by Rex Sumner
“Make fire, make food. See if you can cook, little woman.”
“Never!” She hissed the word out through clenched teeth.
He clouted her again, a little harder and darkness clouded her mind for a moment, tears threatening to well up behind her eyes.
“Cook and you will eat. And drink. Don’t cook and I will eat dry food and you will eat nothing.” He shrugged and moved to care for his horse. Asmara jumped for the bushes and he caught her leg. Holding her upside down, he smiled and cuffed her again. Shaking her, he spoke.
“So, we like to play games. I have good game, you are horse. Tied up for night.” He tied a cord to her ankle, the other end round a tree and returned to his horse.
Returning, Asmara lay beside the untouched bag, glaring like a furious cat. He retrieved the bag and poured a measure of the contents, a mixture of oats and seeds, into a mug from which he ate it, dry. Asmara’s eyes never left his face while he ignored her.
Finishing his meal, he rose and urinated powerfully into the bushes, returning to sit cross-legged opposite her. He tapped his breast and grunted. Asmara stared. His brow creased, he tapped his breast, grunted again and pointed at her. ‘Oh no,’ she thought, ‘names.’ She pulled herself to some attention and gestured to him to repeat the grunt.
“Ey-dis,” she said, and he nodded, before pointing at her. “Asmara.”
He mangled it badly, but she nodded anyway and he proceeded to grasp everything in reach. Asmara’s mind raced, realising the potential benefits of speaking Spakka when she freed herself and slaughtered Eydis in the process, so she applied herself with a will and after an hour’s work could name all his weapons, horse and various camp items. Eydis laughed a lot, his face creasing at her pronunciation, and she warmed to him.
“Food, Asmara?” She reached for the bag of gruel and he slapped her hand away, responding with a stream of words from which she gathered she wouldn’t eat in punishment for not cooking. He did permit her water, before covering her with a smelly fur. She pushed it away and indicated she needed to make water, damn it, that was not all she needed to do and didn’t appreciate his intention of following and watching her.
But he was not to be denied, and to her mortification watched the entire process, allowing her a small dagger to cut a hole in the turf and bury the proceeds. She washed herself with a little water, to his fascination and she kicked at him when he tried to watch the exact procedure. Returning to their baggage, she wondered about the others, seeing the horses tethered in various spots, each rider in his own camp. Heart-wrenching sobs came from the nearest camp, as the warrior stood nearby making water, only to be silenced with a ringing slap when he returned to the covers.
Asmara steeled herself for her own rape, holding down the terror bubbling up in her stomach. She found she appreciated not having eaten, knowing she would throw anything up and give away her fear. Her captor showed little interest in her, tying her hands and feet and placing a noose around her neck to his hand, before rolling to sleep in his own blankets, short sword in hand. Asmara lay awake a little while, hearing the silence of the night enlivened with the mournful calls of an owl seeking his mate.
Dawn came too quickly, the warriors up and saddling at first light, Asmara barely getting enough time to make water before being sat on the front of the saddle, uncomfortable on the low pommel so she slipped forwards onto the back of the neck, equally uncomfortable. Eydis continued the language lesson, in between permitting her to eat some trail mix of dried seeds, oats and nuts.
Asmara noted the girls on the other horses, all behind the riders today, all with downcast heads and bedraggled appearance. Several held their hands on their stomachs.
The path rose high into the mountains, deep in the interior with the sea no longer visible. They rode now at the tree-line, Asmara buried deep in her bearskin for the cold bit deep. Her snappish answers to the language lessons didn’t bother Eydis, as long as she progressed. Mistakes drew physical retribution and she learned. The trail followed the crest of a ridge, and now this turned and went along the side of a mountain, a precipice falling away to her right while on her left a gentle incline down to a small stream, after which the terrain turned rugged, pushing up vertically to the heights in places. Asmara watched an eagle in flight beneath them in the ravine, Eydis too entranced to continue the lessons.
The eagle soared in circles, rising at a steady pace, every so often seeming to slip outwards and flapping to come back to the tight circle where it rose again. The yellow beak, hooked and massive, provided a sight down which the eyes trained, fixing them for a moment before dismissing them and returning to the endless search for food.
The trail dipped and left the open to enter a pine forest, great, straight trunks and a resinous smell in the air. Pine needles covered the ground, and two riders broke off from the group, making their way through the woods in different directions. Asmara nodded in thought, played with the pine branches as they went past, snapping a couple off with studied lack of care. Eydis smacked her head.
“Maybe we have lost your trackers, but do not help them.”
As night fell, they camped beside a brook. Asmara started a fire, and Eydis took his sword to the brook, returning with four trout, not very large.
“Can Asmara cook fire with girl?” Asmara put a hopeful expression on her face, as she indicated the girl slumped in the next clearing. She felt her superb Spakka deserved a reward.
Eydis studied her with a grave expression, she was sure to hide the laughter bubbling behind the mask, before calling out to the Uightlander in Harrheinian. The warrior, wrapped in his plaid, grunted as he drank from a skin. The girl staggered a little as she came over, and Asmara took in her pale complexion, seeing the pain beneath it.
“River, water, oh, damn it, what is Spakka for wash or clean?” Asmara muttered, miming washing her face while Eydis wore a perplexed expression. Assuming consent, she headed for the brook holding the girl by the hand. “Eydis stay, ready trout,” she commanded as he began to follow. Ignoring his laughter, they knelt by the water and Asmara helped the girl out of her dress and both entered the freezing water to wash the blood and slime off her.
“What is your name?” Asmara’s teeth chattered as she washed the girl, whose arms did not seem to work too well.
“Rosie, ma’am, they called me after your mum.”
“Thank you for trying, yesterday, Rosie.”
“Would do it again, anytime you want, ma’am. Sorry you didn’t make it, good try though.”
“Is it very bad, Rosie?”
“Bad? No, not really, miss, a man’s a man at the end of the day. Not much difference between an Uightlander and a man from the Wall, beyond a bit of an accent.”
“I thought you were in pain?”
The girl smiled. “The riding, miss, not used to it. This one isn’t my first man, ma’am, and he ain’t a bad fellow really. He’s been telling me about his farm, up in the hills. A shepherd, he is, with a bit of a kitchen garden. I’m his wife, he says and already told me he plans for ten children, all as big as he is.” Rosie didn’t sound too upset at this, indeed rather proud. Asmara digested the news.
“Don’t you want to go back to Harrhein?”
“On the border, doesn’t matter much to us girls which side we are. Me da’ stole me ma from a village not far from this farm, so I ‘spect I’ll find some relations who’ll make me welcome. Come now, I’m clean, let’s get cooking or we’ll catch it.”
In silence the girls made griddle cakes, Rosie showing Asmara her techniques, and Rosie dug up some ferns to peel the roots which she boiled in a bark pot she made in a moment. The men sat together, sharing the skin now and talking in low tones.
“Are all the girls happy to go with their man?”
“Sure, they came back for us, didn’t they? Could have run and left us. Many did, but these boys like us.”
“Why did you jump off the horse and shout at him yesterday, won’t that make it difficult for you? Couldn’t you have done something else?”
“Can’t think what, and he mustn’t think he can paw me where others can see. Got to start training him early, my mam said, while he still wants my body.”
“But he hit you.” For Asmara, this crime required serious punishment.
“Sure he did now, and he will again or there’s something wrong. And when he does something wrong, so help me I’ll thrash him too, and won’t he squeal, big lummox that he may be.”
Asmara placed the largest trout on a chunk of wood, along with two griddle cakes and a pile of fern roots, serving them to Eydis while Rosie provided something similar to her man. The girls sat down beside the fire and ate their own share, Asmara shocked into silence by the taste of fresh brook trout, her hunger rampant in her belly as she strove to chew and not swallow all at once.
“Up here, they’re only Uightlanders ‘cos they’re outside the Wall. We’re the same people, really, and there’s a summer fair we all go to, meet up with our relatives. My da’ says the only difference is he has to pay tax to the Duke, and he don’t like it, he don’t. Threatened to go north many a time.”
Asmara digested this in silence, a different story to the one she understood from the Pathfinders. She thought of the Young Man, leading the North Hallows regiment. She danced with him once, she remembered, and he had complained to her about taxation at the time.
“It’s a tough life up here, miss, a short summer season for the growing and the snow in winter after our flocks, but it has rewards. Look at the land we rode through today, just beautiful, and it’s all like that. Aye, and the men are a rare, braw breed; a bit simple mind, but we girls sort them. You’ll be happy here with your man.”
“What?”
“Well, he canna go back to Spakka, now, can he. He’ll have to settle up here, away from your boys. He’ll head north, I reckon, as far as can be, and spend the winter hunting the reindeer. Do you know how to cure skins?”
“No,” said Asmara, horrible visions piling up.
“Maybe you will stop near us for a while and I can teach you. I’ll ask my Tam.”
Asmara took a long time to fall asleep that night, despite her weariness from a day in the saddle. A bleak future in the snow contrasted poorly with running a thriving kingdom.
The next day she asked Eydis where they went. He grunted his reply in Spakka, and from the little she could make out, she realised he wasn’t sure. He talked of finding a boat, calling a passing ship or even building one. He described his home, which seemed to be mainly rocks and sheep and a wife who ruled with a rod of iron. Asmara he intended to trade with the king, but he was vague on the details of what he wanted, despite her pressing him that she could make the agreement. In the end he said maybe he would just make her the second wife, easier all round.
Asmara bridled, and tucked her right leg under his, feeling with her foot to ease the basic stirrup off. He rode slumped in the saddle, half asleep, till she slapped his neck, grabbed the reins and lifted her foot sharply as she pulled the horse to the right. Eydis’ hands, moving towards his slapped neck, couldn’t react in time to grasp the saddle or reclaim the reins as she pushed his foot up and he floundered on the grass while she rode round him in circles, whipping him with the end of the reins.
He bellowed, while the Uightlanders gathered round and shouted advice. Asmara kept an eye out for an opening, preparing to jab in her heels and race back the way they came, but three warriors blocked her path, anticipating her dash so she concentrated on Eydis. He climbed to his feet, joined in the laughter and caught the reins by letting them whip around his forearm, whereupon he stopped the pony in its tracks, leapt up behind Asmara and toed the horse back along the trail. He hugged Asmara to him, bestowing a wet kiss on her ear.
She shuddered, raising her eyes to the heavens. She must remember to refrain from abusing him physically, it just made him affectionate. At least she was getting used to the smell.
Healing
Two Elven ladies wandered down the track in the morning sun. Both wore their hair in long braids, either side of their bodies, the blonde streaked with paler colours. Blue eyes sank slightly in sockets with a touch of laugh lines and their figures curved out gently to spreading hips as they chattered about the previous night. One carried a broom made of fine twigs while the other bore a wooden bucket.
Arriving in the glade, they clucked at the mess on the tables and started to pile everything into a heap in the middle. The wooden dishes and cutlery would burn, easier than cleaning. Everyone brought and cared for their own knives.
“What’s this about a fairy coming last night, then? I heard one joined in the dancing,” said the first cleaning lady.
“Nah,” replied the second, moving along the tables searching for salvageable foods. “Just a human girl from the Teaching Trees. You know, the one in the rabbit dance. Short hair and stupid name, so they are calling her Aine.” She reached the end of the table and stopped, hand coming to her mouth.
“Well, she does look like a fairy, I admit,” said the first, piling up wooden plates – really just slices from tree trunks – and separating woven baskets, re-usable. “Pretty little thing, ‘spect she gave that weasel boy a good time last week. What’s the matter?”
The second woman backed towards her, making frantic down gestures with her right hand, the left clamped over her mouth. The first peered over her shoulder, her mouth dropping into a perfect ‘O’ of surprise. Leaving their cleaning operation, the ladies ran, the first time in years, demonstrating they could still move with grace and silence through the woods.
From beyond the table came a gentle snore, and Susan rolled onto her back, a little smile spreading as she enjoyed the gentle vibration of her warm bed, on the cusp of sleep and waking. The voices gone, she rolled again, back into the warmth of her furry blanket.
*
Word spread through the trees faster than the winter rain and to the intense annoyance of the hunters, a throng followed them to the glade, Fionuir, Fainche and Laoire amongst them. The throng melted into the trees from where they could gain a clear view of the sleeping couple. The hunters hesitated, comments breathed into each other’s ears as they debated how to slay the bear while rescuing Susan.
A sunbeam broke through the leaves and played over Susan’s face. She grunted and turned away from the light, a hand rising to rub her temple, before both came up to rub the sleep from her eyes. She groaned, as the full force of the hangover beat into her brain. Something moved in her vision and she blinked trying to work out why the trees waved at her. Dryads? Myth, surely. Hang on, that dryad looked just like Fainche. She giggled, despite the pain in her temples, trying to work out where she was and what was going on. Was she dreaming?
The Fainche dryad was getting quite excited now, waving madly and, oh look, Laoire beside her. I didn’t know there were male dryads? What is going on? She wondered, as she realised the trees were full of people looking at her in her bed, on her lovely bearskin rug.
Rug? Bed? In the open? Fiotr? Where was Fiotr? She remembered last night, drinking and dancing with the dragon.
Her bed rumbled and let out a snore. Susan froze. She was sitting on a bear. In the glade. A bear. A big, hairy, smelly bear. A live bear. Asleep.
Moving with extreme care, she transferred her weight to her feet and ever so slowly stood up, taking two steps away from her bed before turning to look at it. The bear lay on her back, one hind leg kicking in gentle time with her dream, while a front paw searched for the missing weight from her chest. Her long muzzle cracked open, a pink tongue hanging out and the end of the mouth turning up in a very human smile.
Despite her predicament, Susan giggled, a hand shooting to her mouth to stop the sound.
The bear’s eyes shot open and she lurched to her feet, snuffling round
as she searched for her cub, while using her right paw to try to beat and scratch out the awful pains in her head, where a giant wolf chewed into her eyes from the inside.
Susan walked backwards, each step a triumph, till a hand rested on her shoulder and she was with the hunters, none of whom she knew.
“We have the situation,” said one of the hunters, not taking his eye off the bear.
“What are you going to do?” Susan asked, the words hurting her drug and alcohol ravaged brain. Visions of last night drifted across her mind.
“Can’t have her in the village,” said the leader. “She’s looking for her cubs, she is, and in a bad mood.”
“Nice and fat,” said another. “Good feast next week.”
“No,” whispered Susan, as visions of last night flooded back with sobering clarity. She saw herself dancing and feeding the bear, realising now it was the bear and not Fiotr, the dragon, who didn’t exist. A bear that would have eaten and left if she had not kept it and given it more to drink. Guilt welled up.
The bear’s snuffling failed to find her cub and her nostrils filled with the scent of elves, danger, and her ears brought her the sound of voices. Her immediate response was flight, but her head hurt, she was in a bad mood and somebody had taken her cub. Again. She roared a threat to the thief, moving towards the hunters.
The bowmen on the outside bent their bows, big broadheads angled flat to penetrate the ribs, while the spearmen at the front prepared for a charge, resting their boar spears in the ground, the crosspieces woefully inadequate at stopping a bear. They would snap as the bear ran down the spear, impaling it deeper in her body but allowing her free access to the wielder.
Images of her dancing with the bear raced across Susan’s mind, culminating in a duet with two upturned heads crooning to the stars.
