At Faith's End

by Chris Galford

  Though the baker had grown bold in recent days, he seemed to take the hint. But his quiet discomfited her as much as her own. His seeming patience infuriated her. What gives him the right? Should he not have been angry with her? Thrown himself prostrate and foolish at her feet? It was what Rurik would have done.

  With a sudden, irrational vehemence she despised even as she felt it, she hated him. For reminding her of Rurik. For trying to take a friendship away. None of it was his fault, of course, and she knew well the heart careened where it would, but she could not bridle the anger in her. It nestled in her heart and guided her of its own accord, as though the woman that was Essa was but a puppet on its strings.

  Worse was that the others noticed the change of airs. There were days Alviss would watch her for a time, as though considering some counsel. Blessedly, he never took it beyond a look. He would stare a time, and turn away again, silent as a mountain. Whether he believed she would come to him of her own accord, or trusted her to do right, she could not say. Rowan held none of that care. By day he teased her as some courtly fool, and by night, as they lay damp and miserable on muddied sheets, he badgered her relentlessly for her thoughts.

  Sometimes she ignored him. Others, she cuffed him.

  Worst of all was the Gorjes. She and the rest of the Company watched them as foxes looked to wolves—two scavengers, intent upon the same meal and the same ground, with the wariness that one was great enough to add the other to that meal. Already they had worried about them. Voren, try as he might to be discreet, only added to those concerns.

  The fact was they no longer had protection. Captain Haruld had perished in the nobles’ flight. Deprived of Ivon and the Brickheart both, the men of Verdan, already chastened by Tessel, no longer guided the ranks of Witold’s additions to this mad rebellion. Though the Company had shifted their camp, their accompaniment had grown beyond mere Gunther and Marvelle, the brothers fool, to include no less than half a dozen Gorjes at any time of day, and they took to these developments with a disturbingly keen eye, and a harrowingly sharp tongue.

  These men teased Voren. He sat there and took it. There were times she watched them and longed for nothing more than to throttle the life out of them, but he was as a rock, and Essa could not understand it. Yet she feared they would see him for her own weak link, as their feelings toward her in particular were no secret to anyone with ears and the sense to use them.

  For good reason, one night Alviss asked them all if he might go to Rurik, to prostrate himself, and plead help. He was a proud man, but a practical one. He knew what it meant to walk alone among the crowd. Yet she had denied him. They had to find a way.

  So Alviss sought to shift their marching orders and add their number to other camps. Now that they no longer needed to shield Rurik’s identity, they had no reason to hide. Tragically, few were eager to add more mouths to their own lines.

  It was breaking down. The whole great matter. All the attempt on Tessel had been in effect was the final sundering. What walked in its aftermath was a slavering beast with no drive but vengeance.

  Which, she supposed, was what all war boiled down to, but usually they were kind enough to dress it up in other colors. For king and country. Now that she could understand. It didn’t make her like it any better, but she could understand it. Effise had been to this end, and she could forgive men killing for it. Now, she watched men wander fierce and distant, some naught but skin and bones, to no more purpose than murder for a man that had the great misfortune of surviving others’ attempts to murder him right back.

  Perhaps she was a bit bitter. It mattered little. There was no order now but Tessel. There was no army. Only a mass of rabid dogs, and she wanted no part of it.

  So when Alviss’s effort failed, she sucked up her conceit and went to Tessel’s captains herself, with her Company and her pride, and asked for the morning’s rounds on the northern stretch, with one of the scout patrols. Tessel had called for volunteers, yet the men scoffed until Alviss recaptured the negotiations. The thought burned her, but she swallowed it down and sufficed to win the small victory—even if Alviss had to be the one to speak her words.

  It was not without conditions. They were assigned to one of the captains’ myriad lieutenants—some fat, squeamish little Baharian friar by the name of Gedler—with twenty other scabs of men. These were the warriors with no other place, and no rank among their own—men who did this only because of the extra handful of tack it offered. Naturally, a dozen of them were sellswords like the Gorjes. It seemed she would never be rid of them.

  Still, a morning’s ride with Starlet did much to rejuvenate her. It provided a freedom long missed, and the cool breeze sharpened her thoughts like few other things still could.

  The thawing north—which was now the horde’s right flank—was more remarkable to Essa than most could hope to realize. When they looked there, Gedler and his cronies saw only a flat, fat waste. A wide open expanse from which any of the hordes of east or west could descend in rapid, unbroken fury.

  Essa saw it for what it really was. Though the earth was poor for any long-term farming, ranchers had called this place home for centuries, and their own hordes, like great, furred nomads, picked over grass and weed for any of the hundreds of pockets of water that gave it life. Here, the land shifted not in miles, but in inches. One could see far beneath the blue sky, but it was a deceptive thing. Crags dipped unseen on the rolling, seemingly unbroken sea of green, often suddenly. Little chasms that could lame a horse’s leg or suck a man down whole before he ever realized it was happening. It was a place of simple beauty, but also great care.

  In the mornings, it was also frequently dampened by a haze that confounded most of her companions. Two of Gedler’s men had gryphons, and they fared fine enough on the wily earth, but Essa was the only one with a horse. As such, it was generally the three of them sent to do the ranging. The others watched from afar and kept relatively close to the other ragged bands of marching soldiers. There were no lines any longer, merely cloisters, hoping to forage their way to another day. Desperate eyes quested more for that fools’ dream—the untouched farm—than for any sign of danger.

  Though she often returned far later than the others, and was lectured enough for it, Essa reveled in these moments because, most importantly, these plains were empty. Devoid of feuds, of petty men and petty notions, nothing but the sky and the earth. It was in places like these the old Aswari had made their homes. Ranging, growing, living off the bounty of the earth. Teaching men, in time, the wonder of the walled city. Her mother’s people.

  Gods, but I know so little about them! She steadied herself in her saddle, and looked out on their one-time home, and there saw what they surely must have seen: freedom. If only she could have ran to it.

  It was not that she hated Tessel. But she did not trust him, nor his ambitions. Home. What was it with men and this stupid little notion of returning the world to how they wished it? He was a child grasping for toys long denied him, no matter what he told the others. If she could, she would have left his horde in a heartbeat—but what then? Then she would be in front of it, instead of with it. Staying was safer. For now.

  The real question in her mind was why Rurik saw none of this. Since the attempt on Tessel’s life, he had not been around their camp. Probably busy kissing the Bastard’s puckered asshole. Neither was healthy for the other. But then, Rurik had a habit of throwing himself to stupid notions, while taking them for truth. He was an idiot. They all were.

  She could think no more of it.

  Out here, they searched for two things: deserters and Effisians. Too long had been spent in the lands around Pasłówska. The Effisians would have had spies and scouts watching them. In fact, the whispers around camp indicated hope the Effisians had done them all a favor and ridden down their fleeing nobles. Not that they had seen any such indications. By now, the Effisians would know they had broken the long winter, and were in retreat. An army was always at its most vulnerable when on the
march.

  The crags, naturally, provided the perfect place for an ambush. Be it wolf or man.

  Even so, the majority of Essa’s treks were uneventful. Once, they spied a band of highwaymen setting camp from afar. By the time they could march against them, though, the band had slipped away, to find easier prey. Other days found traders or herders come among them, offering to barter food for news, for shot, or for clothes. Only the vultures kept any sort of constant company.

  Time dulled her, as it did all things. Where others grew lax, she remained serious, even taciturn, but in the drab morning, with miles spread before her, even her mind drifted. She felt the lure of the great, lonely land.

  Essa rode out alone, breaking stride from the gryphon riders to cover more ground in quicker time. All kept in sight, but only just. She walked her pony slow, letting her pick at the grass as she would. It was another hazy day. The air itself clutched at Essa’s clothes, wet and heavy. The clouds were thick, but there was no murkiness to them—she feared not rain, nor storm.

  As she wove between two dips in the earth, she even began to hum. She stopped at the sound of a birdcall. Another answered, opposite the first. She waited, but there was no third. Starlet bridled, and shook at her as she set the horse rounding. Am I imagining? Silence. In the distance, her own people wavered as lines against the grey.

  Had she been any less a huntress, she would have missed the shallow easing of the grass. The breath of a sword easing from its sheath. With a yell, she kicked her heels against Starlet and skipped her into a run. Even as those hooves struck earth, she heard them answered by a dozen more at her back.

  She dared a glance over her shoulder only once Starlet had cleared the immediate holes in the grass. Three men pursued her, whipping their own horses into a frenzy. Two others were still mounting behind them. Of the lot, two had crossbows, and swords to boot, while the rest bore the long spears that were the hallmarks of their people. No doubt, they had spied the army from afar, and lain with their beasts in the sandy pits that formed the crags’ base, eased and at the ready. It spoke volumes for both the men and their steeds if they could get the creatures to rest so easily beside them. True horsemen.

  Essa was in trouble and she knew it, even before the first bolt skinned the side of her neck with its feathers. She recoiled, but clutched tight to her saddle, ducking low against Starlet to present a smaller target. She howled to the distant figures that rushed to aid her.

  They would not come in time. Against the Effisians’ fleet-footed ponies, she knew she could not long outrun. Starlet was a good horse, but undernourished. Distance was her only advantage, but they closed it fast. Nor was Essa good enough in the saddle to fire and to lead. Especially not on this uneven ground.

  From the west, she could see the white-bobbed figures of the gryphons closing. She looked again to the line of her soldiers, where her own Company would be coming for her. Safety. It glimmered like armor in the slanting light. Still too far. Instead, she turned west, and rode right for the gryphons. Another bolt snatched her hair as she did, but this flew behind her, and from the strangled cry, she surmised one of her attackers went down with it.

  Starlet was not a skittish beast, but even she tittered at the prospect of a head-on collision with the sharp-beaked gryphons. At the last moment, even as the scouts drew sabers for the close quarters to come, she wheeled away and around them, letting them break the ponies’ headlong rush. There came a squawking screech as something tore into one of the beasts. On instinct, she pulled hard on her horse’s reins and whirled Starlet around, to twist back on the fray.

  One of her rescuers was already down, while his gryphon rolled and clawed over top of him. He did not move. The other rounded for another pass and another clash with one of the horsemen, but the third rider had broken past, his now bloodied lance discarded, and a cruelly curved saber produced for her own unfortunate displeasure.

  A soldier would have drawn steel, met another man to man. A mixture of luck and whoever knew their steed better would have proved the living man. A scout should have fled, tried to evade until the others could descend. That, or gotten far enough away that they could have peppered their armored opponents with arrows until they broke.

  Essa had a bow, but no time to notch and loose an arrow. But she also had knives, and she put them to purpose.

  She urged her heels against Starlet’s side and spurred the horse to a gallop. Delicately, she tugged her right foot loose of the stirrups and twisted side saddle, all the while clinging to the reins for dear life. The man neared, and his steel rose for the blow. Essa leaned on the one stirrup for support, and snatched one hand back for a knife. Then, as the joust reached for the climax, she took her gamble. She leapt.

  Only a few feet separated them, and her aim was true. With all the force of both advances behind her, she crashed shoulder and chest into the rider’s armored body. There was a pop as she connected, and a great heat flared up her arm, but as the man’s eyes drew wide and the air popped from Essa’s own lungs, they both pitched off the back of his horse and tumbled across the plain.

  Dirt and rocks alike tore at Essa’s clothes and skin as she rolled. Yet when she found her feet, head ringing, she forced herself to retake the earth, staggering sideways a few steps before kumbering forward with knife leading. She threw herself at the still soldier, but as she yanked his head back by its hair, she felt the looseness to the neck. Broken. The man was already dead.

  She stooped for his saber as the first shot resounded from their advancing rescuers. Effisians shouted curses and twisted in their saddles. The pair that had held back rounded once or twice across the plain, calling to their engaged fellow, but inevitably fled as the gunfire spooked their horses. Essa’s fellow scout and the last of the Effisians rounded and cut, stabbed and broke. Each had scored the other bloody, and at the last, the Effisian finally fled after his fellows, leaving the gryphon rider to lick his wounds.

  By the time the rest of the party swarmed over the plain, following Gedler’s cries of “Victory, victory,” Essa shook to the bones. She settled in the grass, cradling her arm and trying to right her head. The clearer things became, the brighter the pain burned. Beside her, a dead man. She closed her eyes. It is alright. All of it. Kill or be killed. That was what war taught, wasn’t it?

  Alviss stood over her, and then he was lifting her up, holding her close. Like a child, she mused. Some of the sellswords sniggered at his back, lingering where the others raced on. Look out, she tried to tell him. But the words would not come. Assassins in the wake.

  There was a wetness growing in his eyes, and behind them, the crack of the guns.

  There was blood in her head, rattling. She could feel it. She winced against it, against the feel of the blood beneath her fingers.

  Look out. Look out.

  The head cocked and the familiar arms tightened about her. Like a bull sensing danger to the calf. The moment shuddered out like the wick of a dying flame.

  She was elsewhere. A voice cried not to look, but she could not look away. A girl unfolded before her from the blood to the flesh to the cowering of the skin, quaking in the stale air.

  Stop it. Look at yourself. This isn’t you.

  A girl, just beginning to swell and shine with the onset of puberty, stood with her hands spread wide on his table. The old man stared at her—through her—and rapped his knuckles against the wood. He tilted his head back, letting another fiery shot dribble down his throat. Its bitter taste shook his body.

  Hoarsely, she yelled at him—again. Gone was the force with which she started, back when he had replied to her pleas with something other than stone-faced silence. She could not take it anymore. Day in and day out. His life was split in two, and she never got to see the better half. He reserved it for the world beyond, for the people that judged through glances and glares.

  Empty, the mug clacked against the table. Again he demanded quiet—she was worried over nothing and his head was pounding. Fetch another dr
ink, he cried. That would settle both his nerves and his pains. The whiskey, though, was across the room, and it was debatable whether or not he could stand.

  How can you let her hurt you so? What is this lingering knife? Is this why she left you?—left me? These were the questions she had always longed to ask him.

  Suddenly, the girl rounded the table and lurched the rest of the way, seizing his stein. Yanking it back, she yelled again at the slack-jawed man. Worthless. A terrible father. It was no wonder his wife left him—if he could not control himself, how could he ever hope to understand marriage? His hand shook when she would not return the stein.

  Twice he beckoned, and twice she rebuked him, and finally, turned to go. The chair grated as it pitched backwards, and the man staggered to his feet, leaving one hand on the table for balance. His voice rose as he made the demand again.

  The mug. He wanted the mug.

  “Give it here you little whore.” The words burned, like alcohol in an open wound.

  Whore, whore, whore.

  In her ear: a whisper of Rurik’s heart. On her lips, the wetness of Voren’s kiss. It was not of the heart. Neither. The warmth was in her blood and in her hips and her father named her.

  Whore.

  She recoiled, eyes watering as her lips quivered. What would come was known. The Beast. There could be no escape. Still, defiant, she raised the mug and, as he watched, she hurled it at him, screaming.

  “I hate you!”

  Because you hate me. You’ve always hated me.