by C S Vass
That’s why their fight had no room for such maneuvers. It would be instantaneous. Godwin would swing his sword only once.
Murtough’s blade trailed through the snow behind him as he ran. It was positioned for the man to hack diagonally upwards and split Godwin in half. That’s how it was positioned, but Murtough would not swing that way. The massive sword Murtough carried with just his right hand was a distraction from the spiked glove that covered his left. That would be the blow. Godwin was certain. Murtough would distract with the sword and use his fist to pulverize Godwin’s head like an overripe melon.
Godwin’s blade flashed in the sunlight as Murtough attacked. The Shigata prepared to dodge the fist, striking his sword forward like a spear.
Murtough seized his own blade with both hands and swung it faster than Godwin would have believed possible. The Shigata twisted his body in the air. Too slow. Murtough’s blade shrieked like a banshee as it scraped alongside Godwin’s, slamming the back side of his sword into his chest with the force of a sledgehammer.
Godwin instantly felt the wind forced from his lungs. His stomach roiled and it felt as though his heart tried to leap to the bottom of his throat. Flying through the air, he opened his mouth and a stream of blood flew out.
Godwin crashed in the snow, tried to bounce up, but stumbled and fell. Murtough loomed before him, slow again, walking like an executioner approaching a scaffold.
“Perhaps it was you who didn’t know who you were dealing with,” Murtough said. Godwin could tell he took no pleasure in his actions.
The snow fell with greater intensity.
Godwin needed to do something, anything, to buy himself a moment’s time. “Going to ask for my last words?” he croaked.
“No,” Murtough said seriously. “I have but one question for you. It’s the same question I put to every Shigata before I eliminate them. What did you do to break your Seal of Love?”
Godwin seethed.
“I butchered a dozen orphans while they screamed in their sleep,” the Shigata spat, suddenly furious. “But first I drowned their puppies and kittens in a well while they watched.”
“You wear your sarcasm like a suit of armor, Shigata,” Murtough said. “But it will not protect you. Such an act is not beneath the murderers of your order. Will you give me a serious answer?”
“Go to hell.”
“You first.”
Murtough raised his sword. Godwin, unable to move, prepared to die.
A woman screamed. It was the fierce valkyric scream of a warrior. Her sword erupted from Murtough’s chest.
He turned, eyes wide with disbelief. “Have you no honor?” The blood was already pooling from his mouth.
Yaura didn’t answer him, not with words at least. She answered him with a hidden dagger tucked into her boot placed harshly into his neck.
Murtough fell dead.
By the time Godwin was able to stand the sun was setting. Neither he nor Yaura said a word about the fight with Murtough. Neither did the wolves. Jeri simply observed the battle and without so much as a second glance took his company north with their prisoners the moment it ended.
A great weariness settled over Godwin’s heart as he considered what had just happened. As his strength returned to him so did his anger. He was angry at Murtough for being the kind of dogmatic, single-minded simpleton that he despised. He was angry at himself for being defeated soundly by him. And most of all, of course, he was angry with Yaura.
“How could you do that?” he asked. She looked westward. The sky in that direction had turned into a mess of pink with the orange wound of a sun spilling blood across it. The colors were vibrant against the pure white snow of the Chillway.
“How could I what? Save you? You should think before you speak Godwin. You sound like a fool.”
“We were having a duel. It was one on one. You didn’t see Jeri interfere with his men, did you?”
“I didn’t. Idle men are not interesting to me, so forgive me for not dwelling on it.”
“Murtough was just another dumb bastard who believed every rumors they throw around about us.”
“I’m also not interested in dumb bastards. Or rumors.”
“Damn it, Yaura! Don’t you understand?”
“Of course I do. I wounded your masculine pride so now you’re going to act like a child for a few days to prove to us that you really do believe we’d be better off if I had let him remove your head. If that’s what you need to do, then so be it. We can add your bruised ego to the list of things I don’t have an interest in.”
Godwin was shaking he was so angry. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. He wasn’t supposed to just be saved like a damn maiden. But this was so much worse than even that. She had won the duel dishonorably—with treachery. Murtough never would have fell to that attack had he thought it possible she would have ambushed him.
Yaura was stirring a pot of something hot. “You do whatever you need to, Godwin. I’m not going to complain about it. But neither will I sit here and be your mother.”
“You don’t want a thank you, do you? What do you want then, Yaura?”
It was the wrong question. He felt like an arse the moment he asked, but there was no taking those words back. It was perhaps the only thing he could have said to truly hurt her. And it did hurt her.
She didn’t even try to hide it.
Conversation was short and company seemed small over the next few days. Yaura was not exactly ignoring Godwin, but she wasn’t saying anything other than what was absolutely necessary either. When they reached a crossroads, Godwin was certain that she was going to leave him to travel either north towards Coldclaw or down to the Southlands, but she didn’t even pause as they continued on the road to Unduyo.
The skies greyed and bruised, casting the world in shadow. A storm threatened them constantly without ever bursting through the clouds.
Damn it, Godwin thought one night while he watched Yaura skin a carrot. Her hands worked carefully, methodically. There was no anger in her movement. There was no exaggerated motion, rolling of the eyes, or breathy huffs to let him know her feelings. It was the absence of all of those things that he heard so loudly. A deafening silence that roared in his ear like a waterfall sweeping him hopelessly away.
I should say something to her. I should do something for her. A kind word of thanks. A touch. Anything.
Godwin had had such thoughts more than once, but they were always followed by a new line of thinking. How could she have done that to me? To him? She killed Murtough. He challenged me to an honest fight regardless of what his reasons for doing so were. It was an honorable battle, and she killed him. Murdered him, as the eyes of the law would see it. And yet the law was there, and they did nothing. Why?
It’s no secret why anyone would hate the Shigata. Damn it all to hell; she knows that. Torin and I may be the only Forsaken, but all Shigata are abominations in the eyes of men. The cursed demon slayers who broke the Seal of Love and doomed ourselves to walk in shadow. That was our choice, and we made it. Just as Murtough made his. But when Yaura killed him…those are the things that keep me up at night. What if the Murtoughs of this world are right?
With that last thought he made his choice.
“Yaura,” Godwin said as he sat besides her. She didn’t shudder. She didn’t move away. For that he could have thanked her.
She looked at him with unfeeling eyes. Eyes he was not used to seeing. Those must be the eyes she looked at merchants with, or others who circumstance required she deal with but to whom she felt nothing.
“Thank you for peeling that.”
She turned her eyes away. “If I want to eat, then I prepare my food. It requires no thanks.”
“Would you like to part ways?”
He almost expected her to say yes. Almost.
“No.”
“Then I think you’ll agree that this has become intolerable.”
“Life is intolerable. Nobody gets through it and emerges the sam
e. Nobody is unscathed by life. What of it?”
I cannot give you what you want, he thought. But now for the first time even if I could, you would not accept it.
“I killed him, Godwin. I don’t regret it. You obviously want me to say something about it. Well that’s all I have to say. It was a tactical decision. He was a beast. Far above an average warrior. We were poorly prepared and you were about to die. I did not do it for the reasons you think I did. I did it because he was going to turn around as soon as he had chopped your empty little head off and do the same to me. I saw that as clear as day, Godwin. I knew it was coming, and I knew there would be nothing I could do about it. So I killed him, and I don’t regret it. For all your pouting, that is not going to change.”
“All my pouting—I just…I wanted to…” the unfairness of the accusation had him tongue-tied.
“Yes!” Yaura was on her feet, cheeks flushed red. “All of your pouting! I should have known you’re so arrogant and caught up in your narcissistic perception of yourself that you can’t even see it.”
“What are you—”
She screamed. Not dramatically. But honestly. The frustration quite literally sprung from her mouth in the form of a loud yelp. It wasn’t dissimilar to the sound a dog makes when its tail is stepped on.
“You are not angry with me for killing an opponent who challenged us in the field. You are angry with me because you saw death with its welcoming arms stretched out towards you, and you were ready to embrace it. You’ve been looking for death for a long time and it finally found you. It would have been quick and honorable, the way it will likely happen anyway. There would have been nothing you could do. You could reach the next world and think that you didn’t speed your journey there at all. And I stole it from you. I killed death before you could greet it, and now you’re holding a grudge against me because you’re still alive.”
She was breathing very hard and barely showing it. Godwin stared at her in amazement. He wasn’t quite capable of even processing what she had just said to him.
“Well?” she urged. “Say something! Say something, gods damn you!”
He looked at her. All he saw was disheveled rings of black hair. Hazel eyes. That was it. He stood.
“The fire is getting low. I’ll gather some more kindling.”
Chapter 12
After their fight things more or less returned to normal. The familiar distance between them. Harsh jokes. The practical extraction of bodily warmth from each other on freezing nights.
They were both growing tired. A few nights in the Chillway could be considered refreshing if one had been crowded in a city for too long. A week was enough to make even bold outdoorsmen desire a roof over their heads and hot water to bathe in. Once one was immersed in the frozen woods for a month it began to get a little easier as Godwin had learned in his earlier years.
They were in that special hell between those last two periods.
Then one day, which started by Godwin narrowly avoiding a bird shitting on him (Godwin took that to be an exceptionally good omen), Yaura found some tracks in the snow.
“A wagon!” she said, excitedly. “Several of them. And here look, many feet marching through the Chillway. It snowed last night, Godwin. These are fresh marks. They must be nearby. Wagons don’t move quickly around here.”
Godwin observed the rocky, snowy surroundings. “They certainly don’t,” he agreed. “But who are they? And do we want anything to do with them?”
“The Legion of Bandits doesn’t travel with wagons and large groups of people. Stop living in the war days. Look here, a little girl’s doll. Ah! The string of a lute. They’re either travelers or nomads.”
“Aren’t those the same thing?”
“Don’t be an arse,” Yaura sighed. “Travelers have a destination and nomads just wander.”
“Either way if they’re alive in the Chillway during winter, then they probably have food and fire. Our own supplies are getting low. Perhaps we can buy something.”
She grinned. “So practical. We’re not far from Ice Bay by now. I don’t think we have urgent need of supplies. But it would be nice to share a fire with some other folk. Maybe hear a story or two. Perhaps they’ll have news that the sun warriors have returned and are enslaving the good citizens of Iryllium as we speak.”
“Don’t joke,” Godwin said.
“I wasn’t. A Shigata should always expect the unexpected. Didn’t you tell me that before you abandoned me in Jagjaw? In hindsight it was almost prophetic. I should have taken your words to heart.”
They proceeded onward for several hours. The caravan came into view as soon as they ascended a tall, steep hill and began making their way down the other side.
“They travel like wolves,” Yaura observed. “The kind with four legs.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look, they have their old and sick up front, setting the pace. There are warriors behind them, followed by the general population and some wagons. More warriors bring up the rear, with their leader among them.”
“You can see all that from up here?”
“Are your eyes failing you, Godwin? I should really be alerted to these things. I’m traveling the Chillway with the blind.”
“I took a potion to find Kanjo in Snowpit,” Godwin admitted.
She looked at him, surprised. “Did you poison yourself, you fool?”
“No. But still. My eyes have been hurting ever since. I expected they would have returned to their normal state by now. But things that are far away still appear blurry.”
“Imbecile,” Yaura said. “Those potions you tinker with will be the death of you.”
“I’d have been dead many times over without them.”
“Then you’ve been living on borrowed time for a while. Come on, I don’t have time to discuss your strange beverages. We have some friends to make.”
They did indeed have friends to make. Godwin had been greeted in the Chillway by arrows springing from the snow near his boots, spears pointed at his chest, and once by a young boy who was alone and naked, his skin covered in sickly splotches of grey. When Godwin approached the child, a maruda sprung from the corpse and almost tore his throat out.
Godwin had encountered some odd and hostile things in the Chillway. But never a happy camp of travelers, singing, laughing, and living as though they were in a lord’s estate during the summer festivals.
“Greetings friends,” a young man with a bright red beard said as they approached. “Welcome to our humble campsite!” The beard, which fell nearly to the man’s waist despite his age, was tied in artful braids and laced with purple flowers.
Yaura looked around suspiciously.
“Greetings,” Godwin said politely.
“What brings you to our camp?” the man with the red beard asked, smiling all the while.
“Curiosity,” Godwin said. “It’s not often I come across a camp of travelers in the Chillway.”
“Ah, how I hate that name!” the man replied. “Chill…way. A tragedy in two words. But yes, you have a point. It’s not often travelers are able to come and find us.”
“You’re a bit hard to miss,” Yaura said.
“If you know how to look,” their greeter replied.
Godwin was on the verge of saying something about most idiots being able to track a caravan in the snow, but Yaura cut him off.
“Who are you?”
“A hard question to answer. Surely you’d be more comfortable hearing the answer among food and fire?”
Both of the Shigata’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. It was one thing for two disguised demons to enter a human camp, but never had they heard of forty or fifty demons traveling together disguised as humans. Why were these nomads willing to accept those odds?
“I’ll take you to our elder,” the red bearded man half sang. “Shane of the Kirishelliwan!”
“Kirishelliwan?” Yaura asked, surprised. Godwin had no idea what they were talking about.
“Come, come,” their host laughed as he led them through the crowds. Godwin and Yaura followed him to the seat of Shane of the Kirishelliwan, which turned out to be a giant chair made of densely packed snow.
Shane of the Kirishelliwan bowed to them as they approached. “Welcome friends. I’d stand to greet you properly but these old joints threaten to give out every time I set them to creaking.”
Shane was an old man near eighty winters, but there was something childish about him all the same. He was red-cheeked with laughing blue eyes, haunched shoulders, and a wide toothless smile.
“We’re not accustomed to being greeted so pleasantly,” Godwin said. “Especially not by those who sit on a throne.”
Shane laughed and clapped his hands in response. “Food! Fire!” he shouted. “Seats for the guests!”
Godwin and Yaura were quickly given two wooden stools from inside the wagons. “And ’tis no true throne that I sit on,” Shane went on. “Just a jape. We Kirishelliwan lead ourselves. My people just know that I’ve seen enough to have something useful to say every then and now!”
“You truly are Kirishelliwan?” Yaura asked, her hazel eyes wide. “The eternal children have not been seen in years. Decades probably.”
“We seldom wish to be seen,” Shane replied. “But we can make an exception for two wanderers.”
“Pardon my ignorance,” Godwin said. “I am unfamiliar with the Kirishelliwan.”
“The eternal children,” Yaura said. “They’re nomads. They’ve not accepted the rule of King Mexdon and wander the Chillway living off the land and occasionally throwing festivals, putting on plays and concerts, or engaging with smaller villages in some such way.”
Yaura suddenly blushed.
“You tell our story as well as one of us,” Shane said. “That about sums it up. We travel here and there. We have no lord save the almighty goddess behind the stars. No master save the mighty evergreens or the rushing white waters.”
