by Dave Dobson
I expressed my admiration for her skill one night as we sat by a small fire eating rabbit stew and hard biscuits. “I knew a bit before getting here, you know. I used to ride,” she replied, looking into the darkness. “With my uncle, a long time ago. That came back to me, I suppose. I did a lot of target shooting as a girl, behind our house, and I also trained with the bow with Mistress Fennick. Remember when we did Porcupine’s Quills? I seem to remember winning.” She had, indeed. Nobody else was close to her score, with a forest of arrows stuck in the center of her target. “Some of the rest of it I learned from books at the outpost. And I’ve had good teachers out here.”
“The border suits you,” I replied, trying to keep the regret from my voice. For it didn’t suit me, and I didn’t want to think of her out here forever. I loved the city, but if she were here, I’d have a difficult choice. Either a lifetime of bumbling out here in the wilderness, far from taverns, libraries, and the drama of Frosthelm, or a lifetime apart from Clarice. I chided myself. A choice for me? What hubris. As if she’d even be interested in a lifetime with me, anywhere. I’d be lucky even to have the opportunity to choose.
“It doesn’t suit me,” said Boog. “Give me the crowded streets, food on a plate, that I don’t have to kill myself, a mug of ale, and a privy. The city’s the place for me.”
Clarice laughed. “In the city, there’s a standing order to behead you.”
Boog grimaced. “All right, except for that minor inconvenience.”
We were silent for a time, and then Clarice slid over to her pack. “Marten, do you remember our second year in training, my birthday?”
It was an odd question. “Sure, I guess I do.”
“You gave me something then.”
I remembered. “The book?”
She opened her pack and pulled it out. “Yes, the book.” She held it up and showed Boog. “The Personal Diary of Prelate Darima the First, a transcription by Reginald Grosse."
“What… Why do you have that out here?” I could feel my cheeks warm. I’d had the idea back then that she might like a history book, given her interest in such things. I’d scoured bookshops for something suitable, but the nicer manuscripts were well out of my price range. In my price range were books like the full inventory records of Edgaard the Barrel Maker. Twenty years of records, including the lumber sourcing for each month's barrel staves. In the end, I’d hit upon an opportunity. A noblewoman with an extensive library had died without heir, and I heard a bookseller talking about her estate sale. I’d arrived half an hour before it started, put on my most earnest expression, and asked if I could look at the books. I think the merchant tasked with selling her estate had taken pity on me. Or, she knew nothing of the value of what she had, which might also have been the case. I’d emerged penniless but with the diary in hand.
“She wrote poems about her trials and successes,” Clarice said, opening it up and flipping through some pages. “The whole thing is in verse. She ruled through two wars, a serious plague, and near-constant unrest.”
Boog snorted. “Great present, Marty. That’s some inspiring reading.”
“No, you monstrous oaf,” said Clarice. She picked a bit of rabbit out of her cup and threw it at him, then licked the stew off her fingers. “It was the nicest thing anyone had ever given me. So thoughtful and personal.”
I blushed and looked away. “I’m glad you liked it.” I remembered that she’d seemed pleased, but I didn’t remember this kind of effusiveness.
“I brought it out here to remind me of the city,” she continued. “I do like it out here. It’s exciting. I’ve been able to learn so much about riding and fighting and tactics. And the culture of the clans, which is unusual but fascinating.” She looked down at the book. “But I am a city girl at heart. I miss the city, my family, the guild, the markets, the streets, the spice stores…” She tapped the pages in front of her. “And this book, and these beautiful poems, remind me that Frosthelm has survived all kinds of dire challenges, and that a woman of strength and courage helped it through some of them. Even if she failed sometimes. But mostly she didn’t, even if her enemies were cruel and evil, and even if the odds were hard.” She paused. “That meant a lot to me. More than you know, Marten. And it still does. Especially out here.”
The next morning I woke and struggled to rise, stiff, cramped, and cold. A wind had sprung up overnight, blowing in gusts, carrying grit that stung my eyes. Boog snored in peaceful catatonia. Clarice was already up, saddling her horse and stowing our shovel and cooking tools in her pack. Our fire was long dead, and it looked as though Clarice had already buried its remains under a pile of sandy soil.
She turned and looked at me, as I massaged my neck, sore from yet another night on the ground. There was something in her gaze then that I still remember, although I’m not sure I could describe it. It was made up of fondness, gentle humor, goodwill – and I hoped, perhaps some deeper emotion, though I’m still not sure if I saw it, or merely imposed it on her features through mere force of wanting. I stopped rubbing, and we stood, wordless, looking at each other for a measureless time.
“Clarice,” I said, my heart beating in my chest like a galleymaster’s drum. “I want – I’ve been meaning, er…” I stammered. “I mean, I’ve been wanting…”
She smiled. “Yes? What have you been wanting to mean?”
I drew a deep breath. It felt as if I stood on a precipice, and one slip or stumble would send me plummeting into darkness. Was I ready to do this? Should I say it? Far easier to retreat, to step back from the edge, to go on with the possibility of hope rather than to risk a reality of despair. But what if she could care for me, as I did for her? Was it not worth the gamble?
I swallowed and cleared my throat. My mouth felt as dry as the arid soil that surrounded us. “Clarice,” I began again.
Suddenly, she gasped. I paused, confused. I hadn’t said anything shocking yet. The look on her face shifted to surprise. She opened her mouth and let out a small cough, and I saw a trace of bright red at the corner of her mouth. Her hands rose to her chest, and she scratched weakly at her jerkin. Without warning, she sank to a knee, and as I moved to her, she fell onto her side. A slender wooden shaft with three inches of colorful fletching stuck out from her back. As I knelt by her side and reached for her hand, I heard over the wind the rhythm of approaching hooves.
38
Despair
“No,” I said.
“Oh, come on,” replied Boog, his hand reaching for my shoulder.
I leaned, as I had for most of the last five days, against the stout logs that barred the entrance to the cave where we were imprisoned. The air here at the front was fresher than in the back of the cave, and I could see a small piece of the night sky framed by the cave’s mouth.
“Marten,” said Boog. “We might as well do something.”
I looked back at him. I imagine I looked like the very incarnation of desolation, because his face softened a bit.
“You don’t know that she’s dead,” he said. "They took us so fast, we didn’t even have a chance to check.” He had an arrow wound in his left arm, bandaged now.
“She had a hole in her lung, or worse,” I replied. “She couldn’t even stand, or breathe.”
“But she hadn’t died yet,” Boog persevered.
“She was dying. They took our horses. They left her to die. I left her to die. She couldn’t speak. She was miles from anything, injured, bleeding, alone...”
Boog squeezed his lips into a thin line. “You could have woken me up before they got there,” he said. “We might…" He trailed off as he saw the rage building in my face. “Er, never mind. Now’s not the time for reviewing strategy, I can see that.”
I turned back to the cave mouth. Boog continued. “She’s a strong girl.”
“She was shot in the back and coughing up blood.”
“But they left her free.”
“They left her because they knew she was going to die, and they had no need fo
r a dead prisoner.”
Boog paused, then changed tactics. “There’s nothing you could have done.”
“I distracted her just before they attacked. She’d have noticed them, if I hadn’t been prattling on there like a damned fool."
“You don’t know that. They were skilled scouts and double our number. Even if she had noticed them somehow, we’d still be in the same situation."
I snorted. “That’s ridiculous.” I pushed as hard as I could on the log bars, but they were as sturdy as ever, rewarding my efforts with only a faint creak. "They shot her in the back.”
Boog remained silent, at last. He placed his big, meaty hand on my shoulder, and we stood there, looking at the small patch of starry sky.
After a few minutes, Boog spoke again. “I still think it would be good to train. To keep sharp, you know. So we can take any opportunity they give us to escape.”
I looked up at his stubbly chin. “Do what you want.” I turned back to the mouth of the cave.
“All right then,” he said. Suddenly, he dug his fingers sharply into the space between my neck and collarbone. My back and knees went tingly, then limp. I gasped, and he caught me as I sank to the ground. “What do you know, it works!”
I might have cursed Boog, or Edmund, but I was already deep into other, darker thoughts.
39
Cave Inn
Our jailer was a small elderly woman who brought us food and water twice a day. She seemed a decent enough sort. She was slightly hunched over, her back the victim of age or injury, but she walked with vigor and purpose. She had gray hair, short and neatly trimmed, and a tattoo of a deer low down on her neck. Her skin was leathery and creased, which spoke of many days spent outside, but her hands were thin and uncalloused, more like those of an artisan or scholar than of a warrior or laborer. She spoke a fair bit of our language, but she told us little other than her name, Gora, and that we were being held at this camp pending arrival of the chieftain, who would decide what to do with us.
Initially, I asked her if she knew anything of Clarice. She said that she did not, but she promised to ask the others. When she returned later in the day, she said what I feared, that the warriors who’d caught us had left Clarice for dead. They hadn't been willing to kill her outright, for some reason I didn’t yet understand, but leaving her to bleed to death was apparently perfectly fine with their moral code. I was still haunted by the vision of her still form, lying where it had fallen, as Boog and I, tied to our horses, were led away at a gallop from our campsite.
Gora seemed somewhat sympathetic to my discomfort. She didn’t mock or taunt, and she was respectful as she shared her news. Boog spoke with her more than I, as I was occupied by staring into the black corners of my psyche, but I couldn’t help overhearing them in the small space we shared. Gora asked the questions we’d expected – who we were, what our orders were, how many soldiers were stationed nearby, that kind of thing, about which we’d of course kept silent, or told falsehoods. But she also asked many questions that had no apparent strategic value – about our families, our childhoods, about Frosthelm and its customs. She knew the city well enough that she might have visited it at some time in the past, although she didn’t say anything too revealing.
We’d been stripped of all our weapons and possessions. The only item I had left, my only secret remaining, was the Faeran amulet, passed on to me from Sophie. One night, while camping with Boog and Clarice, I’d sewn it up behind a thick patch in the interior of my trousers, on the inside of the left knee. On our fourth night in captivity, Gora brought my warding rod to the bars of our cage.
Gora waved the warding rod around and pointed it at me. “I found this in your things,” she said. “Where did you get it?"
“Oh, that,” said Boog. “It’s merely for cooking. A stirring stick.”
“Really,” said Gora, twisting her mouth to the side. “Then why does it do this?” She smacked the end, and the rod hummed. I was surprised. It normally took a great deal of training, and not a little innate skill, to summon the magical force to get the rod to activate. I’d failed for months before getting it to work, and Boog, like most of the students at our school, had never succeeded at all.
I was filled briefly with thoughts of escape. If Gora didn’t know what the rod could do, then perhaps she’d accidentally paralyze herself with it, or leave it where we could get it. I moved closer to the bars. “That’s just the enhanced stirring mode,” I said, trying to look angelic. “Really gets the stew blended.”
“I see,” said Gora. “But then, you’d still need to explain this," she said, pointing the rod in our direction. She muttered a few guttural syllables, and the rod lit up like a cold sun, casting a blue light all around the cave. A few more words from Gora, and the rod vibrated more violently, its hum rising in pitch and volume to a screech. Suddenly, it discharged a succession of seven bolts of blue energy, crackling and booming like lightning strikes, into the rocky overhang above. The screech faded, and the rod grew dim. “Your stew stick seems to have many helpful features,” said Gora, her face bent into a smirk.
I could only stand silent, my mouth agape, as a cloud of acrid smoke slowly descended from the cave’s ceiling. I’d never seen a rod do anything like this. Boog was likewise dumbfounded. I tried to recover my composure, but Gora had already spotted our surprise, and, I'm sure, noted our ignorance. She tucked the rod into her belt. “I’ll have to try it on some of the slop our cook brews up.” I thought I saw a grin cross her face, but in the dim light, I couldn’t be sure.
At that point, despite my sorrow, I was, in a small part of my heart, holding out hope that Clarice would somehow receive help, be rescued, that she’d been playing dead, or something of that nature. Her death was not something I could get my mind around. My heart denied what my eyes had seen. I would probably have been content to go along like that indefinitely, but that was not to be.
The morning of the thirteenth day of our captivity, Gora visited our cave at her customary hour. She brought with her the usual breakfast – a bit of cheese, some dry biscuits, and warm goat’s milk. But that was not all that she brought –– she carried a large sack with her, and her face looked grim. I stood and approached the bars, and Boog came behind me, placing a large hand on my back.
“I must share this news,” she began, “not because I wish to, but because honor demands it, even to an enemy. Were I in your situation, although I would not wish the truth to be as it was, I would nonetheless wish to know it.” She breathed deeply. “But I delay.” She paused again. “A trader came to our camp today. She brought with her this.”
Gora pulled a long piece of cloth from her sack. It was scarlet red, with a brown stain in the middle. An inspector’s cloak. “The trader said she’d found it on a corpse, the corpse of a western woman warrior, not far from here. She took what she could find of value and buried her in the sand.” She pulled a warding rod from the sack. It looked like hers, but it looked like mine, too. They were all similar. "This, too, was there.”
My mind raced, and my throat clamped shut. My chest burned, and my knees went weak. I might have fallen, but Boog slid his arm farther around my shoulder and held me up, holding me close by his side. I still could not believe – would not believe – and my mind raced through one crazy scenario after another, in which she still lived, in which it was not her buried in the sand. But then Gora pulled a final item out of the sack and held it out to me, this time without words. It was a small silver pendant on a chain, a falcon with talons outstretched. One that I’d seen many times before, always around Clarice’s neck.
40
My Second Beheading
Utter despair is a strange thing. I realized at that moment that despite all we had gone through – the murder of Sophie, Marron’s takeover of the Guild, our death sentences, even our attack and capture by the clans, and Clarice's grievous wound – that I’d never really lost all hope. There had always been a part of me that bore up, that went onward, that pe
rsevered, that saw every day that I still drew breath as a day where I could see my lot improved, could fight back against my enemies, could do something, however small, to better my city and the world. But the moment Gora gave us the pendant, that hope, that willingness to believe in a better future, died.
And the strange part of it was that it was liberating. I was a prisoner, but I no longer cared. My city was perhaps doomed by a cult, and it meant nothing to me. My enemies were dishonest, vicious, and evil, and they were winning, but it was of no consequence. Clarice’s death left a cold pain in my heart, an injury that I knew would never heal, but the only thing I cared about was vengeance. And, I’ll admit, I did not care whether I survived my attempt to gain it.
“I demand the right to face the warrior who killed my friend,” I said. “In open combat. Let his blood answer for hers, or let me die for her honor." I stared boldly around the circle of warriors, meeting their gaze. I hoped my being tethered to a pole didn’t diminish my ferocity. I didn’t know which of them had fired the arrow, but I wanted to make him pay. "Are you all cowards?” I cried.
The chieftain looked at me for a moment, his gaze serious, brooding. Then his face broke into a broad grin, and he burst out laughing. “That’s funny,” he said, his accent thick, but his words precisely formed. “What do you think we are, a band of savages?”
I stood there, a bit crestfallen. “Uh…”
“You are a prisoner!” he continued. “Maybe dangerous, skilled. Why in the whole of Ganghira’s broad domain would I give you arms? And risk one of my best warriors in combat?” He wiped his eyes. “You lost! You are defeated! We get to do what we want with you! Is that not how you do it in the city?”