by Kara Timmins
Goodwin looked confused.
Malatic stepped over an ankle-high tree stump. “Do you have any brothers or sisters? Younger ones maybe?”
“Yeah,” Goodwin said. “Five younger brothers and sister. Two older brothers.”
“Yeesh,” Malatic said. “Okay. Say your parents went away, for good, let’s say, and all of your brothers and sisters knew that no one would ever take a switch to them again. What would happen in your house?”
“They would tear everything apart,” Goodwin said.
“And that’s exactly what Anso’s fighters will do once Nicanor is gone,” Malatic said.
“I still don’t understand,” Goodwin said.
“It seems you joined Nicanor at the end of the fight,” Eloy said when he saw Malatic opening his mouth to talk again.
Goodwin’s shoulders drooped. “But I came here to help. I told my mother I would do everything I could to rise in ranks and send some gold home. What am I going to say to her?”
“You’re helping now,” Eloy said. “Being here with us is helpful, and it might help your family more than sending gold home. You’re trying to save their lives.”
Goodwin walked straighter. “Yeah. I guess I am.”
Eloy spent the rest of their walk giving Goodwin the details of what had happened in Nicanor’s tent and the message that had led Eloy and Neasa there in the first place. Goodwin’s eyes got wide when Eloy talked about the tute and his deception, but Goodwin kept his words to himself.
“You’re here to give a sense of normalcy,” Eloy said. “To give the image that we are new warriors looking to join the ranks. Malatic is going to be the one who leads us in.”
Eloy put a hand on Goodwin’s shoulder, which felt bony and small, and hoped his smile was enough to ease some of the tension knotting the young man’s features.
“I’ve heard things about Anso’s warriors,” Goodwin said, “and not just from people in Nicanor’s camp. People say Anso’s fighters eat the legs of men as if they were from an animal and use wax-sealed skulls to drink their enemy’s blood to wash it all down.”
Malatic let out a huffed laugh through his nose.
“I’m not going to tell you this isn’t going to be dangerous,” Eloy said. “You don’t have to come with us if you don’t want to. No one will hold it against you if you go back to camp. But you joined Nicanor to fight these people, didn’t you?”
“I did,” Goodwin said. “It doesn’t make much sense to turn back at the first thing I try to do.”
“Good for you,” Malatic said. “We’ll do our best to keep your skull from becoming a drinking cup.” Malatic put an arm around Goodwin’s shoulders.
They found a level piece of ground off a well-traveled path and made their camp. Someone had covered the trail in small river gravel, making it easy to hear footfall. The grasses grew up to their knees, long enough to hide them after they cleared away a spot on the top of a small hill.
Neasa made quick work of setting her spot up before heading to the patch of trees a short walk away. She returned at almost full dark with an armful of dry wood and a pouch full of berries.
“These look almost identical to some of the berries that grow in Valia,” Neasa said. “They should be fine to eat.”
“Should be?” Goodwin asked.
“They are definitely in the same family as the ones we eat at home,” Neasa said, “but we should probably have Malatic eat them first, just to be sure.”
“Hand it over,” Malatic said. “I’m not afraid of any berry. Nothing can hurt this stomach.” Malatic slapped his firm abdomen before putting a few of the pebble-sized purple berries in his mouth. “Except that time a friend said I wouldn’t eat some of an old carcass we found. That got ugly.”
Malatic slowed his chewing as his eyes went wide. Goodwin let out a small squeak.
“I’m just playing,” Malatic said. “These are harmless. Eat up, people. Your concern was sweet, though.”
Eloy dug a shallow hole and started a low fire with the foliage Neasa had brought back. The joints in his fingers were slow to move against the growing cold. The nights were coming earlier every day, and they brought a frost that made sleep shallow and uncomfortable. The flame caught the dry moss with only a few easy strikes of the flint, and the fire caught the bundle of sticks in the ground with a satisfying crackle. The warmth brought the cold of his skin into new perspective, and even though he held his palms so close to the fire that he almost cupped the flames, it still didn’t chase the cold away. The others encircled the little flame and held their hands up to create what looked like an animal pen for the fire—confining it in their need for warmth.
Eloy looked around at the glowing faces of his companions while he envisioned the force they were walking into. Malatic had laughed at the rumors Goodwin recalled, but Eloy remembered what had happened to those from his youth who had the misfortune of living too far north to retreat with their lives like he had with his family. What Eloy and the others were on their way to do was foolish. He could see the knowledge of it playing under the surface of their faces, but he couldn’t impede the momentum of the task.
Even if the Seer hadn’t told him he needed to do something about Nicanor and Anso in order to find his path, he wouldn’t have been able to find the door to his fortune knowing everything he had ever known was being ripped apart behind him. For the first time, even after enduring everything he had in the Bowl or at the salt flats, he felt a real possibility that he may never get to the place waiting for him. But he knew many people would suffer in Anso’s wake and knowing made it his responsibility to try to stop it.
“I’ve had enough of looking at you for the day,” Malatic said, then looked at Neasa. “Well, maybe not you. I’ll see you all in the morning, and hopefully we’ll all wake up without any frostbite. Sleep well.”
Malatic moved his things on the far side of the other three and lay with his back to them and his face toward the road.
Goodwin let out a yawn that sounded like the call of a screech owl and moved his bed closer to the fire.
“Good night, everyone,” Goodwin said.
Eloy and Neasa moved together to their beds, and before Neasa could get into hers, Eloy switched their position so he would be closer to Malatic.
“It’s fine,” Neasa said. “He’s all talk. And if not, I can handle him.”
“I know you can,” Eloy said, “but we don’t know him, and we don’t really know what he’s capable of or if he has other reasons for coming with us.”
“You’re right,” Neasa said.
Goodwin was already making the rattling sounds of sleep before Eloy had curled himself underneath his animal skins. In the moments before sleep found him, Eloy thought again about how Goodwin was probably around the same age he was a few years before he and Corwin had found their way out of the Bowl. Goodwin seemed too young with his rounded cheeks and wide eyes. It didn’t seem possible that Eloy had looked like that while he was going through the trial of living in the Bowl, but it must have been that way.
28
Eloy awoke to a firm hand on his mouth.
Not much time had passed since he had fallen asleep. He could sense it in the air. He reached for his sword but couldn’t find it. It had been well within arm’s reach when he had set up for the night. His eyes focused on the face of the person who held his mouth and saw a very different-looking Malatic. Gone were the smirks and winks of the day. In their place was a face that looked like cold marble. Could Eloy best him with just his hands? No. Malatic had Eloy’s arms pinned. His legs? Maybe. Eloy would have to bring his knee up high and fast. He looked side to side, hoping to see his sword. Anger surged in his muscles. He stared Malatic in the eyes and saw something he had missed. Communication.
Malatic pursed his lips and tapped his pointer finger to his mouth, signaling quiet. He pointed out toward the dark
. Danger. Eloy nodded. He understood. Malatic took his other hand off Eloy’s mouth. Eloy tried to make sense of the situation but couldn’t. Everything around them seemed the same as it did when they had all gone to sleep. Malatic picked up Eloy’s sword that he had moved out of Eloy’s reach and put it against Eloy’s chest. Eloy sat up and tried to see the danger. When he still didn’t understand, Malatic pointed again toward an area that curved down from the slight hill they were on, at a space between them and the woods, away from the gravel road. The shifting was subtle, just an unnatural rustle of the long grass against the breeze. And then Eloy saw what Malatic was trying to show him. Something was making its way to the camp. Or more accurately, somethings were moving in the grass.
Eloy gestured to Neasa and lifted an eyebrow. Malatic nodded and held his hands out before him, fingers spread as if to say, Do it quietly. Do it carefully.
Eloy roused Neasa the same way Malatic had woken him but with a softer, more familiar, hand. Eloy was grateful when she caught on to the situation much faster than he had.
They all agreed in their silent way to keep Goodwin asleep. Even if he could be of assistance with his dull sword, they didn’t have enough time to get him up and informed of what was going on. Whatever was making its calculated way toward them was almost upon them.
Eloy ran through the possibilities in his head. The movement looked too small to be a large predatory animal, too calculated to be a creature just passing by in the night, and too coordinated to be people making their way from one point to another. Whatever moved toward them came forward in a group. Whether the things that moved in the dark were a group of men or a pack of animals, it had caught their scent and wanted a taste.
Eloy knew the energy that coursed through him as he waited crouched and ready. He had felt the same thing walking over the bridge to fight at the Bowl and when he waited in the loft of the salt flats with Corwin.
Neasa was still, her body poised in a way Eloy hadn’t seen since their time in the forest of Valia. She had handled her anxiety and apprehension while dealing with Nicanor and the tute well enough, but that had been new for her. This Neasa who was ready for creeping threats was familiar.
Malatic was the opposite. He had transformed from the person he had been during the day. His body was coiled and ready, his breathing was calm, and he didn’t exude any anxiety. He seemed as comfortable in a readied battle pose as an old horseman hammering a shoe—practiced beyond necessary thought.
Eloy stood between the two—Neasa at his left and Malatic to his right. Goodwin shifted in his sleep on the other side of the ash-filled fire pit. He snored.
Good, Eloy thought. Let it sound like we’re still asleep.
The subtle shifts in the long grasses drew closer, and Eloy saw again how indistinguishable their movement was from the natural rustling of nature. If it weren’t for Malatic and his trained sense, they would all still be asleep, inviting their death with complacency.
“Get ready.” Malatic spoke in a voice barely more than a breath.
Three men crawled out of the grass. The moonlight was enough to catch the glint of their teeth through their wide, anxious smiles. The three men crawled up the short incline to where Eloy and the others waited with the speed of a creature used to moving on four limbs.
If Eloy, Malatic, and Neasa had an advantage of surprise from being ready and awake when the men crested the hill, it wasn’t much of one. Malatic stabbed his sword toward the head of the man who reached the top first and nicked a cheek before the man rolled away and sprung to his feet. The other two fighters followed his lead and ran the last few steps into the camp on two feet. The three men closed in on the space with such fluid footfall that they barely made a sound. Eloy recalled battles from his past and let his conscious mind make way for the primal reactions of survival.
The three men didn’t evenly break apart and attack between Eloy, Neasa, and Malatic. Instead, the one with the newly opened flap in his cheek went for Malatic, and the other two rounded on Neasa. Eloy knew what they were trying to do—he had seen it enough times with the big cats he used to watch on the grasslands—but if the three men thought she was the one to take out to give them the advantage of numbers, then Eloy knew he and Neasa still had an advantage of surprise.
She was crouched and ready as they rushed toward her. To her attackers, it must have looked like she was cowering. The fighter with the one-step advantage on her was fast and ready, but he was too eager and relied too heavily on his assumption of Neasa and her vulnerability. The overhead swing of his sword wasn’t dramatic in its arch, but Neasa’s low position gave her the access she needed. The tip of her blade came up from underneath her and cut through the soft spot under his arm. As soon as the blade hit, she shot up from her crouch and plunged the rest of her blade into his torso. Blood spilled down her arm and filled the air with a metallic perfume. The fighter gurgled and wheezed, his last living sound, before he crumbled to the ground.
The second was moving on her while she was dealing with the first, her sword still stuck in his ribs. Eloy used Neasa’s success and sidestepped toward the second just as she had buried her sword in the body of the first. Eloy’s advantage didn’t last long. The man who seemed intent on closing in on Neasa turned his attention to Eloy with seamless ease.
The man’s sword was thin and light enough to sing as it cut through the night air. The fighter maneuvered his blows with an agile wrist. Eloy kept his feet moving, stepping to the side in no consistent pattern. The movement wasn’t enough.
The other man was a better fighter. Eloy felt the flood of warmth from the man’s blade before the sting of it hit. Eloy moved, barely avoiding a cut through the fragile parts of his neck The blade cut into his shoulder. Eloy knew that the next cut of the sword would injure him to the point of incapacitation.
But Neasa could be quiet too.
Years of keeping a light foot in the forest made her stealth equal to the fighter who readied his swing, and the slice of her blade at his inner thigh stopped the momentum of his body. A rippled shiver waved through him as he turned in a final attempt to defend himself, but the blood flowing in a torrent from his leg drained his strength. His last movement toward where Neasa had sidestepped next to Eloy was useless. Her blade still had the force of her upward slash, already in position for a downward stab into the hollow of his throat.
“Woo!” Malatic said. “I thought you two would be dead after this for sure. Good for you!” The Malatic Eloy knew from the day was back and standing over the third fighter, who had a small dagger buried in his eye socket.
Malatic bent over the body and retrieved his weapon just as the man convulsed with the aftershock of death.
“I’ll just leave that there for now,” Malatic said as he pulled back.
“Do you think there are any more?” Neasa asked.
“It doesn’t look like it,” Malatic said. “Not that I can see. I’m guessing they were just out for a stroll and caught sight of the fire, which I think we all knew would be a risk, but it’s just so damn cold. No problem as far as I’m concerned, warmed by the fire and warmed by the fight. A double win. Not only that, but it looks like we have some fresh uniforms to walk into Anso’s camp in. Or at least fresh-ish. Maybe the kid with his nest of brothers and sisters knows how to clean and sew.”
In the chaos of attack, Eloy had missed that the three lifeless men were all wearing Anso’s red flags somewhere on their identical clothes. Even with the slashes and bloodstains, the outfits were in better condition than the ones Nicanor had given them.
The sound of a clearing throat brought all attention to Goodwin, who was sitting upright and blinking hard against the firm hug of sleep. The fight had happened so fast that he had slept through all of it.
“What the . . . What happened?” Goodwin asked.
“Sorry, kid,” Malatic said. “You missed the party. We’ll wake you up next time, pr
omise. Good thing you’re up now, though. You want to give us a hand with the clothes? Better get it off them now before they have a chance to bloat and foul them up any more than they already have.”
Goodwin slumped his shoulders and his arms dangled low like a groggy monkey as he got up to help.
“It’s nice that we can finally have something substantial to eat,” Malatic said.
All the sleepiness in Goodwin vanished, and his mouth twisted into a gaped expression of horror.
“I’m kidding,” Malatic said.
“Are you okay?” Eloy asked Neasa as he bent down to help her wiggle the arm of the dead man out of his sleeve.
“I’m fine,” Neasa said. “You?”
“He got my shoulder,” Eloy said. “I don’t think it’s anything serious. You were really great. I should’ve helped more.”
“You helped more than enough,” Neasa said. “Just because you didn’t make a killing cut doesn’t mean you aren’t just as responsible for the outcome.”
“It’s been a while since I had to fight,” Eloy said. “I think we should practice a bit more before we get to Anso’s camp.”
“Good idea,” Neasa said. “I’m not sure we can learn the kind of battle skill he has, though.” Neasa motioned toward Malatic, who was laughing about something to a tired and slightly queasy-looking Goodwin.
“Do we want to know that lesson?” Eloy said.
“Maybe we do,” Neasa said. “I’m glad he was with us tonight. I feel better that he chose our side when he knew those fighters were Anso’s men.”
“Are you sure he did?”
“I’m sure,” she said.
Eloy pulled back the torn fabric of his sleeve and looked at the open wound, sending pulses of pain down into his fingers. He went to his bag and found some of the leaves from the forest of Valia and found the ones Gwyn had identified as being good for healing wounds. He put a few in his mouth, rough after drying in his bag for so many days, and chewed them into a paste. The more he chewed the more the leaves regained their sweetness. His mouth felt cooled by the oils, and when he took the wad out of his mouth and put it in the cut, it replaced the heat of damage with a soothing chill. He hoped the treatment would be enough to keep infection away and help it heal on its own, and he was grateful the wound wasn’t debilitating enough to slow them down.