by Barb Hendee
She whirled about with a shuddering breath.
"But… you are without even a cloak," Wynn called after her.
Magiere traveled half the barrack's length before she heard the door close.
A thrashing sound in the dark made her sidestep away from the building, instinctively reaching for her falchion. She realized she'd left the weapon behind with her cloak. Her dhampir senses expanded, and she glimpsed a startled bird fluttering away into the night.
Magiere looked about and saw the foreign city around her settling itself into winter slumber. She wanted to be alone, and though the dark wouldn't trouble her, she couldn't risk becoming lost until morning in this faraway place. She slipped around the barrack's corner. Leaning against the rough stone foundation, she slid down to her haunches.
She'd been alone most of her life, despite the occasional company of others, and had preferred it that way. Perhaps even in the early days with Leesil, along the back ways of the wilderness cheating superstitious peasants. Here on the edge of his past, his first life, the more she fought with him, the more he retreated inside himself to a place she couldn't reach.
Yet the foolish, unexplained choices he now made could kill him— take him from her in a way she couldn't overcome.
It made her feel lonely, abandoned. And that wasn't the same as being alone.
Magiere shivered in the night air but remained stiff and still, leaning against the barrack's cold stone foundation. No one passed by to be frightened by the white mask of her face with full black-irised eyes. If they had, they'd have fled, never noticing the rising steam from tear tracks on her pale cheeks.
Chane lost contact with his familiar the instant the robin fled in panic at Magiere's passing. It didn't matter, as the bird would return on its own. He'd barely heard what transpired after Leesil spoke his harsh admonishment to Magiere for what had happened in the murky forest near Apudalsat.
Obsession, hatred, and even fear had muddied Chane's thoughts for so many nights—but all toward Magiere. He'd not contemplated what Wynn had endured. She had watched him die and collapsed upon his twice-dead corpse.
Did she weep… for him?
Chane's eyes were still closed. He was so poised and still that his companion didn't realize the reconnaissance was finished until the robin lighted upon the saddle horn of Chane's mount.
"Well?" Welstiel asked with irritation creeping into his deep voice. "What have you learned?"
Chane did not answer. He tightened his grip on the horse's mane tangled between his fingers.
"Chane!" Welstiel snapped. "What did you hear?"
In the early days of their travels, Welstiel never lost his composure. That too had changed.
Chane willed himself to calm, not allowing any thought beyond this moment. This was how he pushed himself forward, how he kept waking every night and climbing back onto his horse.
"Venjetz," he rasped. "They go in search of Leesil's father, and then head on to elven territory for his mother."
Welstiel's face went blank with his lips barely parted, and then his voice erupted. "Venjetz? What nonsense is that half-blood dragging Magiere into now?"
Chane held his hand up and dismounted. Welstiel followed with impatience. Before his companion could badger him further, Chane repeated as much of the conversation between Magiere and Leesil as he could remember. Welstiel crouched down, running a hand over his face, absorbing all that Chane said.
"The elven lands are too far north," he finally whispered. "A distance from what I seek… or so I guess."
Welstiel slowly looked up as if Chane were somehow responsible for this snag in his plans.
"We press on to Venjetz," he said. "If Leesil discovers both his parents are dead, perhaps Magiere will turn away from here. There will be no reason for them to go to the elven lands. I see no other option either. Though I do not yet see how to make this happen."
Chane did not care what they did or where they went. He simply had nowhere else to go. Or if he did, he no longer had a will to see beyond tomorrow. He placed the robin back in its cage and pulled the covering over it, as Welstiel mounted his horse. Chane put his foot in the stirrup and swung into his own saddle.
It helped him to follow one simple action with another.
* * *
CHAPTER THREE
Four days' travel among the Warlands' forested hills left Leesil weary. So much was the same as when he'd fled eight years ago. That alone was enough to drain him, but by all they'd seen and heard so far, things were worse than when he'd left. He let Magiere or Wynn handle the wagon more often and sat alone in the back.
He'd forgotten the beauty of the land, even in its early winter. Thick-trunked spruce and fir trees surrounded the wagon's passage. They often passed through glens, fallow fields dusted with white snow, and spaces where the forest canopy opened to let in the sky. It was almost a welcome change after the dank forests of Droevinka, but any tingle of relief faded quickly. It was all more deceit to the eyes, as hollow and empty as the villages they'd passed by.
"Is this what you remember?" Wynn whispered.
"Yes," he answered. "No… worse."
When they'd first crossed Droevinka's border on the northward trek into Stravina, Leesil knew he would have to tell Wynn something about his past. He was reluctant, though not as much as when he'd confessed to Magiere during their hunt in Bela. When he'd finally told Magiere, his love for her had grown so much that he feared she would leave once she learned any part of the truth. But Magiere stayed by his side, drawing ever closer to him.
They were halfway to Soladran when he'd finally told Wynn a little of his youth. She remained silent while he spoke. Hesitant at first, she admitted her own long-held suspicions since helping him and Magiere in
Bela. She'd seen the strange way he fought, his weapons of choice hidden from plain sight, and his long wooden box containing more tools of his trade. But Leesil hadn't told her all. The young sage could only face so much. What little more he'd told Magiere wasn't enough for even her to understand his world.
When the wagon had passed the first empty village in Darmouth's province, Wynn's insatiable curiosity blossomed once again. She asked about the land and its people, and Leesil explained in sparse details.
Lord Darmouth's officers had standing orders to maintain the ranks by any means. Paying large numbers of mercenaries wasn't viable. Taxing oppressed people yielded little for the coffers, and any province's wealth wasn't much beyond what it took from its neighbors. Conscription was more cost-effective for a warlord with pretensions of monarchy.
After each fall harvest, any able-bodied male over fifteen years was herded away at sword point. It wasn't uncommon for the previous year's conscripts to be given this task under the watchful eye of an officer. Occasionally a village was passed over for several years, but this didn't happen often, and so… far too many women and children watched fathers and sons enslaved by their own countrymen, neighbors, or even kin.
Darmouth ruled a large territory to the southeast of the Warlands, but there were other lords like him who claimed territories to the north and the west. Skirmishes erupted regularly along province borders, and Darmouth's no less than any other. The rulers of the Warlands ceaselessly nipped and snapped at one another to see who was weakening.
In Darmouth's territory, conscripts were clothed and fed, and paid barely enough to care for those left at home. What little they were given sometimes depended on spoils and supplies taken in raids. This practice made them easily led astray by high-ranking officers or Darmouth's appointed "'nobles" into private armies for attempted takeovers. Most insurrections ended with the traitor's sudden death, the would-be upstart often dying before his scheme sprouted.
Deceit and betrayal thrived in this land, and everyone lived with the threat and promise of war that might come with the next dawn. This had been Leesil's first life and his youth.
As the wagon jostled along the empty road, he found himself viewing another empty village.
Starvation was common, but the people had grown thin in number as well.
Magiere said little but glanced back at him every so often. She'd done this before in their time together, but instead of a scowl, there was something else in her face. Leesil hunched down in the wagon and stared out the back. He remained expressionless, offering her no reaction, but her gaze hurt him.
Was it fear he saw when she looked at him?
The nights grew so cold that they slept indoors whenever possible. Near dusk of the fourth day across the border stream, they reached a small village with decently thatched roofs. It was the first they'd found all day that wasn't deserted.
A young boy with a dirt-streaked face swung himself awkwardly on makeshift crutches down a side path through the village. He was missing his left leg from the knee downward. He froze at the sight of the wagon, and his face filled with alarm, like a yearling rabbit who'd wandered carelessly into the open and found himself facing a fox.
Magiere's falchion was stowed in back. She was dressed in breeches, a wool pullover shirt, and a heavy cloak, but not her hauberk. Wynn pulled back her coat's hood and smiled at the boy, her light-brown hair hanging loose about her face. But Chap and Leesil held the boy's attention the most.
At times Darmouth's press gangs used dogs to bring down runaways or sniff them out of hiding holes in the villages. Leesil pulled his cloak hood back, exposing the gray scarf tied over his hair and ears, then pushed Chap down in the wagon's bed. He didn't feel like smiling, but he could fake any expression when necessary.
"Hallo,' he called. "Is there a place to sleep tonight? We can pay in coin or food."
The boy blinked twice. His smooth brow wrinkled in suspicion, but he wobbled slowly toward the wagon.
"Willem!"
A woman in a patched wool skirt and ragged cape bolted from the doorway of the nearest hut. She grabbed the boy around the shoulders and backed toward her hiding place. Her hair was so dirty that Leesil couldn't guess its color beyond a dull brown. She glared at him, and Leesil much preferred her anger to fear.
"They just wanna place outta the cold, Ma," the boy said. Several teeth were missing on the left side of his mouth. "Said they'd pay with food."
Magiere shifted uncomfortably on the wagon bench. "We're headed for Venjetz, but the nights are too cold. We have dried goods to trade for shelter."
At the mention of stores and fair trade, some of the woman's mistrust faded. She looked at Port and Imp and pursed her lips in thought. Both horses were healthy and bright-eyed, with thick, gray coats.
"We can hide 'em," Willem said.
Willem's mother lifted her chin at Magiere. She moved and held herself as if in her late twenties, but strands of gray stood out in her matted hair. There were soft lines around her eyes and the corners of her chapped lips. "We'll put you up, but do as my son says, or you might not find your horses come morning."
Magiere dropped down from the wagon's bench. Leesil climbed out behind her and took Port and Imp by the halters. As he led the wagon through the village on foot, he saw no other animals. Not a stray chicken, pig, or cow, and not even the goats or sheep more commonly kept in these northern territories.
The woman glanced at him, guessing his thoughts. "Soldiers took 'em. And any that come'll take your horses."
"They can try," Magiere replied with the cock of an eyebrow.
It was difficult to guess her age.
A few more villagers came out of hiding, taking cautious steps at the sight of strangers. All were women and younger children but for one old man, thin and bony. The short crop of his white hair and beard suggested he might be one of the few who ever lived to serve his time at arms and be released to go home. He wore a vestment of furred hide, and the ridge of an old scar ran down his right forearm to the back of his hand.
"Who do you have there, Helen?" he asked in a cracked voice.
"Lodgers that can pay."
"Best hide those horses," he said with a steady gaze. "And the wagon."
Helen didn't answer. Perhaps she did not care to be reminded of something she already knew.
A wide main way ran through the village's clustered huts, with four crossing paths that were barely more than muddy trails. Leesil spotted a communal smokehouse for drying meat, but it wasn't in use this late in the year. The only dwelling alive with activity was a rickety structure with bundles of ash tree branches piled out front beside an entrance covered with a deer-hide curtain. Three elder women sat there on a bench, splitting and trimming feathers.
"You make arrows?" Leesil asked.
"We can't do the heads anymore," Helen said. "My father was the smith, so the soldiers let him stay here when I was a girl. He taught me to make proper shafts. I taught the others. Captain Kevoc arrives in a few days, as he does once a moon. He trades us fair… or more so than most."
Leesil looked back at Chap and Wynn still riding in the wagon. The sage stared about the village. When she looked Leesil's way, her gaze passed beyond him into the distance. She raised a hand to point, and Leesil looked back ahead.
Rounding a bend through the forest near the village's far end, Leesil counted five—no, six—men on foot. Most wore mismatched leather armor, while the lead man wore a chain vest. They were armed with short-swords and longknives sheathed at their waists, the typical armaments given to soldiers. It seemed the village's benefactor had arrived early, but then Leesil abandoned such a notion. Foot soldiers were one thing, but an officer never walked. All of these men were on foot.
"Forgetful gods," Helen whispered.
Magiere cast her a startled look upon hearing the curse Leesil so often used. "Are they soldiers?" she asked.
Chap jumped down from the wagon. As the dog came up beside him, Leesil noticed Wynn digging through their belongings.
"Magiere," Wynn called softly. She lowered the falchion and punching blades over the wagon's side.
Magiere backed toward her, but Leesil kept his eyes on the newcomers.
"Not soldiers," Helen said. "Deserters. They just come to take what we have."
Magiere stepped up behind Leesil, and he slipped one hand behind his back. She placed the handles of his punching blades into his palm. He gripped them both as one.
"Helen, girl," the leader called out as he passed between the farthest huts. "You have company."
Villagers backed away as his men spread out to peer into and between the huts as they came. One behind the leader was little more than a nervous boy carrying the remains of a horse mace, its haft broken off near the butt. The man to the far right kicked open a hut's plank door and leaned halfway in to look about. When he backed out, Leesil saw he had a woman's tattered shawl wrapped about his head, its tail end covering the lower half of his face. A deep harrow of split scar tissue arched from his left eyebrow through the bridge of his nose to disappear beneath the fabric. He grunted at his leader, who didn't acknowledge him.
Tall and lean, the leader wore a shirt of torn quilted padding beneath his chain vest. His black hair was cropped almost to his scalp, and his square jaw was covered in stubble. He remained calm and poised, walking with slow care. There were no visible scars on his forearms, hands, or face, and that made Leesil wary.
Leesil had seen their hardened kind before. But in his youth, marauding bands of deserters had been rare. That they moved so openly meant patrols through the land had become scarce. The way the boy huddled close to the leader gave Leesil pause. The man in the chain vest wasn't old enough to be the father, nor did they look alike, yet there was some bond between them. A litany of Leesil's own father surfaced in his thoughts as he studied the two, and some part of him understood and accepted their way in this hopeless land.
Do what is necessary. Take care of your own. And consequence matters not until it comes.
Chap began to rumble.
Leesil expected the deserters to come straight for the horses, but the leader stopped near the fletcher's shack. The three old women splitting feathers had vanished.
/> "A new crop of shafts are ready," the man said.
Helen tensed and pushed Willem off to the side and behind her.
Leesil remained still. These men knew the village's trading schedule. They'd come to steal arrow shafts before they could be traded for winter supplies. The scarf-wrapped man pulled aside the hide on the shack's doorway.
"I wouldn't do that," Leesil warned.
The leader looked at him without reaction. The man's lack of expression made Leesil shift his feet, feeling the ground for footing. Even the undead, like Ratboy, showed rage or hatred or passion, but this man's eyes held nothing. He was dead and didn't know it yet, or he didn't care either way.
Leesil remembered what that was like, felt it even now.
"Hold your tongue, man," the leader said, "and lead those horses over."
Chap growled, and Leesil sidestepped to the right, letting Magiere move into the open with her falchion in plain sight.
"Turn back and walk out," Magiere said.
Chap's low growl quickened to a snarl. Leesil lifted his blades in front of himself, both appearing as but one weapon. He heard a click behind him and knew Wynn had managed to load one of their crossbows.
The leader blinked once. That was all the reaction Leesil caught. Perhaps the man did still care about his own death or those under his charge.
"Six to three," the leader said. "The odds don't favor you."
The old man with cropped white hair stepped out of his hut a few paces behind the leader. Leesil hadn't even noticed him disappear. One of the marauders skidded back from him, drawing a shortsword. The leader turned his head just enough to see what was happening.
The old soldier held a barkless wooden rod the length of his arm and as thick as his wrist. Its smooth surface looked polished. Most likely it had been ground down—boned—with a cow's bone to make the wood hard and tough. He stood quietly, looking to the leader, matching his dispassionate gaze.
To Leesil's eye, there seemed little difference between them other than the choice of what was theirs to keep and protect. The rest of the villagers remained silent, cowering back out of the way. Even the people of Magiere's village had gathered together in their superstitions to face down strangers thought "unnatural." It wasn't the same here, where peasants were beaten down one generation after another, and fighting back gained little more than retribution.