by Zoe Marriott
“I wish Birkin’d hurry up with his washing,” the older man grumbled, picking at the brownish stains under his fingernails. “Never saw nothing to be squeamish about in a little blood. Why’s he always got to scrub himself down so well?”
“That’s just Birkin,” one of the brothers said, emptying out the last items from the leather bag. “And if you’ve any sense you’ll wait for him like he told us to.”
“I’m waiting, aren’t I?” The older man turned his head to look at the women. “Don’t see why he’s worried, myself. The younger one might be worth something to Constantin, but the old bitch isn’t going to whet his appetite.”
The girl whimpered through her gag and I felt Luca stiffen beside me. Constantin. The leader of the rebels. His brother. I flicked a glance at him and saw his eyes blazing, like a night sky in the instant after a lightning strike.
Hesitantly, I touched his elbow, looking for instruction. He indicated with a whirl and point of his finger that he would circle the camp uphill. An emphatic jab of his finger first at me and then at the ground signalled that I was to stay put. He shrugged off his loaded pack, then readjusted the strap of his sword across his chest and rotated his neck, stretching carefully.
I wanted to protest that I could help. But I had just told him about the Wolf. Even if he trusted me not to run, I couldn’t expect him to trust me not to hurt anyone. I nodded resignedly. Luca frowned at me, then twisted around and pulled one of the long knives from the sheath at his thigh. He reversed it and offered the hilt to me.
I stared at it, disbelieving. He sighed, seized my hand and thrust the hilt into it. Stay here, he mouthed. I nodded again, weighing the costly leather-wrapped steel hilt in my palm. The blade was leaf-shaped and finely honed. Despite the terrible situation, I felt a tiny smile tugging at my lips. He did trust me – at least enough to allow me to defend myself.
Luca’s hand was still cupped warmly around the back of mine. For a brief moment his long fingers entwined with mine around the handle of the knife, and squeezed. Be careful, he mouthed.
I nodded again. You too.
He released me and wriggled out of sight. I fixed my eyes on the captive women huddled in darkness, and gritted my teeth. Just hang on a little longer. He’s coming to save you.
Luca stepped into the clearing. He took off one of the brother’s heads with a single sweep of his sword. I swallowed a cry at the brutal swiftness of the death. The other brother yelled, dropped his handful of stolen items, and went for a sword that was leaning against the rock next to him. Before he could reach it, Luca’s sword flashed again. The man’s yell turned into a strange hiccuping noise. He crumpled inches away from where I was crouched. A long rivulet of blood crept across the dirt and moss towards me, and I inched away.
“Birkin!” the third man shouted as Luca rushed at him. The man’s sword, dull with dried blood, flicked up to deflect Luca’s. “Birkin! Get out here!”
This older man was faster and warier than the two brothers. He didn’t try to attack or escape; he merely concentrated on avoiding Luca as he carefully manoeuvred around the fire. “Birkin!” he yelled again.
Luca’s body seemed to blur. He flew into a kick that forced the bandit away from the fire towards the rocks. The Rua women were already on their knees, struggling with the ropes, their eyes fixed on the fighting.
Come on, I urged them mentally. Come on, you can do it.
Something crashed through the trees behind me. I whipped around.
A gigantic man, bulging with oversize muscles, stood directly in front of me. His long blonde hair was damp and hung in disarray around his freshly scrubbed face. In one hand he held a drying cloth and a bar of soap. In the other was a broadsword. His pale eyes glittered with fury.
He took a step towards me. I leaped up, pushing off from the boulder – and tripped over the body of the bandit Luca had just killed. I fell headlong into the clearing, almost landing in the fire. My hair sizzled. I rolled, and the haunch of meat went flying in a spray of hot fat as I scrambled to my feet, still clutching the knife.
Birkin’s sword jabbed towards my belly. I dodged, slashing wildly with Luca’s knife. Birkin didn’t even flinch. It must have been painfully obvious that I had no idea what I was doing, and his reach was a foot longer than mine. I couldn’t get near him. I spun away from another slash of his sword. He was going to nick me eventually. And when that happened…
I flicked a panicked glance at Luca and saw him wrenching his sword free of the grey-haired bandit’s chest. I felt a spurt of relief. Then Birkin came at me with a roar, his sword flying down in a two-handed slash that would gut me like a pig.
Something I had no name for – not fear, not even anger – shivered through my body, cold as ice. I screamed defiance, my body moving of its own volition. His blade sliced the air where I had been a moment before. My knife flashed twice.
Two long lines of blood appeared on Birkin’s chest, crossing his heart. He reeled backwards. His foot went into the fire and he roared as he jerked his leg out of the burning logs. He landed on one knee, still clutching his sword.
The older Rua woman, arms trailing pieces of rope, rose up behind him. The great haunch of venison was in her hands. She brought it down on the back of Birkin’s head with a dull smack. Once. Twice. A third time. The bandit’s eyes rolled up in his skull. The sword fell from his fist. He slumped into the dirt.
She stood over him, chest heaving. The deer’s leg bone was gripped so tightly in her hands that her fingers seemed the same colour. She lifted her weapon again.
Luca stepped past me, jamming his sword back into its sheath, blood and all. He held his palms up in a peaceful gesture, attracting the woman’s attention. “You’re safe now,” he said. “You’re safe. You can stop.”
The young girl, gag still in her mouth, scrambled out from under the ledge and ran towards her mother. A sob rattled the older woman’s frame, and she dropped the venison leg. Putting her arms around the girl, she pulled the gag gently away from her daughter’s face.
“They killed my husband,” she said softly, her voice broken. “They killed my boy.”
“We know,” Luca said. “We found them. I’m so sorry.”
The girl turned her face into her mother’s shoulder and cried.
The rest of that day took on a strange quality for me. It felt as though I had been given another person’s part in some grand play. I knew what to say and what to do, but I kept waiting for the real actor to come and push me out into my proper role again.
Luca and I rolled the bodies of the dead bandits to one side of the clearing and stoked up the fire for the shivering women – Mala and her daughter, Crina – to sit by. He took small clay pots with wax stoppers from his seemingly bottomless pack, along with bandages, and I helped the women clean and anoint their cuts and bruises, and wrapped Crina’s sprained ankle. My fingers moved briskly and skilfully, my mother’s training not quite forgotten, it seemed.
Meanwhile, Luca did a rather less neat job of bandaging the still-unconscious Birkin’s wounds, and then trussed him hand and foot to a nearby tree.
“I’ll have someone come by to collect him later,” he said, when I caught his eye.
“What if a bear or a big cat smells the blood and finds him?”
Luca shrugged. “He’s got plenty of daylight left. And any predators will go for the dead meat first. I have more important things to see to at the moment.”
We herded the sheep out of the bandit’s corral and followed Mala and Crina back to their farmstead, a small piece of land scooped out of the hillside. It didn’t take long to reach. The family had been ambushed almost on their own threshold. Two dark-haired boys, about the same age as me – twins, I thought, though not identical – came running to meet us as soon as we were within sight of the small house. They must have been left in charge of the farm by their parents. I saw their handsome faces blanch with horrified realization as they saw the state of their mother and sister, and looked in
vain for their father and brother. Once we had the livestock safely shut in the family’s barn, the two young men went out with Luca to find and bury the bodies of their murdered kinfolk. I was left with the grieving women.
Mala urged me to sit in one of the wooden chairs by the fire. She bustled about, her voice brisk and slightly too high-pitched as she offered me tea and honey cake. Crina sat in the chair opposite, rocking ever so slightly, hands clamped on her knees. Her fingers twitched and strained, as if she were still struggling against the ropes that had left their mark on her wrists.
This morning Mala and Crina had set out to market as a normal family with their own cares and preoccupations. By noon they had been plunged into a world of blood and screaming and unimaginable terror. Now they were home again. But it was not the same home. It would never be the same again; nothing would ever be the same for them again, because they had had been changed forever by what had happened. Their family had been shattered as easily as a clay cup is smashed by a careless child. Darkness and mourning had filled the void left behind by those they had loved.
Luca and the twins returned a couple of hours later, mud-streaked and weary. I was relieved when one of them immediately urged their mother to sit and drink some of the tea she had made, while the other one draped a blanket around Crina and whispered gently to her until her tense hands uncurled from their straining grip on her knees. They would take care of their mother and sister, these two. They were good boys.
Luca had spoken to me about good people. He had said that he and his men were the “good ones”. I had scorned his words, telling myself there was no such thing as good people, or bad. Remembering the sickening, careless cruelty of the bandits who had caused this family’s heartbreak, I knew now that was a lie. I had clung to the untruth because it was easier than admitting to myself what I feared. The thing I had always feared, in my heart.
That I was not one of the good ones.
Luca leaned tiredly against the frame of the open door. Warm sunlight streamed in around him. “Mala, I will send to Mesgao today for an elder and a namoa to come here as soon as possible,” he said. “You’ll get a widow’s purse from the Crown. It’s not a fortune, but it will help.”
Mala winced from the word “widow”. She nodded wordlessly, eyes lowered.
“Thank you,” one of the twins said on his mother’s behalf. He turned his grave eyes to me. “And thank you. Captain Luca told us that you were the one who found my father and Abhay, that you were the one who realized Mother and Crina had been taken. They would be dead were it not for you. We’ll never be able to repay you, but we won’t ever forget what you’ve done.”
I looked helplessly at Luca, but the sun was too bright. I could not see his expression. Why had he told them that? He of all people knew I was no heroine.
“What is your name?” Crina asked, suddenly stirring in the muffling folds of her blanket. “We must add you to our nightly prayers. It’s the least we can do when – when you’ve been so kind.”
I hesitated, feeling Luca’s attention like a heavy weight on the back of my neck.
“Frost,” I said, finally. “My name is Frost Aeskaar.”
“Do not run, daughter.”
Their voices – a dozen versions of my father’s voice – are sorrowful. I stumble through the snow, pressing my hands over my ears. It slows me down, and it does not block out the wolf-song, but it is all I can do.
“Do not run. We only wish to help you.”
“Leave me alone,” I scream, my voice shrill and trembling. “You are not my father.”
“Daughter,” the wolves cry. “Wait for us.”
But it is a lie. When they catch me, I know they will devour me whole.
I dig my blistered toes into the snow and run faster.
Nine
I shuddered and shook with cold. My own breath nearly blinded me: spreading out silvery-white like a constellation before my eyes. I barely heard Elder Gallen arguing with the priests.
“We can build a pyre on the edge of the forest,” he pleaded. “Burning a whole building in the centre of the village is too dangerous.”
“Far more dangerous to allow a demon-tainted girl to walk out of the barn and infect others on her way to her death,” the priest of the Other said calmly.
“But – it is my barn! The expense of rebuilding—”
“Is but a small price to pay to keep your people safe,” the priest of Askaan said. “My beard, man! You have housed a monster in that place! How could you put good cattle in there now? They would sicken. Their flesh would turn black, their milk to poison.”
That silenced the elder. No one raised any more objections. My mother’s shouts had faded into the distance. Someone had dragged her away. Probably Eilik.
Footsteps scurried past the barn. I imagined the villagers running back to their homes. I imagined the people I had known all my life – the faces I had smiled at or nodded to every day – hurriedly shutting themselves into their houses. I imagined them turning from the windows and putting their hands over their ears to block out the sound of the priests’ chanting.
I wished I could put my hands over my ears. But I could not. The men’s voices, solemn and sincere, echoed through the barn as they circled it. I imagined the priest of the Other smiling his sad smile and shuddered more. My shivers made the chains clink, almost drowning out the chatter of my teeth. Gradually their voices faded away.
Soon I saw the flames. The smoke drifted up towards the roof, curling and twisting there like a living creature. I coughed and choked, gasping for air. Fire licked at the walls with long red tongues. Heat drummed against my skin, but it did not warm me. I was so cold; I thought the ice would kill me before the fire did, and I was glad.
There was a crash behind me. My body, weighed down by the chains, jerked involuntarily as a panel of the wall fell in. Cold air whooshed into the barn. The fire roared.
A large, square figure, face muffled in cloth, charged into the gap waving a hammer in one hand and a chisel in the other. He ran towards me through the smoke. I cringed away. Someone had decided fire was too merciful.
The figure leaned over me. The cloth dripped icy cold water on my face, making me flinch. I recognized the kind eyes and singed eyebrows above the cloth. Eilik.
He jammed his chisel into one of the chains and smashed his hammer down. Three times he did this. On the final strike, the chains loosened and fell away.
“Come on, girl!” he shouted over the crackle and hiss of the fire. “Before the roof falls in!”
He grabbed my arms and pulled me to my feet. My muscles cramped and twitched and I nearly fell. He hefted me into his arms as if I weighed nothing, as if I did not stink of dirt and urine and mould. His hands were as warm as the air that gushed out of his smithy.
Pressing my face into his chest, he ran with me out into the darkness, carrying me away from the burning barn, through the outskirts of the village, to the edge of the forest where the light was blue and faint. Under the trees, two pale shapes waited. I recognized Dolla, my mother’s mule. She was weighed down with bags and boxes that had been haphazardly strapped to her saddle. And next to Dolla, my mother. She stepped forward as Eilik heaved me up onto Dolla’s back with a grunt of effort. I lay there, gasping for air, breathing in the clean horse-scent of Dolla’s mane, soaking up the warmth of her broad back. She shifted under me, but made no noise. Good girl.
Ma reached out. Not to me, but to Eilik. Her hand looked very white against his tanned forearm.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“I need no thanks,” he said gruffly. He turned his face towards me, but I could not see his expression in the dark. “’Tis nothing but fear that made a child’s fight into a nightmare. They see their own demons in the dark. I see only a little girl. You go on and start again, far away where they cannot find you.” A moment later he was gone.
“Ma,” I whispered. My voice crackled and hissed, like the fire. I reached out to her. Wanting comfo
rt, wanting anything to help wipe the horror of what had just happened from my mind.
She shrugged my hand away. “Don’t.” Her voice was low and broken.
As she led Dolla into the forest, I began to shiver again.
Luca’s hand rested lightly on the centre of my back, guiding me through the farmyard and out onto the dust track that led away from Mala and Crina’s house. The heat of his sun-drenched skin soaked through my shirt, almost burning me. I took a deep breath to steady myself. With each step I tried to work up the courage to ask him what would happen to me now: how did they deal with people like me here? I couldn’t find the strength. The words clogged up in my throat like dry, stale breadcrumbs. I had promised to go with him and not to run away again, and I would keep that promise, even if every muscle in my body was quivering with the desire to flee. But that was all the bravery I had in me.
I was surprised when Luca stopped and seated himself on the low stone wall at the border of the family’s farm. From here, I could see the whole property, including the two new mounds of dark earth under the trees to one side of the house. Each one was crowned with a ring of white stones. The graves of the farmer and his son. Nicu and Abhay.
“Sit down,” Luca said, gesturing to a fallen log with one hand while he shrugged his pack off and set it on the ground with the other.
I obeyed, watching him warily as he unbuckled the strap that held his scabbard to his back. He sighed and stretched, then laid the sheathed sword across his knees.
“So, I’ve learned your name at last,” he said. Almost casually, he drew his sword from its scabbard.
Fear stopped my mouth. My hands wanted to reach for my wolf tooth, but I kept them clasped tightly before me. I had to keep still, or I would break and run.
