She was saved by a distraction at the other side of the table. Jayke had arrived, she didn’t know when or where from, she didn’t care, all she knew was he was there, and his face had turned beet-red in anger.
He said not a word, just grabbed the soldier who had his arm wrapped around Yolan by the front of his uniform, and lifted him two feet in the air. Two of the soldiers polished brass buttons popping off in the process, dropping with dull pings as they hit the wooden table, rolling slightly. Erris wasn’t sure why she noticed the buttons out of everything else happening. They just stood out to her for some reason.
Jayke stood for a second, veins on his neck and arms bulging, his eyes wide as he glared murder at the soldier held above him. The soldier seemed frightened. His legs kicked vainly in the air below him, and he grabbed at Jayke’s arms in a weak attempt at freeing himself. Jayke held him there a moment, staring at the soldier as if judging something, then he grunted and his arms strained as he hurled the soldier bodily towards the tables at the center of the room.
The tavern was silent for a fraction of a second, then the grating of chairs on the wooden floor filled it as the rest of the soldiers stood en-masse. Blessedly, the soldier that had been grabbing at Erris stood as well, dropping her to the table as his attention shifted to her brother.
Jayke stood facing the soldier he had thrown, who was scrambling quickly to his feet, but the rest of the soldiers stood facing him, all laughter gone from their faces, and their hands on sword-hilts.
It was the thrown soldier who drew first, and Yolan screamed as the short sword rasped free of its leather sheath, swinging up, glittering in the tavern firelight, to point waveringly at her husband.
‘You’re gonna be sorry, bastard’ the soldier growled as he swung his arm slowly back over his shoulder and made to strike.
Yolan and someone else, Erris couldn’t tell who, screamed again as Erris half lay, motionless, her arms holding her up against the table where the soldier had dropped her, watching and wondering where her father was, and why he wasn’t saving them.
Time inched slowly as he stepped into view, as if her thoughts had summoned him. He carried one of the taverns heavy wooden chairs in both hands, and he swung hard as he blindsided the soldier threatening Jayke.
The chair cracked, splintered and broke as it hit the soldier, sending small chunks of wood flying with the soldier, his sword spinning dangerously through the air, as he landed in a crumpled heap ten feet from where he had stood.
There was another stunned, all encompassing silence for a moment, then the metallic clang of the soldiers lost sword hitting the ground was accompanied by the leather rasp of sword on sheathe as the remaining soldiers drew in unison.
Time still inched, it inched and it crept, it stalled and it dragged, it did anything but move as it should as her father stood, the back of the shattered chair still held tight in his hands. He stood in the middle of the tavern floor, his face red, his arms bulging, his jaw clenched in fury, and he looked the strongest man in the world as stared down the nine angry, armed soldiers.
Erris had no idea how much time passed as everyone in the room stood, silent, staring at each other. She wondered if time was passing, or if it had stopped, and she would stand forever in that horrible moment.
When time did finally start again, it wasn’t with the violent, bloody outburst that she had expected.
‘Drop your swords!’ a gruff voice yelled from the bar, and every head in the tavern swiveled in its direction.
There, on the near side of the bar, one raised foot planted on the seat of a chair, stood the tavern’s owner. His large, vest-covered belly and thinning grey hair hardly let him cut an imposing figure, but the large metal blunderbuss in his hands, pointing at the soldiers certainly did.
The gun didn’t shine or glitter; its metal was dull, and its wooden stock well-worn. But its large, fluted barrel certainly gave the soldiers more pause than Johan and his broken chair.
‘Get out of here you lot’, the tavern keep said, motioning the soldiers towards the door with the barrel of his gun. His voice brokered no debate, no argument, and the gun in his hands brokered even less.
‘Right,’ said one of the less drunk soldiers as he sheathed his sword, ‘We were just leavin’ anyhow.’ He spat at Johan’s feet as he turned, but he still left the tavern, followed shortly by the rest of the soldiers. Two of the soldiers grabbed the hurt one from off the floor, hauling him to the door by his shoulders. He seemed to be trying to stand, but he was clearly still too shaken up to do so, and it was only the arms of his two allies that kept him on his feet.
As the last soldier left, the innkeeper lowered his gun, and wiped the pooling sweat off his brow with the back of one shaking hand.
‘You had all best get out of here too,’ he said, laying the blunderbuss on the bar’s countertop, ‘‘fore they come back.’
Johan was already motioning to his family; getting the children carried, the upturned chairs put right, getting them and all their parcels piled quickly at the door.
He stopped in front of the shorter, older tavern keep before they left, laying a hand on the other man’s shoulder.
‘Thanks’ he said, offering a small pouch of coins with his free hand,
‘Don’t mention it’ the portly man replied, but he took the pouch anyways.
Then the family was out the door, hitching Marmot to the wagon quickly, and the next thing Erris knew, they were bouncing away over the cobblestone roads of the village, leaving at a much swifter pace than they had come. It was a flurry of activity as they left the tavern, and Erris could barely keep up with it. She was sure she was missing something too. The soldiers were nowhere to be seen when they left the tavern, and her brothers and father kept glancing worriedly at each other. Erris didn’t even remember to ask what they had been discussing in the tavern; any thought of the family’s hushed conversation had vanished the moment the soldiers’ harassment had started.
Erris lay down in the now empty back of the wagon, Joahn and Boll beside her, and lay staring at the night sky, her mind racing as the wagon trundled over the worn cobblestones on its way out of the village.
Pain
I
Considering all that had happened that day, it was no wonder that Gel slept poorly. No sooner had he flopped onto his bed and closed his eyes then he saw Sheane’s face, covered in tears, running away from him. He tried to catch her, but the grass was long, and it caught at his pants as he ran, tripping and slowing him. It felt like the ground was grabbing him and pulling him down, trying to swallow him. But Sheane in her flowing dress kept getting further away, her face buried in her hands, her sobs slowly getting more and more faint until they disappeared completely. He could still see her though, her hair flowing in the wind as she ran from him. The grass didn’t touch her at all, even as it rose around his legs and twined around his hands. He tried to hack at it with his sword, but it was really a lute, and it wouldn’t cut.
Gel didn’t understand how she was still running. The grass was low around her feet, but it was almost up to his neck now, and he couldn’t break free. He could see every step she made, every step further from him, but he couldn’t reach her, he couldn’t even reach out to her anymore.
He knew it was because he had kissed Mae. Sheane was sad and angry, because Mae had told her, and now she was running away from him and he would never get to see her again. And then he saw Mae.
There was no sun in the sky, just Mae. There she stood above him, at once giant and tiny, and perfect. She was smiling down at him, the light of her light blue eyes lighting his world in place of the sun, and she smiled as she turned and started to unbutton her dress.
He started awake for the first time, sweating. He was hot and clammy, and couldn’t stop thinking of Sheane and Mae. He stripped to his undergarments and lay, eyes closed, on his bed. He tried counting sheep, he tried performing one of Don Vole’s more boring compositions in his head, but no matter what he tried, it se
emed like he sweated and tossed and turned for hours before he finally fell back asleep, not even noticing when he did so.
This time he stood alone in a deserted city, its houses crumbling and abandoned. He did not know the city, but the cobwebs hanging in the doors of the buildings, just in front of the complete blackness that waited inside each house frightened him. Walking down a suddenly familiar street, he came to a fork in the road, and at its center stood Sheane and Mae. He raised a hand towards them, and they both turned on a dime and walked away from him, each taking separate paths. Neither so much as glanced at him, or each other, as they turned, they just walked away, leaving him standing, arm outstretched.
‘It’s only a dream’ he thought as he turned to sit in the middle of the fork; he would not chase either one, or he would lose them both. He couldn’t lose them, he loved them. If he lost them, he’d never see them again.
As he sat, he fell. The city was gone, and he was falling, fast as the wind. To either side of him as he fell flashed visions of his two friends, but he could reach out to neither. He watched as they grew old, married, had children, and died, all without him. Why had they left him?
Or had he left them?
He didn’t know who they had married, or what their children looked like, but as he looked at them falling beside him, they looked the same. He knew they were getting older; knew their lives were passing by without him. But it was the dream, he knew, and he hated it.
As he woke for the second time, he knew that he had chosen neither girl, and that they had both moved on without him. He felt lost, and alone, and hot again. Gel stood and moved to the window by his bed, but by the time he had thrown open the shutters, the dream had already passed from his mind.
As he lay back down in bed and fell once more into a fitful sleep, he forgot he even had a dream, but the feelings of sadness and loneliness stayed with him.
This time, Gel slept a while before he started to dream again, though the dream was worse than any before.
His third dream that night was fire. Fire and pain and death. In this dream, he stood over the town, watching as his parents died and his friends were slaughtered, and the town caught fire and burned to ashes around him. He listened to the screams of the women and children as they died, their pain and terror and agony twisting in his heart like a red-hot knife.
Other things were happening, red men moved through the streets with flashing swords, and people screamed, and gunfire sounded, exploding through the quiet. But it was the fire he heard the most. He heard it, almost felt it as it cracked and burned, as it twisted and reached and devoured. It was frightening and beautiful, its colours reaching up into the sky; blues and reds and greens. The fire wove the most complex song he had ever heard as it burned, one that he could barely begin to understand.
When he woke finally, tears streaming down his face, he thought that no other nightmare could ever be so frightening. If he grew old and died without ever dreaming its like again, he would die happy.
And then he heard them; the screams floating in through his bedroom window, the cries of pain and suffering from his dream. He heard the crack of fire, the pop of wood boiling and splitting in the heat. He thought for an instant, prayed for a second, that he was still dreaming. But he realized that the flickering red light blanketing his wall was not that of a pale moon on a cloudless night, but the light of his village, his home, his life, burning. And he was afraid.
He heard heavy footsteps climbing the stairs, and he heard his mother crying out his fathers name in pain, sobbing loudly as she did so.
‘Mother!’ he cried, and the door to his room exploded inwards, splinters of wood from where a heavy boot had kicked it in peppering the room. The door fell to the floor with a crash, and small shards of wood peppered at Gel’s face, but his eyes were fixed.
In through the doorway stepped a large, bearded man, who laughed as the fire from outside glittered madly off his eyes. He was wearing a large, gold buttoned red coat, and his large red beard seemed as wild and uncontrollable as the fire from Gel’s dreams. He grinned as he saw Gel abed and walked towards him, sword arm rising as he came. Each step he took, each time his thick boots hit the wooden floor of Gel’s room, sounded like the peal of a large clock, ringing out the seconds to Gel’s doom. The man’s footsteps were the sound of death approaching; the grinning man, with his fiery red beard, death himself.
Still half lying under covers, Gel could only get his right arm free as the man his bed and swung his sword. Gel tried to protect himself, tried to deflect the sword, to do anything, but there was nothing Gel could do as the man’s sword swung down towards his head.
The last thing Gel saw through his splayed fingers was firelight glinting off the shining blade as it angled towards his face. Then pain exploded his world, and darkness followed it.
***
Somehow, Gel woke again. He knew he was awake, and not dead, because of the pain. In death, Ragn was supposed to take you into his arms, and wash away all your sin, your pain, and your fear. When you died, Ragn would take you in, and take away all your pain, and leave you with nothing but contentment and love.
Gel felt nothing but pain and fear though, so he knew he must still be alive.
As he tried to open his eyes, Gel found his right eye was stuck shut. His left eye opened, and surveyed his room, which looked too normal; only the shattered remnants of the door, lying half off its hinges, and his blood soaked bed sheets gave away that the nightmare from earlier had been no nightmare at all.
His left hand, reaching up to find what was wrong with his stuck eye, met only a mass of congealed blood, and spread pain like wildfire across his face as he probed the half-scabbed gouge. His fingers stuck slightly in the tacky, molasses-like blood, and they came away red and wet.
The slow realization of why his entire face hurt barely registered as he moved to find out what was wrong with his right hand. He absently wondered if his eye was still there under the blood, if he’d ever be able to open it and see again. If he’d ever really want to.
At first he thought his right hand was gone; he couldn’t move it all. But as he looked, he realized it had somehow become wrapped tightly in his bright red sheets.
Every move he made to unstick his hand hurt like nothing else he had ever felt, hurt more than his burning face, but he had to get free. He had to get out of his room, and to his parents. They could help him; they would know what to do. If he couldn’t get his hand free, he couldn’t get to them, and they wouldn’t be able to make things right.
He pulled and picked slowly at his bed sheets for a time, wincing, and sometimes letting out small cries of anguish as he slowly unpeeled the covers that were slick with blood and stuck to his hand. Every fiber of sheet that he unstuck sent a new wave of agony shooting up and down his arm. He had to unravel it slowly, fold by aching fold, to keep from screaming or fainting from the pain.
He was doing it though. Fold by blood-slicked fold came away from his hand; he was making progress. He felt he was almost untangled from the mess of blankets when two small bits of bloody flesh fell out from a fold, and rolled down the covers to lie beside him, taunting his reeling mind.
He stared at his severed fingertips, trying to understand what was happening, and his head began to twirl like a dry leaf in a whirlwind. He didn’t notice that his right hand was free, just that two of his fingers were sitting there in front of him, not at all where they should have been.
‘Why are my fingers here’ he thought as his head cocked to the side in confusion, and swam dizzily. ‘Why aren’t these on my hand?’ As his vision slowly faded again, Gel tried to reach for the fingers at his side with his good hand.
‘Have to’
‘Have to put them back’
‘To put them back’
‘Have to’
***
The next time Gel woke the fire and pain in his face and arm had not lessened, but some clarity, some faculty to think, had returned. He knew he could do no
thing for his face as he opened his left eye and looked at his white ceiling, panting heavily. Whatever mess was hiding under the mass of semi-congealed blood that covered his right eye, he couldn’t fix it in bed. He ignored the tiny voice in the back of his head that told him he couldn’t do anything about it out of bed either. Sitting up and throwing off the covers with his left hand, he knew he had to do something for his right hand, and its missing fingers. He had been saved the first time by his covers; he must have wrapped himself in them somehow as he thrashed in pain, staunching the blood. He swung his legs to the floor, testing them unsteadily as he tried to rise.
The feeling of the soles of his feet on the smooth wooden floor felt too normal, too natural, when compared with the chaos around him. His first few steps were hesitant, unsteady, a slow shuffle made possible only by pushing on his knee with his hand to keep himself upright, but they were still steps. Slow and hesitant and careful, but at least he was moving.
With some difficulty, Gel tore a sleeve from the shirt he had discarded the night before, and wrapped it carefully around his injured hand as he lurched unsteadily towards the door of his room. He hadn’t even tried to clothe himself, and trying and falling would have slowed him down too much; he didn’t care if he walked out in his undergarments. He had to find his parents.
Taking the stairs took time. His eyes were fixed on the steps as he tried to guide his unsteady legs down safely, and his left arm was wrapped tightly around the banister for support. He held his right to his stomach to lessen its movement: every motion it made hurt. The steps seemed much steeper, and there seemed to be more of them than he ever remembered; each one sent slivers of fire shooting up his right arm, forcing him to grimace and grit his teeth. The journey down them was arduous, painful. But then, right then everything was.
The Fire and the Fog Page 8
