by Dan Avera
Clare didn't seem to mind, though. In fact, Will was sure it bothered him more than it did her—often, whilst in the throes of a foul mood, he would see her looking at him and trying unsuccessfully to stifle a laugh.
And somehow, that always managed to make him feel better.
The forest around them helped, too. It was a peaceful, quiet place, and Will was positive that he could not have chosen a better infirmary in which to let his wounds heal. Birds flitted over and around them with careless abandon, and their songs filled the air with scattered music that set the butterflies to dancing in the sunlight. The forest of birches occasionally gave way to the larger oaks that dominated the Pradian plains, and from among the branches and roots tiny mammals poked their inquisitive little heads to inspect the strange giants inhabiting their forest.
And when the sun set, they could see the stars and the waning moon through the circle of tree-tops; late at night, lying on the soft grass with their heads close together, Will pointed out the Southland constellations to Clare, who had long ago left behind familiar skies.
“Bale-ro-fawn,” Clare said slowly, her mouth conforming awkwardly to the strange word. Will laughed.
“Better,” he said, “much better than the last one.”
“How is anybody supposed to pronounce...well, that word?” Clare harrumphed. “It's ridiculous. Only you Southland barbarians would come up with something like that.”
Will laughed even harder, wincing as his chest twinged. “Ku-tru-klainne,” he said slowly, sounding out the syllables. “It's Kutruklainne. And we didn't come up with it. It's some other culture's legend from a long time ago. The...Fae, I think? No, wait, Fae don't exist.” He chuckled to himself. “Spirits above, I've heard it before. I just need to remember it. Fael? Fen? Faellan? Bah, I can't remember.” He threw up his hands in mock frustration and turned with a grin to Clare, who lay beside him on her traveling cloak looking up at the stars. At least, she had been a moment ago. Now she was staring at him with a small smile that made his heart skip a beat.
“So tell me this Baelrofan's story,” she said, her eyes twinkling in the light from the last drowsy embers of their campfire. “Is he another Southland hero?”
“Soréllian, actually.” Will turned back to the sky, tracing the diamond constellation with his finger. “It's a very old story. I'm surprised you haven't heard it; we come from the same people, you know.”
“It may be that I have, only under a different name,” Clare said. “Nonetheless, I'd like to hear you tell it.”
Will smiled softly to himself. “Well,” he began, “apparently Baelrofan was born far to the south, beyond the border that leads to the Marshes. They say that's where Soréllia still is, but nobody's heard from them for...oh...four or five hundred years. Anyway, Baelrofan was a great warrior in the Soréllian emperor's army. They say he was so strong that he could smash a boulder with his bare hands, and so fast that not even the wind could catch him.
“Eventually the emperor asked him to fight in the north against whatever nation they were at war with. The Hairo, I think.”
“Haito,” Clare said softly.
“That's the one. Well, he was such a great warrior that the Haito couldn't beat him on any battlefield, so one night they sent nine assassins after him. He woke up before they could kill him, but they shot him with a poisoned dart that made him slow and stupid. He still managed to kill eight of them, though, and it was only as he was strangling the eighth to death that the ninth came up behind him and stuck a sword through his head. The ninth's name was—”
“Harohito,” said Clare.
He turned to look at her. “Who?”
“Harohito. We have the same legend in the Westlands, only the hero's name is Bartrand Sunfury. The assassin who killed him was Harohito.”
“Huh,” Will murmured. “Well, I was going to say 'Hiritoshi', but I guess it's close enough.” He grinned. “Funny how stories change so much over five hundred leagues.”
Clare chuckled. “Not even that. They tell the same stories all the way down to Herom, but they keep the Westland names.” For a moment she gazed silently up at the stars. Somewhere off in the forest a cricket began to chirp. “The Haito still exist, you know,” she finally said. “Far to the north along the Sickle Isles. Their version of the story is very, very different.”
“How so?” Will asked.
She smiled and half-turned to look at him. “Well, for one, Bartrand doesn't have a name. They just call him the Demon from the South. For another, it's a much sadder story.”
“Oh,” Will said quietly. “Have you ever met one of the Haito?”
“Once,” she said, her gaze turning back up to the night sky. “They don't leave the Isles very often, and for good reason, but on very, very rare occasions one will get adventurous and go as far down as Yoruku. I met one when he passed through Dahoto. Funny looking man. Father let him sleep in the smithy for a night and he told me that story. I was very young.”
After a moment, when Will did not respond, she turned to look at him once more. “What?” she asked, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “It isn't polite to stare, you know.”
“I was just thinking about what an interesting life you must have led,” Will replied. “Haito, warhounds, soldiering—I bet you've met Northlanders, too.”
Clare stared at him, shadow hiding whatever expression her face might have had. “Interesting,” she finally said in a small voice that made Will's stomach plummet. Had he said something wrong? “That...is not exactly the word I would use to describe my life.” She rolled over on her side with her back to him. “Good night, Will,” she murmured. “Wake me if you need anything.”
He almost asked her if she was alright, but something stopped him. So instead he lay awake for a long, long time, his eyes locked on her back. Once, he thought he saw her body shaking as though she were crying. But the embers in the fire had long since died away, and he could not be sure.
~
“I can go get the water today,” Will said on the third morning. There was a creek a short distance away where they had been refilling the waterskin, and he was confident that he could make it there and back without collapsing. Well, mostly confident.
“No,” Clare said sternly. “Sit.” He had half-risen to his feet, using Grim for support; he was a massive beast and could easily hold Will's weight for at least a short while, though when Will had tried the same thing the day before Grim had thought he was trying to wrestle. That had been a painful learning experience for Will, and he had since—he hoped—taught the warhound to remain still.
When Will managed to get all the way to his feet—having avoided any new Grim-induced injuries—Clare stalked over to him angrily. She was only a few fingers shorter than Will, and she could cut an imposing figure when she had to. “I said sit!” Grim sat obediently, and Will had to stifle a bout of laughter. “This isn't funny!” Clare said. “You're going to hurt yourself.” Then she raised one fist menacingly and growled, “I'll kidney-shot you if I have to. Don't make me hurt a cripple.”
“Clare,” Will said, still trying unsuccessfully to keep his laughter at bay, “I need to do this. I've been sitting or lying down for three days. I'm going mad!” He threw his arms out for emphasis—a mistake, he realized, when the gesture caused him to lose his balance and topple backward, his wounded thigh giving out in a brief but spectacularly breathtaking flare of agony. Clare caught him, easily holding him up with one hand at his elbow and her other arm circling around his waist. He caught reflexively on to her shoulders, drawing her close in an attempt to regain his balance. Her scent filled his nose—was that lavender?—and suddenly all thoughts of helping vanished from his mind. He could feel her warm breath like a feather trailing across his cheek, tickling his skin. A strand of dark hair had fallen across her face, hiding one eye, and Will had to check the sudden urge to brush it back.
“I don't think you're going anywhere just yet,” she said after a moment, and Will blinked. He realized that th
ey were still holding each other and let go quickly, embarrassed. She maintained her grip on him, however, which he found to be a rather pleasant sensation. “Can you stand?” she asked, and he nodded, unable to speak around his inexplicably dry mouth and cottony tongue. She released him slowly, and then moved a short distance away. “Don't fall,” she said with a half-smile. “I'm going to go find you a walking stick.”
Once she disappeared from view Will exhaled explosively. From his position on the ground, Grim gave him what could only be described as a knowing look, and Will raised his eyebrow. The warhound turned away a moment later, his massive tail thumping the ground rhythmically and his pink tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.
Will had to admit to being rather confused. He had certainly found other women attractive—Katryna had always had a certain icy beauty, and Priscilla's sister Helena had the sort of home-grown natural beauty that one found so often in farmers' daughters and tavern maids—but his mind had always viewed them with a sort of detached appreciation, almost as though he were viewing a particularly magnificent sculpture. Katryna's regular jabs at his apparent disinterest in women had left a painful mark, and he knew that the other Ravens found it odd when he refused to go wenching with them. He had tried once, a long time ago, to allay everyone else's fears that he had abnormal tastes, but had been unable to go through with it; so instead he had paid the whore to keep silent, and she had.
So why—why, why, why, why—did he all of a sudden find himself completely, unrelentingly attracted to this woman, a woman he had met only a few days prior? I've just never found the right one, he remembered saying to Castor and Katryna. They just...don't feel right.
But she did. For some reason, Clare had the effect on him that no other woman before had been able to achieve. And he found that he rather liked the sensation.
Clare came back several tocks later with a long, thick, gnarled oak branch. “This should work,” she said, and handed it to him.
Will took a few experimental steps, leaning most of his weight on the makeshift cane, and grinned. “Much better,” he said. “Thanks.”
The rest of the day progressed normally, though Will was able to hobble around the campsite and Clare allowed him to help with that evening's meal—she had stumbled upon a patch of wild cucumber that morning, and he boiled it along with some of the dried meat and a handful of wild mushrooms. After they had eaten, they sat around the fire as they had each night before and talked until the fire had burned down to its last embers and the waning moon had long since passed by overhead.
And the more Will talked to Clare, the more he felt as if he knew her from somewhere—as though she were a long-lost friend who had resurfaced only recently. And she was remarkably easy to talk to, as well; around her, words flowed from his lips like water. He often feared that he was talking too much—until a conversation would drift off into silence, and Clare would quickly pick up again where he had left off. She seemed just as eager to learn about him as he was to learn about her, and it delighted him. If he was not teaching her the stars or telling her stories of his time with the Ravens, she was telling him about the Westlands.
Will had never been farther north than the southwestern border of the Kahara Desert, and the most water he had ever seen at one time was the Great Lake to the west. So he listened with almost childish delight to Clare's tales of a body of water so vast that it had never been crossed, and of a land ruled not by oaks, birches, and maples but by tall pine trees in the north, and in the south by trees with leaves as long and broad as he was tall and wide—the same trees, said Clare, that dropped great, round, hairy seeds which could be split open with an axe and drunk from like a bowl of water. She told him tales of the Northland king and his subjects, who wore the skins of animals and had hair as light as the sun, and of the privateers that lived among the Western Isles, where they drank spiced rum distilled from cane and the natives had skin nearly as dark as her hair.
The days passed quickly—almost too quickly for Will. As much as he wished to get back to Castor and the Ravens, he wanted even more to stay in the forest with Clare for only a little longer. It was an odd feeling, and one he was completely unaccustomed to.
On the fourth morning, with the help of his walking stick, Will was able to replenish their water supply. His wounds were stiff, but the pain was tolerable and in the end it was worth it—he was able to take a much needed bath, or what amounted to one in his present condition. He never did get as clean as he would have liked, but at least the stink from ten days of not washing was gone. And it did feel good to stretch his aching muscles, if only for a little while. At one point he looked down at his reflection, curious as to the full extent of the toll the yaru had taken on him, and was mildly shocked at his appearance—not because it looked bad, however, but because it looked surprisingly good.
His face was covered in two weeks' growth of beard—he made a mental note to cut it off as soon as they made it back to Prado—which was broken by three long fingers of shiny new skin that ran from just above his right eye to below the left corner of his mouth. They were still scabbed over in some small areas, but overall looked to be nearly healed. The scars looked as though they would fade with time, which was astounding when considering the claws that had made the injuries. He unwrapped the bandages from around his arm and thigh and was surprised to see them in much the same condition. The healing wounds still ached, but he didn't think they would trouble him for much longer. His nose, he was delighted to see, had healed without even a hint of a sign that it had ever been broken at all. Good, he thought, and here I was ready to re-break it and set it straight.
The short hike back to the campsite was somewhat more arduous than the hike down, namely because of the gently sloping incline he now had to climb. By the time he made it into the clearing, his brow was slick with sweat and his limbs were trembling from exertion. He gritted his teeth against the pain in his healing leg and willed it into a secluded corner of his mind. Years on the battlefield had taught him how to ignore injury to an extent, but the process was still difficult.
He was surprised to see as he broke through the tree line that Clare had already packed their things. He was even more surprised to see her kneeling by her pack with the blade of a long, curved knife beneath her hair, which she held taught with her other hand.
“What are you doing?” Will asked curiously.
“Cutting my hair,” she replied. “I looked in the stream yesterday and it's too long. It'll only get in the way. I haven't cut it since...well, since I left Dahoto, I suppose.” She laughed softly. “Funny how you forget things when you're on your own.”
“Don't,” Will said, and she met his gaze with questioning eyes.
“What?”
“Don't cut your hair.”
She gave him a funny look. “Why?”
Will belatedly realized what he had said and cleared his throat nervously. He could feel his cheeks glowing with embarrassment. “Erm...because it, ah...it looks good.” He cleared his throat again and looked off into the forest. Why was it sometimes so simple to talk to Clare, yet so difficult at others? “You shouldn't cut it.”
He could still see her staring at him out of the corner of his eye, and for a long moment she did not move. Then, finally, she let her hands fall haltingly to her sides and sheathed her knife. “Well...alright then,” she said softly. Will suspected the comment was not entirely directed at him.
She had donned her sword and traveling cloak, and as she stood she slung her pack over one shoulder. Will turned hesitantly back to look at her, but she did not meet his gaze. “I thought you were bent on making me rest,” he said, and then a thought occurred to him. “Wait, you aren't leaving, are you?” The words came out rather more plaintively than he had intended.
“I figured we'd stretch your leg out some,” she said, still avoiding looking at him. She made a show of fiddling with her belt. “Do you think you can make it back to the village?”
“I should be
able to,” Will said with a nod, glad to be back on familiar conversational ground. “As long as we take it slow. How long do you think it'll be?”
She paused for a moment, considering. “About...three-quarters of the day, maybe? Factoring in rests for you.”
Will waved his hand in the air as though shooing away an insect. “I don't need rests.”
Clare looked at him dubiously. Her eyes did a strange little dance, darting away from his for an instant only to return a moment later. Did I say something wrong? he wondered. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned her hair...
“Really,” he continued. “I want to get to back to Castor as soon as possible.” Castor, of course, had probably declared him dead a week ago. Will would consider himself lucky if the Ravens were still in Prado when they arrived. But he didn't mention any of this to Clare—nor did he mention the thoughts circling around his mind that centered on staying with her in the clearing for a few more nights. No, he was fairly certain saying such things would do a great deal to exacerbate his already awkward situation.
She shrugged. “Alright. Whatever you want.” She turned away and made for the edge of the clearing. “But I wager you'll need three rest stops.”
~
As it turned out, she was right. It felt incredible to walk again, but being mauled by a yaru and subsequently spending over a week sitting or lying on the ground had taken its toll. His stamina had suffered, and the still-regrowing muscles in his thigh were very sore after only a belltoll of slow marching. Wearing all of his armor and weapons felt heavier than normal, too, and he inwardly cursed his weakness. By the time they left the forest and crested the grassy knoll that gave them a view of the distant village, he was sweating profusely.
“Do you want to stop?” Clare asked, gently placing her hand on his back before snatching it away again.
Will panted and leaned heavily on his walking stick. With his free hand he slowly massaged his thigh, wincing as pain shot through his leg. “No,” he said through gritted teeth. “Let's keep going. Need to get there before sundown.”
