“No, don't touch that one.” Nikselpik pushed past Jorsh and knelt down next to the body. The clothing, while ruggedly made, was unmistakably female. The gnome gently moved her into a sitting position as a thick crop of dusty orange hair fell to her shoulders. He arranged her hands so they rested in her lap, positioning her hair in a more respectable fashion, pulling the strands down reverently over her rotted, sunken cheeks.
Nikselpik stayed there a moment, his eyes closed as he spoke silent words of thanks to his former student. He was happy the others kept silent, for another affront from the dwarf would have forced him to test the stones’ power.
You were too good for me, Jezzi.
He clutched his knapsack to his chest and slunk away.
Season of the Soulless
Betsy Dornbusch
A COW LOWED IN THE night. The Norvern Region air was sharp and cold even in newseason, but the first of the bright moons had risen and another had breached the horizon, the gods’ promise of warmer days and brighter nights, even for the faraway war. Faint smoke still lingered in the air from field-burn.
Erryna leaned out the windowsill. Calves were born every night, but she hadn’t had the chance to see one yet this season. Climbing down the stone wall of the manse and running for the pasture wouldn’t take long. She’d done it loads of times before, albeit not in a proper nightgown as her parents insisted she wear. The only risk was Phelan slipping in as he sometimes did. Even as a toddler, he’d realized he could get her in trouble by tattling, while he, the little lordling, could do as he well pleased.
That thought clinched it. Erryna pulled on her boots, salvaged during the maturation of her wardrobe, and climbed out.
She’d misjudged the hindrance her nightgown would be. She glanced back into her room, considered getting into real clothes. But it would be much easier to hide a stained or ripped nightgown than an embroidered gown made for courting.
As she touched the ground outside her Father’s study window, the twinned scents of sweet garleaf and roanweed smoke drifted from his dual-bowl pipe through the open shutters.
“Will you take a walk about, Captain? Check on the guards. I’d rest easier. Aychus’ news has me nervous.”
“Of course I will, my lord.”
Erryna smiled at Captain Roran’s raspy voice, familiar from his storytelling. She wondered at the news. Captain Roran’s son, Aychus had returned injured from the war when the final snow dusted the ground two sevennight before. She hadn’t seen him yet. Not for lack of trying, but Father said it wasn’t proper for her to go. So very much wasn’t proper now that she was grown.
Out in the field, the herd shifted as one, restless. She picked up her nightgown and ran toward the copse of gartrees and tinewoods where cows liked to calve. There. A lump under a tree, dark against the shadows cast by the rising moons. It shouldn’t be on its side though. A breech birth? That could kill both animals. Cold sweat prickled Erryna’s back under her cloak, and she ran faster. But a twanging thud stopped her—a bow! Something fell from the gartree and hit the ground hard.
Erryna stared into the darkness, clutching her cloak around her. The cow didn’t move, nor did the smaller, new lump. Erryna edged forward, silent but for her boots brushing the damp, newseason grass. The gartree leaves trapped the scents of rain and cowcakes and a sickening, rusty smell. Erryna’s stomach flipped. Her mouth tasted sour. The herd rustled behind her. The moongod Khellian eased upward, his cold light piercing the shadows under the tree.
Erryna gasped. The cow was dead, but from an arrow to the eye. The stiff legs of a calf jutted from her back end like two bent sticks. And beyond… Erryna closed her eyes tight. When she opened them it—no, he, Ramean—still sprawled on the ground. Khellian kept rising, revealing relentless details as if coldly hostile to Ramean’s death. His quiver still strapped to his thigh. His strung bow had bounced a few steps away to rest against the back of the cow. A single arrow stuck from his chest. Roran had called that a deadheart shot when he’d taught her about shooting.
Erryna dropped to her hands and knees as supper followed the bile climbing her throat. Her nightgown soaked through from the bottom and cold seeped under her cloak.
When she finished, she sat back on her heels and wiped her arm over her mouth. Who had done such a thing? Thieves? Wilders? She weighed the unpleasantness of getting in trouble for being outside at night against warning her father someone had killed a cow and one of his soldiers. She had to go back, though. He’d said he was worried—
The ground thudded beneath her wet knees. She looked up and saw a shadowy mass galloping through the moonlight. Another herd? No. I’m a fool. Not cows. She ran around the rear of the tree and pressed her back to it. Horses thundered by, but their riders made no sound. In a moment they didn’t have to. The herd started lowing and running, their lumbering strides thudding through the ground. Some screamed, making noises of terror she’d never heard before. It took a moment for her to realize they were death cries. A group this size, and killing cattle, could only mean a wilder tribe was attacking.
With a tremendous force of will, she forced herself to look. Every window in the house glared at the night. She gasped. Fire! A shrill scream cut the night. A vague wordless voice warned her against going to the house. But the house was safety. Father. Home. She stumbled toward the gate, staring. The household staff was being dragged out. Some limp, some screaming and fighting. Wilders, with braided hair and beards, swarmed them with bared steel.
Erryna stumbled closer, through the open gate. Her father sprawled on the flagstones in front of the house, his head…all wrong…separate. A tall wilder was strapping on her father’s sword, fixing the baldric over his shoulder with a grin, which died when his gaze found her.
Erryna muffled a cry behind her hand and turned to run. Back. To the dead man’s bow. I will kill them all. She had been a fool to leave a weapon. In Captain Roran’s stories, no one would leave a weapon.
“Get her.” A guttural command.
Erryna’s legs pumped, she tried to gather up her voluminous nightgown, but her boot caught the hem. She hit the ground as if Khellian had reached down from the sky and thrown her.
A sturdy arm caught Erryna around the middle and lifted her. Her legs pumped, trying to catch the ground as she was dragged backwards. A voice as tight as the grip: “Enough, pretty girl, or I slap some obedience into you.”
The wilder threw her to the flagstones. Erryna flung her hands out to catch herself but was too late; her forehead knocked the stone. For a blessed moment blackness offered its embrace, but pain won out. She groaned and pushed to her hands and knees.
Nearby her father’s face stared past her at nothing. She could reach out and touch him if she tried, but he wouldn’t know, wouldn’t feel it. Erryna’s lips parted but nothing came out, not even air.
Deep voices with rough wilder accents surrounded her.
“Pretty prize, that.”
“Girl of the manse, wager by the lace.”
She tore her gaze from her father to look up. The wilders all had arrow-shaped marks on their cheek. They’re Arrowhenge… The world seemed to sway.
“I’ll take her, Lyorn,” someone offered, as if he was doing a favor. “She’s past ready to breed.”
A firmer tone. “No, you won’t. We’ll buy peace from Bonehaven with her.”
“Bonehaven is eager enough for war. What does some girl buy us?”
“This isn’t just some girl. She’s the landed’s daughter.”
Someone strode closer and pulled her to her feet. A rough hand grabbed her chin, forcing her to meet sharp blue eyes in a pale face smeared with blood. The arrow wasn’t painted or inked into his skin; it had been burned in to his cheek. This close she could see the indentation, the stained, mottled flesh. Stories of Arrowhenge told true.
He turned her chin and pulled her lip down with his thumb, examining her face and teeth as if she were a horse.
“Do you know what I am, girl?”
/> She tried to twist free, but his grip bruised her cheeks. Arrowhenge, the most feared tribe, wilders who branded themselves and magicked away their souls to make them invisible to the Seven Gods. Captain Roran had said there were few stories of them because they rarely left any of their victims alive. Truly, a party of Kings’ Soldiers had over-nighted at the mance before trekking into the Norvern Wildes to destroy the Arrowhenge last Hoarfrost. They had never returned.
Erryna gave a mute nod.
“I am Lyorn.” He wound scratchy rope around her wrists tight enough to make her fingers tingle.
“Why are you here?” The words burst from her in a hoarse torrent.
He just tipped his head and raised his brows. “War.” He said it like he was worshiping Khellian Himself, except the soulless did not worship the Seven Eyes. “What other reason is there for killing, girl?”
“Cruelty. Hatred.” No tears stung her eyes, thank the gods. “Revenge.”
A wry, lopsided grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Let us see to your dead.”
What fresh torture was this? She protested, wanted to fight, but the words never reached her lips, and the ropes were thick and rough on her wrists.
Lyorn shoved her toward the house. She almost tripped on her nightgown again but managed to stay upright. Smoke made her cough. They walked her around the bodies sprawled on the flagstones and on the little road in front of the cottages. The dead lay pale and still. Blood ran in thick, glossy pools. Roran lay on his stomach, looking smaller than in life. So many faces.
Bile rose but did nothing but sting her throat. She had nothing left to bring up.
Back at her manse, the fire was so hot they couldn’t draw near, hot enough to consume her parents’ bodies. The edges of the very stone had softened, as if it melted. Black streaks ran down each window like sooty tears. The whole villa looked like a blackened, blurry memory, a ghost in the fallen night.
How did they make stone burn? Magicks?
“Who is missing?” Lyorn asked.
Her lips parted. No sound came. She swallowed hard. “My little brother.”
“Dead in his trundle,” someone said cheerfully.
Phelan! She stared at her father’s baldric, the worn buckle crossing Lyorn’s broad chest. His big, meaty hand rested on the sword hilt.
“Anyone else?”
So many faces. She couldn’t think, couldn’t rectify the dead with the living she’d known… Aychus! Roran’s son. But surely he was dead, trapped by his injury in his bed.
“No.” She swallowed. “No one else. You killed them all.”
#
At the camp, she realized there were far fewer Arrowhenge wilders than she had thought. They had seemed a massive horde; in truth, they’d destroyed her father’s manse and all their people, over a hundred, with fewer than two dozen warriors.
Lyorn handed her down off the horse and gave her a little shove toward a fire. “Go. Sit.”
She stumbled over to it, trying to arch her back enough to keep the front bloodstained hem of her nightgown from catching under her boots, and she sank down by the firepit. One of the wilders tossed some black powder in and scratched a stick on the stone. Fire burst up and he yanked his hand back with a rueful grin.
She sat on her cloak on the bare dirt, though it wouldn’t take long for the damp to soak through. She was utterly conscious of being bare under her sheer nightgown and, without her hands free, she couldn’t close the cloak about her properly.
Every noise dug the knife of terror deeper into her bones. Two wilders sat nearby to examine spoils from the house. She blinked at the delicate necklaces, rings, wedding torques, and anniversary bracelets in their rough hands. Others cooked over a fire, some small game and birds on clever folding spits. Her stomach twisted at the thought of food. All around her warriors set up small oilcloth shelters. They stank when unfurled, rotted fat, smoke, the salt sea, sweat.
Maybe I’m asleep in my bed. She tried with all her might to wake up.
“Pretty thing,” one of the men sorting the spoils—Mama’s jewelry—grunted, eyeing her.
“Saving her for the Bonehaven truce,” the other said. “Can’t touch her.”
The first lifted his gaze and stared hard. “What would Bonehaven care so long as she’s not broke between the legs?”
Lyorn was abruptly there, striding from behind Erryna on silent, soft boots. His hand lashed out and caught the back of the wilder’s head. The wilder snarled back but dropped his chin.
She hadn’t noticed his boots before. Soft, pliant, stained black around the edges, a stiff, thick coating. Blood.
Our blood.
Captain Roran never said anything about stained boots and wet nightgowns in his stories. He never told her how much blood was in people. Her teeth clenched and her shoulders tightened.
In short order, a rough bowl was set on her lap. She looked up at Lyorn, eyes narrowed.
“Eat. You’re no good to me half starved.”
She reached forward with her bound hands and picked up a piece of marinated meat that dripped down her chin and onto her nightgown. She rubbed it from her chin with her arm. It left a watery red-brown stain on the snowy sleeve. “What are you going to do with me? What is Bonehaven?”
He eyed her. “Got any family at all left? Soldier brothers or bastard sisters, eh?”
She lifted her chin. “Answer mine first.”
A muscle twitched above his braided beard. Amusement? “I’ll trade you to stop a war with the Bonehaven tribe. More noble than a rich girl tatting lace, eh? Think of the lives you’ll save.”
“You already took all the lives I care about.”
His open hand flashed out and cracked against her face. The blow whipped her head to the side, her neck muscles seized, and a whimper escaped her before she could stop it. She raised her bound hands to her flaming cheek.
“Until we treat with Bonehaven, you will carry the water from the river to the campfire as needed. That you can do with your hands bound.”
As the camp settled into sleep, Lyorn bound her hands to at tree with the end of the long rope, pinning it in place on the other side of the thick trunk with a thick spike. Erryna sank to the cold ground, put her back to the rough bark, and did not sleep.
#
Two mornings later, she staggered with the heavy bucket of water toward the camp. The river had swelled overnight with newseason snowmelt, and she had to wade in deep to get a clean bucket full. Her legs and feet were still wet and cold. A snake on the bank startled her and made her splash water on herself. Her heart was still galloping. For a moment she let herself think about this same water running through the wheels at the army outpost downriver. Roran had once told a story about a babe in a basket that floated to a new family on a river.
The long tail of rope binding her wrists dragged the ground. Her wrists bled from constant chafing. Her palms blistered from carrying the bucket. Her hair hung in ropy tangles around her face. She stank, two days of living in the woods in the same nightgown left her sweating during the day and shivering at night. Her cloak dragged in the damp undergrowth; the wilders sometimes stepped on it to stop her progress.
A scowling young wilder walked alongside her, apparently there to do nothing but keep Erryna from running. She never offered to help scoop the water or carry it, nor did she say anything at all. She wore a braid woven with red reeds down her back, and her face would have been pretty without the arrow brand.
Erryna slouched, her back stiff and sore, and shuffled her boots to keep from stepping on her nightgown. Her boot still caught the root of a nearby gartree. She slammed to her knees with a little cry, and the water sloshed all over the ground, running in little rivulets between shoots of new green growth.
The guard grunted in disgust. She reached out and yanked Erryna to her feet. Erryna bent to get the bucket but the Arrowhenge stopped her and drew a blade from her belt. She knelt and grabbed her nightgown. Cold shot through Erryna’s bones as the cool mor
ning air hit her legs. The Arrowhenge stabbed the blade into the nightgown and ripped it, then kept stabbing and tearing the fabric, all the way around, until it bared her ankles and calves. Then she handed Erryna the bucket and gave her a shove back toward the river.
Erryna drew a shuddering breath in relief and went.
Instead of going back with her, the guard leaned back against a boulder, legs crossed, the shreds of the hem of Erryna’s nightgown strewn like torn body wrappings at her feet, and started to clean her fingernails with her knife.
Erryna walked back to the river, the air itchy on her legs. She thought about the bucket. The wilder’s knife. She filled the bucket, but not so full this time, and walked back to her guard. She thought about how they were still were a little distance from camp. She thought about the outpost of the King’s army downriver.
She walked carefully, wondering exactly how to do it. She’d have to knock her on the head somehow. Or strangle her with the ropes. She wasn’t all that much bigger than Erryna.
Slitting her throat would be quickest.
Erryna’s stomach twisted at the thought.
“You have to,” she muttered.
She walked brisker than usual, chin up. The Arrowhenge guard was right about one thing, the nightgown had been tripping her up far too often and shuffling her boots made her noisy. Now Erryna could walk more carefully, quieter. The guard didn’t even look up at Erryna’s approach, her gaze focused where her blade met her fingernail. Abruptly Erryna knew what to do. She strode close and swung the heavy bucket at the elbow of the Arrowhenge’s blade hand. The knife sliced deep into her finger and she blurted a strange, shapeless cry. Erryna realized with horror that her tongue had been cut out.
In that instant she heard bootsteps rustle the ground behind her. Before she could turn, a solid, square hand grabbed the Arrowhenge’s arm, spun her, and a fist cracked her jaw. Her head snapped back and she crumpled to the ground.
Erryna gaped at the man who owned the fist.
Aychus Roran shook his hand loose, winced, and looked at Erryna. “We must go.”
Neverland's Library: Fantasy Anthology Page 15
