by Danny Macks
Low tide was again rising when Jeb left the cave, but enough sand was exposed at the base of the cliff that Jeb climbed down instead of up.
Nimbus met Jeb at the bottom of the cliff. I’m sorry, he signed.
Apologies wouldn't bring Harker back. He pointed back up to the cave. “Tell the king where to find his sword.”
It is autumn, the sword is yours now!
“You tricked me into taking a sword I've been avoiding my whole life and somebody I care about died because of it. Either I am the Winter Prince or I am not. If you truly believe I am, I’m ordering you to tell King Oberon where to find his sword.”
Nimbus paused, then bowed, before turning and floating up toward the castle. Jeb shouldered his backpack and turned north, angling slightly east away from the coast as he walked.
*****
Midnight had finished suckling and did twenty laps at a quick tölt around the corral when smoke blew across his nostrils. Every building around his corral had a fireplace, but Midnight grew agitated at this particular breeze.
He ran for the corral’s gate, planted both front hooves and spun, both back hooves leaving the ground, before falling in an uncoordinated pile against the slats. He wobbled to his feet, did a lap around the corral and tried it again.
Untangling himself after a second failure, he tried pulling on the gate with his teeth: again without success. His father, mother and the other horses shifted and ran back and forth nervously as the smoke increased.
Finally, he turned around, looked over his shoulder and bucked like a mule. One hoof struck air, scraping along the side of a board, but the other struck solidly. It took several tries before the gate gave way.
When the gate flew open, the stallion trotted out while the little black colt was still catching his breath, sniffed the breeze and turned downwind toward a second plume of smoke that Midnight could see but not smell. The mares followed. Midnight bumped his father and tried to turn him, but the bigger horse ignored him until Midnight bit him on the neck.
The stallion chased Midnight past the intersection until an errant smoky breeze made him hesitate and start to turn back toward his original path. Midnight closed to bite him again and earned a kick for his trouble. By this time the mares were clogging up the return path and the stallion turned again toward the path Midnight wanted him to take.
Midnight was bloody and limping by the time the stallion ran out into the fields beyond the south gate with the rest of the horses behind him. The little colt breathed deeply, clearing his lungs, then looked back and forth between the fields, filled with sweet, ripening grain and the columns of smoke back inside the gate. He was running back toward the gate when a rope flew past his vision and settled around his neck. He fought, but a second rope caught a back leg. Someone pushed the little, bloody colt down on his side and a bag was thrown over his eyes.
“Did you see him running toward the fire? This one is a special kind of stupid.”
*****
Jeb shifted his bag on his shoulders as he walked north along the beach. He had spent a full night in that hole, but had no clue if he would find a guardsman waiting for him when he left the sand. Away from the city walls, the rising tide pushed him off the beach onto a hillside.
He found a path away from the beach just as the wind shifted with the dawn and began to blow toward the sea instead of away. The smell of wood fire replaced the stench of dead fish and salt. Jeb crouched low, almost crawling, as he climbed the last few feet to the top of the ridge.
As be creeped forward, in search of the campfire that he could smell but not see, a dark smudge formed in the sky far overhead and grew as the seaward breeze blew stronger.
Stepping over the rise, Jeb didn't see any campfires. The smoke was coming from within the city. Great black columns rose from halfway between the eastern gate and the center of the city.
Most buildings in the city were stone on the first floor, but plaster and timber above. Those second floors overhung the streets and buildings often touched each other or had the narrowest of gaps. The Dancing Goat and the stable were no exception. Jeb’s stride lengthened to a ground-eating jog and he dumped the hoperoot berries into his mouth before tying the berry stained cloth over his face. If he hurried, he could reach Harker and get the horses to safety.
Jeb faltered. Harker was dead. As dead as Jeb’s parents, ten years ago. Anyone with any sense was fighting the fire, but that didn't mean they had given up on finding him. His stomach sank as he realized the search for him could have sparked an accident that lit the fires.
But Cadence was still in there. And Bess. And everyone else he still knew. People who shouldn't be paying for Jeb’s mistakes. The knot in his chest began to burn and he clenched his jaw so hard it hurt.
Outside the north gate, a few people were looking for family members or caring for the injured, but most were just milling about, discussing what should be done. Jeb walked up to the closest one. He was sitting, smudged and smoky, staring at the grass.
Jeb shoved his shoulder. “Are you dead?”
“Excuse me?”
Jeb shoved another person and repeated the question. Then a third. A bundle of angry energy in a green dress.
“What did you mean?” The first man asked, stumbling to keep up.
Jeb snatched an axe out of someone’s piled belongings. “The fire is that way.”
“How dare you accuse me!” The man yelled. “I lost my house last night!”
Jeb halted and whirled on the crowd that had formed behind him. “Are. You. Dead!”
The shout cut off the grumbling.
“Me neither. I’m fighting. I’d like help.” Then he turned and stalked toward the gate.
People began to follow him. The guards on the north gate were still manning their posts. The gate was one of the city rally points. They should have been coordinating with the watch and directing people where to go to best fight the fire instead of creating a traffic jam by stopping and inspecting every wagon leaving the city.
“Where is your commander? We are starting at the north well and spreading outwards. We need buckets, axes, horses if they won’t bolt. We need to stop the spread first and then help the other people that are still fighting on their own.”
One of the guards just stood there looking nervous and confused while the other one bolted inside. “Sergeant! You’d better get out here!”
Jeb started issuing orders to the crowd behind him. “You five, start at the well and head toward Fishery Row. Grab everything that looks like a bucket: helmets, pots, anything that will hold water and bring it to the well. You five, do the same thing on Cloth Street."
“Who the hell do you think you are, Missy?”
“I’m …” Who was he, really? A freak in a dress. “I’m somebody trying to help.” The words sounded hesitant and unsure, even in his own ears. The crowd behind him hesitated, the momentum his anger had inspired lost. Murmurs rippled through the crowd.
“You stand here and argue with the guards,” one of the men in the crowd said. “I’m headed back to the fire. There shouldn't be no buckets anywhere around here. They are already there with the people still working. You shamed me into moving, girl, but it’s time to go back to where you belong.”
Some of the crowd followed the speaker and some headed back outside the gate to their families. None followed Jeb’s original instructions. Face burning, Jeb moved to follow the adult who had spoken, before a hand grabbed the back of his dress.
“Hold up there Missy,” the guard said as he yanked Jeb off balance. “You don’t go ordering the king’s guards around without consequences.” He snaked an arm around Jeb’s neck and squeezed a breast with his other hand. “The sergeant's got a … creative way with punishing uppity peasant girls like you.” His breath smelled of onions and rot, temporarily overpowering the purple-stained, hoperoot-soaked cloth on Jeb’s nose and mouth.
Jeb looked around for help, but everyone looked down or turned away, pretending not to s
ee the other guards circling Jeb and his captor.
The clatter of metal-shod hooves rang across the square and Jeb’s heart surged with hope. He snapped his head back, breaking skin on his captors teeth and lunged forward. A black-maned bay stallion with a jousting saddle fled the fire in a panic, scattering people in his path.
Not what he hoped for, but it would do.
Jeb leaped, grabbed the charger’s ear and hauled the massive beast sideways, knocking down guards as it spun. In a flash he was in the saddle and racing down a side street.
*****
Chad rubbed tired eyes with the sleeve of his houppelande. After a sleepless night, staring deeply into the faces of frightened people by lamplight, he was exhausted. As the fires had spread, people had come to the castle of their own volition: tired, burned, coughing smoke, with a bleak emptiness to their eyes. The narrow drawbridge was designed for defense and created a natural choke point, making movement in and out of the castle difficult. Luckily, most of the fires were in the poorer sections of town, nowhere close to the castle and only a small percentage of the refugees had crossed the city instead of leaving through the nearest gate.
Although the bailey lawn slowly filled with people, the king’s orders were unchanged. The people were on their own; the lords, the guard and the city watch were to concentrate on finding the King’s Sword.
As the sun rose, Chad’s heart soared when the king stepped out of the castle with a grey ethereal and he saw the hand sign for “sword”. He ran closer to hear the news.
“Where’s Pious?” the king asked as Chad approached.
“In bed, your majesty.”
“Fetch him -- on second thought, you can Sing, right? I’ll have someone else fetch the prince. You tell Thesscore that I want everyone, lords to soldiers, fighting the fire. Now. If he’s raging, you stop him and make him follow my orders. Understand?”
Chapter Seven – Loyal Allies
Jeb fought to treat the frightened bay kindly. None of this -- the sword, the fire, the guards -- was his fault, but the bay certainly wasn’t trying to make friends either.
The jousting saddle on the bay’s back, on the other hand, he could hate. The stirrups were too low, the horn had big wide ears that draped back over the front of his thighs and the cantle wrapped halfway up his back like some kind of chair instead of a saddle. It was ugly too. Red leather and gilding that was probably real gold: the kind of saddle he’d get back-handed for touching. The only thing it had going for it was a big cut-away that allowed the full length of Jeb’s thighs to touch horseflesh. The massive bay charger was scared and needed that touch.
Free from the guards, Jeb glanced eastward to where smoke still rose. The king’s birthday meant that competent extra people were available to assist the watch protecting the city. Jeb checked in at the Dancing Goat first.
Bess was on the front porch of the Dancing Goat, wrapping a wet cloth around someone’s burns, when Jeb rode up.
“How can I help?”
She glanced at the gilding and then the dress. Her eyes never made it up to Jeb’s face. “If you can ride, milady, we need a messenger. We need to know who needs help and how much. I think we are good with the injured for now: we have chirurgeons here. Let people know that too.”
The bay was having trouble standing still, but he was well-trained: a shift in weight and a squeeze of Jeb’s legs and he spun and leapt forward at a full gallop.
The morning shift in the ocean wind blew smoke into Jeb’s face as he rode toward the fire. He had to fight to keep the bay under control. People who had previously been upwind were now in the fire’s path.
He passed the remnants of a large smithy. The owner had torn down his own shop to create a fire break to slow the oncoming fire, but was locked in a fist fight with his own neighbor in front of the neighbor’s intact shop. Jeb wasn’t big enough to break the two apart and the delay would see the building they were fighting over in flames. He gritted his teeth and kept riding.
At the fire-front, he saw people using ropes and buckets to pull water from the underground cisterns instead of one of the fire wagons from an armory. For a fire that had been burning as long as this one obviously had been, there should have been half a dozen of the contraptions here.
At the nearest armory, a crowd was milling about while several men took turns chopping at the iron reinforced armory door. The watchmen were nowhere to be seen.
Jeb rode to the next closest armory, a quarter mile away. The crowd there looked nervous, as smoke started to angle back toward their homes, but nobody had started chopping at doors yet. “Somebody get that door open!” Jeb yelled before he rode away, but there wasn’t much more he could do. Where the hell was everybody that had actually trained to fight fires? Where were those who were supposed to be responsible?
*****
Chad didn’t know his way around the city, but the columns of smoke made a clear beacon he could follow in the twisting streets. He sprinted across the city as fast as he could, but he had underestimated the size of the capital. He was gasping and regretting leaving his temperamental mare at the castle when he heard his father’s booming voice.
Thesscore was singing the Song of Happiness.
At his best, everyone loved Thesscore and the Song reminded Chad of that. His father singing during the harvest, with an infectious grin and a hearty clap on the back for every farmer he met... Chad’s heart lifted and his exhaustion abated just enough to turn his labored jog back into a run. He rounded a corner toward the sound … and saw Thesscore and his men ripping the door off someone’s house.
Household belongings littered the streets as the men moved laughing and joyous from house to house, smashing furniture and tossing the pieces out windows. Most of the peasants had gone to fight the fire, so Thesscore’s men had constructed an improvised battering ram. “Knock, knock!” one of them yelled with a grin as they battered open another door without checking if it was locked.
Chad’s Rage, at full volume for only the second time in his life, stopped them all in their tracks.
“I am ashamed of you!” Chad yelled after his short notes had stopped them and they turned toward him with hate-filled eyes.
Thesscore ground his teeth in a way that Chad knew meant he was humming and drew his sword: forged and sharpened steel instead of a wooden practice sword. Chad didn’t have a sword. Or armor. His death would be quick, but Chad found it hard to care. Why had he ever looked up to this man?
Chad sang Mourning.
Thesscore’s charge broke and his sword froze in the air, then slowly lowered. He stood there for a moment then reached for his sallet before he hesitated -- as if only then remembering he had something in his hands -- and sheathed his blade. When he got his helmet off and dropped it, with a loud ringing of metal on the cobblestones, tears ran down his face and his mouth hung slack.
Chad was still singing, his breath shaking in grief and labored gasps, when he slowly walked up to his father and punched him, bare-handed, in the nose hard enough to knock him back a step.
The silence after Chad’s Song was deafening. “I’m still ashamed of you.”
Thesscore scowled and reached for his blade, but he must have seen some warning in Chad’s eyes because his hand dropped back to his side.
“Your king has orders. His sword has been found,” Chad said, still scowling. “You and your men are to fight the fire you started.”
Chad hesitated a moment, then added spitefully, “... or die trying.”
“You make your father proud,” Thesscore said, straightening, with a hint of his easy smile returning.
“I’ll let him know when I see him.”
Thesscore’s smile fell, but Chad still had a hard time caring. He turned back toward the castle and saw his brother, Deen, scowling at him.
"Why didn't you do that for me a year ago?" Deen asked.
Chad couldn't meet his brother's eyes and walked away.
*****
Jeb was racing from
the eastern fire toward the second one when a shrill whistle made the bay jerk. By reflex, Jeb aborted whatever the bay started to do and yanked the stallion back under control before looking around for the source of the noise.
A lord in heavily gilded armor strode down a side street, flanked by soldiers in red and gold. Just like the saddle Jeb’s butt was planted on. Shit.
The lord popped up his visor revealing a kind face with a swollen nose, just starting to purple. “What news from the east?” he yelled with a friendly wave as he strode closer.
“When the wind shifted, m’lord, the fire split and is heading back west on both sides of last night’s path. The bucket lines are getting pulled farther apart.” Jeb said, unsure whether he should dismount the lord’s horse with the bay dancing around nervously.
The lord patted his charger’s neck, then swiftly and confidently shortened the stirrups up to Jeb’s feet. He asked question after question about who was fighting the fire and where and Jeb had to say “I don’t know m’lord” to half of the insightful queries.
“You did well, lass,” the lord said, patting Jeb’s thigh in much the same manner that he had patted his horse’s neck. “Leric, give her your tunic then head to the castle. Tell every soul who doesn't already have an assigned task to meet me on Central street near the East Well. Lass, I need you to put this on and scout the second fire just like you did the first, then come see me.”
Jeb nodded mutely, and pulled the brightly colored tunic over his dress, surprised at the instant trust this stranger awarded him.
“And listen to this part very carefully. Tell everyone, and I mean everyone you meet to ‘Hold on. Help is on the way.’ Can you do that?”
“Yes, m’lord.” Jeb said, feeling hope for the first time in hours.
