“What are they doing here?” she asked in a small whisper.
“Buying and trading as usual,” Abner answered.
Lyle didn’t say anything but narrowed his eyes and turned his back to Bym.
“They do a lot of business here, so be polite.”
Lyle said, “Folks around here are divided. The Order of Solis takes more from us than it gives. We sell goods to the Umbra for gold or trade with them for the metals and ores they mine from their mountains. You see, they have those mountains, but aren’t allowed to grow food on the surface. It’s how the Solis keep them from seizing power for themselves.” His tone was filled with hostility.
Abner explained, “The Solis came through here and took my sister. She wasn’t the Goddess.” His expression had turned hard. “They also tax us to protect us from the goblins.”
Bym looked from them and back down the street, considering the Umbra in a new light.
Abner shook his head. “We don’t need their protection. The Umbra have always come to our aid where the goblins are concerned.”
“Then, why do you pay them?”
“Because, they were the Temporal Locum’s guard, her army. Without her and her captains, the order has fallen into chaos along with nature. Her sons are trying to fill their shoes, but it’s not the same,” Lyle said.
Lost in thought, she barely noticed when Abner gave her a metal handle. “This is for Helga.”
“Thank you. It was nice meeting you both.” Turning her back on the Umbra, she made her way back to the herbalist’s shop.
After applying a cream to Bym’s nose and face, Helga pointed out which of her many cabinets was missing its handle. While attaching it, Bym glanced around at her surroundings. Dried plants were hanging from suspended wood beams above their heads. Shelves lined the walls and were filled with jars of different shapes and sizes. Boxes of ingredients filled the cabinets, and pots and pans were carefully placed along most of the available surfaces. As soon as Bym had attached the handle, Helga sent her off with a packet of herbs for yet another of her patients. Then, it was one errand after another as if the old woman had been putting off every long walk she needed to make. As Bym grew too tired to continue, the sun fell. Deciding they had accomplished enough for one day, Helga paid her two coppers and sent her on her way.
“Wow. All of that for two cents. Wow,” Bym thought.
Early the next morning, there was a commotion at the town gates. Hurrying to dress, Bym rushed down the steps to see what was happening. The innkeeper stopped her. “For your own sake, don’t go out.” Her sad, downcast face halted Bym in her tracks.
“What happened?” Fear for Eurig rose to the forefront of her thoughts.
“The soldiers brought our young women folk back, but two of them didn’t survive testing. They came home in pine boxes, child. Stay inside for now and come keep me company in the kitchen. You can help me make meals for the families.” She held out her hand, and Bym took it, not wanting to be disrespectful. “Now, be a good lad and have a seat. Show me those good manners of yours, and I’ll allow you to call me Seren as my family does.”
Some families were reuniting, and some were mourning. Sitting on a stool in the kitchen, she took the plate of eggs and sausages which she was offered and watched Seren dice vegetables like a professional chef. She ate a few bites before her curiosity drove her to ask, “How do they test them?”
“You haven’t heard the stories?”
Bym stared blankly at her, neither confirming or denying her knowledge.
“The Solis stronghold nearest our village was built to protect one of the Goddess Gates. Legend tells of her passing through it and turning our world from lightning, fire, and chaos into one of sun, rain, moon, and order. Each young female walks through a gate. Some pass through it, and nothing happens. Some are struck with bolts of lightning.” She lowered her head and closed her eyes.
“What happens when the Temporal Locum passes under a gate?”
She said, “I’ve heard it told that the golden infinity snakes take to the air and dance upon her skin.”
Bym’s flesh rose. She lowered her face to hide her reaction and shoveled food into her mouth. Quickly finishing, she said, “I have to go to work. Helga needs me. She’ll know where I am if anyone is looking.”
Knowing the town after all of the errands she’d run, she took the quieter streets. The shop seemed closed when she arrived, but she found Helga sitting on a blanket in the back room with her eyes closed in what Bym assumed was a meditative state.
“Have they gone?”
Startled, Bym asked, “Who?”
“The soldiers,” Helga clarified.
“Do you want me to go and look?”
Helga opened one eye and looked at Bym as if she had shocked her with her particular level of stupidity.
Loud steps outside surprised them both. It was Eurig, and he had an excited smile on his face. “Bym, the soldiers have returned and have accepted me as a recruit!” He pulled her into a hug. “I know you want to come along, but I can’t bring a squire. Only those who can wield a sword can go.”
“But, I have one,” Bym whined while patting her long knife.
“Don’t cry. It’s for the best. You’ll be safe here and have already found work.” Turning to Helga, he asked, “Can you provide a room for him?” He seemed anxious to be rid of her.
Helga nodded.
“Bym will be better off here.” Eurig ruffled the top of Bym’s head. “You’ll be okay, kid,” he said as he turned to walk away.
“Eurig, please. Don’t leave me.” It felt like her soul was being ripped apart.
He turned in the doorway. Behind him, she could see his horse, saddled and ready to go. He put a gold piece on her palm and closed her fingers over it. “Make a life for yourself here. I’ll be back to check on you, but I’ll be back as a soldier.” Proudly, he lifted his chin. Then, he strode over to his horse, mounted it, and rode away without even a backward glance.
Tears blurred his departing back, and Bym couldn’t fight or suppress her sobs.
“There, there, child. It’s alright.” She felt Helga’s arms around her. “Let’s have some tea.”
Bym wiped at her eyes and bit her tongue to keep from exploding. Tea? Eurig, her guide, protector, and only human friend had just abandoned her. It had been his plan all along to be a soldier. It was why he’d found her in his barn to begin with. He’d never lied to her. He’d brought her to a town, helped her get food, clothing, and shelter, and hadn’t left until she’d found a job. She opened her fingers and stared down at the gold coin before putting it in the pouch with the others. None of those facts mattered because it still hurt.
She whispered, “He didn’t owe me anything.”
“Sit with me and tell me how you met your friend.” Helga poured boiling water from a kettle over crushed leaves which she’d placed in two cups.
Taking a floor cushion across from her, she told her about their adventure. While listening, Helga showed her how to tie together bundles of herbs. They kept busy as they spoke. It did make her feel better to talk about it.
Helga said, “The funerals are before dusk. These are needed for the pyres.”
Bym stared at the dried bundle in her hands. Two women were dead because they weren’t the goddess for whom the soldiers were looking. While talking to Mistress Seren, she’d gotten a sick feeling that she was the one they sought. Drinking the last sip of her tea, she saw a design on the bottom left by the leaves. It was a figure eight, infinity. She drew her finger through the symbol in a circle to obscure it. Helga waited for her by the door. Taking the two baskets filled with bundles of dried herbs, Bym followed her through the town gates and out to a distant field.
The townspeople gathered there, and tears rose in her eyes once more when she saw Abner and Lyle with black bands tied around their arms. The beloved daughter and sister had been one of the gate’s victims. She and another young woman, dressed in red gowns, had been l
aid upon high wooded pyres with their hands crossed over their chests as though sleeping. However, they weren’t. They’d been electrocuted because they weren’t her. She felt at her chest where the golden snakes had melted into her flesh. The town’s other young women, of whom there appeared to be five, had returned. They stood mournfully with their families. Abner was the only young man in sight, other than Bym incognito. The others had joined the soldiers. The men who remained were all Abner’s father’s age or older. The people looked to Helga.
She whispered to Bym, “Follow a step behind me. Keep your head down and your mouth closed.”
Then, the old woman started to chant as she walked around the pyres, placing bundles of herbs around the dead. Once her work was done, she tugged on Bym’s sleeve, moving them away and to the back of the town’s mourners. Mistress Seren and her husband, the stableman, inclined their heads to Bym. She joined them, standing behind them where she watched as the pyres were lit, and motes of flames lifted to the heavens.
Chapter Eight
That night, Bym laid in her bed at the inn and cried for the young women and their families. It was her fault they had died. She was convinced of it. Although her memories were fading, she remembered being in her apartment. She’d put a pendent on over her head. Something inexplicable had happened. When she’d regained consciousness, she’d been alone near a crumbling gate in this world. If she was the one who they hunted, she had to turn herself in. If she didn’t and chose to hide, any other deaths would be the result of her cowardice, and she couldn’t live with that.
Determined to do the right thing, she abandoned her attempts at sleeping, took a bath, and dressed. She rolled up her clean but stiff clothing and shoved it into the feed bag. Then, she made her bed. Eurig had taken his hat but hadn’t taken the big boots, so she decided to leave them. Someone would find them and be able to use them as she had. She dreaded what she intended to do at dawn when the guards opened the gates, but there was no other moral choice. She couldn’t allow the continued sacrifices of innocent women. She was about to sit on her bed and wait for daylight when yells from outside startled her.
In the center of town, a bell started clanging.
Opening her door, Bym met Mistress Seren and her husband in the dark hall.
“What was that?”
“The warning bell! We’re under attack!” the man answered while pulling on his boots.
His wife handed him his jacket and his sword.
“Bar the door, woman.” He kissed her on the mouth before taking the stairs two at a time.
Bym ran down the steps after him. Her eyes grew wide as she looked from the inn’s yard and around the decorative trees and bushes to the street.
“Bar the damn door!” he yelled back.
Bym heard the board fall into place on the other side. She ran after him into the stable. Out of the darkness, a goblin, with matted hair, sharp claws, and a face full of fangs, ran at his back. Drawing her weapon, Bym yelled and charged. Raising the black blade above her head, she slashed down and to the right. Her blade sliced through the goblin’s neck like a sharp knife through an apple, tugging slightly at the core, and made a similar sound. The head and body fell, spilling vile green blood across the dirt.
The stableman turned to her in shock. “You saved me.” He ran inside the structure. Deftly, he put a blanket over Donkey’s back and saddled her. “Up you go. Goblins have breached the wall. Kill all of ‘em you can.” He saddled his own horse and took several spears from the wall. “I was a soldier once. Do as I say, boy.”
“Yes, sir.” She watched nervously as he opened the stalls of two other horses and set them free to seek their own safety.
He galloped from the stable with his spears and Bym and Donkey behind him. She watched as he drew his arm back in one swift motion and hurled his spear forward. Its sharp tip sank into flesh as he took a goblin in the neck. Riding forward, he bent in the saddle to retrieve his weapon. Yanking it free, goblin blood spurted from the wound and fell to the road. Seconds later, the goblin’s body followed its blood, falling upon it like a slab falling on top of a tomb.
“I’ll protect my home! Go! Protect Helga!”
Suddenly fearful for the kindly old woman, she urged Donkey to run. Helga had been for the last few days her sanctuary of stability and could at the very moment be buried beneath a tide of feral death, one from which she’d have no hope of defending herself. Two sets of flashing teeth converged on her out of the darkness. Saliva dripped from their fangs, and their glowing red eyes had a frenzied madness within them. Channeling her fear into her sword arm, she sliced down, killing a goblin before it could clamp its teeth into Donkey’s neck. Turning to her other side, she hacked off first one clawed hand and then the other as a goblin, covered in human blood tore at her pants leg.
Thankful for the saddle which kept her on Donkey’s back, she urged her toward the main street, thinking it would be a faster way to get to Helga. They dodged men as they fought against rabid goblins. Sharp swords in wrinkled hands, spotted with age, slashed back against poisonous claws and fangs. All about them was chaos and destruction. The formerly peaceful and orderly town had been overrun. A group of men came into view. They had the town’s women and children, Helga included, surrounded.
One of the men yelled, “To the inn! To the inn!” In the dark, she recognized him. It was the blacksmith.
Positioning Donkey behind the large group, Bym killed the goblins who came within reach of her sword while the men around the women did the same. The women held children and each other, crying out in fear at the terrifying monsters hungering to feast upon their flesh and for the carnage which resulted as they failed. Keeping each other upright, they stumbled forward, running as best they could in their nightgowns while jumping over goblin corpses which had fallen in their paths.
When they reached the innyard, Lyle yelled, “Sedwidge, get them inside!”
The stableman yelled, “Woman, unbar the door!” His horse pranced beneath him. Sedwidge held a spear in each hand and controlled his horse with his knees. The horse’s eyes rolled with fear, and its nostrils flared, but it obeyed its master.
The innkeeper opened the door, and the frightened women filed inside.
“Bar the door!” he yelled again.
Lyle called out, “Olaf, Garret, and Chad, defend the inn under Sedwidge’s command!” The blacksmith pointed a finger at Bym. “You’re with us. Move!”
She urged Donkey to follow after him, Abner, and the other men.
Sedwidge yelled out, “Archers, on the roof!”
Lyle started running and caught hold of the mane of a wild-eyed horse as it ran by. Then, he was on its back. With a mighty blow, he struck a goblin, slicing it in half from its head to its hips. Bym gagged and turned her head. Men shot flaming arrows at goblins that were climbing over the walls. The monsters crawled over them like an invading army of ants and were pinned to the heavy logs with flaming arrows, a sort of macabre entomologist’s board. However, many of the goblins had already made it over the walls. Several dropped from an overhanging roof and surrounded Bym. One of them ran screaming at her, saliva dripping from its encrusted fangs. Jabbing hard with her blade, she stabbed it in the eye and kicked it away. Abner finished it off. With a scream imbued with rage, he crushed its skull with his hammer. The goblins were an unending wave of teeth and death. Helplessly, they listened to a man’s distant scream as he died.
“Aurora! Aurora!” The men began to chant as they struck out against razor-sharp teeth and claws.
Through her terror, Bym realized for what it was they truly prayed, not their former goddess who had faded, but for the sun. The goblins would run and hide when it rose. As she fought, she prayed for bright daylight and an end of night. “Please. Please. If it is me, give me a sign.” She quickly opened her eyes when the wretched smell of goblin breath hit her senses.
A war hammer swung inches from her face, hit the goblin in the head, and knocked it into a building. “Pay
attention!” Abner angrily yelled.
She clutched at her chest as a painful heat grew and burned her from within. Then, as if by magic, night turned into a blindingly hot summer day. The moon fell, and the sun rose so quickly that the earth beneath them trembled making the horses nervously prance and the buildings creak. The air was filled with goblin screams as the light blinded their nocturnal eyes. From the rooftops, archers shot them while the men below made quick work of the others. Green blood glistened underfoot.
“Praise be to the Goddess,” Abner said.
Meanwhile, Bym continued praying for the sun to burn bright.
A man climbed over goblin corpses near the gate and climbed to the top of the wall where he squinted out over the land and surrounding forest. He called down, “Lyle, it’s a horde. They’ve got us surrounded. They are hiding beneath the trees, but once darkness comes, we’re done. There are thousands of them.” He climbed down, defeated.
“The soldiers are long gone,” another man said. He held a scythe which dripped with green blood.
“They either got away or got caught by the horde,” an old man said.
Lyle studied the dead goblins and stared out at the town’s walls. “If we leave, we’ve got no protection. We don’t know how long the light will last. You.” He pointed at Bym. “I need our most experienced fighters to stay and protect our women and children. We’re going to need help.”
“You said the soldiers were too far away.” She tried to keep Donkey calm with one hand while keeping her bloody knife away from her clothing.
“They are, but the Umbra aren’t. You can fight and ride. Go up the mountain, tell them we’re being attacked, and ask for help. Hurry. We don’t know how much daylight we’ve got left.”
Terrified of being beyond the walls and alone, she said, “I don’t know where they are.”
“I’ll show you the road. All you have to do is follow it.”
Bym felt like she was going to throw up but nodded her agreement that she’d do it.
At the gates, dead goblins were being picked up and tossed outside. Once a path had been cleared, Lyle led Donkey out. “I’m fortifying the inn and keeping everyone there. You hear me?”
Temporal Locum Page 9
