by Todd Herzman
The closer she got, the more wary she became. She circled around the burned-out buildings. There wasn’t a soul in sight. No villagers. No raiders. The latter she was thankful for, the former increased her worry. She hadn’t come across Ruben on her way from the hollow tree. There was a chance she could have missed him, but she knew it was a slim one.
She crept behind Geral’s tavern, which doubled as an inn when travellers—rare as they were—came through the village, and a town hall whenever the need arose. The tavern had been gutted. The fire had caused the tavern’s ceiling to collapse, and the second floor had fallen into the first. Ella poked her head around the side of the building, snatching a glimpse of the square. It looked empty from this angle.
She tried to calm herself, stifling a cough at the smoke in the air. She forced her feet to move. Her fingers still tight around the bow, arrow nocked. The centre of the village was seldom so quiet. She stalked down the side of the dead tavern, careful not to step on its remains.
Her vision of the village centre became wider. She could see the well, no extra buckets beside it, no one around to fight the fires.
No bodies either. No raiders. Ella lowered the bow. She looked at the dirt and tried to decipher the patterns. Horse and cart had come through, leaving hoof prints and wheel tracks in the softer parts of the ground. She looked back at the tavern, at the brown wood turned black, and spotted something a few steps from where the doors once stood.
She ran to it, fell to her knees, and stared. Ruben’s hammer. There was blood on the head. Ella touched her finger to it. It had dried. Bits of red hair stuck to it. Ruben’s hair.
A sharp crack rang from inside the tavern. The whole of it shifted and a gust of ash shot into Ella’s face. It stung her throat, her eyes. She coughed, dropped her bow and arrow and rubbed at her face till she could see enough to make her way to the well. She lowered the bucket until the rope went slack. No splash. The bucket was stuck. Ella blinked the ash from her eyes and peered down. The sun glinted off something, and it took her a moment to realise what.
Eyes, staring up from a dead face. A face she recognised. Geral, the tavern owner, had been thrown down the well feet first. The narrow walls propped him up. He stood, belly-deep in the water, face turned up to the well’s mouth. The bucket stopped at his chest.
Ella stepped back, stumbled and fell on her rump.
‘We’ll have to fish ‘m out before the water spoils.’
Ella jumped to her feet and spun around at the voice. She froze. ‘J—Joslin?’ She coughed. Her mouth felt raw and dry, all she tasted was ash.
The old woman’s face soured. She took a canteen from her belt and handed it to Ella. ‘Small sips, girl.’ Joslin was the oldest person Ella had ever seen. Her wrinkled face was dirtied by soot.
Ella took a sip, gulping it down, she choked on it and coughed.
‘What did I say about small sips?’ Joslin snapped. Ella stared at her. The old woman’s face softened. ‘Where are your brothers?’
‘Marius is hiding in the woods. Ruben…’ Ella’s gaze fell on the smith’s hammer.
Joslin nodded. ‘My grandson, too.’
‘Do you think they’re…?’
‘Dead? No. They were taken.’ She quieted a moment, eyes locked on the burned-out tavern. ‘I saw what did it.’
‘You mean you saw who did it… don’t you?’ Ella’s mind went to dark places. To stories of demons and beasts that breathed fire.
‘It was a blood mage.’
Chapter 3
Marius
It was cold inside the hollow tree. Not as cold as it had been in the night, but cold enough to make Marius shiver. At least, he wanted to believe he was shivering because of the cold. His knees were pulled up to his chest, fingers clutching his ankles. He hadn’t moved since Ella left.
You gotta be brave.
He moved his right hand. It had gone numb clinging to his ankle. For as long as Marius could remember, people kept telling him to be brave. When he was six, his mother fell ill. He had few memories of her, but one image had always stuck in his mind.
His mother lying in bed, skinny as a skeleton, holding his hand. ‘Be brave for me, little one,’ she’d said. One of the last things she’d said.
A few years later Father died.
Be brave.
A twig snapped outside his hideaway and Marius’s eyes flicked to the opening. He grabbed the whittling knife, the one they used to sharpen arrow tips and make snare traps. The knife shook in his hand, his eyes never leaving the narrow gap of the hollow tree. He put his feet against the dirt and pushed, shuffling until his back was against the tree wall.
Please be Ruben and Ella. Please be Ruben and Ella.
The woods were silent. No footsteps. If it were a person, he’d hear footsteps.
Leaves crunched close to the mouth of the tree. Marius gripped the knife tighter. He thought about his brother and sister. They wouldn’t be afraid. Ruben had run straight into the fire when their village had been attacked, and Ella had gone after him.
Another crunch. Marius, still shivering, holding the knife with both hands, got up slowly. He took a step to the tree’s mouth. It was probably just a rabbit. Rabbits weren’t scary. He’d hunted them with his brother before. Last weekend Ruben had given him the quiver of arrows to carry along behind him as he hunted. They’d brought two rabbits back, feasted on one and traded the other with old Joslin for some vegetables to add to the stew.
Marius looked at the knife in his hands, then outside. It was a bright morning. The raiders, if they weren’t long gone, wouldn’t be in the forest looking for a young boy. If he caught the rabbit and had it waiting for Ruben and Ella when they found him at the hollow tree, they’d have a fine dinner that night. He could show them how brave he was, instead of spending his time shaking inside a tree.
Marius stopped shivering when he stepped into the light. He didn’t know if it was the sun’s warmth or him no longer feeling so afraid. He smiled and tried not to laugh, lest he scare away his prey. He’d been right. The rabbit was here, and it was a big one.
The rabbit nibbled at something, its paws holding the food to its mouth. Marius stepped toward it. The rabbit’s head swivelled up to look at him. Marius froze. It was on to him, the rabbit. Marius hid the knife behind his back, sticking it through his belt like he’d seen his brother do. He brought his hands in front of him and crouched low and slow.
He pounced. Falling to the ground, his hands gripped—nothing. The rabbit had hopped out of reach. Marius ran to it, hands outstretched like someone trying to catch a chicken from its coop. But the rabbit was fast. It ran around the clearing, avoiding his hands at every turn. The chase was on. Marius laughed. The rabbit hopped into the trees.
Marius ran after it, jumping over roots and ducking under branches. He didn’t know how long he ran. At one point he almost lost the rabbit. But he found it again in another clearing, smaller than the last and rounded by thornbushes. The rabbit stopped short. Marius thought it wise, having fallen into thornbushes himself once. The rabbit bounded this way and that, frantic at finding itself cornered by a predator.
Marius pounced. This time, his hands found his prize, and he held onto it with all the might of his twelve-year-old muscles. He raised the rabbit up to the sky, laughing with joy. Then he held it close to his chest. The rabbit struggled for a time, then grew still, little red eyes staring at Marius.
‘You’ll make a fine stew, Sir Rabbit.’
The rabbit said nothing. It continued staring, and Marius felt the fear in it. He tried not to think about what he’d have to do to make the rabbit into stew. He held the rabbit close and avoided looking into its eyes as he walked back to the hollow tree.
Chasing the rabbit had taken him into a part of the forest he didn’t recognise. He tried to retrace his steps, but he hadn’t been looking where he’d been going, only at the grey blob of fur now clutched in his hands. He tried not to be afraid. It wasn’t the first
time he’d lost his way.
Thoughts of what might have happened to Ruben came back to his mind. Thoughts of Ella followed. What if Marius came back to the village only to find everyone gone… or dead? What if he found the hollow tree again but no one came for him?
Marius ran through the trees, this way and that with the rabbit in his hands, trying to find something familiar. How was it his brother never got lost in these woods? How did he always find his way? Marius hoped to stumble across the rock circle from last night, or one of the trees they’d practiced shooting at. He ran until his sides split. He dropped into a squat, his back against a tree so nothing could sneak up on him, and tried to regain his energy. A night spent fleeing in the forest and a morning chasing a rabbit had taken its toll.
From where he leant against the tree trunk—bits of bark jutting into his back—he spotted another clearing. The light there seemed dimmer, the shadows darker despite the sun bearing down. Marius pushed off the tree and walked toward the clearing, breath still coming heavy. He looked down. Under his feet, the grass was healthy and green. One step forward, the earth was black and cracked.
The clearing was almost a perfect circle, and far larger than Marius had first thought. There was a dip in its centre—a crater—with not a thing growing around it.
Marius stumbled back. A deadland, he thought. Nothing good ever happens in a deadland. He gripped the rabbit tight in his arms and turned fast from the clearing. He didn’t run this time—he just walked until he could no longer spot the shadowed land behind him.
I have to get home.
The sun brightened the farther he walked, stray rays of light snatching through the branches making him squint and face the ground. Ruben would know what to do, if he were here. His brother would pause and note the position of the sun, or if the clouds and branches obscured it, the moss on the trees. Then, somehow, he would know which way was home, and which way would bring them deeper into the forest. Marius took a breath and furrowed his brow. Ruben had told him why he did these things. He remembered being told. He also remembered being distracted, looking away from his brother and at an owl he’d spotted, fast asleep in a tree. The owl had been grey, like old Joslin’s hair.
Marius stopped walking. He closed his eyes and scrunched up his face. He focused on these things, the sun, the moss on the trees. The sun always rose from the same side of the village. Ruben had pointed once, when they were back in Billings, at the sunrise. ‘It’s coming from the sea,’ he’d said with a slight smile. Marius had never seen the sea. But he knew the road that led to it when leaving the village had the forest on its right.
Marius opened his eyes. He held the rabbit strong in his left hand, then pulled the knife from his belt with his right. The rabbit squirmed. ‘Hush, it’s not for you.’ He crouched and drew shapes in the dirt. Houses, his village, a little circle in the middle where the well was. He drew a line on one side where the forest began. Then he drew another circle to the right with squiggly lines coming from it—the sun.
He glanced at the sun again, careful not to sting his eyes. If he followed the sun… he wouldn’t end up in the village. He stood. The rabbit—no longer squirming—had relaxed in his hands. Marius inspected the trees around him until he found what he was after. Moss. He stared in the direction the moss pointed, then closed his eyes again, trying to remember what his brother had said. It kept slipping away. So he just thought about moss on trees, which made him think of the trees in the field behind their house. Had moss grown on those? He used to play in that field every day, before he started working on old Joslin’s farm with his sister.
Marius recalled Ruben’s hammer strikes echoing from the smithy while he picked blackberries from the bushes by the forest. He opened his eyes and examined the moss he’d found on a nearby tree. He put away his knife and touched a hand to the rough bark, feeling inside the crannies where the moss grew. The moss was soft, tickling his fingertips. The feeling brought him back to the field, to finding moss on one of the trees.
But that tree had been different, smooth where this one was rough. That knowledge was familiar—his brother had said something about it. About moss not always being right. The moss in the back field had pointed away from the forest. Something sparked in his head, that meant, if he followed this moss the way it pointed, he’d head home! He stared in that direction, and knew he must be wrong, because the tree moss pointed at the sun.
Marius collapsed to the ground. This doesn’t make sense. How had his brother made it seem so easy? He looked at his drawing again. At the tree line, the village, the sun. And suddenly felt stupid and smart at the same time. If the sun was right of the village, aiming toward the sea, and if he walked with the sun to his right…
He jumped to his feet. ‘Come on, Sir Rabbit. I know how to get us home!’ He might not be able to find the hollow tree, but he was sure he could find the village. His brother and sister would be there. They would be okay. And tonight, they’d have rabbit stew.
Chapter 4
Ruben
Pain brought Ruben back into the world. His head throbbed. It wasn’t the throb of too much ale. It stung, bad, as if his skull had been cracked. The world shook, rocking back and forth. Something squeaked, over and over. He knew the sound—a wheel in need of oil. His eyes flicked open. The glaring sun bit into him. Ruben squinted and went to shade his eyes with his hands but found them bound.
Bound. By rope. Tied together and then to his feet. He was stuck in a sitting position. He looked around and realised where he was. The world moving, the wheel squeaking. He was in the back of a wagon. He blinked, squinting through the sunlight. There were others here, his neighbours from the village. They were tied fast, too, and awake.
Taya sat across from him. She didn’t speak. She just stared straight ahead. Her eyes weren’t looking at him—they weren’t looking at anything. They were… blank.
The night before came back in stages. Waking. Sending his younger brother and sister to the forest. Running in the square with his hammer. The man—the demon. Ruben’s hammer. Ruben’s head. No wonder he was in such pain. He looked at the sun. It crept across the sky, closing on noon. The wagon headed down the sea road, the same road he took to Devien when going to the dock markets.
He didn’t recognise the man driving the horses. One of the raiders. Another raider sat at the back of the wagon. The big one, great axe lying atop his knees. He smiled at Ruben. His teeth, the ones that weren’t silver, were black as ash. There were only ten villagers, including himself, in the wagon. Billings was small, but it had at least fifty people. He wondered where the rest of the townsfolk were. He hoped they weren’t dead.
Ruben craned his neck to his right, looking past the driver. A second wagon rolled farther down the road. Its occupants were hard to see, but it looked like there were more raiders than villagers inside it. One of them faced backward, arms crossed, head lolling to the side. Their leader, resting lazily. Ruben averted his gaze, lest the demon man sense him looking.
Taya still stared into nothing.
‘Taya?’ whispered Ruben. Her head flicked up, her eyes meeting his. He saw nothing in them. Where was the spark? The little spark he saw when she met his eyes—even in dark times it had always been there. Then he noticed the blood. The sharp cut down the left side of her neck. ‘Taya! What did they do to you?’
A massive thud shook the wagon. A great axe stuck into the wood in front of Ruben’s toes. The raider stood over him, long beard swaying from his sudden movement, the waft from his clothes watering Ruben’s eyes. ‘No. Speak.’ The words were rough, like the man who spoke them. The raider retrieved his axe. Which, Ruben noticed among the fear, the pain, and the worry for his betrothed, was quite finely crafted. He didn’t know much of making weapons, but he knew enough of smithing to recognise quality when he saw it. It even looked taken care of. Ruben wondered who the axe had been stolen from.
Ruben’s gaze fell back to Taya. They hadn’t even cleaned or band
aged her neck. Unable to speak, Ruben scanned her for more injuries. Her hands were covered in dried blood. Her body riddled with bruises and scratches.
So were the rest of the villagers. They were all young, he realised. None of the prisoners taken from his village had reached their twentieth year. He thought back to when he’d come upon the raiders. There had been more townsfolk than this. Had they been murdered, like Sal had been murdered?
Ruben let out a long breath. At least his brother and sister weren’t here. They must have escaped. They might still be hiding in the forest, waiting for him in the hollow tree. How long would they wait? What would be left for them when they returned to the village?
He examined the ropes binding him to the wagon and tried to wriggle free from their grip without alerting his captor. The knots didn’t budge. He wondered why he was alive, why they’d only taken the young. Slaves, he thought. They would make us slaves. The younger they were, the longer they could work. He’d heard of slavers before, but it wasn’t supposed to happen in the empire. In Kharleon, freedom was a basic human right. Not that the big man with the axe and the demon who could inflict pain with his mind seemed to care about rights.
‘Where are you taking us?’ Ruben said the words without thinking, just as he’d launched at the man hurting Taya, only realising he’d spoken when the raider’s fist smashed into his jaw. Blood filled Ruben’s mouth, ran down his chin, and a fire burned inside him. A rage he recognised. He spat at the raider, getting blood in the man’s beard. The look on the raider’s face was almost worth what Ruben knew would come.
Ruben closed his eyes and waited for the axe’s blade.
The raider laughed and slapped him on the side of the head. ‘Brave. Stupid.’ The raider was sitting back down, a grin exposing his silver teeth, by the time Ruben reopened his eyes. The big man nodded a head to the other wagon and his leader inside it. Then he looked at Ruben and stuck his hand out, palm facing forward, just as the demon-man had. He wiggled the hand and laughed.
