“Oh, I suppose I’d best reveal myself.”
The voice sounded behind her. She spun again and came face to face with a white wolf. Acting on instinct, she swiped the blade in a wide arc. It passed through the space, where moments before, the face of the snow-colored wolf had been.
“Just avoided my second nose-job by the tips of my whiskers.”
Cleo could believe neither her eyes nor her ears. The voice sounded like it came from the wolf’s snout. His lips and mouth moved out of some semblance of order, though she feared trusting her senses.
“Aarez? Is this some new trick?” Cleo’s whisper sounded hoarse.
“I can assure you, this is no echoer’s trick, though that which you pulled on me back in the woods was nothing short of magic. In all my infinite wisdom, I never ventured to guess that you would charge at a wolf.”
“Huh?”
“Surely you recognize me? A while back in the woods near Mirr. You assaulted me with that infernal quarterstaff. If I hadn’t been so cocky, such a hit would never have drawn blood, let alone land.”
Cleo focused in on the wolf’s face. It did look familiar. She spotted a brownish stain on the wolf’s snout. “That was you? But, you can’t—”
“Talk? I assure you that I can. My name is Freki. And you, I shall call Harbie.”
“I must be going crazy,” Cleo moaned, shaking her head. “I’m imagining that a wolf is talking to me. A wolf with a name and a penchant for naming its crazed victims.”
“You aren’t crazy. In fact, I’ve talked with both Harvey and Gnochi, so if you’re crazy, so too are they.”
“Harvey? Gnochi? You’ve talked with Gnochi? When? Has he said anything? Is he all right?”
“He’s all right, though he hasn’t been up to talking lately, if you know his situation.”
“We are on our way to rescue him,” she said.
“Are you, Harbie?” The wolf sniffed at the air. “I guess you are.”
“You keep saying Harbie. What is that? Why are you calling me that?”
“It’s merely a nickname. You are the Harbinger of Change, so I call you Harbie for short.”
“What does that mean? Why me?”
“There is no why. We don’t select our destinies. They are handed to us. Do you think I asked to be this devilishly handsome? No, it was gifted to me.”
“So, why would you come to me now? Why not come years ago when I was near suffocated to death by my father, or on the boat, or after I had joined with Gnochi?”
“I got word from the boss. She said ‘It’s time for the Harbinger to know of her destiny. Go and enlighten her, you rotten pup.’” The wolf looked to the snow beneath its paws, seemingly embarrassed. “She and I have one of those work relations where she can call me a rotten pup, and I pretend like I don’t care even though it eats me up.”
“Freki, focus,” Cleo said. “You’re supposed to enlighten me on my destiny.”
“Oh yes. Cleo, you are the Harbinger of Change for this world.”
“Yes, I got that. What am I supposed to do?”
“You mortals are all the same. You give them a mile, and they ask for one inch more. Hmm, let’s see. How can I word this without swaying you one way or another? Expect change. No, that was Kitten’s advice.”
“Kitten?”
“There will come a time where the future of the world rests with you and a cloud born beyond the stars.” The wolf nibbled on its back haunch. “I suppose ‘born among the stars’ is more accurate, but I’m trying to be dramatic here. You will have to make a difficult choice to bring the cloud to Earth.”
“If one choice was the right choice, which choice would that be?” Cleo asked, hoping to trick the wolf into revealing more than he planned.
“If it were that easy, there’d be no need for my riddle-filled tongue.” The wolf made a noise that can only be described as a giggle. “No pressure.”
“Yeah,” Cleo mocked. “No pressure. When is this world-changing decision supposed to happen?” She doubted the wolf would give her a straight answer.
“You’re going to have to work that one out on your own,” Freki said. “But good luck. I have to be off.” The wolf turned to leave, but Cleo yelled to it.
“Freki, wait!” It seemed to trip at her words. “Gnochi. Tell me, how can I save him?”
Freki turned, a feral snarl on his lips contrasted with his earlier demeanor. “You cannot save anyone from their fate. Gnochi made his choices, and now he must live with them.” The wolf bounded into the woods, leaving Cleo to contemplate his words in silence.
She looked down at her hands, surprised to see that she still gripped her boot knife. Sheathing it, she walked back to her group, the distant howls of a wolf on the edge of her mind.
Chapter 24
After returning to the camp and lying down with her hands encircling her quarterstaff, Cleo found scant sleep. By the time Harvey passed off watch to her, she had resigned to a restless night. She thought she could see a look of empathy in his eyes, but she refrained from asking him about the wolf for fear that he would think she was sleep-deprived.
After breakfast the next morning, the group quickened its pace, making tracks south. With Aarez and Kiren discussing some matter with Roy, Cleo urged Perogie up next to Harvey, snatching at the opportunity for a private word.
Despite the chill numbing her nose, she could still make out an earthy scent on Harvey’s clothes. The blank stench of winter could not overpower the air of leaves decaying under a light rain that hovered around him.
“You sleep all right?” Harvey asked, making up for the small talk they missed during the morning routine.
“Fine enough,” Cleo answered. “You?”
Harvey offered a grunt of a response that could have meant both fine as well as terrible.
Cleo wanted to press her friend about the wolf, but she did not know how to vocalize her thoughts. Words sat heavy in her throat, threatening to suffocate her.
“So, depending on our pace,” he said, unknowingly stomping on the sapling of her courage. “We are looking at four days to the river. Maybe more if our pace slows at all. You should probably take Nora with you this afternoon, freeing Slipper up from that additional weight.”
Cleo mumbled an affirmative noise. She finally swallowed her fear and spoke. “Harv, can we talk about something?”
He eyed her, concern painted on his brow, but before she could say anything else, he spoke. “I wish there was more I could’ve done. I should’ve stayed with Gnochi at that inn. Maybe we both would’ve been arrested, but we could’ve fought our way out.”
“What are you talking about?” She now recognized the look Harvey had donned since she had first seen him in the manor. It was a look of guilt.
“The night of the assassination, I came upon Gnochi in his hiding spot. I’m afraid I doomed him. Well, it was divine intervention really, but it was also because of that intervention that I even found him. The point is, I was with Gnochi before they caught him.”
“Why? Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because, he sent me after you. That’s how I found out about Skuddy, who told me where to find you. Gnochi asked me to give you this.” He bowed his head and pull from under his shirt, a pendant.
Cleo recognized it immediately as Gnochi’s coat of arms pendant. It mimicked the coat of arms adorning the journal, save for the scroll lining the bottom of the shield, where the engraving: Res Severa est Verum Gaudium, sat. Jagged edges adorned the bottom of the pendant. She originally thought that the pendant was a key but mused that the bottom edge must have simply been damaged or chipped over the years of its life.
She held the pendant before her eyes. There was no doubt in her mind that this was Gnochi’s pendant. Each petal on the rose pressed lightly above the pewter surface. The quill-feather similarly rose off the surface, each strand precisely polished to leave a smooth texture. All six of the small orbs were present, as well as the name ‘Gleeman’ lining
the bottom of the shield.
“Gnochi gave this to you?”
“He entrusted it to me. To give to you.”
“And you just waited until now to give it to me?”
“To be honest, I had forgotten. With Nora introducing us at the edge of a knife, my mind was occupied. Plus, I wanted to ensure that you were truly safe.”
Cleo knew that Harvey was right. She then felt her own secrets burning through her stomach, threatening to rise up and vomit out everywhere. She placed the pendant over her neck and tucked it under her leather armor. It sat hot against her skin. Weakness rippled through her limbs. She was fortunate for Perogie’s strong back under her legs but feared that revealing her secrets would further fatigue her, so she allowed Perogie to fall back into the middle of the group.
“Wasn’t there something you wanted to talk about?” Harvey asked, turning to watch her.
“Nothing important,” Cleo lied.
◆◆◆
Bundled head to boot in thick furs, Gnochi trudged along the line of prisoners marching south in the muddy riverbed of the Old Maiden. The frigid cold, nipping at his exposed face, failed to penetrate through layers of fur. Surprisingly, his beard had filled in and buffered some of the winter air before it could claw at his skin. The added weight of three packs pulled heavy on his neck and shoulders. After months of sitting idle though, he relished the fatigue wrought through his frame by midday. Despite his poor state, some of the others fared worse. Floyd, unaccustomed to manual labor, fell twice. His two packs were distributed. Rush took one, seeming to delight in the strain, and Ren volunteered to leg the second.
“I’m a sailor,” Ren bragged. “Weight like this is salt compared to my main sail’s rigging.” The prisoners were not alone in their fatigue, though. The guard next to Gnochi offloaded one of his two pouches on Gnochi after only two hours.
“You don’t talk much,” said the guard, who Gnochi later learned was named Asbet. “You the prisoner who ca’int talk?”
Gnochi nodded.
“You wanna take one of my packs?”
Gnochi shook his head, trying to gesture that he was already tiring.
“I can make you do it. Hell, I can make you carry both.”
Gnochi offered his chained hands in defeat. He swung the guard’s pack around his shoulders, noticing immediately that the weight was imperceptible.
“You lot see that?” Asbet announced. “Gnochi is now carrying four and not a complaint comes from his mouth.”
He nodded his thanks at the gesture, then returned his attention to the crunching snow beneath his boots and the lumbering form of Rush ahead of him.
“Curse this god-forsaken snow,” Duke yelled from the front. “Only here to make our lives miserable. We’d be there by now. Cozy by a firm fire if this snow didn’t strand our asses.”
“You know, we can make this snow fun,” Ren offered. “I’ve spent three winteryears on the tundra. I know a few games out of the stuff.”
“The last thing I’d want is to be playing some childish game right now,” Duke said. “All you need to do is keep your feet moving. No games. No fun. Just marching.”
Ren mentioned the game no more.
The remaining day’s march passed by in a slow manner. Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, Gnochi’s muscles ceased complaining about the weight. By the time the sun had greeted the western horizon, his limbs felt so stiff and cold, he wondered if they had frozen under his skin.
Finally, as the last stretches of light faded, Duke called the procession to a halt. Strips of dried food and broth warmed on a fire made up their meager supper. A few quiet conversations circled around in small groups, but Gnochi found his attention drawn to the snow beneath his feet. It was fresh and powdery, soft as sheep’s downy. He scooped it up in his gloved hands, yet unshackled as supper had not officially ended.
A moment of forming the raw snow resulted in the round, compact shape of a ball. Gnochi smiled, remembering what Ren had said earlier. Looking to the closest man he could call a friend among the prisoners, he saw Ren eying him, a bright smile splitting his lips.
The pirate gestured to his feet where a pyramid of a half-dozen snowballs piled together. He nodded, hefting the topmost mount in his hands, inspecting it as if looking for some flaw. Despite his stockpile, Ren looked hesitant to act.
Gnochi lobbed the snowball in the air and caught it, drawing the attention of the other prisoners nearby. After watching the silent bard for a minute, both Rush and Cyrus each began forming their own munitions with gloved hands.
Looking across the fire to the guards, where they huddled together, Gnochi listened for a moment, though their conversation was hushed. He looked back down at his snowball and swallowed a buildup of saliva. He pulled his arm back and released it in a high arc, imagining that his frigid projectile would land harmlessly on the ground in the circle of his captors. Despite his intentions, the quarry clipped the top of Duke’s hat, causing the bundle of densely packed snow to explode into a maelstrom of fluffy flakes that rained down on the leader’s face.
The moment after, Gnochi saw smiles splitting across the faces of his fellow prisoners. The unintended target, fuming, stood and aimed his pistol between the prisoners, settling in on Gnochi.
“You trying to get shot? Because that’s a mighty fine way to get a bullet between your eyes.” Duke’s mouth quivered in rage. His skin seemed hot enough to melt the snow. It streamed down his chin. Before anyone else could speak, a rogue snowball hit Duke on his side. It exploded, the snow sizzling as it dropped into the nearby fire.
Duke turned, but found his own man, Hope, responsible for the nuisance. As realization dawned on his face, Rush took the opportunity to chuck a snowball, nearly twice the size, thanks to his meaty hands, into Floyd’s stomach. Ren, too, made quick moves and had dispatched three snowballs in quick succession. Gnochi dodged one that was lobbed at his chest, returning fire with a hastily scrapped-together snowball. It met its mark, splattering against Cyrus’s shoulder.
Every guard, save Duke, had managed to piece together his own munitions and launch a few, both at each other and at the prisoners. A general din of merriment sounded loud in in the otherwise quiet evening air. Someone was laughing. Gnochi stepped out of the maelstrom of flying snow. A smile touched his lips. Even Floyd had managed to throw a few of his making around. A lack of movement in the center of the battleground attracted his eyes.
Duke stood calm by the fire. By some divine intervention, or common sense from the participants, the snowy projectiles ignored his face and body as though repelled. He raised his hand high in the air.
Gnochi saw the pistol’s dark form gripped with tension-wrought fingers. He dropped to the snow as the explosion sounded, disturbing the serenity of the evening. Almost immediately, the game ceased, snowballs en-route seemed to drop dead in the air, their hits not counted in the score. Everyone who had stored munitions squashed the orbs or tossed them off, away from the group. Faint smiles disappeared from the guards’ faces. They buried their eyes in the snow, their hands in pockets or thrust before the fire as if to melt away the evidence of their participation.
Prisoners and guards alike expected a verbal hurricane, but the lashing never came. Duke simply sat back down and stared into the fire’s embers. Somehow, his pistol had retreated to its safe place. He no longer looked infuriated. His eyes drooped as if burdened with fatigue.
Boots shuffling before Gnochi brought his mind back to the present. He looked up and saw Hope readying the shackles for his wrists. He wanted desperately to talk. In this moment more than any, Gnochi wanted to vocalize his angst and apologize for causing trouble.
Hope seemed to understand the thoughts storming in his head. As he locked the shackles, he leaned close to Gnochi’s ear and whispered, “Thanks for the fun.”
Chapter 25
For over an hour, Cleo and her friends gazed upon their misfortune without speaking. After pushing their mounts hard all morning, they had
emerged out of the forest that stretched from as far north as Imuny to their current point. Upon scaling the highest hill, they discovered that the bridge they were expecting to cross was occupied. It appeared as if it would remain so indefinitely. On the north bank of the river streamed an endless wave of Lyrinthian soldiers. They marched over the wooden bridge in precise columns, accurately measured so the it would not strain under the weight.
“Why would the army be traveling so far from any city?” Roy asked, though no one offered a response.
“If the people we saw at the lake are a part of this column, we could be stuck here for days. Weeks even,” Kiren muttered.
“We aren’t waiting,” Cleo said.
“There’s no way we can sneak over that bridge without anyone seeing,” Aarez said. “And we certainly can’t openly ask to traverse it. What with you being a renegade, and those two skipping out on their service.” He nodded toward Harvey and Roy. “We wouldn’t get one foot on their bridge without you three getting shackled and the two of us getting pin-cushioned with arrows as accomplices.”
“So, what do we do?” Roy asked. “Do we travel to the other bridge hoping that it’s not being used by the western arm of the Lyrinthian army for a similar purpose?”
“We don’t have the time to waste riding out of our way,” Cleo said. “Plus, that’s all desert along the river. We’d burn through our supplies.”
“Can’t we consider crossing the river?” Aarez asked. “Find a shallow spot and lead the horses across? Or have a few of us swim across. The rest will hold the horses up here until a clear moment on the bridge.”
“I don’t think anyone wants to be responsible for caring for all the horses,” Harvey said, “but if we can see the water level, we might be able to judge if crossing it is a possibility. Remember those waterways further north were dried out, so perhaps the river has declined in its ferocity as well.”
“I’ll go.” Cleo’s gaze remained unwavering on the bridge.
The Harbinger of Change Page 17
