Bloody Rose

by Nicholas Eames

  “… called in every debt in the March,” she was saying as Tam snapped out of reverie, “which drove the farmers farther south. A year later she lost half her sworn shields to an avalanche in the Brumal Wastes. The rest of them deserted her shortly after. Since then, no one has seen her.”

  The bard turned and started back toward the bringol’s corpse. “How did she get in touch with Fable?”

  “She’s got a man. The Warden. He’s the one who offered Rod the contract.”

  “What is the contract?” The bringol’s toenails were the size of dinner plates, yellowed and chipped beneath a layer of frost. Tam stepped onto one, arms outstretched, and tried to keep her balance. “What are we going there for? Rose lied to Sam Roth, and again to Linden Gale. Every time someone asks about the contract she tells them we’re going after the Dragoneater.”

  Cura chuckled. “Yeah.”

  “So what is it, really? Why doesn’t Rose want anyone to know the truth?” Tam’s boot slipped off the toenail. She turned to face the Inkwitch and tried again with the other foot. “I bet the Widow killed her husband,” she declared, angling her arms to steady herself. “I bet she married him just to steal his wealth. But now he’s back from the dead or something, and she’s hired Fable to put him down. Am I right? I’m right, aren’t I?”

  The summoner wore a strange grin. Granted, all of Cura’s grins were strange, but this one looked almost pitying. As the child of a dead parent, Tam knew a pitying smile when she saw one.

  “She wasn’t lying, Tam. The Dragoneater is the contract. We’re going to kill the Simurg.”

  Tam lost her footing again, and her temper, too. “It’s because I’m new, right?” she asked. “Or is it because I’m just the bard? Is that why you won’t tell me? I think I deserve—”

  “We’re going after the Simurg,” Cura repeated, dead serious this time. A cold wind swept under the bridge, ruffling the black feathers at the collar of her cloak.

  “The Simurg’s not real,” Tam said. The gust had blown her anger out, and she struggled to rekindle it.

  The Inkwitch shrugged. “The Warden says it is. He says the Widow knows where it makes its lair. Beyond the Rimeshields, in the Brumal Wastes.”

  “That’s …” Impossible, she’d have said, if she could find the breath to do so. Ridiculous would’ve worked as well. Outrageous, preposterous—any of these fit just fine.

  Unless it’s really true, Tam thought. Unless the Simurg is more than just a fairy tale. In which case Rose’s intent to go after it was all of those words, along with one more: suicidal.

  What was it Rod had said back in Woodford? That he sometimes thought Rose might want to die young? If so, she was certainly taking the necessary steps to make sure that happened.

  A growl startled her, followed by a ripping snort. Tam yelped, spinning, and saw the bringol shift where it sat. She half-expected to see its eyes spring open, white fires flaring in empty sockets, except …

  It’s not dead, she realized. It’s asleep.

  A metallic hiss announced that the Inkwitch had drawn a knife. “Tam,” Cura whispered. “Stay. Very. Still.”

  The beast mumbled something, though the only word she caught was “kitty,” and then scratched the pale-gold scales of its belly. Its hand fumbled absently for the bell in its lap, but the bell wasn’t there—it was lying in the snow, too far away for either Tam or Cura to reach quickly. When the bringol’s hand swatted empty air, it frowned, grumbled again, and began to stir awake.

  Tam motioned frantically for Cura to give her something—anything—to replace the missing bell. The summoner cast around desperately, then put her knife between her teeth and picked up a cow’s skull. She threw it to Tam, who turned and set it gently between the monster’s legs.

  The bringol’s hand fumbled over it. Its fingers—each as thick around as Tam’s wrist—searched out the skull’s hollow eyes, which it must have mistook for the moons cut into its copper bell, since the creature grunted contentedly and settled back to sleep.

  The bard allowed herself a relieved sigh, and was about to remark on how near they’d come to disaster, when the monster loosed a loud snore and the icicle on its nose broke loose.

  Never in her admittedly short life had Tam moved so fast. Her hands darted out, fingers clamping around the cold shaft before it struck the ground between the bringol’s legs. The icicle was massive, and the muscles in her arms, weary from drawing Duchess’s string these past few days, were already trembling with the effort of holding it.

  Slowly, she backed away from the slumbering monster, gently easing the icicle into the crook of her arm. She glanced at Cura, who jerked her head back the way they’d come, and the two of them crept stealthily out from under the bridge. Tam set the icicle down, and then, after admiring the melted grooves her grip had left behind, scrambled after Cura up the snowy bank.

  Rose and Freecloud were right where they’d left them. The scrying orb was dormant in Rose’s hands, and the mood between the two of them was strained. The druin said something Tam couldn’t make out and put a hand on Rose’s shoulder, but she slunk from his touch and stuffed the orb roughly into her saddlebag.

  The shaman returned a few minutes later, plodding across a fallow field with a bulging sack over one shoulder. “Every apple in town,” he announced, dropping the sack into the wagon and climbing in after it. “Half are brown, most are soft, but they’ll do the trick, I think.”

  Tam climbed onto the driver’s bench. “What are they for?”

  “A bribe,” said Rose, putting heels to the horse beneath her. “Let’s move.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  A Home Beyond the Heartwyld

  Shortly before dark they turned onto a rutted logging trail that led into the westernmost reaches of the Silverwood. Before the trees swallowed the sky behind them, Tam cast a lingering look over her shoulder. In the distance, the half-hewn statue of the Exarch Gowikan loomed stark against the setting sun, a shadow framed by the red-gold fury of the fading day. From so far away, the Tyrant’s outstretched arm could be mistaken for a gesture of benevolence, a sheltering hand hovering over those scratching out lives in the city below.

  Funny, Tam thought, how different a thing could seem at a distance—how beautiful, despite the ugly truth. Was it worth it, she wondered, to look closer? To examine something, or someone, if doing so risked changing your perception of them forever after?

  She was young enough to think the answer was yes, but too young to know if she was right.

  Tam spent the next two evenings sparring with Rose. The result of each session was distressingly similar to the first, but she did manage to fumble her sword onto Rose’s foot on the second night.

  “I meant to do that,” she insisted.

  “Sure you did,” Rose drawled, helping Tam to her feet. She summoned Thistle to hand and gave it back to the bard. “Again.”

  Not content with merely witnessing Tam’s degradation, Brune and Cura decided to contribute as well.

  The Inkwitch taught her how to hide a knife, hold a knife, and use a knife to stab, slice, or slash one’s enemies. Fortunately, she and Tam used sticks to approximate the knives in question. Unfortunately, Cura insisted on using a knife to whittle those sticks into dagger-sharp points.

  When Tam pointed out they’d might as well use real blades after all, Cura laughed harshly and told her, “Grow a pair.”

  “A pair of what?” Tam asked. “Ow! Frigid fucking hells, you didn’t tell me we were starting!”

  Brune, meanwhile, showed her how to fight like a true vargyr, using trips, takedowns, and grapples to pummel an enemy into submission. Tam proved surprisingly adept at this, since she was fast for her height, strong for her size, and not at all afraid of fighting dirty.

  “Very good,” said Brune after a bout one afternoon. He touched a finger to the ear Tam had been boxing moments earlier and seemed surprised it didn’t come away bloody. “You’ve got a knack for this. Now remember, a boot to the
balls won’t work on a basilisk, but it’s your bread and butter in a tavern brawl.”

  Tam continued to practice with her bow as well. She carried Duchess as she walked, keeping pace with the corpse cart and taking aim at targets as her bandmates called them out.

  “That slanting oak,” said Freecloud on their second morning in the forest.

  Her shaft skimmed the bark and bounced away.

  “That ugly knot that looks like Brune,” Cura pointed out.

  “Hey!” Brune shouted, taking offense, but then he saw the knot and nodded appreciatively. “Never mind. That’s me, all right.”

  Tam’s arrow struck it dead-on.

  “Ouch,” said the shaman.

  Freecloud beamed. “Well done, Tam.” He yanked the shaft free as they passed and inspected the tip before returning it to her.

  “That rabbit.” Rose gestured to the animal bounding through the brush ahead of them.

  Tam skewered it a heartbeat later. The round of applause she earned from her bandmates didn’t quite eclipse how awful she felt for having killed something so fuzzy and adorable. Not until lunchtime, anyway.

  Shortly after dusk they arrived at what appeared to be an old mill: a large, thatch-roofed warehouse attached to an open-air sawing station. There were logs stacked to either side of the track, and a pile of felled trees waiting to be chopped. The bard could see no evidence the mill was currently occupied, and no light at all was visible through the shed’s open windows.

  Freecloud slipped from his saddle. “I’ll look after the horses,” he said quietly.

  Rose dismounted as well. She looked around warily, one hand hovering over Thorn’s pommel. “Don’t tie them too close,” she warned. “He doesn’t like horses, remember.”

  “I think the feeling is mutual,” said Brune, as Rose’s mare gave an anxious snort. The animal calmed a bit when the shaman placed a soothing hand on her neck.

  Tam wondered who it was that lived here, in an abandoned mill at the edge of the Silverwood. She’d been about to ask when Rose hissed at Freecloud, who’d struck a match and was using it to light his halfpipe.

  “No fires,” she said.

  The druin winced, waving at the smoke and stamping out his pipe. “Shit, sorry. I forgot—”

  “Who is that!?” said a voice from inside the building. It was deep and sonorous, like someone shouting down the length of a hollow trunk. “I smell smoke, and horses, and the stink of a wet animal!”

  Brune sniffed at an armpit. “That might be me.”

  “Timber, it’s Rose!” The mercenary dared a few steps toward the darkened mill. “The band and I are just passing through. Thought we’d spend the night, if you’ve got room for us.”

  “Who is us?” the voice demanded. “You haven’t got that bloody satyr along, do you?”

  “Roderick’s not here, no.”

  “Good! That ogre’s ass ate my favourite tapestry the last time you were here. And most of my apples, too.”

  “Speaking of which …” Rose beckoned to Brune, who reached into the cart and passed her the sack of apples he’d purchased earlier that morning. “I have a present for you.”

  A silence, while the wind conferred with the rustling leaves.

  “Is it apples?” The voice sounded hopeful.

  “Hundreds of them,” said Rose. She plucked one from the sack and sent it rolling underhand toward the building.

  One of the doors cracked slowly open. A face appeared: rough bark features scrunched beneath mossy brows, and a stumped nose poking out above a beard of bone-white lichen. The thing stooped; an arm reached out and closed curling twig-like fingers around the apple at its feet.

  Maiden’s Mercy, Tam thought, suddenly breathless. Timber is a tree.

  While waiting for her nerves to settle, she volunteered to help Freecloud tie up the animals. The druin could see in the dark, but Tam was essentially blind, so instead she petted the horses while Freecloud unhitched the ponies that pulled the wagon.

  “What are we doing with the cart?” she asked.

  “We can leave it here. This road is seldom used.”

  “What about the loggers?”

  “There are no loggers,” said Freecloud, leading the first horse away. “Timber operates the mill himself. Highpool sends a convoy each month to collect the wood.”

  “You mean he cuts down trees?”

  “Yes.”

  “And then stacks them in piles?”

  “Evidently.” The druin guided her hand to a bridle and then returned to unhitch the second pony.

  “But isn’t that … uh … murder? I mean, he’s a—”

  “Treant,” the druin finished for her. “Not a tree. They look similar, in the way you and I look similar, even though we are not. Trees and treants are very different.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, treants have eyes.”

  “Okay.”

  “And mouths. They can speak—do you know many trees that can speak?”

  “No, but—”

  “They have hands, and feet, and names …”

  “I get it.”

  “They sleep, eat—”

  “What do they eat?” Tam asked, genuinely curious, but also wanting Freecloud to stop listing things.

  “Anything, really. Berries, nuts. Squirrels dumb enough to wander into their mouth. Timber loves apples, obviously.” He finished securing the mounts and returned to her side. “Anyway, don’t call him a tree.”

  “I won’t,” she promised.

  Freecloud spoke quietly as they started toward the mill. “When humans ran this place they clashed with the treants who’d settled here. They attacked them unwittingly because they mistook them for trees. Now Timber selects the trees himself. He trades the lumber to Highpool and spares them risking men by sending them into the forest.”

  “Is the Silverwood that dangerous?” Tam asked, suddenly conscious of the sounds around them: creaking, cracking, snapping, shuffling, and, distantly, the shriek of something dying in the dark.

  Freecloud took her arm. “We should get inside.”

  Timber, whose body was made of highly flammable things like wood and leaves, had a perfectly reasonable aversion to open flame, so the band was permitted only a single enclosed lantern by which to see inside the treant’s home. The mill warehouse reminded Tam of Ardburg’s public museum. The rafters were hung with tapestries, some of which—namely those depicting scenes from the Reclamation Wars—were so threadbare that a strong gust of wind might reduce them to dust. Others portrayed more recent events, such as Saga’s epic arena battle against the chimera.

  Now that she’d been on tour, however, and had seen firsthand the sorry scraps that passed for “epic” these days, Tam wondered if even that infamous battle, which had culminated with the destruction of two skyships, countless fishing boats, and the Maxithon itself, had not been hopelessly embellished.

  There probably wasn’t even a chimera, mused the cynic inside her. Just an overfed goat, an underfed lion, and whatever sickly lizard the wrangler passed off as a dragon.

  Mounted on the wall were a collection of battered, leaf-shaped shields bearing emblems the bard didn’t recognize. A pair of dummies dressed in archaic-looking armour stood vigil by the door. Their helms, she noted, bore chain-link sleeves to accommodate a druin’s distinctly long ears. Rounding out the furnishings were several cluttered bookshelves and dense carpets that may once have been fine but were now tracked in sawdust and scuffed raw by Timber’s heavy tread.

  Lacking a fire over which to cook, the band shared a meal of cold cucumber soup and yam mash spiced with cinnamon. Timber served cool beer in ornate wooden mugs: a deep red lambic that tasted like sour cherries and horse blanket in the best way possible.

  Their host’s eyes—knotted orbs that glistened wetly in the lamplight—examined the mercenaries as they ate. They lingered for a while on Tam, and then settled on Rose. Timber cleared his throat before speaking, a sound like a damp board cracking in
half. “I’ll confess, I’m surprised you’re not headed west to fight that Horde.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t head west to join it,” said Rose. “You’re getting old, Timber. This could be your last chance to get blood on your branches.”

  The treant chuckled, causing one of the few leaves still clinging to his gnarled boughs to shake loose and fall into his lap. “They’re plenty soaked already. Have I told you I used to run with Blackheart back in the day?”

  “Several times,” said Freecloud.

  “He was a vicious bastard,” Timber told him anyway. “Though I guess with a name like Blackheart you aren’t likely to grow up charitable. He bullied half the Shaded Mire into invading Agria. We sacked a dozen towns and twice as many villages. Spirits, we were already plotting to march on Fivecourt once we’d torn down every brick in Brycliffe. Alas, we got no farther than Hollow Hill …”

  “I’ve heard the tale,” Rose grated. “Too many times. My father wouldn’t shut up about it. Did you know Saga couldn’t keep a bard alive for the life of them? I used to think my dad let them die just so he could tell the stories himself.”

  “Saga …” There was reverence in the treant’s rumbling voice. “They held us off for three days, you know. Three days! There were only five of the bastards, and a whole forest of us. Blackheart was furious, and your father certainly did his part. He felled dozens of us, and gave me this to remember him by.” Timber patted a malformed stump on the side of his head. “But it wasn’t him that hewed old Blackheart down. ’Twas that evil bastard, Slowhand.”

  Tam sipped at her beer. “You mean Clay Cooper?”

  “Aye. He chopped Blackheart to bits and turned him into a shield! And thus our ill-fated invasion came to an end.” The treant took a draught of his own beer from a wide wooden bowl. “Most of the lads returned to the Mire, but a few of us decided to settle here in Grandual. But you are right,” he said to Rose. “I am old. Too old to run off and join some fool giant’s Horde. Most of the young trunks went, mind you, and the rest followed when the birds brought news of Cragmoor. A gang of ’em came around here a while back. I guess they figured it would help the cause to have an old-timer along. They were insistent I join them. Rather too insistent, in fact.”