From up in the tree, Shade exhaled in relief. The leaves fluttered. Lughor glanced upward but saw nothing.
“I understand,” the cloaked man nodded. “I too am on my own. Whither are you headed?”
“Oh...” Broad repeated. “Just... travelling, really. Trying to see a bit of the world.”
Lughor nodded. “I was young once.”
“No kidding,” said Broad. “That’s something else we have in common!”
Lughor, sensing he might regret the offer before it was made, suggested they travel together.
Broad looked him up and down. “My mother warned me about meeting strange men in the forest.”
Lughor laughed in surprise. “Why, that is something else we have in common! My own dear mother, may she rest in peace, gave me the same advice!”
“Wow!” said Broad, then his forehead furrowed. “You think I’m strange?”
“You were talking to yourself.”
“Oh... I guess I was.” He glanced around for Shade. Up in the tree, Shade was shaking his head. Bad idea, bad idea, he tried to transmit to the human idiot, but Broad wasn’t in a receptive mood.
“I hear a brook nearby,” Lughor announced. “I shall rinse off my cloak after your somewhat unorthodox greeting, then we shall set off and seek out horses.”
He strode away.
Horses! Broad panicked. I can’t go near horses! They are always spooked by Shade even if he’s shut away.
“Sorry about the piss!” he called after the cloaked man.
Shade hovered in front of him. “Nice going, idiot,” he scowled. “Come on; let’s get moving before he comes back.”
“I like him. He’s like an aged warrior or something.”
Shade flicked Broad’s nose with his finger. It was like an insect bite. Broad flinched.
“Ow!”
“I’m serious,” said Shade. “Let’s go! We can do without him.”
“It’s all right for you,” Broad was petulant. “You get to rest all day and I’m out here on my own. I miss people.”
“You’re breaking my heart,” said Shade flatly.
“Besides, the sun’s almost up. You don’t get a say.” Broad held up his hand. He flicked open the bulbous ring he wore on his left hand.
With a grunt of resignation, Shade dissolved and poured himself into it. Broad clicked it shut and held it to his mouth. “See you later,” he whispered.
“That’s a big ring,” Lughor observed, startling Broad into whisking his hand behind his back. “Don’t worry; I won’t take it from you. It’s a little...ostentatious for me.”
“Does that mean ugly? Because yes, it’s ugly,” said Broad, raising his voice for Shade’s benefit. “And totally worthless.”
“Relax,” said Lughor. “I already said I don’t want it. Now, let’s get moving and make the most of the daylight.”
“Um, all right then,” said Broad. He pulled a face and gestured with his thumbs to a nearby tree. “I still need to - you know.”
“Go on then.” Lughor waited while the younger man scurried behind a broad trunk. “And what kind of name is Broad Shoulders anyway?”
“I’ll tell you later,” the youth called back. “I can’t do it if you talk.”
***
“My people are kind of literal-minded when it comes to naming their youngsters.” Broad found he had to hurry to keep up with Lughor’s long strides. The warrior - for surely that is what the cloaked man must be - kept going, giving no indication of listening to the youth. They had left the woods and were progressing across open country beneath a sunrise that streaked the sky with orange and purple. “Parents hope the name they give their baby will describe what it will grow up to be. I was lucky. My name fits perfectly. You’ve seen my shoulders and they sure are broad. Our neighbours were not so fortunate. Poor Spindle Longshanks is practically a barrel of a boy and Strongjaw Brawnyfellow comes out in a rash if you look at him sideways. And Fecundity Bedswell is a childless spinster.”
“They sound charming,” said Lughor without looking around. “There is a farmstead over yonder. Perhaps there will be horses.”
“Um, about that...”
But Lughor increased his pace. Broad hurried after, twisting his ankle on a rock. He limped after the warrior and tried not to imagine Shade, curled in his ring, laughing his head off.
The farmer was letting the cows out of their shed. They trooped into the pasture, hooves squelching in the mud and splashing in the puddles left by the overnight downpour.
“Hail!” Lughor saluted as he approached. The farmer raised a hand.
“A fine herd of cattle,” the warrior nodded approvingly.
“You know about cows and their ways?” the farmer narrowed his eyes.
“I do!” cried Broad, catching up. “Back home, I helped old Beardo Longlife with the milking.” He caught Lughor’s quizzical glance. “Face as smooth as a baby’s arse and dead by thirty.”
Lughor clapped him on the shoulder. “My young protégé here will assist you with any tasks around the place,” he offered generously. This came as news to Broad, although he liked the idea of being someone’s protégé - whatever that meant.
The farmer gave the youth an appraising look. “And what do you get out of it? I can’t offer lodgings; I got daughters.”
Lughor beamed. He opened his cloak to display a tunic of unadorned grey. A tiny sword with a crescent handle hung on a chain around his neck.
“Forgive me,” said the farmer. He even bowed a little. “I had no idea.”
Baffled, Broad reached for the trinket and held it between his fingers. Lughor slapped his hand away.
“You are welcome to stay, of course, for as long as you like. And there will be no payment due, in coin or in labour.”
Lughor dipped his head in gratitude. He made an arcane gesture with his fingers bent. Broad pulled a face. The farmer seemed to recognise the sign and bowed low. He led them to the farmhouse.
“What’s going on?” Broad whispered.
“I am a high mentor of the Blade of Purity,” Lughor muttered through the corner of his mouth.
“And that entitles you to sleep with his daughters?”
Lughor cringed. “Oh, no! The opposite! High mentors may not indulge in fleshly pleasures with anyone.”
Broad thought about this. “Seems a bit daft. Unnatural.”
“You have much to learn, my young protégé.”
“I don’t think I want to know,” said Broad.
They crossed the threshold, having to duck under the lintel. Calling to his wife, the farmer grinned and closed the door.
***
“That’s a big ring,” observed Flarina, the farmer’s elder daughter. She was sitting across the table from Broad. He swept his hand under the table but it was too late. “Might I look at it more closely?”
Broad demurred. The girl’s wide, freckled face was smiling with expectation, her brown eyes twinkling. She doesn’t see much in the way of jewellery, he thought, in this humble home. He held his hand out across the table. Flarina leaned closer, holding his fingers.
“Can I try it on?” she asked. Broad snatched his hand back.
“Go on!” cackled the farmer’s toothless wife. “Her won’t steal it.”
“No - I mean, I’m sure she wouldn’t but-”
“Come, lad,” said Lughor. “Let the girl try the ring.”
All eyes were upon him. Broad squirmed under their scrutiny. “It’s just that - it won’t come off.” He demonstrated with a few tugs. “It’s been on my finger so long, I’ve kind of grown into it.”
Bettasta, the younger daughter, wrinkled her nose in disgust. “You mean, you haven’t washed under it for years and years!”
Broad shrugged. “
I guess not.”
It was enough to repel Flarina. She sat back and shoved a dumpling around on her plate. “Keep your smelly ring then,” she muttered.
The farmer refilled Lughor’s wooden cup with wine and exhorted him to have a second helping of his wife’s plain but hearty stew.
“I couldn’t possibly,” Lughor rubbed his belly in appreciation. The farmer’s wife simpered.
Huh, thought Broad. Eating and drinking aren’t on the list of forbidden fleshly pleasures, then. He held out his own shallow dish but no one offered him another helping. Bettasta even recoiled a little as Broad’s repulsive finger came a little closer.
After dinner, Lughor and Broad were assigned the master bedroom; the farmer and his wife were relegated to the barn. They insisted on it. Lughor took the bed, handing Broad a rough blanket with which he was to make himself as comfortable as possible on the uneven floorboards. When all was dark and the farm was quiet, Broad ventured to ask how long Lughor had been in the order, or whatever it was.
“Order?” said Lughor in a tone of irritation. “What are you blithering on about?”
“That little knife you wear,” said Broad.
“Oh, that. I picked that up in a Hongoolian market,” Lughor was dismissive. “Now get some sleep. And if you hear the floorboards creak, it’s just me paying a visit to the farmer’s daughters.”
“Both of them!” Broad cried.
“Quiet!” Lughor scolded. “Why, you didn’t want the younger one did you? She could hardly bring herself to look in your direction.”
“No!” Broad’s protest was perhaps a little too forceful. On his finger, Shade’s ring began to throb. The occupant was keen to be released. “Ow!” escaped from Broad’s lips.
“Ssh!” urged Lughor. “Close your eyes at least.”
“I have!” Broad cried, and then repeated it in a whisper.
Lughor grunted in annoyance and rolled over. Broad concentrated all his thoughts on trying to urge Shade to remain calm. The ring continued to throb; Broad thrust it under the blanket, wincing from the pain.
An hour or so later, he heard Lughor get out of bed and pad across the floor to the door. Alone, Broad sat bolt upright and undid the clasp. Shade pushed the ring open and filled the room like smoke from a blocked chimney before contracting and forming his familiar shape.
“You took your time,” he observed. “Must be after midnight.” He assessed their surroundings. “Where are we, by the way?”
“Some farmhouse,” said Broad. “Our new friend’s in the next room, having his way with the farmer’s daughters.”
Shade shivered. “Humans and their appetites.”
“He invited me to join them,” said Broad, “but I declined. See how I put you first?”
“Ha!” Shade laughed bitterly. “You are too shy and you know it.”
“Very well; get back in the ring and we’ll see how shy I am.”
“You’re bluffing.”
“I am,” Broad confessed. “Look, I don’t know what there is for you around here. There are cows.”
“Cows!”
Shade moved to the window. “I’ll go and have a swoop around. There must be someone in the vicinity.”
“Shade...”
“Oh, you know I’m kidding. I could never - would never - but if I happen upon someone on his way out, well.”
He pushed the window open by just a crack and, flattening, posted himself through it like an envelope under a door. Broad lay awake with his arms crossed over his face; it helped to shut out the sounds of the warrior and the farmer’s daughters in the next room. Shade couldn’t go far, not as long as he lay there. There was only the barn...
Broad sat up. The farmer!
He hurried down the stairs and out of the house, hopping into his boots as he went. The barn loomed ahead. It would have been a peaceful, if slightly ominous, scene if it was not for the screams of the farmer’s wife.
Broad went inside. The woman was standing in the hayloft, shrieking incessantly. “Fire! Fire!”
Broad climbed up the narrow ladder to join her. Her husband lay on his back, staring at the rafters. Smoke coiled around and over him. Broad slapped the woman’s face, stunning her into silence.
Shade withdrew to the shadows.
“Is he - is he burned to death?” the farmer’s wife squeaked, her mouth a toothless, puckered void.
“I shouldn’t think so,” said Broad. “No flames, see?” He didn’t need to inspect the man to know that he was dead but he went through the motions for the woman’s benefit. “His heart, I expect.”
“No, no,” the woman sobbed.
“I’m sorry.” Broad cast an angry glance to where Shade was skulking. “Outside. Now,” he urged. He left the woman to mourn her husband. Shade was waiting for him out in the yard.
“You liar!” Broad rounded on him. “You said you wouldn’t! You couldn’t!”
Shade held out his hands. “What could I do? He was in a state when I found him. Clutching at his chest and groaning. I ended his pain. I did him a favour.”
“Some favour! You snuffed him out like a candle.”
“Nice simile. Do you think of that all by yourself?”
“You can be so - so cold at times. So...” he struggled for the word.
“Inhuman?” Shade suggested. “I’ve got news for you.”
“Ssh!” Broad flattened himself against the barn wall. They watched as the farmer’s wife came out of the barn, wielding the axe they used to chop firewood. She strode towards the house.
“I don’t think she’s planning to make more of that revolting stew,” said Shade. “I could smell it. I don’t know how you kept it down.”
“Quiet!” Broad scolded. He felt for his sword - but it was still up in the master bedroom. “Stay back.”
He crept toward the house. The giggling of the girls soon changed to highly charged screams and pleas for sanity on their mother’s part. Broad bounded up the stairs and retrieved his weapon from the bedroom floor. On the landing he was greeted by Lughor, backing out of the bedroom, with blood dripping from his own blade.
“Awful bad luck,” he winked. “Something must have woken the mother.”
Broad pushed past him; Lughor sought to pull the youth back and spare his eyes a horrific sight but Broad was determined. He stumbled into the girls’ bedroom and came to a gasping standstill. The two daughters were in a heap of limbs and entrails, their blood oozing and combining, obliterating the pattern of the bedside rug. Their mother was slumped against a dresser, her own axe protruding from her head as if it were the chopping block. The air reeked with a cloying, coppery scent that made Broad gasp and gag. He backed away, trying to unsee the scene, to unsmell the stench.
Lughor was laughing but at what exactly Broad could not determine.
“The old bitch went crazy,” the warrior cleaned his blade on a nearby curtain - to Broad this seemed just as much of an outrage as the slaughter. “Luckily, her bark was worse than her bite. Do you know, in these parts, they pull out the women’s teeth when they come of age? It makes them more marriageable, apparently. Like devenoming a snake, I suppose. Or declawing a lion. Of course, it makes them all the better at...” He made a poking gesture at his mouth. Broad found it obscene. He headed downstairs.
“This is where we part company, sir,” he announced. “Do not try to stop me or you shall taste my steel.”
The air was filled with the warrior’s laughter. “Fool of a youth! You won’t last a day out there on your own.”
“We’ll see about that!” was Broad’s parting shot. Besides, he added to himself, I’m not on my own. I never bloody am.
“Oh?” said Lughor and Broad realised he had spoken his thoughts out loud. The warrior glanced around. “Who is with you?”
&nbs
p; “No... body...” said Broad. It was kind of the truth.
Lughor looked at him intently. Then he lunged toward the youth and seized his wrist. “This ring,” he said and then grimaced as his pendant grew hot. He released the youth. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“Some things you don’t need to know.”
“Don’t be such a child. Honestly, boy. If you’re all alone in the world, I feel bad about leaving you on your tod.”
“I’m not!” cried Broad. “I have Shade!”
“And who - or what - is Shade?”
Broad clapped a hand to his mouth. He had said too much. The warrior smirked.
“He’s in the ring, isn’t he? Your little friend.” His tone was mocking. It prickled Broad’s temper.
“Yes! And you’d better watch out! If I let him out, you’re finished!”
“Oh, really!” Lughor held eye contact with the youth while he considered something. “Oh, I can’t be doing with this. I hope the two of you are very happy together.”
He turned his back and strode away, leaving Broad breathing heavily and Shade surging in the ring, insisting on release. Broad could feel how energised he was. Good for you, he thought bitterly.
***
“He was going to kill you both, you know,” Shade remarked. They were back in the woods and Broad had stopped to rest.
“Who? The warrior?”
“The farmer. He knew what you were up to but he was so angry his heart went pop.”
“I wasn’t up to anything!”
“So you see it wasn’t my fault!” Shade held up his hands. He laughed. “I suggest we give that Lughor fellow a wide berth. That farmer - he was willing to die in defence of his daughters’ honour. Isn’t that strange?”
“That’s parents for you,” said Broad. “Human ones at least.”
“Don’t give me that,” Shade scoffed. “Yours were as bad as mine.”
“Shut up,” said Broad, turning away. He tried to get comfortable against a tree trunk but the bark was damp and so was the ground beneath him. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Shade pulled a face and swooped up into the tree. “Get some rest,” he said, not unkindly. “I’ll keep watch.”
Navarin, Thunder and Shade Page 2
