by AB Bradley
Iron nodded, and Sander gingerly pulled the fabric from his mouth. His mouth burned. He flexed his lips, and the chaffed skin cracked. Iron pulled his hand from his master’s grip and prodded his cheeks.
He winced at the tender skin. “I must’ve been raving mad.”
“That’s an understatement. Thank the Sinner for once in our cursed lives for these thundersnows. They’ve picked up something wicked since that first one you danced with. Otherwise you would’ve had every hunter, outcast, and madman in the lower reaches knocking at our door with a weapon in hand and a mind to use it.”
Silence reigned supreme in the foothills of the Everfrosts. Things that made noise either ended up dead or dying or worse—prey for a quieter beast. Another thought pierced Iron’s foggy mind. “Thundersnows?” he asked, propping himself on his unharmed elbow with a little mmph. “There was another one?”
Sander snorted and patted Iron’s head. “There’s been six. You’ve been out three days.”
“Six in three days? That’s—”
“Not a good sign, I’ll tell you that much.” Sander stood and grabbed Iron a bowl of stew steaming over their tiny hearth. “The world’s suddenly full of bad signs these days. I just wish I knew where they’re pointing. We’d be heading the exact opposite direction along with everything else that had half a brain and an ounce of a will to live.”
Iron took the bowl Sander extended. Steam from boiled greyhorn meat spiced with tender root filled his nostrils and sent his stomach into a wild gurgle. He practically dove into the bowl, heedless of his chaffed cheeks, and slurped down the contents in a few moments.
“Don’t choke.” Sander snorted and plopped onto the other bed. “I didn’t keep you alive all this time just to have you go wasting my time gagging on some greyhorn thigh.”
“We can’t stay here. You have to know that.” Iron patted the greasy broth from his mouth and set the bowl on the bed. “Those wolves weren’t normal. What happened to me up in the mountains—that wasn’t normal. This thing I saw in that poison dream—”
“It’s not about what is normal,” Sander snapped.
“I have a theory and I think you should hear it. You always interrupt me.”
“Well, that’s normal. You’re my apprentice. I can finish your sentences or start a new one if I want.”
“That doesn’t seem like a real rule. Besides, ‘It’s not about what is normal.’”
“I’m certainly glad that lip you love to show me is getting better.” Sander turned to the fire. He clasped his hands behind him and stared into the flickering flames. “It’s too soon,” he murmured, although Iron got the distinct impression his master didn’t mean the words for him.
“We can’t stay here forever.” Iron inspected his wounded arm. Sander had bandaged it, but the skin peeking between the dressing had a tint of blue and green to it that turned his stomach. “I guess we really don’t have a choice, do we? My arm’s not getting better. Sinner’s magic doesn’t heal. That’s the Gentle Lover.”
Sander slumped and pinched the bridge of his nose. “He’s forced my hand. I suppose it had to happen at some point.” He turned from the fire, his eyes fixing on Iron’s wound. “I’ve slowed the poison’s spread, but you’re right. This toxin is beyond me. We’ll need to find a proper healer in Ormhild, unfortunately. There’ll be no Gentle Lovers in that frozen ass crack of humanity, but I have an, ah, old friend I can call on for help. I think. Probably.”
“Unfortunately!” Iron could hardly contain his excitement. He twisted toward Sander when a shock of pain raced through his leg and sent him flying onto his back. Despite the pain, he grinned at the ceiling. “The capital of Skaard, Ormhild, is the home of the Free Folk of the North. No crowns rule it. Any man or woman may make a name for themselves no matter what their family station. The books say they even have two titans at the shores when most cities only have one.”
“This is true. I never got why men keep those monsters’ bones around. It’s creepy. If they knew what’s best for them, they’d burn those things to ash.”
“What can you tell me about Ormhild? I mean, not stuff I’d already know from my studies. Things they wouldn’t put in books.”
“Hmm.” Sander pulled a leg onto the bed and rested his chin on his knee. “I’ve seen fancier cities with greater wealth. The people of Skaard, they don’t care for gold and silver, which makes them barely human in my book, but I guess gold doesn’t keep one warm at night like good fur or a set of armor. They’ll drink a man under the table without so much as slurring a word, I’ll tell you that much.
“My family brought me here once thinking there just had to be riches stashed away somewhere.” He smiled, losing himself in his memories. “They had big plans to relieve Ormhild of its wealth and buy a fleet of pirate ships to acquire more if it. Were they ever wrong about that. Kind of ironic, don’t you think? They come here and never find so much as a wayward silver ring while I spend the better part of my youth becoming a thief in a place with no treasure?”
“Not any more ironic than you finally getting a chance to leave Skaard for the gold and glory in Eloia, only to have to turn right back around when you make port because you gained an apprentice.” Iron knew that much about his master’s past. The man had a habit of reminding Iron of that ill bit of timing whenever Iron angered him.
“Indeed.” Sander pursed his lips. “Gods and mysterious ways and all that greyhorn snot.”
His master’s puckered lips turned into a smirk. Iron couldn’t count how many nights he pleaded with Sander to tell him of his life before the Everfrosts, but while Sander’s tongue would flap at any subject, his past remained locked in his head and guarded more closely than any treasure.
“What’s the world like, master? The real world, not the world of dry histories.”
“Bars and brothels.” Sander shrugged, his attention returning to the present. “You’ll find most cities boil down to bars and brothels, both of which neatly align with two activities I enjoy most. Skaard women are dangerously pretty, though. I think it’s probably the furs. They’re all so wrapped up in them, it leaves a man’s imagination to wonder what kind of gifts those pelts are enwrapping.”
“At least you’ve seen a woman.” Iron had only read about them. He hoped they weren’t like Sander. He liked his master, but gods, the man drove him insane more and more each day.
Sander sighed and began pulling his boots off and tossing them to the floor. “You’ll get your chance. Sooner than I’d like, but you’ll get it.”
Iron leaned onto his good arm and watched, desperately thinking of anything that might keep their conversation of the outside world continuing. “Did you ever love a woman?” he finally asked.
He very nearly winced. What a stupid thing to say. The world was full of millions of things, and he had to pick something that prodded the man to speak about his emotions, the one subject Sander avoided more than Iron’s origins.
His master had the second boot partially removed with an ankle sticking out. For a long moment, he regarded Iron, firelight bruising one side of his face with warm golds. His emotionless expression twisted into a crooked smile. He flung his boot to the ground and lay on his back, hands clasped over his stomach. “I’ve always said I’m a lover, not a fighter. Truth is, I’ve done a lot more of the latter and would like to do a little more of the former before I go on to the Mother’s table. As you plod through this life of yours, you’ll discover that laying a course for the destiny you dream of is a bit like trying to change a river’s current. Try as you might, the river only flows to one destination, and it never bothers to ask your opinion about it. Most men only realize that long after they’re too tired to care any longer. Better you learn that now than later.”
Iron found himself biting down on his trembling lower lip. Had he been a burden to his master, all these years? The river took you to me, and now you’re left thinking about what could have been. Looking at his bandaged forearm and swollen knee, Iron
couldn’t help but wonder if he’d accidentally stumbled on Sander’s true feelings.
“Love a woman?” Sander continued, eyes still glued to the ceiling. “I thought maybe I could have, once. We hardly knew each other, but it felt as if we’d known each other for ages. I thought her perfect, but…” the man sighed and closed his eyes. “No one’s perfect. We lived two different lives, were from two different worlds. It never would’ve worked.”
His words sounded more like a desperate attempt to convince himself when his heart screamed something entirely different. Iron closed his eyes. Guilt pressed on his chest like a steel boot until his heart strained against it. He wanted to apologize to Sander for taking the man’s life in a different direction. He wanted to tell him he’d try harder not to be a burden.
“Goodnight, Iron. Tomorrow, we leave for Ormhild.”
Iron wanted to say so many things, but Sander was never good about speaking of matters of the heart, and a little part of Iron feared what the man might say if he spoke again. His wounds made him uncomfortable enough; better to not throw salt on them with hard words. “Goodnight, master.”
The fire was smoldering ash before sleep finally took Iron’s troubled mind.
CHAPTER FIVE
Scar of Stars
Sander woke Iron long before the sun crested the Everfrosts. Somewhere behind them, it peeked beyond a much flatter horizon and stained the sky with its morning radiance. Long clouds cast fingers over the peaks like old scars. Two glory hawks wheeled high above the pines, quiet predators seeking their daily meal. The thundersnows had receded, rumbling every so often near the horizon hidden by the summits. Fat snowflakes flirted with a bare breeze, twisting in a slow trail on their way to join the others piled in drifts over the frozen ground.
Iron huddled by the cabin wall. Its worn timbers gave no comfort. Neither did the snow where his boots sunk. Thundersnows had piled the drift so high it came to his knee and filled his shoes with icy wetness. While he shivered in the cabin’s shadow, he watched Sander lash a makeshift sleigh, lifting it high to inspect his handiwork.
“Are you sure that elk hide will hold me?” Iron asked.
“It held the elk together before we ate it, didn’t it?” Sander answered. The man smirked at his joke and swatted the hide. “And you’re practically a quarter the size, boy. You know when I was your age, I had a good stone on you in pure muscle. Had to defend for myself, you see, as no one would—”
“Defend you, not even your parents. You taught yourself the blade, the bow, and I’m sure if I rattled off a few other weapons, you’d say you knew those too.”
“I probably do!”
Iron watched his breath condense at the tip of his nose before fading into obscurity. He reclined beneath the long eave of their rickety cabin. Sander built the overhang on the home’s southern side since storms from the south were rare as sand in the lower reaches. Iron rested on a matted mixture of dried grass and dirt. His legged throbbed, and his arm burned, but he lived. The snow wetting his feet at least numbed his broken toe.
Sander worked furiously at the knots tying the hide to each side of the sleigh. Even though the man spoke lightheartedly, his knitted brows and narrow eyes betrayed his worry. He tested a knot, and it unraveled. Sander cursed and kicked the sleigh before mumbling something and continuing the work.
“We’re not coming back home,” Iron said. He bit his lip to hide his smile. “We’re leaving for good, aren’t we?”
Sander bent over the sleigh and reworked the knot. His master paused his tying and glanced at Iron from the corner of his eye. “It’s not safe to stay here any longer. The world awaits us, it seems. I can’t decide if I’m happy or terrified or both. I could use a nice shot of saltwater gin or a glass—no, bottle—of some decent wine. It’s hard to come by in Ormhild, but there’re more than a few places to snag a nice pint of frostbite ale. Gods, I’m going to get drunk, I think.”
He finished his knot and straightened, grabbing a makeshift harness. This would allow him to pull the sleigh with Iron on it. His toothy smile flashed as he nodded at his handiwork.
“I knew we’d have to leave,” Iron said. “Those wolves, the Serpent Sun…it was all a sign from the Six. Maybe they want me to find out what happened to my parents.”
Sander’s jaw tightened as he shot Iron an angry glare. “Drop it with the parent thing.” Sander threw the sleigh onto the snow. “Well, on the one hand, I’m damn glad to see some civilization again. It’s been so long since I’ve seen a woman, I’m half surprised I haven’t tried my charms on a tree. It’s been years since I’ve been to Ormhild. I, ah, I fear the world we’ll find won’t be the one we left behind.”
“I’ll be fine, I promise.” Iron propped himself on his elbows and leaned against the cabin. “I want to try some of that saltwater gin you always talk about.”
“Absolutely not. Tastes like burning seawater.”
“Wine?”
“You’d hate the stuff.”
“Frostbite ale!”
“…Maybe a sip.”
Iron clapped. He couldn’t wait for Ormhild and all its exotic trappings. “I’m stronger than you think. Anyone who can fly in a thundersnow has to be strong.”
Sander grunted and rolled his eyes. “There’re paler things than snow that walk Urum’s lands and believe me when I say you’ll be wishing you were dancing bare ass to a thundersnow’s belly rather than facing those creatures.”
He moved from one knot to the next. After a few seconds of half inspecting, half admiring his handiwork, he slapped the hide. “Sinner, I am really good at this survival thing. If only a knot could keep the world together before it crumbled…”
With a sigh, he straightened and strolled to his apprentice. Iron tried lifting himself, but his knee buckled under the weight of his body. Sander lanced out and threaded a hand beneath Iron’s arm, lifting him to his feet. They waddled over to the sleigh, and Iron laid on the hide while Sander tied a few ropes around his torso.
The sleigh itself bent upward at the small of Iron’s back. He wriggled his shoulders against the hide, testing its tautness. It held his weight well and with little bounce. Maybe, Sander should have been a craftsman instead of a thief. Maybe then, his master wouldn’t have had to lead this lonely life.
Iron blinked and snapped his gaze to the side. No. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. If he’d wanted to leave you, he would’ve a long time ago.
Sander grabbed the rope at the head of the sleigh and tucked it beneath his arms. Smoke black as midnight rose in trails around his boots, and he hopped to the top of the snow. “There’s a crotchety crab of a woman in Skaard who can heal you. She was old then, but bless the Six if that stubborn old gasbag wouldn’t hang on to dear life until the Everfrosts turned to dust. We’ll go to her, and you’ll get healed.”
“Simple plans are always the best, you say. And then what? Can we explore? Talk to locals? Maybe we can charter a ship across the sea even. You know I heard—”
“Oh gods, this is going to be a long trip.”
“Fine. You spit in the wind and I’ll study.” Iron pulled out a scroll on the history of a strange land across the sea, far south of Eloia. They called it Ker, and there it was said men and horses were equals. The concept fascinated him almost as much as the idea of a horse. “I’ll just read and enjoy myself while you tug me along. Maybe you can figure out what to do once I’m better.”
His master glanced behind him and shrugged. “Let the Mother guide us. I sure as sin in a brothel don’t have any idea what to do next. It’s hard enough keeping you alive out here. I can only imagine what it’s going to be like once we dive into the hornet’s nest.”
“Mother guide us? I thought we were the Slippery Sinner’s men?”
Sander chuckled and faced south. “Every Sinner’s man was a mother’s son once.”
“You make no sense sometimes,” Iron mumbled as he unfolded the scroll.
Sander took a deep breath. He leaned forward. L
ike a snow leopard after a tired deer, he bounded across the slopping plain. Snow flew in waves beside Iron like the wings of a thrilled glory hawk, and the long journey to Ormhild officially began.
Leaving his life behind didn’t hurt Iron nearly as much as he thought. Losing the baggage of his tutelage under Sander—the piles of texts on histories, religions, magic—it lifted a weight from his shoulders. Such was the way of the Sinner, his master taught. Thieves must think their lives more like wind than shadow, the man always said. Winds can pluck a home from its foundations one day and barely flirt with a feather the next, but whether they blow hard or strong, they never carry their treasures long. This was much the same for thieves. Carry a prize too long, and a thief could find himself swinging from a noose. And so it was that Iron left the world he knew behind and thought only of the incomprehensibly vast world before him.
Sander paused their sleigh deep into the night. The broken silver disc of the moon filtered through the pines. Soft pillows of pristine snow jacketed the trees’ brittle leaves and frozen pine cones. Somewhere in the distance, an owl’s hoot rolled through the shadows.
Ethereal starlight wreathed Sander’s hand as he knelt to untie Iron’s ropes. The magical light rotated like a halo around his knuckles, washing them in an oddly soothing silver. “We’ll make camp here. It’s another straight day of sleighing before we reach the city’s outskirts.”
Iron moved his shoulder and winced. The burning in his arm had gone from annoying to unnerving over the course of their journey. At least his knee didn’t throb so much.
He noticed Sander eyeing him as the last of the ropes went slack. “You okay? Is your forearm feeling worse?”
“It feels much better, thank you.”
“You’re not as good a liar as you think.” Sander padded the sweat glistening on his temple. He threw his hood back, and his wild hair fell around his ears. Silver streaked the brown at his crown and temples. With the hood back, the crow’s feet fanning from his eyes and deep laugh lines betrayed the hard life he’d led in the shadow of the Everfrosts.
