by Aaron Bunce
She thought back to her first night in Bardstown, and the strange procession of animals that came streaming out of the wilderness, moving of similar goal and interest. She flashed back to the night she spent before Roman’s fire. She realized that she had perhaps put herself in even more danger in her attempts to escape Banus.
Dennah remembered his nightmare, but most of all his screams of fear and pain. She shivered thinking about her attempt to shake him awake, and the cold that clung to her skin.
She convinced herself that it was the drink. After all, it had been some time since she had anything resembling a good meal or good wine. She could have drifted off and dreamt the whole thing. Yet, the cold lingered on her hand the following morning.
Dennah pushed through the rest of the trees, finally reaching the southern crest of the hill. An old watchtower loomed ahead of her. Tadd told her how the structure had been abandoned thaws ago, left to crumble and rot when the Earl removed the bulk of his troops from the sleepy crossroads town. She remembered seeing the tower from the town below, a solitary structure perched amongst the flaky bark of shooting birch trees.
The door to the circular structure hung open, but if refused to move when she tried to push it open further. Dennah sucked in her breath and squeezed through the narrow gap.
Once inside, Dennah used the gloom cascading through the slit windows to rifle through the rubble on the ground. She found a rusted knife, a pot with a hole in it, and the ashy remains of a fire. Someone else had taken refuge in the structure, although the makeshift campsite looked thaws old.
Dennah paused at the base of the circular stair and listened to the mournful wail of the wind outside and the dripping rain. She climbed the stairs one at a time, testing the timber with a small amount of weight. Around and around she went, hugging the outside wall until she stepped out into the open once again.
The cold rain poured down in heavy sheets, soaking her hair one moment and splattering her face the next as the wind shifted. She stepped to the edge and looked out over Bardstown and its surrounding land. The town looked peaceful in the gloom.
Dennah accepted the sting of the rain against her exposed skin and started to shiver. Every inch of her body was soaked, and the wind continued to grow colder. The discomfort helped her straighten the jumble of thoughts that cluttered her mind. It made her feel sharp, aware.
She also accepted the pain and discomfort as a punishment, her stinging reminder of all she had to lose. Looking down at Bardstown she truly realized how she had erred. Leaving home left a gaping void in her life, one that she was desperate to fill.
It was the security of the only home she had ever known, the love of her parents, and the protection of her six older brothers. Despite having Tadd, who was much like a toothless version of her own grandfather, and Folkvar, the little brother she never had, Dennah was lonely and homesick.
She was surprised at how much Bardstown felt like home. She knew that she couldn’t stay, knew that it was just another temporary stop off on their town-to-town circuit, that the relationships she forged would be short-lived at best. Yet for some reason, she felt rooted. When she met Roman, she saw much of the frailty and loneliness in him that she felt herself.
That was her failure. She had allowed her need for something familiar, something comfortable, to override her sense of wellbeing.
“This is a dangerous land,” she said, remembering what her father told her before she left. “If they ain’t family, don’t trust em. Watch your back and your front at all times, monsters can wear many faces, remember that. And above all else stay safe and come home in one piece.”
He made her repeat it and promise before he would let her leave. She could tell that it tore him up inside to see her leave, to know that she would be out there in the world alone. And he could no longer protect her.
The cruel realities of her misplaced trust in Roman stung her. But it didn’t end there. Her struggle to win respect from Banus and his ilk would likely never be won. She might hold her own if she remained strong and vigilant.
Dennah decided that her best chance of survival was to harden herself, ask nothing of those not known to her, and keep only the company of those she truly knew and trusted. Her long conversations by the fire with Tadd were starting to make sense now, how an old man who had spent his entire life on the road could have so many acquaintances, yet so few friends.
In those moments where Tadd truly opened up to her, Dennah saw a side of the man that was altogether contrary to the person everyone else saw. He too, after so many thaws of swindles, betrayals, lies and disappointments had created another persona to keep people away from his true self. Dennah found that she liked the real Tadd, who preferred Theo over his self-appointed nickname.
She learned that he had grandchildren out there somewhere, and he was more educated than anyone she had ever met before. Not just the toothless old oaf, horse wrangling caravan jockey everyone believed him to be, but a lover of written word, philosophy, and history.
The caravan started to make sense to her. Why they clustered together, rarely moving out of their trusted circles. Dennah didn’t want to become like Tadd, emotionally closed and afraid to share her true feelings and desires with anyone, but she also understood that it might be her only choice.
“Goodbye,” she said quietly to the small town, the rain rattling down around her.
Dennah shifted her weight between feet, feeling the cold water squelch in her boots. She looked to the sky as the rain broke, and for a moment, the wind died down to a gentle whisper. She closed her eyes as the sun broke through the clouds, its warmth splashing across her numb skin.
A white flash split the sky, and a moment later thunder rumbled threateningly. The sun disappeared again, swallowed whole by the churning gray clouds of Denoril’s early winter tempest. Lightning struck again in the distance, the flash so bright it blinded her for a moment.
Dennah wiped the water from her face and shielded her eyes as the rain started to fall once again. Beyond the swaying trees and flying leaves to the north lay a valley, and beyond that several farmsteads.
The houses looked eerily still in the cold and sopping weather. There was no smoke winding from their chimneys, nor firelight in the windows. She didn’t know why, but the quaint homes looked strangely vacant.
Surely people wouldn’t be away from their homes in such weather. Surely they would light fires and candles for warmth and light.
Livestock pens sat next to the thatched homes. Even from her distance she could see that entire sections of the fence were torn down, and not a single animal was insight.
Dennah looked back up into the sky and saw a frightful sight. A massive cloud hung like a dark wall. It reached all the way up to the heavens and hung so low it looked as if it would scrape the ground. Lightning forked at a violent rate with the bubbling, angry mass of the wall cloud, and its thunder rolled continuously, like a massive, hungry animal.
Dennah heard the wind before she felt it. It rushed up the hill, buzzing through the trees like a hoard of angry locusts. The gust hit her with the force of an angry bull, pushing her back, her boots sliding against the sodden timber. Dennah dug her fingers into the soft wood as she struggled to right herself, the wind raging in her ears, threatening to push her off the roof.
She looked up into the hungry mouth of the wall cloud as it pushed towards her with frightening speed. The wind didn’t blow in gusts anymore but in a prolonged and forceful rush. It was all she could manage just to hold her ground as she fought to get back to the stairs.
Dennah toppled forward. One moment she was held in place by the forceful winds, and then they shifted and she was falling into the stairwell. She tumbled down the steps, cursing with each jostling drop until she finally managed to stop her momentum halfway down. She came to rest in a less than graceful pose, her feet above her head.
Dennah started to laugh as she untangled herself from the steps, but she wasn’t entirely sure if it was from her u
ngainly tumble, or the fear of narrowly escaping a deathly fall from the tower.
She jumped the remaining stairs as mortar and rock rained down from above and squeezed back out through the doorway just as a massive pile of loose rock and broken planks crashed down in the darkness behind her.
The leading edge of the storm loomed overhead as she started down the hill, the clouds swirling and seething like dark eddies in a raging river. The light shifted around her, phasing between shades of gray, white, and green.
She hopped between trees, banging her shins and elbows with every movement. But she dared not stop. The wind swirled and like a massive tidal wave the wall of storm enveloped her. The landscape instantly transformed from day to night.
Dennah felt the rain pounding down on her from seemingly every direction, panic gripping her as she lost track of which direction was which. She continued down the hill, moving blindly from tree to tree. The town was close. In good conditions, she could cover the ground in a matter of moments. Now she had to be careful. One wrong turn and she might wander away from town and become hopelessly lost.
The ground moved and squirmed, the mud and water rushing by her feet in a forceful torrent. Dennah forced her eyes open and waited. A moment later a streak of lightning split the sky overhead.
The light flared in the darkness, the arc of electricity lingering in the sky for a heartbeat after the initial crash. Dennah moved, using every blinding flash of lightning to pick her way closer and closer to what she hoped was safety.
After an excruciating trek, the outlying buildings of Bardstown reappeared out of the storm. Dennah sloshed down the muddy roadway, the rain striking the ground with such force that it spattered the muddy soup back up into her face. The large lanterns that normally filled the roadway with light danced crazily in the wind, their fires long ago vanquished by the storm.
Dennah trudged up the steps of the White Crowe, her battle against the storm leaving her legs dead and her feet impossibly heavy. She slid her foot onto the top step as the wind surged, swirling around her and threatening to suck her from the old weathered stairs.
The handrail rocked back, but she pushed forward and slammed painfully into the door. She turned the knob, the cold stealing the strength from her hands but just managed to open the door and slip through.
She let the door slam shut behind her and leaned back against the wall to catch her breath. The storm continued to rage, whistling angrily at her through the cracks in the door.
She opened her eyes and realized that the whole of the Inn had gone quiet. She walked forward, her boots sliding precariously on the wood floor, aware that everyone was staring at her.
I must be a sight, she thought, soaked and dirty, her teeth chattering from the cold.
Dennah wiped the hair out of her face self-consciously, her fingers trembling. She looked from face to face and then saw him. Folkvar’s boyish face appeared, bobbing between two tall men. When the two men would not let him through, the stable hand ducked back down and reappeared moments later through another throng of people.
“Dennah, where have you been? Tadd thought surely you were blown away by now!” Folkvar said, bouncing up to her.
“Went…walk,” Dennah tried to say, but her lips felt like mush in the middle of her face.
“Come with me. We have a room in the back. It’s small, but you can warm up.” Folkvar grabbed her hand and led her back through the group, his skin gloriously warm against hers.
Dennah followed as best she could, but her feet were numb, and she stumbled into several people before they reached the safety of the hallway. Folkvar led her through a small door at the end of the hallway, where she found Tadd sitting in a high-backed chair before a small iron fire box.
“We were worried sick about you, Girlie. When that storm rolled in, I thought…well, I’m just happy you’re safe. But look at you, you’re freezing. Let’s get those wet clothes off of you so you can warm by the fire,” Tadd said, pushing himself out of the large chair.
Tadd threw a wool blanket over her shoulders and helped her unbuckle the sodden leather straps. Even with help it was the work of several moments before she was free of the waterlogged gear.
“Alright, boy, let’s give the girl some privacy,” Tadd say, ushering Folkvar out into the hallway.
“I can help…” Folkvar argued.
“I know, boy. Later, perhaps,” Tadd said chuckling and closed the door behind him.
Dennah stripped out of her wet clothing and settled into the large chair before the firebox, the heavy woolen blanket pulled tightly around her. Tadd knocked softly a few moments later and reentered, poking his head in sheepishly to make sure she was decent before opening the door the rest of the way. He dropped a mug of warm apple wine into her hands and bent down to stoke the fire. Folkvar hung her clothes up before the fire to dry.
“We were preparing the wagons to leave when the storm rolled in. I ain’t sure how many wagons we got covered before the worse of the rain started. Nasty stuff, nasty,” Tadd said, settling down on a chair against the wall.
Dennah listened and nodded, but she could already feel her head growing fuzzy. The apple wine grew warm in her stomach, and her teeth finally stopped chattering. She told Tadd and Folkvar about the cleric, and how she had convinced her to tend to Roman, but from the look on Tadd’s face, she could tell that news had already spread.
“Aye, we heard. Banus and his mates have been boasting about it. They’re not shy. Talking it up like Roman’s a monster. Can’t be…” Tadd said, but shook her head, cutting him short. “Wait, you don’t think he’s capable of doing that to those people, do you?”
Dennah rubbed her cheek against the scratchy fabric of the wool blanket, pleased that feeling was starting to return to her face.
I don’t know,” she said honestly. “Things aren’t always as they appear. I was there when Tilith tried to heal Roman. I saw what happened, and it scared the hell out of me.” Tilith’s words rattled around in her head.
There is something inside him. “But what does that mean? What could be inside of him?”
“Girlie…” Tadd started, but he stopped to scratch his chin and appeared to struggle over how to continue.
“I just want to be gone from here,” Dennah said, staring at the fire.
None of them spoke after that. Dennah silently pondered it all but quickly started to doze. Her head grew heavy, so she tucked in tighter with the blanket and closed her eyes. Before long she had succumbed to the lullaby of the storm.
* * * *
Dennah awoke with a start. The fire glowed in the iron box, but it had burned down to a bed of coals. She had slumped in the chair, the blanket sliding off and exposing a bit more than she was willing to share.
She sat up straight in the chair, pulling the blanket in close but realized that Tadd and Folkvar were both fast asleep. Tadd fell asleep sitting up on the single bed, his pipe still clutched securely in his mouth, while the young stable hand had curled up on a bedroll in the corner.
Dennah slid out of the chair but hopped back quickly, surprised by the chill of the floorboards. She sucked in her breath and eased her feet down once again, before crouching down to drop a few fresh pieces of wood in the firebox. The room glowed brightly as the fresh wood started to burn. She quickly dressed.
At least they are dry, she thought as she dressed. They would get her by until she found her bags and her change of clean clothes.
She dropped back onto the chair and checked her boots, but they were still wet. If only I had enough money for another pair, she thought longingly, and instantly remembered the handful of gold she gave Roman. The idea made her angry, so she turned her focus to the fire.
Dennah stoked and stirred the iron firebox, occasionally tiptoeing to the room’s solitary window. She pressed her face up to the glass to peer outside but couldn’t see anything in the darkness. When she pulled away, her nose glistened with frost.
“I’m hungry, are you?” Folkvar
asked, rubbing his stomach, his eyes still narrow with sleep. Dennah nodded, the mere mention of food making her stomach rumble.
“They roasted a side of beef last night, mightn’t be there is some left. Some of yester’s bread and fresh eggs to go along with it sounds tasty. That would fill you up proper, I think,” Tadd said, rubbing his scrubby beard.
They filed out of the small room and into the dark hallway, making their way by the gentle glow of the tavern ahead. Dennah found many of the caravan’s workers asleep, slumped over in their chairs or sprawled out over the tables.
Banus and his bullish mate Tarkus sat at a table by the bar. Dennah was sure he saw her first and played her best to pretend she hadn’t noticed him. She stifled a chuckle when she envisioned his red, swollen, and crooked nose.
Banus no doubt longed to strike at her, but whether to humiliate or injure, she didn’t know. She figured as long as other people were around she would be safe. He would be foolish to start a conflict with her while Teague was within earshot. But they wouldn’t always be around to keep her safe.
The Captain and his men sat huddled around the open fireplace, talking quietly. Teague noticed Dennah, Tadd, and Folkvar and gestured them over. The group of heavily armored men broke from their heated conversation as Dennah and Tadd approached.
“Good morn,” Dennah said with a smile, hoping the events from the day before hadn’t soured Teague’s impression of her.
Teague looked up and nodded, smiling genuinely. The glow of the firelight threw his face into deep relief. Shadows hung heavily beneath his eyes and his mouth drooped in a profound scowl. He reached up and rubbed his red eyes with the palms of his hands before speaking.
“I wish you could be greeted by a fairer day, and moods you will no doubt discover,” Teague said after clearing his throat.
