Brotherhood Saga 03: Death

by Kody Boye

  After climbing out of bed and straightening his hair, he made his way across the room, grabbed the first glass of water, then crossed the short distance between him and the window before looking outside.

  While the snow continued to fall, and while the towers in the far west glowed like lost lanterns in a faraway place, everything else was silent—content, it seemed, by the fact that there was no longer any immediate danger from Harpies.

  Is there, though? he thought, shivering as he pressed one hand to the pane of glass and absorbed its chill through his palm and up his arm.

  Despite the atrocious weather and the fact that there seemed little to do here—save hunt, breathe, eat and sleep—he could easily see himself living here one day, if only in part due to Virgin, who would likely want to remain close to the forest to keep his past alive and the memories of his family rich and plentiful.

  Would it be wise though?

  Being so close to the forest had its drawbacks—the Elves could possibly expand their search throughout the Great Divide and find the two of them come a few years, as a creature who did not age had all the time in the world to consider punishment and just who stole the book. Jarden, obviously, would have told the Elves who had broken into his home and stole the book he so carefully guarded, and ze would say that Odin had been the one to break the magicked barrier without so much as a second passing thought. Ze would bear scars, and for that alone would want justice to be done.

  What, Odin dared to ask, would they do to someone who stole an ancient textbook? Would they, like Virgin said, strip him naked and dump him in the wild Abroen, or would they simply allow the human court to deal with him and as such throw him in prison for the rest of his life?

  No, he thought, shaking his head. He set his water glass on the windowsill and reached up to run his hands through his hair. No. They wouldn’t.

  As the king’s champion, he would be reserved a penalty above death. He hadn’t killed anyone, had not so much as drawn a blade to their throats and threatened to cut them open, but would Virgin’s involvement ultimately lead him down a path better left untraveled and thrust him into a sentence far beyond what he could possibly conceive?

  Tears spilled down his eyes, along his cheekbones, then kissed his jaw before falling off entirely.

  No.

  It couldn’t—nor wouldn’t—happen to him. He’d come too far and done too damn much to succumb to what the law thought or didn’t think about him.

  “Odin?” Virgin asked.

  Without bothering to turn, Osin braced his hands on the windowsill, took a slow, deep breath, then asked, point blank, “What?”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m just having a moment,” he laughed, reaching up to brush the tears from his eyes. “That’s all.”

  “Is your head still hurting?”

  “It is, but that’s not so much the problem as what I’m thinking about currently is.”

  Behind him, the mattress shifted, then creaked.

  Odin closed his eyes.

  Time seemed like an ever-stretching pool that seemed to extend everywhere and nowhere. In that pool, Odin felt, he saw the beginning, the middle, the end, the androgynous face in which all life is created and then the mold in which it is birthed unto the world, and in that pool he imagined the eclipse would begin—when the sun, moon and quite, possibly, the world would align before the land was made into flame.

  No, he thought, tears streaming down his face. It can’t… I can’t…

  A breath passed, then two.

  Virgin stepped behind him and wrapped his arms around his waist.

  “What’s wrong?” the Halfling whispered, setting his chin atop Odin’s shoulder.

  “I’m afraid, Virgin… really, really afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of what might happen if I get caught.”

  “You’re not going to get caught,” Virgin said, strumming his fingers along Odin’s abdomen before sliding his lips across Odin’s ear. “You should come back to bed.”

  “What point is there?”

  “We’re leaving this place for good come morning.”

  “Is it even worth trying to do what it is I want to do? I’ve already come this far, and here I am already afraid of what might happen.”

  “You guard yourself far too carefully for someone to ruin what you want to do.”

  “Really, Virgin? Do you really think that?”

  “I do,” Virgin replied, tightening his embrace around Odin’s body. “Come back to bed. We still have a little while left before dawn.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep.”

  “Then we’ll just lay there.”

  “Lay there?”

  “You can rest without sleeping,” Virgin said. “You can sleep without actually being unconscious.”

  Can you? Odin thought.

  Though he had no words to say in response to that question, he turned, took Virgin’s hand and allowed the Halfling to lead him back to bed.

  Once safely nestled beneath the covers, Virgin pulled him forward until their brows touched.

  “You said I don’t kiss you enough,” the older Halfling whispered, tilting his head to the side and drawing close to Odin’s face. “I’m going to make up for that right now.”

  Virgin drew forward.

  Their lips touched.

  Odin closed his eyes.

  Can one ever truly melt into another’s embrace?

  In that moment, Odin felt he had, and while tears stained his eyes, the warmth of another person was enough to heal his heart.

  *

  “Damn the mighty and all the snow God Ullr knows!” Carmen cried. “Come back here!”

  Her rampant pursuit of the dog had become a regular sight. Every morning when she let him out, he would trounce across the front yard and commit to his regular scouting before he set out to do his business. This, she began to realize, was his form of trickery, and while she found him far too pleasant to think unkindly of him, she gave the dog far too much confidence to believe he could be anything other than ignorant.

  As routine would happen, Honor had once again run.

  Dashing through the snow, jumping over heaps, dodging the occasional woodcutter or barreling beneath derelict clotheslines—he slipped and skidded across the ice so many times Carmen thought he would eventually give up, but to no avail.

  Halfway through the newly-created settlement, she stopped in the road, cupped her hands over her mouth, and shouted, “STOP!”

  The dog ground to a halt. Ears twitching, he turned his head to look at her before play-bowing, rolling over, then taking off again.

  “By the Gods,” the Dwarf groaned, throwing her head back to stare into the air. “Please… come back!”

  “I take it you Dwarves aren’t that used to dogs,” a voice chuckled.

  Carmen turned her head. The man who had spoken stepped from his place on his stoop and joined Carmen at her side as Honor continued to pounce across the distance.

  “No,” Carmen resounded. “We’re not.”

  “Where’d you happen upon this one then?”

  “In Kaprika.”

  “Ah,” the man said. “A survivor?”

  “The only one.”

  The man reached up and drew from beneath his shirt a short, golden object. “You ever use a whistle before?”

  “No,” Carmen said, shaking her head. “We couldn’t. The sounds drew in the Angels.”

  “Angels?” he frowned.

  “Monsters,” she corrected. “With lots of teeth.”

  “Oh.”

  “And besides—a whistle’s no use in a mountain. How would you tell where it was coming from?”

  “True, that,” he said. He lifted the whistle to his lips and blew as hard as he could. The sound it produced cut through the silence of the dreary morning as if it were some great cannon being shot. “Ah. Here we go.”

  From his place to the far south Honor began to bound back
, bouncing amidst the snow and barking as he neared. Carmen was just about ready to lay into the mutt when he tackled her to the ground.

  “Ok, ok,” she panted. “You like the whistle.”

  “You’re free to it,” the man said.

  Carmen pushed herself upright as the man offered the object on its leather chain. “Why?” she frowned.

  “I used to be a farmer in the lands south of Dwaydor—sheep, if you want to know specifically. My good girl Luna was the best sheep-herder across all the farms. Then the war came and she took an arrow to her back leg.”

  “Is she ok?” Carmen frowned.

  “Oh, she’s fine. Got a limp, but my oldest boy has a bit of the Gift in him and he healed her up.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Take it, little lady. That dog of yours may be spry, but you can tell he loves you a lot.”

  With hesitation she felt warranted the moment, Carmen reached out, secured the whistle in her grasp, then looked upon its surface, which displayed a single decal of a pawprint. “Thank you,” she said.

  “Better get inside now,” the man said, turning back to his home. “The storm’s only going to get worse.”

  “Yeah,” Carmen mumbled. “It is.”

  She stepped into where she’d been staying in Nova and Katarina’s home and stomped the snow off her shoes. Honor—always the less-inclined—made no hesitation in shaking the flakes from his coat before bounding into the house.

  “You’re back,” Nova laughed as he rounded the corner.

  “How could you tell?” Carmen winked.

  “The sound of horses is usually the indicator.”

  “Ah,” she chuckled, only nodding as the dog continued to bound across the living room.

  She slid free of her boots and set them by the fire to dry before settling down on a deerskin rug. “How’s Katarina doing?” she asked.

  “The doctor’s said she needs to stay in bed given her contractions… Not that there’s much of a bed for her to stay in, but I’ve been trying.”

  “Do you need me to go out with them?” she asked, further reminded of the scarcity of wildlife within the area and the hunters’ near-inability to bring in game. “I know I’m not much of a hunter, but I’m smaller, and stronger. I know I could help them.”

  “I know you could,” Nova sighed. “It’s just… I’m not sure if that would even help. You can’t bring more game in with more people if there isn’t game to catch.”

  Defeated, Carmen turned her eyes on the fire and tried to fight the growing pit of unease in her heart, though the struggle was much greater than she could’ve ever imagined. This was no rise, no fall within the Hornblarin Mountains, where distantly Angels could be heard as along great trespasses she ventured toward a great or fearsome foe, no moment upon the front lines in which her duty was anything other than laid before her. No. She hated feeling this way—like some grand, perpetual force was telling her that someone needed help she was unable to provide—and for that the battle was far more than just blood and bone.

  Whimpering, Honor came up and pressed against her side.

  “It’s ok,” she whispered, stroking his fur. “Katarina will be fine. We all will. It’s just scary because we’re not used to this happening.”

  Above, Nova nodded, turned, and pressed a hand against his brow. The long sigh that followed did nothing to ease Carmen’s worries.

  When her human friend disappeared into the back room, Carmen closed her eyes.

  They all said the bad times were done.

  No.

  The war wasn’t over.

  For some, it had just begun.

  *

  “How’re you feeling?” Nova asked, stooping over his wife’s side.

  “Fine,” Katarina said.

  Her very-pregnant and obviously-distressed body was stripped of any creature comforts their old world could have provided. Spread out along a series of animal skins, propped up with pillows hand-sewn from the wool of scavenged sheep and covered with only a small quilt, she looked the portraiture of what life had been like in Bohren so long ago, when he’d been nothing but a poor boy living off the lay of the land.

  He pressed a hand to her brow and took note of the temperature. Warm—much more than she had been earlier, though in this case that was a blessing, not a curse. He’d done his best to insulate the windows by covering their already-boarded surfaces. It seemed to have worked. Whether or not it gave comfort he didn’t know.

  “I’m fine, Nova,” Katarina said, pushing his hand away.

  “You’re sure?” he asked.

  “Yes, I—“

  “I can see if anyone can offer more blankets, pillows, skins.”

  “No one’s going to be able to offer that, Nova.”

  “The castle might.”

  “Ornala is stressed enough to feed the people within the walls. How do you expect to get anything more from them?”

  Because I’m a war hero, he thought. Because I’m a veteran, goddammit.

  Rather than risk saying anything that might upset his wife, he settled down beside her, slid an arm around her shoulders, then leaned his head against hers before placing his hand above the swell in her stomach.

  Slowly, he waited—not for a vision, and not for a kick, but the realization to settle in.

  The world, he knew, was beautiful, as were the creatures that encompassed it.

  He would come upon a morning blessed with the greatest warmth and light that could have ever been or an evening in which the snow was blazing and the wind screamed hellfire. During this time, a great interference would have come from a world that existed outside its own—a twilight, some would be fit to say, of strange and intrusive regards. First would be the screams, the righteous ones of those whose body he harbored so, then the cries and exalted laughs of those around. A dog would bark, the land would cry, and with it there would be a great light that would shroud its vision as the familiar was lost and the strange made new. This great mitosis, this thing of life, in which all became one and then one became none—it was great: beauty, even, and for when he slipped into the world crying or even screaming there would be one great sigh amongst all lips, for their lives had altered when one began.

  There was no compass in the things Nova saw in his head, no light, no shrouded fog to predict vision. Instead, there was nothing more than reality, one so somber he felt far beyond his body than he had in his life.

  “Nova?” a voice asked.

  He could’ve sworn it was a winged being sent from high above. When he opened his eyes, though, he realized it was an angel, just not one of a Godly variety.

  “Hey,” he said, stroking his wife’s swollen stomach.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I think I fell asleep,” he laughed. “Why? Are you?”

  “I was talking to you.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You didn’t… see anything… did you?”

  “If you’re asking if I had a vision,” Nova replied, “no. If you’re asking if I saw anything… yes.”

  “What was it?”

  “You. Me. The baby. Us.”

  “What’d it look like?”

  “Beauty,” Nova sighed. “So, so beautiful.”

  *

  The unwelcome sensation of cold pushed itself upon her body.

  Drawing the deerskin around herself, she opened her eyes to find the remnants of the fire dark but still glowing orange. The coals ebbing like waves of wondrous summer air, the crack of burning kindling soft yet harsh in the silence of the home, she curled herself into a ball and sighed when she felt Honor’s fur brush against her. The night’s darkness was desolate, winter’s presence marked. Outside, a light snow fell, kissing the windowpanes and offering to be let in.

  If only there were something I could do.

  Her guilt over the matter had not lessened. Even at dinner that night, when she’d delivered the food she’d cooked to Katarina personally and spent several hour
s talking to her, she felt nothing but the shrill old woman who tended the child whom she did not care for. Her affections and concerns had seemed trite—much she imagined like the common man to the lowly beggar—and yet despite the fact that she was doing as much as she could to help her friends, it didn’t feel like enough.

  Here I am, she thought, thinking about a family that isn’t my own.

  But was this not her family though? She’d lived with them for months—had bonded with Nova like a brother and taken to his wife like a sister—yet all she could think of was of the man she’d left behind. Of his tall yet awkward posture, of his beautiful yet cloudy eyes, of the way she could fit perfectly within his thin frame on nights like these and of all his peculiarities—he could bake bread and make machines, sew fabric and raise monuments, and to some that made him somewhat of a dichotomy, a man whom appeared in one aspect one thing and in another an other. But was that not the point though—for people to be different, passionate, insecure about gratification and the glory of others? Was that not what made life worth living?

  Or is that only me?

  Rising, she gathered the skin around herself and made her way to the window. Though her height was often disregarded, she was able to see out this window just fine, and from it could watch the world as it turned.

  Though the sound of footsteps echoed toward her, she didn’t bother to turn.

  “Can’t sleep?” Ketrak asked.

  Carmen shook her head. “No,” she said. “I can’t.”

  “Is everything all right?”

  “I don’t think anything is right if you want me to tell you the truth,” she replied. “The war has torn this country apart, men have died, people lost homes. Katarina doesn’t even have a bed to sleep on and me…” She bowed her head. “I haven’t seen my husband in months.”

  Ketrak set a hand on her shoulder. “You are far stronger than you believe yourself to be.”

  “I sometimes wonder if it’s just something I’m pretending to have instead of actually having it.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “You know how when someone’s dying that you and someone else cares about? The other one’s completely broken down and can’t control themselves any longer and then there’s something… I don’t know what it is… something that makes you feel like you have to be strong, otherwise you’re not important? The man has to be strong so the woman can cry. Your brother who’s lost so much can’t be expected to stand strong because he’s so heartbroken? And me… the warrior? What am I supposed to be but strong?”