“You think you’re being coy with me,” Amalys said with a low irritation. “Let’s be truthful, daughter of mine. In the Kingdom of the Elves, no one wants to admit to having a child born of one of us. We are the lowest rung of the ladder. Far from the days when we were the most exalted and children were given up to us to be trained with skill and honor as woodsmen and women, now they’re given up by our partners because we’re outcasts and would taint their precious world with the stink of our labors and the blood of our prey.”
Martaina said nothing. “They’re not all like that. They don’t all see us that way.”
“They’re all like that now,” Amalys said, cutting forcefully into a piece of meat as he shaved some of the excess fat off it. “When I was young, they weren’t. Now it’s different. You know it’s different.” He looked up at her and she felt a charge with his words. “Any man who beds you in this age is merely lowering himself for the satisfaction of his loins.”
She threw down her knife and tossed aside the lump of fat she’d been working loose, throwing it into the cauldron with a soft plopping noise. She stood and felt the fury settle in her heart, in her stomach. “I am not some harlot meant only to pleasure a man and nothing else. You know nothing, old man. The world has run fast around you while you breathe the smoke of your fires out here in the woods and take poppy milk to heal your imaginary aches. There are people out there who don’t consider themselves lower than anyone else, who do kindnesses to others and for others, who would offer even us—your perceived lowest—a place in the Kingdom of the Elves where we need not forage the greens and hunt the woods every night for sustenance. This land is not as you see it in your shallow view, and there is more out there waiting than ever could be found within these borders.”
“So you think, mine daughter?” Amalys said, but there was a weariness about him. “I wish it were so. I think even withdrawn as I am, I know more about this world of yours and its people than you do.” He looked east, back toward Pharesia, back toward their old camp, and she heard him sigh. “More of them are like those guards we met than like this shining vision of which you speak.” He waved a hand at her, reserving his knife in the other hand as though jealously guarding it. She suspected he was trying to be as non-threatening as possible. “But if you truly believe that, why not go seek your interest elsewhere? Why not go find your own greener fields?”
She stood stiffly, feeling like she was seeing him for the first time. He looked weak, a hint uncertain. “Perhaps I will do that very thing,” she said, and took her skinning knife and sheathed it without even wiping it clean first.
“Go on, then,” he said, his voice sounding a bit high and thin. “Go ask this man what he would have you do if you were to leave the woods. Ask him if he would be your husband, make a wife of you. See what he says. See if I’m wrong.” Amalys began to look smaller as she started to walk away, casting a look back to watch him as he kept talking. “Ask him, and I’ll see you again on the morrow when you find out the truth of things out there.”
“No, you won’t,” she breathed and quickened her pace. She could still smell the hint of the bear’s scent on her, but where only hours ago she would have thought it so rare, so fanciful as to be barely believed and celebrated, now she could scarcely stand the smell of it on her dirty hands.
Ten
“I had not thought I would see you tonight,” Nethan said after they’d finished, still sighing into the darkness. “Not that I’m complaining.” He shifted in the bed, disturbing her with his motion. “Though it was a bit of a long day in the fields.”
“Oh?” she asked, trying to find a way to circle around to what she wanted to ask him that wouldn’t seem callous or too forward. Would you marry me?
“I’m afraid so,” Nethan intoned, not catching her intention. “We had to let go a few field hands today due to poor performance. They’re a bit farther up there in the years, close to the turn, and they slow down considerably after a certain point.”
“Could I ever be your wife?” Martaina asked, the words spilling out like the blood from the bear’s neck after the arrow pierced it.
“I … what?” Nethan’s face visibly paled, even in the darkness.
“Would you,” Martaina said, not daring to look at him, instead keeping her eyes fixed on the ceiling above, with its odd white sculpting, “ever make an Iliarad’ouran your wife?”
“Uhm,” Nethan said, almost stuttering, “you are … certainly a balm to me. Great comfort—”
“So I’m fit to be a comfort woman,” Martaina said, not letting any emotion spill out, “but not a wife.”
Nethan seemed taken aback. “I … I … never thought we’d even need to discuss this, but … I mean … I’m a planter. I would have to marry a woman of my station or higher else I’d lose my place in society—”
“I see,” Martaina said, and the heat in her body was intense, more than any time she could recall. The torrent of emotions was almost more than she could bear, lying there with the sheets tangled about her, the curious sense of shame and desire pooling in her. She repressed the urge to twitch with anxiety, to vibrate her leg with nervous energy.
“I am sorry,” Nethan said, and she could see he had turned to her now, in her peripheral vision. “I didn’t know that you’d ever even considered it a possibility—”
“It’s fine,” she said and rolled toward him. She looked him over once, his fine, bronzed skin still as appealing to her as it had been before, his handsome face sown with regret, an expression of deepest sorrow turning his lips down in a pained look. “It’s all right,” she said again and kissed him with a fiery passion that was hotter than any of the times she’d kissed him before. He resisted at first, his eyes still open when she looked, but a few moments of caresses and he gave in.
She steered the course the whole time, never once letting him have a moment of control. She taxed him long, listened to him moan for a release that she never gave him. Once she was done she simply stopped and stared down at him. There was a moment’s hesitation in his eyes, as though he expected her to go on. She looked at him, thinking about him as she would a animal she stalked, and rolled off, not even breathing heavily.
“Why did you stop?” he asked as her feet touched the ground. She fumbled for her animal skins and threw them on, one by one.
“Because I’m done,” she replied as she stood and pulled up her breeches, snugging the rope belt tight.
“Oh,” he said, uncertain, his face crumpled. She wondered if he’d say anything further in protest. He did not. She laced up the front of her shirt, watching him the entire time. He didn’t meet her gaze, didn’t say anything, still looking like he’d been shamed.
She fastened her cloak around her neck, hoisted the quiver up along with the bow, and then looked back. Her hand went to her knife and she realized as her fingers caressed the hilt that it was still dirty, still covered in animal fat and meat, and she crossed back over to the bed in three long strides and kissed Nethan once more.
When she broke he looked up at her with true bewilderment. “What was that for?”
“To remember you by,” she said and then drew the knife and placed it across his neck.
“Please don’t,” he hissed in utter fear. She could smell the night scents, the air was thick with the aroma of their lovemaking, though it hadn’t been love, she knew. “I am so sorry.”
“You will never tell anyone what I’ve done with you,” Martaina said, low and long, and watched a little drop of blood well up at the end of the blade where she had it pressed into his throat. “I am ashamed of myself for the nights I’ve spent lowering myself to be with you. If anyone ever asks, you’ve never heard my name, never known my touch, and never had me grace your bed.” She applied a gentle pressure. “Should so much as a rumor ever reach my ears about an Iliarad’ouran woman and a planter, you shall never see the arrow that brings you low, but you’ll feel every cut of my knife as I drag you into the woods and flay you alive.” She
sniffed deep, remembered the scent of the moment, the fear, his eyes wide. “You may not be able to countenance the thought of me as your wife, but I cannot tolerate the thought of anyone ever believing we were lovers.”
With that she sheathed her blade in one smooth motion, the pungent scent of the meat that she’d cut with it lost beneath the smell of all that had happened in the room, in the bed.
“I’m sorry, Martai—”
“Never say my name again,” she said, stepping into the shadow in front of the door. Light streamed from the frame around her, but she knew that he’d be blinded by it, that she’d be cloaked in the shadow it made of her. “Never so much as whisper it aloud.”
“I’m sorry, nonetheless,” Nethan whispered. “If it were a different time or place—”
“It is not,” she said with utter softness, the harshness heavy even on her ears. “Do not ever pretend it to be otherwise, not to any other woman, lest you find someone with less restraint than I.” With that, she hurled open the door and left, without so much as the squeak of a floorboard to herald her flight from the plantation house.
Eleven
She crossed the darkened woods without worrying about being quiet. Birds flew before the sound of her steps, something she never would have allowed in the day. The chirp of insects echoed in her ears along with Nethan’s words. She felt a heat on her cheeks even these long miles later that contrasted with the night air. The miles passed as the same thoughts repeated themselves over and over without pause, like a ceaseless cawing of crows at daybreak while one was trying to sleep.
She passed through a brook without caring that her feet became chill, she brushed through a patch of fal’thes grass and felt loose blades stick to the wet hides she walked in. At one point she felt nauseous, as though she might loose her empty stomach, but it never happened.
She knew the woods well, the distances involved, and even in her distraction she knew when she was close. A faint glow in the distance heralded the campfire, and the sickly feeling she carried within softened slightly at the knowledge that she was home now, and she would not have to leave the woods again should she not desire to.
A moan that cut through the night air, through the sound of insects, caused her to brush back her long hair, exposing her pointed ears. She cocked her head and listened, and heard the same sound again, that same faint moan in the distance, from the campfire. She thought it curious at first then heard a companion voice come along with it. She slowed her pace, edging closer to the fire, but not so close yet she could see if anyone was around it. The voices carried much farther than her sight, yet she could not discern with her eyes what she was looking at, not in the dark, not with the shadows cast by the flame’s illumination.
She crept closer, believing at first that perhaps Gareth had returned, and felt her heart lighten for but a moment before a crass voice rang out, dispelling that illusion. It was not the sound of Gareth’s voice, nor Amalys’s either. She lowered herself into the grass, going along at a stalking pace, silent movement through the dry leaves and occasional grass.
“A bearskin!” came one of the voices, the loudest one. The crass one. “Where would this crippled old beggar find a bear?”
“Perhaps one of the others hunted it for him,” came a suggestion from another voice, as still another laughed in the background. “Where are the others?”
“The other man was seen by the gate guards in Pharesia entering the city at sundown,” the crass voice spoke again, disinterested in his own reply and clearly focused on something else. “I had them send word by messenger. And the daughter is with her planter for the night, according to a field hand who I paid some bronze to.” A grin crept into the words. “We can go find her next, pay her a visit that she’ll remember—”
Martaina nocked and let fly an arrow before the words finished leaving Hesshan’s lips, and she was close enough now to see the broadhead penetrate his throat, could hear the odd, wet clicking noise as he tried to keep speaking, lips unaware of what had happened only inches lower. She fired again at one of the others, the arrow catching him in the ear and continuing on through his head to jut out the other side. She fired as quickly as she pulled, a calm precision taking over her as though she were merely dispatching prey in the same manner she had done every day for the last several years of her life. She hit the third with an arrow through the eye, and the last she lungshot as he was running away.
Her breathing was surprisingly calm as she entered the camp. Hesshan’s was gasping, his dark skin already slick with blood, pitched over on his back where he’d been sitting, next to Amalys’s body. Martaina spared only a look for her father before she gazed upon Hesshan, his guard’s tunic of navy blue now looking much darker thanks to the spreading stain down its front. He lay next to the fire, and she gave him a sharp kick, rolling him onto the edge of it. He gasped, the bear skin still clutched in his hands. She watched it catch fire, slowly at first then aided by the flames, it ignited Hesshan’s tunic by the sleeves. He gestured wildly, his hands and arms aflame, but she ignored him, stooping to see Amalys.
Her father’s face was already pale and cold to her touch. His eyes were open, his tunic of animal skins wet with blood and pierced in four places. He had no weapon in his hand, nor any nearby, and she knew they had caught him unawares, sleeping, or awake and unready to fight back. She stared into his glassy, unseeing eyes, and wondered if she would have even been able to help if she’d been here, or if it simply would have been a slaughter for two instead.
She stepped over him and took his bow, carefully placing it into his hands and across his chest. “Like an Iliarad’ouran,” she said, not really sure who she was speaking to. She placed the quiver by his side, then turned back to see Hesshan make his last movement, his body burning with the spread of the fire across his clothing.
Martaina took a last look, surveying, unsentimental, and grabbed the light pack she’d left behind that held a patera and a few spices. She always kept it bound together to make it harder for an animal to get into, but that also made it always ready for travel. She took a sniff and reflected that the smell of Hesshan burning was not so different from an animal roasting on a spit, then calmly walked away. The last of the guardsmen was still alive, writhing and lungshot, so she opened his throat with her dagger as she passed, the cold night air chilling her as she did it.
When she was done she cleaned and sheathed her blade, determining her way from the stars. East, she thought and headed back the way she had come.
In the light of the morning sun she caught sight of it, Pharesia, gleaming walls all vine-covered and glorious, the sum of everything she had ever wanted, Nethan and comfortable beds and a life of high finery all in one. She walked toward it until just after sun up, and then turned when she hit the road.
She left the gleaming city behind her as she headed north, losing sight of it by midday, her walk steady and unhurried as she passed under the shaded trees of the Iliarad’ouran’s north woods, her face untouched by any emotion at all as she followed the road and its signs toward a place called Termina.
Twelve
One Thousand Years Later
The hunt was drawing to a close, the Waking Woods giving her every sign that her quarry was near. She could hear something thrashing in the underbrush, the shuffling steps of a desperate man kicking up leaves as he stumbled along. The scent of blood was heavier now, the man’s wound getting worse with his flight. He knows we’re behind him. He knows his steps are dogged, his minutes are numbered. She slitted her eyes to squint ahead, the dark of the night total save for the light of the torches carried by the men behind her.
Her hand was on her bow, an arrow at the ready but the string undrawn, simply waiting for the sight of her foe before she used it. Her steps were light and quick in spite of her intense fatigue, drawing her forward toward the end of this business.
She entered a thicket and heard the rustle of her enemy ahead. She caught a glimpse of his shadow and loosed an arrow. Sh
e blinked her tired eyes and saw it reach home, the gasp of pain torn from her foe’s lips as he was lifted from his feet and thrown to the ground by the force of the arrow. He made a noise, a winded sound that told her he was lung-shot, gasping, and she approached with caution, knife in hand, ready to end the hunt.
He had already rolled to his back, the head of the arrow and the shaft sticking out of his chest. He made a wheezing sound as she approached, the noise of a man not long for the world, and his face carried a dull, flat look, his white hair almost aglow in the light of the torches that followed in her wake.
The dark elf said nothing as she stepped close to him, her knife obvious as his eyes fell to it. He looked from it to her, in obvious pain, his tunic soaked through and bloody. She hesitated just a beat upon seeing him there, laid out, slumped on a root, his upper body at an angle, slightly propped up.
“General Ardin Vardeir,” Thad said from behind her, and she could hear his pleasure in the words. “Run to ground like a common dog as he was retreating.” There was satisfaction dripping from every word. “We could hang him for what he’s done to us these last months, get a measure of pain in return for that he’s paid on us—”
Martaina stooped low, keeping her eyes on the General’s. His hands were grasping his legs, and he was looking at her dully as she dropped to a knee to get close to him. She looked at him, and the light of the torches her party carried gave his face an orange glow, like he was lit by a campfire. All talk of a hanging was sheer lunacy, she knew; the man was breathing his last breaths.
One of his hands came up from his leg, slowly, and tugged at her sleeve. She looked down at it in slight surprise but did nothing to stop it. He smeared his blood on her tunic; her worn, dirty, ragged tunic that had seen battles too numerous to count since last she had washed it. The cloth was still soft against her skin, nothing like the animal skins she had worn when she learned to hunt. Her legs felt the bite of the hard ground, the root that the General was lying on poking into her knee.
Sanctuary Tales (Book 1) Page 10
