by Barb Hendee
“What is the difference between you and the candle? What did you hear that you did not feel?”
The difference became obvious, though he had never thought of this before. The wind did not blow with the same strength in each place where it passed—even with as little as ten paces’ difference.
Training continued with two, then three, and finally four candles in line out beyond him. It grew harder to know for certain, to hear the differences in the air’s movement farther outward. After that the greimasg’äh added a change whenever the wind was too strong for candles.
Brot’ân’duivé took Osha into stands of woods along the way. He gathered leaves that had fallen beneath a near tree and walked out across an open space to another distant one. He turned and, dropping a leaf every few strides, traced his steps back.
“Draw an arrow and aim for the far tree,” he said. “Watch the leaves until an instant comes when you are certain all of the leaves are still.”
Osha did so and hit the tree the first time, though it was only twenty to twenty-five paces off.
“Now wait until you see only one leaf turn, and then shoot.”
Again he hit the tree, though a little off center. This continued every morning until they camped early near some tall oaks and the wind was more brisk than a candle could bear. That evening the greimasg’äh laid out the leaves, some of which turned or flopped immediately.
“Take aim, note the movement of the leaves for three breaths, then close your eyes and shoot.”
Osha scowled at such a ridiculous practice, but he did as instructed. He never heard the arrow hit the tree.
“Retrieve the arrow and repeat . . . always with the same arrow.”
Osha went wandering off after the arrow. He spent until dusk trying to hit the tree with his eyes closed—and never did. He cheated and tried it with his eyes open, and hit the tree only half of the time. When the sky darkened too much, he turned back to camp, where Leanâlhâm had finished cooking a squirrel that the greimasg’äh had likely caught.
“So, why did you miss . . . even when you opened your eyes?” asked Brot’ân’duivé.
Osha glanced back along the way he had come. The greimasg’äh could not have seen him from camp, so how would he know?
“Because I listen,” Brot’ân’duivé said, “and you do not. Obviously you only hit the tree when your eyes were open. Return to the candles at dawn. You will use the bow and leaves only at dusk. And this time you will listen as well as look.”
The greimasg’äh fixed Osha with an unblinking stare.
“When aiming for a distant target, you will not have leaves and candles to mark the varied movements of the air at different points along the arrow’s path.”
Leanâlhâm let out a sharp sigh before Osha could. The greimasg’äh did not look her way, but Osha did. Leanâlhâm appeared as mentally weary of all this as Osha felt.
A whole moon passed before he hit a tree at least half of the time at twenty, then thirty, and finally forty paces. In that time the greimasg’äh often disappeared for a whole night. One dawn Osha and Leanâlhâm awoke, had a fire going and oats boiling in a small pot . . .
And Brot’ân’duivé had not yet returned.
Osha wondered whether to go searching, but he could not leave Leanâlhâm alone. She, too, stared off into the distance with panic in her quick breaths. And perhaps that panic sharpened when she glanced at him looking off into the distance. And then Osha started at the sound of leaves crushed underfoot, and he quickly pulled an arrow and drew it back as he turned left.
He relaxed a little even before Brot’ân’duivé stepped out of the trees. If the greimasg’äh had wished, he would not be heard until too late. Then Osha tensed again and heard Leanâlhâm gasp.
Brot’ân’duivé’s tunic and sleeves were rent and torn. One side of his hood had been sharply split, and the forest gray cloth was splattered with dark stains . . . from blood. Without a word, the greimasg’äh stripped off his tunic, cloak, and hood, dropped them in a pile, and settled cross-legged on the ground beside the fire. He looked at Leanâlhâm. “Can you wash and mend these?”
Wordlessly she nodded, but Osha studied the greimasg’äh.
There were other old scars, besides the ones on his face, on Brot’ân’duivé’s torso and arms. A line of bruises had formed along the left side of his chest and on his right forearm, but more disturbing was what was not there.
There was not one bleeding wound for all the blood on his clothes.
Osha knew then that they had caught up to the loyalists . . . who were now at least one less than they had been.
“How far?” he asked.
“A day’s walk,” Brot’ân’duivé answered, peeking into the pot over the flames as if interested only in its contents.
Osha blinked repeatedly, looking west, not believing that even the great Brot’ân’duivé could have gone so far and returned in one night.
Leanâlhâm crouched before the pile of stained and torn garments, but she still had not touched them. With her green eyes fully widened, she looked up at Osha, and Osha turned to the greimasg’äh.
“Will they not find—”
“No,” Brot’ân’duivé said as he poured water from a flask to rinse his hand with stains long dried and crusted. “The body is hidden. Once they know one of theirs is gone, they will not willingly linger against their purpose in trying to find it.”
“You left one of our—” Leanâlhâm began, but she was silenced by the greimasg’äh’s stare.
“He . . . she . . . whoever,” Osha added, “is still one of our people. How could you leave even one of them with no way back to our ancestors?”
“There is no time for sentiment,” Brot’ân’duivé whispered at first and then barked, “or do you believe these fanatics would give you such a thought?”
Yes, Osha did . . . or he hoped. Without that, at least, what was left of their people, no matter who won this conflict? And still Leanâlhâm would not touch the bloodstained clothing.
Osha took those clothes and walked off into the trees to search for a stream or pool or even a puddle that was far from Leanâlhâm’s sight. And when he returned with the soaked clothes and hung them over a tree branch to drip in the night . . .
“You do nothing for her in hiding the truth of our state,” Brot’ân’duivé said, lying on his back in the dark near the fire’s dying embers. “Her innocence and your denial of what is . . . are a danger to you both.”
Osha ignored this, though he sat up half the night and watched Leanâlhâm sleep fitfully.
In the morning his training changed again.
“You will use only an arrow with a Chein’âs point,” the greimasg’äh ordered. “We will see if its secret can be uncovered.”
“No.”
“Do as I say!”
To his shame, some part of Osha could not continue to rebel. All that previous night he thought on Leanâlhâm, and then worried about the loyalists still at least a day ahead. It was not hard to imagine what they would do once they arrived on the western coast. Somewhere in the city of Calm Seatt was one known place—and person—from where that journal had come.
Wynn Hygeorht would be easy to find at her Guild of Sagecraft as a starting point in a hunt for Magiere, Léshil, and the wayward majay-hì called Chap.
Osha pulled a white metal–tipped arrow from his quiver and drew it in his bow. His heart was not in the first shot, and he missed. The arrow vanished among the trees.
“Find the arrow,” ordered Brot’ân’duivé. “And continue.”
Osha set down his bow beside the quiver to go searching for that arrow . . . one he was reluctant to find. The morning continued, though he hit the tree only three times. When he did so, the greimasg’äh held him off with a raised hand and went to stare at the embedded arrow. Each time he returned with that
arrow, his frown had deepened.
It appeared there was nothing special about the white metal arrowheads.
On the last shot of that morning, Osha missed again. The arrow glanced off the tree’s trunk and disappeared from sight.
“It is time to move on,” Brot’ân’duivé said, exhaling long and slow. “Gather your equipment, retrieve the arrow, and return to camp.”
Tiredly, Osha picked up his quiver, and, with bow in hand, he stepped off toward the tree to gauge the strayed arrow’s trajectory. Slinging the quiver over his shoulder as he walked, he raised the bow and prepared to pause at the tree and unstring it.
The bow suddenly felt wrong in his grip, and it tilted to the right as if unbalanced.
He stopped at the tree’s right side, where the arrow had struck, and looked the bow over. He wondered whether he had somehow warped it. Perhaps it was not as resilient or as soundly made as an Anmaglâhk bow. But he could not see anything wrong with it.
“What is the delay?” Brot’ân’duivé called out.
“Nothing,” Osha answered, pivoting left to get a sight line from the gouge in the tree’s bark.
The bow tilted sharply to the right in his loose grip. Warmth beyond that caused by holding it all morning grew in the handle’s leather wrap. His mind flashed with a memory of being assaulted by the Burning Ones.
Osha dropped the bow and backed away.
“What?”
He flinched at the greimasg’äh’s demand, too loud in his ears, and Brot’ân’duivé now stood beside him.
“It . . . moved,” he whispered. “It grew hot . . . and then moved.”
“Pick it up!”
Osha did not move, and Brot’ân’duivé barked at him, “Now!”
He reluctantly did so. Nothing happened until the bow was fully upright, and then he felt the warmth growing. Before he could drop it again, the greimasg’äh’s hand clamped over his grip on the bow’s handle.
“They would not give you something that would cause enough harm to be useless.”
Osha was not so certain, but the bow’s handle warmed only a bit more.
“Now turn both ways in holding it upright.”
He did so, first back toward the tree, and he felt the bow try to tilt to his right. As he turned the other way, the force of its torque lessened.
“Let it lead you . . . and follow it.”
He did so, turning as it urged him, and when that feeling of a tilt stopped altogether, Osha was nearly on top of a bramble. The greimasg’äh stomped and ripped at the thorny vines.
There inside the bramble was the lost arrow.
Brot’ân’duivé picked it up and eyed the white metal point. “Partially useful, as at least you will not lose one gift in learning to use the other.”
Osha did not see what real use this could be. Why would the Burning Ones force such a thing upon him . . . a thing that was so clearly not of the Anmaglâhk?
Each day became too much like the last as they walked onward. Much as Osha watched the land around them, out to the craggy, barren mountains to the north, he never saw a sign of anything. Whatever the humans feared in these so-called Broken Lands, it had yet to make itself known.
He divided time between practicing with his bow and caring for Leanâlhâm, who had been sheltered all of her life by Gleannéohkân’thva and Sgäilsheilleache. In spite of the shame forced upon him—that he was no longer Anmaglâhk—he would protect her as they had.
He did notice that she had begun to flinch less often when he used her name, but he remained determined not to ask her about this until she herself wanted to tell him.
There was one evening when he returned from practice that he found the greimasg’äh sitting cross-legged on the ground and facing Leanâlhâm. Brot’ân’duivé leaned in close to her, though she had her hands over her face as she wept.
“What have you done?” Osha shouted, closing quickly on the greimasg’äh.
Brot’ân’duivé ignored him, though Leanâlhâm turned her face away, hiding from everyone. The greimasg’äh rose on one knee, gripped the girl by the shoulders, and gently settled her upon her bedroll to cover her with a blanket. But when he stood and turned, Osha stepped in his way.
“Answer me!” Osha demanded.
Brot’ân’duivé eyed him in silence, and then said, “I have done nothing but listen. As to what, that is her confidence with me—unless she tells you otherwise. It is not your place to even ask.”
It was another moon before Osha saw the city of Calm Seatt in the distance, though even then he was not certain whether that city was the one until they entered late one night. But along the way, he cared for Leanâlhâm and waited for her to say something about the night he found her crying before the greimasg’äh. She never did.
As well, each morning there was always training.
Osha, whose name meant “a sudden breeze,” shot arrows through the wind until he lost count of how many struck a tree without his ever missing.
• • •
Wynn was at something of a loss after all Osha said. She didn’t know what to say about all that had happened between him and Brot’an. And so . . .
“Back in Calm Seatt, you let Leanâlhâm leave with Brot’an. If you were protecting her, why did you leave her with him?”
It was a mistake, though she realized it too late.
Osha looked stricken. “I did not leave her with Brot’ân’duivé! I left her with Léshil and Magiere, and Chap . . . and Magiere had sworn to Sgäilsheilleache to protect Leanâlhâm. My place was to protect you . . . from everything that greimasg’äh started with Most Aged Father. Even if Brot’ân’duivé fulfills his chosen purpose, it will not end Most Aged Father’s desires.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, dropping her gaze. “That was a stupid question. I think it is hard for me to understand all that you have been through . . . all of the changes.”
“Then instead of questions, what are your answers?”
She looked up to find him watching her.
“Tell me of your life since we parted,” he said, tilting his head. “I know I am not the only one who has suffered.”
This wasn’t the first time he’d stunned her since he’d reappeared in her world. No one had ever asked her about this—though Chane didn’t need to. He’d been there since she’d first uncovered the truth that there was more than one orb.
“What did it cost you to find this orb of Earth?” Osha asked. “I can see its cost . . . in everything about you.”
Wynn grew more uncomfortable under his gaze. “I don’t know where to start.”
“When you left me on the waterfront of Bela.”
The mention of their parting made her flush. She reached out and turned the spitted fish over, as on nights long gone when they had huddled by the fire in sharing their pasts.
• • •
Out in the forest Chane wrenched a young stag by its tineless antlers.
He threw it to the ground, pinned its neck with his knee, and struck once with full force against the back of its head. The animal went limp upon the damp forest mulch, though it was still alive, as he wished. He then went back to where he had stowed Welstiel’s pack before his hunt. When he returned, he dug inside of the pack, pulled out an ornate walnut box, and opened it beside the limp stag.
Inside were three hand-length iron rods with center loops, a teacup-sized brass bowl with strange etchings, and a white ceramic bottle with an obsidian stopper. All of these rested in burgundy padding. Every time he performed this act, he remembered Welstiel instructing him. . . .
There are ways to make the life we consume last longer.
Welstiel had used the cup to feed upon humans, and Chane had taken the process a step further by his word to Wynn. He intertwined the iron rods into a tripod stand and placed the brass cup upon it before
lifting the white bottle with its precious content—thrice-purified water. Pulling the stopper, he half filled the cup and remembered Welstiel’s clinical explanation.
Bloodletting is a wasteful way to feed. Too much life is lost and never consumed by our kind. It is not blood that matters but the leak of life caused by its loss.
Chane glanced at the deer.
The very idea of the cup revolted him, aside from the unwelcome necessity of feeding upon animals. But he needed life to continue protecting Wynn, and he could not risk feeding on a human: she might hear of someone missing or worse.
Chane drew the dagger he kept in his pack and made a small cut on the stag’s shoulder. Once the blade’s tip had gathered a bead of blood, he carefully tilted the steel over the cup.
A single drop struck the water. The blood thinned and diffused.
He began to chant, concentrating upon the cup’s innate influence. When finished, he watched the water in the cup for any change.
Nothing happened at first.
The stag let out a low sound. It was nothing more than the last bit of air escaping its lungs as its hide began to dry and shrivel. Its eyes collapsed inward, and its jawbone began to jut beneath withering skin. In moments it was only a dried, shrunken husk as vapors rose briefly over its corpse.
Chane turned his attention back to the cup.
The fluid within it had doubled, brimming near the lip, and it was so dark red it appeared almost black. As always, he was relieved and revolted by the sight, for he knew what awaited him in drinking the conjured fluid. The first time, Welstiel had warned him with only two words: Brace yourself.
Chane downed half of the cup’s contents. For a moment he tasted dregs of ground metal and strong salt.
Then he gagged and collapsed.
His body began to burn from within.
Too much life, taken in such a pure form, burst through his dead flesh and swelled into his head. Jaws and eyes clenched, he curled upon the earth until the worst passed and his convulsions finally eased.
In feeding this way, it would be a half moon or more before he needed to do so again.
