by Kaleb Schad
People were shouting. It took a long time for Anaz to realize he was awake, that the screams were coming from above and not from his dream. He tried to sit up, but fell back and held his head as a blacksmith went to work on the inside of it, then tried again. He pulled himself into a slumped standing position and leaned against the earthen wall of the prison.
“We don’t get to choose when something like this will be placed before us, but we do get to choose how we fight it.” It was the baron’s voice. There were people standing on the grate over his cell and Anaz could hear dozens and dozens of people talking at once.
He opened himself to the hsing-li and began climbing the wall, crafting small handholds for himself until he reached the grate. He gripped it and hung there and peeked between the bars. The baron stood on the gallows platform. He was wearing his plate armor, the cuirass laced with gold and red flames, the steel colored a deep ruby or burnt orange. Next to him stood Sir Nattic on one side in his black armor. The mector of Airim next to him.
“It is the order of the king that we shelter in place,” the baron shouted.
From the number of cries this caused, Anaz guessed the entire village was in the square listening. The woman standing on the grate shifted her feet, nearly crushing Anaz’s fingers, as she pulled her son to her. He appeared to be eleven, maybe twelve, summers old and he was looking from his mother to his father.
“This is our home,” the baron continued. “Airim will protect us if we are true to him. We stand against these abominations and we return them to the hell from whence they came.” There were a few half-hearted cheers and fists pumped into the air, but mostly it was sobs or silence.
“Where is the king?” someone shouted.
“Airim hasn’t protected Lindisfarne or Marley’s Pass. Why would he start with us?”
“Faithlessness!” the mector screeched. “You doom us all. Beg his son, Araten, for courage and his daughter, Pallas, for silence, you twit.”
“The mector is right,” the baron said. “We needs beg courage and strength. Every man twelve summers and older report to Sir Nattic for arms and training. We are on a war footing, my children. Andin, I’m sorry to say your lumber will be conscripted as well. The walls have gone too long without tending and new ones need to close the gaps. It will take every one of us to drive these fiends back.”
Walls have a way of holding things in as well as out. Anaz was fairly certain which was the baron’s intentions.
“Anyone who would abandon their fellows to save their own lives will forfeit it,” the baron called. “Fisher Pass is now a military base. Desertion will be dealt with swiftly.”
“Desertion,” the woman above Anaz whispered into her husband’s ear, “more like surviving. This is madness. Farmers and a mector against the wall?”
Her husband didn’t look at her, only at his hands, folded in front of him. “And do what?” he whispered back. “Run?”
The woman began to say, “I don’t—”
“Yes,” Anaz interrupted.
The woman gave a small screech and jumped when she realized he was holding on right at her feet. She jumped and danced back. The husband glared down at Anaz.
“Run,” Anaz whispered. “Don’t wait. I’ve seen these things. We can’t fight them.” His arms began shaking from the strain of holding himself up.
The man said, “I don’t know who you are, but—”
“He’s the one, Edgar,” the woman whispered. “He saved the Lady Isabell.” She looked around her to make sure nobody was looking.
The boy stared at Anaz, at his grip on the cell’s bars.
“If you stay,” Anaz said. “You won’t be able to keep them back. Tell your friends. The baron’s lying. You can’t stop them. You have to leave.”
The woman held her husband’s eyes for a long time and Anaz knew there was a language passing there, between husband and wife, that he didn’t understand, maybe would never understand.
The boy squatted over Anaz and pulled something from his pocket. It was a wafer biscuit. He held it out for Anaz.
He let go with one hand and took the wafer and stuffed it into a pocket, then gripped the bar again. “Thank you,” he said.
The boy smiled and stood up. “I think he’s right, pa,” the boy said. “I was talking to Sunnell at the shop this morning. She said he saved Isabell and he has a magic that nobody has ever seen and even he couldn’t fight them all.” He looked at his father, then his mother. “We can’t stay.”
The father, Edgar, looked down at Anaz. “If we’re caught…”
Anaz couldn’t hold on any longer. “Don’t be,” he said. “Be careful, but run.”
He let go of the railing and used what hsing-li he had left to slide down the prison’s dirt wall and landed in the muck below.
As he lay there, chewing on the biscuit, savoring the marzipan sweetness, he thought he had maybe done the first good thing in three years.
He thought he maybe liked the feeling.
42
Daveon pulled a cart loaded with hay out of the barn and across the yard. A thick fog stuffed out from between the trees in the morning shadows. Dew shimmered along the ground. He could barely see Nikolai ahead of him, pushing a wheelbarrow of his own also filled with hay. He hadn’t said a word to Daveon yet—none of them had, really, except for Elnis—but Daveon was hoping he might this morning. He thought maybe a night’s sleep would have helped things, would have softened the boy’s anger. Not that Daveon blamed him. Or any of them. He just desperately wanted a hug from his son.
Honestly, a hug from anyone. Alysha hadn’t let him touch her after that first embrace. Wouldn’t speak about what had happened while he was gone, just kept worrying over Miria, getting her cleaned up, changed, fed. Sooner or later, they’d have to talk, he knew, but he could wait. He owed her that much at least.
As they crossed the field he saw Syla and Red standing in the midst of the other horses. The cart bounced over stones and divots as Daveon counted his horses again for the fifth time. Twenty-one. Exactly how many he needed. Twenty-two if you counted Fennel’s unborn foal, which he wasn’t. That gave twenty for the king’s men and left one—Syla—for his family to escape on.
Once the damn stable master shows up…so long as he shows up before the Rot takes Fennel.
There was no hiding the fact that she hadn’t looked good that morning. If she died before dropping her foal, they’d have to sell Syla. That would mean walking out of Fisher Pass…with the Wretched behind them.
“Gods dammit!” Nikolai screamed. His wheelbarrow toppled sideways and the hay poured out, the light breeze tossing it another dozen yards.
Daveon had never heard his son swear like that. He wasn’t sure if he should laugh or scold the boy.
“Easy, son,” Daveon said. He set his wagon down and pulled out his fork.
Nikolai righted the wheelbarrow, his tiny muscles bulging at the burden like small sausages on sticks. Daveon tried to scoop up the hay, but Nikolai stepped in front of him.
“I got it,” he snapped. He shoved his own fork into the hay and lifted it and wedged the handle against his hip and hobbled over to the wheelbarrow, but when he turned the fork over, half the hay missed the bucket. He kicked it, raising a puff of pink dust in the sunrise’s sideways light.
“I can help,” Daveon said gently.
Nikolai spun on him, brandishing the fork like a spear.
Daveon stepped back.
Nikolai stared at him with wet eyes, his lips quivering. He threw the fork at the wagon and stormed past Daveon back towards the barn.
Daveon dropped another branch onto the fire, the dry needles sizzling instantly. He looked at the Fletcher’s face as the flames licked it and wondered if it would burn. The kids and Alysha had been horrified to see it. He felt foolish for bringing it here. Where did this vanity come from?
He looked over the flames and spotted two riders approaching from down the road. Daveon recognized Sir Nattic instantly, his
black plate mail bulging and jutting against the horizon in angry forms. Looking into the sun as he was, he couldn’t tell who the second rider was.
He met them as they stopped in front of his cabin.
Evan Malic.
“Well met, Sir Nattic,” Daveon said. Neither men made to dismount.
Nattic nodded at him. “Therentell,” he said, then he looked around and saw Nikolai in the barn and the fire burning behind it. “I’ll get to it. The baron has ordered Fisher Pass to make ready for war.”
“War,” Daveon said. War with what? He turned to look at Nikolai and the boy was standing stock still.
“The king has ordered us to push back the wall when it reaches us.”
“Push the wall,” Daveon laughed.
“Seeing as the king’s stablemaster should be here any day now, though, he’s granting you and yours leave to stay on out here until they come. Once your contract is met, though, you’ll needs come into town with the others.”
“Actually.” Malic nudged his horse forward and Daveon could see Sir Nattic was annoyed at being interrupted. “Actually, you’ll need to be coming into town tonight and every night until then. I’ll need you at the Stop, what with half the countryside staying at my inn.”
Had a new kind of Rot riddled the village with idiocy?
Daveon tried not to think about the last time he was in the Stop last week. How it had ended. What people might whisper when he came back.
“Sir,” Daveon said to Nattic, “the people of Fisher Pass, they’re not soldiers.” He gestured back at the burning Fletcher behind the barn. “These things…I barely survived.”
“And I’m sure everyone at the Stop will be most excited to hear how the great Daveon Therentell killed a Fletcher. Excuse me. Two Fletchers,” Malic said.
“The baron understands, Therentell,” Nattic said. “He also understands his orders. The king says fight, we fight.” He spun his horse to leave.
Malic rode up to Daveon and said, “Probably should get there a little early tonight. Unless you want to send your wife, if you can’t make it. I’m telling you, she did a damn fine job out there last week. She tell you about it at all?”
If Daveon hadn’t known better, he’d have thought Malic was nervous.
“We had more important things to talk about,” Daveon said.
Malic smiled and then looked up and his grin grew and he tipped his head.
Daveon turned and saw Alysha standing at the window looking out. She ducked out of sight at Malic’s gesture.
“Looking forward to telling you all about it tonight, Therentell,” Malic called over his shoulder as they rode away.
“Please,” Alysha said, “I’m begging you.”
“What happened? Where is this coming from?” Daveon had never seen his wife like this, an autumn leaf trembling in the wind. She wasn’t even trying to wipe at the tears.
Miria sat on the floor with Elnis and they looked at her. Nikolai had refused to come in after evening chores and was still out in the stable.
“We can pack the horses, bring them with us.”
“Alysha, please, what happened?” They hadn’t talked all day and then when Daveon had told her what Sir Nattic and Malic had said and how Malic had demanded Daveon continue to work the stupid Stop, she had started to cry. She hadn’t stopped all evening as he did chores and when he came in to tell her he was leaving, she started to shake and blubbered about not going, about running away. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen her cry. He’d be lying if he didn’t admit she was unnerving him. “Did he…did Malic do something to you?”
“Let’s just go and start over,” she said.
“Start over where, for Airim’s sake? Where, Alysha? Where would we go that he can’t follow? That the king’s law can’t? If Malic and his half-orc don’t hunt us down and kill us first—and they would—the king’s justice would. A debt is a debt, Alysha. The war has been going for two hundred years and there’s not been a man who could claim the Wretched as cause not to pay a debt.”
Elnis began crying. Miria ran into the bedroom.
“Alysha,” Daveon felt his own eyes burn. He stepped towards his wife. “We can’t go anywhere until the king’s men come. Once they pay us for twenty horses—and not one less—we’ll put the senits in Malic’s hands and we’ll ride out of here before he can finish counting them. I promise. We’ll push Syla as hard as she can go and she can go hard. Until then…” He pulled Alysha into a hug and squeezed as she sobbed into his chest. “Until then we have to be strong. Be ready. Keep Fennel alive, keep the town alive and hang on to each other.”
He pulled away and tried to look at her, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Alysha, can we do that?”
She sniffed and nodded and wiped at her nose.
“Glad to have you back,” Elliot said. “I didn’t think it would ever happen after hearing about last time you were here.”
Daveon gave his friend a half-hearted smile, then topped off his ale. Malic could go fuck himself if he had a problem with a little free ale to the regulars.
The Sunflower Stop was as full or fuller than any Market Day. There was a sad fog in the place, an air of dreaded anticipation, waiting for the inevitable. It felt like the worse days of the Rot.
“Me neither,” he said. “Won’t be long. The king’s stable master has to be here tomorrow, I’d think. Once we get rid of these horses and pay off Malic…” He dusted his hands in the air as if disappearing.
Elliot glanced over his shoulder at six men sitting together wearing freshly embroidered House Blackhand tunics. Official soldiers of Sir Nattic’s new militia. They’d been recruited that morning, though, truth be told, anyone able to hold a sword was expected to wear one and be ready for the fight. “Don’t let them hear that,” he muttered.
Daveon had barely recognized the village that evening when he arrived. The gates had been closed, posted with guards, and inside, Ricken’s smithy belched black smoke as he churned out cheap swords as fast as he could.
“I’m done worrying about what others think I should be doing,” he said, though he did lower his voice. No point in poking the beehive if you didn’t have to. “Just getting through tonight, tomorrow night at the most, until the king’s men come.”
“Fair enough,” Elliot smiled. He lifted his mug in a toast. “To a bright, bloody future!”
No, he didn’t have a choice in being there, but that didn’t mean things were going to be like before, Daveon decided. No more stories. No matter how badly people begged. No more lies. And by the very gods’ own breath, if Evan Malic tried to push him around, he was going to push back. Both Malic and that overgrown beast of a halforc.
At least, that’s what Daveon had told himself on the walk into the Stop. However, as the night wore on and Elliot, then Chet Hendley and his son Markon began begging for stories, he couldn’t keep saying no and so they came out. There wasn’t much vigor in it, every word tasting like ash, but he couldn’t refuse his neighbors’ begging.
Yet, it seemed harder than usual to keep the lies straight.
“I had my sword out and Miria was running to Syla—”
“I thought last time you said you dropped your sword,” Malic said.
When could Daveon stop? He’d thought for certain that by bringing that Fletcher’s head home nobody could question him again, but here he was and there Malic was and the sing-song mocking tone under every word.
“I, uh, yeah, I think you’re right,” Daveon said. “I had dropped it and had to pick it up and…Look, I’m just glad to be home.”
“I bet you are,” Malic said. He chuckled and leaned past Daveon to pull out a stack of bowls from under the bar. “I bet your wife is, too.”
Daveon looked at Malic as he straightened up.
“What’s that mean?” Daveon asked.
“What?”
“‘I bet your wife is, too.’ What’s that mean?”
“What? It means what it means.”
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Daveon set his mug down and squared up to Malic.
“What happened?”
He stepped closer, his heart thundering.
Malic looked at Chet and laughed, then turned back to Daveon. “What do you mean what happened? I just mean, look at you and look at her. Gone a week like that, I bet she was glad to see you home. Should we expect a new Therentell in nine months? Gods know we could use one.”
“Evan Malic—” Daveon said.
“I never understood that, actually, how you only have two kids.” Malic looked at Chet and Chet chuckled uncomfortably, then looked down into his cup. “A woman like that,” Malic said and he locked eyes with Daveon, “I’d be swimming in babies.”
Before he knew what he was doing he had Malic’s tunic in both hands and was dragging him forward. Malic raised a fist to punch Daveon when they both stopped.
From the town square outside of the Stop came a cacophony of screams and hooting and ringing horse barding.
There were four soldiers, three of them newly minted just that morning. Daveon recognized the little shit Maximar Farrow riding a roan he’d sold the Farrows just last year. The kid had been brutal with the animal, but refused to sell it back to Daveon when he’d offered. Maximar wore one of the fresh tunics from the baron.
He towed a man behind him. The man stumbled and tried to keep up, but his shoes had gone missing at some point and his feet looked raw. Once in the square, he fell and did his best to hold onto the chain and keep his face out of the dirt. That’s when Daveon recognized him. Edgar Fentin. And there on that other soldier’s horse was Edgar’s wife, Mary, and behind her, their son, William.
The last time Daveon had seen Edgar and Mary was when Two Fingers threw him into their lamb stew last week. He’d been hoping one or the other would come into the Stop tonight so he could apologize to them. They’d always been a nice couple. Like so many others, they’d lost two young children to the Rot and had held onto William with a ferocity since. Apprenticed to the butcher, Henley, the lad was old enough to begin building his own life, but Mary couldn’t bear letting him go.
