The Things We Bury

by Kaleb Schad

  The summer night sucked up the dying horse’s stink and pressed it against Daveon like a gag. A mosquito bit into his neck. He didn’t bother swatting it.

  “That what you feel?” Alysha asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Your whole life?” There was an edge there.

  He looked at her now and he felt frayed, an unbundling between them, and he knew his fingers were at the strings, could stop, should stop, but still he said, “Maybe.”

  Tilly whinnied, a bubbling rattle inside the cry, then put her nose to her hooves and crashed sideways into the wall they leaned against. Daveon and Alysha jumped back. The threshing fork fell clanking against a pile of chains on the dirt floor. Tilly kicked once more, then lay still. A black gush of liquid erupted from both ends of the horse, burbling into the straw. Silence.

  The fear in Alysha’s eyes as she looked from Tilly’s body to Daveon, it was as if she tottered at some dark edge, grasping for him. He’d rather die than let her fall.

  “You’re right,” he said, shoving every ounce of confidence he could muster into his voice. “The wall couldn’t knock me down, this won’t either. We’re going to be okay.”

  Why not? What was one more lie on the pile?

  2

  Anaz squatted among the deadfall, massive lodgepole pines standing and pooling shadows across him. He watched the figures on the road below and he listened to the elven woman cry and he told himself this was something he had prepared for. He should have been prepared for this. He’d spent days inside the hsing-li, anchoring himself, trying to get ready, but it went, of course, the way of all efforts.

  One hundred paces down the mountain face, four soldiers wearing crimson surcoats over chainmail had stopped an elven couple. The couple had been driving a covered wagon, pulled by two donkeys. Headed to Fisher Pass for market day, just as Anaz had been. One of the soldiers had dismounted and wrenched the elven man from his seat and had him kneeling in the road now. The elf was talking fast and while Anaz couldn’t hear the words, he understood the tone. The trade of words for his life.

  The woman continued her baleful moaning.

  Humay or Anathest, it didn’t make any difference. Wherever people went, they brought this with them. Maybe he’d thought that in the last seven years people would have changed, but he knew better. This was writ into man’s soul by a changeless force. And so Anaz sat there and watched and listened and fought the dread careening through his chest.

  How was he ever going to do this? He brushed his hand across the animal hides tied to his pack and, not for the first time, tried working out in his mind all the ways he might survive the winter without going into Fisher Pass. And, like every time before, he came to the same conclusion. Without going to Market Days, he would die this winter. He needed supplies, needed to trade these hides he’d tanned. That meant traveling this rode to Fisher Pass to trade and trade, by its very nature, meant dealing with other people again.

  Anaz watched what “dealing with other people” looked like.

  A second soldier dismounted and moved to the elven woman. She kicked at him when he reached for her and her dress hiked up her legs, revealing lean white thighs. The soldier reaching for her paused and turned to the mounted man behind him and said something and they laughed.

  Anaz summoned the hsing-li. Ribbons of multi-colored energy rose up out of the ground and streamed into him. He bathed in its cooling stillness, pushing the tension out of his body. His heart slowed.

  He hadn’t brought his sword, hadn’t unwrapped it in all these years, had sworn he never would again. Today would not be the day to break that oath.

  The other mounted soldier, the one who’d been in front of the wagon, rode around to the side and drew his sword and leaned out and cut the tether rope. He pulled back the tarp revealing stacked crates of lettuces, carrots and tomatoes. Three piles of fabric sat near the back of the wagon, some raw grey, others dyed crimson and gold, like folded fire.

  One hundred paces. Downhill. These facts pecked at Anaz. Filled with the hsing-li, he could see his path to the road, could see which sycamore bush to hold onto, which stones would support him and which would betray him if he put weight on them. He knew he could reach the soldier pulling the woman from the wagon before they heard anything, knew he could toss a stone at the horse of the third knight and spook it. Use the hsing-li to throw the soldier holding the elven man by the collar. He knew he could do all of this before they would even know what was happening, but then what? Kill them? Even inside the hsing-li, the idea made him nauseous.

  The woman eventually lost, as Anaz had known she would. She slid from the seat of the wagon as if being birthed into a neonatal nightmare, her dress fully over her face and head. Whatever their intentions had been, the sight of her sex frenzied the soldiers to new vigor.

  Even inside the hsing-li Anaz couldn’t control the cold claws raking up his ribs. Her misery radiated up the mountainside.

  “No, you won’t,” Anaz whispered to himself. He’d learned his lesson. He’d tried to help before and what had it gotten him? What had it gotten Reyn?

  Somewhere above Anaz a crow cawed, landed in a lodgepole.

  The elven man tensed his legs. Anaz saw it before the soldier guarding him did, but the soldier would see it soon enough. The elf was no fighter, was not made for this, Anaz could tell. He might as well call out to the soldier his intentions a half-day before striking, the way he was telegraphing his move.

  The elf leapt to his feet and spun, but Anaz could see how poorly he placed his feet, too wide to generate any strength, too slow to maintain any surprise. The soldier moved before the elf could even raise his hands. He buried a mailed fist in the elf’s mouth. The elf went limp, flapping face first into the road.

  Anaz lurched to his feet. This was why he’d stayed in his cabin the last three years since making it into Humay. Why he’d been willing to nearly freeze to death last winter after his axe had broken. Humay. Anathest. It didn’t matter. Well, let the hsing-li be as it may. Anaz wouldn’t get involved. He’d been involved enough. It was just another word for suffering. And he’d done enough of that, too.

  He turned, pulled on his backpack and the rolled hides tied to it and quietly crawled up the rock face. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe he would be ready to try again tomorrow. Or later tonight. He had time. Market day was a couple days away yet.

  When the woman’s screams became more frantic, when it was clear something had changed from a beating to worse, Anaz ran. He covered his ears and he ran.

  3

  “No twisting,” Elliot Summers said. His elbows, like thousands of elbows before, buffed the Sunflower Stop’s bar to a stale grey. “You killed three Fletchers that day?”

  Daveon looked at Elliot and then past him, out at the common room and wracked his brain. Had it been three the last time he’d told this story? Wasn’t it only two? How about none? They were all lies anyway. Just bullshit stories he’d stolen from other soldiers coming back from the wall while he’d been stuck with the army’s horses. Always with the horses. He had killed a Fletcher that day with Rayen, that much was true, but it wasn’t the heroics everyone thought it was. Not even close. In fact, he was pretty certain if anyone ever found out the truth of that day, the only “hero” would be whoever the first person was to hang him for cowardice.

  “Two. I captured one,” Daveon said.

  Two long trestle tables jammed with people flanked a beastly hearth set on flagstones. It roared in the center of the room, the smoke sifting up through the roof’s louver. The crack of dice cups on tables and hollered laughter caked the room. Why Malic insisted on a fire in the middle of summer, Daveon couldn’t understand. Maybe he was preparing himself for hell.

  The Sunflower Stop, or just “the Stop” to the locals, was a grand inn for such a small town. With twenty-four rooms split between two two-story wings, the inn went empty most of the year, but was overfull tonight on account of Market Days and all. Having everyone and the
ir neighbor see Daveon working for Malic, well, it was just one more nail in that humiliation coffin. He was pretty sure that was exactly why Malic insisted on it as one of the terms of his loan repayment.

  On the flip side, if Malic was anything, he was a hell of a cook and Daveon had already sneaked away a hearty chunk of ham for the walk home. He could almost smell it, wrapped there on the shelf under the bar. Gods he was hungry. Only two more hours.

  “You know that snot stuff they ooze?” Daveon said. “No? Well, they’re covered in this snot-like gunk all over. Grey. Smells like maggots and wet dog. Makes ‘em slipperier than a wet eyeball.”

  “And you caught one?”

  Daveon walked down the bar with a pitcher of Malic’s ale and refilled cups as he said, “Don’t mind admitting being feared with it all, but any man say he doesn’t get tight in the balls when he sees the living dead you go ahead and call him a liar.” He’d told Elliot this story before. It was Daveon’s favorite because it was mostly about his brother, Rayen. The real hero of the family.

  “I’m not afraid of ‘em,” said Two Fingers. Evan Malic’s half-orc companion stopped behind Elliot’s stool and stared down at them, his corded forearms folded, reflecting the fire’s flicker. At seven feet, the half-orc never looked up at anyone. Two tusks jutted from his lower lip and he pulled his hair back into a ponytail so tight that it stretched his scalp. Daveon was sure he liked the pain. “Gonna’ call me a liar?”

  Daveon set the pitcher on the bar, kept his eyes firmly fixed down. He’d learned to treat Two Fingers like a rabid dog. Don’t make eye contact. No threatening movements. Pray he leaves you alone.

  Two Fingers laughed as he walked away.

  “That was with your brother at the Battle of Lindisfarne?” Elliot said, as if nothing had happened. He was that kind of a man. Never seemed to be bothered by much in this world.

  Daveon nodded.

  “You Therentells,” Elliot said.

  “You Therentells should get me ‘nother,” Fin shouted from the end of the bar. He waved his hand, knocking over Jared’s cup next to him. Ale sloshed under the plates. “Make it two!” Fin laughed.

  Daven sighed and slopped down a towel, catching the ale before it poured over the edge.

  “I remember your old man,” Elliot said, chuckling. “That time he rode through this here inn on his blue roan.”

  He rung out the towel into a bucket, the spoiled ale squeezing out between his fingers. “Slivers,” he said. “She was his favorite.” Weren’t nothing his pa wouldn’t do for that old mare. If that man had kept a list it probably would have went horses first, family second. They truly had always been opposites, it seemed.

  Daveon righted the cups and poured the last of the ale into them, then turned to the cask behind and refilled the pitcher.

  “He rode that roan ‘round the hearth twice, waving his sword, hootin’,” Elliot said. “Bartender screaming bloody hell the whole time. Round the hearth, then straight on out the back door.”

  Daveon chuckled and set the full pitcher on the bar. “You got my pa. Wasn’t a peaceful moment he didn’t think needed a poke.”

  They were both silent, letting the memories hum.

  “Kid Connor owned the place then,” Elliot said. “Before Malic.”

  There were no smiles now—just leaning on their elbows looking into their cups. Behind them the dice clapped against the table and a glee of cheers erupted.

  “Ack, this shit done got cold,” Fin shouted. “Get me—” He fumbled at his money pouch, drunk fingers picking at the knot for what seemed like hours. “Get me, ‘nother plate of that duck.” Fin shoved his half-eaten dish and Daveon had to leap to catch it from crashing.

  “You’re not going to eat that?” Elliot said, thick with disbelief.

  Daveon looked at the duck drumstick on the plate. One bite. That’s all he’d taken of it. It may have been cold, but the way that perfectly charred skin glistened, and the rich smell of the rosemary Malic loved to cook with…

  He looked up and Elliot was staring at it as hungrily as he was. Elliot shook his head. “Seems a shame is all,” he mumbled. Daveon knew his friend had even less money than them, what with his son and crippled daughter at home and the furlong nearly fallow.

  “Shame is not getting me ‘nother plate,” Fin shouted. He hammered his fist against the bar, sloshing his ale. “And don’t you think none of eating that. When you work like I do, you get to decide how to spend your coin.” He rocked on the stool and had to catch himself to keep from falling.

  Fin was in to Malic for probably double what Daveon was, but he’d always been the type to brag for others’ doing.

  Takes one to know one, I guess.

  Daveon scraped the uneaten food into the slop bucket under the bar. He passed back into the kitchen and plated another two drumsticks, scooped a stingy ladle of gravy over them, came back into the hall and half tossed the plate at Fin. Fin’s eyes were closed. He started awake at the sound of the plate on the bar. Gravy glopped off the edges.

  Fin picked up the drumstick and waved it at Daveon like a sword. “You such a legendary sword fighter, Therentell, I’d like to see you just try and get through my duck defense!”

  The door to the kitchen flung open, cracking against the wall. Malic stormed out carrying a tray with six bowls of steaming stew. Evan Malic was a wiry man, probably in his fortieth summer if you pressed Daveon on an age, with thinning hair and a twisted left hand. Three of the fingers were permanently curled in on themselves, with his thumb and forefinger only partly workable. Nobody dared ask how it had happened.

  Daveon snatched up his rag and started scrubbing at the bar again. Elliot looked down at his mug.

  “Dammit, Summers,” Malic barked. He stopped and stared at Daveon, then at Elliot. “I told you, Elliot. Coin on the fucking bar for another or get the hell out. That stool’s for men with money, not gab. Especially on Market eve.” He shouldered Elliot as he passed him.

  “Suppose I should be getting back.” Elliot stood. “Lila be getting nervous me walking in the dark.”

  And there, thought Daveon, was a man who if he had a list it would go: one, his children and two, everything else. Six kids and he loses four of them and his wife to the Rot three years ago. His girl, Lila, crippled from the disease. Daveon knew there were a lot of parents who’d made the tough choice of leaving their kids outside in that last winter with injuries like that. He couldn’t much blame them. It was a tough time. But not Elliot. He could live off the love of his kids like it was sunlight and steak.

  Daveon would be lying if he said he didn’t envy him for that. It just seemed men were built for different things. Some were made to rear a family, plow their furlong when the sun came up and drink a pint when the sun went down. Others, well, Daveon would just say that lately he felt to be bumping his knees and elbows inside that particular box.

  And no man can truly only live off the love of his kids.

  He reached under the bar and pulled out the cloth-wrapped ham he’d been hiding. With a quick look at Malic, he handed it to Elliot. “For the walk home,” he whispered.

  Elliot slipped it into his coat’s pocket. “You’re a good man, Daveon. A true Therentell like your pa.”

  “Dammit,” Daveon said. He jogged to the end of the bar, getting around it just in time to catch Fin as he wobbled off his stool, unconscious. Daveon grunted, stepping back to hold the man’s weight. He was heavier than he looked. “Elliot, help me with him.”

  Together, they each draped one of Fin’s arms over their shoulders and dragged him to the courtyard. Fin still clutched his duck drumstick, its greasy skin slapping against Daveon’s cheek as they jostled him out of the inn. Dammit, he was hungry.

  “Coulda’ let the man fall,” Elliot grunted.

  They dropped down from the porch into the courtyard. Elliot’s horse stood at the hitching pole, turned its head to his master. Up another set of stairs to the wing of rooms Fin was staying in. Daveon fished the
key out of the big man’s money pouch, opened the door and tossed him into the room, just far enough to get the door closed.

  They stood there, breathing heavy, grinning at each other.

  Elliot nodded. “Well,” he said, “thanks again for the dinner and the friendliness.” He untied his horse, swung into the saddle with a grunt and eased her out into the square.

  Daveon watched him go, then bent forward to stretch his back. His stomach grumbled at the movement. It would be a long walk home. Maybe Alysha would save a smidge of that venison.

  There at the bottom of the stairs was the duck drumstick Fin had been holding. He stepped down into the courtyard and looked at it. It didn’t seem all that dirty. He looked back at the inn, then out to the courtyard and into the square. He scooped up the drumstick and examined it closer, wiped it on his apron. Then, he took a giant bite from it.

  He closed his eyes. It was even still warm. And that rosemary. Malic may be shitty at a lot of things, but cooking ain’t one of them. He chewed slowly, not even minding the slight crunch of dirt in the skin.

  “As I live and breathe, a Therentell eating out of the gutter.”

  Daveon whipped around, fire blazing up his cheeks and ears. Evan Malic stood on the porch to the Stop.

  “I knew I had you all pegged right,” Malic said. “Wait till everyone hears about this.”

  4

  A storm was blowing in from the west the night Anaz came to Fisher Pass. It hadn’t yet reached them, the blue moonlight batting back the clouds. He scouted the village from the last mountainside before descending into town.

  A main thoroughfare traced along the river, met a second road that bridged it. A smattering of timber and stone houses up and down beaten trails veining off the roads. Like every other village Anaz had seen in this country, this one was walled, though the walls looked in need of tending. Across the river, a strong stone keep stood on the far shore, its great walls enclosing a patchwork of fields. Torches pecked at the night.