Withûr We

by Matthew Bruce Alexander

  “…Miklos will want to stay as well. I’ll remain with them and we four will ride and catch up to you when…” Alistair faltered in his speech. “…after it’s finished.”

  “That sounds fine to me,” declared Santiago. “And I am going to start moving now.”

  He quickly gathered what was his, leaving the four stragglers to sort out the new equipment, and headed down the trail again. Layla, Giselle, Wellesley, Mordecai and Clyde, at first startled at Santiago’s abrupt decision, scrambled to follow. Wellesley turned once to look at them and raised a hand in goodbye. Alistair returned the salute but was unsure whether Wellesley had the vision to see him or not. A minute later they were around another bend and out of sight.

  The crippled horse let out a ghastly screech, and Alistair turned from the ones who had just left. “Let’s put it out of its misery,” he suggested, but Mordecai was already taking care of it.

  Chapter 53

  The gradual advance of day was a nearly imperceptible event in the forest. The thick canopy of leaves allowed only a filtered, attenuated light to leak through such that one realized it had come only well after the process started. In a similar manner to the light’s arrival, the lives of the wounded warriors left. Even Gregory, who closely monitored them through the night, could not say with certainty exactly when it happened. The agonizing coughs died out, and the tortured breathing grew shallower and shallower, until its cessation made not the slightest interruption. Gregory knelt and mouthed a prayer, his hands folded and his earnest features tightly wound. Alistair quietly sat and watched over the dying men, at times as unmoving as a statue, whatever thoughts moving in his head effecting no trace of their presence.

  Miklos faced the proceedings with an indolent indifference. He sat with his back against a stout tree, his hurt leg laid straight in front of him and his arms, folded to begin, eventually falling to his sides. For brief periods he fell asleep. When he was awake the only indication, apart from his half opened eyes, came from his lips, which he periodically smacked, like a hungry man about to eat only more languidly. His hair was cut short, but unevenly so, as if he had sawed off the longer strands with a sharp flint stone, practical but inartistic. His lightly bronzed skin sported an elaborate black tattoo, an intricate series of vines twisting and turning on themselves, wrapping about every part of his thick body and even reaching up his neck to his jaw where it finally ended in a series of willowy strands. His head was square, tapering off a bit at the top, leaving his jowls thicker than his cranium. Broad and stubby features, well adapted to expressing lethargy, were carved into his face. He had a neck only just enough to merit the name, and from each hand five sausages protruded, stout and indelicate.

  Taribo busied himself with preparing the dead horse, starting with the skin. Alistair agreed to clean the skins in the nearby brook, and when Taribo cut the meat into steaks he wrapped them in the skins. Alistair was impressed with how quickly the Issicrojan reduced the steed to neat packages, considering the near total darkness.

  “I have no way to preserve it,” he said with a shrug. “But we can eat some later today, perhaps.”

  “I’m not eating horse flesh,” said Gregory, interrupting his sullen silence to utter the pronouncement with some disgust.

  “You are a recent arrival,” Taribo replied. “One soon learns to eat what is available. Worse things than horse flesh will pass your gullet before you expire.”

  Little else was said. Miklos commented that Taribo had given the horse a more merciful end than Gregory was giving the wounded. The pronouncement momentarily froze the doctor but he did not otherwise respond. When the men passed on, Taribo laid them out on the forest floor in the Gaian fashion, arms at their sides. There they would be, as he put it, reabsorbed into the nature from which they came. Gregory protested what he considered indecency but relented when the African pointed out they were Gaians. With bowed head, Taribo uttered a prayer over their bodies and then they were left to the forest.

  It was noon when finally they emerged, sleepy and physically drained, from the cover of trees. The day was a hot one but cloudy, and a light drizzle, of which they had been unaware while beneath the forest canopy, sprinkled the land. The country before them flattened but there were yet some hills and no sign of the other members of the group could be seen. There was no point in stopping simply because the forest had, so they pressed on.

  Alistair found himself riding in front with Taribo and managed to rouse himself from his black reverie enough to soften the scowl on his face and ask, “Why are you coming with us, Taribo?”

  The Issicrojan was thoughtful for a moment before he responded. “Gaia has dealt me a hand. I can only play with the cards I am given.” When Alistair’s incredulous look indicated he was not satisfied with the answer, Taribo continued, “There was not much else I could do. You were hardly going to allow me to return and reveal which route you had taken. When I found out you escaped, I tell you sincerely I was pleased. When I was ordered to hunt you down I offered to search the main trail because I could not imagine you would be found there.”

  “But you’re not disappointed you’re coming with us?”

  “No, I am not. I feel no great loyalty to Issicroy. I mastered the habit of following his name with ‘Gaia preserve him’, and I learned when to obey orders, but it was a hollow act.”

  “And your dead companions?”

  “They are returning to Gaia,” he said in his mellifluous accent, shrugging his shoulders. Alistair’s still unsatisfied look prodded a more complete answer from him. “I have been on this planet, this moon, for eight years. Death is not a cataclysmic event here. In any group of ten warriors, one or two will die before the year is out. Things are only a little better in Issicroy. They were out seeking to kill. It seems to me they have no right to complain.”

  “Do you realize what you’re up against if you go with Odin?”

  “Better than you do, I suspect. You have no idea what awaits us in the waters between the continent and the island, do you?”

  Alistair slowly shook his head, and Taribo grinned.

  “If Gaia wishes to take me back, she will take me back.” He gave another unconcerned shrug of his shoulders. “But I do not believe she wishes to take me back. If she does, she just missed a good opportunity.” Taribo considered Alistair a moment. “And what do you plan to do if we reach the island?”

  “The same thing I have always tried to do. Live free.” No hollow observance Taribo made to Issicroy ever breathed with the pure sincerity and determination of Alistair’s short statement.

  Taribo nodded. “They say Odin wants to rule in peace. He wants a stable government—”

  “No ruling. No government.”

  He regarded Alistair with a quizzical arch in his eyebrows. “Odin wants to bring peace,” he finally managed in a slow and uncertain tone. “Srillium is like it is because there is no government.” Alistair did not respond and Taribo increased the pace of his speech. “We live like this because we have no laws and no way to enforce them. Tribes fight because there are no rules to follow, and no way to make them follow the rules. Issicroy is better because we have a government.”

  “I will show you laws without Parliament, and justice without government.”

  Taribo’s lips were parted and his brow furrowed. He fell into a confounded silence, shaking his head and pondering the words without finding the sense in them.

  The drizzling rain lasted through the afternoon and a good portion of the evening. They stopped once and Taribo, Alistair and Miklos managed, despite the precipitation, to get a fire going, a monumental effort made moderately easier by an apparatus in Taribo’s saddlebag. All the horse meat was cooked and, save for Gregory, they gobbled down much of it. The steaks they did not consume were cooked and repackaged in the skins with the hope it would provide a meal or two more before becoming inedible. Eschewing the meat, Gregory chewed on some bread and cheese.

  When the rain stopped and night came, they were m
et at the side of the road by Santiago. He greeted them with a nod of his head and addressed them.

  “There have been developments.” He grasped his walking stick and rose to leave, not looking to see if they followed.

  He led them half a mile over uneven ground until, upon cresting one last hill, they saw their companions camped at the base below them, well ensconced from any eyes that might be scanning the countryside. A small fire was burning but, hemmed in on all sides by various stacked items, it was visible only from above and its smoke was undetectable at night. Giselle, Layla and Clyde were sitting together, unmoving, packed in a tight group. Their rigid postures and unremitting gazes, fixed on Mordecai, bespoke a controlled tension and even fear. Mordecai, apart from them and with an apparently ravenous appetite, was splayed out over the ground and wolfing down some food, apparently feeling none of the tension reigning on the other side of the fire. Nearby was the bound form of Ryan Wellesley, his arms pulled behind his back and lying belly down on the ground.

  “Developments?” said Alistair with a note of irritation.

  The riders descended the hillside ahead of Santiago, and Alistair dismounted with a leap and freed Wellesley from his bonds.

  Not pausing from his meal, Mordecai said, “If he threatens me again he’s getting tied up again.”

  Wellesley rubbed at his wrists and wiped away some of the mud plastered to the right side of his face. There was a prominent bruise on his left cheek bone, and his upper lip was split and swollen. While muddied rivulets of water from the wet ground trickled down his face, he glared at Mordecai but said nothing, his jaw quivering unsteadily in his anger, his breathing a staccato of unsteadiness. Giselle appeared at his side with a bit of food laid out on a flat tablet of wood. He accepted it and bit into an apple.

  “I didn’t threaten him,” he said around the bite of apple, his voice choked with emotion and humiliation. “We got into an argument and the fucker…” He trailed off and stuffed more food into his mouth. He had the courage to glare down at Mordecai, but that one acted with pure indifference. Shaking his head, Ryan walked away to sit next to Clyde.

  For his part, Alistair regarded the scarred warrior, apparently quite free of any remorse, while he ate. I may find myself fighting alongside him, thought the youngest Ashley as he weighed his options. There were all manner of things he wanted to say but he held his tongue and when Taribo tossed him an apple he sat down with the rest of the group. They all chose the side of the fire opposite the nonchalant Mordecai.

  Chapter 54

  Not long after the sun rose and the members of the group prepared themselves for more travel, Mordecai was once again at the center of an argument. When the time came to resaddle the horses, Giselle suggested using them just for their equipment and supplies while they walked alongside. Mordecai insisted one of the horses was rightfully his and informed her he would be riding it. Neither was ready to back down, nor loathe to engage in a heated argument either, and before long Giselle was nearly screaming curses which Mordecai returned with a lower but more threatening tone. When Mordecai’s patience ran out, which did not take long, he grabbed Giselle by the jaw, tossed her back a few yards and onto her backside in the mud, and took possession of the horse. He moved away from the group a few yards to finish fixing the saddle on it.

  Unable to compete in physical terms, Giselle immediately turned to Alistair to plead her case, and Gregory and Layla were at her side, turning their indignant looks on the Aldran marine.

  “Are you just going to let him take over the group?” Gregory demanded, his eyes flashing. “He just threw a woman down on the ground!”

  Layla and Giselle had, presumably, similar points, but in speaking over one another it was difficult to understand what they said.

  As Alistair lifted a pack onto one of the saddles for Santiago to tie into place, he said in a quiet voice, “A rattlesnake is best left alone.”

  This only infuriated the three of them even more, and they shouted back in unison. With a sigh, Alistair finally turned to face them.

  “Giselle, what he did was not friendly. It was rude. It was cruel. But as far as his claim to one of the horses goes… he has a point.”

  “He doesn’t have a point!” she nearly screamed, shaking her head as if to rid her ears of the words.

  “You decided for the group that we were all going to share,” Alistair said simply. “Mordecai doesn’t want to.”

  “You’re a son of a bitch!” Layla said, throwing her hands in the air and walking away.

  “What the hell is wrong with you men?” Giselle demanded, her hands dramatically held out in front, her fingers gripping, perhaps, or clawing at an imaginary skull. “I was trying to help us out! He doesn’t have to throw me to the ground because he disagrees!”

  Santiago’s smooth voice cut through the screaming match. “There is nothing more pressing right now than to avoid detection. If this discussion cannot be had quietly, perhaps we should table it.” He had not looked up from packing his gear and belongings while speaking. His words had their intended effect, and if it did not make the anger dissipate, it dulled its edge.

  In the silence that followed, Gregory, having calmed himself, placed his body directly in front of Alistair and gently gripped his larger friend by both shoulders. In a low, flat tone he said, “Alistair, I have been threatened with murder several times in the last week. I’ve been dumped on a planet where dog eats dog, or literally man eats man. I’m being hunted right now. I know you are the only thing that has kept me alive to this point. Please, I need you to intervene, just a little. Just bare your teeth a bit and show him he’s not in control of this group. Please, Alistair. Even if killing the rider makes the horse his, he never could have killed it without you and Ryan and Santiago.”

  The calm entreaty passed through the shell which was impermeable to screams. Alistair, looking his friend in the eye, paused only a moment before nodding. He patted his friend on the shoulder and then stepped around him to face Mordecai, several yards off and just climbing into the saddle.

  “Mordecai,” he roared. “Look at me or I swear you’re going to have a fight right here!”

  Mordecai’s posture changed, the nonchalance he so diligently effected was overtaken by apprehension. Waiting long enough to make his defiance clear, he finally turned in the saddle and looked at Alistair with a hard stare.

  “We’re all walking,” the Aldran informed him, his voice still loud and forceful. “Giselle’s plan is a good one, and that horse is no more yours than it is mine. If your pride won’t let you out of that saddle, you’ll have it to thank when I beat the hell out of you!” So saying, Alistair, in an unlikely display for him, yanked his shirt off to remind the ex slave of the tattoo he wore on his left breast. His muscled torso heaved with angry breaths and both fists were tightly balled, making his knuckles livid.

  Mordecai, whose knuckles had turned a similar color as he squeezed the reins, finally leapt from the saddle and bounded over to Alistair to stand, as best he could, nose to nose with the taller man.

  “I am not a slave!” he yelled. “I never was a slave! Don’t think you can order me around and get away with it!”

  It was a display of bravado that his pride demanded. In the end, he stuffed a couple more items into a saddle bag and left the camp on foot. Giselle, whose own pride also demanded a display, announced she would be walking in the back, and that Mordecai had better not stray from the front. With that, she dug out a black cloth from her sack and tied it around her jaw and skull so that it covered her head like a nun’s habit. Alistair did not know if she was in mourning or what the purpose of it was, but true to her word she kept to the back with Gregory and Layla. Mordecai preceded them all by many yards while Alistair, Miklos, Taribo, Santiago, Clyde and Ryan Wellesley moved in a jumbled bunch in the middle.

  By the time the sun asserted itself, the day had become hot. Between the boiling heat and the soggy ground, they were forced to pass through an air so humid they al
most had to push at it to move forward. The Arcarians were especially affected, and they swatted at there bodies where trickles of sweat tickled their skin. On several occasions one of them would veer off into a nearby brook and immerse himself in its water, rejoining the group more refreshed, but between the hammer and anvil of sun and earth, no refreshment lasted long. Alistair himself, for all his prodigious stamina, felt his efforts flag as the day wore on. As steps slowed and grew shorter in length, Taribo almost jaunted, taking delight in his superior resistance to the boiling humidity.

  The hills were flattening out and the trees grew sparser as they approached the southern coast. In the more open country they feared the greater risk of being seen, but only once did they spot another soul, a ways off to the east and making his way north. If he saw them, he was unconcerned. It was only as evening approached, bringing some relief with a cooler temperature and a gentle breeze, that Alistair, whose slight desire to speak was easily suppressed, found the energy to converse with Taribo. The African, at times still amused by the way the humidity assaulted them, was moving steadily along at his side when Alistair was studying the form of Mordecai far in front of them.

  “Mordecai is not a common name,” was Alistair’s opening sentence.

  “No. Mordecai is his assumed name. He was the chief of a tribe. All chiefs take a new name. Odin, for instance, or Mordecai. Our chief was Beelzebub… that was my favorite name. They always choose something they think sounds grandiose. Before Miklos and I worked for Issicroy, Mordecai’s tribe slaughtered ours. Miklos and I were the only survivors, and we escaped to Issicroy for protection.”

  “How did he come to be a slave?”

  “He was growing powerful and his tribe was large. But he didn’t quite understand how things work here, how to hold on to power. He never got the blessing of the Gaians, and so Issicroy and Ansacroy united to crush him. Issicroy took him as a slave to humiliate him. That was several years ago.”