Black River

by Peter Fugazzotto

  "Our people need to fight back," said the warlock. "Dhurma needs to pay for the blood."

  The Painted Men squatted in front of their spears and shields. Blue woad washed over their faces, their bare chests.

  "Why are we here?" asked Birgid.

  "They come for us."

  "They come for you."

  "All of the North. They want to eat us up," the warlock said. "But you and me, we have something else for them."

  "I won't do it."

  Fennewyn lips parted revealing glistening teeth.

  She went unwilling, pulled along by the painful grip of Gyrn, down the hill of heather, past the skittish horses and to the largest farmhouse.

  The men of the farm, a handful, woke too late. The Painted Men had gone inside and pulled them out of their beds. The farmers stood slack armed, disheveled. These were not the famed soldiers of Dhurma. Dirt circled their nails, straw poked out of beards, their ribs pressed against their skin with each breath.

  The children that had gathered at the hips of their mothers were dirty, too, and hungry, their cheeks hollowed.

  "We have nothing," said one of the farmers.

  Fennewyn's blue eyes scanned the dozen or so men.

  "I won't do this," said Birgid. "It is against all that we know."

  "You will do this."

  "Kill me first."

  The warlock laughed. With surprising speed he lashed out with his walking stick and knocked one of the mothers away from her child, a ragged little girl with chapped cheeks and flaking lips. The old man's bony fingers tangled into the girl's dark hair as he pressed her head to the ground. Kneeling on her, he drew a knife and pressed it so that the flesh of her neck yielded.

  "You will do this," he said. "Prove to me that you can still do it. I need to know."

  "What you ask of me is against nature."

  "They are against nature. They come here. Dirty dark-skinned invaders. They come across the Black River. They tear up our land with their metal plows and enslaved horses. And when we send them back, away from where they do not belong, they come at us with swords and spears. They come for us. For our sons and daughters." His breath left hurried. "Birgid, you and I share the pain."

  "But what you ask..."

  "What I ask is for you to accept our destiny. It is in us. It is what we can do. It is what we must do. Because if we do not, then they will never turn away. These farmers will come and then there will follow soldiers and they will not be content until the heather is red with the blood of the North." He shifted the blade along the girl's neck and a thin line of blood formed and then drops against her bare skin.

  "But will it ever end?"

  He laughed, his voice unfurling through the mists. "If there is one thing that I can promise, it is that this will end. It most definitely will."

  She wavered, the children staring at her, knowing that what she said mattered.

  "Just one today," he said. "That is all I ask."

  "Just one?"

  "Only that."

  Birgid stood apart from the others while the Painted Men hitched the horses to a wagon. They bound the arms of the farmers and their wives and led them to sit in the bed of the wagon. The children screamed and wailed but the old granny corralled them to her spread arms.

  A single farmer lay trussed on the ground at the feet of the warlock. "Why are you doing this? We'll leave. We'll go away."

  "Others will come," said Fennewyn. "Like so many rats in the grain houses."

  Birgid came alongside the warlock. "Is it just that you need to know that I can still do this for you? Is it just the promise that you seek?"

  "They need to know. The vermin from the south need to know the power of the North. They need to know."

  "That's not what it is. You want them to come for you."

  "I want them to pay in blood."

  She shook her head.

  "This," he said, "or all the children."

  Birgid wished that his blade would drag across her throat. Then she would be free. But then she remembered Fionn, his body in the stream, her son, and dark rage filled her. They had done this to her son. She would never be free.

  "Kill him," she said.

  The old man drove his dagger into the farmer's chest. She could feel his life streaming out of him, wisps of light rising through the mists. She wondered where it was that he went.

  But the moment was brief and she needed to capture it before it vanished, so she opened her mouth and let the song unravel. He was there with her. She saw a boy against the banks of a wide river, being tossed high in his father's arms. She saw him pressed against the warm body of his wife beneath thin sheets. She saw him on one knee pressing the earth around a bright green sprout.

  The wisps of lights took root in her heart.

  She no longer stood on that cold ground. Instead she looked at it from above. The farm marring the fields of heather. Fennewyn's song unfurling, his arms raised above his head, words dancing from between his lips. Their songs became one. Then the corpse moved, twitched, suddenly lurched to its feet, free of the ropes that once bound it.

  The children screamed, and ran with the granny, prompted by the spears, ran south, to the ruts that led to the Black River, to far away Cullan town, to the swords that waited to cross the river.

  Birgid wanted to end the song, but she could not. Fennewyn would not relent.

  The corpse picked up a hoe and cut at a dog near its feet.

  The Painted Men dragged torches around the farmhouses and flames and black smoke rose. The farmers and their wives huddled in the back of the wagon, eyes turned from the horror they were witnessing.

  Then Fennewyn relented, his lips closing, pitching forward.

  As he did, the animated corpse collapsed to the ground.

  Birgid fell to her knees, the cold wet earth soaking through her skirt. She cut off her song and the soul of the farmer stretched away, the wisps of his being ripping away, tearing at the witch's heart.

  She buckled with the pain of the tearing, but the pain served her. It allowed her for a moment to forget the memory of cradling the decayed corpse of her son in her arms. That was good.

  RUMOR OF DARK MAGIC

  SHIELD SAT HIS horse on the knoll, east of Cullan proper. The land swept away towards the west, towards the seas, a land cut by the ice giants, a furrow of earth through which the Black River ran. It was mid-morning, the worst of the dawn chill having given way to the cold that would occupy the day.

  Shield was surprised how much more alive he felt with the cold against his skin, the seep of it beneath collar and cuff. The South had always made him sleepy, an eternal tiredness, a body tacky with the remnants of sweat. The return North was beginning to change him.

  Distant geese arrowed south, their lines bending but always staying together in their shape. He had often seen geese further south. Not so far south as Dhurma, but close enough that they always made him feel that the world was a much smaller place than he had ever imagined. Maybe it was. Maybe it was just that people made the world seem larger by staying where they were, never venturing into uncharted territories.

  But he had traveled far, beyond what was familiar. In that action there had been a hope deep buried, the hope that far from the lands of his people and his birth that he would find something so magnificently different that it would change the course of his life.

  All these years and the course was still the same.

  He was still the man of the sword toiling, battling and surviving.

  Shield always felt that he was entering the same battle, fighting the same fight, killing the same version of himself that stared at him across blade and shield.

  Twenty years, tens of thousands of steps taken, exotic lands visited and destroyed, and yet he was the same.

  That magnificent difference was never found.

  Was the potential for that change always there the whole time just in front of him and he never seized it? Or did it lay deeper than the territory in which
he was willing to venture? Could he ever find that territory by walking on the map that the Dhurmans laid out for him? And could he ever really find that place in his mad pursuit to purge the land of warlocks and wizards? Was it a place that a man could only arrive at by himself, unencumbered with others, with his past? Or was it best arrived at full and with companions?

  Hooves on turf pulled Shield from his reflection.

  Harad, his simple and faithful companion of so many years, guided his horse up the rocky slope. The big man's breath steamed the air before him. "Near the entire force," he said.

  Shield looked down at the units of Dhurman soldiers, men on foot and on horse, marching along the bank of the Black River heading east. Below him the hundred some soldiers of the fortress at Cullan town moved along.

  "Where do they plan on heading?" Shield had been surprised to hear them mustering in the morning. He thought at first that Urbidis had suddenly gotten it into his mind that his men needed discipline and was going to drill them all morning long, something that Shield personally thought that they needed. But instead, they had assembled, formed their units, and begun an orderly and slightly hurried march away from their garrison.

  "Oron's Belt is what one of the old timers thought."

  "They'll cross the Black River."

  Harad nodded.

  "Why? Cassius told me they don't have an interest in the land that lies across."

  The big man shrugged. "The old man didn't know much. He wasn't too keen on leaving the walls and fires of the fort."

  Shield watched the line of men move along the ribbon of the river. "Let's go see where they're going."

  "What about the Chronicler? We're supposed go further east today, find another village to ask his million and one questions. Personally I think he just likes getting the young pretty girls alone in a hut with him."

  "Is he even up yet? That Xichil can't move without the sun warming his backside. Harad, if the winter doesn't break him, he'll end up never leaving the garrison. We'll be on our own then. Maybe he will leave for good. We've got time. Plus Patch is there waiting for him. He can delay him." Shield stared at the line of men moving along the river. "Let's go see what we can find out."

  Down by the river, they came upon two scouts, squat, scraggly bearded Dhurmans lightly armed. "You were with the Hounds, weren't you?" asked one of them. "I was there with you in Fiolus. I mean I wasn't a scout then, just a foot soldier. But I remember what you did there. Turned things for us."

  Shield remembered the raid in the night, the scaling of the walls, the fight to open the gates while the soldiers on the inside came at them hard. The city fell soon after that. "Now you are here."

  The scout nodded. His hand swept across the landscape. "Not where I imagined myself. But I asked too many questions, good questions, ones that answered would have saved many lives. Now I get the blasted cold. No offense, Northman, but I'd rather be in among the grape vines and olive trees."

  "Where's the troop going?"

  The scout looked at his companion who tilted his head.

  "He's not one to betray," said the scout. "And up here, what are we actually fighting? Rumors?" He turned back to Shield. "Across the Black River. Officially Empire only lays it claims south of the Black River. The land is better, more workable, but I am even having doubts about that. Unofficially settlers are laying claims north of the river. They know full well that they are not under our official protection, but they are citizens of Empire and we have certain responsibilities whether we like them or not.

  "Settlers are not coming in to market. A few stories of farms being wiped out. Hard to say what it is. Houses burned. No bodies at all. Urbidis thinks it's raiding parties from the clans north of the Black River laying down their hand on the trespass on their lands. But there are rumors."

  "What kind of rumors?" asked Shield.

  "Dark magic. An army of the dead. A warlock who sings up an army, slowly gathering his troops before he will descend across the Black River, coming for his revenge on Dhurma for all that we have done over the years."

  "And what do you think?"

  "I've seen the hoof prints, the burnt out buildings, the looted houses. It's raiders plain and simple. Plus who ever heard of a warlock raising the dead?"

  Shield and Harad retreated to the hills again, watching the slow progress of the armed men. The soldier's initial energy and enthusiasm had already given way to a general weariness, the dread of exertion that men often feel when first taking to their feet and returning to the field. The two Northmen watched them all the way to the distant stones of Oron's Belt.

  "You think there's a warlock up across there?" asked Harad.

  Shield stared out across the wide valley knowing that far to the west, the icy seas met the land, and he wondered if this was where things would end, if his travels were over, and he wondered what would be left for him after Vincius finally abandoned hope.

  THE WORK OF THE CHRONICLER

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON Harad was still thinking about whether there was a warlock of such power beyond the Black River. Ahead of him, Shield silently held the reins of his horse, its breath heavy through its nostrils. Further ahead, Patch rode alongside Vincius who insisted on walking as they closed in on a small village.

  The night prior, the Apprentice Chronicler had brought his maps to the three Hounds, shoving aside their cups of mead, waving the hall keeper to remove the platter of still unfinished meat. Harad thought Patch would stab him right then and there. Vincius's long soft fingers pointed at villages and traced paths on the flattened rolls of paper. He had a plan for systematically going through each village, of doing it in a way that if there were witches and warlocks that they would not be able to predict which village he would strike at next. After the bare-faced Xichil had gathered up his maps and left, Patch pulling back his cup of mead had barked that they should be figuring which muddy creek between villages would be the best spot to leave the Apprentice's body for the worms.

  Harad slapped his horse's neck and urged her up the steep deer path that rose out of the creek bed. Vincius had wanted to detour off the main road, to slip through the copse of woods, and then come at the village from a direction that few ever did. Patch had mumbled something about arrows coming at them from a direction that few ever did.

  Another quarter of an hour through the trees and they would be at the edge of the village.

  Harad and Patch dragged behind, letting Shield and Vincius forge their path through the intertwining of trails and the heavy grabbing brush.

  "He imagines himself a true magic hunter," said Harad.

  Patch yawned and then stood for a moment in his saddle. "You know, at one point, when I was but a wee lad, I imagined myself a baker. Breads, pies, the whole works. I think that I just wanted to be near the warm ovens."

  "You saw how good he is with maps and planning."

  "You're serious about this? About that little vermin?" Patch settled heavily in his saddle. "Well, I suppose we really have nothing else to do. All this wanting to come back to the North, you ever think that it actually might be boring?"

  "More than just the maps," said Harad. "He's got a single-mindedness about him. Just like Shield does."

  Patch laughed. "I can't imagine two more different people. The giant, fierce Northman and the shrimpy Xichil with the big head."

  "He hasn't treated us poorly."

  "I won't either when I put the knife in his back."

  "I think we are right to follow him. He leads us towards something great perhaps."

  "Would you follow him to the edge of a cliff? Would you charge a cohort single handedly for him? He doesn't evoke any of that in me," said Patch. "I only follow him now because I follow Shield. But even that I am questioning. Where's the fucking coin? What are we chasing? A slow road to our deaths? Honestly, I wonder every day whether we should turn back to Vas Dhurma. Still a chance for coin there. I needed to get out of there after what happened to Hawk, but now what? Are we even more misera
ble than before? Will we never amount to anything?"

  They arrived in the village much as Vincius had planned, pausing in the line of trees and then coming swiftly but not hurriedly into the village. It was late in the afternoon and the women had already returned from the fields and most of the men were back from their hunting and fishing. Harad hoped things would go well since they would need to spend the night either in the village or beneath the cold night sky.

  The village was as simple affair, three communal roundhouses, surrounded by a fence of woven saplings, not enough defense to keep out an adamant enemy but enough to discourage the occasional indecisive raiding party and wild animals. No one stood watch at the threshold and the riders passed unchallenged into the village.

  A tall, big-faced Northwoman stepped from the dark interior of one of the roundhouses. Her hair was matted into locks and her body draped in furs. She cradled a swaddled baby in one arm, its plump cheek pressed to her bare breast. "Greetings, countrymen." Her eyes drifted to the Apprentice Chronicler. "You come from Cullan town?"

  Shield nodded.

  "Times have changed," the woman said. "Used to be riders would never come to us unknown without waiting at the edge of our sight, waiting to be invited into the village."

  "Times have changed," responded Shield.

  Harad open and closed his hands as more villagers emerged from the roundhouses. He was surprised at how many children there were. This had been one of the unexpected things he found upon returning to the North: the children. He was sure that they had not been absent in the South but it had only been upon the return to the North that they occupied his awareness. He felt a strange longing to get to know children, to understand them.

  He stared at a little girl clutching at the fur cloak that hung from her mother's shoulder. She hid her ash-smeared face and then slowly let her eyes peek out. He could not contain his smile.

  Patch grunted and then said, low almost as if in a breath, "Gods, did you get knocked in the head in Hopht?"