by Kaleb Schad
He watched the wolf and his forehead tingled, the spot where Reyn had stabbed him in the dream, where he’d stabbed the sandfury in Abaleth.
There was judgment there in that wolf’s eyes and Anaz knew he had failed at something, but he didn’t care. It wasn’t fair.
Reyn had escaped free. She had returned to the hsing-li. He was the one left behind. He was the one for which the struggle was still constant, still something that could never be won.
It wasn’t fair.
The wolf jogged into the popples and white pines. Fearless. Born of and master of the night.
Anaz laid down and tried not to remember.
Clover Hollow. To the west.
Daveon woke to the rata-tat-tat call of sandhill cranes, a sharp accompaniment to the rain. He rose and folded his blankets and looked out at the meadow. Syla and Red stood hobbled in the field, nibbling their breakfast, their black tales swishing. Syla snorted and shook rain from her withers and Daveon thought there couldn’t possibly be anything wrong in a world like this. This was how a man was supposed to live, with sore muscles from riding the night nearly through, a tent leaning sideways against the weather, everywhere the sound of everything and nothing.
He broke camp. Methodical, everything in an order. He was careful to pack Red evenly, a balancing act of bags and straps, so that they could have a comfortable, long day ahead of them.
Syla watched, snorted. Ready. Eager. Daveon spoke to them as if they could understand. He told them about where they would go first, to the Evensons and warn them. They would know where to pick up the trailhead, how to get north to Fisher Pass, then beyond. They would flee north, away from the Wretched, but not Daveon. They would watch as he and Syla and Red, yes, the horses, too, would head south. Daveon would sit straight in his saddle. He’d be sure his sword was visible, the steel cap on the sheath polished and glinting in the sun. They would look back as they left and they would see Daveon riding south. Riding into danger. For his neighbors. For his family.
He kicked around the piles of horse manure so they would break up faster, put a foot into Syla’s stirrup and lifted himself onto her broad back.
He took a deep breath and looked out at Arrowhead Peak as it caught the pink morning sun. Nothing touched for as far as the eye could see. This was how a man was supposed to live.
18
Alysha led Fennel to the western turnout. She would keep Fennel separated as they had all the others. It hadn’t helped, but what else could she do? Fennel couldn’t open her left eye. The yellow crust had bound it shut and the black snot was starting to drip from her nostrils. Alysha scratched the poor horse between her ears. She seemed miserable, her pregnant belly hanging low. Alysha couldn’t see any wax forming on the teats yet or milk dripping.
Please drop your baby soon, girl. Please.
Nikolai crossed the yard into the barn, dragging a pail of water behind him, his little eight-summer arms bulging at the labor, a bandage around the hand his father had cut. Her heart hummed with pride. The boy’d woken that morning all on his own, pulled on his boots and started the chores without Alysha ever asking. She couldn’t help but think he was filling in for his father.
“Make sure none of Fennel’s water gets near the other stalls,” she called to him.
“I ain’t stupid,” he said, refusing to look at her.
Alysha closed her eyes and forced herself to stay calm. The boy was hurt, that’s all.
The thought rekindled her anger and she had to unclench her hand from Fennel’s lead rope. An army of undead crawling their way towards her and her children and her husband goes to meet them halfway. It still didn’t seem real how a world could go sideways with no warning at all. Words like “last chance” and “something that matters” had ricocheted through her all night, all morning. He wasn’t wrong. If they were going to meet the contract, they had to have those horses and, yes, the king and Malic wouldn’t be thrilled if they ran without paying their debts, but why did it have to be her family that bore those burdens? Her husband? Her kids?
Alysha untied the lead rope from Fennel and stepped back. The horse looked at her out of her one open eye. She dropped her nose to the grass, took a half-hearted nibble, lifted it.
Alysha bent and yanked up a fistful of grass, then held it to Fennel’s lips. “C’mon, girl. A little grass, a little sunlight, everything will be…” She couldn’t finish the thought. Couldn’t bring herself to lie to the horse.
At the end of the day, she knew her anger came down to one thing—his choice. He was willing to put her and his kids’ lives on the line to keep his word to two men who couldn’t care less about him. That was what hurt the most. He’d chosen his honor over his family.
That Therentell name. Everyone cared about it so much more than her. Her own mother had. It was why she’d driven that wedding carriage so hard. But they’d found love. Then they’d found their children’s love and Alysha learned how pale the word was. Love. Four letters that contained multitudes of guilt and joy.
Fennel turned her head away without eating the grass. Alysha opened her palm and watched the blades drift into the pasture. She walked back to the barn.
Maybe that’s why it hurt so much, the alienness of what Daveon must feel. Was the story a stranger told about you more important than the one your own sons told?
And now he’d forced her to make a choice. To stay and hope he comes back before the Wretched did or go and risk the roads and mountains on her own, a woman with two children in tow and not a blade between them.
She crossed through the side door into the barn and that’s when she saw the man. He was standing there looking at Willow, a paint with white and tan splotches. Alysha felt ice sizzling up her legs, into the base of her spine. Her stomach clenched.
Evan Malic.
“This one looks a lot better than that one you just put out,” he said without looking at her.
It took a long time for Alysha to find her voice. Where was Nikolai? She’d watched him come in here.
“The Therentells never showed up for the last Market Day this morning,” he said. “Daveon had left kind of suddenly last night, so I thought I should ride out here and make sure everything was okay.” He looked at her and ran that crippled hand through his hair. He walked towards her, smiling, and said, “He left before hearing the good news.”
She wanted to tell him to leave. She wanted to have the courage to tell him to never come back here, that while he might have given them the senits for the barn, it didn’t make it his to come into. She realized she was clutching a harness to her chest and forced her arms down. All animals, big and small, could smell fear. And if Evan Malic was anything, he was an animal.
“Don’t you want to know what the news is?” he said. Very close now. Close enough to smell the morning eggs and bacon he’d fried at the Stop. When was the last time she’d had meat to serve her children?
“What news?”
“It’s wonderful. The wall has shifted directions. It’s not coming towards us anymore.” His smile went even wider, if that was possible, and she could see bits of black bacon in his teeth. “You have nothing to fear.”
For a moment, she was afraid he was going to touch her on the arm, but he stopped.
Could it be true? Was it dangerous to hope he was telling the truth?
“Truly?”
“The baron himself told us. Last night. At the Stop after Daveon had left. That’s why I thought I should come out and let you know.”
A pink bloom of hope blossomed in her. If that was true, everything was changed and nothing was. They still had the king’s contract to fulfill and they still owed Evan Malic his money only now she had no husband here to help. And she had no excuse to run.
Away from Evan Malic.
Alysha swallowed. “Thank you, then,” she said.
Please go. Please go.
Malic looked past Alysha, then back out the front door. “Where is Daveon?”
She could lie. She cou
ld say he was taking Syla for a ride and would be back, but what would happen when he didn’t show up for his shift tonight? Malic would come back looking for him. Or worse. Two Fingers.
“He left,” she said. Somewhere she found iron and wrapped it around her spine, her shoulders dropping, chin rising. “He went south to retrieve the studs we’d sent to the Skets and warn the Evensons and others to the wall moving.”
Malic laughed, a deep belly laugh and it took several seconds for him to say, “Oh, that eager idiot.” Then, the smile dripping away, “But who will work his shift at the Stop?”
Alysha didn’t say anything.
Malic stepped up even closer now. She had never been this close to a man not her husband since before her wedding. There wasn’t enough space. She couldn’t breathe for fear of inhaling him, for fear of any part of Malic entering her.
“That mare out there,” he said.
“Fennel,” Alysha whispered.
“She doesn’t look good.”
“She’ll be fine.”
“What happens if she dies before she drops her foal?”
“She won’t.”
“Your contract with the king,” he said. He wouldn’t stop looking at her. “It’s for twenty horses, yes? How will you pay me if she dies?”
“You’ll get your money,” Alysha said and she wished she could take the iron from her spine and put it into her words, but it would have been a lie. Evan Malic was an animal, but he wasn’t a foolish one.
“I would hate, just hate, if you defaulted,” he said. “If I had to go to the baron. Ask for you to be indentured as payment. He’s done that, you know. Ordered six years for a woman up in Knowles, I heard. Six years. Living with me. Day.”
If Malic leaned forward even an inch further, their noses would touch, but Alysha wouldn’t move. Couldn’t move.
“Night,” he whispered.
He licked his lips, then turned. As he walked out the front of the stable he called over his shoulder, “You can report to the Stop tonight to work Daveon’s shift until he returns.”
It wasn’t until she heard the clop of his horse’s hooves on the trail leaving the house that her guts started to unwind. She took a shuddering breath. Tears stung her eyes. She wiped at them and saw Nikolai.
He was standing in one of the stalls. He’d been behind Malic. In his bandaged right hand he held a hatchet.
19
The sun was a full two hand’s width into the sky, though well hidden behind the rainclouds, by the time Anaz woke. It had taken a long time to fall back asleep after the nightmare, but once out, apparently, he couldn’t rouse himself. He listened to the constant hiss of the rain.
Something snorted. Anaz’s eyes shot open. Not two yards from him was a black horse with a white diamond on its forehead. It grazed, water streaming off it. Anaz bolted upright, ignoring the stabbing pain in his ribs and skull. He reached for the hsing-li.
Sitting across from him, wearing her same cloak and hood she’d worn in the Sunflower Stop the night before, sat Lady Isabell Blackhand.
“I thought you might sleep the whole day,” she said. She smiled at him and brushed a loose hair from her eyes. Along the left side of her face was a deep yellow and purple bruise and she seemed to be holding her elbows close to her sides, as if protecting herself from something.
Anaz’s questions jammed in his throat and all he could do was croak odd vowels.
“I followed you,” she said. “Well, not really. I saw you leave with Two Fingers and then had to wait until my father had raged himself out and then had to wait some more until my lady Lelana came to check on me. That keep at Fisher Pass has never been the most secure of places. It’s always been a bit of an afterthought to my family.”
“You ran away,” Anaz said. He wished he had been able to hold the excitement back from his voice. Or was that dread?
“You said we had a deal to go see the wall, find the Airim’s Lances. I’m holding you to it.”
“I said you have a deal getting through the mountains. I am not traveling to the wall.”
Isabell pulled in a deep breath and winced. Exhaling, she said, “Well, I have to. It’s where the Lances will be. If they hear there are still people in Fisher Pass, maybe they’ll send soldiers to evacuate the city ahead of the wall—force my father to follow orders. And then I’ll be free to test for their order. I’ll pay you more if you take me all the way there.”
“I travel no farther than my home. You pay me for that.”
“You’re a terrible businessman. Everyone wants more money.”
“Not everyone.”
“These roads and mountains are dangerous. I could really use an ally watching my back for the trip.
“If you are afraid, then go home. Return to your father and your life.” He stood as he said this, shaking out his cloak and wrapping it around his shoulders. He pulled on his pack. “Leave off this brashness.”
He hated how desperately he wanted to beg her to not actually leave, to not go back. And he hated that he wasn’t entirely sure the reason he wanted her to stay was for her coin.
He walked past her, leaving his camp.
She laughed and he heard her pick up her bag and do something with the horse, then the horse was trotting towards him. It slowed to a walk. She jangled a pouch of coins and when Anaz looked at her she tossed it to him.
“I’ve never met a Yul Crafter so selfish he wouldn’t help his fellow countrymen,” she said. “But I like your stubbornness, if not your callousness.”
From up here, Daveon thought he could see all of Airim’s creation in one sweep. They stopped above the timberline and he ate a simple lunch of foraged huckleberries the bears hadn’t found yet washed down with a thick crust of bread. The horses were nibbling, Syla ever ready to go, Red ever ready to stay.
The word freedom was taking on a whole new meaning this morning. Looking out at the world with nobody telling him where to go or what to do or reminding him of his terrible lies. It wasn’t kind of nice. It was strange not hearing his kids playing nearby, though. That thought brought back Nikolai’s terrified face, his cut hand seeping red. That would be the first thing he’d do when he got home, beg his son’s forgiveness. And then his wife’s. He hated how much hurt he’d left boiling behind him and wondered if the guilt of it would dog him the whole way south and back.
Yet, when they saw him return in a few days with the two horses, when Alysha saw the coin from the king going into Malic’s hands, when she felt the kind of freedom he was feeling here, maybe then she’d admit it was worth it. Because it was.
He flapped his hood, tossing water droplets everywhere. It hadn’t stopped raining, though this high it was mostly snow, plenty of the stuff caking the ground. The trail would be slick going down, he knew, the switchbacks steep with poor footing. And it was a long ways to bottom. He didn’t want to night up here. This was wiblin country and while the little bastards mostly left humans alone, he’d heard plenty of tales of mountain men waking to cut throats and stolen supplies. Though the first condition made the second a petty concern.
He hurriedly repacked Red, tugging on the billets, then buckling them.
“One final push,” he said and scratched the horse behind the ears. He looked non-plussed.
They dropped into the timber, the trail cutting back and forth and Daveon had to keep reining Syla back. The horses skidded and slid on the snow and mud, catching themselves and the trail seemed to constantly narrow. Soon, Syla was putting one hoof in front of the other, a rock face so close to Daveon’s left he could touch it. Nothing but air and snow-caked peaks of white pines to his right.
His pa used to say a rider should listen when—and where—their horse listens. That they had a sixth sense, that they could smell danger long before it made its way to their riders. Maybe that’s what Daveon finally felt and why he turned to look behind him. For the first hour, he had been content to let Syla have her head, her steady sway rocking him into a false sense of safety,
but then he caught a whiff of what Syla had been smelling for twenty minutes already. Her ears were back, swiveled as far towards her partner Red as they would go. She kept trying to twist her head to look back and Daveon would heave on the reins to straighten her out. The third time she tried this he turned to look at Red.
He lumbered along behind them with the packsaddle riding far up on his withers. Daveon swore. The pack had come loose and climbed Red’s neck. He swore again. Fool. You ignorant, stupid fucking fool. Any amateur horseman knows to check the straps on his sumpter horse before descending. He should have retightened everything when they’d entered the timber, but he hadn’t and now there was no way for him to get off Syla and repack everything.
Daveon’s legs burned from holding his weight in the stirrups on the descent. He slowed Syla even further, hoping to keep the packsaddle from rocking up higher onto Red. The rain turned from individual drops to flat sheets of water and the trail in front of them disappeared under a stream, bubbling up around the horses’ hooves.
Daveon prayed to Airim for the trail to bottom out.
It was worth exactly what all of his previous prayers had been worth.
On the next switchback, Red grunted. The entire pack humped up on the back of the bay’s head, crushing his ears. Daveon jerked Syla to a stop, leapt from his saddle. His legs had nothing left in them and buckled when he hit the muddy trail. He crashed onto his ass, his skull thwacking a stone and skidded off the trail, over the edge and down the mountain face.
He screamed and rolled onto his stomach. Every scrub brush he seized became a lost hope, breaking loose in the wet soil.
On the trail, Syla neighed. She tried to run, but the lead rope jerked taut yanking Red forward. She pitched onto her side. The rope broke loose, a snake snapping wildly. She regained her feet and tore away down the trail.
Daveon snagged a sapling poplar tree, the sharp branches slicing his fingers. He stopped sliding and held himself there, panting, his arm quivering with the shakes, his heart walloping.
