The Forest at the Edge of the World

by Mercer, Trish

  “Shin’s back right now!”

  The voice booming up from the stairs made both of the soldiers jump in their seats. Wiles put his foot back properly on the ground before Captain Shin strode up to the office. He was wearing a black tunic, trousers, a leather jacket, and a small smile that refused to be suppressed.

  Karna shot Wiles a look of, I told you so!

  Shin casually picked up a piece of paper from the desk and glanced at it.

  “Thought I wouldn’t be back to do my duty for the night shift, Wiles?”

  “No, sir!” the sergeant major said. “It’s just that . . . I, uh . . .”

  Shin looked up him. “Leave the two holes in the wall, for now. Rather like them. They’re only through the first layer of wall anyway, and not the second. And no, there won’t be a third hole. Karna,” he turned to his lieutenant who had a cautious smile on his face. “If you wish, in about three moons you can move into my quarters. They’re a little larger.”

  Karna grinned. “And why won’t you be sleeping there anymore, sir?”

  Shin tried to keep his smile down, but failed. “I think my wife will prefer that I spend my nights at our home instead.”

  Wiles clapped his hands loudly and stood up. “Knew it! Well done, Captain!” He shook Shin’s hand and slapped him on the shoulder.

  Karna chuckled. “Sir, that’s . . . that’s good news. Rather sudden, don’t you think?”

  Shin’s smile faded a little. “Uh, well, perhaps. That’s why the three moons’ time, Brillen.”

  “I can’t wait to hear what the village will say,” Karna said. “Marrying one of their own? That’s certainly a way to win hearts and minds.”

  Karna and Wiles laughed together as Shin reddened.

  “Well, the High General will certainly be impressed,” Wiles hinted.

  Shin went a deeper shade of burgundy. “The High General . . .” He stared at the floor.

  Wiles and Karna shared a look of concern.

  “When do you plan to tell him?” Wiles asked quietly.

  Shin blinked and looked up. “Soon, soon. Listen, we’d really like to keep this quiet for a while. I told only the two of you so that you can . . . understand. But please, let us reveal it when the time is right.”

  “Of course, sir,” Karna answered.

  Wiles nodded slowly. “Captain, I’m glad you told us. Now that she’s someone important to you, she may become someone important to the Guarders.”

  Shin let out a low whistle. “Hadn’t considered that either.”

  Wiles patted him on the back. “We can take care of that, Captain. Soldiers need to start patrolling in the village, too. We’ll simply put your future home on the routes. In fact, as an early wedding gift, show me right now where she lives.” He pulled out a clean sheet of paper and a piece of sharpened charcoal. “We can put her road on the routes. Don’t worry, I won’t say anything to the soldiers until you want us to. But we’ll keep her safe.”

  Shin smiled. “Thank you, Wiles. That’ll make me feel better. At least until I’m living there.” He started sketching out a rough map of the northern village. “She’s on the second ring of houses, just off the main fort road. Barely a quarter mile away from the fort.”

  “That’s convenient.” Karna nodded at the map.

  “And she hasn’t even seen the fort, yet,” Shin said, shaking his head and chuckling. “And didn’t even know the soldiers came in! Have to give her a tour sometime, I suppose.” He made a notation for her house.

  “Doesn’t she have a mother, Captain?” Wiles gestured to the map.

  Shin nodded. “I’ve only heard about her, but yes. I better put her mother’s on here, too. Just so Mahrree feels she’s protected. Good idea, Wiles. Now, according to the Densals, Mrs. Peto is on the third ring, on the other side of the fort road . . . one of these two houses. Both have elaborate gardens, so I’m not sure which.” He paused, wondering which house to mark.

  “You’re not sure which is your future mother-in-law’s, Captain?” Wiles scowled good-naturedly.

  Shin paled at the phrase mother-in-law.

  Karna covered his grin with his hand, while Wiles chortled. “We’ll just put that entire road on the routes and mark both houses. Now that I think about it, isn’t that aunt and uncle of yours along the same area?”

  Shin eagerly made some more notations on the map, further west. “Densals, right there. Again, good idea, Wiles. Thank you.”

  Wiles smiled as he took up the map. “Just doing my duty, sir. And again, congratulations! You’re going to make many people happy. Now I’m glad I’m all the way in the north. I’m beginning to see the appeal.”

  Karna laughed as Shin glared affably at the old sergeant major.

  Chapter 12 ~ “We’ve done this kind of backwards, haven’t we?”

  Mahrree thought she’d never fall asleep that night. She didn’t feel the bed under her, the small one she’d have to replace. The elevated wooden frame it sat on, so that she could store lessons in crates underneath, would also need to be lengthened to accommodate Perrin’s size. But she couldn’t dwell on that for too long, because so many things raced through her mind as they had nonstop for the past three hours since Perrin left.

  Since her future husband left.

  Every time she had that thought, she grabbed her pillow and screamed into it. If anyone had been passing by and heard her, they would have been alarmed, and then perplexed to hear her laughing right after. Mahrree didn’t know how to appropriately express her excitement, but she decided it didn’t matter, as long as she was able to compose herself by morning before she faced her students, especially her teenage girls. Although they never said a word, they’d regarded her with sorrowful pity for weeks.

  She couldn’t reveal her news, though. She and Perrin had agreed to keep their engagement to themselves, just for now. Neither of them was quite ready to deal with the village’s reactions, which undoubtedly would result in a bit of teasing with some leading comments. And Edgers’ comments could also be a bit unrefined at times.

  One thing that kept Mahrree’s mind occupied that sleepless night was how to expand the house. She had a ‘singles’ house which she adored. When Mahrree was eight she watched her father and other villagers build it years ago for an elderly widow. She was impressed that even with his slight build and small frame, Cephas could move the large rocks and position them in just the right way to make the smoothest interior walls. She often looked up from her reading at the table at the rocks she knew her father had carefully placed. Her bookshelves fit perfectly against his structure. As Mahrree now lay in bed and looked up at the pitched eaves of the roof, she smiled as she remembered helping her father carry smaller pieces of wood up for the cozy bedroom.

  The villagers would come again to add on another room since she was adding a new family member, because cozy also meant cramped. Perhaps she would add a study for Perrin. Her land was small, but it might as well all be taken up by house. If she ever wanted a garden she could rent out space in the farms that surrounded the village as a buffer from the forest. She wouldn’t need to worry about Guarders because she would be protected by her husband.

  Her husband!

  She grabbed her pillow and screamed again into it with delight.

  Only then did she realize she hadn’t completed reading The Writings.

  Dear Creator, she thought. I am so sorry! I fully intended to—

  A great warmth of comfort enveloped her with the message,

  You can finish tomorrow, then begin again to take notes on what your children should know.

  The thought struck her so unexpectedly that she nearly fell of the bed. Which children? Her school children or . . . ?

  The idea was too wonderful. She’d stopped thinking years ago that she would ever have her own children, and now the idea energized her so much she could barely stay in bed. She had to finish reading The Writings in the small hours of the morning.

  But before she could get up, the lat
eness of the hour and the prolonged excitement of the day abruptly collided in her brain, and soon she fell into a shockingly restful sleep.

  Then Mahrree found herself sitting before a large wooden home, made of pine planking that had weathered into a soft gray. The entire area was ringed by tall mountains she didn’t recognize, and around her were a dozen or more children running and laughing. She was sitting in dry dirt, and felt the heat of the sun beating gently down upon her. She looked around, perplexed and intrigued.

  She was in a very large garden, and she was pulling weeds. Willingly.

  And she was inexplicably happy.

  She woke up from the dream laughing.

  ---

  In the middle of the night, in a large house in Grasses, a father woke up in bed to find a figure standing over him, holding a jagged blade. Before he could cry out, the blade plunged into his heart.

  His wife, in bed next to him, didn’t hear it. She was already dead.

  The man holding the jagged knife, dressed in black and with his face darkened with soot, nodded to his companion that the room was secured. Together they crept down a hallway and flung open the door. They sheathed their knives and pulled out thick wooden clubs.

  Then they walked up to the bed where the young woman slept.

  ---

  In the early morning Mahrree rushed to her table to finish reading before school began. She quickly thumbed to the last four pages, but instead The Writings fell open to the very last page, and she found herself staring at the final words of the Creator, revealed to Guide Pax:

  Before the Last Day even the aged of my people will strike terror in the deadened hearts of the fiercest soldiers.

  On the Last Day those who have no power shall discover the greatest power is all around them.

  On the Last Day those who stayed true to the Plan will be delivered as the destroyer comes.

  I have created this Test, I have given this Plan, and I will reward my faithful children.

  Mahrree stared at the last passage for several moments, unable to move. The words, which she’d read dozens of times before, now struck her with such unexpected force that she wondered why she never felt the power of them before. She didn’t just read them, she felt the reality of them—as if they were said directly to her—and she thought she could actually see that day right before her, if only she knew how to focus her eyes properly.

  She was glad that she couldn’t.

  It was almost a full minute before she could finally do something, and it was just to say, “Hmm.”

  Eventually she closed The Writings and smirked guiltily. How fortunate she didn’t punctuate last night’s glorious evening with such a dreary exclamation mark! She sighed, shook off the ominous feeling, smiled, and opened the book again to the beginning.

  We are all family.

  Her new one would be starting soon.

  She shrieked again for joy.

  ---

  That morning in Grasses, the large fort was in complete upheaval. Hundreds of soldiers ran throughout the village looking for more victims, law enforcers brought reports to the colonel that at least half a dozen homes had been hit, and the fort’s surgeon worked tirelessly to save the life of a young woman who had been beaten by what appeared to be wooden clubs.

  Her intended, the lieutenant of the fort, sat in an adjacent room, weeping quietly.

  The captain of the fort joined him, sent by the colonel, but he could only sit and stare in disbelief. Both of his parents were dead, and now his younger sister was lying near death. Later he collapsed, overwhelmed by grief.

  The colonel frantically got off brief messages to every fort in the world and to the garrison in Idumea, with a promise of more details to follow. But for now, everyone in the world had to know as quickly as possible.

  The Guarders were officially back, and more violent than ever.

  ---

  It was the last day of school, and Mahrree found it even harder than her students to concentrate as they pored over their final writings to present to their parents that afternoon. The day moved excruciatingly slowly. She’d had only a few hours of sleep and couldn’t think of anything else but Perrin. He was to return that evening to join her for dinner, and she worried over what to prepare for their first meal together, even though it was rarely anything different than bread, cheese, and early greens this time of year.

  The only sound in the classroom was the scritching of quills on parchment as her eight students wrote. If she put her quill to any parchment, she feared she would juvenilely practice writing “Mrs. Mahrree Shin.” So instead she just stared at the door and daydreamed about a tall, muscular, and not-unpleasant-looking captain.

  Until he stood right there, having abruptly opened the door.

  Mahrree blinked to make sure she actually saw him.

  Captain Shin stared back. “Miss Peto, five minutes please?”

  Her heart sank. He wasn’t the laughing, affectionate man that left her house last night—he was far too serious and intense. Maybe he’d had a change of heart and was there to tell her it was all just a big mistake.

  “Good afternoon, Captain Shin!” eight girls chorused together in a sing-song voice.

  Captain Shin looked over to the girls seated behind their desks, noticing them for the first time.

  “Good afternoon, girls. Ladies. Young ladies.” His eyebrows furrowed over figuring out which label was appropriate.

  Mahrree blushed as the girls erupted into giggles.

  Captain Shin’s severe demeanor softened a little with a faint smile in their direction. Then he turned back to Mahrree, again completely somber. “Miss Mahrree? Now?”

  Mahrree nodded and stood up, feeling weak and confused. If he was going to call it off, why would he do it right now? She followed him outside the door, her stomach churning in dread. He didn’t stop in the grassy area in front of the small school building, but continued over to a storage shed partially secluded by blossoming apple trees. He opened the door to the shed and, while looking around, cocked his head towards the door indicating that she should go in.

  Completely baffled at his behavior, she complied. He didn’t shut the door—there wouldn’t have been enough room for him among the rakes and buckets if he did—but looked around the grounds once more before finally turning to her.

  She wrung her hands in worry.

  “Ah, Mahrree!” he breathed, releasing all tension from his face. He stepped closer and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into him.

  “Wait a minute!” She giggled in relief. “You just pulled me away from my class for a hug?”

  “And this, too.” He kissed her so ardently that she would have forgiven him of anything.

  “Mmm, good thing today is the last day of school.” She chuckled as he finally released her. “Can’t have you coming by and doing this every day. People will start to talk!”

  He chuckled too, but rather mirthlessly, and suddenly turned grim. “And I came to give you this as well.” He pulled something long from the inside of his uniform jacket. In the dim light of the shed she wasn’t sure what it was until he put it into her hands.

  “It’s a rod of iron,” she said tonelessly. “Is this some kind of army thing? I know occasionally men give their intendeds jewelry, but—”

  “Mahrree, just minutes ago a messenger arrived from Grasses. The Guarders have attacked.”

  Mahrree bit her lower lip.

  He put his arms around her again, and she sank into him.

  “Not only that, but they attacked the intended of the lieutenant there. He was to marry the sister of the captain.”

  “Oh Perrin . . .”

  “They killed the captain’s parents, and brutally beat the young woman,” he said quietly. “Grasses’ commanding officer wrote that the surgeons aren’t sure if she’ll survive.”

  Mahrree clutched the iron rod and tears squeezed out of her eyes. What had she just agreed to last night? Becoming the next victim?!

  �
��I want you to hold on to this rod and keep it next to your bed,” he whispered softly, holding her tighter. “They attacked at night, which is their typical pattern. I really don’t think anything will happen here, but I’ll sleep better at night knowing you have some sort of defense.”

  “They’re really real, aren’t they?” she whispered into his chest, all doubt fleeing. She knew she’d be lighting extra candles and keeping them in a few windows all night long. Suddenly she understood why the simple-minded and gullible of Edge did that: not to ward away Guarders, but to make it harder for them to see what was lurking around outside in the dark. The reflections of the light on the wavy windows obscured everything on the other side.

  She wondered if she had enough candles.

  “Yes, they are real,” Perrin said in a low, dreadful tone. “And very effective. They hit at least six houses last night. Probably more. Grasses is large, and they were still surveying the area when they sent out messages to the other forts. The captain’s family lived in the middle of the village, not on the outskirts. The Guarders had to venture quite a ways to get there, and it seems they chose that house deliberately. None of the Guarders was captured.”

  Perrin squeezed her tighter. It was getting hard to breathe, but she didn’t mind.

  Abruptly he stepped back. “I need to get to the fort. Lots to do right now. I’m running extra drills in sword work this afternoon. Suddenly all of the soldiers are taking it much more seriously.” He smiled, but it wasn’t genuine. “We really have nothing to worry about. Guarders aren’t anywhere near Edge, and my sergeant major is arranging for patrols in the village. The first begin tonight, and your road is on it. You’ll be fine, Mahrree.”