by Barb Hendee
Twice he slowed and turned; twice she ducked low among the brush while reaching for her dagger, but she didn’t draw the narrow blade.
Mari grew even colder the farther she followed. Her pant legs were damp to the knees, and her boots were wet all the way through. She couldn’t remember the exact count of nights since she’d last bathed or at least rinsed out her clothing.
Mama wouldn’t have approved. Then again, she couldn’t disapprove of anything anymore . . . because of him.
In his pauses, the Dead’s Man never looked her way. He only stared back down the road, though there wasn’t anything there that she could see. Strîbrov was well beyond sight, and then he turned back to move on.
Mari had been living alone on the run for so long, shunned and driven out by even her own kind. Sometimes at night, she couldn’t push out memories of what they’d said about her. Were any such Móndyalítko right in driving her out, when they learned what had happened?
Was something wrong with—about—her?
Had surviving that night left her “cursed”?
If so, then that was his fault as well.
Someone—something—had murdered her family. A black shadow of a youth—now grown to a man—had called spirits of the dead to serve it. Once, she’d questioned that, for after what he’d done to her papa why would he have needed such servants at all? That didn’t matter anymore either.
If she killed him, it might end her curse, and she’d find a place in this world, if not some peace.
The black-cloaked figure stopped again on the road.
Mari dropped low and froze, peering through a scraggly fern. Had he sensed her? Had she misstepped or made a sound in being too lost in the past? Could he sense the living as well as the dead?
She drew air deep through her nose and could smell him: sweat . . . herbs . . . too much fennel and lavender . . . garlic . . . pungent mud from the road.
Could he smell her? No, he wasn’t like her in that—few were—and even if so, he would’ve done something by now. A soft sigh in the dark cleared her thoughts.
The Dead’s Man turned his back to her in facing the road’s far side.
She rose a little, hand tightening on the dagger’s handle. The moment had come.
Suddenly he strode off the road into the southern trees, and Mari’s breath caught as she stalled in place.
She didn’t dare step into the open without knowing if he could see her. Panic took hold. What if he was watching from hiding, even now, waiting to see something—someone—he might have sensed? Did he have some invisible spirit serving and watching over him, warning him?
Even so, she couldn’t lose her prey now. Tearing out of the brush, she scurried low enough across the road that she might have dropped to all fours. When she neared the far tree line, she dropped when she heard . . .
Not footsteps—something metal clicking harshly on stone, over and over.
Mari flattened in the wet weeds and silently crawled under a wilting heather bush just far enough to see beyond it.
He was crouched on the ground beside a pile of twigs, and striking a piece of flint with the back of a knife. He was making camp? It was late, so perhaps he’d grown weary of walking and needed heat as opposed to light.
After all, what would a man who commanded the dead have to fear in the dark?
Once the fire was lit, he pulled back his hood and shrugged off his cloak. It was not the same man who’d answered the shop door. He was younger, perhaps mid-twenties, with a pale, narrow face. His hair was dark and cropped short. His clothing was nothing special: a long-sleeved black wool shirt and black pants. The only weapon he appeared to have was the small knife.
As firelight grew, she could see his strange eyes. Were they blue? There was so little color in them that she couldn’t tell under the flicker of flames reflecting in them, like beacons in the dark that called her.
Aside from this, nothing about him struck her as special, powerful, forbidding. Then again, why betray himself in any way for what he could do? After spreading his cloak for a blanket upon the ground, he dug into his pack and pulled out a small leather-bound flask and what looked—smelled—like a bit of fresh cheese.
Mari felt a pang of hunger, as she couldn’t remember the last time she’d tasted fresh, clean cheese.
She watched and decided she would wait for him to settle for the night. Once he lay down, and then slipped into sleep, she would wake him suddenly before her strike. She wanted him awake for what she’d do to him. She wanted to tell him who she was and what he’d done to her before he died. Let him call his spirits with his last scream; she wouldn’t care what they did, once he was dead . . . truly dead.
More unwanted memories pushed themselves up from where she kept them buried and hidden in her mind, and she saw herself as a child, alone, desperate for help. After leaving the Wicker Woods—and the bodies of her parents—she’d walked for three days.
Finally, to her relief, she stumbled upon a quartet of traveling wagons, another family of Móndyalítko, from the line of Taragoš, and she ran to them. At first, the people were concerned, welcoming her, taking her to fire for warmth.
But one woman kept staring and finally said, “It’s her. She is the one.”
Everyone tensed. A man with graying hair had asked her, “Where is your family?”
“Dead,” she answered.
“All of them?”
She nodded, fighting tears at the images she’d seen.
“In the Wicker Woods?” he asked.
She nodded.
Gasps sounded, and an argument ensued among the family, frightening her. She heard the angry word “cursed” several times.
Finally, the man with gray hair said, “We’ll have to find her a place in one of the wagons. She cannot be left here. It is not our way.”
Mari was given a blanket and a place beneath a bunk in the second wagon. That night, she was given dinner, but no one talked to her.
Later, she learned that the gamekeeper and the lad had spoken of what they’d found in the Wicker Woods. The soldiers had spoken. Word spread of at least twenty people found dead without a mark on them . . . their skin white . . . purple circles beneath their open eyes. Only one person had not died.
A young girl found walking among the bodies.
This story had spread quickly and far, and it was even whispered that Mari had brought about these terrible deaths herself. She didn’t want to stay with this Taragoš family, not with people who didn’t want her, but she had no choice. She was too young to survive on her own.
They fed her. They gave her a place to sleep. But they watched her night and day, and no one offered a kind word. Finally, in her loneliness, she found that she could weep. Alone, hiding beneath the bunk, she wept for her papa and mama, and she never stopped trying to better remember the black silhouette she’d seen on the edge of camp who seemed to command white flying spirits. She didn’t bother trying to explain what she had seen that night. No one would believe her. They thought she was cursed.
Six moons later, she was passed off to a family from the line of Klempá. Money changed hands as the Taragoš paid the Klempá to take her.
Mari found herself still among the Móndyalítko, with a new family, but nothing had changed. If anything, things were worse, as this family was poorer and food was scarcer. No one spoke to her more than was necessary, and she often slept outside.
This became the pattern of her childhood, passed from one family to the next.
Every night, she longed for her papa and mama.
And now, she had their murderer in her sight.
Trembling from the effort required to hold herself back, she watched him.
He took his time eating some of the cheese and sipping from the flask. When he appeared finished and prepared to settle for the night, she readied herself, dagger in h
and.
Then came a soft rustle . . . then two more . . . no, three more.
Mari’s eyes tracked those soft sounds in the night. She fixed on the trees at the clearing’s far side, and then quickly looked back to the Dead’s Man. He was still preparing to bed down, tucking away his flask and wiping off his knife. Didn’t he hear those sounds, even as soft as they were?
Not a small animal—something bigger and more than one—but she tensed in uncertainty.
A stocky man boiled out of the far brush, wielding a heavy club. Two more followed to either side: one with a short sword, and the other with a flanged mace. All three charged in.
Their clothing was filthy and tattered. She’d seen their kind too many times; they’d kill for a single coin or whatever they could take. Panic resurged harder than ever, and then rage.
The Dead’s Man thrashed over, reaching for a small branch still aflame in the fire.
What if he died by someone else’s hand? No, not when she was this close—not her prey!
As shouting broke out in the clearing, Mari ripped off her cloak and dropped low . . . and let go of the dagger.
—
Tris snatched a burning branch from the campfire as the root-knot of a crude club came down at his head. He dove and then rolled away. He was not a warrior, but this was not the first time he’d had to defend himself. Now and then, those who hired him were not thoroughly satisfied with his “service.”
This time he had not rendered any service. Perhaps these men were part of the village that had tried to seize water rights from another. Perhaps they were only thieves.
Tris whipped the burning branch upward, forcing his attacker to reel back. He had barely gained his feet when he saw two more closing on him, better weapons in their hands. His gaze shifted back to the bulky one with the thick-stubbled jaw and neck, and that one came at him as well.
He sidestepped the other way with another swish of his brand, driving the first big one off into the path of the other two. It did not work. One of that pair with a bladed mace ducked around the big one and came at him.
Tris evaded a hard swing and felt the swish of air on his cheek as the mace’s head passed by.
“Mihkt!” the mace man shouted.
Perhaps that was a name, but the rest Tris could not catch. He had never mastered the local dialect of Belaskian spoken near his birthplace; he was no better with any other variation. Born into an old-world noble line, he was fluent only in traditional Stravinan, the original tongue of those who had conquered and settled this nation more than two centuries past.
Footsteps closed behind him—he had lost sight of one of the assailants.
Something hard and sharp cut through his jerkin’s sleeve into his right arm.
Tris spun away from the impact before the sword cut deeper. As he wheeled, he lashed the burning branch all around, ignoring the pain. The stocky man with the club recovered and shouted as he rushed in.
“Three sides!”
That Tris did understand. He could not afford to let anyone get behind him, outnumbered as he was. All he could do was whirl and swing the brand in trying to keep all of them back until he saw a way out. The one with the short sword, perhaps Mihkt, shot around to the left as he thrust the branch at the big leader’s face. Again, Tris had to spin away from that blade, and he barely saw his mistake.
The one with the mace rushed him, a heavy dagger in the other hand.
Tris spun the other way and stumbled right through the remains of his campfire. As he tripped on half-charred branches, sparks and smoke whirled up around him in the darkness. Even his burning brand did not provide enough light for an instant, and something slammed off his right calf.
He teetered in a spin as whatever rushed onward. He heard a snarl, a scream, and shouts as he fell and tumbled. And then he stopped rolling and raised his head.
The man with the sword backpedaled from a dark, shadowy tangle of two forms fighting wildly on the ground to the right. With the fire scattered and nearly snuffed out, Tris was uncertain of what he saw, other than that some wild beast had put down the big stocky one.
The man was screaming and struggling beneath an animal that yowled and screeched as it clawed at him. The only part of the beast Tris made out was a stub of a tail on something the size of a dog, though its noise sounded more like a cat.
“Reese!”
That shout pulled Tris’s focus to the right; he spotted the one with the mace and the dagger and rolled quickly to his feet. The other two were distracted, too stunned or afraid to aid their leader. The one with the sword backed away from the screams and snarls and yowls.
Tris had no wish to attract the beast’s attention, but he took a chance.
He rushed the closer man, swung his branch, and caught the would-be swordsman in the face. The branch’s flames were out, but at the crack of impact, the man teetered backward in flailing and dropped his sword. Before Tris could press again—
An inhuman shriek made him spin sharply around and then stiffen.
Two eyes were locked on Tris, and they were somehow a reddish yellow. Or was that just because of the stained muzzle below them? Open jaws hissed at him, the teeth and fangs stained as well. And tufted, tall ears flattened back as those eyes narrowed on him.
One wide, clawed paw rose in a first slow step toward Tris.
“Run!”
Again, one word that Tris could understand, but he did not dare turn his back. He kept his eyes on the hound-sized cat—a lynx from what little he’d heard of such. It seemed larger than what he knew of such beasts. He heard two sets of feet pounding away in the dark amid thrashing brush and crackling leaves and twigs on soft earth. But he remained fixed on the animal.
That one paw came down, flattened, and spread. Extended claws bit into the soft earth. The lynx was now completely silent. Stranger than this, its head suddenly swiveled, looking quickly after the two who had run away.
The stocky man lay unmoving on the ground behind the beast. Tris thought to run before he too ended up dead. For now he was the only target in sight. The feline’s head swiveled sharply back toward him.
He kept as still as he could but prepared to dodge and run. It only stared him down, as if it could not decide if he was worth any effort. Those red-yellow eyes narrowed slightly in the silence. Again it glanced quickly toward the men who had run away. It turned back even quicker this time.
After another long stare, as if studying him as something it no longer wanted, the lynx spun and raced off, crashing through bushes. It was gone in the dark.
Tris heaved out a breath he hadn’t realized he had held. He began to shake as if the night’s cold had sunk into his bones. He stared after the lynx that had spared him—saved him—and a strange sensation took him.
He could sense the dead when they roused—but he could also sense the living for what they were. A foolish notion he might soon regret seized him then.
Slowly at first and then faster, Tris took off after the lynx . . . which was not a lynx.
—
The lynx heard someone following and veered through every bush, shrub, and other obscuring barrier in its path. The sound of hard footfalls faded farther behind, and it circled back toward the clearing’s edge closest to the road. When it came upon a dark cloak and a narrow dagger left on the ground, it pulled up short.
A ripple began, first in its furred face. This spread through its body as it collapsed upon the wet forest mulch in shuddering convulsions.
Wide paws elongated. Narrowed as claws shortened and paled. Fingers sprouted as fur receded across its body, as if growing inward to reveal skin the color of pale caramel. The head and face changed last, until the muzzle became a distinct nose and jaw . . . still blood-coated from a kill.
Mari lay naked upon the ground, shuddered only once more from the change-pain, and pushed up on all
fours. As she scrambled to pull her clothes from beneath the heather bush, her thoughts—her hate and vengeance—were clouded by what she’d seen in the clearing.
It made no sense.
The Dead’s Man had seemed so . . . helpless. Why hadn’t he called his spirits—or something worse—to deal with those wish-to-be bandits? He’d just rolled on the ground and swung a stick, like a yokel waylaid behind a carnival tent when no one was watching.
Or had it been a ruse? She’d done worse to lure someone into too much self-confidence. Had she intervened too soon and now ruined her own plans? Shivering in the cold, wet night, she flipped her muslin shirt around, trying to pull it on first, and—
She heard a crunch of forest needles and leaves.
Twisting about, she grabbed up her dagger and then froze. Cold sank straight into her lungs with fright. Near the black silhouette of a fir tree’s trunk stood a figure almost black in the night except for his pale-skinned face. His eyes were so wide, staring at a naked woman in the dark, that she could see the whites almost all the way around his pale irises.
At another time, in another place, she might’ve spit at a man, or worse, for daring to keep looking. Now all she could do was glare. He said nothing and looked away.
Had he seen her go through the change and knew she was yai-morchi—“two-fleshed”—among the Móndyalítko, what outsiders called a “shifter”? She should kill him for that alone, but again, back in the fight, why hadn’t he done any of the things she knew he could do in order to save himself?
Could she be wrong about him?
No, he had to be the Dead’s Man.
“I . . . speak . . . not good,” he started in broken Belaskian, face still averted, and then, “Get dressed. I will restart a fire farther off from the body that you left.”
He had switched to Old Stravinan, the tongue of the nobles and other despots. No one else spoke that language by choice, and few even knew it. As one of the traveling people—and one who’d tracked him for so long—she’d learned well enough of it among other dialects.
Of all the questions he might’ve put to her, he asked nothing and stepped off around the fir tree. Not even a thank-you for saving him? Not that she should’ve had to save him—or wanted to. And now that he knew of her presence, the element of surprise was lost, and he’d be that much harder—more dangerous—to kill.
