“What do you want?” hissed Bryon.
“Oh, nothing.” Fox shrugged. “Just to make conversation.” He paused a moment, tapping a thin finger against his hairless, pointed chin, his other hand resting on his hip. “Where are you from?”
“None of your business.”
“Oh, well, I never heard of that place,” Fox replied before he burst into laughter that consisted of annoying snorts. “That was a good one, eh? Well, I’m from Southland. Been in Waterton for a couple months visiting family. Grandmother’s not doing so well, you know. Figure it’s time to get back home.”
“I don’t care,” Bryon said, but something made his eyebrow rise up in a questioning arch.
Waterton had proven to be a city most unwelcoming to families, and the only ones that lived there seemed to be those that thrived on the adventurers and treasure seekers stopping for a while before traveling west. Bryon shook his head slightly but knew that his suspicious nature had gotten him into trouble more than once. He remembered when he suspected the two Wodum brothers of stealing a half dozen of his father’s goats. When he accused them openly, they tried to beat him to death. They would’ve if it hadn’t been for Befel. His lip curled at the memory. He hated thinking of Befel helping him. It turned out that his father had already slaughtered them.
“Well, that’s nice for you,” Bryon conceded as the Fox still stared at him. “What did you say your family did in Waterton?”
“I didn’t,” Fox said with that stupid smile still on his face.
“Well?” Bryon waited. “What do they do?”
“Merchants,” Fox replied quickly. “They sell kitchen wares in the marketplace.”
“Kitchen wares,” Bryon muttered, “that’s an odd thing to sell in Waterton. You must know Del Alzon then.”
Fox looked at Bryon with wrinkled brows.
“The fat fruit merchant.” Bryon sounded exasperated. How could anyone miss that disgusting blob of a man?
“Oh, yes, yes, of course,” Fox cried with an even bigger smile. “Ole Del. What a fellow he is, eh?”
“Aye,” Bryon slowly muttered, “what a fellow.”
Bryon heard a cracking sound, and he spun around, thinking that a large branch had snapped. Instead, he saw a gypsy holding a long, corded whip, and then he heard the creaking of wooden wheels against a grassy, rocky ground.
“Well, I’d better get back to my wagon. The company I’m traveling with gets mighty upset when I don’t help with loading and unloading,” Fox said, pointing his thumb to somewhere toward the front of the train. “A bunch of them are going to Finlo—to join up with the eastern army. They’re trying to get me to go with them. Almost have me convinced.”
“Really?” Bryon asked.
“Sure,” Fox said with a smile and shrug. He crossed his arms. “Not sure I really want to be in the family business anymore.”
“You’re traveling with men sailing east?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m going east, too,” Bryon said.
“You should come eat supper with us,” Fox said. Then he looked over his shoulder. “Well, I’d better go. What did you say your name was?”
“I didn’t.”
Fox waited for Bryon to give him his name, but the tall farmer never did. Fox finally extended his hand again, and Bryon reluctantly shook it. He watched Fox roam through the train, dodging carriages and wagons already packed and moving. He stopped often, patting some miner on the shoulder or shaking hands with some other fellow. He chatted with one gypsy driver until the gypsy’s wife nudged his ribs with her elbow, forcing the man to flip his reins.
“Maybe I will have supper with you,” Bryon muttered. If Fox and those other fools were traveling east, he should get to know them. Bryon should show everyone who was boss, so when space was limited on some ship, he knew he’d have a spot.
Bryon stepped up onto his own wagon and saw that Erik and Befel had rolled up several blankets, throwing them over the sides of the wagon to pad the course wooden planks. They had also neatly slid the wagon’s water barrel into place so that when they closed the wagon’s gate, they had a nice, snug, and relatively comfortable space.
“You’re not going to help,” Befel huffed, stepping over the gate and into the wagon with a large crate of dried fruits.
“You seem to have a handle on it,” Bryon replied as he sat down.
Befel glared at him, but Bryon simply crossed his arms and leaned his head back against the wagon’s side. His cousins finished loading the wagon’s cargo—more blankets and boxes and a small cask with a thin lid filled with nuts—and then joined him. He closed his eyes, hoping to sleep until they stopped again.
“You boys ready?” Bo said.
Bryon’s eyes shot open and looked to the jockey box. His eyes widened when he saw Bo’s wife, Dika was going to be driving. Erik told the gypsy they were, and Bo turned back around.
“Figures that a gypsy would let his wife drive,” muttered Bryon and shook his head. His father would have never let his mother drive their wagon. “We could have traveled alone.”
“I’m not having this conversation with you again,” Erik said.
Bryon just continued to shake his head.
“Bo and Dika have been very generous,” added Erik.
“Aye,” Bryon said, “and when we sleep, they mean to steal what little we have left and leave us with naught but those blankets. Your new gypsy friend jokes about his temptress wife, but there is truth in what he says.”
“Oh, please Bryon,” Befel jeered, his mouth curled and one eyebrow raised. “That’s ridiculous. What could we possibly have that they would want?”
“Our souls,” Bryon whispered.
“You don’t believe we have souls,” Erik said.
“Our wits then,” Bryon replied, still whispering with his head ducked low.
“Then they might as well try to steal your money,” Befel teased. “They’ll get more!”
Erik laughed, and Befel joined him. Bryon squinted his eyes and pursed his lips.
“Piss off,” Bryon said.
“Why are you such a stubborn, hoof-brained ass?” Befel snapped. “Are you trying to prove something?”
“Maybe,” Bryon retorted. “Is it working?”
“No,” Erik replied.
“Oh well, I’ll just try harder then.”
“You don’t have to be like that, you know,” Befel said.
“Like what?” Bryon asked, crossing his hands behind his head.
“So standoffish. So mean,” Befel replied. “I don’t recognize who you are. Don’t you remember who you are, where you’re from, what we believe in as Eleodums?”
“I don’t want to remember who I am, where I’m from, or what I’m supposed to believe,” Bryon replied. “I don’t want to be a farmer who sticks to silly rules and believes in religious superstitions . . . and I don’t think you want to either.”
“Just because I don’t want to be a farmer doesn’t mean I don’t want to hold on to who I am, how I was raised,” Befel shot back, hurt in hi
s voice.
“Remember, cousin, you were the one who wanted to leave first, leave our old lives behind. You were the one that kept speaking of the east.”
Bryon waved one hand in front of his face as if he were casting some sort of spell or fanning away smoke.
“Go east. We’ll be famous. Go east. We’ll never have to work hard again. Go east. That’s where it rains gold, and the rivers run with silver. Go east and get away from your father. Yes, I’m trying to prove something—prove that I can be a man that won’t follow in my father’s footsteps, that won’t rely on superstition to rule my life. You know, I fear for you two. I fear that you will be on your deathbeds many years from now and realize that all our fathers taught us were superstitious lies—and then what has your life meant?”
“I fear for you cousin,” Erik replied. “I fear you will be on your deathbed and realize it wasn’t a lie.”
Bryon just shook his head and laughed silently to himself.
Chapter 13
DUSK WAS SETTLING ON THE Abresi Straits, the stretch of land in which the gypsy caravan traveled.
“Abresi, the man after which this stretch is called, actually built a road,” Bo said. “You can still see some of the flagstones if you look closely.”
Erik leaned over the side of the wagon to look where Bo pointed, and he could see several flat, square stones overgrown by crawlers and grass. He nodded.
“Odd to build a road so close to the edge of a forest,” Erik commented.
“Perhaps,” Bo agreed. “Easy access to food and fuel for fires maybe. Maybe it was more to be as far away from Ul’Erel as possible.”
“I’ve heard of the vast forests of Ul’Erel,” Erik said. “The land of fairies.”
“Aye,” Bo said with a smile.
“The land of fantasies,” Erik added.
“Perhaps,” Bo said with a shrug.
“You believe in elves and fairies?” Erik asked.
“Maybe,” Bo replied vaguely. “I’ve seen stranger things.”
“No one has ever seen an elf,” Erik replied.
“No one recently,” Bo added. “Do you believe in the Creator?”
“Of course,” Erik replied without hesitation.
“Have you ever seen him?” Bo asked.
Erik paused at that. Then, slowly, shook his head.
“No, I suppose not.”
“See,” Bo said. “Your eyes do not always make something real.”
Erik could not argue with the gypsy’s logic.
“I know farmers steer clear of Ul’Erel,” Erik offered. “Is it really so scary?”
“I don’t know,” Bo said. “Maybe a league north of here is about as close as I’ve ever been. There are plenty of tales about strange things happening near Ul’Erel. Apparently, it was enough to make Abresi want to build a road as far away as possible.”
Darkness finally forced the wagons into circles, and campfires appeared where people congregated. While Dika poured Erik and his kin bowls of stew, he watched a little gypsy girl play with a doll. She had black ringlets in her hair and olive skin, but her deep blue eyes reminded him of Tia, his youngest sister. This was even more so when she chased off three boys threatening to tease her. Like this girl, Tia was a little stubborn, feisty, and certainly devious.
“How much longer?” Bryon asked startling Erik who turned to see his cousin looking pensively at his stew.
“Is it not good?” Erik asked.
“I don’t know,” Bryon replied, “I haven’t tried it yet.”
“You’re a fool,” Erik muttered.
“Even so, but when you die of poisoning, I’ll still be alive,” Bryon snorted.
Erik shook his head and rolled his eyes. Then he smiled.
“To answer your question, a little while longer. Until you reach Mek-Ba’Dune and die by the hands of some barbarian,” Erik added with a chuckle.
Bryon glared at Erik, a look that used to frighten him, but now it only made him smile.
“How much longer?” Bryon asked again.
“Two days, I think,” Erik replied. “Two days, and then you can go south to Finlo, Befel can go attempt to be a miner, and I can go home.”
Erik looked down at his feet, thinking of springs on the farm, his parents and sisters. And Simone.
“You know, Bryon,” Erik said, looking at his cousin again, “the gypsies are traveling south to Finlo as well.”
“Aye, but I won’t feel so damned confined next to this cursed forest,” Bryon replied. “I’ll be able to spread out a bit. I won’t have to stay so close to these gypsies.”
Erik scoffed. “Except for when you have to eat and sleep and travel; unless you want to walk.”
Despite the darkness, Erik could see Bryon’s furled eyebrows, that all too often seemed locked in a scowl. As usual, Bryon glowered, and Erik and Befel laughed as their cousin stormed off, his stew untouched.
As his brother wolfed down Bryon’s meal after his own, Erik crossed his arms over his chest, a multicolored blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He looked up to the mist-covered sky, straining to see his stars, but they weren’t there. The moon, barely a thin crescent, peeked through wisps of darkening clouds like a squinting, pale eye.
An uncommon chill hung in the air, crisp with a steady breeze funneling through the Abresi Straights, and the mood of the camp seemed different. The previous night, gypsies had danced and sung, led by Marcus and his sons—Mardirru and Max—in the telling of ancient tales as they drank Sweet Milk, a gypsy concoction of honey, goat’s milk, and whiskey. Erik was happy to join in, but his brother and cousin advised against it, both for different reasons. But no one drank or danced, or even talked, this night.
When they finished dinner, the gypsies made final preparations for the night and went to bed straight away. If a family owned a carriage, the women and children slept with the flaps pulled. If just a wagon, then they covered themselves with piles of blankets, huddling close together. The men slept outside on the ground.
Erik knew nights like this. A Thieves’ Night, his father would call them. He would sit on their porch with several of his farmhands, watching his barn, his flock of sheep, and his cows and horses as they slept. A Demon’s Night, his grandmother would say, a night when the Shadow released his minions on the world to wreak havoc and mischief on goodly people. Erik’s mother would scold his grandmother when she told that story, giving her the same look she gave her children when she meant to swat them with a wooden spoon.
Erik hated those nights, and would lie in his bed, blanket pulled up to his eyes, and shiver. Alternatively, he would sit with his mother, curled up with her and his sisters in his parents’ room. Befel never huddled with them. He was always too tough for such childishness, and when he grew older, on many of those nights, he would sit with his father on the porch.
Not a thing stirred on those mist-shrouded nights. No owls hooted, no doves cooed, no mockingbird or thrush offered their nighttime songs. No rabbit darted about night-covered fields. No foxes emerged to chase rabbits. It seemed the whole world had been hushed, locked in apprehensio
n of those nights.
Next to them, the Blue Forest with its giant, ghoulish trees loomed over the train of travelers. They swayed in the cold breeze, branches and leaves rattling to a devilish tune of silence save for the creaking of distant boughs and the blowing of air past wide trunks.
“What was that?”
Erik pulled his outlandishly colored blanket tighter around his shoulders. It had been many years since he had huddled in close to his mother on a Thieves’ Night, and the last one he experienced back home, he had spent on the porch with his father and brother. But home still offered some semblance of shelter, and now his eyes darted back and forth, inspecting every dark spot of the forest.
“What?” Befel muttered as he pulled a much more somber-colored brown blanket over his shoulders.
“That noise.”
“What noise?” Befel asked looking at Erik. “Are you shivering?”
Erik realized he was and sat up but didn’t answer Befel’s question. As his eyes grew more accustomed to the dark, he watched a small shadow skitter by just beyond the first tree of the Blue Forest. As if that shadow knew some young man watched it from the protection of a circled caravan and firelight, it stopped and stared back. Erik’s eyes met tiny yellow ones, and they locked for just moments. Erik felt goose pimples rise along his arms.
“It’s just a fox,” he muttered hopefully, closing his eyes tight and then opening them again. Those yellow eyes were gone.
“A what?” Befel questioned.
“Nothing.”
Befel moved closer to Erik, and even though Erik gave his brother a quick annoyed look, he welcomed the closeness and did nothing to push Befel away.
“A Demon’s Night.”
Marcus’ voice startled the brothers, and they looked up as the giant of a man bent to sit next to them. He had no blanket and an open-chested vest despite the chill of the night.
A Chance Beginning Page 7
