When All the Leaves Have Fallen

by Mark McCabe

  As she lifted the flimsy material from its resting place, she suddenly gasped in alarm and jumped backwards, dropping the bundle of faggots she held in her arms and bringing her hand up to her mouth in an involuntary response. When she saw the scaly foot which had come into view as she had lifted the timber move, she squealed with fright and turned and bolted in the direction of their campsite.

  Looking back over her shoulder as she ran she saw the slig scrambling out from underneath the fallen timber. Within only a few moments her worst fears were confirmed when another glance established that it had risen from its hiding spot and had quickly given chase. Though it was a female, it looked big and just as frightening as one of their warriors. When Jinny glanced back a third time she stumbled as her leg crashed into something hard and unyielding, a log or a branch she assumed, though she had no time to look and check.

  For a moment, she thought she would fall for sure, but somehow she managed to stay on her feet and keep moving. As she recovered her gait and began to pick up her pace again, however, she suddenly felt something grab a hold of her ankles. In the blink of an eye, her forward motion was brought to an abrupt halt and her upper body crashed heavily to the ground, her forward momentum merely adding to the force of the impact as she desperately reached out with her hands in an instinctive attempt to break her fall. Ignoring the searing pain as her arm scraped across the rough ground, Jinny desperately scrambled to pull free of the slig who had crashed to the ground with her and was frantically trying to grab a hold of her flailing legs.

  When she looked back and saw her assailant drawing a long blade from her belt with her one free hand, Jinny screamed and began to twist about wildly, frantic to free herself from the beast before she could manage to use her weapon. She felt the blood in her veins turn to ice as the slig’s grip on her trousers tightened and, with surprising strength, she began to pull herself up into a position where she could use her blade and put an end to their grim struggle. Jinny felt herself freeze with terror as she saw the slig lift her deadly weapon up with her free hand while she held her in a vice-like grip with the other.

  “STOP,” a voice suddenly screamed out from nearby. It was Thom. “Stop, or your child dies right now.”

  Turning her head while nervously trying to keep an eye on the blade poised above her, Jinny could see Thom slowly approaching them. He had his own knife out and was holding it over a bundle of old rags he was cradling in his other arm. It had to be the slig woman’s baby. She must have left it back at the spot where Jinny had found her. Perhaps they had been hiding there, or sleeping, seeing out the daylight hours and waiting for the darkness, just as she and Thom had done over the past week or so. Who knows where they were going or what they were doing out here alone.

  Jinny felt a chill run through her as she suddenly realised there may be more of them close by. Surely a slig woman wouldn’t be travelling alone through enemy territory like this. She must have a companion or a mate, perhaps even a whole group she was travelling with, nearby.

  “Put the babe down or the girl dies,” the slig replied in a thick guttural voice, pulling herself up on top of Jinny and bringing her blade down to rest against her throat as she did so.

  Jinny dare not move from where she lay. She felt paralysed with fear. Even could she have found the courage to move, the way the slig was now lying across her upper body, with the whole of her weight pressing down on Jinny’s abdomen, there was little she could do but await her fate.

  “I don’t think so,” replied Thom, moving to his left slowly as he spoke. He still held the slig infant in the crook of his arm with his knife poised over it, point down. The tip of his blade was resting against the infant’s swaddling. “I don’t want to hurt your child, or you for that matter. You hurt the girl and I’ll kill you both, I swear it. Let’s think about this. We don’t need to do this. Let’s find a way that we can both go on about our journey without anyone getting hurt.”

  “I’m not that stupid, putok.” The slig woman spat as she said the last word. Tightening her grip on Jinny and pressing her cold blade even more firmly against the skin of Jinny’s neck, she continued. “I’m not ready to die yet. If you want this little one here to see another dawn, then put down your blade and put the child on the ground there in front of you. Then step back away. Do it now, or else.”

  “It’s not gunna happen like that,” said Thom coolly in response, though Jinny could sense his nervousness. He was still circling them as he spoke, forcing the slig to keep twisting around to keep her face to him as he did so. “I give you my word. There’s been enough killing.”

  With that, he stopped circling and began to back away from where Jinny and the slig woman lay. He was speaking very slowly and deliberately now. “We’re both going to back off. I’m going to give you the space you need to get up. Then I’m going to put the child down. And you’re going to let the girl go. Then we’re all going to go our own way, like we never saw each other in the first place. I don’t want to see the girl hurt and you want your baby back safe and sound. Let’s be calm about this so we can all live to see another day.”

  Thom, who had been slowly backing away as he spoke, was now some twenty or so paces away from them. When he finished speaking he stooped and lay the bundle in his arms down on the ground. As he did so the child began to cry. Slowly, Thom backed away a few more paces. “I mean it,” he said. “You hurt the girl and I’ll kill the child before you can stop me. You let her go and we all go our own way and forget we ever saw each other.”

  Jinny swallowed nervously in the silence that followed Thom’s speech. She felt the slig woman’s hold on her ease off ever so slightly and the pressure go off the blade against her throat. When the slig began to rise, Jinny knew that she had to stand with her. The slig made no attempt to remove the knife, despite her more relaxed attitude.

  “How do I know I can trust you?” sneered the slig once she and Jenny had risen. “You expect me to take the word of an Algarian?”

  “Yes, I do. I tell you, I have no desire to kill you. I just want my friend back safe and sound. Besides, I’ve seen enough killing for a lifetime. I want no part in any more of that. But I will do it if I have to. My name is Thom. I give you my word. Let’s both pretend we never even saw each other.”

  Jinny could sense the slig was nervous. After a few moments, she replied. This time her voice was less threatening. “I am Mardur. I will trust you, Algarian, though it goes against my grain.” With that, she began to move towards her child, keeping a firm hold of Jinny with one hand and her knife at her throat with the other as she frog-marched her across the intervening space.

  As they approached, Thom backed away even further. Jinny could feel her own heart racing. She knew that the critical point was approaching. As they reached the spot where Thom had laid down the bundle, she suddenly felt a shove in her back. As she stumbled forward she suddenly realised that the woman had released her. With a cry of relief, she raced across to Thom and threw herself into his arms.

  Turning her head, she saw that the slig had picked up the child and was slowly backing away from them. At the same moment, she heard a noise from behind Thom.

  “What are you doing?” a male voice cried out. It was Dain. “Don’t let them get away boy. C’mon. We can take her easy.”

  Dain had his sword in his hand and was about to rush past them, in the direction of the slig woman, who had stopped and placed the child on the ground again, ready to defend herself from this new attacker. As Dain came level with them, Thom reached out with his arm, barring his way.

  “No,” he said firmly. “I gave her my word. I told her she could go without any fear of pursuit.”

  “Forget it, boy. She’s a slig. You don’t go makin bargains with sligs. Not unless you wanna wake up with your throat cut. I said we kill her, and kill her we will.”

  “No,” insisted Thom, grabbing a hold of Dain’s jerkin as he made to move towards the woman again.

  Dain spun around angrily
in response. “Who you think you are, boy? You’re just a kid. You don’t know nuthin about it. You didn’t see the butcherin that went on at Kurandir. You didn’t see what those murderin scum are like. Your folks teach you no manners, boy? You listen when someone older’n you tells you what to do. If you’re too squeamish for it, not a problem. Leave it to me, boy.”

  As Dain went to turn towards the slig yet again, Thom grabbed a hold of him one more time. “No,” he said, maintaining his grip as Dain tried to pull free. “I gave my word. I know what happened between us and the sligs. I got eyes in my head. By Mishra, I know. But I also know I don’t want to see any more of that. I’ve seen enough of death. We all have. Besides which, we ain’t sligs, we’re Algarians. We don’t butcher, least of all women and children. And when we give our word, it means something. One woman and a baby are no threat to anyone. The killing has to stop somewhere.”

  Finally, something he said seemed to get through to Dain. Jinny watched as the old man slowly lowered his sword. Looking back at Thom and then across at the slig woman who still crouched nervously, with her knife at the ready, he let his breath out in a long sigh.

  “Okay,” he finally mumbled in a subdued voice. “Okay.”

  “Here you are, Mr Danarson. The first one’s for you.”

  Jinny watched as Thom’s father took the skewer of meat from her hands. She could see the flickering firelight reflecting in the soft sheen of his eyes, eyes that were fixed greedily on the golden strip of glistening meat in front of him. It was almost tragic to see the anticipation in his face as he unconsciously smacked his lips with his tongue. As he brought the skewer up to his face, he held it beneath his nose for a moment and drew the savoury smell of the meat deeply in through his nostrils. Obviously satisfied with its rich aroma, he quickly opened his mouth and hungrily began to devour his food, tearing the meat from the stick like a dog that has just been given his favourite meal.

  As she returned to her own spot beside the fire, Jinny glanced across at Thom. The grin and accompanying wink he gave her made her turn her head away quickly in an embarrassing attempt to suppress her own smile. She didn’t want his father to think she was laughing at him.

  As she looked out at the trees beyond their campsite, she wondered at the transformation in their lives. She and Thom had been kids when all this had started, and she still was, she knew that. But Thom . . . he had changed. She wondered if any adult could have handled that situation with the slig woman any better than he had. It had taken a cool head to get her out of that. Even now, the mere thought of how close she had come to death sent a shudder through her. And that altercation with his father. He would never have dared to speak to him like that before all of this. Either of them would have been lucky not to get a whipping if they had even thought about defying their parents so brazenly. But Thom had stood up to Dain like a man.

  Thom’s voice interrupted her thoughts. He was speaking to his father.

  “Umm. Mr Danarson? I think we should go back down to the town tomorrow. If the refugees are starting to come back then that’d be the best place to wait for your wife. She’d have to come back through Kurandir.”

  “Yeh. You’re probably right there, boy. Good idea. I’m not goin in, mind you. We can wait somewhere outside, near the road.”

  “Okay.”

  It must be so hard for Thom, thought Jinny. Having your own father not know you any more. He must have seen terrible things in Kurandir to end up like that. Maybe Thom was right, though. Maybe he would be all right in time. If Thom’s mom was okay, and if they could find her again, maybe she could help him remember the life he had had before all of this began.

  Jinny wiped her nose on the side of her sleeve as she felt her eyes moisten at the thought of the life they had all left behind. She didn’t expect to ever see her father again. Thom had skirted around the issue but she knew what he was avoiding saying. It would have taken more than a miracle for her father to survive the attack on Brand’s Ford. And if he had, he would have come back to the farm to look for her. Nothing would have kept him from doing that. Nothing . . . except . . .

  She felt Thom’s arm upon her shoulder as he sidled up next to her. “Are you okay,” he asked, reaching out and wiping the tears from her cheeks as she turned to face him and looked up into his gentle eyes.

  “Don’t you be cryin now, girlie,” she heard Thom’s father call from across the fire. “Your boy there, he’ll look after you now. Heard him say so the other day, and I reckon he meant it. We all lost ones we loved. Least you still got someone who cares about you girlie. Just don’t let him get away.” Dain cackled a bit at his last comment, then fell to mumbling unintelligibly to himself.

  “You’ve got someone who cares about you too,” she responded, pushing her emotions back down where they were safer, where they couldn’t stir up her memories. “Thom’s going to look after the both of us. Aren’t you Thom?”

  “Yep.” Thom pulled her closer in to his side as he spoke. “I think those of us that are left are going to have to stick together. Isn’t that right, Mr Danarson?”

  “Mmmm.” Dain was clearly being non-committal. After a pause, he spoke again. “Can’t promise what Khared will say about that. Guess you could have Thom’s room though. You and ya girlfriend. Have to marry her though, boy. Not gunna sleep under my roof together otherwise. And don’t go telling me she’s too young for that. She ain’t any younger than Khared was when I married her. No point in waitin once you found the right one.”

  Jinny watched in amusement at the grin the two men shared at his comments.

  “Haven’t asked her yet,” replied Thom.

  “Well. What’ya waitin for, boy?”

  Jinny looked up at Thom again and gave him a look that said, ‘have you two had enough fun yet?’ She could feel her face reddening. Couldn’t they see how embarrassed they were making her?

  “Too scared,” said Thom suddenly, taking Jinny by surprise and keeping his eyes locked to hers as he spoke. “Would’ve already asked her but I’m too scared she might say no.”

  Jinny felt her jaw drop. She didn’t know what to say. Had she heard what he had said right? Frantically she tried to think over what he had just said, what the exact words he had used had been.

  His father’s voice cut into her thoughts as her mind whirled in turmoil. “Sounded like a proposal to me, girlie,” he cackled. “Sounded like somethin my Thom might’a said. Round and about, and comin at it sideways, but askin ya as clear as could be just the same. Reckon you should give ‘im an answer.”

  “Yeh Jinny,” said Thom. “Reckon you should.”

  ~~~

  The soft patter of the drizzling rain on the roof of the crypt seemed appropriate to Sara. It was almost as if the very land itself was weeping in honour of his memory. Pulling the thick cloak about her shoulders, she slowly rose from where she had been lying, hunched over the cold stone of the marble sarcophagus, idly tracing her fingers over the graven image carved with such skill into its unyielding surface. The slow drizzle in some way seemed to take a part of her grief with it as it trickled down the granite walls and puddled about the steps that led up into the open air.

  To have lost him after knowing him for such a short time seemed to her a cruelty beyond all the others she’d had to endure in the course of her stay in this strange and bewitching land. With a long slow sigh, she turned away from his tomb. Taking the hand her companion offered, she slowly made her way up the steps and through the iron gates that led back to the world of the living.

  “I wish you’d told me who he was while I still had a chance to know him,” she said wistfully, hugging the sorrow that always accompanied these visits to her like a much-cherished friend.

  The gentle squeeze of Rayne’s hand against hers lifted her spirits and she stopped and turned to face him, not wanting to go any further until she had said what she planned to. Now was as good a time as any. Throwing back the hood of her cloak, she reached out and gratefully accepted the war
m embrace he offered as her eyes began to swim.

  “I want to repay his selflessness, Rayne,” she sniffled, burrowing her face into the warmth of his tunic. “I want to give him the chance to live again. Only, this time I want to make sure he lives a life that is long and happy, with both of his parents there to watch over him, to love him, and cherish him.”

  “Does this mean that you’re going to stay?”

  Sara felt her heart wrench as she recognised the trepidation in her companion’s words. The question had sat between them for so long now, neither of them daring to raise it, both afraid to confront the consequences of the decision she knew she would eventually have to make. Now, she had finally made her decision.

  “Yes. I want to stay. If you’ll have me. I couldn’t stay here without you to look after me. I wouldn’t want to.”

  “Of course I’ll look after you,” he laughed, unable to restrain his joy and hugging her tightly to him. As he swung her around and off her feet, he cried out in his happiness. “Oh, Sara. You don’t know how much I’ve dreaded your answer.”

  “Yes I do,” she managed to get out between his kisses. “Put me down. Someone will see us.”

  He chuckled again as he gently placed her back on her feet. “Let them. What do I care anymore.”

  “What about Josef?” she asked, returning to a more serious tone. “Do you think we could do that? It’s a bit scary. Having a baby, I mean. Do you really want to be a father?”

  “I already am, or was, or will be. I don’t know; it’s all so confusing. Yes. Yes, I want to be a father. Somewhere, in some timeline, Josef already was our child. Without him, you’d never have been able to defeat Golkar. And without us creating him, he wouldn’t have been able to come back and help us. It’s all pretty confusing, but I agree with you. We owe it to his memory to give him another chance; a chance for a better life than the one he was forced to endure last time. Besides, it could be fun.”