by Brad Carsten
“As requested,” Master Madagar said, inclining his head. “If only we could use them now. I'm afraid it’s just not safe to travel anymore. I'm sure there are others spans, but until I can get back into the libraries, these are the only ones I could find.”
“If the library is still standing.”
“Pray it is. I took as many documents with me as I could fit into the wagon, fate knows Alvina still hasn't forgiven me for unloading her furniture to make space for them, but perhaps a man or two, generations down the line, will raise a mug in my honor.”
“Let us get a drink, and I’ll be the first.”
Liam carefully rolled up the map and slid it back into the tube. He couldn't wait to get home and spend some time pouring over it. He knew he wouldn't be getting much sleep over the next few weeks.
The drinks arrived, Master Madagar lit a pipe, and Liam propped his boots up on the bench in front of him looking forward to doing nothing for the first time in a long time, but his peace was broken, splintered like an old axle on a rocky path, by shouts from up the way. Quinn appeared a few seconds later with a keg under each arm and trailed by a mob of screaming men.
Liam’s whole body deflated. “What in light has he done now?” This wasn't the first time they'd fled the town with a mob on their tail. He thanked Master Madagar and quickly gathered up his things.
“Run,” Quinn shouted ahead, with that cursed grin on his face. Liam wasn't in the mood for this.
One of Quinn's kegs slipped free and rolled off into the gutter. He started back for it, screaming that his haul would find its way into the hands of a brigand, and Liam had to drag him on by the arm.
“Are you crazy! Forget about it. We have to get out of here before we end up in the stocks or on the end of someone's pitchfork. Come on, there's an alley up ahead. We can lose them in there.”
The alleys in Lyndwon were a network of narrow streets with very little sun ever reaching the ground, keeping the sides in a permanent sludge. It smelled like an animal had died, and then its rotting carcass died and rotted again, but at least it would provide a quick escape.
A few turns in, they came across a stack of barrels, piled on a wagon, with more barrels on the balcony above them, waiting to be loaded. The balcony would open into the back of a shop that could provide a quick escape if they needed it.
“Quick. Up here.”
Quinn wasn't all that steady on his feet, and so Liam gave him a leg up over the railing and then used the wagon and a hoisting rope to swing up after him and just scrambled behind the stack of barrels without a tick to spare.
Seconds later, the mob ran past, boots drumming the ground, and their shouts disappeared up the street.
Liam doubled over to catch his breath. He wasn't as fit as he used to be.
That was close. A little too close. “So, you going to tell me what that was all about? And make it good, because you interrupted my meeting with Madagar.”
Quinn wrenched open the draw strings around his neck to get more air.
“It wasn’t my fault, I swear. The Benson twins were using weighted dice, and...” his words trailed off at the look on Liam’s face.
“Don't tell me you were at the Drokwurst tavern again? You know what that place is like.” Almost everyone there had swollen knuckles and would strangle a man as readily as drum their mugs to a song, and of course, Quinn hovered around it like a beetle around a fig tree despite half the men there wanting to kill him.
“But you can make a bundle of coin—a mountain of it if you join the right table, and the people really aren't that bad once you get to know them.”
“I’m sure they're lovely. So, what did you do anyway? Well, out with it.”
“I told you, it wasn't me. It was those Benson louts. They were using weighted dice. There’s no way that anyone can be that lucky.” He glared back in the direction of the tavern. “I even asked for another chance, but they didn't feel a thing—not a thing to take the very bread out of my pockets. They—they shook me down and turned out my boots, and then they went and ordered two kegs of wine—with my coin. MY coin! I mean, you don't kick a fella when he's down like that. It isn’t decent. It just isn’t.”
“So, what did you do?”
“Well, I waited until the kegs were brought out and then excused myself from the table, with a bow and a flurry of my hat, and collected the wine on the way out.” Quinn was grinning of all things!
Liam dropped his head into his hand. “You stole the wine from a drunken mob?” Mixing with this lout would be his downfall. “Come on, let's get out of here before they come back for us.” Right now, that was all they could do until the drink wore off and they could then negotiate with clear heads.
He checked that they were alone and then swung over the balcony and dropped to the ground below. His boots squelched into the mud—his new boots. Quinn would be polishing those when they got back to Brigwell.
Quinn dropped down behind him and staggered out into the street to catch his balance.
“You know what you need?”—Liam jabbed a finger at him—“A wife. A woman with large meaty hands who can grab you whenever you’re getting out of line. For my sake.” He didn't think he would reach his thirties at this rate.
“A wife? Are you joking?” Quinn popped the cork on the keg and took a generous mouthful. More ran down his chin than into his mouth.
“Is that such a bad thing? As much as I enjoy my maps, we’re among the oldest bachelors in the village. Even Norris found someone, and he can't look at women without breaking out in hives.”
The young ones went to The Passing and then they’d find a wife. It was the way of things in Brigwell. Already, the villagers were whispering behind his back like there was something off about him.
People outside the village seemed to get married a little later in life but not by much. In the towns, most of the good women were taken by the time they were seventeen, and even the rotten, lazy and grumpy by the age of twenty-one. He sometimes worried that there wouldn't be anyone left, but Quinn was looking at him like a Branbill studying a creaking clock, and Liam cleared his throat. He had been considering it more often of late, but it wasn’t the sort of thing he could speak to Quinn about. The man was too restless. Perhaps even a wife wouldn’t change that.
“Well, we’re running out of towns to visit, and now I’m going to have to travel for three days to sell anything.” He enjoyed going away, but he couldn’t leave the farm for a week at a time.
Two men skidded into the alley in a drunken stupor. They spotted Liam and Quinn and began shouting for the others. “Time to go.” Quinn took a last swig of wine and swished it around his mouth.
The alley opened into the main street leading out of the city. They reached the gates as the mob broke through into the street behind them. “Stop them,” someone shouted to the watch in a slurred voice. “Stop them, curse you.”
One of the guards tried to close the gate, while the other, a large bellied man, moved to block the way while still trying to fit his helmet into place.
Quinn barreled through him.
The gate creaked closed behind them, and the stream of people and wagons moving into the city began bunching together blocking the way for anyone trying to follow. One of the watch was screaming for them to open the gate again. Someone else was cursing like a sailor who had dropped an anchor on his foot. A cow was bellowing.
Quinn and Liam reached their horses in the outer stables, and shouts followed after them as they galloped away across the meadow.
They only slowed once they reached the main road. All the traffic was heading towards the town. No one was leaving and for good reason; it was getting late, and Brigwell was still a good few hours away. Now that they were out of the city, the weight of what that would mean began to settle over Liam, and he shouted in frustration.
“This is great, just great. How’re we supposed to make it home before nightfall? We can't head back into town now, because those men will be waiting
for us, and now we're stuck out here.” He had a good room paid for at the Blackstone inn and should have been sitting by the fire, come night, with his boots up, but more importantly, locked safely indoors surrounded by Lyndwon's giant wall.
“How was I supposed to know that way would lead us to the gates. I was trying to get back to the inn, but... where are we anyway?” He blinked at the meadow around him in confusion.
Liam climbed out his saddle to readjust his stirrups and to secure his map into place.
“I almost dropped my map getting out of that cursed town. They can have you. I can find another no-good companion anywhere, but this map is worth a lot. What were you thinking anyway!”
“I know. I know. And it’s even worse, because you left your wagons behind.”
“Urgh, my wagons,” Liam shouted. “I’ll have to send somebody to collect them and then stay away for a couple of months.”
This was the last time he'd bring Quinn along for the ride! But then again, he’d made that vow countless times already. “Let's just go. Let's just get out of here.”
Chapter 8
They rode for about two hours before evening settled over the vast countryside. Liam worked out how long they'd need to get back, and his insides knotted, when he realised they'd never make it. Since the palace fell, it wasn't safe to be out alone at night. Night brought an evil with it—things that shouldn't exist. No one knew why or where they’d come from, only that after Prince Thomwyn seized control of the throne, the kingdom fell apart, and soon after that, the nightspawn began to appear. Some said he’d made a deal with darkness himself, and now darkness had come to collect on his bounty.
Rumors travelled ahead of the nightspawn, and it took three years before they reached Brigwell, but not even a village tucked so far away in the mountains was safe. No one was.
One night, Madam Fullen went after her goat, after it wandered out of the paddock, and the next morning her remains were found spread across the hillside. Before that, the old folk had dismissed the rumors. “Them’s just half-truths, soaked in ale,” they’d say.
They were clutching onto the past, like a man clutching a branch in the river after being washed away in a storm. They didn't want to see the change that was sweeping through the land, or perhaps they couldn’t. Not even Captain Arden’s warning could convince them, until they found Madam Fullen's fingers floating in the Almsbury river. They had a service for her; there was nothing left to bury, and then the whole town, both men and women, gathered their barrows and trowels and began to repair the wall.
Quinn had sobered up, and instead of squinting, his eyes kept straying to the setting sun painting streaks of blood across the sky. He tried to steer the conversation back to their escape from Lyndwon to keep a conversation going, but it didn't take, and they ended up riding in silence.
By the time they reached the Gablon road winding through the edge of the Dourbern forest, the light had almost faded completely. Ahead through the lush canopy of cedars, darkness had swallowed the path completely.
Liam and Quinn studied the trees, not wanting to proceed, but neither of them willing to come out and say it. Liam drew an arrow and slotted it into his bow string. For a moment, that took him back ten years to his journey with Captain Arden which brought back dusty memories of Tarla, and how he had been looking so forward to seeing her again. He didn't think of her that much anymore, but when he did, his heart would ache for her, or perhaps for the life they could have had together, and that was usually followed by a trip to Quinn and a few days of reckless behaviour.
If he made it home ten years ago against a wretched, he could get home again.
Quinn slipped his cudgel out of his sleeve. He had carved a grinning face into the top. He swore that it helped him aim when he had had too much to drink. The thing may have cracked more than its fair share of drunken heads, but Liam doubted it’d be much use against the nightspawn.
“At least we don't have to worry about bandits, right?” Quinn tried to sound casual, but his voice was strained.
“There's always that,” Liam agreed. No one knew what attracted the nightspawn and couldn't see a pattern to how they attacked, only that it always happened at night.
The forest was still. Nothing, not even the trees moved. It probably would have been wiser to ride as fast as they could, but they walked their horses, studying the dark patches between the trees. Liam began to see faces in the shadows staring back at him and the branches, like hands, reaching for him.
He jumped when Quinn tugged on his sleeve. “What in the light is that?” Quinn whispered. Up ahead, a woman stood alone in the middle of the path with a knife in her hands. Blood ran down her arm, dripping off her fingers, onto the dusty track. At first, Liam thought she was there to attack them. What other reason would she have to be alone in the forest at night? Perhaps she was mad, or hungry and desperate enough to try, but as they drew closer, he realised she wasn't even looking at them.
“Are you okay?” She had a lost look in her eyes that sent a shiver down Liam's spine. “Is there anything we can help you with? Our village is close; perhaps we can get you something to eat and a place to stay for the night.”
His voice sounded too loud in the silence.
He didn't know if she did that to herself or if something else did it to her, but his eyes snapped to the trees again, and his hands tightened on his bow.
Tears squeezed onto her cheeks, and she raised the blade to her throat.
“Whoa, wait, wait.” Liam stumbled out of his saddle and managed to wrestle the knife away from her before she could do herself a permanent injury. That finally broke the spell she was under, and she blinked from Quinn to Liam and then to the knife in Liam’s hand.
Liam dropped the knife like it was burning into his fingers, and he took a step back. “I'm not going to hurt you, but you had the knife—you were going to...” He touched a finger to his neck.
If she was afraid, she didn't show it, and Liam wondered if she was mad after all. “Where am I? It's all so fuzzy.” She spoke softly—distractedly. “I was at the manor. It was cold, and I was meeting someone. They were going to...” Her eyes widened. “The carriage!” She spun, her dress billowing behind her, and she took off up the path.
Liam gave Quinn a puzzled look. What carriage? What was she talking about, and what in the light of mercy was wrong with her? He started to go after her on foot but thought about the nightspawn again and decided he'd feel a lot safer in the saddle. At least that way he could ride if anything came after them.
On the horse, it only took a few steps to catch up to her. “We're on our way back to our village, and there's a good inn there—a really good inn.” He tried to keep his voice calm, but he couldn't mask the urgency in it.
They had to keep moving before something found them. “You can get some food and a blanket, and there'll be a fire if you'd like to come with us, and tomorrow we can get you to wherever you're going, but it's really not safe to be out alone like this at night.”
She wasn't listening. “We had lost our way and we had to—we had to turn back.” She studied the path intently. “We had missed the road, and the driver—he was speaking to me and, oh favor find me, he was just speaking to me and—”
They reached a jumble of fresh tracks, and Liam’s mouth went dry. There were dozens, of both horse and man. The steps were wide, the pressure at the tip of the boots as though they were running. Other tracks were erratic, defensive, and then wiped away at the end by something dragged across the path.
The road twisted alongside a shallow valley, and wagon tracks ran over the edge.
When the woman saw it, she shouted something—a name perhaps and took off towards them.
Was she here when this happened? Was she a part of it? Liam’s blood went cold.
A carriage lay on its side at the bottom of the valley, and the horses had been torn from their harnesses. One of the horses had been ripped in half and the top half lay almost thirty yards away.
“Wait, it’s not safe to—” He glared at Quinn in frustration. “I'm not going after her. I'm not. If she doesn't come now, I'm leaving.” His horse was stepping restlessly, its head flicking from side to side like it too could sense the danger.
“While I'm all for that,” Quinn said, his reins scrunched in one fist and his cudgel in the other, “I know you well enough to know when you're lying to yourself. So hurry up and get her already. Throw her in a sack if you need to, and let's get out of here.”
The woman had reached the bottom of the valley and was turning on the spot, as she took it all in. She pressed a shaking hand to her mouth. The dead were everywhere. Someone had been pinned under the wagon. Another lay on his back with his insides gorged, while another’s armour was ripped open like the cursed thing had been peeled off of him. She moved between them in a daze.
Liam reached the bottom and snapped his arrow between the trees. This wasn't good. Fate willing, they had to get away as quickly as they could. “My Lady”—he didn't know if she was a Lady or not, but she was dressed well enough and carried herself like a noble. Her carriage was fancy enough for one—“I'm sorry if these were your friends, but we have to go. Now. Whatever did that could still be close. We can come back tomorrow, and I’ll even help you bury them or wrap them up to send back to their families, but we have to go.”