He kicked the horse’s ribs hard, and the poor animal jerked, its back legs practically giving out under the sudden shock. It broke into a quick canter, carrying Bryon to the front of the caravan and beyond.
Chapter 26
THE NEXT DAY—BREAKING A COLD, dark night of sorrowful dirges, weeping wives, and wailing mothers—would finally bring the embattled caravan to the edge of the Blue Forest. Erik had never expected it to come.
With its ancient elms and ghostly oaks, the forest had held a certain mystic quality, and yet, despite those barbaric times, it still offered a bucolic sense of peace. Now, through its archaic visage, hailing back to an age when man knew little more than to plant simple crops and pick berries, its simplicity seemed to calm Erik’s mind and heart.
Most men sought simplicity in a world filled with decisions of life or death. Erik knew his father did, recanting all the worries he had heard his father mutter.
How do I feed my children? Will my wife’s fever ever break? Will my crops make enough at market?
With all of those questions in his mind, Erik’s father would sit on their porch and watch his mother’s flowers. Simplicity. At the edge of the Blue Forest, Erik too watched life play out in its natural perfection, but his mind was a turmoil as he once again considered his next steps.
“This is still a game of life or death, of kill or be killed,” Erik muttered, watching a fox chase after a squirrel as the ancient story of life unfolded in front of him.
But it is simple. Nature holds no jealousy. Nature doesn’t enslave. When nature has had its fill, it leaves well enough alone.
Nevertheless, the breaking of dawn did not bring with it any sort of primordial realization. It brought the hard truth of what had happened to the ragtag band of travelers, the harsh reality of the world in which these men and women lived. Morning brought death.
A shrill cry broke Erik’s trance. He ran with several other men, rusted sword ready for a fight, to find a gypsy woman kneeling beside the wide trunk of an ancient oak. Her hands covered her face, her back heaving with heavy sobs, as the lifeless body of an older woman dangled above her.
Erik blinked, and the vision, the dream, flashed before him—his mother hanging from a tree just outside their home, drifting back and forth with each gentle breeze. His throat went dry.
“One of ours,” a man next to Erik said.
“Y-you recognize . . . recognize her?” Erik asked.
He could barely speak and never even looked at the other man. He kept his eyes on the woman, watching her twisting.
That was Mother. In my dream, that was Mother.
“Aye,” the man replied. “Worked with her husband for a while. Heading to Aga Kona, he was.”
“The new mining camp in the west?” Erik asked, noting but not commenting on the past tense—was.
“Aye,” the man said with a nod.
Erik looked over his shoulder, wondering if he could see his brother from where he stood. That’s where he was going. At least, that’s where Befel had planned on going. Erik wasn’t sure how useful a one-armed miner would be.
“Slavers did this,” Erik suggested, partially to the man and partially to himself. “She was captured, and they discarded her like trash.”
“No.” The man shook his head. “Did it to herself. Even for her, the tree had been too easy to climb, but then she must have been desperate.”
“Why would she do such a thing?” Erik asked, somewhat startled.
“Slavers killed her eldest boy,” the man replied. “Took one of her little ones too. Poor Matty. Her husband’ll probably end up killing himself as well. Matty’s got two other children. What’ll happen to them? We’ll find Matty’s body tomorrow. Sure as the sun will rise.”
Erik had presumed the husband had died too, but now he understood the man’s words.
As he watched two other men cut her down, Erik heard a scream—a deep, man’s scream—from the camp and didn’t need to turn to know word had reached her husband. The man he presumed to be Matty came running, dropped to his knees next to her lifeless body, and wailed louder than Erik had ever heard a man cry. Matty cradled the woman in his arms, his tears washing over her face, smoothing out her gray hair as he rocked back and forth.
“That is so sad,” Erik muttered. “My heart breaks for that man.”
“Feel sad for the world, m’boy,” the man said. “This is the way it is. Far worse happens out there, in the east, in the vast cities of the world.”
Erik hadn’t meant for him to hear his whispers.
This is the way of the world.
He continued to watch the man cradle his dead wife, and then a little boy and an adolescent girl joined him and cried with him.
Is this what will happen to my parents? My sisters? Even if I come home? Is this what will happen to Bryon in the east?
Erik’s stomach knotted, and he turned away as some men began to dig yet another shallow grave.
Later, as the caravan finally departed, Erik sat beside Bo at the front of the wagon again, watching the end of the Blue Forest and the last part of the Abresi Straits creep closer and closer.
“Interesting,” Erik said as he watched the last elm tree of the Blue Forest pass behind them.
“What is that, young Erik?” Bo asked.
“How much warmer it is,” Erik replied, “just a dozen paces past the Blue Forest. I wonder why?”
“The trees hold in the cold, it seems,” Bo explained. “And the winds that get funneled through the Abresi Straits make it colder as well. Have you ever been in the Plains of Güdal during this time of year?”
Erik shook his head. “No. Venton. That’s as far east as I’ve been.”
“The Plains are hot,” Bo explained, “and I think that heat gets pushed into the Southland Gap by winds coming off the Gray Mountains.”
“That makes sense,” Erik replied. “Winds coming off the Gray Mountains always made springs very cool back on the farm. One year, though, there were no winds. It was much warmer than usual. Almost ruined our crops.”
“And that same year,” Bo said, “the Southland Gap and the Plains of Güdal were probably unusually cool.”
“Are we stopping before nightfall?” Erik asked.
“Aye,” Bo said. “We will take a short break before heading south to Finlo.”
“The miners are leaving,” Bryon said, riding beside them on his horse.
“Are you going with them?” Erik asked his brother, who lay in the back of Bo’s wagon with Dika sitting next to him.
Befel’s color still hadn’t fully returned, and Erik could tell he was in a lot of pain.
“I would advise against it,” Bo said. “There’s a barber in Finlo you should see—goes by the name of Kevon—but he’s also a surgeon of sorts. He’s the best in Western Háthgolthane. He’ll tend to your shoulder better than anyone.”
“You can advise against it all you want,” Bryon said. “He won’t listen. He’s the oldest, after all.”
“Shut up, cousin,” Erik hissed and then looked back at his brother. “Befel, are you
going?”
Befel tried to sit up, but his face contorted in pain as he tried to push to his bottom.
“Stop that,” Dika scolded. “You’ll reopen your wound.”
Without a word, Befel lay back and closed his eyes again.
As Bo had predicted, the caravan stopped, and the miners—what was left of them—gathered up around Mardirru. Erik watched as all the men shook the new gypsy leader’s hand.
“Are you sure you still wish to travel west to the Southern Mountains?” Erik heard Mardirru ask one of the miners.
“Aye,” the man, hardened by years underground, replied. “’Tis all we know. We can’t do nothin’ else. I only hope that time— time and gold,” he added with a forced smile, “—will help heal some of our wounds. Aga Kona is a big one, it is—one of Golgolithul’s biggest mines yet, for sure. And being so far away from the east, it’ll practically be like mining a free mine. So I’ve heard.”
Mardirru produced a small sack and dropped it in the miner’s hand. It clinked when it hit the man’s palm and sounded heavy. The miner squeezed the sack and bounced it in his hand. It continued to jingle like bits of metal. The miner gave Mardirru a curious look.
“Your payment into our caravan,” he explained. “Consider it a start to your rebuilding. It is the least we can do after what has happened to all of us. I think it is what my father would’ve wanted.”
“Thank you,” the miner said. Erik thought he heard the man’s voice crack, and then he shrugged. Erik supposed he might cry too if a man gave him back that much coin.
With that, the miners broke from the caravan and headed east, toward the Southern Mountains.
“Is he going to give us our money back?” Bryon asked quietly.
Erik hadn’t realized Bryon was standing next to him. He looked at his cousin with a measure of disbelief.
“You’re truly heartless.”
“Just a legitimate question.”
The caravan turned south, hugging a small wagon trail that ran along the eastern edge of the Blue Forest.
“The Sea Born Road is a little better traveled,” Bo explained to Erik, “but it is another day’s travel east.”
“What is the Sea Born Road?” Erik asked.
“An actual road lined by flagstone and paved with large, flat rock,” Bo replied. “It’s been there over a thousand years, built by Gol-Durathna when their rule extended this far west. I hear it now stops somewhere in Nordeth, but once it wound its way from Finlo all the way to Amentus—one long road maintained and guarded by the Northern Kingdom. It certainly proves a little safer, so many people using it on a daily basis. And with our numbers so low now, it is perhaps the course I would have chosen, but I am sure Mardirru is figuring on reaching Finlo as quickly as possible.”
Chapter 27
A FEW FIRES DOTTED THE hushed camp that first night away from the forest. Erik sat in Bo’s wagon and watched his brother for a while, stroked his sweaty hair while the injured man shook and convulsed through nightmares and fitful sleep. He woke once, for just enough time to drink a skin full of water and stuff some bread down his throat. Then he returned to his coma-like state. When it seemed Befel would sleep—rather, half-sleep—through the night, Erik turned his attention to eating some supper and then trying to sleep as well.
The Southland Gap air was warm save for occasional gusts of ocean wind carrying the chill of salty breezes, and Erik decided he’d sleep on the ground. With his back to a wagon wheel, he sat by himself with a bowl of vegetable-laden soup and two hearty slices of bread. The broth tasted good.
Everything Dika makes tastes good, she reminds me of Mother.
He shook his head to rid himself of such thoughts and looked to his right to see Mardirru sitting by himself, Marcus’ falchion laid across his lap, and his father’s flute resting gently in his hands. He looked so much like the mighty Marcus, sitting there, contemplating.
Erik wondered if he should join him but dismissed the idea.
He wants to be alone, and I would too.
The gypsy stared at the wooden flute for just a while longer and then put it to his lips. He closed his eyes, breathed deep, and blew, making a screeching sound which made Mardirru flinch. Erik knew this man could find his way around an instrument—he’d seen him play the drums, a lyre, and a flute. The same thing happened. The screeching sound of a quieted howling wind wafted through the air. Mardirru wiped a tear from the corner of his eye and placed the flute next to the giant sword in his lap.
“Is there another bowl?” Bryon asked, plopping down next to Erik.
“I didn’t expect you to be having dinner with me,” Erik said.
“Why not?” Bryon asked, and then again said, “Is there a bowl?”
Erik stood, retrieved a bowl from Bo’s carriage, and spooned Bryon several ladles’ worths of soup from the large blackened pot that rested next to the fire.
“Thank you,” Bryon said.
“Why are you over here?” Erik asked.
“That’s a nice welcome!” Bryon replied, a small smile on his face. “Truth be told, I tried sleeping, but with all Befel’s tossing about, I don’t think I’ll ever get to sleep.”
Erik stared at him coldly, his blue eyes icy gems.
“I don’t mean to blame him,” Bryon said. “It is obviously not Befel’s fault—all the turning and tossing. But the truth is, I won’t be able to sleep with him in such a fit.”
“Very well,” Erik replied.
He sat next to his cousin, eating and watching the firelight dance off the now distant trees. Then, placing his empty bowl between his legs, he asked, “Did you find anything on the dead slavers?”
Bryon smirked as he gave a wry, sidelong glance. “Not all innocence and naïveté, are we cousin?”
“Just curious. I want nothing to do with anything you found.”
Bryon retrieved a leather sack from his belt, opened his palm, and poured the sack’s contents into his hand. Coins spilled out, some cut in half, but most full coins of copper and silver. Erik’s eyes widened.
“I think I have only seen that much coin two other times in my life,” Erik said.
“Oh,” Bryon replied. “When?”
“I watched as Marcus put payments to join the caravan into a large chest in the back of his main carriage,” Erik explained. “That chest must’ve had two score of bags like this one.”
“Doing what they do for the greater good are they? What do they need with all that money?” Bryon chided.
Erik rolled his eyes and went back to watching the fire.
“Very well,” Bryon said. “I am truly sorry for accusing your beloved Marcus of being a thief. He was probably, truly, a good man. So when was the second time you had seen so much coin?”
Erik paused and waited a moment as Bryon put his bowl down.
“It was in Venton,” Erik said. “Wittick took me into his house once when he paid us too little. Do you remember?”
Bryon nodded.
“He took me into a room that had two men—men with spears and swords—standing guard,” Erik cont
inued. “It was in that room that he kept a chest. He paid me out of that chest. I think it was two pence each. But in that chest . . . in that chest I saw more coin than I think I will ever see again.”
“Hopefully not,” Bryon said. “When we get east, you’ll see more.”
The vision of a woman hanging from an ancient oak tree popped into Erik’s head.
What did that miner say? Far worse happens out there, in the world, in the east.
“Wittick is a wealthy man,” Bryon said.
“Wittick is a rat turd,” Erik replied.
“Aye.” Bryon laughed. “He was that. But he is wealthier than our fathers will ever be.”
“In terms of coin, I suppose he is richer,” Erik agreed.
“How else would you measure wealth?” Bryon asked.
Erik hated that tone—that condescending tone—Bryon spoke with when he felt like Erik was acting childish or stupid.
“Livestock and land,” Erik replied.
“All of which you can trade for coin,” Bryon said.
“What about respect?” Erik asked. “What about the honor of a name? Men want to work for the Eleodums. They know we will be fair to them, we won’t cheat them, and we will honor their labor. My father had that. So did yours.”
“Your father, maybe,” Bryon said. “Mine? I don’t know. The only thing he had in abundance was jugs of orange brandy hidden away from my mother.”
Erik laughed. He shouldn’t have, and after he did, he quickly looked to his cousin, fearing what might come next. But Bryon laughed as well. Erik looked back at his cousin’s hand.
“Is that . . .” Erik gasped, poking through the coins with his finger.
Bryon nodded. “Yes, it is, cousin. A Ventonian pound. Pure too.”
A Chance Beginning Page 13
