by Jesse Teller
“I’m not going back. I’m going to Tergor,” she snapped.
“I hope so. All that work I did yesterday leaving you marks would have been a waste. It actually hurt my soul to walk so carelessly in the woods.” He held his hand to his heart. “Right here. It hurt right here.”
“What are you babbling about?”
“When I walk the woods, Helena, I leave no sign of my passing. I can’t be tracked by a hunting dog, let alone a hall girl.”
She stared at him. He smiled. “This was always the way it was going to go.”
“People keep saying that.”
“They are on their feet,” Betten said. “I got them started at dawn. You slept in. The sun has been up for almost an hour. You’re a sleepy girl.”
“I think I got an hour of sleep,” she said, sitting up, rubbing her back. “I will be sore for the rest of my life. How do people sleep out here?”
“I have nothing to say to that. I have slept in a bed four times in my life.”
“Beast boy,” she snapped.
“Always and forever. I have to catch up with them before they get lost. They are all hopeless on the mountain.”
“I thought you said Helgor was a master woodsman.”
“That was just so you didn’t kill me.” Betten laughed. “You never know with you. Listen, follow us at a distance. They can’t be allowed to see you. It will be bad. When we get into Fendis territory, keep in mind we are at peace and have been for a long time. They don’t love Ragoth, but no one will try to hurt you. If you do get in trouble with any villains, I will help out.”
“How will you know? You will be far ahead.”
He didn’t even answer. “The Fendis will stop you when you get to Teggegor’s Gate. They will ask you about traveling alone and all of that. They will want to stop you and take you home. Tell them you killed a man and are not welcome back. They will be furious, but they will let you out. When you get out, you need to let us go on without following us. The roads are flat there, and you can see for miles. If they look back, you will be discovered. Stay close to the gates for a day, then head south. You won’t have to go far before you find a road. It will look like no other road you have ever seen. Go right. You can’t miss the city. You have to prepare yourself for seeing it. It is impressive. But don’t be scared. You’re greater than that wall. You will be scooped up when you get in the city. Don’t know how they know, but they always do. I gotta go, Helena. I love you.”
She sat shocked. She didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know why he had said that. Betten never said that to her before. She realized he had been a constant friend, and she looked after him as he ducked into the woods.
“I love you, too,” she said.
“I know,” he called back.
She stepped in wolf shit, and she started. Every time she stepped in shit, she froze. The wolves were thick here. Though she had never seen one, she knew they were close. This was Fendis land, and she tried moving through it quickly. Betten and the others stopped in a village. Wolves greeted them at the boundaries, and men with weapons. She felt fear wild in her heart as the wolves howled, but Erick stood talking to the men. He held his hands up and visible, his fingers splayed. He spoke for a long time before they embraced and were allowed in. Helena waited, and when she thought she could not bear it anymore, they came back out. They carried fresh supplies and skins of wine. They were walked to the edge of the village, then the Fendis men hugged Betten.
Back on the road and back to the walking. She slept when they did. Betten woke her up with breakfast every morning, and she was on her way again.
She froze on the edge of a massive valley to stare wide-eyed at the structure that defied reason. At the bottom of the valley stood two great cliffs. Shooting from their sides came two walls of stone standing fifty feet tall at least. There was a gate, a massive thing, too great to be believed, held fast with men walking above it. The walls were carved with images of snarling wolves, and she felt as if she would be sick as she stared at it.
She watched the five of them talk with the men at the gate for a long time. They were again greeted with open arms. They made camp and drank with the gate men. They wrestled and sang and talked loudly. When the night came for the valley, they stood and slipped out into the outland. Erick stood in the gate for a long time. He was talking to himself and looking back toward home. He wiped his eyes and kissed his fist, lifted it into the air and turned to go.
She waited until night before she stepped out of the valley to the guards.
“Ho there, pretty little thing, where are you going?” a thick man said. He had a black wolf at his feet, and pulled up his belt and shook his head. “What has you running from the mountain?”
“Let me be, and let me go,” Helena snapped. “My affairs are my own.”
“She is a pretty thing, isn’t she?” he asked his friend.
Helena could not believe her Erick was drinking with these men not even an hour ago. She thought he had better taste in companions.
“Can you give us a kiss before you go?” the thick man asked.
“Shut your mouth,” a man said. He stepped beside the other, and though he was much younger carried an air of power and honor Helena could not name, but could not miss. “Let her pass.”
“You’re a lousy man. Look at her. She needs out. At least she can buy it with a light peck on the cheek.”
The young man motioned for her to come to him, and she stepped that way. The other got in the way, and the younger swung his fist.
He hit the man in the temple, and the guard dropped.
The young man stepped before her. “I apologize for my companion. He is not a bad man, just a lonely one.”
“What is your name, warrior?”
He looked her in the eye and his eyes widened. “Wow, you are pretty to be sure. My name is Trex. I will see you to the other side of the gate, if you will have me.”
“Thank you. That would be nice.”
He called up to the wall and they opened the gate. The rumbling of the gates as they swung open was terrifying. When they came to the outland, and she saw the wide world beyond, she could not breathe.
The world was huge without the mountains pulled in tight around her. Here the land just spread like blood on the floor, out in every direction, flat and lifeless. She grabbed her bag of food, then Trex called up at the gate.
“Gonna go out for a look,” he said.
A man up there grunted, and Trex turned to her.
“Let me see you off for a bit. We have to make a bit of a patrol every night to make sure the area is not under attack. It’s stupid, but it’s my life. My nation is apparently afraid the world wants the mountain. No one has come to take it from us yet, but that does not change our ways. Can I walk with you for a while? Just until you get your legs under you.”
She nodded.
He talked. He talked of the world outside the mountain. He talked about the people he had met out here. He told her his wolf did not like it. He called his wolf the White and grinned every time he mentioned it.
“Where is your wolf, warrior?” Helena asked.
“Prefers the mountain air. I don’t want to bring him against his will. If I was ever in trouble, he would be here.”
“What’s his name?”
“Don’t know. He never told me. I just call him the White. Works for both of us.”
“How far out does your patrol go? It is dark now and your friends will be missing you.”
“I will just walk with you a little farther.”
They walked deep into the night until she heard the camp of the others before her, saw the light of their fire. She froze.
“I’m not supposed to be here,” she whispered.
“Why?” he said. “Do you know Betten? He is a good guy. I will introduce you. That group of men will see you to the city. I am sure of it.”
“He told me to wait for a day outside of the gates.”
Trex froze. He stood quietly
for a long time, then laughed.
“You’re Helena,” he said.
She spun on him. “What? Where did you hear that name? I’m not Helena. I want you to go back to your wall now.” She turned to walk off the road and out into nowhere.
“He said your name,” Trex said.
“Who said my name?”
“Erick Flurryfist. I asked him what he was going to miss the most, and he said your name. I could see the love for you on his face when he said it. I can only guess, since you have been advised against letting them see you, that you are Helena. You came for him, and you don’t want him knowing it yet.”
“You know too much.”
“Can I help?” he asked.
“Help how?”
“Let’s go around them. It’s dark. They won’t see us if we are careful. I will walk you to Tergor, make sure no one fools with you. I have a friend at the gate there and can get you in without much of a fight. If you want me to, I can even go in with you and introduce you to the Fendis handler. He will take you anywhere you want to go. You will beat Erick by a day, and no one will be the wiser. Or, I can walk you back to the gate and let you wait it out. You can walk all this way again and go it alone.” Trex smiled. “It’s up to you.”
“Let’s do it. I don’t much like waiting for men.”
“Why would you?” he replied.
*******
They walked for three days. She ate what Terala had made for her. She tried to share, but Trex kept pulling food out of a sling on his waist. He was eating what looked like a stone for the fourth time as they walked, and she looked at him and scowled.
“What is that?”
“Bread.”
“Looks like a rock. This is bread,” she said, holding up one of Terala’s onion rolls. She knew it was stale, but as she looked at his bread, she decided she could handle the stale.
“Tastes a little like a rock,” he said. She laughed, and he smiled. “It is hard tack. The Fendis women make it for the wolves in the villages. I won’t feed my wolf anything I am not willing to eat as well, so I started eating it. Fills the belly and lasts forever. Comes out about how it went in, but it’s not too bad. Will keep you alive. It’s fine. I carry some on me all the time. Never know when you’re gonna need to walk to Tergor.”
“With a runaway, love-struck, desperate woman?”
“Happens more than you would imagine.”
“Really?” she said with a start.
“No, this is a first, but inspiring. I believe in love a little more now.”
She liked that.
She saw the city from a distance, and decided it didn’t look like much. It was short and flat, shaped like a box with a high spire rising from it. She stared at it for a while then looked at Trex.
“Why do they live this way?” she asked.
“What way?”
“Out here, in this barren place.”
“Most times, people live where they live because they can’t leave. It is the thing that makes all men heroic. They find themselves in a situation, and they make a home there. They find a land, be it a good land or a bad, and they make it work for them. These people are no different. These outlanders have a life out here. They don’t know any better. Why should they? They don’t have the mountain, but they have this land, and most of them love it. You will grow to love it, too.”
The box kept growing. They kept walking and it kept getting bigger. With no landmarks around, it was impossible to gain any sort of scale, impossible to tell what she was looking at while it slowly grew like a disease. When they were walking up on the walls, and she understood the scope of the thing she was entering, she started breathing heavy.
Trex took her hand.
“The first time I saw it, I was with four other men,” he said. “We all got real quiet and shaky. We kept looking at each other with panic in our eyes, and we had our hands on our weapons. My axe, I actually held as if I was marching into battle. Still scared me, armed and with men I had known all my life. I knew this was going to be difficult for you, so I wanted to be here when you saw it.”
She could not stop breathing fast, could not calm herself down. He reached over and took her hand as the wall rose up above her. She stopped before walking into the shadow of the wall, and stared.
The gate back at the mountain was nothing. It was a trifle. A thing to be bored with. This city was a thing of myth. The walls rose over a hundred feet into the air. The din coming out of the city was enormous. The very air seemed to churn with the sounds. It had a smell, a fog that issued from it like foul breath from a beast, a smell of feces and sweat and trash, a smell that rioted in the nostrils and froze the blood, a smell that seemed to crawl onto the skin and grip tight, a smell that made her feel as if she had been sweating grease.
She felt the true horror of what she was walking into, and shook her head.
“Helena, I want you to think about something for me.”
She made a small moan and felt herself falling away.
“His name was Earl. He was the bravest man I have ever known. He will get you through this if you let him.”
“Who is Earl?”
“He was a boy I grew up with. A small kid, the kid every other boy made fun of and beat up. He was not a fighter, this Earl, he was a thinker. He was a caregiver. He had a father who was exiled. His mother wouldn’t go with him, so my tribe took care of her. We took care of Earl. Word got back to him that his father was sick in Tergor and going to die. He was a healer, this kid, and knew how to save his father.
“He left one day. All by himself. We tried to find him, but he tricked us. We thought he had gotten lost, that he had gotten eaten. We thought he had died. About a year later, he came back. We asked Earl where he had been. He said he went to the City of Exiles and found his father. Told us he helped him back from the dead and was now returning home.
“We told him he was foolish for doing it, and we dismissed it. Earl was eight the day he left. He came to this place to save his dying criminal of a father, and he did it all alone.” Trex stepped in front of her, took her by the sides of the face. She could feel his callouses on his fingers when he redirected her eyes to his.
“Earl did this all by himself. He was eight. He was alone. But he loved his father, and nothing could stop him from saving him. Not fear or loneliness or any of the hundreds of things screaming in his mind to tell him to run back home. Earl looked at what we are looking at right now, and he walked into it.
“The first time I saw this place I decided Earl had lied to us. There was no way an eight-year-old could face this place and beat it by himself. But when we toured the city, we saw his father. We talked to the Fendis there, and heard all about the boy who came to help his dad. Earl did this. He looked at this city, and he beat it. You are Helena Dreadheart. You’re at least as mighty as he was.”
“Trex!” a man yelled from the top of the wall. Helena looked up, and felt her head swim at his height. She had been around heights all her life, but never had it affected her this way. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
“Holl, my twisted friend, get down here and embrace me,” Trex said.
The guard from the city wall disappeared. A few moments later, the gate opened. As the man stepped out, she saw inside the city and her heart broke out in a frantic run. The streets were tight. The buildings, tall and filthy. The sheer amount of people was baffling. She stared at them all walking, laughing, yelling, and running. She saw great beasts with men on their backs, and more children than she had ever seen in one place. How could there be this many parents? She closed her eyes and flexed her hands into fists.
“Holl, this is a friend of mine. I want you to look out for her. Her name is Helena Dreadheart.”
“How do I know the name Dreadheart?” Holl asked. He was an older man, stout, with an axe on his back and a flowing mustache. He looked dirty, but the lines around his eyes said he smiled often, and the way he looked at her didn’t set her on edge.
“Don’t know a Bestic. What color is his wolf?”
“Holl, Helena is a Ragoth.”
“A Ragoth?” He pulled back a little. Something flashed in his eyes. He nodded, and his smile left. “I see.”
“Is there a problem, Holl?”
“No, Trex, there is no problem at all. I will take her to her people.” He turned to her, pulled his smile back on, but it was strained. “Where can I take you? Which ghetto do you want to live in?”
“Ghetto? What is a ghetto?” she asked.
Holl looked at Trex, who smiled and turn to Helena. “The progetten section of the city is divided into ghettos. Each is a few city-blocks wide and run by one of the families. There are six great ghettos of the Ragoth people. Which should I bring you to?”
Her first thought was Flurryfist. She had been a member of their tribe her entire life. She had been raised by the Flurryfist family. All the people she cared for most were of that line. But she knew she would be taken before Erick eventually if she did that, and she wanted more time. Wanted to feel the city around her for a while. She looked at Holl and nodded grimly.
“Can you take me to the Beastscowl ghetto?” she asked.
“It would be my honor,” Holl said. He hugged Trex and motioned for her to follow. Trex turned to go.
“Hold on a moment,” she said to Holl. She grabbed Trex by the arm and turned him around. “There are no words to express the debt I owe you.”
“Helena, you would have made it here without me. You’re strong. You’re intelligent. You don’t need some Fendis kid to get you anywhere,” he said.
She grabbed him in an embrace, then looked him in the eye. “If ever you need my help. If I can ever do anything to repay you, please find me. I think I love you a little, Trex.”
“Take care of yourself, Helena. I know you are doing the right thing.” He smiled and walked out of her life.
“Horses!” Holl shouted over the din of the city. “They can get pretty loud. I know you most likely haven’t seen one before, but that is what they are called. They are scary, but only at first. They are useful. Get to know them. Most find them to be kind and loving animals.”
