by Kaleb Schad
“They’re not going to eat us.”
“Willy Thalenmar said they eat kids first. That they’d go for me and Elnis first. That we are slower and juicier.”
“If that’s true, Willy Thalenmar needs to lose some stones so he can run faster.”
“Is that because he ate too many arrogance?”
Daveon picked at the crust around Fennel’s eyes. How much longer did she have? Every day she was worse. If she died before dropping her foal, they’d have to sell Syla and would still be a horse short of the contract—assuming he retrieved the two down at the Skets. Daveon’s heart ached at the idea of selling Syla. Just another couple days, girl. Please.
“Arrogance isn’t a food,” he said. “It means being so sure of yourself, you are rude to others.”
“Because you wouldn’t let her sell her stuff to Mr. Malic?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Why wouldn’t I let her sell?”
Nikolai nodded, watching Daveon and he knew his son was trying to understand this maze of adulthood, those unspoken warrens of love and frustration.
“Sometimes when someone seems like they’re doing something nice for you, they’re actually trying to get something from you or hope to hold their niceness over you. There’s a difference between being down on your luck and taking a helping hand that you’ll pay back versus just being down and staying there for everyone to walk over.”
“Mr. Malic wanted to walk on you?”
“Not literally…I don’t think,” Daveon muttered. He moved to Fennel’s other eye. This one wasn’t as bad, than Airim. He needed to get going.
“Ma wanted to take his money. She said it could have been so easy.”
Fennel jerked her head again, trying to bite Daveon, and Nikolai stumbled, scuffing his knee. He hissed and wiped at his pants, trying not to cry.
“This isn’t very easy, is it? Fennel doesn’t like it,” Daveon said.
Nikolai shook his head and wrapped the lead rope around his hands again.
“Yet, it’s important to her, isn’t it? She can see again.”
Nikolai nodded.
“I want you to remember this. The important things in life are hard. If it’s easy, you can be sure it’s not important. Sometimes we have to help each other remember that and sometimes we get angry at each other about it, but it doesn’t mean we don’t love each other or think the other person is wrong. We just sometimes don’t like to be reminded of it.”
Daveon poured a second cup of warm water over Fennel’s eye and scrubbed gently at the tender skin around it. Good enough. Speaking of hard things, it was about time he go tell his wife that they weren’t leaving tonight, that he was heading to the Stop, instead.
“Whatever happens,” Daveon said, wiping his hands on his pants, “remember that we love you and that every decision we make is for you…even when it seems it isn’t.”
Isabell shoved the blanket into the pack. It bulged out of the mouth and she punched it, trying to force it in. It bounced back. She punched again, then again, cussing.
…the choices we have to make are between killing a few and killing many…
She tried to draw a deep breath, but couldn’t, her chest squeezing against itself. Her father was going to kill everyone. Every. One.
…no way to keep your hands clean…
She gripped the blanket and drove it down into the sack even harder, yanked shut the mouth and twisted it.
She wouldn’t be a part of it. She was leaving and she was going to find the Airim’s Lances. If she could find them and convince them to come back to Fisher Pass with her, if she could show them what was happening, if she could show them that she deserved a chance to be one of them…if, if, if.
But not alone. She’d never make it to the wall by herself. Not through those mountains with the wiblins and the marauders that had infested them.
But she knew someone who could. She had to find him. If he was still in town, he’d probably be at the Sunflower Stop. That innkeeper had been telling everyone to gather there tonight and not go running off. So that was where she was going to be.
…To do great things, you must be willing to do what others lack the courage for…
She could still taste her vomit, her lunch puddled around the privy’s bench.
Isabell pulled her wig into place, poking stray hairs under it.
A light tap came from her door and it eased open. “My lady?” Lelana called. She peeked around the door.
Isabell didn’t look at her. She poured water onto a white cloth and began scrubbing away the powder and rouge she’d put on that morning.
“Isa?” Lelana said. She scanned the room, her eyes instantly finding the overstuffed bag resting on her bed. The sheathed sword next to it. “What’s the matter? What’s going on?”
Isabell studied her reflection in what was left of the looking glass. The blond-haired wig worked wonders. That and wiping away the powder and rouge so she was as plain as a maid.
“Please, my lady, what’s—”
“I’m heading into the Stop tonight.”
“My lady—”
“I must,” Isabell said. “Nobody will recognize me. I won’t talk to anyone.”
It was mostly true. There was only one person she was looking for. Please be there. Please help. He would. He’d have to. He wasn’t no hermit, no matter what anybody said. That thieving elf hadn’t jumped over everyone. That had been magic. Real magic. And that meant Anaz was a Yul Crafter from the king’s army.
“But what if your father finds out? You know what he did last time.”
“Lela,” Isabell said.
“That boy had to leave everything. Your father threatened anyone who’d employ him. He’s living thirty leagues from here simply because he was caught speaking with you.”
“If I don’t go, everyone in Fisher Pass might die.”
Lelana opened her mouth to argue before her mind had time to process what she’d heard.
“Die?” she said.
“My father isn’t going to evacuate the village.”
“But the king’s order…”
“That’s why I have to go. I have to warn them,” Isabell said, “or at least find someone who will.”
“But why the pack?” Lelana asked.
Isabell yanked Lelana into a fierce hug. She could feel her tears leeching into Lela’s blouse.
Lelana cautiously hugged her back. “You’re scaring me,” she whispered.
“Whatever happens,” Isabell said, “know that I love you. You’ve always been my sister…my only real family. Just know that, okay?”
“What are you going to do?” Lelana hissed.
She was going to save this village. She was going to be what she was supposed to be, to answer Airim’s call and be one of his Lances. And she sure as hell was not going to marry Earl Olisal.
“I’m going to do what my father doesn’t have the courage to.”
13
The way folks were screaming at each other, Daveon kind of hoped the evacuation was called in the next thirty seconds before someone got killed. He refilled an elven couple’s mugs at the far end of the trestle table. The man looked at Daveon and nodded, his face a canvas of bruises. They’d come in a couple days ago for market looking brutalized and hadn’t said much since.
“Why hasn’t the evacuation been ordered?” Cassius Finian called out. Daveon had already poured him five mugs of Malic’s ale and the dulled edge on his words said it was adding up.
“He must have a reason,” a woman Daveon didn’t know said. “Our Lord Blackhand must know something we don’t.”
“Probably packing his silks and purses first,” Gareth, a young dwarf from the Riorden family, said. “Wouldn’t want the Wretched chewing on any old cloth when they catch him.”
Daveon emptied his pitcher into Phelan Farsight’s mug, then sat across from him. He smiled at Rhonda. She was a comely enough woman, heavy with round cheeks and an easy laug
h, but tonight she looked anything but in a laughing mood.
“Sell any of those leatherworks?” Phelan asked.
“Not as many as we’d hoped,” Daveon said. “Sorry if I came across as pushy earlier.”
“Eh. Way things are, everyone’s a little pushy.”
They sat and watched as their neighbors continued to shout at each other.
“Maybe the wall isn’t coming anymore,” the woman said.
“Or the king’s army has stopped it,” a boy, maybe ten or eleven, said.
“Maybe he’s going to let us die,” Cassius said.
“Enough,” Malic called. He’d been standing by the kitchen door, watching his village fall apart. The free ale had been a good idea, if his goal was to get everyone to stick around for the evening.
If his goal was to get everyone drunk and pissed off.
“Maybe he will. Or maybe it’s Airim who’ll let us die.” Gareth sloshed his mug to the ceiling like he was making a toast.
“Don’t blaspheme,” shouted a young man. “Say it again and you’ll be eating your teeth.”
“Listen,” Daveon said, turning back to Phelan. He’d already unsuccessfully asked Cassius, Gareth, Willem and Menthis if they were leaving Fisher Pass that evening or even the next day. To a man, they’d said Malic had pushed for them to reconsider. Daveon didn’t know what Malic held over each of them, but whatever it was it had been enough. They were hanging back until they heard one way or another from the baron…or saw the wall themselves. Looking around the room, he knew Phelan was his last chance at finding someone he’d trust to take Alysha and the boys north. “I can’t leave yet,” he said. “The king’s ordered me to stick around for his men, but Alysha is mighty ready to high tail it, if you know what I mean.”
Rhonda looked from Daveon to her husband, her lips pressed tight.
“Can’t say I blame her,” Phelan said, looking into his mug, not meeting Daveon’s eyes.
“You’d mentioned this morning you folk may be setting out tonight? I was wondering what the chances are Alysha and the boys might ride with? Just for a ways. I’d catch up as soon as the king’s men came.”
Say yes. Say yes. Say yes.
“Well, we’ve been thinking about that and…” Phelan swirled his mug and took a long draw and wiped his hand across his mustache, the ale sparkling in the whiskers.
“Just tell him,” Rhonda snapped.
“We’re thinking we’ll sit a bit,” Phelan said. “See how things shake out before we make any hasty moves.”
Daveon’s stomach knotted.
“Malic,” Rhonda said. Answer enough. She glared at her husband, her eyes welling. She wiped at them and stood and walked toward the door.
“Sometimes when you trade with that man, you don’t always know what’s on the other end of the deal, though I reckon you already learned that,” Phelan said. He washed down the last of his ale and set the empty mug on the table and stood. “I’m sorry. If we head out in the next couple days or so, Alysha is welcome to ride with.”
Sure. Next couple days. I need to leave by tomorrow if I’m getting south and back before that wall reaches us.
Daveon nodded and watched Phelan walk away.
How was he going to do this? Alysha would have to stay home alone with the boys. Running the ranch on her own. Caring for the horses.
Waiting for the wall or her husband to come, wondering which would be first. Not that she should. He’d be back long before the wall reached them. He’d do both—serve his family and serve his king. He had to.
He looked down the table and spotted Anaz. He was sitting alone, nobody willing to sit near him. More than once already that night, Daveon had heard people mumble that Anaz let that thief get away with Mrs. Naima’s senits.
He slid down the bench until he was across from Anaz.
“You get what you needed today?” he asked. “Alysha sold barely a quarter of her leatherworks.”
“Today was a poor day to sell anything, I suspect,” Anaz said.
“Doesn’t help feed the kids, though, does it?”
“Or stay fed through the winter.”
“Well, maybe tomorrow.”
“I’m thinking there won’t be a tomorrow.”
Daveon felt a bubble of excitement.
“You’re leaving then?” he asked.
Anaz watched as Gareth, the dwarf, punched the young man who’d warned him to stop blaspheming the mighty Airim’s name. Two Fingers crossed the room in three strides, picking the dwarf up off the ground in one grip. Another three strides and he was at the door, launching the man into the yard.
“Too much fear,” Anaz mumbled.
“They’ve a right to it. The Wretched…” Daveon said. Don’t remember. Be here. Not there. “I’ve heard of men slitting their own throats to keep from being killed by one of them.” His own heart was pounding, watching the struggle. What did Malic think would happen? Why was he so insistent everyone stay? Was his pathetic empire of farmers’ debts and owed favors worth this? For that matter, where was the baron? The king’s messenger had been clear—Daveon stay. Everyone else, go. Now.
“But the Wretched, they can be killed?”
“They can…if you’re lucky enough. Or good enough. It takes some sword skill not many have.”
Anaz struggled with something, his face clouded, a steel in his jaw Daveon hadn’t seen before. He again noticed the scars around the strange man’s neck, up his wrists, the way one finger’s knuckle was twice the size of the others, an old break healed badly. Those aren’t hunting scars or scars someone gets living in the woods.
“Yes,” Anaz said. “Tonight, I leave.” There was a deep sadness in the way he said it.
Daveon tried not to pounce. “Alone?” he asked.
“Alone.”
“I know we just met,” Daveon said. “But I have to beg something of you.”
Anaz looked up at him, frowning.
“Take Alysha and the boys with you. She’s terrified, Anaz. She wants to leave, but I can’t…” He coughed and tried to hide the sudden tears by picking at his eye. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “You know why I can’t run again, Anaz. I have to go south and get my horses and pay off Malic.”
They looked at each other a long time. When Anaz sighed, Daveon realized he’d been holding his breath the entire time.
Anaz shook his head.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t be responsible for your family, Daveon. I just…if you knew…you wouldn’t want it. You wouldn’t want it, if you knew.”
Disappointment hollowed out Daveon’s chest. So that’s how it’ll be. The hard way. Like everything.
He couldn’t hide his anger when he said, “You’re right. They’re my responsibility. I can’t expect someone else to do what I’m supposed to.”
He stood and picked up his empty pitcher and tried to think of a polite way of saying best of luck to him when the door opened. A familiar-looking woman walked in. She scanned the room quickly, her hood low, but still revealing her eyes. Those eyes. Daveon knew he knew those eyes, but who…
It didn’t matter. He had more important things to worry about.
Like how he was going to tell his wife that he was leaving her for a couple days and, if they were terribly unlucky, she might be facing the wall alone.
Isabell—No, Evelyn. You’re not Isabell right now. Remember. Evelyn.—loved the stink of the Sunflower Stop. Cooked animal fat and oakwood smoke. Stale beer and soggy rushes. Shelled sunflower seeds. The scents of hard-worked lives succored in food and friends. These kinds of scents weren’t allowed in her father’s keep.
Tonight, however, the comfort was frosted with fear. Even before the door had opened she had heard shouting voices. They were screaming about the wall, about whether to run or not. The innkeeper was in the middle of it.
She pulled her hood forward, shadowing her eyes and scanned the room for Anaz, praying he was here.
There! She spotted him sitting at
the far end of one of the trestle tables. Relief rushed through her and she had to keep from yelping in excitement. Finally. Something was going right. He sat alone, as if enclosed behind a wall nobody dared breach. A small bowl of soup sat in front of him, his head hanging over it. The horse breeder, Therentell, stood holding a pitcher looking at him. She’d heard he was working here lately. Something about his old stable getting hit by a rare lightning storm last winter. He looked at her and she caught his eye. She looked at the floor, lowering her hood further.
Please don’t recognize me. I’m just a nobody. Just an Evelyn that came to town for Market.
She started walking towards the table, keeping her head down, scanning the room from the corners of her eyes. Therentell walked back behind the bar. The half-orc was watching her, though. She tried to change her gait, to put a small limp in her stride and make herself forgettable.
She’d been doing this for years, coming to the Sunflower Stop like this or spending the evening walking the town in disguise. There were times when being a baron’s daughter felt more imprisoning than rewarding. Until last time, it had always worked and last time she was only discovered because that boy had swung her too hard when they were dancing and her wig had slipped. Still, he didn’t deserve what happened next.
When she reached Anaz and sat across from him, she raised her head just enough for him to see her. She pushed a strand of blond hair out of her eyes.
“Mind if I sit here?” she asked, putting a bit of Cormyr accent into her voice. She’d worked out the whole plan on her walk across the bridge and into Fisher Pass proper. She wouldn’t reveal herself right away. Instead, she’d strike up a conversation and feel him out about things like her father and the king and the wall moving. If he was a Yul Crafter, there had to be a reason he was here. She couldn’t be too trusting. Not too direct.
Plus, if she were recognized again, if anyone saw her sitting across from him talking and her father found out…she shuddered to think what might happen to him. No, it was better for everyone if she was Evelyn for a little while to start.
