by Gwynn White
She nodded sharply, and tears were starting to form in the corners of her eyes. “Just be quick. It hurts.”
I didn’t question why the cuff was responding to my touch, or why a boy with as little muscle as I had could suddenly bend steel. I pushed those doubts out of my mind. My fingers wrapped around the metal and I tugged to either side, forcing it to part down the middle. Incredibly, the metal seemed to snap cleanly in two, as malleable as if it had just come out of the fires of a smoking forge.
Arwin freed her hand and held the broken wrist close to her chest, her hair falling once more over her scar and right eye.
“You’re welcome,” I muttered, dropping the guard’s broken cuff on the ground.
She was quiet for a moment, and then: “Thank you, Mal.”
I nodded and then retrieved the fallen loaf of sourdough bread. It had as much dirt on it now as it had the baker’s dusting of flour, but I didn’t mind; my stomach would cave in if I didn’t give it something now. Without ceremony, I broke off an end and crammed it into my mouth, savoring the rush of flavor that came with it.
“We’re not safe yet,” Arwin said, and she pointed to the guard on the ground, who was still out but showing some signs of stirring. He would be awake in another quarter hour, or less. “He’ll come after us.”
“Come after you, you mean.”
“He saw your face, too, before you hit him with the brick. I may be a hungry thief to him, but you assaulted him, a soldier of the Empire. He won’t soon forget you.”
I looked down at the sandy-haired guard. He’d just been on patrol when I’d run into him. He didn’t know what we’d gone through with Beyland, or the Walk. It had just been his job to be patrolling those streets at the same time that Arwin and I were both separately planning on stealing that baker’s loaf of bread. And now Arwin wanted to kill him for it.
“It’s to keep us safe,” she whispered, as if reading my thoughts.
I shook my head. “No. I’ve got a better idea.” The broken cuff on the ground had caught my eye, and I looked to the one still secured at the guard’s belt. Wasting no time at all, I swooped down and snatched up the metal brace, and flipped it open in one hand while I grabbed the guard’s arm with the other. “Come on, help me with this.”
Arwin went and took his other arm, and together we dragged him across the ground to the same wall where he’d pinned her. I took the remaining cuff and slapped it against his wrist, making sure it cinched tight on the other side. Then I pressed the cuff up against the wall and hoped, willed, for the same thing to happen that the guard had accomplished.
Nothing happened.
No sharp metal barbs piercing their way into the brick.
“What are you doing?” Arwin asked.
“Shh! I need to concentrate.”
“You’re not an iron ta—”
“It worked before! Now, shush.”
The guard let out a light groan of pain, barely an exhale, but it was enough to send Arwin retreating a half dozen steps. “We need to get out of here.”
“In a minute.”
I returned my attention to the metal, envisioning what I wanted it to do, and then I placed my hands on it and closed my eyes. Come on, I urged it. In a moment of exasperation, I grabbed the piece of brick again and slammed it against the metal cuff. Depths take you, bend!
At that last bit of insistence, the cuff responded, shooting out barbed tendrils into the surrounding brickwork. Some pierced the guard’s wrist as well, and I winced as several bloodspots welled in response. He would feel it when he woke up, and it would take a doctor working alongside an iron tamer to safely remove them.
“How did you do that?” Arwin said, her voice now soft with awe. She was finally interested in what I was doing, but it was too late now. We had to go.
“He’ll be up any minute,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
7
Arwin and I sat in the shadowy recesses of an alley on the far side of town, the most remote place we could find without actually leaving Mitbas. I didn’t think we were ready for that just yet. And somehow, I was thinking in terms of ‘we.’ Arwin and I were a team, whether she liked it or not. Nobody else was looking out for us anymore.
“You know, this was worth it,” she mumbled between bites. The sourdough loaf sat half consumed between us, and the rest of it would probably be gone within the next quarter hour. Arwin moaned appreciatively as she swallowed another mouthful. “We shouldn’t stay here for long, though.”
I stopped chewing to glance at her. She was careful to keep her scar covered with her hair, but I could see the ruined stretch of skin all the same from this close up. I set my attention back on the bread in my hands. “Yeah. He’s probably awake by now.”
“And his next step will be to rally up all the local soldiers and come hunting for us,” Arwin stressed. “They could already be on their way. You haven’t had to run for your life before two days ago, but I’ve been doing it my whole life, and I’m telling you that we’re in danger now. I can feel it.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, trying to calm her. “So, where do you suggest we go next?”
“Well, if you’re going to keep doing that metal stuff, Cleighton would probably be best. They’ve got a forging guild there that’s supposed to be the best in the land.”
I peered at her suspiciously. “I get what I’d do there…but what’s in Cleighton for you?”
Arwin smiled wide. “Tamed iron can fetch a hefty price, to the right buyer.”
“Anyone can get iron,” I argued.
She wagged a finger. “There’s a world of difference between any old tamed iron and the weapons and armor that come from the forgesmiths in Cleighton. The iron tamers there are unparalleled in skill, and the black market for their weapons and armor is strong and healthy.”
“You’ll get in the same trouble there as you did here…and next time, it won’t be over a piece of bread. They will burn you. Maybe just stab you then and there and be done with it.”
“Gotta make a living somehow. We’ll figure it out when we get there.” She patted my knee and swung her legs off the low, broken wall we were sitting on. “Come on, we gotta go.”
“Hang on.” I glanced at my shoulder, which was starting to genuinely ache. “There’s one more thing I have to do before we leave.”
“Hmm, what have we here?” The doctor I’d been directed to by the guard so many hours ago was a hunched man with wiry muscles beneath his slightly sagging skin. “The Walk, you say? Never heard of it.”
“How can you not have heard of it?” Arwin demanded. “We came from Pointe, it’s the mine—”
“Nobody comes from Pointe,” the doctor countered, silencing her. He looked at me again and sighed. “You can’t walk around with an open hole in your shoulder. It’s clearly an arrow wound…what did you do to get it?”
I hissed as he probed at the wound, dipping a thick glob of something pungent into the opening. “I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Ha! Nobody ever got hurt being in the right place, did they? Nobody gets hurt doing the right thing,” he muttered, casting another harsh glance my way as he reached for a glass jar from a shelf above his desk. “Now, you know how I know you did the wrong thing? This is going to hurt.”
“What are you—uhh, what is that?”
The doctor had picked something wriggling out of the jar and held it aloft; it was barely an inch long, with half a dozen wriggling feet and a small, puckering mouth full of tiny teeth. “This is an inchworm.”
“That is not an inchworm. I know what an inchworm is.”
Another harsh laugh came from the doctor’s lips. “Fair enough. But this is an inchworm to those in the medical profession. Now hold still.”
I tried to get off the table he had me sitting on, but he held me down with one surprisingly strong arm and called to Arwin for help. “Restrain him,” he said, and the barked order got an immediate response from her.
&nb
sp; “Mal,” she started, “if the doctor says it’ll make you better—”
“No, I don’t want it!”
But it was no use. Arwin helped hold me down as the doctor lowered the wriggling creature into my shoulder, and its little hooked feet scraped the inside of the wound as it started to burrow. After another moment, though, the pain started to fade, replaced by a strange, cool sensation that spread through the surrounding muscle and dulled my concern.
“I feel funny…”
“That’s the inchworm,” the doctor said. “It secretes a toxin that—”
“A toxin?” Arwin asked, alarmed.
“Yes, but in such minute doses that it’s basically harmless.” He turned his attention to me. “Your body will naturally start producing antitoxins within a few days, leaving you with only the benefits of the treatment.” He reached for a thick roll of white gauze, which he proceeded to wrap in generous amounts around my neck and shoulder and arm. “Try to keep the arm stable until the wound is completely closed. If you move it too much, you’ll tear open the patch that the inchworm is making.”
I looked down at my shoulder, and sure enough, a patch of fresh skin, a little too light compared to the rest of my body, was forming over the wound, almost like the inchworm was spinning a web of new flesh behind it. “It looks weird.”
Arwin grinned. “It suits you.”
The doctor turned to her next, and the smile fell from her face. “Now let’s see about that wrist…”
We’d left the doctor’s house without paying. Having no money, and with the blond guard sure to come after us soon, there’d been no other choice. I would make amends to the doctor someday, though, whenever I made my way toward Mitbas next.
A hot breeze blew across the plains as we walked north toward Cleighton, transporting warm air from the simmering super volcano visible in the distance. Berg Obehr pierced the skyline in a way none of the surrounding mountains could; red light seeped from its insides into the cloud coverage overhead, giving it an almost demonic presence looming over the green countryside. Seemingly unending fields of crops swayed gently between me and Arwin and Berg Obehr, and it would be another couple of days before we would be within sight of the town itself, which was nestled in the foothills of the enormous magma-filled mountain.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Arwin said, following my gaze.
“In a deadly, molten sort of way, sure.”
“Come on, if you’re going to be an iron tamer, you’ll have to get used to the idea of being near fire.” A hand raised to her face unconsciously, her fingertips grazing the skin between her eye and ear. “It’s going to be a part of your life now, probably forever.”
I didn’t say anything, and we kept walking on in silence. The road had started off dusty, bumpy, and uneven, but it got marginally easier to navigate as time went on and we neared the core cities of the Empire. We weren’t close to them by any stretch, but pick any direction leading away from Pointe and you’ll find yourself heading toward to the capital. It was the center of everything, the heart of the Empire—all roads led to Harcour.
My shoes were holding themselves to my feet by narrow strands of fabric. The Walk had done a number on them, and I winced at every sharp little rock in the road, could feel every blast of dust and dirt carried on the wind as it was swept against my toes and heels. The extra ventilation actually felt good, though, as it helped fight off some of the heat I felt coming off the volcano to the north. Even several days’ walk away, its presence was imposing and pervasive.
A few hours into our walk, Arwin suddenly reached out and flung an arm across my chest. “Wait, do you hear that?”
“Hear what?” I strained my ears, but the only thing I heard was the gentle swishing of the grasses to our right and left. “I don’t hear any—”
“Shh!” She yanked me to the side of the road, and I nearly fell flat on my face as we leapt into the high-reaching field. We could have stood up straight and tall and still not have breached the tops of the crops with our heads, but Arwin forced me onto my stomach, and we watched the road for several minutes in silence. Dirt sullied my shoulder dressing, but there was nothing I could do about it; Arwin kept a firm hand on my back just between my shoulder blades, her eyes hard and unmoving as she glared at the road. Her wrist had been treated only hours ago and already it seemed just as strong as before.
Despite the lack of obvious danger, I held my breath. I’d never seen her so serious, not even outside the mouth of the cave in Pointe before the Walk. She’d been facing almost certain death then, too, so what was it that bothered her now?
She’s so temperamental and hot-headed and annoying and—
Before I could think of any more adjectives for my mental rant, though, I heard it. Hoofbeats. More than a dozen of them, by the sound of it, at least four or five horses riding close together down the dirt road. A moment later, they came into view—six riders all wearing the colors of the Empire, green and silver trim lining their capes.
Dust swirled in eddies about the horses’ hooves as the armed men blew past, completely unaware of Arwin and me crouched in the crops barely a few paces off the beaten path. The men rode without helmets, though, and I could tell that none of them were the blond guard we’d knocked out earlier. I could only imagine he was still recovering back in Mitbas.
Arwin kept me pressed against the ground until the last sound of hoofbeats died off, replaced only by the warm, sullen wind, and even then she refused to budge.
“Come on, I’m getting stiff,” I said, and at last she relented.
“Once we get to Cleighton, we’ll be safe. They won’t be looking for us so far from Mitbas, not for something as lousy as stealing a loaf of bread.”
“And beating a soldier unconscious,” I added.
Arwin paused. “And cuffing him to the wall.” We shared a solemn glance. “So maybe they’ll send a few men after us after all,” she said.
“Do you think it’s safe to keep going that way?” I asked, tilting my head down the road to where the riders had disappeared beyond the next gently rolling hill. “They could double back soon to get home before nightfall.”
“I don’t see many other options, do you? Pointe is burned to us. Mitbas is burned. It’d be more dangerous to go south around the town now to get to the sea, and there’s only mountains to the east, so that leaves us with north.”
I stared off to our left. “What about west?”
“That fat sack Answorth didn’t teach you nothing, did he? Nothing but open desert.” She shook her head. “We’re hungry enough on lush, fertile grasslands. How do you think we’d fare under the hot sun for days and weeks without food or water?”
I didn’t have any answer for that. I hated the way she made me feel sometimes, like I was a simpleton child who hadn’t enough sense to breathe without choking. Unable to meet her haughty eyes, I lifted one foot, then the other, and followed in the hoofprints of the Empire’s horsemen.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Arwin called, her voice full of scorn. But then I heard her quick footsteps as she rejoined me at my side, and suddenly it seemed our fight wasn’t so bad after all.
A scant couple of hours before nightfall, my prediction came true: the soldiers came galloping back the way they’d come. We were prepared for them, though, and Arwin didn’t even have to tug on my arm to get me to lay beside her belly-down in the grasses as we waited for them to come into view, pass, and exit our sight again.
“Idiots,” Arwin muttered as we rose to our feet. “You know you’re not in Pointe anymore when the locals can’t even spot our tracks in the open road. We aren’t even trying to hide them anymore!”
I had to agree with her. Growing up, even under the neglectful guardianship of Answorth, I’d learned all the ways woodland creatures, prey and fey alike, might try to conceal their passing through the forest. Broken twigs, crushed leaves, and muddy footprints were only the beginning when it came to tracking, and it took a lot of knowledge
and experience to know how to cover up any trace of where you’d been.
I wasn’t the best tracker, obviously, but compared to the blind men who’d ridden past us twice now, I was as all-seeing as the Lord of Clouds himself.
We walked. My feet felt more air coming through the holes in my ragged shoes, and my thighs burned from exertion. Even though the land seemed flat, it was really more of a constant, gradual rise between hills, each incline seeming to last for miles. If this was what the ocean was like, I was glad I’d lived up in the mountains my whole life.
I was thankful now not to have a jacket, or even long sleeves, as the warm air being brought in from the north made me sweat beneath the heavy bandages the doctor had wrapped me in, and the rest of me was just a hair past being perfectly comfortable. I yearned for the time a few days from now when I’d be able to rip away the white wrap once and for all, because it would only get hotter the closer we got to Berg Obehr.
“Wait,” Arwin said, and she slapped her arm flat against my chest.
“Would you stop doing that?” I complained. She hadn’t hit me all that hard, only enough to stun me into stopping, but it was the same spot as before, her accuracy unerring. “It’s starting to hurt.”
“There’s someone else up ahead.”
“How can you tell?” I asked.
The sun was waning now, maybe a half hour of light remaining in the day, and shadows were settling in across the land. I could see her well enough right by my side, and even had clear sight to the next major rise, but I couldn’t see anything along the eastern horizon until I got to Berg Obehr in the north.
“What can you see?”
She sniffed the air. “Something smells strange, like oil or something.”
I lifted my own nose and inhaled deeply. “Crops,” I concluded. Then I sniffed again. “Crops and…lilies?”
