Ardent

by Florian Armas

  It takes a skilled archer less than twenty heartbeats to strike two targets in a row, and Pintea was a mountain child, able to shoot a running deer. Six bodies lay along the road, three of them slain by arrows. In the inherent silence after a fight, I dismounted, and put my ear to the gravel: the road was silent too.

  The soldier who had harassed Damian with the sword and spoken bad words about Varia was not yet dead, and writhing on the ground, he was moaning faintly.

  “It seems that I was the better swordsman,” Damian stared at him.

  “I understand that you dislike him, but don’t mock a dying man,” I said. “End the fight.”

  “I am sorry,” Damian said, without looking at me. “I ... I never killed...” He took a deep breath, raised his sword, point down, and thrust it in the man’s body.

  “Take Little Boar’s purse. It will pay your next debt. A good horse and some weapons will help you too.”

  It took Damian a few moments to understand me. “Thank you,” he whispered, and turned slowly to Little Boar’s body. After releasing the purse and the scabbard, he closed the dead man’s eyes. “We are blood. We are soul. You were an evil man in this life. May Fate change your mind in a future one.” Standing again, he stared at the horses. Little Boar’s destrier came closer to his master’s body. Damian caressed his mane, and glanced at me.

  I shook my head.

  “You are right,” Damian sighed. “An expensive horse, and everybody would recognize it from the spots on his forelegs. It’s like painting on our house that we’ve killed Boar’s brother. I will take this one,” he chose a decent brown horse having no particular marks. “I would like to take another one for Lisandru, but the road back is difficult.” He stared at the arch where our path down ended.

  “We need speed, we will return on the main road. Pintea, help Damian with that horse,” I pointed to a mare of good quality.

  “Are you a Knight?” Damian asked, and I nodded. “Then from now on, I pay allegiance to you.”

  “We can talk about this later,” I said gently, not because I wouldn’t accept him; such lifelong commitments should be made only when the sparks and drunk feeling from wining a fight leave your veins, and Varia had a word to say in his choice too. “After the gorge, we need to ride under cover until we arrive at your home.” The edge of the forest was no more than two hundred paces far from their house.

  “I understand,” he said, thoughtfully. “It will mean a delay, but there will be fewer questions about our new horses later.”

  The sun was already down behind the mountains when we arrived at the house again, but the light was still strong. From the forest, we sneaked down behind the large barn, and after Damian checked the road, we turned around the building and lead the horses inside.

  “Is it safe to bring them here?” Varia pointed at the new horses. Alerted by Lisandru, she had walked fast from the house to the barn.

  “The Boar brothers are dead,” I shrugged. “These are average war horses that your family can afford. There are no particular marks on them. Spread word in the village that Matei has sent two horses to his sons.”

  “When is he coming back?”

  “Varia, he won’t be coming back,” I said gently. “I am sorry. We could not do more for him.”

  She placed a hand against the wall of the barn, then pressed back against the bricks to keep her balance. Her other hand went to her mouth. “Oh, Matei,” she whispered; her face a gray spot peering at me, then she glanced around: Damian was still in the barn, only Vlad and Pintea had heard me. “Let’s go inside,” she said, and I heard the control return to her. She brushed at the tears coursing down her cheeks, and walked slowly toward the house. “Give me some more time,” she whispered in front of the door. “Send Livia to the barn to see the horses. She is in the kitchen.” Varia moved unsteadily away from the door, and hid herself behind the house.

  “Watch her,” I whispered to Vlad, and entered the house.

  “You are back,” Livia said cheerfully. “And the new horses... Mother asked me to wait inside.” There was a slight edge of disappointment in her voice, but she did not complain.

  “Go and see them.” I forced myself to smile. “Varia sent me to tell you.”

  Livia’s face lightened, and she sprang toward the door.

  Poor child, I stared after her.

  “Now, tell me what happened, before my children come...” Varia entered the kitchen, followed by Vlad.

  I took Matei’s sword from him, and gave it to her. “I understand that it has belonged to your family for many generations.” I tried to buy a small delay.

  Yes, Varia nodded, and took the sword. “His blood too, belonged to our family. Weapons and blood. This is what we had for generations. I don’t care about this object.” She threw it on the table. “Tell me about my husband.”

  “Boar’s men attacked Matei to kill him and steal the money. I understood that he wanted your land. We arrived too late. Later, we found Boar. Or rather Boar found us, and we settled the score.”

  “I don’t care about Boar,” she whispered.

  “I am sorry, Varia. We could not do more.”

  “Don’t,” she blunted. “You did more for my children than everybody else outside our family.” With a deep breath, she turned away from me, looking out into the coming night. After a while, she returned to the table, and her fingers touched the sword’s hilt, at the place where Matei would put his own hand. “I feel as if it is still warm.” She gripped the hilt, then raised the sword. “Though, I know it’s not true.” A disturbed smile spread on her lips, split between the memory of her husband and the meaning of his death. “How did Boar know?”

  “He might have had information about Matei’s return. A spy...”

  “I was thinking that too. What should we do now?”

  Her question required no answer, and I leaned on the wall, in silence. When she stared again through the window, I signaled Vlad to leave the house and keep her children outside; their voices could now be heard.

  “I must steel myself. Poor Livia, she is still a child.” Varia bit her lip to stop herself crying aloud, and her shoulders shook in silence.

  “Vlad, the horses are wonderful.” Livia’s voice passed through the slightly open window. “And Little Boar... He was a bad man, but I did not wish him dead.”

  “I am sorry if that upset you,” Vlad said gently.

  “No, no. You did nothing wrong,” Livia added in haste. “It was his fault. I just...”

  “Let’s go inside, little sister,” Damian stopped her. “They must be hungry.”

  “We ate just before arriving here,” Vlad lied. “I think that it will snow soon. You know? I come from the mountains too. They are far from here, in Litvonia, but it smells the same before a storm.”

  “Yes,” Damian agreed, “snow will come tomorrow. It may be a Mother Storm, the clouds are black over the Candel Peak, and they swirl around it like a maelstrom.”

  “What is Litvonia like?” Livia asked eagerly.

  “It’s larger than Frankis,” Vlad said. “I was born in the eastern mountains. I liked to hunt in the forests and to swim in the cold lakes. Do you swim?” He glanced at Livia.

  “Yes. The Turquoise Lake is not far from here. It’s a wonderful place, but I don’t think that you can swim right now,” she laughed. “After the storm, we can put the horses to the sledge and go to see the lake. You will like it. It’s not yet frozen, and its color is really turquoise.”

  Breathing deeply, Varia opened the window fully. “Come inside.” Her voice was ragged but calm.

  “I will prepare you something good to eat,” Livia bragged. “Something that is made only in the Long Valley. Don’t ask me what,” she laughed. “It’s a surprise.”

  Damian was the first one to enter in the kitchen. Before he could see the table where Matei’s sword was laid, I moved to hide it with my body. Still laughing, Livia entered too, followed by Vlad and all the others. Her fists leaning on the w
indow, Varia was still looking outside. It took her a while to turn.

  “Mother?” Damian asked.

  “There is some bad news.” Varia’s voice broke and tears appeared in her eyes. They did not flow down.

  “Mother!” Livia shouted, and sprang toward her. There, she laced her little arms around her mother’s waist, and remained silent.

  “Your father is dead.” Varia’s left hand gestured toward the sword on the table or toward me; her right arm hugged Livia.

  There was a moment of silence in the room, and Livia’s, slow, monotone cry was the first thing to cut through it.

  “Codrin knows more about...” Varia whispered, breathing heavily, and all eyes in the room turned to me.

  “Matei was attacked by Boar’s men, on the road to Arad,” I said. “He fought bravely against four thugs. I am sorry that we arrived too late.”

  Damian moved toward the table, and grabbed the sword. “I always hoped to receive it when Father was too old and weak to protect our family. The same story again and again. Father was a young man when he inherited it. Grandfather too. Maybe my children will be luckier. If I am lucky enough to have children.”

  “Yes, you will have,” Varia said sternly. “Now we have guests, and we need to honor Matei. He has joined Fate. I can’t say he did so in peace, but at least he found peace.”

  As it was customary in Frankis, no one said a word while we ate. Around the table, our eyes played in transitions between Livia’s silent tears and Damian’s absent stare. At the end, Varia stood up and raised her goblet: crystal from Peyris, revealing its dark-red content through myriad facets. We followed her. When we all stood, she let a few drops of wine fall on the floor, her eyes wide and grieving. In silence, we did the same.

  “We are blood,” she said. “We are soul. We are flesh. When the right time comes, only the soul remains, and goes to join Fate. There is joy at birth. There is sadness in losing a father. There is sadness in losing a husband. There is happiness in joining Fate.”

  “There is happiness in joining Fate,” we repeated.

  “Rest in peace, Matei.”

  “Rest in peace,” we repeated, and there was nothing more to say.

  Silence fell like a blanket on the room. Through the half open window, the wind brought a fading wolf’s howl from the mountains.

  “Fate has answered us,” Varia whispered. “The sun will rise again tomorrow.”

  Lights and shadows danced in the fireplace and through the room, and I felt the family’s mourning contained in a hushed air of expectancy.

  “You can’t leave today.” Varia pointed to the barely visible peaks in the morning light of the next day. The sun was already high, but nowhere to be seen through the clouds and snow. “We may have a Mother Storm. They are rare and powerful. You will not even reach the pass out of the valley.”

  The wind was strong, and there was a thin layer of white powdery snow covering the ground, but it had yet to reach half a finger’s width deep.

  “We must go. I need to be in Severin one week from now.” Saliné is waiting for me.

  “Please, Codrin,” Livia grabbed my hand. “There is no way to go out of the valley now.”

  I glanced at Vlad, a child of the mountains too, and he just raised his brows.

  “We know these mountains,” Damian stared at me. “The storm will grow; the wind will pick up, and the snowflakes will behave like arrows. In a turn or two, there will be no way to see through the falling snow. Sounds will become muffled, and you can easily lose the road. And the wolves…”

  “Then we have two turns to try.” Under normal circumstances, there was a one turn ride to the highest part of the pass going toward Arad. “If we don’t make it to the pass in that time, we will come back.”

  “Oh, Codrin, promise me to return quickly; I have a bad feeling.” Livia raised her hands in surrender, snow laced through her brown-red hair, which stood out, rebellious, dancing in the wind. “We don’t want to lose you.”

  Have you the Wanderer Light? I stared at her; she was Dochia’s niece after all. “I promise.” My arm gripped her shoulder gently. “And if we are trapped here; we can take the sledge and go to see the Turquoise Lake. But we have to go now.”

  Through the snow and fog, the village looked ghostly behind us. Under the light cover of the, dancing with the wind, snow, the road was still visible. Vlad turned his horse slowly and glanced around with the gestures of man knowing his place.

  “We need to mark the path, just in case.” He answered my mute question, then moved his horse closer to an old pine. With his small axe, he cut the lowest branch until its tip bowed down, touching the ground in the middle of the road. Still attached to the tree by its bark, it remained inclined, a dark green mark peppered with snow. Every ten trees, Vlad repeated his action, until we arrived at the forest. “No need to do it from here,” he said. “The trees mark the road well. Even in the worse fog you still hit something and turn back to the road.”

  For a turn, stirred by the wind, snow fell heavily between the trees. The ancient pines would normally shield the ground, letting in just a thin blanket of white. But it now almost reached Zor’s knee. Another proof of the Mother Storm both Varia and Damian had predicted. Mountain people, I shrugged, still trying to return to Severin. Quite a stubborn man I am, I smiled, bowing my head to lean into the wind. It was suddenly colder, and I tightened my hood. Through the falling snow, we could still see some flecks of green.

  “Codrin,” Vlad said after a while, turning his horse to face me, and shook his head. Without speaking, I turned Zor slowly, and we rode back toward the village.

  I will be blocked here all the winter.

  Omnipresent, the wind howled around us, and then a different howl followed it. It was a single point of noise, a wolf. Encouraged, more howls answered it around us. We were surrounded, and in silence we nocked our bows, pushing the frightened horses forward. The howls followed us, on both sides, and with each passing minute, they were multiplying, coming closer.

  How many are there?

  On my left, I saw Vlad turning abruptly and releasing his arrow toward a ghost, which leapt through the dense snow, between the pines. A yell of pain followed, and the wolf slid back behind a tree on faltering paws.

  One.

  A moment of silence followed, and then many howls burst out, farther from us. The wind answered them in long wails. We pushed the horses faster, but there was no way to gallop through all that snow and semi-darkness. Icy flakes burned my face, and I could not tighten my hood to cover it more and protect my skin; not with those wolves around us. Three more ghosts appeared, this time in front of us. Without thinking, I released an arrow, and one ghost fell. A good archer doesn’t aim. He releases the arrow instinctively. The other ghosts vanished.

  Two.

  “They may leave us alone now,” I shouted as the howls ceased again. There was no way Vlad or Pintea could hear me through the wailing wind, and I was wrong anyway; the wolves howled a few moments later, left and right and close.

  That moment, the light changed, and it became slightly brighter, as we emerged from the forest. The wind intensified, howling like death. From time to time, each of us peered left and right to ensure that we were still together. That was our only chance. Until then we had heard the howling wolves, now we could see them: more than ten ghosts on the right, more than ten on the left, running in parallel with us. Pintea released an arrow, then Vlad. There was no way to see or to hear the beasts clearly. The only sign was a jumping wolf or a falling wolf body. The wolves’ lines retreated, but they did not let leave us alone. It continued like this for a while, closing on us, retreating and advancing in what seemed a hunting strategy. I could not tell exactly how long.

  Vlad’s horse stumbled in the snow, and neighed, shaking his head; between his hoofs, a fallen branch hindered his steps. The impact cleaned the snow from the branch, revealing green. Vlad urged his horse on, then his hand gestured that we had to move forward –
it was one of the branches he had cut on our way up. I had the stubborn feeling that we had ridden for a half day. I was wrong, of course.

  My face was frozen, and my hands became cold too, even though I wore one of the woolen gloves pairs given to us by Varia. Not good. I rubbed my palms, leading Zor with my knees. It did not help. We never have such weather in Arenia; even the worst winter brings just a bit of snow. The wolves continued their march in parallel with us. They were no longer howling, and their dark silhouettes appeared only now and then through the snow drifts. The wind seemed stronger, blowing more ice into in our eyes.

  Pintea’s horse stopped abruptly. There was something undefined in front and to the right, a large rock, wind and snow swirling around it. I don’t remember that. A dark silhouette jumped from the rock and pushed Pintea from his horse. Both man and wolf fell close to my horse, the wolf on top. I unsheathed Shadow and sliced down, almost blindly. Through the blade, I fell some resistance, but it was brief. Wounded, the wolf turned his head up, but did not let his prey free. Vlad released an arrow at a shadow sneaking toward us. One of many. Below me, Pintea was suddenly on top of the wolf, and a strangled howl stopped abruptly. Pintea’s horse pranced, his back legs hitting another shadow. I dismounted, and joined Pintea, side by side. Vlad moved his horse in front, barring the path to us and to our horses, releasing arrow after arrow. A wolf jumped on me. I dodged, hitting it with my elbow, then Shadow slashed. This time it was a hard hit, done with two hands, and the wolf’s head flew apart. Almost blind, I unsheathed Flame too, and started a weather-cock move, a dance-like defense used when you could not see well, where your swords move restlessly, circling; their opposing trajectories intersecting. In swift intervals, I felt them slicing through the almost invisible wolves in front. It bought us some respite, and after a while, the hungry beasts retreated. Vlad dismounted, and shuffled left and right through the snow, keeping a certain direction, his boots sliding from time to time. He turned back and did the same in the opposite direction. After a few steps, he stumbled onto something hidden by the snow. He trotted fast to left and right, trying to find the road until arriving at a small edge. He kept walking on that edge for ten or twelve paces, then returned. His hand gestured that we should walk along that edge, and I remembered that, in some places, the road was slightly higher than the meadow around. We walked slowly against the wind, horses at halter. After a while, Vlad felt comfortable with the path he had chosen and we mounted again. Caught in that feverish search for the road back, I realized only now that no wolf’s howling had followed us for a minute or two.