Castle Blindé assured her that Ash was doing well, albeit constantly watched by various parties, and that digging, and Expansion Iron weapon-making had begun thanks to her and “the boy’. But perhaps most useful of all was the fact that Ash’s aunt insisted on caring for Mother while she was there, saying that as a Royal Pathfinder she “was Jadene’s superior and with sisters of the Path the superior care for the inferior.” For the first time in what felt like forever, Vanita found herself shut up with food she hadn’t had to prepare and nothing but her reflection for company.

  It gave Vanita the allowance she hadn’t known she’d needed – to breathe, to think, to be alone. To lie in her bedroom and pretend that Ash was coming any minute with the tea. But most of all to turn the Pathfinder’s words over and over in her mind like a child with a new present they didn’t yet know how to work.

  It was over too soon. In less than three days, the Pathfinder was gone - one of them, at least - and things fell back into what they had been.

  Except that they didn’t - not quite. Vanita still prepared what meat and herbs were left for her mother, and still repaired the parlour wall. But she slept in her own room again and thought about her own memory, her own mind, her own future.

  It was lying in her bed thinking like this that Mother found her. The grey head appeared around the door first, then the rest of her followed. It was quite different to the thunderstorm that used to burst through without knocking, but Vanita still pretended she didn’t see (the left side of her head was facing the door after all) until Mother coughed.

  “Vanita I… I wanted to say that I feel bad for you about all this. You were always such a disappointment to me, Ash too, and now you know why. I was a right she-wolf to you both, I mean, barrenness is the worst failure a Pathfinder can produce. And I can honestly say it never occurred to me how you must have felt about it. It’s just one of those things. I didn’t think about it. But all that can change now, now that I know you’re not barren –”

  “You were not.”

  “What?”

  “A she-wolf. You were not. Wolves are pack animals, family animals. There are stories in books of wolves mothering a pup that isn’t their young.” Vanita’s right eye looked out the window, toward a meadow in the distances, full of bones. “You were a crow.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The colour of fear

  The crow was circling overhead, not landing, clearly it mistrusted these shiny-clad humans standing out in the open, after months of hiding in dull colours and scurrying away like mice.

  It did well to be afraid. Ash looked around with some pride at the men – her men – arrayed in chainmail just to be safe - but otherwise a far cry from the ducking, nervous prey they had been when she’d arrived at the castle.

  “Why won’t they land? They must have memory of this place.”

  The prince had chosen the spot for today – a stretch of particularly bare earth home only to dry, cracked ground and a single, crooked black thorn tree standing alone in the midst of it. It looked unearthly, seeing so many men in such barrenness. Ash frowned into the sunlight. “We may have to move if none of them come any closer,” she called over to Rize.

  Still, for all her schoolmistress tone, she was excited. The bare cracked ground and all these men deferring to her made her feel as though they were exploring a new planet, not just a new way to take down carriors. It was as though one of her childhood games had come to life.

  “We’ve had good results here, so I think we should wait a while longer,” he called back, but began walking over to her anyway. These days outside, training and supervising digging, had left him tanned and he looked like a handsome foreign invader, with his chainmail and black hair. It sent a shiver through Ash.

  “Alright Prince, I suppose there is freedom to move here.”

  “Yes, and more than that – I happen to have measurements on this particular tree here. I have a theory, and I’m hoping it will be proven today.”

  Ash smiled. Rize and his theories, his passionate measuring and declarations every other day that they “needed more information from field inspection and recording of results’. He may look like a barbarian invader, but if he hadn’t been born a prince he would’ve made a fine scribe or Pathfinder.

  “Here she comes! Low and slow,” cried one of the men. Ash felt her chest swell with pride as everyone around her got into their formation positions and readied crossbows without her telling them to.

  “Easy men, it’s a raven. Remember your training - it will attack you even if it doesn’t want to eat you.” As Ash made to stride towards the front, Rize stopped her.

  “Ash, can you get it to land just there – in front of the tree? Also, I’m coming with you.”

  She stared at the prince. “No, you aren’t, your Highness. Nobody’s kingdom gets thrown into turmoil if I’m gone, but you? Besides, do you really want to die by raven?”

  “No one’s going to die, I just want to take a measurement!”

  “No. That seems a stupid reason to even approach thinking about dying.”

  “Ash, I hate to do this but – that’s an order. A royal order.”

  The air was sucked out of her lungs for an instant as she stared hard back at him. The sun beat down overhead and there was silence for a moment except for the winging carrior getting closer.

  “Very well, your Highness. Someone come with us to cover the prince!”

  “I’ll do it, Miss.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  Ash walked without waiting for them to follow, making a point of walking in front of Rize. Stubborn idiot prince. The man with them was one of the only ones with a helmet on, and though hardly necessary, she was glad for that now. Rize never asked a thing out of idle curiosity, and he certainly didn’t “royal order” much. He was planning something, and the fact that he hadn’t told her what it was apart from some vague “measuring” excuse meant she wouldn’t like it.

  The raven was beating down fast through the air, its pitch-black shape looking more like a silhouette than the real thing. Was this what the other raven had looked like from afar, before it had destroyed her home? The home Vanita was still in, defenceless, waiting for them? She pushed the thought from her mind – it wouldn’t help her aim any – and turned to the helmeted man.

  “Get low and turn to the side. The smaller you make yourself as a target, the more time you buy.” She gritted her teeth and braced herself for the rush of wind that would gust into their faces just before the carrior did.

  … But it never came. Instead, the raven dived far too early, seeming unconcerned about the people at all. Instead, it went straig
ht for the black, twisted tree.

  A startled, hooting gurgle rang out from somewhere in the tree, and short flash of grey and brown from somewhere within it. Ash only understood a moment later, and by that time she was already running.

  “It’s a bird, another bird, nesting in the tree! It was grey, it must be a dove. That raven is going after it!”

  She did not mean to, but began winding her crossbow and shot a bolt, then a second one, at the raven’s wing. Just enough to distract it. She did not stop to ask herself what it was to her that a mother dove – who was also a carrior – and her babies were about to get eaten. She just did, her muscles springing into action, her mind only having a chance to rationalise once her body had already decided.

  The carrior was a darting, black shape, ducking its head and thumping onto the ground, then jumping up towards the nest, then later launching off the ground to strike from the air. Each time, storm cloud-coloured feathers unfolded lightning fast from within the tree and beat the raven off with a wing. The distressed, freakishly loud cooing continued though, and Ash knew instinctively that the bird in its nest was calling for the help of a mate that was already dead.

  She turned to the helmeted soldier and Rize. “Give me four bolts and watch closely. Prince, don’t you dare move until that raven is down. Ready?”

  Ash slowed her breathing incrementally with each step as she walked, crossbow in front, out to the carrior. Up close, a raven was larger than she remembered, and something so big moving so fast up and down was viscerally terrifying. Still, she forced her legs to work as she slowed the heart rate down, down, down with her breath… Enough to steady the aim. Enough to steel the mind.

  The raven noticed her when she was mere yards away. It turned its profile to her and fixed her with a black eye, shrieking into the air. Ash did not move. Instead she breathed out once, twice, then lifted her arm and shot the bird in the head.

  It was dead before it realised it, the raven flapping aimlessly even as it fell to the ground. At the same time, the carrior in the nest decided to show itself.

  If she had seen it a moment earlier, Ash would have missed the raven completely. She started backward, crossbow swinging to the right in her surprise. She had seen doves her whole life – grey-mauve feathers dusted with cocoa, gentle lilac-coloured lids and soft, wet darkness for eyes. But she had never seen this. The bird in front of her, peering down out of its nest, was an iron-coloured thing that vaguely resembled a pigeon, with sharp white triangles patterned onto its wings and blood-red circles around each eye. It cooed at Ash ominously.

  “A Columba guinea – they’re not indigenous to here!” Rize was next to her, somehow, and yelling, as excited as though he had shot the carrior himself.

  “A what?”

  “It’s a type of pigeon, only breeds quite far south usually, nowhere near Germania. This proves that the carrior problem has spread further than we knew.”

  “Well, that means people will buy our crossbow bolts at least.”

  “Oh yes, and this will prove my theory beautifully – we must get it down!”

  “But it hasn’t attacked us, why should we attack it?”

  “I don’t want to kill it, just get it down Ash. Trust me.”

  Ash sighed. “You, helmet-guy, do you have a sword? Good. Then I want you to go up to the base of the tree – I’ll cover you – and wave it in the dove’s face, making sure it catches the light.”

  If the soldier was nervous, he did not show it – although it was admittedly difficult to see any emotion behind his glinting visor, and within seconds he was doing as Ash asked, advancing slowly on the black tree with sword raised like some bizarre emissary. Ash walked right next to him, crossbow unwaveringly trained on the strange carrior’s head.

  A monstrous coo, but it did not move. The soldier waved the sword - a little at first, then bolder – but the dove poked its head sharply in and out of view several times without moving.

  Ash let him try, but hand signalled to him to stay put, as she walked around to the back of the tree. She’d just got there when she heard a strained “oof” sound. The soldier had got comfortable and jumped up and the carrior had beat him back with its wing the way it had done to the raven – except that the soldier was no carrior, and instead of simply trying again he lay on the floor without moving. Ash waved a hand at Rize to retrieve the man, but she could not allow her heart rate to rise and throw off her aim. She breathed in and out slowly three more times, before she let off another crossbow bolt – into the bird’s tail.

  In a second the massive bird was on the dusty earth, hooting at the men and moving its head around frantically. Ash ran away from the tree and in a wide arc to get back to the prince… And it was only then that she saw what the prince was doing.

  He had not moved, he had not followed her instructions to retrieve the fallen soldier. Instead, he stood totally still in front of the carrior, just yards from the hooting pigeon thing. He was staring fiercely at its head for some reason, lips moving but no words coming out, even as the thing loomed over him.

  Ash almost shouted in frustration. What was he doing? He was going to get himself killed! Now he was stepping slightly from side to side, to keep himself in the carrior’s darting vision.

  “Pescera, paint!” Rize shouted without looking behind him. A slim, athletic-looking girl in full chainmail began jogging towards him from the back. “Joles and Neerie, you know what to do. Start at the far tree. All of you go now!” he yelled, just as the slim girl began running, just as two more men with some big thing in between them started off too. Then Rize drew his sword and started walking, and the whole world went quiet as Ash began sprinting towards the giant bird to get there first.

  “No! Rize!” The bird was no predator, and was backing away from him towards the tree, as he swung his sword around aimlessly. But the bird was nesting, and she was protective even if she was no dove. It was only a matter of time before she struck.

  As Rize ran past him, the helmeted soldier came to and sat up, then lurched forward as he saw his prince right next to him. The two fell in a chain metal heap.

  Ash was about to breathe a sigh of relief, when a darting movement caught her eye. The two men with the big thing had slipped past the tree without being noticed and were at the other tree. The “Pescera” girl was still running. She was quick, clearly trained, and her eye did not waver as the bird blinked its blood-red eyes curiously at the tangled men on the floor. It was completely distracted. Ash watched with growing dread as the girl ran right past the dove, reached the tree and drew something from her belt with one hand as the other acrobatically gripped a branch and threw her into the air.

  But there was no kill, no attack from behind. Instead, a swift white arc of paint appeared on the black tree trunk as Pescera’s drawn brush moved. She had vaulted up against the tree’s trunk behind the bird’s turned back and marked the tree at the same height as the carrior’s head, then gracefully landed on her feet. Pescera caught Ash’s eye and smiled. But the prince was yelling again.

  “Now - distraction!”

  Pescera was still smiling at Ash as she lazily took out her own sword and started waving it around on the bird’s left-hand side. It gurgled unhappily, trying to beat her with its wing too, but the girl was too fast. Instead she just cooed loudly back at the bird and kept advancing, sword glinting brightly in the air. The bird backed away.

  “That’s good, keep going. Joles and Neerie, be ready… Almost… Now!”

  Ash hadn’t noticed the dark thing stretching out over the ground between the two blackened trees until both men, each at one tree, suddenly let go of something they were standing and holding, each falling to the ground. Too fast for Ash and too fast for the bird, a net snapped up from the dirt and wrapped itself around the now howling bird.

  “Yes!” Rize punched the air with his fist, grinning fiercely at her. “We’ve been practising that for days! I thought to myself that the Expansion iron could be made thinner and used
for other things. And it worked!” He laughed into the empty sky and at the trapped bird. Ash swallowed, panting, but didn’t say anything.

  “Brilliant!” Came a tinny voice, and the man with them lifted his visor, grinning at Rize. “Excellent, Highness!”

  Ash stared. It was Walters.

  “Walters, you’re the steward!” And the Head Pathfinder’s son, she thought but did not say. “What on earth are you doing out here?”

  “I finished my duties early, Miss, and I am an able-bodied man and all… I came to see what I could see.”

  “Yes… No doubt you did.”

  Ash looked away again, and her eye caught on the prone form of the bird, still struggling. “What’s going to happen to the bird?”

  “We’ll bring it back to the castle, don’t worry. It’ll be fine.”

  Ash nodded, trying to remind herself that this was a monster, trying to remind herself that she had seen a mother holding her dead son the other day because of one of these things.

  “I guess let’s go then.” Ash looked one last time at the bird. She had thought earlier the patches around its eyes looked like the colour of blood, but now she thought they looked like the colour of fear.

  ***

  “It’s outrageous! It’s never been done before – out of the question.”

  “And the fact that it’s never been done before means it would be nigh impossible to administrate. Even if it wasn’t such an outlandish thought, the practicalities -”

  “Indeed. Quite impossible.”

  Ash sighed, lifting her eyes to the red ceiling. She was becoming used to the “war room” as the king’s solar was now called, and grudgingly the men in it too, but at times their backwardness was still tiring. Especially when she was actually right. She tried again for a low, calm voice.

  “Your Majesty, I urge you to reconsider. Basic self-defence training for all the ladies in the castle would provide valuable protection for them in a time where there is no manpower to assign to their protection.”