The Bone Roses

by Kathryn Lee Martin

  Jericho and Frank nod, not about to get into this in front of her.

  “Good.” Sadie washes the wound and begins stitching.

  The preacher grits his teeth and tenses.

  The woodstove crackles. Tracker walks over to the small stack of blankets and takes a few in his hands. He offers one to Frank and then approaches me with another one.

  “You should sleep.” He hands me another soft blanket. “It’s been a long day.”

  I look at him, not really wanting to admit that I’m tired, cold, hungry, and just want to curl up in a ball and cry over the fact that we couldn’t even bury Matthew in peace without someone else almost being killed.

  “Go.” He tilts his chin toward the stairs. “We can take care of things here.”

  I nod and trudge upstairs. Casting a quick look back, I see Tracker once again grit his teeth at Colton, who saunters up the stairs, flashes me a smirk, and retreats to the guest room.

  The hallway closes around me, offering a rare, comforting “safe” feeling. I hate the closeness of the walls, the crowded feeling that reminds me of the hours we were given by the slave master to sleep huddled together like a litter of scared puppies before the next work cycle began.

  Tonight it’s something familiar and almost welcome. Sleeping in my room where there is a window facing the snowfield is too risky though. Choosing the somewhat tunnel-like spot just outside my bedroom door, I fold my legs under me, hug the blanket around my shoulders, and lean my back against the wall, not even bothering to remove my jacket.

  My fingertips drag over the sharp petals and the leather tether. I’d give anything for the comfort of the floor in front of the woodstove beside Matthew where it was safe, if only for a few hours.

  “I miss you,” I whisper as if Matthew can hear me. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep everyone safe, somehow. We’ll get through this.”

  The bone roses sit on my lap, pewter stag staring at me before sleep takes over.

  It’s summer in the gully. The snowdrifts ripple down the embankments—tiny, barely visible trails etch their surfaces. Melting snow trickles into the swollen stream, and trees wear thin icicles like tattered rags. Balmy, thick air settles over the gully—almost warm enough for only a sweater.

  Matthew spreads his leather jacket over the damp log and flops down beside me. He works a satchel from around his shoulders and lets it fall against the snowy ground, a smile on his face.

  “Totally worth sneaking out for.”

  I smirk. If Tracker finds out I snuck out he’ll be furious. I’m supposed to be stringing fishing nets from old bailing twine and weighting them.

  “Yeah, it is.”

  We sit simply enjoying each other’s company. A squirrel chatters from a pine tree. We can’t see her, but her forest song is beautiful and full of life. A rabbit pokes his head up through a layer of snow, tiny nose twitching as he hops out of sight.

  “Rags,” Matthew whispers with excitement. “Look over by the rapids.”

  Delicate yet powerful legs brace against the snow, heads raised and pointed muzzles focused on the stream. The melting snow dampens their ruddy hides. Leggy fawns spring past their mothers, landing in the water with playful snorts.

  Matthew retrieves the satchel. Drawing the strings open, he roots around for a small burlap bag and offers a mischievous look.

  “Let’s go say hello.”

  The fawns continue to frolic. Does raise their heads and flick their ears back and forth, rich brown eyes studying us.

  We stop.

  The deer make no move to flee.

  “Now, just like we practiced.” He pours some corn into his palm and mine. “Nice and slow.”

  The herd continues to watch, showing no fear. To the best of our knowledge, humans haven’t harvested this particular herd in a long time. Tracker and the others get frustrated by our attachment and doting over them. Deer are food, not pets, as he often says.

  But I don’t care. A happy, well-fed herd makes for an easier hunting season. And an easier hunting season means less days we go to sleep hungry.

  Matthew clucks his tongue a few times.

  Several fawns stop their frolicking and stare. We move closer until we’re within arm’s reach. One of the bolder does stretches her muzzle out, sniffing our hands like she’s done many times before during her own time as a fawn.

  She snorts and bobs her head but doesn’t flee. Her velvety muzzle investigates my hand, seeking the corn and devouring it.

  “She’s a friendly little—Rags, don’t move.” Matthew’s eyes widen, gaze fixed on something at the embankment’s top.

  “What’s wrong?”

  A fawn ambles over and playfully nibbles at the fringes on my buckskin pant legs.

  “Up there.” He slowly moves his hand toward the embankment.

  The sight of him renders me speechless.

  His hide is white, like frost. Strong, fast legs anchor his towering body to the ground, as if he’s a statue and the earth his pedestal. His fur is thick and shaggy like a lion’s mane, hanging around his arched neck. His head is large and chiseled from marble. Heavy antlers curl high into the air, beautiful like hand-blown glass, points sharper than icicles. A pair of blue eyes, dark like sapphire, peer into my soul.

  I’m too afraid to move, to blink, for fear that such a magnificent creature will vanish.

  “Look at him,” Matthew whispers. “Straight from God’s own sketchbook. In Edmonda they say if you see a white stag it means the end of the world is coming. He’ll appear to guide you through the chaos to safety and protect you. People have spent lifetimes trying to catch him, Rags. To lay even one fingertip on his pure hide. We’re blessed that he’s chosen us to appear to.”

  I’m unable to say anything in response.

  “Hey, let’s talk about this first.” A thick, heavily Edmondan Irish accent shatters the spell.

  The beautiful stag tosses his head and rears onto his haunches, pawing the air. I reach a hand toward him and touch the farmhouse hallway’s ugly sunflower yellow wall.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “You’re not thinking this through, Lionel.”

  Colton’s voice carries from the living room. Lionel? I rub the sleep from my eyes and stifle a yawn. Who’s Lionel and why is he in our house?

  “Oh, I’ve put plenty of thought into it, Fieldson,” Tracker’s cold tone responds, coupled with the click of a pistol. “I warned you never to come near my family again.”

  I push myself onto my knees, the blanket falling from my shoulders and onto the bone roses as I crawl to the stairway’s edge.

  Colton stands in the kitchen doorway, hands up, face pale, trembling.

  Tracker keeps his hand raised, his trusty silver, .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol aimed at the young man’s forehead.

  “I swear I didn’t know.”

  “I warned you,” Tracker once again says. “And I am going to make good on my threat.”

  “L-Lionel, think about this for a second.” Colton’s words tangle so deep in his accent that he’s difficult to understand. “You don’t want to—”

  “Four years I’ve waited.” Tracker’s words are full of certainty. “I didn’t think you’d be stupid enough to cross my path again.”

  Lionel? Tracker’s name is Lionel?

  I lean closer to the edge. He never said anything about that—then again, he never said he was the Kingdom’s second-in-command before either. Whatever is between these two is serious and I can’t help but think about the photograph from last night and his warning about the redhead.

  Colton slinks backward. “It’s not my fault.”

  Tracker’s eyes flash and he bares his teeth.

  “I-I can explain.”

  “Shut up.” The cold threat sends a chill down my spine. “Nothing you say will bring them back.”

  This demon is stronger, growing and feeding off Colton’s presence. It is a murderer’s tone and sends me back a few inches.

  “Just let
me explain.” Colton treads into begging territory.

  The pistol barrel presses against his forehead. “I’d rather send your corpse back to Hyperion with Henrick’s.”

  I lean a shoulder against the wall, feeling the hallway’s chill.

  “Don’t do this, Lionel.” Colton’s words, for a brief fraction of a second, turn threatening. “If you pull that trigger, you’re no better than Hyperion.”

  “I’m willing to take that chance.”

  “No, you aren’t. Think of Tobar.” There is heavy hesitation in the word.

  Tracker’s hand seizes Colton’s throat. The wall rattles. He holds the redhead eye level, pistol pressing harder against the young man’s forehead.

  “How dare you say that word.”

  “He’s going to do to Rondo what he did to Tobar.” Colton struggles as Tracker’s grip tightens. “Only worse. Everyone will hear about Rondo.”

  Tobar . . . I tilt my head. Sounds like a settlement. One we’ve never raided, and it doesn’t sound like we ever will . . .

  “You have two minutes before I put this bullet in your brain, Fieldson.”

  Colton squirms. “Henny’s going to make what happened in Tobar look like a footprint in the ashes.”

  Tracker’s hand stiffens and it looks like he’s using all the restraint he has not to pull the trigger.

  “I don’t even want to be here,” Colton says. “Rondo is Henny and Hyperion’s deal, not mine. If it was my choice, I’d still be in Fort Angelus.”

  “Then why aren’t you.”

  “There is no Fort Angelus anymore.”

  An abrupt, haunting quiet falls over the entire house.

  “What?” Tracker is just as surprised as I am right now.

  “Two days ago,” Colton draws a shaky breath, “a damn rebel group, supporters from Tobar launched a full-out attack on the place. Blew up the main fuel tanks and killed all but a handful of my men. There’s nothing left.”

  Two days ago . . . A sinking feeling settles in my stomach. Matthew didn’t want me to go on that raid.

  Fort Angelus was the largest military base in the Northeast Territory. Only the capital, Adonis, could rival it. Raiding it is like holding a metal rod in a lightning storm and praying to God you’re faster than the lightning, but to destroy it, impossible. Who would even be capable of something like that?

  “That’s not possible.”

  “The hell it isn’t. One second I’m running evening inspections, telling some idiot private his bootlaces aren’t tied right, and the next I’m screaming orders trying to get the hell out of a furnace while my crossbow is splintering from the heat.”

  Tracker releases Colton and steps back. He doesn’t move the pistol. “Are you sure they were from Tobar?”

  “Hell if I know,” Colton growls. “It has Hyperion rattled though because no sooner I got out of Fort Angelus, he sent me here to negotiate Rondo’s purification so they don’t “pull a Tobar” on his precious Kingdom. I was hoping to find Matty and get him to help me sort this whole hellish mess out peacefully.”

  I shiver. It’s like he referred to Henny—like an old friend . . .

  “And why would he help you and Hyperion?”

  “Because he’s my brother and in case you’ve forgotten, he’s just as much to blame for Tobar’s screw up as I was.” The accent takes over again.

  I reach for the bone roses under the blanket and shiver. Brother? Matthew has a brother. He never told me anything about that and he sure as hell looked nothing like Colton either. Their accents are way different too. Matthew’s wasn’t Edmondan Irish. I flinch and clutch the roses to my chest, drawing a long breath.

  “You are wasting your time,” Tracker says. “Matthias is dead.”

  “What?” Colton’s eyes widen. “How?”

  “Henrick shot him.”

  “You’re kidding me. I know they had a disagreement not long ago judging by the letter Matty sent back in response to something he asked him, but Henny wouldn’t kill his best friend.”

  I clench my fists in anger. Best friend? Matthew was friends with someone like Henny? That’s . . . that’s not possible. He’d never do that to us.

  Tracker nods.

  “Old gods and goddesses,” Colton seethes, about as confused and angry as I am right now. “I know Matty’s been less than cooperative regarding this crapshoot of a settlement, but I know Henny wouldn’t, couldn’t do that to him.”

  The words make me sick.

  “If you knew the real Matthew, you wouldn’t think so highly of him.” Henny’s voice nips at my ear.

  “Well he did.” Tracker’s eyes narrow. “Matthias is dead.”

  “No,” Colton grits his teeth. “He was one of us. Henny couldn’t. You’ve got the wrong person, Lionel.”

  I press my back against the wall, trying to corral my thoughts.

  Colton is Kingdom Corps, I struggle to reassure myself. Nothing he says is the truth. It’s all lies.

  “We both know what happens when Hyperion pulls the strings, Fieldson,” Tracker says matter-of-factly. “You are wasting your time and are not welcome here.”

  Colton’s eyes drift to the pistol. “Then I’ll just have to negotiate Rondo’s peaceful surrender without Matty.”

  I skirt away from the stair’s edge as Tracker curls his lip into a snarl.

  “You’ll do no such thing, luresman.”

  “You think I’m joking?” Colton’s grass-green eyes flare with the growl. “You know what Henny can do when Hyperion gives him the tools and orders him to do it, Lionel. Hell, you taught him everything he kno—”

  Tracker whips the pistol across the redhead’s face. I flinch, eyes wide as if I was the one who was just struck.

  “You will not speak of Henrick in my house.”

  I don’t know what to think. The man I look up to as a father trained the very man who now seeks to kill us . . .

  “You won’t even have a house in a couple of days.” Colton wipes blood from his lip. “No one will. Everyone in this settlement is to die, Lionel. All because you won’t bow down and submit to his will. Henny is going to tear down every timber in this hellhole of a settlement. Every single timber. And unlike Tobar’s disaster, people will know about Rondo.”

  “Not if I kill him first.”

  “Him or me—kill either one of us and it won’t make a difference. Rondo will be purified and Hyperion will relish the glory. You need me right now.”

  “Do not play games with me, Fieldson,” Tracker snarls.

  “I’m not playing anything.” Colton meets his look with an equally frustrated one. “That’s why I’m here. I can get you and your family out of this mess alive.”

  “Like Tobar?” Tracker snaps and bares his teeth. “Get out of my house.”

  I shy away, having never seen him this angry. Not even the hothouses went to this level and that was awful.

  “Things will be different this time. I know what we—what I did wrong—”

  “I warned you about coming near my family again, Fieldson. The bullet in this pistol is the exact same one I set aside for you after Hyperion executed them in Tobar.”

  I shiver, thinking of the family in the picture and trying not to think what fate befell them.

  “Then pull the trigger,” Colton says. “But you better hope Hyperion doesn’t get his hands on her. You know what he’ll do to her, everyone in this settlement if you kill your only hope of getting out of this alive. I stopped Henny from massacring you guys last night because I don’t want a repeat of Tobar. Choice is yours, Lionel. I advise you to think carefully before you kill me.”

  I sink lower to the floor, feeling nauseous.

  The pistol trembles in Tracker’s hands. He steadies it just as quickly.

  “No,” Tracker says as he lowers the pistol, a commanding look in his eyes. “I have a better use for you. You are going to go back upstairs, and you will do exactly as I say. You will say nothing about Matthias, Henrick, or what is going to happen
to Rondo. You will obtain any and all information I want about Henrick and what Hyperion has given him to work with, and if you even remotely try to pull a fast one on me, I will kill you. Dismissed.”

  Colton nods. “Fair enough.”

  The carpet rubs against my knees. Matthew’s bone roses clutched tight against my chest, I crawl back to my sleeping spot.

  Grabbing the woolen blanket, I wrench it protectively around me as his footsteps start up the stairs. I curl up on the floor and close my eyes, trying to steady my breathing and try to look like I slept through the entire exchange.

  What feels like a half hour slips by before I crawl out from under the blanket. Only the soft crackle from the woodstove drifts up from the living room. There aren’t any sounds from Colton’s room either. It’s as unsettling as it is comforting, but I’m grateful for the quiet.

  Dreary gray light filters through the thin curtains in my room. The blanket lands on the floor as I tread lightly to the center of the room, trying not to let the boards creak. Putting on my best effort at pretending I didn’t hear what I did earlier, I slip the bone roses into my jacket pocket and hurry to wash up for the morning.

  When I’m finished, I grab the hairbrush from the nightstand and quickly make a half-assed attempt at brushing the tangles from my long mahogany hair just to make it look like I had a legitimate reason for taking longer than usual to head downstairs.

  The living room looks like no one spent the night, blankets folded into neat little stacks, its former occupants having left before the incident with Colton.

  “Did you sleep well?” Tracker sits at the kitchen table, dark fingers hooked around a coffee cup.

  He fixes his weary brown eyes on me. The lines on his face deepen, his gray hair looking grayer. Shoulders hunched, he doesn’t look like the same man who would train someone like Henny and easily intimidate Colton. He’s aged years in a few days and I’m reminded of farmer Addison and how feeble he is.

  The thought terrifies me.

  “Rags?”

  “Yes?” I answer, hoping he won’t ask questions.

  “Sit down.” That commanding edge creeps into his voice.